The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22)

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  She pressed on before they could tell her - again - that they would not surrender. “You are both in the same boat,” she said. “There are limits to what you can concede without giving up everything, without making yourself so vulnerable you can be crushed. Or without convincing your allies to put knives in your backs. The most one of you can concede falls far short of what the other can accept. Is that not correct?”

  “They could just go into exile,” Althorn said. “We know they looted the treasury before they fled. They have enough money to last them a lifetime.”

  Dater frowned. “I did not receive any treasure.”

  “Then the money was never handed over to you,” Althorn said. He snickered. “How trustworthy are your fellow aristos, really?”

  Emily held up a hand. “You can come to terms,” she said. “You have already lost a great many estates” - she looked at Dater - “and you have to accept there’s no hope of getting them back, at least not in usable condition. At the same time, you still hold many estates and - at the moment - a rebellion is unlikely to succeed. You can agree to recognize the status quo, with a catch. The serfs are freed. If they want to leave, they can.”

  Dater made a face. “The serfs are property,” he said. “What’s to stop them simply walking away?”

  “They are not property,” Althorn snapped.

  Emily leaned forward. “If the aristocrats want to keep them, they’ll have to pay them,” she said. “You could have avoided this whole mess” - she waved a hand towards the fabric and the ruined village beyond - “if you’d just treated people with a little more respect. There are serfs who want to leave, true. But there are many who would stay if they were paid, if they were allowed to keep more of their crops, if they were treated as people. And that would make society a great deal more stable.”

  She kept a wary eye on Althorn. The proposal was very similar to the one put forward by the rebel moderates. If he noticed... would he care? She wished she knew what he was thinking. Was there an angel in the storm, directing the whirlwind? Or were they all caught up in a storm they couldn’t hope to master?

  “Many of my supporters would not go along with that,” Dater said, coolly. “And how would you solve the other problems?”

  Emily met his eyes. “Concede the cities,” she said. “Let them have self-rule. Concede a handful of rights and let things stabilize...”

  Dater shook his head. “I cannot be seen to compromise so much,” he said. “And too many people would turn on me.”

  Althorn snorted. “A moment ago, you assured us you would lead and defend us against the aristocrats,” he said. “Do you expect us to believe you can keep them in line?”

  “If I am seen as strong,” Dater said, “I can dictate to them.”

  And if they see you in a position of weakness, Emily added silently, they’ll do everything in their power to keep you weak.

  She looked at Althorn. The proposal was a good one, but many of his supporters wouldn’t agree. The hardliners would see it as a concession too far, while the former serfs would see it as a betrayal. They’d assume the worst and start a war... hell, the mere prospect of discovering their masters weren’t going to leave might trigger yet another series of peasant uprisings. She winced at the buried savagery in the countryside, just waiting for a chance to break free. Men who’d endured decades of being treated like beasts of burden weren’t likely to accept more promises. They had good reason to know the promises wouldn’t be kept.

  Althorn took the plunge. “You can salvage something from this mess,” he said, finally. “But things will not be the same.”

  Dater smiled, almost pleasantly. “Then this is my final word,” he said. “You have one day to accept my terms, as laid out in my statement” - he produced a rolled sheet of parchment, marked with the royal seal - “and stated here. If you refuse, we will recapture the cities by force and declare you and your fellow councilors outlaws. There will be no mercy.”

  His gaze switched to Emily. “Lady Emily. Rumors have reached me of a dalliance between yourself and a rebel. I hoped such rumors would be nothing more than snide slanders, but apparently there is some truth in them after all. I will be making a formal complaint to the White Council regarding your conduct and your lack of neutrality. Regardless of the outcome, I must formally warn you that your safe conduct will be terminated at nightfall and, if you are discovered within my territory, the consequences will be most unpleasant. Do I make myself understood?”

  Emily felt a hot flash of anger. “You’re being a fool,” she said. She put firm controls on her temper. This was no time to explode. “You’re being manipulated. You’re all being manipulated.”

  She looked at Councilor Triune, who flinched back. There was no hint of magic, no hint he’d been manipulated... it proved nothing. She’d seen chat parchments used to influence students without leaving any obvious traces... she wondered, suddenly, if the whole crisis at Laughter had been nothing more than a test run. If whoever had enchanted the book could pull off such a stunt in the middle of a school of magic, they could do it somewhere - anywhere - else.

  “And you expect me to listen to a girl who...” Dater bit off the rest of the remark. “I will honor the safe conducts. I keep my promises. And if you refuse to accept my terms, we will settle the matter in blood.”

  Emily gritted her teeth. There was no hope of getting Dater to listen to her now. He’d see her as a silly little girl who’d slept with Aiden... she cursed her unknown opponent mentally, as savagely as she knew how. There was no point in revealing Aiden’s secret. Even if she did, no one would believe her. Even Councilor Triune didn’t know about his daughter’s double life.

  “The matter will indeed be settled in blood,” Althorn agreed. He stood. “Inform your aristos that any who remain within the country, on their estate or with your army, will be exterminated root and branch. Those who leave the country will be permitted to remain unmolested, as long as they do not seek to regain their former possessions. The people want to be free. And they will be free.”

  He strode out of the tent, Storm following in his wake. Emily wanted to say something, anything, but nothing came to mind. Her enemy had poisoned the well quite nicely. She wanted to scream in frustration. She’d grown so used to the lack of misogyny in magical communities that it had caught her by surprise. No one would dare say that if she’d been a man.

  I suppose that’s why Aiden chooses to run around in male guise, Emily thought. They wouldn’t take me seriously if I didn’t have a reputation.

  She threw caution to the winds and reached out with her senses. The wards buzzed around her, but she brushed them aside. There was no hint that either Dater or Triune had been manipulated. There might be something subtle, something she wouldn’t be able to detect without a more careful probe... something she knew they’d never allow. She groaned, inwardly, as she turned away. There was no proof, nothing she could present to the White Council. There was going to be war.

  She half-expected to be called back, as she stepped out of the tent, but no one said a word. Dater was probably already planning how best to reduce the walls and take the city... she winced, feeling cold and empty as she looked at the ruined village. Freedom City - Jorlem City - was several orders of magnitude larger. The bloodbath was going to be horrific, no matter who won. She didn’t want to think about it.

  Althorn and Storm were already in the coach. She scrambled up to join them, unsure of what she should do. The first part of her mission had failed. She couldn’t think of any way to stop the war, not even with magic. Anything she did would be either useless or worse than useless. And yet...

  “It was a good try, Emily,” Althorn said. He sounded as if he were trying to be reassuring. “I didn’t expect it to work, but it was a good try.”

  Emily had the feeling he meant it. “Thanks,” she said. The moderates would have failed, if they’d presented their proposal openly. The hardliners hadn’t needed to crack down on them. “I wish...”
>
  “We had to try.” Althorn sounded oddly relieved. “And now we prepare for war.”

  He leaned back in his chair. Emily tried not to show her displeasure too openly. Althorn’s life would be a little easier, now they’d tried and failed to put together a proper compromise. He would no longer have to worry about pleasing the moderates as well as the hardliners. He could prepare for all-out war, with the entire council behind him.

  Storm cleared his throat. “Will you leave the city, Lady Emily?”

  Emily knew she should. Dater’s complaint was probably already heading to the White Council. Master Lucknow would use it as an excuse to rescind her commission. And then... she could go back to Void and resume her apprenticeship, leaving the city to die in fire and blood. She shuddered, trying not to retch. She couldn’t turn her back. She’d seen too much to let her enemy have a win, not without a fight.

  “I’d like to stay, if possible,” she said. “There may be something I can do.”

  “There’s nothing you can do without shattering the Compact beyond repair,” Storm said, quietly. “Go. Leave. Now.”

  “You can stay if you want,” Althorn said. His eyes were half-closed, as if he was on the verge of falling asleep. “But I fear it will be pointless.”

  Emily feared he was right. And yet... if she could track down her enemy, if she could present him to the White Council, perhaps she could avert the coming horror. One of the councilors had to be under enemy control, even if he wasn’t the enemy. And if she could trace him back to his master...

  It wasn’t much, she acknowledged as the coach rattled on. But it was all she had.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “WE NEED TO TALK,” LADY BARB said, when Emily stepped into the house. “Now.”

  Emily had the sudden sense of an angry mother waiting for her misbehaving daughter to come home. “Can I have a wash first?”

  “Quickly,” Lady Barb said. “Time is not on our side.”

  “I’ll be back,” Emily said. She glanced past Lady Barb and saw Prince Hedrick sitting at the table, reading a book. “Give me a moment.”

  She hurried upstairs, splashed water on her face and changed into a new dress. Silent had been busy. A small pile of washed and dried clothing sat on the dresser, a couple of letters resting on top of the clothes. Emily glanced at them - one from Alassa, one from Frieda - and put them aside for later attention. She glanced at herself in the mirror, then headed back downstairs. Lady Barb was sitting in the lounge, weaving a network of privacy spells around them. Emily frowned. The older woman clearly wasn’t taking anything for granted.

  “I take it things didn’t go well?” Lady Barb waved her to a chair and poured them both mugs of bark tea. “What happened?”

  Emily grimaced. “The rebels presented their terms, which were rejected; the royalists presented their terms, which were rejected, too. Both sides made threats, promising total war... neither side backed down.”

  She stared at her hands for a long moment. “And Dater implied I’d been spending too much time with a rebel,” she said. “He...”

  A surge of pure rage shot through her. How dare he? It hadn’t affected her as much as it should... she knew the suggestion wasn’t just wrong, it was absurd. Aiden wasn’t a man... not, she supposed, that would have made too much difference. Dater - she ground her teeth in fury - had crossed the line and... her lack of reaction had probably made things worse. She hadn’t thought... of course she hadn’t thought. She’d known Aiden wasn’t a man.

  And if I were a man and she were a man in female clothes, he’d still find a way to throw it at me, she thought, tiredly. Damn the man.

  Lady Barb sat facing her. “The White Council has formally terminated the mission,” she said. “I’ve been ordered to Whitehall, to assist with the security measures for the conference. Your credentials have been revoked, effective midnight. They haven’t quite ordered you out, but they’ve cancelled your authority to speak on behalf of the council. I imagine they expect you to leave before midnight...”

  “They organized that quickly,” Emily muttered, sourly. She looked up. “Master Lucknow?”

  “Prince Dater - King Dater - made a formal complaint,” Lady Barb said. “If that happens, common practice is to suspend the mediator and provide a replacement, even if the accusation is proven groundless. There’s no way the accused can continue. But... yes, right now, it’s possible someone on the council laid the groundwork for the complaint to be acted upon as soon as it arrived. It normally takes a few days for the council to agree to react.”

  “And that means someone knew what was going to happen,” Emily said. “It has to be Master Lucknow.”

  Lady Barb cocked her head. “Do you have any proof?”

  Emily glared at her hands. “No. Not yet.”

  “Until you do, you cannot make any accusations,” Lady Barb said. “Master Lucknow is extremely well connected, as you know. He could not be charged, let alone convicted, without very solid proof. And, if he is the one behind the whole affair, he will have made sure to cover his tracks. His agent or agents within the city might not even know who’s issuing the orders.”

  “Of course not,” Emily muttered. “That would be too easy.”

  She remembered Simon bursting into flame and shuddered. If he’d been working for Master Lucknow... what was the point? The whole affair made no sense. Master Lucknow was one of the prime movers behind the conference, one of the people who’d put their reputations on the line to try to hammer out a post-war accord before it was too late. Why would he work at cross-purposes to himself? Was he that desperate to nail her? Or... she shook her head. The plot, whatever it was, had started a long time before the end of the war. It had just been updated...

  “Perhaps the idea is to cause chaos, then step in,” she said. She felt a burst of frustration. “Why...?”

  Lady Barb met her eyes. “Why what?”

  Emily shook her head. “Why can’t everyone be reasonable?”

  Her thoughts churned. The royalists and the rebels could have come to an agreement. Both sides were smart enough to know they needed to come to an agreement. And yet, they’d thrown away any hope of peace by making preposterous demands... she groaned, inwardly. She’d tried to offer more moderate suggestions, only to have them rejected by both sides... she cursed under her breath. They could have called a halt to the war. Instead, both sides were so convinced they’d win they were committing themselves to total war.

  She allowed her expression to darken. She could nuke Dater’s camp. It would be so easy to blow the royalist army to hell. It would save thousands of lives. She knew where the camp was and... she didn’t have to break through the wards to set up and detonate the nuke-spell. There’d be no need to slip through the wards or duel with the royal sorcerers... she could just blast them into orbit. But... her blood ran cold. She’d slaughter thousands of helpless conscripts who’d been unlucky enough to be half-drunk when the recruiting sergeants came around. And... many of them, if Althorn had been telling the truth, were actually rebels. She couldn’t kill them all.

  And if I do, she thought coldly, I’ll risk the secret getting out.

  The thought terrified her. There were sorcerers in the royalist camp. One of them might get a good look at the spell, then teleport out before the blast wiped him from existence. And then... even if they didn’t, it would be hard to conceal what she’d done. There was no convenient necromancer to blame for the explosion. Master Lucknow would guess she’d caused the explosion and then... and then what? Figure out what she’d done and duplicate it? Or devise a whole new way to blow up thousands of innocent people?

  She shook her head, knowing - even as she did - that she might be making a mistake. Perhaps someone else could condemn thousands of people to death, in the hopes of saving hundreds of thousands more. Cold logic insisted the good of the majority came first. And yet... she couldn’t make that call. She didn’t want to know anyone who could. Dater would, she was sure. Alassa...
? She shook her head again, one hand playing with her hair. They’d been raised to think of themselves above the common folk. She didn’t have that consolation.

  Lady Barb cleared her throat. “What are you thinking?”

  “I could intervene,” Emily said. A dozen madcap schemes ran through her head. It would be tricky to make a magically-binding contract that would affect Dater, but... she could do it. Perhaps. And yet, it would be hard to close all the possible loopholes. “I could force the two sides to discuss peace or throw my weight behind one side...”

  “And that would be a serious breach of the Compact,” Lady Barb pointed out. “This isn’t Zangaria. You’re not a baroness here. If you meddle openly, Master Lucknow will have all the excuse he needs to take another swing at your neck. And this time it will be a great deal harder to stop him.”

  Emily shook her head. “Thousands of people are going to die.”

  “Yes,” Lady Barb agreed, coldly. “But they’re going to die no matter what you do.”

  “No,” Emily said.

  “Yes.” There was nothing but sympathy in Lady Barb’s eyes. It didn’t make her words any easier to hear. “Emily, there’s no way you can bring the two sides together. The hatred and suspicion has been building up for decades. It started well before you were born. The rebels know they cannot surrender, for they will be destroyed as soon as the royalists regain their power; the royalists know they cannot concede anything, because the rebels will take advantage of any concessions to take the rest. There’s no single enemy to defeat, not here. You’re struggling against the pressure of history itself.”

  “And the consequences of the war,” Emily said.

  “Perhaps it would be better to let the two sides fight it out,” Lady Barb said. “Let them fight now, rather than waiting a generation or two, and then deal with whoever comes out on top.”