“ | Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a different truth, especially if it suits their own purposes. | ” |
The Kingmaker is the sixteenth chapter in Last Argument of Kings.
Chapter Summary[]
Colonel Luthar stands guard in the Lord’s Round packed with tense nobles for the Open Council election of the new High King of the Union. From across the room, Glokta catches his eye and a new kind of nerves bubbles up. As the Closed Council files in, only Bayaz looks confident, his smile out of place in the sombre hall.
In the public gallery, Ferro pushes her way to the front of the balcony. She sneers down at Jezal, judging that he’s learned nothing at all about how to be a better man. She watches the Open Council members exchanging secrets signals with one another, lining up their votes with winks and twitches.
As Chamberlain Hoff begins the election calling for votes to be cast for Lord Brock, Bayaz interrupts the proceedings with something to say. Bayaz declares that years ago King Guslav the Fifth had a bastard who has been raised in secret among the nobility; none other than Colonel Jezal dan Luthar, the winner of The Contest, the hero who suppressed the peasant rebellion. He proposes that they first cast votes for Jezal as High King.1
No one is more shocked than Jezal. However, he gradually remembers his father’s reaction to Bayaz at The Contest, and then the King mistaking him for his own son, and finally how he doesn’t resemble his brothers. He begins to believe it is true.
As more and more nobles vote for Jezal, from outside comes the sound of the common people chanting Jezal's name, while from the public balcony comes the uncontrollable laughter of Ferro.2 Without listening to Glokta's warnings, Sult and Marovia’s factions throw their support behind the arrogant young noble. Glokta cannot believe the turn of events, but concedes that Bayaz has outmaneuvered them all.3 Luthar is elected the new High King Jezal the First, as Lord Brock stalks from the hall with a deadly frown on his face.
Characters[]
Locations and Terms[]
Adua | The Union | High King of the Union | Lord’s Round | Open Council | Closed Council |
The Contest |
References[]
- Finally! Nearly the entire series has been building to this. Bayaz has been grooming Jezal for something. The question was always, what? Now we know, to be High King of the Union.
- How great is Ferro’s reaction?
- We are also beginning to see the true power of Bayaz and the kind of things he is capable of.