Tyrant's Throne (The Greatcoats #4)

by Sebastien de Castell

‘Yes, well, I can’t help it: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ ‘That’s not what that sentence means.’

Isn't it tho? This is like that falsified predication of the "Inconceivable" line. They both used it correctly!

So given that we have water on one side and land on the other, how exactly could we be going the wrong way?’

Bc its all relative to destination...

‘You make it sound hopeless.’ She gave me a rueful smile and held up her guitar. ‘I am a Bardatti, Falcio: a troubadour. I play hope every night, and joy twice on weekends. But when the hour grows late and the work day approaches, even I must play the ugly truth for all to hear.’

I’d spent much of the last fifteen years experiencing both those phenomena and had never needed alcohol to achieve them.

‘For someone whose job is to keep this place standing, perhaps you should fix the fucking gaps in the floors rather than casting aspersions at others.’

Morn ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘Hate is a heavy load to carry around with you. Rangieri are travellers by trade and by nature, and a traveller cannot afford to carry wasted burdens.’

‘So damned cocky, aren’t you? I have half a mind to void the bout. What do you think about that?’ I grinned. ‘To be honest, your Majesty, I’ve always suspected you had only half a mind. It speaks highly of you that you can admit to it.’

Does that sound like the girl who – before she was even on the throne – repudiated more than a thousand years of royal prerogative by telling the common folk that they need never again kneel to the monarch?’

Then why the hell are any of the dukes trying to get her lawful rule in the first place!!!

‘I wouldn’t trust that little shit with passing the salt,’ I said.

That's absolutely great

Once my soldiers are inside the castle they can hold it against five times that number.’

How? The palace is indefensible as it's half collapsed, how would you expect to withstand a siege?

I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but I’m all right – I don’t want to look fat at my hanging, do I?’

Pristine

Stop him”,’ he said to me. ‘“If the time comes . . . If Falcio abandons the law, you have to be the one to stop him. That is the final command I give you, Kest Murrowson though it breaks both your heart and mine”.’

Wow

But a dream unchecked by conscience, unrestrained by the law? That’s the first step towards tyranny, Falcio.’

That drew an unexpected chortle from Kest, who looked both surprised and a little mortified by the slightly high-pitched sound. ‘Don’t make me laugh like that,’ he said, returning to his usual reserved expression. ‘It’s humiliating.’ ‘Perhaps you should take a break from mastering fighting techniques one day and spend a little time practising a slightly less embarrassing laugh.’

the magnitude of what he’d done for me.

Btw if kests mission was to stop falcio, why did he give up at the fight? He could have got back up and knocked out falcio or something. Or even with sheer skill he could have defeated falcio despite the blade at his throat possibly. Did kest fail at his mission, or did he perhaps trust falcio just a bit more than the king? It certainly seems the latter, and if so, wow what an arc!

As a child, long before I learned that it was we who had shaped the Gods and not the other way around, I thought they must have marvelled at their strange creations:

I know its fiction, but the inherent paradox within this statement clarifies my biggest complaint with this series.

no one ever saw the little boy.

Someone drew him...

She shook her head. ‘The Saints’ Awe cannot be wielded as a sword, and should we try, I fear for what might happen.’ She stood up straighter. ‘But I will fight, whether the rest of the Orders unite or not.’

Another contradictory idea?

‘Anything you two want to add?’ I asked. Kest looked uncertain. ‘It comes down to a choice between Law and Justice – and they are two very different things, Falcio, despite how hard you’ve tried to unite them. The simple fact is that Filian is King now, and so it’s every citizen’s lawful obligation to defend him, and thus the country.’

‘Justice? It’s not. That’s my point: if you want justice, then go and murder Trin right now. Kill Filian too, and put someone else on the throne – someone you believe will serve the people and not the foul plans of a dead Duchess whose visceral loathing of her own country has brought us here, to the brink of destruction.’

What exactly is so bad with fillian?

‘You know that it is in Filian’s nature to be a good King, and that the law demands his coronation, yet you fear that my influence will – to your way of thinking – corrupt him.’

Ok so that was the entire reason

One by one those who had come to Aramor willing to sacrifice themselves in a hopeless war held their hands up high, gold coins pressed between thumbs and forefingers, catching the sunlight like a thousand stars shining in the dawn. This, I thought, overcome by the sight of them all. This was Paelis’ dream! Not some paltry hundred and forty-four magistrates with our swords and our coats, but the jurors: ordinary men and woman armed with nothing.

I considered my next words carefully. The problem with Morn’s plans for a better country was that he wanted to replace one tyranny with another, making us a judiciary rather than a monarchy. What Tristia needed was something else entirely.

you can’t hang a corpse for treason. Oh no, wait, I forgot – people are doing that now, aren’t they?’

‘Valiana might have just convinced the King to make Tristia into a constitutional monarchy.’

Why not a republic?

‘She kept saying she needed to go back.’ ‘What? Why?’ Brasti asked. Quil turned and looked at Arsehole. ‘She said she needed to make sure her horse was okay.’ One of the other Greatcoats laughed at that, but I didn’t. I bent down and as I lifted Chalmers up so that I could take her to her tent, Quil and I kept staring at each other. For all the disputes over the direction of the country or who should or shouldn’t rule, at least we agreed on one thing. We all knew what a Greatcoat was.

Powerful

‘We thought we were saving the country,’

Yeah I'm still not sure that Morn had it so wrong...

‘Her name was Aline.’

If u kneel at the end of this speech, that would be fire.

twenty-one in all,

Didn't we say that Morn's greatcoats numbered in the forties?

‘A pirate?’ Brasti yelled incredulously. ‘Damn it, Falcio! I told you we should’ve—

Brasti may never become a Saint, but for those few hours, he was theirs.

Kest, Bresti and I watched with a kind of reverance as she went through those simple motions. There’s a sacredness in bearing witness when a man or woman – not a God or Saint, but just a regular person – readies themselves to give up everything in service to this strange creation of humanity that we call the Law.

‘I love you now as I have always loved you – as I always will love you. But I was trained to govern as a King and you would have me rule as a Tyrant.’