“I want to see the bishop here immediately, before any of the people who are waiting outside for court to begin.” The Duke looked like he had gotten very little sleep the night before. His eyes had long shadows under them that the chaplain’s eyes dwelt on as the Duke spoke.

  He felt a tiredness as he pinched the bridge of his nose. The morning court that he usually held was exhausting and sitting here in an iron chair looking down on his constituents did not make him feel strong in the least. Everything was on his shoulders as he struggled to make the most of any issue that came into his land.

  At least the most of the disagreements came from the small township around his castle, it would have been much worse when he was gone. It would be worst when it was further from where his eye could see. He thought about the thrill of fear in Lot’s eyes as she had spoken to him about the ogre invasion of her own village.

  Her husband was dead.

  Her son had almost been eaten by cannibals on the edge of the township.

  Yet, she had crawled out of those places to now sit next to him.

  A woman like that.

  He shivered. Gentle were the hearts of women. War women, he had heard of them when he fought tribal people, their faces cloaked with black coal as they screamed before rushing knights on horseback.

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  They died of course.

  Everything that came near him did.

  He looked at his own hands, wondering if such a power was worth keeping. What other talent did he possess other than being a good killer? Now he was supposed to forget all that . . the bloodlust . . . and rule . . . . some of them were savager than he.

  The bishop came then slow and meek as if the Duke did not have people waiting outside of the chamber. The head was humbled as he bowed at the feet. He raised his hands up in reverence before standing up.

  Before he might have believed that such a holy person be good, but today, the Duke felt nothing. “How long?”

  “My lord? You summon me like this.”

  His voice dropped low. “Children are being eaten by their mothers in the very town you serve and you call yourself a pious man. I will take every stone from your new cathedral if my people are starving to this point.”

  The bishop’s face turned as if he had been slapped. “A church must stand. The demons are at our door. We cannot flinch from the call of the almighty.”

  “Where are the alms?”

  “I cannot say. I have been bound to–” Before he could finish speaking there was a flash of steel and a red line formed on his neck that grew bolder and bolder. The bishop folded in half as he started to choke on his own blood. The Duke wiped his blade with a maroon handkerchief.

  “Tyrell?”

  One of his guards came from the regiment standing on either end of the court. He knelt next to the spreading pool of blood. “I am here, Lord.”

  “Have his head put on a spike outside of the battlements. Open our grain. Have kitchen be set into the squatters quarters. Every stew where the meat cannot be accounted for will be discarded and in our prisons, have the meat of the prisoners be fed to the starving. I will check the horde of the cathedral myself for the missing funds. And–”

  “Sir?”

  “Include the bishop’s meat in the stew. Send a bowl to the church hierarchy in the capital saying if they embezzle more funds I will make more stews. My people do not starve when I am in my castle.”