While many scholars gloss over the ensuing decade of Rolly’s life as an uneventful age, crucial character development took place at this stage which accounts for his actions later in life. Historians who skip over this period are quick to denounce Rolly’s later policies as irrational and regard his motives as a mystery when, had they only examined the influences of these ignored years, they would have all the elements necessary to complete the profile.
From the moment that the King’s envoy Ligau arrived requesting their attendance at court that day, until the time they stood alone with Rolly watching their daughters depart, Rolly’s father predicted his encroaching trial and execution for the crime of pilfering royal goods. Paranoia took captive of his mind and panic commanded his body. Even after the king explained the purpose of his summons, Rolly’s father could not shed his guilt and suspicion. He was miserable at court, and from the moment Rolly entered the room and saw the two together, his vacation too, ended. During the ensuing ball, when both brothers simultaneously dropped upon their knees and confessed undying love to Phete and Ani, and the entire court erupted in revelry and celebration, Rolly and his parents acted more stoic than even the royal guards. Rolly’s father’s sense of impending doom emanated from his person to envelop his son and wife. This intensified when the king announced that he would arrange a flotilla to escort Rolly’s family back to the Black Pass, where they were to fetch Phete and Ani’s belongings and bring them back to court.
This practice was actually customary in noble families prior to marriage. The girls needed training to advance to their position. They needed to assemble an entourage, and assimilate into the royal family before the ceremony. The planning for the marriage alone would take months and this could not happen with the girls living at Black Pass. Rolly’s father, focused only on the impending discovery of his ill-gotten gains, dismissed these rationalizations and descended further into his distemper.
In constant company of the royal family they could do nothing to prepare the house for their arrival, and when the flotilla arrived at Black Pass, Rolly’s mother immediately assumed control, ordering the servants to receive the royal family in style.
Rolly’s father threw himself into his favorite chair the moment they arrived home and remained there until the party’s departure. The king, who had lived his whole life in the finery of noble life, found nothing in the least incongruous with the fittings of the toll-collector’s household. In fact, he felt down-right comfortable there. Rolly’s father paled and slouched even further when the servants brought forth the olives, cured ham and wine taken in taxes from the royal ships. The king complimented their tastes, and thoroughly approved of the lifestyle his future daughters in law had been raised within. He even offered his best architects to help repair the lopsided castle. The only element the king found any fault with, in fact, was Rolly’s father. Judging from his morose temperament and the mass amounts of wine he quaffed (to calm his nerves) the king suspected that he had long drowned his wits from him and assessed that Rolly had in fact run the toll operation for many years. He vested Rolly with all the accolades due to the success of the Black Pass and now comprehended why his father could not part with him. He left them with promises of future favor.
The moment the flotilla containing the king’s entourage shrunk from view, Rolly’s father tore the hat from his head and continued to beat Rolly so fiercely with it that he almost drove his son from the precipice of the bridge. From that moment forth, he would never have a kind word for Rolly, but instead, subjected him to the most brutal treatment, and, ironically, he eventually succumbed to embody the King’s estimate. One would think that his near exposure would have caused him to correct his taking of extra tithes, but on the contrary, he seemed to rationalize that, since his daughters had married into the family, his person was now an extension of it and was owed his due. When a ship came in, he no longer bothered to observe from the bridge and sent Rolly out directing that he only bring the best of what he found on board. He barely left his chair at all and instead, stationed it at the window, his drink at his elbow. Soon he could no longer lift himself from his chair, and, within five years of his daughters’ marriages, he was dead.
At the dual wedding that took place at the castle a year after the faire, Ectron bestowed to his heirs the nuptial gifts of two new castles to be erected on the east and western regions of his kingdom. The couples would continue to live in the capital until the completion of their fortresses. Ani and Lew would live in the west, and Phete and Eno the east. In their marital bliss neither brother thought to quibble about this. The nature of their chosen spouses had served to even out their temperaments. Lew had an exacting and temperate nature, and found himself naturally infatuated with Ani’s somewhat brash spirit, which helped to soften his critical side. Eno, the philosophical one, no longer took off on flights of fancy with Phete, the always rational smile of reason, as his top counsel.
However, much like how Rolly’s father could never forgive his son for risking his exposure, Ectron’s perception of his sons as perpetual rivals never wavered, and for this reason he kept them under his eye until he died. He used the unfinished construction of the palaces as his excuse. He chose central yet remote locations for both, and through the course of the decade of building, towns of craftsman grew around them, so that when the couples finally moved in, with their children, they already had a colony of skilled workers and their families to support them. Both towns, constructed by only the best hands in the kingdom, were well laid out, with a relatively intelligent populace of skilled individuals who, proud of their work, projected that pride onto its occupants.
During his lifetime, Rolly’s father rejected the king’s offer to renovate the old timber castle at the Black Pass, but with his death, when the king came to pay his respects, Rolly and his mother now eagerly accepted the opportunity, but Rolly, seeing how the towns had begun to grow around the castles built for his sisters, asked that they use local craftsmen for the construction, using only the royal architects and building stipend.
The years after the faire and before his father succumbed had left Rolly wizened. He had attended the opulent wedding of his sisters, and the king had often found reasons to call him to court, but as his father’s health declined, Rolly could only accept the invitation once a year, and would return to such wrath that made him less susceptible to the temptation. With more exposure, he found himself less enamored with the frivolities of the court, and having known both lives, more keenly comprehended his advantage over those who had only known comfort. He anticipated his father’s death with impatience, and once the reins were passed at last, he executed the plans with such exactitude and finesse to validate Ectron’s preconceived opinion of him.
He mimicked the King’s castle construction to give the townspeople something to work towards. He paid them in the goods he had skimmed off the ships that came through which made the town trade wealthy. Part of the construction of the castle’s foundation included a new moorage dock to the north, where travelers could tie up and come ashore to trade. He reinforced the river on that side with a stone embankment with stairs up to a wide pavilion. There, he encouraged merchants to set up shop, and planted the suggestions to those involved using casual conversation.
Rolly had maintained his relationship with Thenen, whose own father had also passed by that time, and between the two of them gathered that the king knew little of what actual commerce passed through the tolls. They became curious about the habits of the other toll collectors and set out to find if any standard existed. The two then split the river, Thenen traveling north and Rolly south, to meet with the other toll collectors to assess the tolls they levied. They found that each only knew to collect what their father had charged, which varied, and moreover, each and every toll collector kept a large storage area of pilfered goods. With the exception of himself and Thenen, all the toll collectors were old men, some in the more remote areas resembled hermits, living alone or with a wife, who maintained a modest household. If they had sons, those sons had long left in search of adventure.
Some of the old men seemed to boast quite openly about their accumulation of goods, and finally Rolly asked one of the old hermit ilk, how he felt so confident to do so. The man seemed surprised that Rolly knew nothing of the Decree of the Tamall. He gestured to a copy, preserved in a tapestry hanging on the wall.
Approximately 200 years earlier, when the Great White Dynasty first conquered the entire river basin and joined it under one crown, the then king created the toll citadels with the initial intention of watching the river from intruders. So not as to stifle river trade activity, the king built the tolls to give the king’s representatives an inoffensive excuse to stop and board the vessels. To protect the loyalty of the toll collectors the decree also stipulated that the collector may take something of value for themselves or the commerce of their township from each vessel as their pay. Both Rolly and Thenen’s fathers had the social interest to invest in the townspeople who surrounded them, while those toll collectors living as hermits had hoarded all the booty for themselves. Eventually, the merchants in those districts heard word of better trade in Black Pass or other more generous toll stops and moved their families there, abandoning the hermits with their wares and leaving only agricultural commerce in those regions.
Recalling King Ectron’s initial offer of a court position, Rolly approached his now close friend armed with his findings and ready to argue for an appointment as a royal toll magistrate who could regulate the southern toll citadels for the king and nation’s favor. He would recommend Thenen as the regulator of the north, which, since the Black Pass southward encompassed more area and Virn’s Bend northward, by virtue of being closer to the capital, had more established commerce, would even out the territory nicely while preventing either from accruing too much power.
Ectron listened politely to the proposal. He had aged rapidly since the marriage of his sons and the peace that followed. Once free of any major conflict, his faculty for change had withered with his ambitions. He complimented Rolly on the scope of his proposal, and told him that he would consider it.
Years passed, the renovation of the castle at Black Pass was near complete and still the King continued to acknowledge the wisdom of the idea but withheld his approval.
By this time Thenen had married and fathered a son and a daughter but Rolly felt hesitant to search for a wife until he had a defined station in life. His title would dictate the caliber of bride he could attract, and with so much exposure to the demure court beauties, the country girls of Black Pass would never rate with the quality of women he felt his post would deserve. Though he enjoyed the honest company of his country folk more than the posturing of the court, he flirted freely with the young maids of the township while preserving his family name for a woman with one of her own to respect.
Then one day, a royal barge pulled in to the Black Pass castle with Ectron’s most trusted advisor, Ligau, who requested Rolly’s immediate presence at court. Perceiving his appointment within reach, he called on Rubad to man the toll in his absence. Once his father’s closest friend, Rolly had called upon the loyal Rubad to manage the new merchant’s pavilion and he had always served as an trusted stand-in when Rolly was called to court.
Ligau revealed nothing regarding the nature of the summons, and masterfully deflected Rolly’s questions by asking his own, showing interest in the growing economy of Black Pass, and feeding Rolly’s dreams by receiving his speculations with an air of possibility, musing in response that Rolly should extend his tower’s bridge across the river to meet the cliff face for heightened security.
The atmosphere at the capital, however, tempered Rolly’s expectations. He met no smiles on the way to the royal rooms, and the cause met him in the king’s bedchamber, where he entered to find, Lew and Ani, Eno and Phete, the queen and a few others seated in somber silence.
Though Ectron appeared thin and weak, his eyes reflected the light of excitement. “My family and dearest friends,” he spoke in a rush of breath from his bed, stopping to inhale at each sentence, “Lore has long doomed the reign of twins, but mine has been a happy one, and I owe my mind’s rest to the love of virtuous ladies, and the valiance of their brother. As I look to the end of my life, I have found no successor as peaceful as the status quo, and thus, I have decided to maintain it.”
He reached his hand out to his wife, who sat at his side, her eyes sad but bright as her husbands’. He went on, “Eno, Lew, when your mother cradled the two of you in this same chamber so many years ago, the midwives crowded around us, examining each of you for signs of deficiency, each weighing the decision of which of you to kill. Your mother had enough love in her heart for two, and stood up, still weak from the birth and told all of these elders, your mother a little bird in her youth, declared to the wise men that her loyalty belongs to her family only and she threatened to flee the kingdom with the child so doomed if anyone suggested such a remedy. Previously we had discussed other options, and today we lay these before you.” He laid back on his pillow and gestured for Ligau to step forth.
Ligau then read the decree, which, two days later, he repeated on the balcony above the public square, declaring the new kingdom of Icificea in all regions west of the Temall valley to the sea under the crown of King Lew and Queen Ani and declaring the new kingdom of Techue to King Eno and Queen Phete in the regions east of the Temall Valley to the border of the Odah Kingdom.
The Valley of the Temall, south to Inoil, was decreed the Kingdom of the Black Pass, ruled by King Rolly in cooperation with his sisters and blood monarch brothers. The stipulations of the divided kingdom allowed for an independent citadel for knowledge and learning to be ruled by the queen and the protectorate, and vested up on her grandchildren at her death. Likewise, Ectron divided his army to Icificea and Techue obligating them to also defend the Black Pass and obligating Rolly to excuse royal commerce ships to the regions ruled by his sisters.
Rolly was crowned by his sister’s husbands in a ceremony that introduced him as a royal to the people, who naturally assumed him to be a prince. Those familiar with the Black Pass told tales of the great market and commerce of the region, and throngs followed Rolly’s royal barge homeward. When he stopped at Thenen’s toll, his old friend was waiting.
“I regret that the designs of others have superseded ours,” Rolly apologized on approach. “The toll I pay will also serve as compensation for all of your efforts.” Rolly then appointed Thenen the toll-magistrate of the entire Temall, reporting only to Rolly himself.