A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1637 - 1637: The Hidden Mighty - Part 6

He trailed his way down a walkway of well-cleaned white stones, a bridge over a broad pond, full of little delights, in the rarest of fish and the most beautiful of lotus flowers. If one had to describe the grounds, they could not have done so easily without using the word 'palace'. Ten minutes of walking, through an outer wall, and differing, increasingly beautiful scenes, had taken King Wyndon to where he was, and still there was more to go.

It was a palace separate from his own. A great distance from where he usually dwelled, but not so great that a skilled rider could not reach it in half a day. It was the perfect description of House Wyndon's relationship with the man held within. He was an individual to be kept far, and kept happy, but close enough that they could still deal with him, should they ever need to.

King Wyndon's hand had been forced. The man that dwelt within such noble grounds was not a man that he would have ever met with casually. He was a leftover from the reign of his father – a mistake that ought to have been cleaned up long before. King Wyndon had certainly never anticipated the day in which he would be forced to go marching up towards the man's walls, and give up his guards, as a King in his own country, and walk alone, as if he were a mere servant.

The defeat of Prince Hendrick's army had been the impetus behind that. "No more half measures," the Wyndon war counsel had declared. Talk of what would be done against the Emersons as a result of their failings had already reached as far as them, and it was not pretty. If ever there was a reason to act, and to act well, it was now. Increasingly, King Wyndon felt a level of respect for the enemy that they were to face that approached fear. Naturally, he still thought his chances to be better if he fought alongside the High King, but he still feared that his troops would return home defeated.

"…King Wyndon," came the cold remark of an outrageously beautiful woman as she stopped the King before a sealed gate. "What business do you have with Emperor Tiberius?"

King Wyndon bristled. It took all the strength he had not to allow the rage to contort his face. The woman in front of him would feel nothing from it but disdain, that much was easy to tell. The light seemed entirely gone from her eyes. She looked at him with an expression that was void. For how pretty a woman she was, and how fine all her garments were, and how rich even the small matter of her hair pin was, she could not have seemed less alive.

"…The matter of war," King Wyndon said calmly.

"Ah, yes," the woman said. "Emperor Tiberius had expected that you would come grovelling for his assistance. He asked me to relieve you of your crown before you entered. If you would."

She gestured with her hand, motioning to him as if he were nothing more than a dog. That too, Wyndon supposed to be the wants of Tiberius.

"General Tiberius—" He began.

"Emperor Tiberius," the woman corrected. "Your crown, King Wyndon. If you wish to enter, the matter is simple. Your crown."

King Wyndon bit his lip. He looked around him, hoping that there was no one to see. Never before did he think a King could have suffered such humiliation. The deadly poison available to the Wyndon House – the cast aside seed of General Tiberius. His father had seen the young man nourished, for all his talents, only to cast him aside, and see him imprisoned in lavishness when it became quite clear that there were other such corruptions in the heart of the man.

With trembling fingers, King Wyndon pulled the crown from his head. It had sat there for a good few years now, and he enjoyed its weight, and the respect it commanded. He fancied that it suited him, that he made a good king, that he was made for such a degree of power. But the woman before him, by the command of Tiberius, saw that snatched from him in an instant.

She plucked the crown from his hand calluously, and dangled it by her side without the slightest trace of respect. Then she glanced at an hour glass, still slowly sifting sand through its opening. "Well, you shall have to wait. The Emperor is busy. He should not like to be disturbed."

"What—" King Wyndon tried to protest, but the woman swiftly saw him cut off again.

"You may take a seat there," the woman said. "For your own good, I would advise you to be quiet. The Emperor does not enjoy his pleasure being interrupted."

The King was forced to wait, in a simple unfurnished wooden chair. It seemed like a stage performance set up entirely for his benefit. He wondered just how far ahead Tiberius had planned it all – and he was left to wondering at it for a good hour, before those doors finally opened, and a good dozen flustered women, their clothes dishevelled, came spilling out.

That was something that King Wyndon knew well of the man, even without truly having met him. The General Tiberius had a fondness for pleasures that went beyond even that of the High King. His hands sifted all the way into the darkest of realms. From what his father had told him, there did not seem to be a single line that General Tiberius would not cross to feel the certain rush of jubilation. That level of hedonism frightened King Wyndon, even as a man that pursued pleasure himself.

"You may enter," the woman said, when the last of the women had spilled out. She motioned briskly with her hand for King Wyndon to move, impatience in her gesture, as if it were she that had been forced to wait for the entirety of an hour, rather than he.

He slid forward, on nervous legs. The power of the crown that sat in the woman's hand seemed a long forgotten thing. He felt like a student once more, about to visit the quarters of General Tavar to be chided for his less than adequate results.