He’s making sure they all have their say, she thought. I just hope it doesn’t come back to bite him.
Althorn tapped the table. The room fell silent.
“We appear to be caught in a bind,” he said. “If we stay where we are, we risk total defeat. If we go on the offensive, we risk defeat, too. We need to play for time.”
“He will not give us the time,” Jair predicted. “Or he will give us the time by cutting us off completely and waiting for starvation to take its toll.”
“Perhaps,” Althorn agreed. “Let us not forget, however, that he is short on time too. He has good reason to come to terms with us. I propose, then, that we continue to exchange messages with him, in the hopes of coming to proper terms, while pushing out foraging and subversion parties as far as possible. If he doesn’t lower his tone within a week or so” - he picked up the letter and made a show of sneering at it - “we’ll send out troops to raze the estates. He can fight on our terms, as you said, or let us wreak havoc in his rear.”
His lips twitched. “Let us not forget he’s pretty short on supplies, too.”
“Don’t count on it,” Scribe Bajingan warned. “His men will have no qualms about taking whatever they need.”
Nor will you, Emily thought, curtly.
Althorn smiled, tiredly. “Is there any dissent?”
Emily waited. No one spoke. She half-expected to be asked to leave the city, perhaps leaving Prince Hedrick behind to face revolutionary justice. Instead, she heard Althorn dismiss the rest of the table while asking her to remain behind. She tried not to yawn as the rebel council left the chamber, heading for their beds. Her body was aching so badly she wanted to get into the bath before it was too late.
“Thank you,” Althorn said, when they were alone. “I wasn’t expecting much from the Crown Prince, but... we had to try.”
“Yeah.” Emily nodded, forcing herself to sit upright. “He did have one request. Please don’t harm his stepmother.”
“An interesting request,” Althorn said. “Did he mention his half-sisters?”
“No,” Emily said. She kicked herself, mentally, for not asking about the young princesses. “What... what happened to them?”
“Nothing much,” Althorn said. “We arranged for them to be held in a somewhat more comfortable cell, for the moment. When things settle down, we’ll be putting them up for adoption. I dare say they’ll do well for themselves if they put their heads down and work.”
Emily shuddered, torn between horror and a grim relief the princesses simply hadn’t been murdered. They might not be able to rule in their own right, but - even if they couldn’t - their husbands could certainly make a bid for the throne. Anyone who wanted to cause real trouble could just sell them to a handful of other royal families, tangling the bloodlines still further. It would be impossible to sort out the mess of claims and counter-claims before everyone involved was safely dead.
And they might do just that, if they lose, she thought.
Althorn leaned forward before Emily could respond. “I’ll do my best to keep the queen alive, as you wish,” he said. “But things may get out of control.”
“Yes, Emily agreed. “They might.”
Chapter Twenty
“DID YOU SLEEP WELL?”
Emily made a face as she stumbled into the dining room. She’d been so tired when she returned to the house that she’d simply collapsed into bed without bothering with a bath or even to take off her clothes. Her muscles were insisting, loudly, that it had been a terrible mistake. She felt as though she’d been beaten black and blue. Lady Barb’s cheer was the last thing she needed.
“I feel terrible,” she said. “Can I just go back to bed?”
“I don’t know,” Lady Barb said. She sat in front of a pile of letters, some of which she’d opened. “Can you?”
Emily allowed her expression to darken as Silent put a mug of bark tea on the table. “It would be nice,” she said. Her muscles ached as she sat down. “It feels as though I’m not getting anywhere.”
She took a sip from her mug and grimaced at the taste. “Where’s the prince?”
“Still in bed, I assume,” Lady Barb said. “He’d already gone to bed when I got back to the house last night.”
Emily rubbed her forehead. “Lucky bastard,” she said, curtly. She knew it wasn’t true, but... it was hard not to feel a twinge of envy. “I want to go back to bed, too.”
“Then go,” Lady Barb advised. “Or is there something on the agenda for today?”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. “It feels like I’ve already failed.”
She stared into the mug of brown liquid, then looked up at Lady Barb. “The royalists want the rebels to surrender, unconditionally,” she said. “The rebels want the royalists to surrender, also unconditionally. Both sides have offered minor concessions, none of which will guarantee the terms will actually be kept. There’s no way they can come to terms unless one of them backs down and I don’t see either of them doing it.”
“Perhaps not,” Lady Barb said.
Emily nodded. “The royalists cannot accept the complete loss of aristocratic power,” she said. She grimaced. “They want the return of their lands and titles - they’re not even prepared to accept compensation for the loss. And even if they did, who’d pay? Who’d be willing to pay? One might as well pay ransom for the return of a kidnapped child!”
“There are people who would do so,” Lady Barb pointed out.
“It was a terrible metaphor,” Emily admitted. She thought for a moment. “The landowners own the land and consider their serfs property. The serfs work the land and consider it to be theirs by right. If the landowners are right, then the serfs are stealing by repossessing the land and making it their own. The landowners should be compensated. But if the serfs are right, the landowners are effectively thieves and paying compensation is effectively paying for the return of your property. And even if they wanted to pay, can they?”
Lady Barb nodded, shortly. “How did they solve the problem on your world?”
“Poorly.” Emily could think of a dozen attempts to square the circle, from Revolutionary France to Reconstruction and Palestine. None had ended very well. “If the aristocrats gave up their claim to the land...”
She shook her head. What was an aristocrat without lands and titles? She’d seen hundreds of landless aristocrats infesting King Randor’s court, clinging desperately to what little they had left - even if it was effectively worthless - in hopes of remaining one step above the commoners. That wasn’t going to happen, not here. The rebel government wasn’t going to pay pensions to aristocrats. There’d be outrage if they so much as hinted at paying for stolen lands.
“They both have a point,” she said, sourly. “And there’s no compromise one side can offer that the other will accept.”
Lady Barb frowned. “So the mission is a failure?”
“The first part of the mission is a failure,” Emily said. “The second part... I don’t know.”
She took another sip of her drink. “The revolution happened too quickly,” she said. “The rebel leadership was too well-prepared to take advantage of a sudden collapse in law and order. They had some reason to know the collapse was coming...”
Her eyes narrowed. The kingdom had been in trouble long before the end of the war. It wasn’t impossible to guess that something would happen, even if one didn’t know precisely when. Hell, the rebels could have been planning to spark something themselves in a bid to bring the cityfolk onto the streets. And yet, in her experience, the longer the gap between the planning and execution, the greater the risk of a conspiracy being uncovered and the plotters being sent to the gallows. Perhaps Althorn and his comrades had planned to light the tinderbox as soon as they were ready.
Or they sparked off the rebellion themselves, then claimed it was spontaneous, she thought, grimly. They might have planned everything from Day One.
Her mind raced. “The king got some very bad advice fro
m Councilor Triune,” she said, nodding to the walls. It wasn’t lost on her that Triune owned the house the rebels had loaned to her. She made a mental note to search it again, just in case. “And the queen thought he’d sent them into a trap.”
Lady Barb frowned. “How involved was the queen?”
“I don’t know,” Emily admitted. King Randor had never consulted his queen, as far as she knew. Alassa consulted Jade, but never publicly. It wouldn’t do to have her courtiers thinking Jade was the real power behind the throne. Too many of them already thought she was her husband’s puppet. “She might not have known what was really going on.”
She considered it for a moment. The queen had insisted the royal sorcerers had been poisoned. The blame had been put on a maid. Believable, perhaps, but... odd. Emily could imagine a mistreated maid finding a way to strike back, yet... she’d been executed far too quickly. Any sane monarch would want to interrogate the girl, to find out who’d given her the command to kill. Hell, most sorcerers were careful what they ate and drank. It was hard to believe a simple serving maid could have found an alchemical poison that would be difficult, if not impossible, to detect. And yet, she had.
“Triune might have executed the poor girl to cover his tracks,” she mused, sourly. He might have gotten away with it too, if everyone in the castle was running around like a headless chicken. “By the time everyone calmed down, it would be accepted wisdom that she killed the sorcerers and was executed for it.”
“Perhaps,” Lady Barb agreed.
“And he was the one who blamed everything on me,” she said. “Why?”
“It’s always easier to blame someone else for your own failings,” Lady Barb pointed out, dryly. “Triune wasn’t popular. He might have come up with the story to avoid being executed himself.”
Emily nodded, slowly. It made sense. Kings generally selected their advisors from the lower aristocracy, people who had no independent power base of their own and no friends or family who might protest their execution. They were loyal - they had to be loyal, because no one liked or trusted them - and they could be tossed aside or turned into scapegoats if government policy went badly wrong. Triune was right to fear the worst. The king wouldn’t have hesitated to have him executed if the mob demanded his head.
“He somehow got away,” she said. She knew she was missing part of the story. “Did he ride with the king...?”
“He might not have done,” Lady Barb offered. “Or he could simply have been on horseback and galloped away. Or...”
“Or he teleported away,” Emily said. “If he was a magician...”
She shook her head. Triune’s house didn’t feel like a magician’s home. And yet... what did that mean? She wanted to believe... she wasn’t sure what she wanted to believe. Triune had clearly been involved in politics right up to his neck, including negotiating a prospective match between Crown Prince Dater and Princess Mariah, but that didn’t prove anything. He could have blundered badly, when he realized just how dangerous the uprising had become. She’d met quite a few people who’d made a bad situation worse when it dawned on them they were losing control. Triune could simply have panicked.
Yes, her thoughts mocked. And he could have been taking bribes from Red Rose.
“It may no longer be important,” Lady Barb said. She looked Emily in the eye. “What side are you on?”
“I’m meant to be neutral,” Emily reminded her.
Lady Barb snorted. “Let me ask again,” she said. “What side are you on?”
Emily hesitated. She wanted to side with the rebels. She had very little love for the aristocracy. Dater wasn’t a bad person, but he was fighting for a terrible cause. And she still found the very concept of aristocracy to be offensive beyond words. The first generation of noble lords might take their duties seriously. Future generations would fixate on the rights and ignore the responsibilities. It wasn’t as if the royalists deserved to win.
And yet, history told her that revolutions often descended into bloodbaths as provisional governments tried to put their societies on a sound footing. Royalists would be hunted down and killed without any regard for evidence or the rule of law. Anyone who dared speak out against it would be hunted, too, on the grounds that only a royalist would suggest there was anything wrong with persecuting royalists. There would be coups and countercoups and the whole government would dissolve into madness and death, unless a Napoleon or a Stalin took control. And that would almost be worse.
Taking control was the easy part, she thought. Actually keeping control is a great deal harder.
Lady Barb leaned forward. “Picture this,” she said. “A royalist army is advancing on the city. You can stop it. What do you do?”
Emily winced. She knew what would happen when - if - an army breached the walls. Rebels had no rights. The entire city would be stormed in an orgy of raping, looting and burning as soon as the walls crumbled. Dater might try to stop it, but even he couldn’t keep his men under control. The capital would be utterly destroyed, the population killed. By the time the city was reclaimed and renamed - again - there would be nothing left. And if she could stop it from happening...
She looked down at her hands, something churning in her gut. Lady Barb was right to ask the question and yet... she wasn’t sure what she should do. She’d been sent as a representative of the Allied Lands, not... she hadn’t been sent to join the rebels. And yet, she didn’t want to turn and walk away. The vast majority of the population was completely innocent. They didn’t deserve to be killed by a victorious army.
And the rebels can’t surrender, she thought. They’ll be hanged as soon as the city is in royalist hands.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “What should I do?”
“You should give the matter some thought,” Lady Barb said. “Preferably before you have to actually make the decision.”
Emily smiled, rather wanly. She’d always appreciated Lady Barb’s bluntness. The older woman could be harsh at times - she’d never had any qualms about pointing out the flaws in Emily’s arguments - but there was no doubting that she meant well. Emily loved her for it. Void might be the closest thing to a father she had - everyone assumed he genuinely had sired her - but Lady Barb was very definitely her mother. She could talk to her about anything.
“I’d want to side with the rebels,” she said. “But it depends.”
Lady Barb quirked an eyebrow. “On what?”
Emily sighed. “Back home, there was a concept called the right side of history. The person who came up with it believed that history was a constant march towards democracy, progressivism and liberalism and that anyone who fought for them was on the right side by default. But... many revolutions became dictatorships and tyrannies in their own right and ended up worse than their predecessors. History doesn’t have a side. It just is.”
“You’re waffling,” Lady Barb said.
“I want to support the rebels,” Emily confessed. “I want to believe they will make things better for everyone. But I’m afraid of what they could become.”
Lady Barb said nothing for a long moment. “It seems to me,” she said finally, “that you’ll have to make a choice, sooner or later. And you should think about it, like I said, before you actually have to make it.”
She tapped the pile of letters. “The Whitehall Conference is taking shape. Every person of power within the Allied Lands is either attending in person or sending a representative. Not before time too, as the rumors of war are getting worse. This mess” - she waved a hand at the window - “might not even be the worst of it. A bunch of kingdoms are currently on the verge of war with their neighbors, a handful of estates are pushing out their borders... people are taking sides, Emily. If the conference fails...”
Her voice hardened. “The rebels have demanded the right to send representatives, too,” she added. “Did they tell you?”
“No.” Emily shook her head. “What happened?”
“The royalists have demanded, in turn, that t
he rebels be blocked,” Lady Barb said. “I suspect certain people are hoping the matter will resolve itself before they have to make a proper decision, one way or the other. If they refuse to accept rebel representatives, the rebels would be quite within their rights to refuse to recognize the conference as legitimate and deny any obligation to go along with the final outcome. Ironic, but...”
Emily nodded in understanding. The White Council had been founded and shaped by people wise enough to accept the realities of power. If the rebels had power, if they were the effective government of Alluvia, they couldn’t be denied a seat on the council. Their interests had to be taken into account, if there were to be any hope of convincing them to go along with the majority. And yet, there were over twenty monarchs - and countless smaller lords - who’d throw up their hands in horror at the thought of letting the rebels have a seat. They’d sooner recognize a powerless king than grant representation to regicidal rebels.
Except it would be pointless, Emily thought. Dater can make all the agreements he likes, as the legitimate king, but they will be meaningless as long as he lacks the power to enforce them.
“Gordian” - Lady Barb’s lips thinned with distaste - “is hinting that he may require my services. The school has to be secured during the conference, even if it means keeping the students under lockdown. I think he’s trying to recall everyone who’s ever worked for Whitehall. You might even get a letter yourself.”
The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22) Page 20