royalty au
They ring the bells from dusk till dawn the day the twins come into this world. ’Two princes,’ they sing, ’the queen has borne two boys.’ The heir and the spare. But which one is which? Mere hours later, no one knows. Two pink squalling babes, one who’s destined to wear the crown, one who is promised to the church and not even their mother knows which child was the first. ’We shall see,’ the king says. ’As they grow one will stand out and the other will fade into the shadows, we shall see.’
As they grow, one child is bolder than he other, louder, braver. Gideon smiles first, walks first, talks first. Fabian cries less, stumbles less often and when he finally talks at two, his speech is nearly flawless. Once the words start flowing, they never seem to stop. ’Why is the sky blue, mother? Where do we go when we die? Why do the poor have to pay taxes, father, when they have so little and we have so much?’ When the princes are old enough to start tutoring, and Gideon seems to pick up swordplay like he was born for it, the king makes his decision.
Fabian is the spare. He still learns how to fight and to ride a horse and to shoot a bow and arrow. But he spends more time locked away in a tower with hundreds of books and his tutor who teaches him Latin, history and a whole number of things Fabian’s mother would have him burned at the stake if she ever found out about it. When he is fifteen and Gideon is knighted before the entire court, Fabian claps the loudest. The next day, the queen informs him that he is to be sent to a monastery where he will take his holy vows. ’Your brother will need you one day,’ she says, ’the church and the crown together carry the world. One cannot survive without the other.’ ‘But what if I don’t want to go,’ Fabian asks. 'You will go,’ his mother says, ’because it is your duty.’ When Gideon is told he is furious and refuses to eat for a week. In the end, Fabian stays.
They’re given another year. After that year, their father orders, Fabian must obey and promise himself to God. Gideon tries to change his mind but even he can only rebel so many times against his king. The year has almost passed when war breaks out, devastating many villages across their border. Gideon is sent off to fight the enemy and Fabian watches the horizon in fear, always waiting for that lone rider to bring home the terrible news. When Gideon returns after all, he does so a hero. And yet, it still isn’t over. Peace, Fabian learns, is a fickle thing. The rival queen is proud and unwilling to bow to his father. And while they may have won this battle, Gideon tells him in secret, they cannot afford to fight another. The cost had been too high. So Fabian does the thing he can think of. He talks. He talks until his voice is rough, and to his own surprise, the queen listens. By the end of the day, they have their peace.
The king dies on the last day of their year. Maybe it is age, maybe something else. Fabian grieves. When they bring the crown to his brother, he refuses. 'It’s to heavy’, he says, 'and far too big. Father always had a big head, his crown would not fit me. Melt it down!’ And so they pry out the rubies from the crown, and the sapphires and from the molten gold they make two new cones. The bells ring again the day they’re crowned. ’See the kings! Long may they reign!’ And they do, for another 47 years. When they die – together as it was their custom - they are succeeded by their nephew. For many years to come, he will tell his children about his uncles. There was the heir and the spare,’ he will say. ’and no one ever knew which one was which. To them it never mattered.’
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