I’m the King but it’s Chess.

Someone informed me that the panther had moved his bishop to C six.

I guess there were dumber moves.

But I wanted to explore this castle, not stress over the material on the board.

“Don’t worry O lion!”

The some part of me was dimly aware that rook of the east was picking up my discomfort.

All considered the ride in had been beautiful.

The semi tropical trees and brush of the valley was magnificent, if somewhat treacherous.

But some strange specter hung over my head, not for the chafing of my riding leathers. Nor I think could the bad mood be explained by my missing companion, the Queen.

While she would have been the type to curse me with sadness at her departure I didn’t think she was the reason.

“Don’t worry your lonely heart my king! My daughter Hilda Two will keep you company in this remote outpost of mine!”

Yea I didn’t think the king’s problem was a lack of effeminate attention. Maybe other men were lonely but the king rather wished to be lonely.

I looked around the nearly windowless fortification, it resembled a great bunker fashioned by dozers and explosives more than a middle aged stone structure. It seemed deserted aside from the followers and an odd and ephemeral garrison guard who appeared and disappeared at odd windows and walkways you wouldn’t expect.

The entourage that followed me here themselves seemed to be making do and setting up tents and camps as if this odd T junction crossroads in an underground courtyard was a market square. We sat just behind the killing funnel triple gate that we had entered. So my underlings must have felt safe at this point.

I didn’t. But some part of this hole in the earth called to me. I wanted to burrow into it and get lost.

The two maids had already decided to make an account of my belongings. So as to make sure nothing was missing.

I couldn’t care less. If I don’t remember it then it isn’t important.

Lucky thing about being… reincarnated? An Amnesiac? You lose the cross of nostalgia to carry.

“Hilda is quite an active young woman, she takes to the martial activities quite well! I think a king would be lucky to have her!”

Great this guy was trying to sell me his daughter. And the perceptive rat he was seemed hellbent on selling me something for he caught me eyeing nearly hidden doors overlooking the dim torchlit clearing under finely carved stone we occupied.

“Perhaps if you want a more exciting plaything…”

You know David was a jerk of a king… but his lackies were worse. Trying to set him up with young girls as a cure for leprosy or cancer if I remember correctly. Don’t you think that old David had had enough of them by the time he was dying?

Canonically he and the girl the lackies found didn’t have relations.

I guess I’m still a youthful king… but still… wasn’t I married to a queen already?

I thought the entire point of the whole David story was that he ended up being exactly the kind of king you didn’t want to have.

“… you would prefer Geneva Er.”

“That won’t be necessary.” I confirmed.

The rook looked at me suspiciously.

“I insist you take a female companion.”

Frizz interjected “Not even a king is complete without woman!”

“Yes listen to your serving girl she is wise beyond her years!” The rook continued as if I hadn’t told him no. “… as I was saying Geneva might be more of a challenging prospect but no doubt a feat that kings do not balk at.”

Sometimes the quickest way out of a conversation is to play along. “What’s the matter then? Why is she different?” I asked.

“Oh… well… isn’t that part of the appeal? I am not so crude as to apply the art of architecture to delicate dance of romance!”

I hate the rook of the east.

“If you don’t court her I will!” Said Bunhead. “I love mysterious women!”

Would the rook of the west acted like this to the king?

“The last man who tried went missing on a midnight last season! You should hear the wives tales!” The rook encouraged the two impressionable servants I had been saddled with to delusions of fancy.

If children rebel against their parents his daughter would probably be more my speed.

Not that I had high hopes, if his daughter she was. Hilda was fifty percent rook.

“My mind is bothered by less wholesome things.” I figured a blunt honesty might root the conversation in some sanity. “For instance… where is the chimney to this building? How are we not smoking ourselves out?” I pointed to a brazier that must be employing two people in chopping down the dense and semitropical forest outside by the rate and heat by which it burned.

“Trade secret my dear illuminated Liege! Would be a terrible day if I share the secrets of my art of siege!”

“Even to your King?” My tone became incredulous.

“For my Lion any truth you desire I shall sing, but not here, I fear ears uncouth.”

The rook winked at me and the Frizz golf clapped at his rhymes.

For his age he seemed a spry man. Younger than my other rook, grey and full hair.

Perhaps he was quite charming to most people and my mental scars of another realm prevented me from seeing him beyond the danger of his tongue.

“I would like a tour of the castle.” I changed the subject.

“Of course O lion! Let me not delay! Dear maidens of the royal family, please make ready the lion’s chambers for when exhausted by my crude and worldly fixtures he retires.”

“Of course!” Frizz and Bunhead beamed.

Maybe I’m just a mean person to begin with.

But seriously, I hadn’t asked for this. I would have been much happier to have been reincarnated such that I could teach the periodic table to kobolds.

I miss the periodic table.

A small cloud of guards and armored men began to collect around the rook and I.

One of them took their helmet off and revealed a pretty face.

Perhaps it was the armor but the girl looked as stout as any man. She was on the tall side too. Naturally the armor obscured any shape. Which was a blessing. The queen could have convinced me I was in a mid two thousands MMO.

Red hair and a bit of an awkward but friendly, perhaps shy face. Reminded me of a girl I had met on the beach almost a decade ago.

Really? That long ago?

“Hilda!” The rook smiled the smile of a proud father! Before looking at me. “No doubt your pretty face calms the king. Won’t you accompany us to tour the castle?”

If I was a guard of the castle assigned to run damage control for the date planed by my general, my congressman and their awkward romance micro-transactions I would be livid.

It would be made all the worse if I thought Hilda.. ahem… the focus of this sordid affair. Was cute.

I guess the rook had a pretty wife, or else how would he have a pretty daughter?

Was he trying to prevent me from focusing on his castle?

No…

This was his castle… he probably.

Nope!

It clicked in my head.

This was a Stockton Tris scenario, it wasn’t about me or my wife. It was about his daughter. Hilda Two, H Two. Hilda was a pawn.

Which meant that her success and failure rested on my willingness to move her.

What better way to secure your child’s safety than to attach them to the kings.

I wonder which pawn is most likely to get promoted in chess.

My mind relaxed and I took Hilda’s armored arm without thinking about it.

This wasn’t an elaborate trick to incriminate or distract me. This was a nervous family that I needed to put at ease.

And I could observe this castle.

Really, a wonder of the world all things considered.

“How many wizards were employed in the making of this structure?” I asked the rook.

“Thirty two! A very auspicious number O lion!” He answered.

The rook was just as much a king as I.

Our guards and knights and lieutenants stood dutifully around and politely asked questions I assumed the rook instructed them too for my benefit.

But I got lots of questions, and I rather think I made hearts sink for the asking of them.

Our first stop was the entrance hall, an upward slope at the base of the mountain.

I didn’t get the intro because I was informing a messenger that the pawn… named Alexis Duo needed to get up to the town of Allbach Four.

“And what is her relation to the rook most west?” I asked.

“Old Diorite adopted her as his heir. She got married and manages their finances, started a spot of trouble when one his bastards found out his grand heirs weren’t related by blood a few years back.”

Typical. I wonder who the husband was, not that it mattered, if ‘Old Diorite’ liked her, I probably wouldn’t hate her.

Also that would be awkward if she got promoted… already married?

But I was trying to observe the castle not get lost in politics.

“And so from these holes an archer possesses a commanding view of the gate, with view secure one needn’t worry of ingrates!”

“Good show Sir Marble!”

Sir marble, my rook of flattery and composure graciously accepted praise.

“Do you worry for the soft limestone walls in this section?”

“My king?” Marble asked.

I didn’t have an answer, so I produced a dagger from my boot.

“Well we do have protection for the archers, stone carvers did bring up complications regarding a brittle carving process if memory serves… which is why our slits are brick inlay! Rest easy my tired king! For the engineers know with what dangers they play!”

I ignored the man and gripping the hilt of my blade, ground it easily against a smoothed wall of the cavern.

Limestone… calcium carbonate, it flaked off, crumbles and dust.

I awkwardly looked for a place to stick my knife now, I still had a nervous young woman on my dominant right arm and the awkward tugging we made at each other when we moved was confusing my left handed blade.

She was wearing nearly full armor, but still wasn’t quite a counterweight for me.

“These are thick walls my lord, fear not the maniac who shall destroy his own sword.”

“You fear no sapper’s pick?” I prodded.

I managed to stick the knife in my other boot.

None of the escort seemed particularly happy with my question.

The rook sidestepped the question.

“The fortresses commanding view as well as the hostile jungle outside I believe will rather punish a concerted sapping effort. The rains will make their work muddy and treacherous.”

That was a fair answer.

But it laid bare what I had suspected. The castle was vulnerable to a man with a pickaxe.

“So if I were to attack I would ask my lads” I pointed to one of the knights. “To place his shield here…” I pointed to the arrow slit “…and bash at the walls with hammer and shovel and pick? How would you kill me? Stones upon the head?”

These gaggle of men murmured. The woman on my arm looked at me with a worried shy smile.

“Yes…” confirmed the rook, “but we had rather enjoyed the idea that such would be a surprise.”

“Do you fear spies so greatly?” I asked.

“No no… I just was saving that bit for later in the tour.”

“By all means forgive a curious mind!”

“We hold no ill will Majestic one! Our duty is your victories won!”

Rhyming one with one huh?

“Now perhaps we shall descend deeper and allow the king to latch onto cleverness in kind!”

I hate politics.

But the rook continued his tour, I wondered who all these other knights and soldiers and officers were, they seemed as much an audience as I.

“Father is grumpy as of late, the war stresses him out, he’s more of an architect, not properly cruel bone in his body!” Hilda offered me in a whisper.

“Nonsense, rocks on the head is plenty cruel, I mean not to slight him. Only to see it all!”

“Twould take all day, nay all week O lion!”

“I hope to be impressed. And while I enjoy a good rhyme from time to time, if one distracts me from craft I may of the rhymer think less.”

Hilda dutifully giggled.

Or maybe it was genuine. I can’t tell.

All the clanking of armor almost hid her laugh but at each other’s arm it was easy enough to feel it.