Thought I’d try to capture the awe a ruler can inspire without having it be a rally the troops speech. Not sure if I succeed on any of those points but its defiantly loaded with me. Hope you enjoy and feel free to try it yourself writing takes critical thinking and practice(and hopefully a schedule) so if you enjoy writing keep at it!
Hopelessness spread through the square like the dead that went in wave’s over all but this final bulwark. The creaking of the side gate groans over the gallows. The royal castle, the capital, the upper districts. They fell like a man full of pride, one tripping over the other.
As the city and its king grew more alert the dead we’re held like a surging wave. In the corner of his city, behind a lone gate, the king contemplates this crowd of subjects.
Wire thin strands of bone white hair fail in front of his eyes, sitting like a pauper on the street corner he looks over the crowd. The noble’s, as was their tradition, made a block for themselves in front of him. A wall of emptiness between them and the king. A wall to the left keeping out the manual laborers, to their right sat the skilled workers. Mason’s, Soldiers, the one’s considered better people.
Spitting the vile thought to the side the king’s failing eyes could make out the rag’s and cut clothing of this lower city. They huddled farthest from him a swath of barren dirt between them and the nobles. Their hearts miles from his. Prostitutes, thieves, foreigners, drunks, outcasts, and orphans. His burning heart could barely stand it.
All the kingdom was as the people envisioned it. Each block separate from the others.
The king cursed each of these belligerent groups in his most heartfelt manner. Even in these last day’s they kept themselves in shackles.
The noble’s children kept their eyes on the urchins, distrust and spite wafting from them as they clung to their mother’s dresses.
The urchins clung to each other, fear painted over their eyes.
Pity, pity, pity, the king thought rubbing his remaining teeth across his gums.
The king spoke.
It was as if angel of war took hold of the king’s tongue and turned it into a fire brand for the cattle he called his people. First he looks to the nobles and pulling out the hatred they had bottled up and the one sided disdain they kept he rebuked them. He turned to the next group and in an even undisturbed voice, the slightest tang of iron building into it, he did the same his voice falling to a wisp as he moves across the groups. The king after years of holding the strings of his heart taunt releases his frustration.
They could dream of rioting, of charging him with slander, it no longer mattered. The city might fall but he had said his peace. He could die with his conscious clear. The people turned from rage at their king, to anger at the others but as he went round they began to see something. A mirror shoved in front of them. All of them we’re standing on the gallows the rope wrapped around their necks. Murderer, noble, housewife, woodworker, soldier. It no longer mattered. The rope hung around all of them.
A silence fell onto the crowd, “Hurrah! Long live the king!” a lone cheer.
“Hurrah!” it built like the waves of the dead, the people proclaimed their unity, “Hurrah! Hurrah!” fists beat the air the people gathering themselves to their feet, eager to prove that if only for now they would join hands in clubbing the dead back to their graves. The mob’s swept over the plaza hurling itself toward the gate. The king was left with the weak, the women with child, and children. Compared to those so eager to die he found himself in good company.
Mad Man's House 