1 - What’s an ID?
Lex disliked sailing.
He got seasick within hours of setting sail and hasn’t been able to leave his bed. He didn’t think he’d survive two weeks at sea, but at least the sailors tried to make his stay comfortable. They told him to stay in a hammock to ease the rocking of the ship and gave him light meals that wouldn’t ruin his day if it came back up again.
The guards who brought Lex there didn’t say what happened, only that he was instructed to leave the island that very moment. The only ship that was ready to set sail that very second was an unmarked passenger ship that belonged to a rich man. His crew was more than accommodating and claimed that the man would be honoured, especially if Prince Cyrus was willing to pay his fee for emergency transport.
Days later, though, their attitude towards Lex changed. Suppose one of the guards finally succumbed to their constant nagging to know why Lex was on board. They stopped seeing him, stopped talking to him, and on more than one occasion, didn’t bring him any food. When they did speak to him, they told him that they expected to be paid when they got back, and that they wanted a letter to confirm that Lex was indeed on the ship, or they would all be out of a job. They wouldn’t be able to show him around Kynsolus, they needed to get back to the island the very second he stepped off the ship to explain themselves. They started treating him as a burden, and only days later, an enemy.
When the ship finally docked, Lex was just about tossed overboard. They lowered the gangway, shoved him off, and stayed only long enough to stock up on supplies before leaving again. They didn’t tell him where anything was and ignored him when he asked questions. Lex didn’t know what the guards and sailors said to each other while he was stuck in his hammock, but by their demeanour, it was clear that they had convinced themselves that he killed the King on purpose and felt no remorse.
He watched the ship sail over the horizon. He was alone on foreign land without a single coin to his name. He rolled up his sleeves and pants on the ship because the temperature rose rapidly as they approached the mainland. His shoes and cloak were still on the ship. He kept a sword on him, thankfully, in fear that one of the sailors might try and avenge the King. He got it from one of the guards. Took it, more like, but they didn’t ask for it to be returned. His grandfather’s pin was in his pocket. He suspected that the crew would try to steal it at some point, so he kept it on him.
He left the docks to go look around. The roads were stone, and there were grooves where the horse-drawn carriages were pulled up and down all day. There were some businesses facing the ocean, their signs faded and white with salt. To his right was the castle. It was a bit of a walk, but it was built on a hill and frighteningly big. At least four times the size of Vane’s castle. It loomed over the town, casting a shadow over the shops across the road from it.
The people that walked by glared at him. He was dressed in black pants and a white shirt as per always, but the people wore beige, brown, and off-white clothes. Some wore faded greens, dirty yellows, and dusty reds, but the majority of the clothes weren’t dyed or bleached at all. Their clothes were also much shorter and lighter. The women walked around in ankle-length dresses, and shoes that revealed their feet, and the men wore short pants, short sleeved shirts, and the same open shoes.
Lex stuck out like a sore thumb, but there was nothing that he could do about it.
He started walking in the direction of the castle. Hopefully, with time, things would clear up. Cyrus would explain to his people that the King died in battle, and Lex just happened to be there. Hopefully, now that Alexander was dead, they could take Nixabar back, and his people would be safe. Hopefully, they could start working on rebuilding the castle, and things would go back to normal. Lex so badly wanted things to go back to normal.
When he neared the castle, he walked towards one of the guards, but before he was within reasonable speaking distance, the guard held up his hand and told him not to come any closer. “You have no business in the castle. Turn around and walk away.”
Lex wanted to walk closer, but he decided against it and would just raise his voice to speak from several steps away. “I request an audience with the King.”
“You and everyone’s uncle. If ye want to speak with the King, you need to arrange a meeting with the Governor. Nobody sets foot within the castle walls without approval from the Governor.”
“My name is Prince Lex-“
The other guard snorted a laugh.
“-Van Aalsburg. Prince Cyrus sent me here. I need to speak with the King about something urgent that’s happened.”
“Sure,” the guard said sarcastically. “You of course have proof of your title?”
“I had to leave very abruptly-“
“Any guards?”
“Um…”
“I didn’t see any red sails.”
“I came here on a passenger ship. The guards didn’t follow me.” He realised then that his story was very far-fetched. He wouldn’t believe him either, and he wasn’t getting in. “Ask me something about Prince Cyrus that only someone close to him would know.”
“What’s his middle name?”
“He hasn’t got a middle name.”
“He does.”
He did? “Ask me something else.”
“Leave the premises. If you’re not gone within five seconds, you’re under arrest for trespassing and impersonating a Prince.”
“Where are the cells?”
“Not in here, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Lex sighed. “Cyrus has got an older brother who abdicated in absentia five or six years ago. He has a little sister named Arabella, she’s ten years old. The King lost his mind after the death of the Queen-“
“Using big words and namin’ facts that everyone already knows isn’t going to help you.” One of the guards stepped forward.
Lex took a few steps back.
“This is your last warning. You already got more than most. Piss off.”
It was hopeless. Lex considered just running past them and hammering on the doors of the castle, but then he’d have to try and prove his identity to the King himself, and he got the idea that the punishment for failing that would be more than a simple warning. “Where’s the Governor’s office?”
They explained to him where to find it. It was down the road to his left, four buildings down, across the street from an inn. Lex walked there, unsure how to explain himself. Surely the Governor must’ve known Cyrus well enough to give Lex a bit of doubt.
He found the building and went inside. There were four people sitting on chairs in the waiting area. They seemed bored, and tired. One woman was embroidering a very complex picture onto a piece of fabric, and the other three were having a hushed conversation. They stopped talking to glare at Lex when he entered. A man sat behind a desk to his right, writing something down. There were hundreds upon hundreds of tiny drawers lining the entire wall behind him.
“State your business,” the man said without looking up or greeting.
Lex walked towards the desk. “I’ve come to speak with the Governor about making an appointment to see the King.”
The man glanced at Lex uninterestedly before looking back at his paperwork. “Please show me your ID.”
“What’s an ID?” he asked.
“Identification document.”
Lex didn’t have an ID. He’s never needed one before. “I… don’t have any paperwork…”
The man sighed and pulled a clean sheet of paper out from under his desk and dipped his pen in the ink. “Country of birth.”
Did he really need to go through an entire process just to schedule a meeting? Suppose it was a security risk to just let anyone in who asked. “Nixabar.”
The man wrote that down, but he spelled it incorrectly.
“It’s with an x,” Lex told him.
The man ignored him.
“Name.”
“Lex Van Aalsburg.”
He wrote that down.
“With an x, and Aalsburg has two A’s,” Lex corrected the man.
He wrote down that Lex could spell his own name. “Place of employment.”
“Nixabar.”
“I need the name of the company,” the man told him impatiently.
“Government.”
The man spelled that incorrectly as well. “Position.”
“I’m the Prince.”
The man wrote that down, albeit a bit hesitant. One of the other men snorted. “Weekly wages.”
“What does this have to do with anything? You’re spelling everything wrong. Let me write it myself.”
“Just answer the question,” the man told him with just as little interest as before.
Lex was getting irritated. “I didn’t get any wages.”
“I need an answer.”
Lex scoffed. “Just… write down one hundred gold.”
He wrote that down. “Address.”
“That’s part of the problem. I was exiled. I just got here.”
He wrote down ‘homeless foreigner’.
“Visitor,” Lex told him. “Write down visitor.”
He didn’t. “Reason for visit.”
“I need to see the King.”
“Reason.”
The man was infuriating. “It’s confidential.”
The man pointed to the waiting area. “Please take a seat.”
Lex looked to the empty seats behind him. “This is urgent. I need to see the King now.”
“Yes, yes, everyone’s business is urgent. Please sit.” The man obviously didn’t believe him, and without any paperwork, he wouldn’t. Homeless foreigner. Who did he think he was?
Lex moved away from the desk and sat down in the empty seat next to one of the men in the waiting area, who immediately stood up to sit somewhere else. It must’ve been the sweat and smell of the ocean.
They waited. And waited. Several minutes passed where nothing happened. And several more. After nearly an hour, Lex got up to ask when he could see the Governor, because the matter was extremely important.
The man told him to sit down, and it would be his turn when it was his turn.
Another hour passed before someone showed up to call in one of the people already in the waiting area. Lex asked if he could go in first, because his matter was urgent, but he was told that everyone’s matter was urgent, and he must’ve been something real special to skip the line. He wanted to yell then that he was a Prince, but he kept quiet.
So, he waited. Just half an hour later, the man behind the desk announced that they were closing, and that they would need to come back in the morning. The other three people in the waiting area got up and left without a fuss, but Lex wouldn’t.
“You let us come in and sit here for hours knowing that you would be closed before we get to go in?”
The man gestured at him to leave. “I can’t help that people spend hours speaking with the Judge. To guarantee your spot, you need to come in early tomorrow morning and be one of the first people to book your appointment.”
“What of the appointment we booked today? Don’t we get to come in first, then?”
“You come in tomorrow and wait in line as you did today. Now please.”
Lex was told to leave. Again, he was threatened with being arrested if he didn’t leave the premises immediately. He left and then had nowhere to go. He never realised how difficult it was for peasants to speak with the monarchs. In his mind, he was speaking to them and dealing with their issues all the time, but in hindsight, he only ever saw the lawbreakers enter the castle for hearings. And they also married people, but that needed to be booked months in advance.
He wandered around, looking for an inn to spend the night when he came to the realisation that he had no money. He had no way of paying for his stay at the inn, or food. He was alright with sleeping in the woods, he might even catch a rabbit or a bird, but looking around, there was nothing but buildings as far as the eye could see.
He asked around where the woods were, or at least a field or something, but most ignored him, some threatened him, and two people told him that they’ve never been to the woods, but it was nowhere near. He walked around looking for a place to spend the night, even asked an innkeeper if he could sleep there if he did some work, but he wasn’t allowed. The innkeeper would much rather help a local if he needed help.
It was past sundown when a guard asked him what he was doing wandering around the streets that time of night. Lex explained his situation, but the guard didn’t even let him finish speaking before asking him why he was carrying a sword.
“Am I not allowed?” Lex asked.
“Not unless you plan on killing someone. You have no reason to have that out with you. I’m going to have to confiscate it.”
“What? No,” Lex said. “I don’t have anywhere to put it away. I’m a visitor and all my paperwork… got lost at sea.” He was tired of trying to convince people of who he was. Maybe if he told a more ‘believable’ story, they’d be more willing to help. “Everything I brought with me is at the bottom of the ocean. My clothes, my money. I’m stranded. Can’t you help?”
“You’re going to have to take this up with the Governor-“
“For fuck’s sakes. Is there no other way?”
“Hand over the sword.”
“But… I… I have nowhere to put it. You’re just going to take something that belongs to me because I don’t have anywhere to put it away? It’s all I have. Can’t I sell it?”
“Stores are closed. Hand it over or pay the fine and I take it anyway. No weapons allowed on civilians.”
“How am I going to pay a fine? I said I have no money.”
“Then you’ll want to hand it over, so we don’t have to discuss alternative penalties. I’m not asking you again. Your sob story doesn’t make a difference to the law.”
Lex reluctantly pulled his sword out of the sheath. “Where can I pick it up later?”
The guard grabbed it from him before he could make any sudden moves. “You can’t.” He looked at the sword in the moonlight. At the grape stamp on the forte and the leather wrapped around the hilt. He weighed it in his hands. “But I’m permitted to keep a weapon on me,” he said. “Tell you what, if it means so much to you, I’ll hold onto it, and you buy it from me when you’ve got a case to lock it away in.”
“Buy it?” Lex asked.
“I’ll get into shit if anyone finds out that I didn’t fine you and also returned the weapon. Gotta make it worth the risk.”
The guard was being dishonest about something, but Lex couldn’t tell what. He was conditioned to trust them, but he could hear in the man’s voice and sudden shift in attitude that he was up to something. But Lex had no way of proving anything, and now, no way of defending himself. “I suppose. Where can I spend the night? No inn will let me in without paying.”
The guard dragged Lex to the nearest pub, where some drunks were already passed out on the steps, and more were going in and out.
Lex didn’t know where else to go, or what to do. He couldn’t spend the entire night just wandering around, so he sat down on the steps and just waited for morning. People stopped going in and out around midnight, and Lex was left alone outside with three men who were passed out in the streets. The night passed slowly. Once the stars started to disappear, Lex made his way back to the Governor’s office but was surprised to find that there were already people waiting in line. Some seemed to have spent the night.
He stood at the very back, and several more people fell in behind him before someone finally opened the doors and let them inside. Lex again had to wait for his turn to get to the front of the line, but this time, the man behind the desk didn’t ask him all sorts of stupid questions, just asked him for his name again, and told him to sit down.
So again, he waited.
There were twelve people ahead of him. The four who went in first all took more than an hour, and the next two each took two hours. Then it was closing time again. Lex would need to be there even sooner the next day. He still had nowhere to sleep, so he decided to just spend the night in front of the door.
Three more people waited with him throughout the night, and one of them offered him some bread when she heard Lex’s stomach growling.
The next morning, Lex was first in line. He took his seat, and minutes later, he was called into an office. A man with a white wig on his head sat behind a big, grand desk. Lex closed the door behind him, and the man in the wig told Lex to take a seat.
“Alright, let’s see what we have here,” the Governor said and read over Lex’s papers. “We have a delusional foreigner who’s likely stowed away on a ship and poisoned himself by drinking sea water.”
“What?” Lex asked. He was thirsty, and the seawater didn’t sound bad right then, but he wasn’t that dumb quite yet. “No. I’m not a stowaway. I’m here legally. Prince Cyrus exiled me because I accidentally killed the King.”
“Right… Prince Lex,” the Governor said and lazily put his paperwork down next to him. “If the King of Castorwyn was dead, we would have heard about it. Do you have a letter to back up your claims?”
“No, it was all done in a rush. He sent me here immediately after it happened, he didn’t have time to write anything just then, the letter must still be on its way.”
“You’ll need to come back when you have it then.” The Governor picked up a stamp and pressed it onto Lex’s paperwork. Denied.
“But, but, but-“
“As for who you really are, if you don’t have any identifying documents on you-“
“Wait.” Lex grabbed the pin from his pocket and showed it to him. “Here’s my family’s emblem.”
The Governor raised an eyebrow at it. “Yes, very nice. I’m afraid I can’t believe your story. I will give you a letter that will allow you to exchange currency, but it’s valid only until the next Castorwyn ship arrives. After that, you will not be allowed to exchange without the documents.”
“But I don’t have any money!” Lex exclaimed. “I was sent here without anything. The guards were extremely upset; they practically kicked me off the ship. Please, just let me speak with the King, he’s heard of me.”
“I’m afraid that only the Governor can grant you an audience with the King.”
Lex inhaled sharply. “You’re not… who are you?”
“The Judge,” the man deadpanned. “Afraid the Governor has more important things to worry about. I can’t have you wandering the streets and robbing people for food. I would say you’re well within your rights to stay in an asylum.”
“What? No.”
The Judge got up from his desk and walked towards the window, likely to signal a guard to come closer and apprehend him. Lex jumped out of his seat and ran out the door before anyone could stop him.
