Kingshold

by D P Woolliscroft

  Lucky, thought Mareth. He hadn’t felt lucky in a long time.

  And then the lights went out.

  Petra was bent over the near-naked Mareth, stripped to his underwear and lying on his bed. She washed the cuts and scrapes on his body. It felt delicious, though his head throbbed from the blow that had knocked him out, and his back stung from the gouges carved by the nailed club.

  Dolph had dragged him back to the Royal Oak, apparently his last service to him before disappearing back to Hoxteth’s compound to see what the situation was. Dolph had dispatched the other thugs just after he’d been hit from behind, but not before Nail could lay the boot in a few times. Mareth had learnt all of this when he’d regained consciousness just a little while ago. Now, he winced as Petra guided him into a seating position to bind his bruised ribs and the cuts on his back.

  “I’m sorry, Mareth. You can lie and rest in a moment,” said Petra gently. She looked even more beautiful to Mareth as she administered her care. He admired her long, blonde hair, tied behind her head to be out of the way of her face, allowing him to see the pale curve of her slender neck. And, slightly ashamed of himself, as she bent over, he’d steal a look at her cleavage.

  “Thank you so much,” said Mareth. “You didn’t have to do this. I could call for a doctor. Jules must be mad you aren’t working.”

  “Shh, don’t worry about it. A cutter will probably only make things worse. Jules gave me the morning off, anyway. She cares about you like a younger brother, you know.”

  “I know. I don’t know how I came to deserve it,” said Mareth, truly not sure why Jules had always been so welcoming when he’d always been so worthless.

  “You’re a good man, Mareth.” She paused from attending to the bandages to look him in the eye. “I heard how you helped those kids on the farm road. Don’t forget that.”

  He gave a half-hearted smile. His recent optimism was slipping away. He found himself craving a stiff drink. Hoxteth was a promise of change, and he’d felt he was changing people’s hearts and minds to see that. Now, Hoxteth had been taken away by an assassin’s blade.

  “Why did they have to do it, Petra?” he asked.

  “They were wicked men, Mareth, who do it for coin all the time. I know Carl, the one you said had half an ear. He’s from the Narrows. He’s a real nasty piece of work.”

  “I know. But I didn’t mean that. I meant Lord Hoxteth. He could have been something different.” The futility of the situation, of life, struck him. “You didn’t see how Eden treated the people who came to meet him as he rode in. Full of contempt, riling the crowd with the fake coins, and then the way his soldiers attacked unarmed men and women. Twenty people died there, Petra, and there were no repercussions for him.”

  “I know. Some of my neighbors were there that day. But ask yourself, would things really have been different? Hoxteth may have been one of us early in life, but he was still a lord at the end. Didn’t he care most about profit?”

  “That’s true, but he would have left that behind him if he was lord protector. I can’t believe he would have forgotten how he dragged himself up from the Hub. Now we’re doomed to have one of those warmongers who see people like you and me as fodder to press into service, or someone like Eden who thinks we’re little more than cattle. Maybe it’s time to move on again. Go somewhere new. Would you come with me, Petra?”

  “Mareth, I’d love to, but I have a sister. It’s only been the two of us for so long. I couldn’t leave her.”

  He didn’t know she had a sister. He realized there was so much he didn’t know about her.

  “But why give up? Fight! Maybe there’s another candidate you can support. Don’t just give up, if it’s something important to you. Why don’t you organize?”

  “Organize?” he asked. “With whom?”

  “The guilds? Other merchants? The district supervisors? I don’t know. It was just a thought.”

  Mareth considered this. He had heard some of the guilds were beginning to organize how they’d pool their resources to buy their pyxies; some of the richer guilds were able to fund more than one vote. And he hadn’t considered the district supervisors. Each area of the city had their unofficial counsel of responsible citizens who judged minor squabbles and tried to keep the peace. Could they be used to get the message out? Maybe there was something that could be done.

  “You’re incredible, Petra! I could kiss you.”

  She bent close and whispered, “You can, you know.”

  Their lips began to touch, her soft, smooth flesh brushing his as she leaned in. Then the door opened, and she stood with a start, both of them looking at who had intruded.

  “Dolph!” Mareth snarled.

  “Heh. Did I interrupt something?” Dolph found his untimeliness to be quite amusing. Mareth didn’t. “Wanted you to know I’m back. Or to see if you were dead yet.” More chuckles. “Lady Grey is in charge now. She told me to stick with you and to say you’re still employed. She said do whatever you like, just cause trouble. She thinks Eden paid for the knife, and she wants even.”

  “Understood,” said Mareth. Maybe it wasn’t all going down the drain, but coming up with a plan could wait a little while. “Thank you for telling me. Now, would you be a good fellow and leave me alone for a while?”

  “Sure,” Dolph said, making to leave the room before ducking back inside. “Wait. One other thing. You handled yourself pretty well back there, better than I expected, to be honest. But what was with the singing? I thought it was going to be a bloody annoying way to die, having to hear you warble on, but you know what? I felt stronger and faster, like the warriors you were singing about were inside me. How’d you do that?”

  Mareth looked at him, steely eyed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now. Fuck. Off!”

  Chapter 16

  We The People

  Alana sat at the rear of the back room of the Royal Oak, observing the gathering that was assembling. She’d never seen her sister so excited or passionate as during the last couple of days. She often became enamored with new boyfriends, but this was different; she was enthused about something, not just someone.

  And Alana saw the fruits of Petra’s labor. More than thirty-five individual requests to join a meeting in the back room of a tavern, a well-respected tavern granted, but more than a dozen attendees was frankly amazing for just two days’ work.

  She counted ten district supervisors in all: men and women from Fishtown, Cherry Tree, Warehouse District, Fourwells, Lance, Red Guard, Inner and Outer Narrows, Bottom Run, and Randall’s Addition, along with four guild representatives from the bakers, brewers, butchers, and tanners houses. True, most of them were men, old men at that, and so, it wasn’t every day they had someone like Petra arrive on their doorstep and make a request to spend time with them.

  Petra sat at the front of the room with her new boyfriend, a bard called Mareth, who Alana had only just met, and Jules, the owner of this inn and also the supervisor of Cherry Tree.

  The supervisor was an interesting and important role in how the city worked. Officially, they didn’t exist, of course, but in actuality, they managed a large number of matters the rulers of Kingshold had only a passing interest in: from new building construction in the poorer areas of town to negotiations with the criminal families, most notably the Twilight Exiles, if a district’s inhabitants were being hit particularly hard.

  The position was usually elected by a show of hands at a community meeting, and then once someone got the job, assuming no one noticed if he was corrupt, then he’d usually have it for life. Cherry Tree was one of the most respectable districts in the city, and so, when Jules took her seat at the front of the room after everyone else had arrived, Alana could see how it put the others more at ease. Petra had probably been the reason why many of them had come this evening, and then they saw her hand-in-hand with a semi-infamous bard, who looked as if he’d been pounded on a kneading table by the representative of the Bakers’ Guild; so it was Jules
keeping them in their seats.

  Mareth stood and smiled. “Thank you for joining us here this evening, fellow citizens. Let’s get down to business. Hoxteth is dead, as you know. He could have been a good lord protector for all of Edland. He understood the needs of the poorest citizen and that of the richest nobleman. Now, we’re left with a choice between the richest man in the country—who squeezes the tenants on his land so he can expand his coffers—or men of war who can’t be trusted to govern a country at the heart of trade across the Jeweled Continent. I’m saddened and afraid for our city and our nation. So, I ask you, what are we going to do about it?”

  “Mareth, I appreciate your concern,” said Master Gonal, the supervisor of the Warehouse District, who seemed acquainted with the bard. “You know very well I supported Hoxteth. By Arloth’s beard, I already cast my vote! I don’t think you’re going to find the coin in this room to put a contract out on Eden. And as you said, we’ll just get one of the other bastards then.”

  “Aye, they’re all shit for us in the Narrows,” Dyer from the Inner Narrows spoke.

  He sat next to Lud from the Outer Narrows. Alana knew them to be boyhood best friends, but they’d still spent a good part of their lives warring with each other about whether the Inner or the Outer Narrows was best and where to draw the line separating the two. As far as she could see it, the answers were neither and didn’t bloody matter.

  Dyer continued, “There ain’t no king that wanted the Narrows to be there, and we still half expect them to come down from the palace one day and torch the place. So, what are we going to do? Nothing.”

  Alana listened in silence as the rest of the supervisors made similar declarations about their inability to do something.

  Finally, Jules stood and addressed the group. “I refuse to give up.” Her voice was strong and confident as she addressed the room. “This city is good to me, but I’m one of the lucky ones. I see everyday people living like dogs, kids dying before they grow up, good men and women hanging because they’re trying to put food on the table. It’s been a rare king that’s cared about those issues, but it’s time someone did. We had a candidate we believed in before, for all of his flaws. Now, we need a new candidate, someone who’s not a noble, and then we have to get people to support our candidate! There are still more than two weeks left until the solstice. We can do this.”

  Some of the supervisors sat back in their chairs and looked at the floor; others shook their heads—and not in the way you respond to your mother telling you not to do something, more what someone does when daunted by a big job they know they should just stop whining about and get on with.

  Mareth took that as his opportunity to pick up his mandolin and began to play.

  The rock looks over the water

  and shelters Edwards town

  Caravans of wheat and lamb

  feed those Edland grown

  Ships of spice and silk to trade

  in the marketplace

  peace and festivals and life without duress

  for the people of this place

  The rock looks over the sea

  and bids farewell to the fleet

  Young men and women of Edland

  on their way to defeat

  boys and girls of other lands

  Fields sown with grief and tears

  Rations on ships to supply this waste

  leaving them hungry except for fear

  The people of this place

  Stand up, stand up, Edlanders

  Stand up, stand up

  How do you choose?

  Stand up, stand up, Edlanders

  What can you lose?

  Alana sat in her seat, tears rolling down her cheeks as she gazed at her feet. Mareth’s singing had conjured such vivid pictures in her mind. She’d seen the warships leaving with her friends. She’d seen them dying outside foreign walls and the sadness left in Kingshold. She’d never experienced the like from other singers in the past.

  She found herself on her feet, and she saw she wasn’t alone. The old woman from Fishtown, Eldrida, broke the silence. “Marlth’s tit, boy. You have a voice and then some. I guess we’ve chosen.”

  “Aye,” said Win from Fourwells, “you’ve hooked us now. So, what are we going to do?”

  “May I speak?” Alana had raised her hand.

  Her sister Petra smiled and nodded for her to continue.

  “I know the guilds are pooling their money to be able to vote for a candidate. Why can’t we do the same? Master White, can you explain what the Bakers’ Guild is doing?”

  Master White was in his middle years, but he still looked healthy from years of kneading bread. The white beard on his face couldn’t hide his look of concern and confusion. “Who are you, girl? How do you know this?”

  “That’s Alana, my sister,” said Petra, “and she’s the wizard’s personal assistant.”

  “More servant than assistant, Petra,” corrected Alana, “but I do work for Jyuth. And I know he wants this to be about more than nobles picking amongst themselves.”

  “Fine then, Alana, servant of the wizard. We in the Bakers’ Guild are combining our resources to vote. We each contribute an equal share, and then the guild master will have a pyxie cast our vote after we’ve had a show of hands about who we shall support. Most of us were leaning to Hoxteth too, Mareth. Now, we don’t know who the candidate will be.”

  “Thank you, Master White. By the way, I think your crusty cobs are the best in the city,” said Alana, flashing him a smile. “What if instead of doing it by guild house, we did it by district? The entry fee shared amongst many, and the supervisor casts the vote. The entry fee is returnable after the election, so the people won’t be without the coin for long.”

  “Girl,” interjected Eldrida, “even split amongst many, it’s still a lot to ask our people. There are fewer than a thousand families in Fishtown. That’s more than a crown each.”

  “I know, Mistress Eldrida. It won’t be easy for all to do it. But I know many would sacrifice to feel enfranchised. We’d need to organize how to help you collect and redistribute with minimal pain.”

  Alana shot a look at Mareth to see if she was overstepping her bounds, but he had a broad grin and nodded for her to continue. “And maybe there’s something we can do to help those who want to be involved. Dyer, don’t you think our neighbors would want to be involved? It’s all anyone is talking about in the Narrows.”

  “Alana, you’ve got your mother’s smarts. Yes, I think they would, and though we’re poorer than those in Fishtown, we have many more,” said Dyer. He didn’t look sold yet on this plan, though. “If we do this, is it going to make any difference?”

  Alana was grateful she had paid so much attention to the conversations she had recently with the wizard. She found the topic fascinating, visualizing in her mind all of the various players. She knew these facts without the help of notes.

  “Jyuth has told me there are around 150 families in the realm with the declared wealth to vote. If all of the districts and all of the guilds participate, that would be nearly forty additional votes. And more than half of the 150 are merchants, who will hopefully be more rational than the nobles.”

  She stopped talking for a moment to make sure everyone was following along as they turned around in their seats to see her. “And you don’t have to get half of the votes to win. Just the most. Because there are so many candidates, forty could be enough to win on its own, though Eden is the clear favorite right now. The way I see it, our biggest problem is we don’t have a good candidate to back yet. But we can work on that, too!”

  “It’s getting late,” said Alana, pushing back her chair to get up from the table. “I have to get home so I can be at the palace in the morning to attend to Lord Jyuth.”

  It had been a few hours since the supervisors and guild masters had left after they’d collectively worked through how they were going to organize. Alana had then had dinner with Jules, Petra, and Mareth to further discuss the
ir plans.

  A voice in her head was asking if she knew how much work they had just signed up for with her harebrained scheme, but her face wasn’t listening, as she’d had a silly grin plastered to it all the way through their late meal.

  “Are you sure you have to leave? You can stay here,” said Jules. Alana liked her. She was a successful businesswoman and still cared about her community. But Alana shook her head. “Would you at least like someone to escort you home? I can have one of the doormen walk with you.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mistress Jules, but I’ve been walking in this city since I was twelve. I’ll be okay. And I’ll come back tomorrow after work, so I can help talk to the other districts who weren’t here today.”

  Alana got up, said goodbye and thank you to Jules and Mareth. Her sister stood and walked her to the door.

  “I’m going to stay here tonight, Alana. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” She gave her sister a hug. “I like him, too, you know. You make a good couple.”

  “Thank you, it means a lot to me,” said Petra. “You look happy, too. I was so glad you were here tonight. I don’t think this would have worked without you. We weren’t sure what we would actually do. I’m so proud you’re my sister.”

  Alana’s eyes began to water. “Shut up, Petra. You’re going to make me all blubbery. It’s been a long time since we were happy. I think we deserve it.”

  She kissed her sister on the cheek, and then stepped out into the cool dark evening, her mind still swimming with thoughts about how they were going to change the city, maybe even the whole country.