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My first serious attempt at fiction in a long while that I've been satisfied enough with to keep and post. Constructive criticism is very welcome! Though I feel I must apologize in advance for my verbose style. Despite my efforts to edit the text down, this story of mine still reads like the obsessively detailed and structured meta essays that make up the bulk of my fandom contributions to date. I'm no great shakes at characterization either and have an odd sense of humor. Well, I did what I could, and I hope people find a little to love in it. Should be completed in two parts, but I can't make promises for the second, as I'm an abominably slow writer prone to getting sidetracked in the worst (best?) ways.

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Bard studied the fabric spread on his desk, brow furrowed. It was the same hue of purple as the bright flowers that grew shaded by the trees along the Forest River in spring. And it shimmered. "Is there no other cloth?"

The woman sitting across from him, one Mistress Malkin and a clothier of some repute, late of Bree, glanced down as she smoothed her skirt of invisible wrinkles. "None in the color you wanted, sir." Her hands stilled, though she did not look up from where she had clasped them in her lap. "Sire."

As it became plain she would say no more without his prompting, Bard felt a growing urge to leap from his seat, grab her by the shoulders, and shake the deference out of her. Regrettably, he'd been instructed in no uncertain terms by his self-appointed masters of protocol that he must always act as befitted a king and that this meant no tantrums in view of his loyal subjects, however much they vexed him. So, instead, he asked, "Have you ordered more cloth?" careful to keep his voice even.

"Yes, sire. I have, sire." Before her pause again lengthened into an awkward silence, Bard gestured for her to continue, suppressing a sigh. He hoped she'd be able to see the movement out of the corner of her respectfully averted eye. If he had to verbally prod her for details, he didn't think he could trust himself to speak fairly. Am I so imposing a king? He almost snorted, picturing the Elvenking and Thorin Oakenshield.

Just as his patience began to fray, she haltingly offered, "The new bolts from the south won't arrive for another three months, milord."

Too late. "Very well. This shall serve." The cloth was cool and silken to the touch, very unlike his habitual wools, furs, and leathers. "I trust the designs have been sent to you?" He received a slight nod. "Then if you've no further concerns..." Mistress Malkin was as unmoving as the Lonely Mountain, spine straight and stiff a handspan from the cushioned back of her chair, gaze now fixed on the floor between her feet. "I'll expect the finished robes in a week's time. You have my leave to go."

After his final appointment for the day all but fled out the door, reflexively bowing every few steps over an armful of purple fabric, Bard let his head fall with a thunk to his desk, which was layered in parchment and still smelled strongly of varnish. A horde of battling trolls seemed trapped in his skull. Bard thought wistfully of his bed, but there were quarterly accounts to review, a stack of construction plans awaiting his approval, import and export figures to tally, the brief on the latest census...

Rebuilding Dale was hard work, tiring and consuming, yet gratifyingly easy in a way. There was no question of what had to be done and no shortage of willing hands to do it—crofters to farm the outlying fields, long fallow; fishermen and hunters to scour the wilds for game; carpenters and stonemasons to raise houses; bakers and butchers, washerwomen and seamstresses, guardsmen, blacksmiths, cobblers, weavers, laborers—all these Dale had aplenty. And as the detritus of Dale's ruin was cleared away, the town slowly but surely reviving, merchants and skilled artisans from afar, the nervous Mistress Malkin among them, were attracted by the prospect of a market on the rise.

Sigrid paid a visit to every shop that opened. Two months past, a pastry maker had come from distant Lossarnach, and Sigrid was especially delighted with his wares. She bought a selection of breads and cakes each morn: warm, flaky sweet buns filled with fresh jam for their breakfast table and delicate honey tarts decorated with frosted roses to grace their afternoon tea service. While Bard sometimes worried that Sigrid spoiled Bain and Tilda too much, he had only to remember the hardships they suffered the winter following Laketown's destruction to find he couldn't deny them such small pleasures.

Then, the Laketown refugees were utterly dependent on the charity of their Elven and Dwarven neighbors, who had little enough of their own to spare with harvests postponed by war. Mass starvation was narrowly prevented by strict rationing, but many sickened and died. That the children of Dale could stuff themselves silly with cookies and candied fruits less than a year later was a reassuring sign of the town's and, indeed, the entire region's increasing prosperity. The halls of Erebor rang day and night with the sounds of industry, hammer and pickax bringing forth the wealth of the Lonely Mountain. Trade routes stretched deep into the south and west, the roads safer since the Battle of Five Armies saw the greater part of the Wilderland's orcs and goblins slain. Colorful paper kites flew where once the fear of the dragon lay heavy upon the land. All this was as Bard had wished when he first claimed lordship over Dale.

What Bard had not foreseen, however, and the reason for his current headache was the avid interest his people would take in their king's life as soon as they no longer teetered on the edge of survival. There had been no King of Dale for near two centuries, and the novelty of his existence was slow to wear off.

It started innocently enough, with a collective realization that the royal family still lived in a modest two-story house on the outskirts of town with a kitchen, two bedrooms, a common room used mostly for dining, and no room at all for holding court. Rather, Bard routinely walked his realm from end to end meeting petitioners in their homes, shops, or wherever they happened to be. The consensus was that, though this may have been an acceptable stopgap measure when Dale could boast no more than a few hundred inhabitants in makeshift shelters, as Dale was to be restored to her former glory, her acclaimed king, the famed dragonslayer, should live in kingly comfort.

The Men of Dale had long grown accustomed in Laketown to deciding matters of importance in a crowd, so everyone convened in the town square early this spring to see about building a royal palace. Girion's estate was situated atop a gentle hillock overlooking the market, but naught remained of it except the foundations and a half dozen shattered walls. Smaug had torn the rest down with claw and fire in his search for treasure.

Nonetheless, all agreed the king's residence should not be moved from that prime location, which offered some of the best views of the surrounding countryside. The lead architect was likewise an unanimous choice: Master Findegil, who'd apprenticed in Minas Tirith under a guild draftsman in his youth and whose son was learning his father's trade so well the lad's work had already won praise.

Where contention arose was in the debate on what amenities the new palace ought to provide besides such requisites as a grand audience chamber and a grand feasting hall that could seat a hundred each. Bard had to veto a surprising number of ideas he deemed extravagant follies.

"No, there will be no moat. How did you come by this fancy?"

"I've heard tell, my lord, that the ancient capital of the Sea-kings was on an island in the middle of a great river. The court could while away the hours taking pleasure cruises and watching the white swan ships. Isn't that marvelous, sire? If you would but consent to the addition of a wide moat, lined with gardens perhaps—"

"Holte, have you forgotten that Long Lake lies only a day's trip down the River Running? If I want to revisit my past as a bargeman, I'd just as well do it there and do right by my crown also in paying my respects to the people of Laketown or even the Wood Elves."

"You are of course wise, my lord. What say you to fountains instead? And I still urge you to consider gardens, topiaries or one of those hedge mazes—"

Weeks of pleading his case to Bard and the townsfolk later, Holte got his gardens, complete with a couple fountains, some topiaries, and a small hedge maze in one corner. Master Findegil, his son in tow, had set out at the start of summer to find with the aid of Dwarven guides a suitable quarry or three to supply Dale with the quantities of marble and other fine stone needed. The last Bard saw of the floor plans, the palace had expanded around the great halls to include sprawling living quarters for him and his family plus dozens of guests, a warren of kitchens, housing for servants and barracks for guardsmen, stables, smithy and armory, a healing ward, treasury, and library. When Findegil returned, Bard intended to finalize the designs. He wanted no more well-meant additions to a place he had enough difficulty imagining anyone ever calling a home.

It would be years before the palace was ready. Bard, meanwhile, held court in a one-room extension to his house, built seemingly overnight once it was decided (by referendum) that it wasn't proper for the king to go about running errands around town at all hours, unescorted. He'd nearly put an arrow through a startled carpenter's eye when he awoke one morning to the sound of someone sawing a hole in a wall downstairs.

His new study was walled in wood, but the floor was tiled stone, the peaked ceiling supported not by rough hewn beams but arching columns, sanded smooth and ringed top and bottom with carven ivy wreaths. A broad fireplace and stone chimney dominated one end, a row of tall, narrow windows with shutters for winter along the adjacent side.

Bard thought it a wonder that this was meant for him, with more to come. And the feature he was most grateful for were the shelves that lined the wall facing the windows. Ever since the first shipments of parchment from the Elves were received, the paperwork of his kingdom had been accumulating like snowdrifts in a corner of his bedroom on the barrels and planks that passed for a desk.

Also of help were his personal guards, two weedy, fresh-faced lads of ten and nine who'd otherwise be underfoot in their mothers' kitchens. Bard had no illusions that Dreng and Ingvar could defend him, of course, armed with half a bargepole each against a stray orc or warg—in truth, he would never allow them to try—but they did good service as pages. He gave Ingvar care of his bow, too, and Dreng, his quiver when he made his daily rounds to the construction sites and weekly trips to the outlying farms, the boys at his heels.

Thus Bard settled into his office as spring turned to summer, like wearing a pair of new boots, not yet comfortable but becoming so. He hoped he'd be prepared to assume all his royal panoply in a few years' time when the palace was livable. He didn't expect his loyal subjects to keep pressing upon him the trappings of kingship. Not until the first furniture maker showed up unannounced on his doorstep as summer waned.

Master Léofwine took one look at Bard's then desk of barrels and planks, empty crates stacked next to the entrance for petitioners, and left without a word before Bard could ask him his business. He returned two nights later with small scale models of a monstrous semicircular bureau and matching chairs. While appreciative of the drawer space, Bard was far less keen on Léofwine's designs of elaborate scrollwork gilded in gold and inlaid mosaics of precious stones, finally talking the man down to the compromise of a bit of gold leaf for edging and leave to craft in different woods by dint of claiming (falsely) that his attention to his duties would suffer with too eye-catching a desk. Léofwine was not long gone to the lumber yards when another of his trade came to Bard with a sweeping proposal to furnish every bedroom in the king's residences, current and future, with four-poster and canopy beds.

Tables, desks, wardrobes, cabinets, chests, chairs, benches, and beds of all shapes and styles imaginable—Bard had never in his life to that point seen so much furniture as he did in the month following his commission of Léofwine for a six-piece study set. He at last was able to curb his people's enthusiasm by posting a public edict that, until further notice, the crown would not be hiring any artisans for the palace except to build its essential structure. Under this was a listing of rejected commodities that continually grew as Bard refused one offer of service after another: No furniture. No draperies or linens. No tapestries or carpets. No paintings, sculptures, or curios. Candlesticks, mirrors, vases, clocks, and musical instruments not desired. What he was supposed to do with a clavichord besides pile the top high with books and papers, Bard didn't know.

In the end, the most persistent of the lot proved to be the tableware makers. Their argument that Bard and his family had to eat, however, that the king could do with a set of silver or fine china to impress distinguished guests with had merit, Bard decided. So, he agreed to review their designs and select two, one for formal occasions and another for more regular use, though it all seemed excessive for a man accustomed to plain wooden plates and clay bowls. To his bemusement, Bard quickly found these craftsmen were as fanciful as the rest.

"—commemorating Your Majesty's slaying of the dragon Smaug. The rim of each dish will be plated with overlapping layers of shaped gold to create the effect of scales. Framed in the centers will be the famed black arrow, inlaid in galvorn across etched scenes of Smaug atop his hoard, Smaug in flight, Smaug setting Laketown ablaze, Smaug—"

"Thank you for your presentation, Master Fastolf. Your services won't be required. Call it an eccentricity, if you will, but having killed the beast and nearly died doing so, I have no wish to see Smaug's face at the bottom of my soup tureen. Please send in the next in line on your way out. Good day to you, sir."

A set of silverware molded with the raised forms of harvest fruits and vegetables, engraved with borders of grain and studded with cut emeralds the size of grape seeds. A set of glazed porcelain inked in shades of blue with views of Laketown and Dale of old, accented in gold. Matching utensils and a set of crystal glasses. Bard chose a couple of the less ostentatious designs that would still satisfy his people's expectations of kingly luxury and thought the matter settled, figuring he'd check that all was in order when the dishes were delivered, then box them away in some corner of his home and continue eating as he had his entire life, on wood or clay with a single spoon and knife.

Only Bard was in for a rude awakening when the first place settings of china were presented for his inspection several weeks ago. The plates were lovely, to be sure, but there were more of them than Bard really knew what to do with and a bewildering number of spoons, forks, knives, and glasses. He realized that, should he be seated at a table laid with such a spread of flatware and cutlery, whether his own or another's, he would be as lost as if he were at sea far from the sight of shore. And an embarrassment to Dale, his title and his heritage, Bard did not want to be.

His children came to his rescue. In addition to housework and helping their father with odd jobs, Sigrid, Bain, and Tilda were learning history, figures, geography, and languages. Bard could read and write well enough to get by, find his way east of Mirkwood south to the Old Forest Road with confidence, and count his realm's wealth, years of borderline illegal trading under the Master of Laketown's cumbersome system of tariffs and tolls giving him a decent head for finance. But, Bard felt, his children should have the noble's education he could never have dreamed of and, towards that end, he sent to the Elvenking for a tutor as the new year began.

Gilvagor was not by training a scholar, as Bard understood it, but a warrior in the woodland guard with an unusual inclination to travel. Like all Elves, however, he was fluent in Sindarin and proved an engaging teacher of history by virtue of having lived through much of it, as he originally hailed from Doriath.

Every two months, Gilvagor made the trip from the Elvenking's halls to Dale with the weekly supply shipments and stayed a fortnight, instructing Bard's children and ranging the lands to the east on daylong rides. Though he boarded with the family when in town, Gilvagor declined Bard's offer of room, preferring to sleep in an enclosed platform—"called telain, Da, flets"—he constructed himself in the treetops of a grove on the far bank of the River Running.

"You are generous, Master Bowman," Gilvagor told Bard, "but even so curious an Elf as I wearies of the press of Men and would take rest in some green place under the light of Elbereth's stars, if he can." A smile brightened his fair Elven face like sunlight flashing on the water of a clear forest brook. "Worry not! You are a fine host and your children, a delight." Then Gilvagor slung his bow over his shoulder and ambled off to join a hunting party, with a merry tune on his lips and one last carelessly graceful wave at Bard. Who wondered if the lighthearted abandon of these ancient creatures in their joy would ever fail to startle him.

Conscious that Dale's prosperity depended on good relations with the Dwarves as well as the Elves, Bard requested of King Dáin and was granted permission for Bain to regularly visit Erebor. There, he observed the Dwarves as they labored in the mines and at the forges, even attending public audiences, as the King Under the Mountain and his folk allowed. Bard suggested to Dáin that his son not be spared hard work, so Bain spent much of his day in Erebor, when not studying arithmetic and geometry under a Master Dofur, running messages, bringing food to those too busy to sit for meals, and doing other small tasks. He always came home for the night swaying on his feet in exhaustion but happy and would regale the family over their breakfast rolls with tales of what he had seen and who he had met.

Bittersweet it was for Bard to watch his children's world grow beyond the one he knew. Bain could speak of the Battle of Azanulbizar with authority, and Sigrid read by the fireplace in the evenings, engrossed in a book of the lays of Beleriand gifted to her by Gilvagor. Her favorite was the story of Beren and Lúthien, showing a romantic streak Bard had believed dead in his eldest with her mother. Tilda asked questions that Bard could not answer about people, places, and things he had never heard of. Though it amused him to no end that Tilda once stumped Gilvagor with her demand that the Elf explain why he could walk atop the snow when he was bigger than her and she couldn't.

In retrospect, it was no surprise that Sigrid, Bain, and even Tilda knew more of court protocol and etiquette than did Bard, for their learning in many respects far surpassed their father's, to his great pride but also to his sorrow, for they no longer needed him as they once did.

The sun was setting when he opened his eyes, his study aglow in red and orange like a smoldering fire. I must have dozed off, Bard thought, and he silently berated himself for leaving his papers untended. He stretched, trying to unknot the muscles in his neck, then shivered. It'd been getting colder faster the past week, before the last light faded, as winter approached.

A knock sounded on the door to the hallway that led to the house. "Da, you're late for supper. I thought you might be busy, so I brought you some food." Sigrid let herself in, carrying a wooden tray with a bowl of stew and loaf of bread.

Bard ran one hand through his hair while shoving account books aside with the other to clear space on his desk for Sigrid to set the tray. "I'm sorry, Sigrid. I fell asleep." Curls of steam rose from the stew, a hearty mix of vegetables sprinkled with herbs; the warm bread looked good and smelled better. Bard suddenly realized he was famished. "Are Bain and Tilda finished eating?" he asked, as he spooned himself a mouthful of stew.

"Don't you worry about them," Sigrid said, the corner of her mouth upturned as she broke a chunk off the bread and handed it to her father, who thanked her with an absent nod, spoon still moving steadily between bowl and lips. "Bain's reading to her from the Elvish picturebook Gilvagor brought last time." The shadows had darkened and lengthened as they spoke. Sigrid looked at the unlit candles and fireplace, then rounded on Bard in reproach, a frown on her face and hands planted on her hips. "Were you going to work all night again, Da? In the cold, with no light?"

"No, of course not." Bard could not help but smile at Sigrid. How like her mother she seemed! Brow creased in angry concern, back straight and feet spread, ready to kick an offending miscreant into obedience if necessary, eyes bright and color as high on her cheeks as her temper ran hot. "We have etiquette lessons tonight, remember?"

Sigrid drew a small bundle of matches from her dress pocket and lit the candles on Bard's desk. "That's right. Now you finish eating while I go fetch some quilts. You can work a couple more hours—I'll get my knitting and sit with you—but I won't have you falling ill." She eyed Bard critically, who tried his best to look cowed. "Lessons later tonight, then it's off to bed for you," she declared with a firm nod, before sweeping from the room, every bit a regal princess.

Bard was amused to see traces of Gilvagor's light carriage and gait in Sigrid's walk, the haughty tilt of her head and her measured but swift steps. The Elf was as effective a model of deportment, if an entirely unconscious one, as he was a tutor of history, geography, and languages.

Reminded of his own lack of refinement, Bard grimaced, even as he scraped his bowl clean of stew with the last of the bread. Sigrid and Bain had been teaching him how to act as befitted a king since Tilda found him staring one afternoon at his new china place settings, frustrated, and helpfully shifted the rows of forks and knives to their correct positions on the left and right of the plates, respectively; Bard had them reversed, for his habit was to hold his knife in his left hand. Gilvagor wasn't due back until next month, but the children, taking to their self-appointed mission wholeheartedly, sent to him for books on the customs of Men. The response came within a week: a single large and heavy tome as thick as Bard's thumb penned by a Breelander with the curious name of Marcus Pokeberry titled Book of the Marvels of the World, With Especial Discourses on Court Fashions.

Gilvagor wrote an accompanying note of apology, explaining that the Elves of the Woodland Realm didn't have much traffic with Men, as did their Noldorin kin west of the Misty Mountains, save only the people of Esgaroth and Dale, so there was regrettably little to be read on the subject of Mannish cultures in King Thranduil's library. A Lord Erestor, curator of Lord Elrond of Rivendell's far more extensive collection of lore, might be of more aid, and Gilvagor offered to make inquiries on Sigrid's behalf. Imagining a bevy of dignified ages-old Elf-lords earnestly combing shelves and rooms filled with hundreds upon thousands of books and scrolls to remedy his ignorance, Bard had Sigrid decline.

Instead, Bard paged dutifully through Marcus Pokeberry's ponderous treatise with Sigrid and Bain two nights a week, hoping to glean some insights on how the kings of Men arranged matters of court. Bard in truth thought many of the ceremonies and traditions described exceedingly odd.

"Petitioners had to kneel and touch their foreheads to the floor over their crossed hands? That sounds... uncomfortable."

"Says here you had to do it every ten paces when approaching the high king and couldn't get up until he let you. You won't have everybody bowing like that, will you, Da?"

"Bain, can you see fat Agmund bending over his knees without flopping onto his side? Or old Birna staying on her stiff joints and not stripping the skin off your poor da with curses? No. What else is there?"

His dedicated assistants' current interest was royal regalia. Bard had not even a crown to his office at the moment. Dale's fourteenth share of Smaug's treasure included wrought gold, jewels, and other precious things as well as unwrought, but Bard left that portion in the vaults of Erebor for safekeeping and as a line of credit in trade with the Dwarves. Rather, he opted to draw exclusively on the gold and silver coinage, which was of better practical use than gem-encrusted goblets and circlets as legal tender in Bree, Rohan, Gondor, and beyond.

One item alone did Bard request of King Dáin—the emeralds of Girion. Five hundred of the purest stones ranging in color from the light green of spring leaves to a green so dark as to appear black at first glance, set in a necklace made of white gold and silver filigree, chased with platinum. This Bard gifted to the Elvenking before he returned to his forest home last year in gratitude for the succor he gave the Lakemen in their direst need.

King Thranduil would come again to Dale in one month and King Dáin, as well, for the one-year anniversary of the Battle of Five Armies, which though unlooked for and terrible saw the allied forces of Elves, Men, and Dwarves victorious, to be bound in friendship ever after. The long expected meeting added a sense of urgency, if not quite outright panic, to all that the Men of Dale did.

The rebuilding proceeded apace, for while it had been decided their guests would be hosted in tents on the grassy knolls west of town, the townsfolk wanted their home to seem fair regardless. Every able body that could otherwise be spared was put to tending the outlying fields and orchards. The bleak and barren Desolation of Smaug proved surprisingly fertile, as if the land itself had been awaiting but the dragon's death to sprout anew, and this autumn's harvest would be bountiful, enough for the weeks of festivities planned, supplemented by the Elven and Dwarven stores to be brought for Dale's kitchens. Busy also were the weavers and tailors, carpets and tapestries flying off the looms to decorate the pavilions while bolt upon bolt of cloth was stitched and embroidered into finery for the occasion. Dale had regained some of her beauty and prosperity of old this past year, and her people were eager to show it.

Naturally, the frenzied preparations did not miss Dale's king. Silverware and china of the two designs Bard chose earlier this summer would grace the banquet tables before the Elvenking and King Under the Mountain in the welcoming and farewell feasts. And Bard had finally conceded to Master Fastolf's pleas that three large golden platters commemorating Smaug's demise at His Majesty's hands be used as centerpieces, but only after Fastolf presented to him a petition in favor with the signatures of three-quarters of the town.

Dreng and Ingvar, faces flushed beet-red, told Bard of a scheme hatched by a dozen of their agemates to stand together as his honor escort. The protection afforded Bard by teenaged guards, the eldest of whom had just turned fourteen, was not much improved by numbers, but the gathering would already be well defended by the contingents of Elven and Dwarven warriors in attendance, so Bard saw no reason to deny the boys their fun. No doubt they were excited at the prospect of seeing great lords up close and hearing war stories from soldiers with centuries of fighting experience.

More alarming was the fact that the boys' mothers wanted to know what uniforms their sons would wear, and this inevitably led to the question of what the king himself would wear. Between months of hearing construction proposals, fending off overly solicitous craftsmen, and working daily rotations on the farms when the harvest reached its peak, the thought that he might wish to be attired more richly and formally than was his wont never once occurred to Bard. Nor did he have the faintest idea what would be appropriate.

It was with relief that Bard let Sigrid—who'd been asked many times, to her amusement, about the contents of her father's wardrobe on recent trips to the market—take charge of dressing the family for state events. She and Bain consulted Marcus Pokeberry, Mistress Malkin, and others of her trade without much input from Bard aside from his measurements and approving selections of fabrics. The latter proved tiresome enough, however, in choosing which colors he preferred. "Mustard yellow or goldenrod, sire?" What did it matter, Bard wondered, so long as he was warm and his modesty preserved?

What truly concerned Bard was that he not fail in diplomacy. Thranduil and Dáin had long been rulers of their people, king and lord, while Bard poled barges on the Forest River. Before my line was born even! He was bold in speaking to Thorin Oakenshield before the gates of Erebor but, looking back on his actions then, Bard thought he showed less patience than was warranted and the barest civility, weary and heartsick as he was in considering the plight of his people if Thorin refused to relent. Admit, too, that you would not easily surrender your hopes of hearing golden bells ring again in Dale. After watching the black arrow in flight towards Smaug as Laketown burned around him, knowing there would be no second chance, war with the Dwarves, the Elvenking at his side, held no fear for him. Negotiations went ill, and events may have gone worse, had all not found common cause against the orcs and goblins. The blame for that could not be laid solely at Oakenshield's feet, Bard had since admitted.

Not that I fear a wrong word will start a war. Bard hoped he, Thranduil, and Dáin were beyond that; the Battle of Five Armies taught that they were better friends than foes, and the lesson would not soon be forgotten. But Bard was more aware now that missteps on his part could cost Dale in custom and good will. And the image of the survivors of Laketown huddled cold and destitute on the shores of Long Lake as the ashes of their homes sank into the water beside the agent of their ruin wasn't so fresh in his mind, making him brave, almost insolent, in treating with his fellow leaders, theoretically his peers in rank but in actuality his superiors in experience.

So, Bard pored over Dale's accounts, trying to learn the needs of his realm inside and out. It helped that the greater part of Dale's expenses was still financed by the crown's gold in the form of subsidies for agriculture and infrastructure. Though, Bard realized, he'd eventually have to hire an Alfrid or two of his own, preferably more honest, as Dale's internal market grew, food exports to Erebor rose, and imported luxuries, like silks from Far Harad or the hundreds of white and rosy pearls from Belfalas received by the town jewelers not four days ago, made Dale a major center for trade.

He groaned thinking of the interviews he must hold and nearly put his head back down onto his desk. Bard's petitioners seemed to be either determined to see him living in as much wealth as Smaug, his sensibilities be damned, or deferential to the point that carrying on a conversation was as painful as pulling an arrow out of his arm, a comparison Bard could personally attest to. He liked speech with the builders and crofters he met on his rounds best, men too occupied to dwell on his kingship.

Finally, shaking his head at his woolgathering, Bard reached for the brief on the latest census—a report of Dale's increasing population sorted by family, gender, age, and vocation tallied and in fact taken by Bain. Sigrid would soon return, too, ready to enforce the schedule she'd set for him tonight. Bard had wasted enough time. Resolute, he began reading.

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TBC