A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

A walkway was laid out towards a throne at the top of a dozen steps, with three thick red carpets rolled out and laid on top of each other, such that there was a noticeable cushion whenever a man put his foot down.

It felt to Oliver more like a church than a throne room. There was something almost divine about the space. It reeked of ancientness and profundity that extended beyond the likes that a mortal could muster. The sight of the empty throne added to that.

Not just because of its grandness, and it was indeed grand, with the golden arms being two tall pegasuses, and their wings intertwining to make both the seat and the backrest.

No, the fact of the throne's emptiness was what made it profound. It was as though the seat was there as a suggestion, rather than a fact. As if it was saying 'will you offer up a man to sit upon it?'

It felt more like it was asking a question, and the throne was the blank space in which that question was to be solved. Now that the throne had seized Oliver's attention, it seemed hardly likely to let go.

As rich and as complicated as the rest of the throne room was, the throne subordinated it.

It wasn't a large feature, by any means. If a man sat on it, he'd find that the throne only rose up a little more than him, as if to show that a man should be no less than the throne upon which he sat.

It wasn't large, yet everything in the room seemed to be a mere extension of it. Oliver knew that to be the purpose of a throne room – it was a room for a throne, after all. But he'd never seen it illustrated anywhere more perfectly than this.

The throne room was enormous. It could have easily housed ten thousand people if it wished to. There was space for a crowd to gather on either side of the walkway, but so too was there more space, on the second-floor balconies, and on the third-floor balconies, each supported by elaborate pillars.

So much space, but a small throne stood in command. Oliver looked at it, awestruck, now that his eyes had finally laid upon it. He had to be urged forward by a gentle hand to his shoulder from Blackthorn.

They'd arrived long before the main guests were due to arrive, but the throne room was already busy. There must have been a thousand people of noble standing there already. The second that they spied Queen Asabel, and knew for a certainty it to be her – given the silver crown on her head – they kneeled.

It was a ceremonious affair. She could not tell them to rise too quickly, nor could she make them stay kneeling for too long. For this was not her throne room. There was a greater power than her that had yet to make an entrance, and so too was there a greater guest – on this occasion – who was to come after her.

This occasion was about the meeting of those two. The rest of them were acknowledged to be mere audiences attending what was no more than a public meeting between General and High King. The throne, once more, made that fact abundantly clear.

No matter what was to happen to that grand room, with all its murals of battle and beauty on its walls, and the complicated mosaics of Gods littering the floor, that throne would have stayed in command.

Verdant acknowledged Oliver's interest. Oliver had been staring at the throne for so long, after all, he was practically blind to what was happening around him.

"Each time a High King ascends, he will have his own throne built in gold, using the features of his house," Verdant said. That certainly explained why there were pegasuses to either side of it. "But there are restrictions on that. The throne can only be a certain height, and a certain width."

That was information that Oliver received wordlessly. It couldn't have been the throne then. That feeling of subordinance couldn't come from the object itself, could it? Not when it had only recently been redone. There could be no way that an object commissioned within the last half century could command so proudly a space that had been built hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

It wasn't a throne, nor was it even the man that sat upon it. Again, to Oliver, it seemed to be the question itself, posed by the emptiness of the chair. The question was 'who?'

There was intentionally left something missing in this piece of architecture, Oliver supposed. For all its grandness, its creativity and its culture, the artisans had intentionally left something like a void right where the throne stood.

It was a room without completeness. A void of human making, that only a human – of flesh and spirit – could fill. It was as though the room had been created for the express purpose of measuring the man.

Now, as Oliver was escorted to the second floor, with the rest of the lesser retainers, and he leaned out over the balcony, he wondered what sort of man the High King would be. By what measure would the throne label him? How well would that man that he had deemed his enemy fill that void?

Queen Asabel was left on the First Floor with her highest retainers. Only those of Lord status or higher could stay with her. Now that she'd arrived, droves of people were being sent up the stairs towards the second floor where Oliver was and towards the third.

It was a move that they would have needed to have done eventually regardless, when the High King finally made his entrance, but Oliver still caught a few begrudging looks from them.

"I wanted to stay a little longer," he heard one young man say. "To think that Queen Asabel would come all this way. I did not think that she had any sort of investment in the end of Blackwell's campaign. None of the other Silver Kings have said that they would arrive."

"I do believe this to be a last-minute decision," came the response. "If the guard's reactions are anything to go by. Apparently, they've only had a matter of days to prepare for her arrival. A rather bold decision to make, if you ask me."