As the years spun and nothing change din the kingdom people talked of the same old things. Everything cost too much and there was not enough of it anyway and even if you could afford it then you got charged twice because money was, they were told, the root of all evil. They certainly knew that the lack of it was the root of all hunger. But the people had long ago given up on any notion of rebellion. They were convinced that the king was doing as best he could and no one else could do better or worse so they left him to it, hoping in their small lives to live long enough to see their children grow up without too much disease or hunger. The king didn’t tax them overly, because he knew as well as any of them that there was nothing worth taxing within his borders. They lived and he lived, for a long time in the shadow of a great mountain. They had hoped back when the country was first settled, that there would be vast deposits of precious metals under it, or at least a ready supply of iron. But it was nothing more than a great hill of rock, and without iron they had nothing to cut or mine it with. It was taking up most of the country and it was the main reason why no one wanted to invade. It would make a perfect site for a fortress, but building a fortress on it would invite someone to try and attack it, whereas leaving it empty and in the way as it was kept everyone safe and out of harms way. Alexander didn’t know this, because he paid little attention to the wars of the other countries. He assumed, like his father before him, that no one wanted to take what was worthless. It was not an assumption he relished, because whenever he thought of it he realised that he had been saddled with that worthless thing no matter what he wanted and there was nothing anyone could do about it. There was no chance of him being deposed, and abdication was a luxury of kings who had families. His father had not married his mother, and to his knowledge he was an only child so there was little opportunity to pass on the somewhat tarnished crown to a sibling. He was stuck with a country with no identity and a people with no pride. What, he often asked an open window while looking out to the more profitable realms beyond his borders, was the king of such a place to do?

Of course he had heard tales of a man abroad who made things happen, although not regularly because travellers, even refugees, avoided coming to his court if possible. He reflected with bitter resentment one day in the freezing water of his bath that this man would stay abroad rather than stake his reputation on such a lost cause as Wistham. Such men lived in legend only, and he doubted if this man really did exist. Maybe he was nothing more than a comforting tale to dull the success of everyone else and give hope to the tiny and hopeless. Maybe he was, but that didn’t stop Alexander standing long at the window looking out, along the road to the border. If only he saw a man, who wore only black as far as he could tell from the tales, coming down that road one day. Then he would feel worthy of being called king but until that day he would just be someone who lived a poor life on two floors instead of just one. Every day he looked down the road and every day he saw nothing but stray pigs. So it went until one day, when the ground was as hard as the mountain and the water had frozen in the lake, he saw a dark horse with a huddled man in the saddle, slowly trotting down the road. Wisps of mist laced from the horse’s mouth but nothing came from the rider, if indeed there was a rider. There was nothing in the saddle. Nothing but a bundle of black clothes. And, as he hobbled down the few steps to the meagre courtyard of his so-called castle, Alexander thought he heard the faintest sound of bells on the freezing wind.