XLI
It is time to return to the kingship. News of the slaughter at Thwenawl swiftly came to Syorbak, whereupon Rago the Chancellor took control of the town. The very next day, he summoned the royal council to determine the succession of the Lordship of Syorbak. Two claimants came forth. The first was Yordhoa, the late king’s widow, and the second was Arneo, his brother. Standing before the council, Yordhoa said the lordship was rightfully hers.
‘I was Arkelo’s wife,’ she said, ‘and am therefore more entitled than anyone to inherit his property, lordship and all.’
‘That may be so,’ said Arneo, ‘but Syorbak is rather grander than any old lordship. This is the seat of the kingship, to which you have no right at all.’
‘We are not here to contest the kingship, but the lordship, to which my claim is unassailable, or it should be.’
‘In every practical sense, the lordship is the kingship. Why else would we be discussing this before the king’s council?’
‘Why indeed? It ought to be a private affair, but I am willing to overlook that if it will expedite the delivery of my late husband’s inheritance.’
So it went on, and when all was done, the council determined Arneo to be the more suitable successor. Yordhoa was more than a bit displeased, but she bit her tongue and went away to consider her options.
Later that day, a woman called Lota came to Syorbak. She was Arneo’s half-sister, being the daughter of the elder Arkelo by his second wife, Gondola (who was also Rago’s sister), whereas Arneo and the younger Arkelo were the sons of his first wife, Awdha. When Lota came to the hall and learnt that Arneo had already succeeded to the lordship, she was outraged.
‘I am outraged!’ she said. ‘I have no weaker claim to this hall than you, and yet where was my fair hearing?’
Arneo had no respect at all for his half-sisters, so he sent Lota away without addressing any of her concerns. She left neither willingly nor quietly.
Yordhoa heard about Lota’s visit the next day, and the pair came together to conspire. Lota made clear her intention to contest the kingship come what may, while Yordhoa hoped her daughter, Kara, would succeed her father. Kara, however, was young yet, and unlikely to be chosen unless no one opposed her. Between Arneo and Lota, her chances were slim, and so Yordhoa agreed to support Lota in exchange for a considerable sum of silver, as well as assurance that she would be appointed to the chancellery. With this decided, Lota left Syorbak to seek support from the other lords.
Shortly thereafter, another aggrieved visitor came to Arneo’s hall. This was Afdea, Lord of Awlteyr, whose husband Arbeyno had died fighting alongside the late king, as had a great many of her thanes. She demanded compensation for their loss.
‘They swore their service to the kingship,’ she said, ‘and the folly of the kingship betrayed them.’
‘This is a woeful thing to hear,’ said Arneo, ‘but I am not the king. I have no obligation to make up for the loss of your thanes, thanes whom you willingly yielded to my brother, and least of all while my losses are no less than yours.’
‘A pathetic excuse,’ said Afdea, and she left the hall.
In the following days, she and her bodyguards went into the town and whipped up a great riot. The folk of Syorbak had likewise suffered their own losses, and their grief was very easily forged into wrath. A great mob amassed, Afdea at its centre, and they rampaged through the town, sowing such chaos that Arneo closed his inner gate and shut himself in his hall. For three days he hid away from the looting and the violence.
Then, on the day of the harvest festival, he did not hold a marvellous feast in his marvellous hall. No, he instead went out into the town with his thanes and offered alms to the bereaved. As he stood before them, he swore that he would see justice done.
‘Your grief,’ he said, ‘is the work of none but the earls of the north, and your pain their savagery. I share in that grief, that pain, and thus I share with you what amends I can. And know, my friends, I will not rest until our mutual enemies are held properly accountable for this tragedy, and justice is done.’
The rioting settled down after that. Some thought this was little more than a paltry gesture and kept it up, but they were few enough to be more easily managed. Afdea herself was caught while she was still at Syorbak, and she was brought before Arneo. She agreed to lay aside her demand for compensation in exchange for her life and an oath of submission, and then she went home to Awlteyr.
The damage caused by this riot was severe enough that Rago and the royal council agreed to delay the coming lawmoot to get the town in order. Thus, where before it had been planned for the midwinter, it was now expected to take place early in the new year.
During this time, Arneo received a third angry visitor. She was his daughter, Mora, who had come from Samnew with her own complaints.
‘Samnew should be mine,’ she said, ‘but Karvalo has filled its lordly seat with his arse-licker son and the runt-pup he calls his husband. I say! The whole affair is vile beyond belief.’
But Arneo’s patience was wearing thin.
‘Mora,’ he said, ‘I do not know what has happened at Samnew, nor do I much wish to. That was my brother’s concern, and he is dead. I will not give my attention to such petty squabbles when the kingdom itself is at stake.’
‘This is no petty squabble. This is about the home of your wife, the home of my mother, the home Karvalo has snatched while her body has barely cooled. This is about honour—mine and yours, but most of all hers!’
‘Hush! I want to hear nothing more about this. If you can put this aside, I will make you a reeve once I have claimed my kingdom.’
‘No! I want Samnew! I want to rule in my own right, not at your behest!’
‘You are my daughter, from whom I would expect rather more grace than you have shown today. Do as I say, and you will succeed me here. Until then, a reeveship may fashion you into a worthier king.’
Mora remained unsatisfied, but this was perhaps the best outcome for which she could hope. She agreed to her father’s offer and left him in peace.
But that peace was soon to be disturbed once more. While Lota was staying at a town called Wolam, she learnt that the coming lawmoot was to be delayed and was moved to outrage.
‘Arneo, you!’ she said. ‘This is surely some ploy to win more favour for himself. It is most unscrupulous of him, and shameful too.’
Lota left Wolam as soon as she could and returned to her home at Wolsrok. Her wife, Kadleyna, was the lord there, and she shared Lota’s outrage.
‘That Arneo!’ said Kadleyna. ‘Has he no respect for his forebears and the kingdom they built?’
‘None at all!’ said Lota. ‘If he means to upset the proper order of things, we must do the same to prevent it.’
Together they mustered a company of warriors and sailed a ship each up the coast towards Syorbak, intent upon besieging the town. Arneo, however, had been forewarned of their coming, and he managed to put out a pair of ships to meet them. They came together off the coast near Brognes, and though the foreman of the Arneo’s ships tried to turn them back, they refused. Thus did a battle ensue, and when it was done, Arneo’s side took the victory. Kadleyna’s ship was boarded first, and she was captured while everyone else was killed, or else they leapt overboard and took their chances in the sea. Lota did not mean to continue the battle with such a disadvantage. She sailed away from the site of the battle and fled southwards into Ayslonn.
Kadleyna was brought before Arneo, and he agreed to spare her life if she divorced Lota and forsook the Lordship of Wolsrok. Kadleyna did this and went eastwards to the island of Lernew, where she came into the protection of Syoma, Lord of Gwonvek. The Lordship of Wolsrok was granted to a woman called Ewssea Odonnan to resolve a separate dispute following the death of Arnalo, Lord of Arbak, who had also died alongside the late king.
Yordhoa had no role in Lota’s revolt, and she was not best pleased to hear about it. She met with Arneo soon afterwards, and they agreed a resolution to their dispute. Yordhoa would be granted a large swath of the northern portion of Arneo’s lordship, as well as the southern part of the Lordship of Awlteyr, which Afdea had been forced to yield, and she would thenceforth govern this domain as the Earl of Soyna. In exchange for this, Yordhoa forsook her claim to the Lordship of Syorbak, and her daughter forsook her claim to the kingship. They met again at Awlteyr a few days later to formalise a treaty to this effect. Arneo, Yordhoa, Kara, and Afdea each signed it, as did several witnesses, and it was ratified shortly thereafter by the royal council.
Yordhoa came at once to Glannas to take up her earldom, where she married a man called Yono, a cousin of Mesdea, Lord of Reykam, early in the next year. They would have one son together, whom Yordhoa named Thollayvo after her father.
It now seemed that Arneo would face no opposition for the kingship, and he set about preparing Syorbak for the lawmoot. This happened in the spring, and when the lords gathered to choose the new king, Arneo alone came before them. He stated his case and was duly elected. Rago vacated the king’s chair forthwith, and Arneo took it, and thus he succeeded to the kingship.
He took his kingly mantle at a ceremony held in the temple at Brownos, near Awslad in the west of his kingdom, on the first day of summer. All of his reeves—including Mora, newly appointed as the Reeve of Syoglonn—and the majority of the lords were in attendance, as was Yordhoa, the Earl of Soyna. Though all of the earls of Norlonn had been invited, only Solvega, the Earl of Eylavol, had accepted the invitation, but even she could not go herself. In her stead, she sent an ally of hers called Lokkele, who had been married to Enlovo the High-reeve until he died at Thwenawl. Arneo’s other messengers were each sent home with nothing more than insults, except for the poor chap sent to Noynavol, whom Thrandeo executed on the spot.
‘But that was to be expected,’ said Arneo. ‘Let his sacrifice be honoured forevermore.’
The most significant guests of all were a party who had come on behalf of Thewra, King of Baklalonn. They were fronted by a woman called Tholvoa, Thewra’s aunt, and Tholvoa’s son, Aldoro, both of whom would come to be kings themselves. That was the first time since Folgono’s days that southern folk of such standing had been welcomed in Mawon.
‘This,’ said Arneo, ‘is proof of the will of fate, and of the bounty over which I shall reign.’
But fate cannot be proven, and its bounty is hard-won indeed.