Page 69 of Gilded Crown

“Fuck.” One soldier tossed down his cards.

“What do I have now?” asked the other. “Two pet dragons, a whole herd of unicorns, millions of lans, a Castle all to myself-”

“Have fun with your empty Castle. I forgot to furnish it.”

“That’s fine. My unicorns will have more room to run around.”

“They’ll shit everywhere. I hope the dragons burn it down.”

Jari sighed and left them to their pretend gambling. The tent he shared with Aurelius wasn’t too far, and the Prince was on his bedroll with a book. He seemed more like himself lately since Jari hadn’t started pulling away, although they hadn’t brought up that night again.

“Is there anything else we need to discuss with Este?” asked Jari.

“No, and that’sDuchessEste.”

“I don’t call you Prince Aurelius, and honestly, I don’t think she minds. A few of the lords called her by her name.”

“You are not a lord.” Aurelius closed his book and peered at him. “Later on, would you like a position and title? If some lord dies and has no heirs, someone will need to take over.”

Jari sat on his folded bedroll by the tent wall. “I’m not lord material.”

“I think you are.”

“Pfft.”

“You could hire a Steward to help, and I could give you some help to get you going. Some people prefer for their lords to be from common backgrounds. They might be more lenient and kinder to the common man. Some turn into monsters because of the power, but you wouldn’t. You’d also make a good income, and it could wait until other things are dealt with.”

Jari shook his head. “Some people might be fine with rising to that position, but that kind of life isn’t for me. All I want is a roof over my head, food, and something useful to do. I can get that myself. I’d rather carve wood than shove myself into fancy clothes and tell people what to do.”

“I can assign it to you anyway,” Aurelius said with his usual lofty air.

“If you make me a lord, I’ll let everyone live there rent-free, and on Fridays, everyone will get a, erm, a free cake. Eventually, I’ll have no money to pay you taxes, and I won’t be able to afford the cake either, and you’d have to strip the title from me and kick me out on my arse.”

“So you’d annoy me on purpose?”

“Yes.” Jari raised a finger. “I’d also go down as the best lord in history.”

Aurelius watched him for a long moment.

“What? It was a joke.”

“Couldn’t you think of something better than free cake?”

“Am I supposed to be handing out baby unicorns or kittens? Anyway, I wanted to ask you something. I’m fighting alongside you no matter what you say, so save the argument. We need to bury the items. This is the last stop, and it’s the best one. There’s a graveyard not too far from here. We can hide the items on the edges so we don’t disturb a grave.”

Aurelius sighed. “I know. I was already planning for us to go there since we should hide them. If something happened to both of us, and the whole Wockston army was overrun, we can’t leave those things lying around.”

“Zylem certainly doesn’t need extra toys.”

“We’ll wait until more are asleep.”

Jari’s stomach eased a little. He’d been worried Aurelius would balk and try to keep him behind at the last minute. That would have devolved into a huge fight.

***

It was hot during the day, but the nights were cooler, and their cloaks didn’t look odd. Jari had snatched a shovel from a supply wagon and held it under his cloak and close to his body so it wouldn’t stick out. Carrying it openly would lead to questions about what they were planning to bury or dig up. They walked to the edge of the encampment. Someone had said the graveyard was a little south.

Patrols wandered the perimeter of their camp, just in case, and someone spotted them.

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