above them all. That was what they would expect of their king, De'Unnero and Kalas had explained to him. That was what the frightened rabble truly needed from their king. Aydrian was the foundation of their identity. He was not one of them, and was not anything that any of them thought they could become, but was, rather, their deity in the flesh. As king, he was the symbol of their nationality, and the man upon whom they relied to protect them, to provide for their basic needs, and to guide them to a better place, secularly and spiritually.
And so Aydrian kept his eyes mostly straight ahead, offering occasional glances and nods, and trying to appear as regal and dominating as possible.
"The parson?" he heard Sadye whisper at his side, talking behind him to Marcalo De'Unnero.
Following their gazes, the young king noted a man in the distance, behind the lines of waving peasants. He stood leaning on the white wooden door of the town's small Abellican chapel. He was not cheering. He was not smiling.
Aydrian glanced at De'Unnero. "He may need convincing," he quietly remarked.
"He may need burying," De'Unnero replied, and he veered his horse away from the royal entourage. He motioned for the crowd to part, then trotted his mount across the open ground to the chapel and the lone man.
Aydrian paid the scene no heed, confident that Marcalo De'Unnero would handle the situation as he saw fit. Aydrian had long ago decided that De'Unnero would set the tone concerning the conversion of the Abellican Church to his own conservative vision. However De'Unnero conducted the conquered Church was irrelevant to the young king, so long as that Church remained a loyal ally to him in his pursuit of the wider conquests.
Secretly, Aydrian hoped that De'Unnero would take the Abellican Church mercilessly and would bring it to a posture that evoked fear in the common man. Let the Church do the dirty work in keeping the common folk in line, leaving the way open for him to become a truly beloved king. Let De'Unnero become the tyrant that Aydrian clearly recognized was lurking in his heart; Aydrian would only shine all the brighter beside him.
His entourage remained behind as Aydrian paced Symphony to the center of the town square. Magnificent upon the magnificent stallion, the young king surveyed this newest group of his flock for some time, letting them bask in the sight of him while he took some measure of their enthusiasm.
What he sensed most of all, as in all the other towns, was fear. The common folk of Honce-the-Bear were afraid of change. Common folk took comfort in routines. How well Aydrian had learned this when first he had run away from the wicked elves, settling in with villagers in a nondescript and wretched little place named Festertool in Westerhonce. In their routine, ultimately boring, lives, those folk had taken solace in the emptiness. That was the way of commoners, Aydrian understood keenly, and all that he had to do to win their love was offer them security within their little corners of the kingdom - and to look resplendent upon his great horse.
"Good people of Pomfreth," he began, speaking loudly, his voice resonant.
He kept his line of vision just above the heads of the gathering, as he had learned, and he swept one arm out in a grand gesture. "You have heard of the passing of good King Danube, and no doubt the news has saddened you as it has saddened all of the court of Ursal."
"The king is dead!" cried one man from the back of the gathering, a man that Duke Kalas had planted in the town ahead of the army's approach, as he had done in every town.
"Long live the king!" came the appropriate responding cry in many voices, repeated over and over in a mounting cheer for King Aydrian.
Aydrian sat quiet and let the momentum gather, then play out to renewed silence.
"I march now, with the army of Ursal behind me, to comfort you and assure you all that there is no struggle within the kingdom," he explained.
"King Danube is dead, and I, as the son of Jilseponie, have rightfully and legally, by the late king's own words, assumed the throne of Honce- the-Bear. You see with me Duke Kalas and the Allhearts, and many of the nobles of the court of Ursal.
"Let the word spread throughout the land that a new and just king has ascended. Let the word spread from this