Testimonium Regis - Part 3

He cracked through another rib. He was making progress. Hugh, with the patience of a saint, watched Aldus close, worried that he’d collapse from the effort. Thinking to keep Aldus awake and engaged, he spoke. “How do you think Price Howard’s wars are going? Do you think we’ll hear of them today, despite the…occasion?”

Prince Howard, since taking on the role of regent, seemed never to have sat on the throne. He spent the better part of the last decade stalking and preying upon undefended lands and quashing rebellion where it sprouted. It kept him busy. The more blood he spilled, the more innards he left steaming on the ground, the more crows he fed, the drunker he got from it all, the more he could forget that he was not the true king. It was feared and rumored and whispered that he went on these campaigns to strengthen bonds with these men. Mould them into loyalists. Usurp the soft child king. That, of course, had not come to pass. Nor did it need to now. He was here at the castle, clad in his mourning black, but unable to keep a smile from his lips. The only thing to tear a warmonger from his playground was the prospect of being crowned.

 

While both the true king and the crown prince were away, however, someone needed to keep an eye on the throne and the goings on of the homefront. Thus a Lord Protector and Defender of the Realms was born in Lord Seymour Gray. He was Duke of something, Earl of something else, but everyone knew him as the Horsefly. So named for the way he always seemed to be buzzing about in the ears of those with higher rank than himself, pestering and lobbying for influence. As a personal drinking friend and brownnoser to Jerome II and Prince Howard, he was granted this new title only, so they say, to shut up his incessant asking.

 

It was only a month before Jerome III’s death that Seymour the Horsefly bounded into the great hall where, under the glittering light of the golden hearts, Aldus and Will the blacksmith supped. Seymour approached them wringing his hands, a nervous trait that complemented his nickname. “Blacksmith, away. I need to speak with the Lord Surgeon.” Will, spoonful of stew halfway to his mouth, paused and stared back at the Lord Protector, challenging him, making him squirm. “Now, blacksmith!” With a smirk, Will took his bowl of stew and exited. The Horsefly turned and addressed everyone in the hall. “Out! All of you! I require privacy!” Those in the hall scattered through their various doors and hatches to resume duties elsewhere. Aldus remained, sipping his stew. Once the hall was empty, the two men locked eyes, waiting for the other to speak. It was apparent there was something on the Horsefly’s mind, yet he seemed reluctant to speak it. He licked his lips and one of his eyelids twitched.

 

“Yes, milord?” Aldus urged. “Please, sit. Join me.”

 

“No. I won’t be long. I merely require…your professional opinion on a matter most personal.”

 

“Is that so? And what is that, milord?” Aldus guessed kidney stones. He stifled a smirk by eating more stew.

 

“Don’t eat while I’m addressing you!” the Horsefly barked. Aldus put down his spoon in a deliberate gesture. The Horsefly brought his voice down to a whisper, for he knew noise carried in the great hall. “This is to stay between us, surgeon. If I heard that word of our discussion has gotten out, it will be your head that visitors see impaled on the front gate.”

 

Definitely kidney stones, Aldus though. “On my honor and neck, milord. This will stay confidential.”

 

“Don’t be glib. It is a question of the heart, surgeon.”

 

“Have you taken ill, Lord Seymour?”

 

“No.” He sat, switching to a subtler tone. “What I mean to ask is…you root around in the corpses of kings, God bless them. What I need to know is of their golden heart. It is a signifier of their divine right to rule, yes? We know this. How do these hearts become golden, is my question. Through what alchemy? Is it golden from birth? Tell me, do you know? Does a shift happen at some point? Does God himself reach down and touch the heart at coronation and turn it golden?”

 

Aldus had often wondered these questions himself, lest he be quizzed by someone he must answer. He figured the boy king would be the one to interrogate him on these matters some day, yet here he was held hostage by the bug-eyed Lord Protector. 

 

“None of us, myself or any anatomist, physician, or surgeon is certain how this happens or when in the king’s life it happens. We simply know that upon a king’s death we, if you’ll forgive me my bluntness, cut into the king and it is there. It is an anomaly. Given the circumstance, it is not a thing that can be studied with any regularity, I’m afraid.”

 

“So, you know nothing on the king’s heart?”

 

“I wouldn’t say nothing, milord, but -”

 

“Answer me this. Do you believe it to be a condition? An…ailment? Something someone can contract? Can someone, without their knowledge, attain a king’s heart?”

Aldus knew where the Horsefly was leading him.

 

“No. I’ve been in the chests of hundreds of men and women. I’ve only seen a golden heart in a king of the bloodline. As is befitting, I should say.”

 

“But is there a chance? A learned man like you could agree, surely, that nothing is truly impossible, right?”

 

“Pardon my bluntness again, milord, but what exactly are you asking me?” Force the fly out of his dungheap, Aldus. Then he’ll buzz away.

 

At this question the Horsefly’s face twitched. His eyes darted the room and he swallowed.

 

“I am Lord Protector.” He said, more to reassure himself.

 

“That you are, milord.”

 

“I act in the king’s stead, do I not?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“Then…perhaps my heart has turned golden. It’s possible, is it not? I’m virtually the king. It seems only fair and logical that God has blessed me, lest I would be unable to perform my functions.”

 

Aldus wrangled the nervous gaze of the man before him. “My Lord -” He started. Then, choosing a more intimate route. “Seymour. You do not carry the blood of a king.”

 

“Piss in the blood of a king!” Lord Seymour hissed. His words echoed in the hall and he threw a hand over his mouth. Wide eyed, the Horsefly looked between the portraits of the past kings that loomed over them on the walls as if one of the figures might burst from the painting to smite him. Aldus, shocked as he was by the statement, only raised his thin, grey eyebrows. The Horsefly spoke again when he realized he still drew breath after his heresy. “What I mean to say -” He started slow “- is that a king is a title. The kings of other kingdoms come and go, are overthrown, usurped, replaced. The people serve and follow whoever wears the crown. It seems reasonable to suggest that God recognizes these…changes of hats as well, would he not?”

 

“Perhaps you ought to ask the Archbishop.” Aldus replied, hoping to end the conversation.

 

“The Archbishop does not deal in matters of anatomy! I have been granted the right to rule and I…intend to keep this right. Who can deny me? I must bear the heart! 

 

“Why are you telling me all this, Lord Seymour?”

 

“Isn’t it obvious? I’d like you to legitimize me. In front of the people. A Testimonium.”

 

“You aren’t dead.” Aldus dropped his formality as his own heart grew sick with the whinings of the Horsefly. “We cannot perform the Testimonium Regis while you are alive. It’s never been done.”

 

“Ah, it’s never been done, but can it be? Is there a way, skilled surgeon as you are, to expose my heart, only briefly, of course, and stitch me back up before I expire? I’ve thought on this. So much of the ceremony is pomp, anyway. The drums, the speeches, the fanfare. We needn’t have all this. We’d only need enough time to show the people that I am, indeed, divinely appointed.”

 

“And what of Howard?”

 

“Let Howard try and fight his way back here. We have the advantage. The people and the soldiers would have to obey me. The boy, Jerome, will need to be killed as well, of course, but that shouldn’t be a hassle, now should it? Perhaps I shall convince Howard to do it for me before we reveal my heart to the people, eh?” A grin stretched across the Lord Protector’s face. At the mention of Jerome, Aldus tightened his hand around the spoon he held in a white-knuckled grip. 

 

I could perform surgery on you, you knave. I could paint the walls of the operating room a fresh crimson with your foul blood, you traitorous fuck! 

 

“If you do this for me, Aldus, I could make you more than the silly Lord Surgeon. I would promote you. You’d be granted land. Titles. You could have all my former titles for all I care if you confirm my suspicions and make me king.”

 

Aldus took a deep breath. He stifled his rage and cleared the red from his vision. He unclenched his grip on the spoon. His fingernails had dug into his palm enough to leave throbbing marks. He spoke with great care. “Milord, as sound as your logic is and as…curious as I would be to test it as a surgeon, opening your chest and exposing your heart would kill you. The Testimonium Regis requires that I lift the heart from your body and hold it aloft so that all in attendance can see and verify. This would kill you. As a result of your unnecessary death by my hand, my head would indeed be spiked. And this would all be on a hunch. Forgive me for saying, but we know the hearts of kings are golden. We only theorize that yours might have become golden. You aren’t certain yourself, otherwise you would not be seeking my council.”

 

The Horsefly sputtered and buzzed, his foul blood pooled in his cheeks. “Are…are you sure there isn’t a way?””

 

“I’m sorry, milord, but -”

 

Seymour Grey stood and stomped out of the room like a petulant child, throwing his hands up. He was found by a chambermaid later that night who happened to hear him crying out. He lied in his bed with a crude, self-inflicted gash across the right side of his chest and his dagger on the floor. He didn’t know where his heart was, much less if it had become golden or not. Between cries for help, he was muttering incoherent proclamations of his sovereignty as warm blood leaked freely through his bedclothes. Having gone quite mad, he was sent to his estate to recuperate after Aldus patched him up. A small council of viziers, keepers of the secret no less, jointly took up the mantle of Lord Protector. The people were left in the dark on the matter lest it lead to panic. The chambermaid was ordered to isolate and attend to Lord Seymour and his ravings. Aldus couldn’t help but bear a bedrugding respect for the Horsefly’s commitment to his ambition, rotten as it was. In the darkest recesses of his mind, somewhere hidden where no one would be able to extract it, was the thought that there shouldn’t be kings. That the whole idea of placing a single man to rule had not given anyone, including the kings themselves, a sense of peace. That this golden heart business was a sickness, whether a kingdom practiced it with literal ceremony or just in spirit. 

 

It was only a month after the incident with the Lord Protector that the castle received word of the boy king’s death. It was only two days after that when Aldus worked against another rib.

 

Aldus was thankful that the boy, even while away, was not too far from home. He didn’t have a chance to decompose, his body being preserved as best as possible. He afforded himself another look at the boy’s face. He hadn’t noticed how blue the lips were, but of course they were. The hair, though not as scorching as he remembered, was still conspicuous. Even before the golden heart would be held up for the crowd, the people would know the corpse of their king from the hair alone. I suppose it was best he kept it long. More for everyone. Aldus smiled. His hand crept up towards the king’s forehead and brushed back the mane. 

 

It was then that the door opened. Hugh jumped from his seat. Aldus remained still. A scant few were permitted entrance to his tower, especially when the rare procedure was taking place, so Aldus knew that if anyone was coming in, they belonged here. Will the Lord Blacksmith strode in past the ignorant guard stationed at the entrance carrying an innocuous satchel.

 

“Good day, surgeon.” the Blacksmith croaked. He noticed Hugh. “Surgeons, I should say.” His voice, on any given day a thunderous drum for having to speak over the clamour of his forge, was whittled down. He crossed towards Aldus and, ensuring the door was closed properly behind him, placed his satchel on a nearby tabletop. “I’ve hardly slept since I heard the news, you know, hardly slept. Poor little…he’s still just a boy, isn’t he? A boy! Damn everything.” He rubbed his eyes and leaned against a table, his grief forfeiting any self-consciousness. “I told myself that I’d make the best heart anyone’d ever seen. Just the best one. Thought about making it bigger than it should be. Honestly thought it. Just so the people today’d think ‘now that must’ve been a special king’. But, no. Pulled back. Tried to make it normal. I…I tried. I really did.” 

 

“What are you getting at, Will?” Aldus asked, his hand still rested on the dead king’s forehead.

 

“Just that I haven’t slept. Not since we heard the news. Barely a wink. And that affected things. Affected my work and…” He trailed off. “Might as well show you.” Will extracted his creation, Jerome III’s golden heart, from his satchel. While an untrained eye may not have been able to tell the difference, to any conspirator, or any anatomist for that matter, this was a poor golden heart. It was misshapen, deformed. Too flat, too wide. It was, indeed, bigger than it should have been by a noticeable few centimeters. Will held it with both hands, running his calloused thumbs over its surface. Aldus didn’t need to inspect it further to know it was mediocre.

 

"And this wasn't your apprentice's doing?”

 

“No, dammit, it was me. Aldus, I don’t know what happened. Truly. It just didn’t come out the way it should have. My stomach was in knots, my hands must’ve slipped for half the tinkering on the anvil. And…and…” Will’s gaze turned towards the king. Towards the skin and muscle of his chest held open. Towards the shears that were still gripping a rib and held upright in place. “For the love of God, cover him up, would you?”

 

“I’m in the middle of the procedure. I’m almost done.”

 

“Almost? You should be completely done by now. Hell, my part takes longer than yours. What’s gotten into you?”

 

“Same as you, I suppose. Haven’t slept. I’m distracted.”

 

Will grunted in response. “May I, um…approach him?” Aldus nodded. Will took two tentative steps forward and stopped. “It’s not fair, you know. Never fair, these things. Rotten luck him and his fathers have had.” He took another step towards the slab and the body. He peered into the open chest. “My God, man! You haven’t even taken out the old heart yet!