Kingshold

by D P Woolliscroft

  Chapter 33

  A Difficult Knight

  Night approached, which only served to draw attention to the lights coming from the city. Kingshold didn’t sleep at night. It maybe took a brief nap between the hours of three and four in the morning, but what Hoskin saw wasn’t usual behavior. It looked like half of the city was spilling onto the streets. He reflected on the fact that a mob armed with firebrands was probably the situation most rulers least wanted to happen, but took some solace that he wasn’t the target of their ire.

  Hoskin stood on one section of the palace wall with Captain Grimes and Percival, and from their vantage point, they could see considerable crowds forming in the Upper Circle and moving slowly, inexorably toward Eden’s estate.

  Eden’s guards were prepared. They had already assembled and aligned across the major thoroughfares to his manor house. But what bothered Hoskin most was where was the city guard? These were private soldiers with swords drawn and shields raised, and things were likely to kick off soon. A few burly commoners had already tried their luck to get to the manor, but had their skulls bashed, and for now, the fear of imminent danger for the people closest to the guards was keeping the crowd at bay.

  Captain Grimes leaned on the palace wall and stared down at what was occurring, shaking his head and grumbling.

  “Captain, Percival,” said Hoskin. “Come with me. Let’s determine if we can see any signs of the city guard from the other side of the palace.”

  Hoskin led the way around the top of the battlement, through the upper chamber of the gatehouse, nodding to a guard sergeant who had a slightly worried look on his face. Hoskin shared the same concern. He didn’t want any crowd anger to spillover to him and those behind the palace walls.

  They exited the gatehouse and onto another stretch of battlements looking southwest, the city falling away down the natural incline to the sea. As they walked, Hoskin could see three figures standing ahead, but it was difficult to make out who they were in the reduced light. They could easily be guards at their stations. Grimes obviously had better eyes, though.

  “Lord Chancellor, there’s your commander of the city guard,” said the captain of the palace guard, disdain dripping from his every pore.

  Hoskin quickened his pace, lifted his head, and straightened his back to stand at his full height as he approached the armored knight.

  “What the bloody hell are you doing here, Penshead?” asked Hoskin. “I warned you this afternoon this was going to happen. Where’s the guard?”

  “Ah, Lord Chancellor, I do believe everything’s in hand,” Penshead said. “Why don’t you run back to your library, and I’ll take care of the city?”

  “With all due respect, sir, who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” Hoskin felt his blood boil. “You need to have the guard down there, taking care of this mess, or I’m going to hold you personally accountable.”

  “Ha. Do you think I’m scared of you, Hoskin?” The knight turned to face the lord chancellor for the first time, standing at full height to look down on him. “You’re pointless. In days, you’ll be gone. No one who wins is going to keep you around. I know I wouldn’t. Now, the way I see it, it’s Eden who doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing. Before long, there’s going to be a bunch of dead commoners, and then a whole lot of angry commoners, and it’s going to be his fault.

  “Who’s going to want to vote for someone who’s likely to bring an uprising? Or, instead, are they going to want to vote for the brave knight who brought peace at the end of the long night of fighting? I know who I’d choose.”

  “Listen, you jumped-up pikeman,” said Hoskin, jabbing his finger into Penshead’s breast plate, “you’ll do what I say, or I’ll replace you.”

  “I’d like to see you try. You don’t have the balls,” said Penshead, turning back to look at the mobs in the streets below.

  Captain Grimes placed a hand on Hoskin’s arm and turned him to face the way they’d come, before firmly guiding him back to the end of the battlement.

  “What are you doing?” said Hoskin through clenched teeth. “Are you turning on me, too?”

  “No, m’lord. I’m just going to need some men.” Grimes turned and looked at the guard sergeant they’d previously passed. “Sergeant. I want you back here in three minutes with ten men. And send ten men up to the other end of the battlement, too. Sir Penshead has, how should I put it, temporarily lost his senses. And so, he’s going to spend the night in the dungeon. Because I care about his condition, I want you to know if someone was to try kicking some sense into him, just once or twice, you understand, I think it would be good for his mental health.”

  Hoskin smiled. He liked Grimes.

  The sergeant rushed down the stairs, and they heard him shouting for troops. The three of them went back out onto the battlement and waited and watched as the score of palace guards seized Sir Penshead and dragged him toward Hoskin.

  “Good night, Dickhead,” laughed Hoskin. “It looks like your plan is not going to work out after all.” Hoskin couldn’t remember if he’d ever had more fun.

  The knight screamed, and roared, and bellowed as he was led away.

  “Grimes, you’re now commander of the city guard, too. What are you going to do about this mess?”

  “Well, let me begin, Lord Chancellor, by saying how happy I am to receive this auspicious post at such a favorable moment in the city’s history,” said Grimes. “I do love to clear up the shit.”

  “Yes, yes. Hardly ideal, I know. But I don’t think you want an angry mob knocking on our door in the middle of the night either.”

  “Well, first of all, we need to get Penshead’s captains here, so they know the chain of command. And then the plan is containment.”

  “Containment?” asked Hoskin, the afterglow of his little triumph fading fast.

  “Aye. People are going to riot. It’s too late to stop it. They’ll have made plans. Pitchforks, torches, babysitters, that kind of thing. What’s important to remember with a riot is it’s like a wildfire. Things are going to get burned. We just need to make sure the whole place doesn’t go up.”

  Hoskin suddenly realized that without Penshead around, there would be no one to blame if this all went awry.

  “It should be alright, Lord Chancellor,” continued Grimes. “But it’s probably best to make peace that there’s going to be some smoke come morning.”

  The carriage clattered out onto the streets from the palace gate. The roads were clear enough now to take him toward the Lance. Hoskin sat alone in the carriage brooding over what he was doing.

  Why wasn’t he tucked in bed, at least trying to get some sleep, even though it had been in short supply in the past few weeks?

  Had Penshead gotten to him with his remark about his love of books?

  In some ways, he could even see the logic of that buffoon. Eden was the target of the ire of the crowd, why not let him taste the repercussions, for once? But he knew the situation could quickly get out of control, and the crowd could turn on the city guard and the palace. How he detested Lord Eden, the man was too cocksure. Eden thought this was going to be a procession to his coronation or whatever kind of ceremony they were going to have.

  It was well past midnight, and the city wasn’t quiet. Instead of the usual bands of drunks and petty robbers, the place looked under siege. Shouts and calls and screams reverberated through the cobbled streets. Barricades had been formed with carts and tables, claimed by the guard from private citizens, armored men sheltering behind.

  He had watched through field glasses from atop the palace walls how the guard had attempted to bring some control to the matter. The rioters were initially focused on Eden’s soldiers. Barrows of stones had been wheeled to the front of the angry lines, and the bombardment of Eden’s soldiers followed. In some ways, Hoskin commended their restraint; they didn’t charge and attack for a good thirty seconds. Then it was a mess. Armored soldiers fared well against an unarmed commoner, but not so well when surrou
nded by ten armed with the tools of their trade.

  It took the arrival of Grimes and the guard, driving into the little space between the two groups, indiscriminately deploying their clubs to the heads of both sides to break them apart. The city guard had greater numbers than Eden’s private army and so the rioters fell back. Again came the missiles. Rocks and lit bottles of spirits by the look of the resulting fiery streets. Bands of rioters would gather and try to rush the guards, but they were repelled and slowly forced backward.

  Hoskin had lost sight of what was happening as the conflict moved further away from the palace, and he had to rely on messengers for news. Now, it seemed that Grimes’s plan of containment had worked, creating two main areas of the city where the trouble remained.

  And so, Hoskin was heading to the Judiciary, to see with his own eyes what was happening.

  The carriage slowed to a halt near one barricade, rioters with torches and whatever weapons they could find visible beyond. Hoskin step down from the carriage and called out. “Grimes!”

  The commander broke off from the man he was standing with and approached the lord chancellor.

  “Commander Grimes. Report if you please,” said Hoskin.

  “We have the firewalls in place, and the trouble channeled. The guards have responded well, m’lord. Only one captain refused to follow orders, and so, he’s been replaced. This here is one of the hotspots. We’re trying not to engage them anymore, sir. There’s been plenty of looting and fire, but we’re going to let them run out of steam. Most of the civilians have gotten out of the cordon and, in fact, we’ll be letting the rioters out, too, as long as they leave in ones and twos. I think this will have all died down here by dawn.”

  “Good. What about the other hotspot?”

  “I don’t know, my lord. I was just about to go and check in with it,” said Grimes.

  “Get in. Let’s go see together.”

  Grimes spoke to the driver, and then climbed into the cab, sitting opposite Hoskin. It rumbled back the way they had come and into the Inner Circle. The other mob had been contained with their backs to the Inner Wall, but three entire city blocks were under their control.

  “This is the situation we have to be worried about, my lord,” said Grimes. “There’s no release valve for this mob right now. No way for them to slink back home with whatever they looted. That’s when the kettle can explode.”

  The horses slowed to stop a few hundred feet from the barricades, across the broad street named after the Inner Wall.

  It looked like hell. The tall buildings opposite the wall were all on fire. At the barriers near the inferno, people were trying to escape from inside the cauldron, and on the other side of the barricade, there was pitched fighting between the men of the mob and the guards. Cobblestones were flying through the air and raining down on the heads of the armored troops as they tried to keep the rioters contained.

  “Shit,” exclaimed Grimes. “Lord Chancellor, please wait here. You need to stay safe.” Grimes climbed down from the carriage and ran over to his men.

  Hoskin waited, aware that watching a riot from the safety of your own high walls was quite different than being a stone’s throw away. The horses skittered and whinnied at being so close to the fire. They would rather be somewhere else, too.

  He saw figures being dragged clear of where the fire was burning, pulled out into the quiet streets, where they collapsed. Some of them not moving. Others shrieking as flames on their clothes were beaten out.

  Hoskin felt useless.

  He cursed Eden for starting this.

  He cursed Bollingsmead for riling the crowd.

  But he found his choicest curses were reserved for the wizard. Yes, as he had said, Randolph had been a useless king, but was this any better? Was this an augury of what was to come? Hoskin was interrupted from his litany of muttered profanity by the returning Grimes.

  “I’ve given the order to abandon the far barricade and fall back, Lord Chancellor. I’m going to hope a good bunch of them will run for the Feast Gate, and then we’ll try to split them up. If we leave them here, there’s going to be too many dead. Commoners and guards. If you disagree, my lord, I can release command.”

  Hoskin considered the situation. The anger and adrenaline of facing down Penshead had long since passed. Now he just wanted to be somewhere else. “Whatever you think is the best, Commander. You have my full support. I shall be heading back to the palace now.”

  “I’m afraid there’s one more piece of news, m’lord.”

  Hoskin’s heart sank even further, bad news always followed bad news.

  “The building there,” Grimes said as he pointed to a building in flames, “that’s a whore house. A fancy whore house, mind you. But it seems Admiral Ridgton was visiting this evening. He was trapped in the fire.”

  “Is he dead?” asked Hoskin.

  “Not yet. But he’s badly burned, and it looks like he took a beating as he tried to escape. I’m sorry, my lord.”

  Hoskin sighed. “Not your fault he couldn’t have just used his hand for one day.” He closed the door to the carriage, and spoke through the open window, “Carry on, Grimes. At least it’ll be dawn soon.”

  Chapter 34

  Arrest

  The vibe of a few nights past, the celebratory atmosphere after the rally in the market square, had gone. Mareth sat at the usual table in the common room of the Royal Oak, but it felt different.

  The inn was in lockdown. After the events of the last two nights, Lady Grey had wanted him to move into her mansion, but he had refused. He didn’t intend to run. But Mareth didn’t complain when Jules sent all of her remaining customers to other establishments, or when Lady Grey beefed up security even more. It was also reassuring to see Motega and Florian back in the building.

  The day had been a strange one after a strange night. Mareth hadn’t slept a wink. The sounds of crowds in the street, clashes between the people and the city guards, babies and children crying from fear, had helped to keep him awake. He knew he’d acted rashly yesterday, even before Neenahwi had pointed it out, but the anger that had consumed him had made him unable to recognize it. At the time he wasn’t sure what effect the song would have. He knew he could weave something to make people angry, but it had never spread to other people who weren’t physically there, like it did yesterday. Thinking about this had been another cause of his insomnia. The only explanation Mareth could settle on was the combination of barely hidden, simmering resentment that most people just accepted, combined with how close it was to when many of the people had been at the rally.

  His wounds were sore, but his pride was wounded even more. Mareth believed in fair play. That was how they were trying to compete in this election, and if he lost, then they’d all accept it. At least for now. But Eden wanted to take the competition out and not care about the damage he inflicted on people’s lives. Alana had nearly lost her life saving his. It had driven his anger, and he now admitted it, at least to himself; he’d felt an intense satisfaction yesterday when people took up his cause. Today, all he felt was empty.

  The morning had been quiet. People were focused on cleaning up and not moving about the city. Nobody wanted to be far from their homes and loved ones. Mareth had paced the floors of the common room until Jules had told him he was wearing it out. So, he went out into the city, pacing the neighborhoods and meeting with people, some of whom who had lost all of their meager possessions to fire or looting.

  The guilt was a crushing weight, far different from his conceit of yesterday. He said sorry to them for what had happened, but they told him not to stop. All day he heard messages to go and win, to become lord protector, even as a strange summer fog rolled in over the city making Kingshold appear even more otherworldly. The words of encouragement brought tears to Mareth’s eyes as he walked back to the Royal Oak. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone. But how could they win?

  Mareth’s remembrances faded away as his friends, old and new, gathered around their c
ustomary table. He forced a smile, first for Petra who was already sitting next to him, and then for the rest. Jules, Motega, Florian, Trypp, and Neenahwi, along with Lady Grey and Folstencroft, took seats at the table.

  “Neenahwi, how’s Alana?” asked Mareth.

  “She’ll be fine. I healed the cut, and then removed the stitches. She won’t even have a scar,” said Neenahwi, “but she’s going to sleep like the dead for a few days. The healing depletes a person’s energy, and she’ll need to recover. I’ll let my father know he’ll need to have some different help for a little while.”

  “Thank you, so much,” said Petra earnestly.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Mareth. “That lifts my spirits considerably.” He looked around the table. “So, what news?”

  “The curfew has been announced; everyone is to be off the streets by the eighth bell,” volunteered Trypp. “From what I heard, there were at least three dozen people who died in the troubles last night. And I heard the city jail is overwhelmed. That means probably a couple of hundred detained.”

  Mareth felt Neenahwi’s eyes drilling into him, or maybe he imagined it, and it was just the guilt.

  “The loss of life is sad,” said Lady Grey, “but the message last night sent to the whole city was a powerful one. It could yet work out to your advantage.”

  “I’m not thinking about that now,” said Mareth.

  “Well, you need to. People took to the streets last night because they believe in you. And I heard they told you the same thing today. However, the curfew is a constraint on our ability to operate.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” he said to Lady Grey. “You are right. And you were right, too, Neenahwi.”

  “About time you recognized it, Mareth,” said Neenahwi. “I hope you remember my other words about your responsibilities, too. That kind of action is not one I want to see repeated.”