The first time Shu saw King Aredan, the king was arguing with a farmer.
That was not how history had prepared Shu for the moment.
There was no throne.
No ceremonial music.
No crown.
No hall filled with kneeling officials.
Only the lower administrative courtyard, a dozen petitioners, three clerks carrying tablets, several irritated guards, and a young man in a dark blue robe crouching beside an irrigation map.
Shu stopped beneath the colonnade.
Tarin nearly walked into him.
“What?”
Shu did not answer.
Across the courtyard, a gold-edged royal standard moved above the entrance.
Seven-pointed star.
Blue field.
Crown above it.
The same symbol Shu had seen on coins, seals, and broken reliefs three thousand years later.
But his attention had already moved below the banner.
Aredan III was twenty-six years old.
Shu knew the number.
Knowing it had not prepared him to see what twenty-six actually looked like.
Young.
That was the first thought.
Not boyish.
Not inexperienced.
But unmistakably young for the amount of history resting on his name.
Modern statues portrayed Aredan with a heavy jaw, broad ceremonial beard, and an expression of permanent royal severity.
Most were late copies.
Some had probably been produced after his death.
The living man had none of that weight.
His hair was cut shorter than the sculptures suggested.
A narrow bronze circlet rested above his brow rather than a crown.
He was lean, dark-eyed, and looked as though he had slept poorly.
He also looked irritated.
A farmer was speaking loudly enough for half the courtyard to hear.
Shu understood only fragments at first.
Canal.
Water allocation.
Southern fields.
Royal levy.
Aredan listened without interrupting.
A senior official beside him finally stepped forward.
“The matter has already been judged.”
The farmer snapped back:
“By a clerk who has never watched a field die.”
Several guards shifted.
Aredan raised one hand.
They stopped.
Shu stared.
Not because the gesture was impressive.
Because the moment felt small.
Human.
History had preserved Aredan III as the last king of Nereth.
Depending on the source, he was tyrant, reformer, coward, military idealist, reckless modernizer, temple enemy, temple puppet, or victim of the Nameless Adviser.
Here he was listening to a farmer complain about water.
Aredan looked toward one of the clerks.
“Bring the canal map.”
The official beside him said, “Majesty, the allocation has already—”
“I heard you the first time.”
Not raised.
Not angry.
The official stopped anyway.
A clay planning board was brought forward.
Aredan crouched.
Actually crouched.
The king of Avarra lowered himself beside a scratched irrigation diagram while the farmer pointed at feeder channels.
Tarin noticed Shu’s expression.
“First time seeing him?”
Shu answered quietly.
“Yes.”
“Try not to look like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you expected horns.”
Shu almost laughed.
He had expected something worse than horns.
He had expected certainty.
Aredan studied the map.
“These fields receive water after the eastern branch?”
The farmer nodded.
“When the eastern gate is fully open.”
“Which it hasn’t been.”
“Three weeks.”
The water official began explaining sediment buildup.
Aredan interrupted.
“How many workers?”
“Majesty?”
“To clear it.”
The official gave a number.
“Then why are there half that many assigned?”
Silence.
The official glanced at another clerk.
Aredan looked between them.
The farmer looked dangerously pleased.
Shu watched.
A competent moment did not make a competent reign.
One irrigation dispute could not overturn centuries of evidence.
He reminded himself of that immediately.
This was one morning.
One decision.
One young king thirty-five days into power.
Nothing more.
Still, it complicated the man.
Aredan stood.
“Double the workers for six days. No additional levy on the affected fields until the eastern branch is restored.”
The water official looked unhappy.
“From which account?”
Aredan gestured toward another tablet.
“The palace garden expansion.”
The official stared.
Someone behind Shu made a choking sound that might have been suppressed laughter.
Aredan added:
“If my roses complain, send them to court.”
This time several people laughed.
Including the farmer.
Shu did not.
Not because it was not funny.
Because this king had become dangerous in a new way.
He was becoming likable.
That was information Shu had never possessed.
They were not there to see Aredan.
Tarin had been ordered to deliver records to an adjacent office, with Shu permitted to accompany him under supervision.
The royal visit was unplanned.
Or unplanned from Shu’s perspective.
As they moved along the back of the courtyard, Shu kept his gaze down.
“You’re being subtle now,” Tarin whispered.
“Trying.”
“It is more suspicious.”
“Everything I do is suspicious to you.”
“Correct.”
They almost reached the side passage.
Then the crowd shifted.
Aredan looked up.
Straight toward them.
Shu froze.
Not because the king could possibly know him.
Because for one irrational second, Shu felt recognized.
The sensation hit before thought.
A pressure behind his eyes.
A room full of smoke.
Someone shouting.
Aredan older.
Blood on royal blue cloth.
Then nothing.
The courtyard returned.
Shu gripped the edge of his sleeve.
Aredan’s eyes remained on him.
He said something to the magistrate nearby.
The magistrate glanced toward Shu.
Then answered.
Aredan looked again.
Curiosity.
Nothing more.
He did not approach.
Day Thirty-Five.
Not Forty-Three.
Shu counted automatically.
Eight days until the registry entry.
If the registry was accurate.
If the foreigner was him.
Two assumptions too many.
He looked away.
Later, Tarin found the entire event much more interesting than Shu wanted.
“He asked about you.”
Shu stopped walking.
“What?”
“The king.”
“What did he ask?”
“Who the badly dressed foreigner was.”
Shu looked down at the linen clothes he had been given.
“I’m dressed like everyone else now.”
“The boots ruin it.”
Fair.
“What did the magistrate say?”
“Foreign scholar. Found under the northern administrative building. Under restriction. Literate. Strange.”
“Strange?”
“That may have been my contribution.”
Shu stared at him.
Tarin smiled.
Then became more serious.
“The king asked whether you were dangerous.”
“And?”
“The magistrate said he did not know.”
“Excellent.”
“Aredan laughed.”
That surprised him.
“Why?”
“He said anyone described that way by an administrator was probably either very dangerous or very boring.”
“Which did he choose?”
“He didn’t.”
Good.
No invitation.
No audience.
Only curiosity.
Exactly as it should be.
Still, history had moved one step closer.
Or perhaps Shu had.
That afternoon, Shu received another update regarding Mina.
No body.
No unidentified woman.
No foreign clothing.
Nothing matching her description had been reported through the northern gate, nearby administrative district, or local healers.
The magistrate had quietly circulated a limited inquiry.
Tarin delivered the news without embellishment.
“I’m sorry.”
Shu nodded.
He hated the phrase because it made absence sound more permanent than it was.
“Did anyone search below again?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The lower room you came from is restricted now.”
“Why?”
“Structural instability.”
True enough.
“Anything unusual?”
Tarin hesitated.
“Some workers say the old walls are not where they remember them.”
Shu looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“It means workers enjoy frightening each other.”
“Anything official?”
“No.”
Then nothing.
Rumor did not become evidence simply because Shu wanted it to.
Mina remained unknown.
That night, Shu reconstructed Aredan from memory.
Not the king he had seen.
The king history claimed.
Aredan III.
Final king of Avarra.
Reigned approximately seven years.
Administrative reforms early in reign.
Conflict with temple interests disputed.
Military centralization disputed.
Grain redistribution before late unrest.
Possible purge of commanders.
Foreign adviser increasingly influential.
Killed during or immediately before destruction of Nereth.
Cause uncertain.
Then he wrote beneath it:
DAY 35 OBSERVATION
Listens before deciding.
Understands administrative details.
Uses humor.
Willing to override officials.
One irrigation decision only.
Do not generalize.
Shu stared at the two versions.
Historical Aredan.
Living Aredan.
They did not contradict each other yet.
That was important.
A man capable of listening to a farmer could still become a tyrant.
A reformer could become desperate.
A competent king could make catastrophic choices.
A good decision did not create a good man.
A bad record did not create a bad one.
Shu closed the notebook.
He remembered the warning.
DO NOT SAVE THE KING.
For the first time since arriving, the words felt less like an abstract puzzle.
They referred, perhaps, to a man with a face.
A man who had crouched beside an irrigation map that morning.
That made the warning harder to obey.
It also made Shu more determined not to interpret it too soon.
Notes:
Irrigation: an artificial system for moving water to farmland.
Levy: an official tax, contribution, or required payment.
Circlet: a simple band worn around the head, sometimes as a symbol of royalty.
Petitioner: someone formally asking an authority for help, judgment, or a decision.