[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/ckas8bN.png[/img][/center]

[center][h2]A King's Burdens[/h2][/center]

The streets of Naples were jammed with a thousand jeering mobs of disgruntled peasants; all of them come to convey their anger at their liege lord, for his selling of the Blue Coal deposits at Mt. Etna and Mt. Vursuvius. Indeed, their anger was infintely amplified by the fact he had actually given away Naples' sovereign land to what they perceived as an evil power.

Placards and banners were held high, decreeing slogans such as "THE KING IS THE DEVIL", and "DEATH TO PAGANI". To make matters worse, the District Marshals had withheld their troops, and so law and order of the city fell to Pagani's very own guard. He had thousands of men in his employ, each one a great warrior, each one a hero of his righteous war with Francis II. 

But thousands could not quell the multitudes of his Kingdom. 

And so, he left the safety of his palace, dressed in the same armour he wore to break the armies of Sicily almost a year ago, and marched into the street with a hundred men at his back. Immediately he was pelted by rotten fruit, yelled at, cursed at, threatened and one daring old man even came close to hitting him with a putrid fish. The King paused before them, bowed his head, and allowed their cries of anger to drown out the world around him. 

He stood there for hours, and his gleaming armour soon became soiled by the muck and the filth the peasants threw at him. His guards, nervous and anxious to defend him, were powerless to do so as he had explicitly declared them to stand down. As the sun started to decline, the voices of the peasants had become hoarse, and their rotten ammunition was running low. 

In a lull in commotion, the King saw his chance, and he lifted his head. Eyes burning with compassion. 

"My people!" He yelled, "my beautiful people! How right you are to disdain me. How right you are, to curse my name." 

The crowds fell quiet, eager to hear the man they called King. They edged close to him, straining at the shield wall his guard had created a few feet in front. 

"I have sold the Blue Coal, this is true," he continued, much to shouts of dismay. "I have too, given the lands around those deposits to the Germans."

"THE GERMANS ARE EVIL!" harked some beggar woman, with one misty eye and a set of rotting teeth. "May God have mercy upon your soul!" 

The King eyed his critic, and gave a firm nod. "Yes. I have condemned myself, this woman speaks truth." 

The crowd stirred themselves into a brazen assault on the shield-wall at these words; axe and shovel fell against the armour of the King's men, and in return, they hit back with wooden clubs. The King winced with guilt, seeing his people impassioned in this way. They truely were fearful of God, and were more than prepared to kill their King to escape his judgement. 

King Pagani wondered what Christ would make of all this. The thought brought a smile to him, oddly enough. 

There was a break in the shield wall; one of Pagani's men fell backwards with a bloody face. The crowd took the opportunity to surge through the gap, and the King's men hastily reacted to cut them off. This they did, but one peasant fought past them, and sprinted for the King. Pagani let a hand fall to his sword, but did what he could to keep a neutral face. 

The man stopped about ten paces from him, reached into his cloth tunic, and pulled forth a flint-lock pistol. Pulling back the hammer, he pointed it as his King. The crowds grasped, and Pagani's pursuing soldiers froze - not wanting to give the man cause to pull the trigger. 

"I should kill you, my King," the peasant said. He was a man of middle years. Grey circled a crown of auburn, and his tired clothing of simple wool marked as a commoner. "And by God's grace, I will do so." 

"Why?" Pagani said, bemused. "To gain your entry into Hell?" 

"To save myself from it," the peasant spat. "You promised us righteousness! You promised to undo the evils of the factories! To clear the smog! To end the slaughter of man and machine! Yet here you are, whoring yourself to the Devil for gold!" 

"I am selling the Blue Coal, so that our country becomes viable," King Pagani replied, firmly. His sword was half out of his scabbard. He weighed up his odds at cutting the man down before he pulled the trigger, and did not favour them. Appealing to the peasants' reason face-to-face had been a fatal blunder.

"Bah," the peasant sneered. "God's people always find a way. It is men like you, who slow them down. You'd lead us all into the lake of industry like a pied piper; I will not let this come to pass, devil!" 

King Pagani racked his mind for something to say, found it, and grasped it with everything he had. "I've submitted myself to Papal authority. His Holiness, Pope Pius IX, will judge me accordingly." 

For a moment the peasant's temper lulled as he contemplated his King's words. King Pagani felt himself relax, and a gentle murmuring went through the crowds. 

And then the man pulled the trigger.

And the King fell.