Page 69 of A Crown of Lies

“Royal ass, then.” Ieduin snorted and wrung out the clothes as best he could.

“Enjoy sitting down while you can, boy. After tonight, you may not be able to.”

Ieduin shivered, and not just because of the chilly morning.

Twenty-One

“Thenecromancer’srecovered,”Ewansaid, laying another stack of papers on Rowan’s desk.

Rowan eyed it and sighed. “I imagine he’s still angry with me.”

“Can’t say.” The desk creaked as Ewan leaned against it. “Didn’t talk to him longer than I had to. Just thought you should know.”

The king was pleased to hear Tofi had recovered with no lasting damage, but he wasn’t looking forward to meeting with him again. Eventually, he’d have to. There were battle plans to coordinate, and they’d need him at the Wytchwood.

“What’s all this?” Rowan pointed to the pile of paperwork with his pen.

Ewan patted the pile with a restrained smile. “Seems your friend the Cock’s quite the bookkeeper. He’s been going over all our budgets and the list of stores, updating them. These are all the changes. He wants you to look them over and sign them, so nobody calls foul.”

“Did you look at them?”

Rowan rarely wasted his time with such minutia. Gallaway and Ewan did most of that work, though neither had any experience running anything so complex as a kingdom. Neither did he, really. He’d thought it would be no different from running it before, but that was his first mistake. There were so many unexpected problems he’d had to deal with. He didn’t know what he was doing, and it probably showed in the bookkeeping.

“Aye,” said Ewan with a nod. “Looks all in order to me. You know, the elf never struck me as the pencil pushing type, but I suppose it makes sense.”

Rowan yanked the top page off the stack, scrawled his signature on it without looking, and set the paper aside. “A brothel is a business like any other. Maybe even more complicated, considering all the restrictions and rules he would’ve had to follow.”

“Just surprises me, is all.”

“People are always more complicated than they seem,” he said, signing another and passing it over. “What other news is there?”

Ewan shrugged. “The usual. I’ve got letters from some farmers with inventory sheets. Eight or nine of them should report early. Smaller harvest than expected. No surprise there, considering. Three of the five farms that were taking mages are reporting the opposite, though there’s trouble with that.”

“Trouble?” Rowan looked up. “What sort of trouble?”

Ewan sighed. “You know Greymarkers. Superstitious to a fault. They don’t want no part of the crops that might’ve been touched by magic.”

“Then they can donate those goods to feed the Crows.” He dipped his pen in more ink and signed a few pages as he spoke. “I doubt the Crows will care. I expect they’ll appreciate the gesture.”

“Aye, I’ll see it done, then. But that does little to ease our shortages.” Ewan watched Rowan work for a few moments before offering, “There’s something else you should know. Might be nothing. Might be something. Not sure yet.”

Rowan looked up from the paperwork. “What is it?”

“Remember that Crow scout Commander Cock said got bitten by the undead? He’s fallen ill with a nasty fever. Captain Leopold, too.”

The king slowly lowered his pen. “Identical symptoms?”

“Seems so,” Ewan reported. “Healers are looking at them both, but it could be just some cold or flu. Both were out in the weather, and this is the time of year for it.”

“It is a curse,” said Tofi from the doorway.

Rowan suppressed a sigh. “Come in, Commander Tofi,” Rowan said, rising. “It’s good to see you again. You look better.”

Tofi came into the room with long strides and put his hands on Rowan’s desk with a loud thump. “The dead are cursed. Any who interact with them should take care not to be bitten and those who fall ill… You must cast them out at once.”

“Cast them out?” Ewan snorted. “It’s just a fever. It’ll pass.”

“It isn’t!” Tofi’s head snapped to Ewan. “Mark Tofi, old man, the dead in this land are cursed by a necromancer’s hand. They will spread disease and death like you have never seen.”

---