Excerpt: To Be the King

Where do stories begin?

They have to begin somewhere, don't they?

Do they begin in the middle?

Or do they somehow begin at the end?

Or, by some great chance, begin at the beginning?

If they begin at the beginning, then where is the beginning?

Do they start at the creation of the world?

Or the birth of the main character?

Or, do they begin at the first sign of trouble?

I know where this one begins now, It begins on the day that I was stopped on my way to the training grounds.

That first day was like any other.

Or, so I thought.

I woke, that morning, at the fourth tolling of the bell, I got up, washed my face in the basin of cold water, and began walking down the hallway to my first lessons of the day.

The castle was strangely devoid of tapestries. The halls in the castle were made of stone and every wall had a tale of heroics was carved into the stone. The ceilings were vaulted, held up by large oak crossbeams and made completely of mother of pearl, casting an eerie glow in the early morning as the light came in through the windows. The windows themselves were special as well, every single window was clear glass and inlaid with designs in shaped in iron. The floors were made of oak as well, but these were polished until you could almost see your face in the boards.

At that time I was training to be a knight in the Kings service. I would study jousting, swordplay, riding, politics, dancing, manners and many other knightly subjects. My first lesson of the day was jousting.

On my way down to the courtyard, however, I was stopped by the Kings personal guard. The King had summoned me.

The kings personal guard, they were dressed in white armor, not in the sense that the metal was unadorned but they wore leather that had been bleached until it was shining white.They were silent as the grave as they escorted me to the court room and
there I saw something that I never thought I would see.

The King was sitting at the head of a long table, all his personal guard and his advisers and all the knights of the kingdom were gathered. They were dressed in fine clothes: scarlet's, purples, indigo's and greens, velvet, satin, sued and silk. They all had a large amount of jewelry on. One piece of jewelry in particular caught my eye. It was an arm-band, it was gold and set with a large piece of Jade, inlaid with two pearl dragons, intertwining and dancing.

They all looked very fine indeed and I wondered if I would ever look that wealthy. Their faces were somber, as if someone had just died, and I wondered if anyone had.

I glanced around warily. This almost certainly spelled bad news.