The Way of Kings

Dalinar left the young man to his work and went to check on Gallant. He found the Ryshadium with the grooms, who had set up a horse picket on the southern side of the plateau. They had bandaged the horse’s scrapes, and he was no longer favoring his leg.

Dalinar patted the large stallion on the neck, looking into those deep black eyes. The horse seemed ashamed. “It wasn’t your fault you threw me, Gallant,” Dalinar said in a soothing voice. “I’m just glad you weren’t harmed too badly.” He turned to a nearby groom. “Give him extra feed this evening, and two crispmelons.”

“Yes sir, Brightlord. But he won’t eat extra food. He never does if we try to give it to him.”

“He’ll eat it tonight,” Dalinar said, patting the Ryshadium’s neck again. “He only eats it when he feels he deserves it, son.”

The lad seemed confused. Like most of them, he thought of Ryshadium as just another breed of horse. A man couldn’t really understand until he’d had one accept him as rider. It was like wearing Shardplate, an experience that was completely indescribable.

“You’ll eat both of those crispmelons,” Dalinar said, pointing at the horse. “You deserve them.”

Gallant blustered.

“You do,” Dalinar said. The horse nickered, seeming content. Dalinar checked the leg, then nodded to the groom. “Take good care of him, son. I’ll ride another horseback.”

“Yes, Brightlord.”

They got him a mount – a sturdy, dust-colored mare. He was extra careful when he swung into the saddle. Ordinary horses always seemed so fragile to him.

The king rode out after the first squad of troops, Wit at his side. Sadeas, Dalinar noted, rode behind, where Wit couldn’t get at him.

The bridge crew waited silently, resting as the king and his procession crossed. Like most of Sadeas’s bridge crews, this one was constructed from a jumble of human refuse. Foreigners, deserters, thieves, murderers, and slaves. Many probably deserved their punishment, but the frightful way Sadeas chewed through them put Dalinar on edge. How long would it be before he could no longer fill the bridge crews with the suitably expendable? Did any man, even a murderer, deserve such a fate?

A passage from The Way of Kings came to Dalinar’s head unbidden. He’d been listening to readings from the book more often than he’d represented to Adolin.

I once saw a spindly man carrying a stone larger than his head upon his back, the passage went. He stumbled beneath the weight, shirtless under the sun, wearing only a loincloth. He tottered down a busy thoroughfare. People made way for him. Not because they sympathized with him, but because they feared the momentum of his steps. You dare not impede one such as this.

The monarch is like this man, stumbling along, the weight of a kingdom on his shoulders. Many give way before him, but so few are willing to step in and help carry the stone. They do not wish to attach themselves to the work, lest they condemn themselves to a life full of extra burdens.

I left my carriage that day and took up the stone, lifting it for the man. I believe my guards were embarrassed. One can ignore a poor shirtless wretch doing such labor, but none ignore a king sharing the load. Perhaps we should switch places more often. If a king is seen to assume the burden of the poorest of men, perhaps there will be those who will help him with his own load, so invisible, yet so daunting.

Dalinar was shocked that he could remember the story word for word, though he probably shouldn’t have been. In searching for the meaning behind Gavilar’s last message, he’d listened to readings from the book almost every day of the last few months.