by Sam Hooker
Unsurprisingly, nearly all of the servants who had escaped imprisonment had been the kitchen staff. King Chamberlain’s paranoia had very sensibly acquiesced to his stomach, and those of his guards. Luckily for Matilda, she was one of said kitchen staff, and had convinced the rest of them that signing up with the union was in their best interest.
As a result, a bounty had been laid out on the tables to greet them. The cooks had spared no extravagance, laying out the best cuts and all the trimmings.
“Stop!” said Mrs. Stodge, the head cook. She held up her hand and said it with such authority that the shambling horde of starving, liberated prisoners froze like school children whose teacher had started counting to three. She pointed to several wash barrels just inside the doors.
“Hands and faces,” she said. “Form a line, the sooner you wash, the sooner you eat!”
As if to punctuate her demand, a boom echoed through the hall from the bombardment outside. Mrs. Stodge didn’t need the help, though. She had the square jaw and fists-on-hips stance of a woman who’d never been disobeyed in her life. The horde became a queue, and within minutes they were all seated and tucking in. The kitchen staff, Matilda, Volgha, and Krespo were all seated among them, eating their fill of the feast. Matilda had even found some anchovies in the extra-fancy-events pantry, and put them on a little plate next to Volgha’s. Redcrow spread his wings to cover the plate, and he cackled as he ate his fill.
“Eat well, brothers and sisters!” Eustace was standing on a table and shouting above the din. “The time is drawing near! One hour from now, we take the throne room!”
“Point of order,” shouted someone from within the partially washed masses, “but union rules clearly state that we’re allotted fifteen minutes to digest!”
“Yeah,” said another, “we’ll have cramps otherwise!”
“Duly noted,” shouted Eustace. “That being the case, in an hour and fifteen minutes, we take the throne room!”
A cheer went up, only slightly muffled by hundreds of mouthfuls of food.
There was a wood pile just outside of the kitchens, which served as the fuel source for the ovens. Following supper and the fifteen minutes of union-mandated digestion time, all of the members of the servants’ union lined up at the wood pile and grabbed a fire log apiece. They were a far cry from official union cudgels, but they’d serve. Minutes later, they’d amassed in front of the throne room doors, and it was time to get on with the striking.
The occasional boom sounded through the hall, reminding them all that they were at war.
“Right,” said Eustace, whose constant hand-wringing was doing little to inspire confidence. “Things have gotten out of hand, and it’s up to us to put them right again. We’re kitchen workers, gardeners, butlers, and laundry maids, not soldiers! But it’s our own lives that we’re fighting for, and that makes each of us worth ten big brutes in metal armor, who are only fighting for a paycheck. It’s going to be ugly in there, but once the striking starts, no one quits until we’ve won!”
Cries went up, saying, “Yeah!” and, “Let’s show ’em!” and, “Who has to go in first?”
Eustace pushed against the door. It didn’t budge. He gave Volgha a puzzled look.
“Move aside.” Volgha held her breath as she moved between the unwashed-except-their-hands-and-faces union members until she reached the door. She knocked on it three times.
“Who is it?” came a voice from the other side.
“It’s Volgha, the Winter Witch. Open this door at once!”
There was a pause and some unintelligible muttering from the other side of the door.
“Sorry,” said the voice from the other side. “I’m told that the door must remain closed.”
“By order of the royal family, I insist that you open this door!”
There was another pause and some more muttering.
“King Chamberlain says he’s the only royal family now, and that you should go away, please. What? Oh, sorry. I’m being told to retract the ‘please,’ so … retracted.”
“Is that Reginald?” shouted Eustace.
Another pause.
“Yeah,” replied the voice. “It’s me. Is that Eustace?”
“None other!”
“How’s it going? Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I’ve been in the dungeons,” said Eustace.
“What for?”
“Your King Chamberlain seemed to think that I was a loyalist, and had me locked up!”
“You? Come on,” said Reg. “I heard a few people got caught up in that, but you? You didn’t even like the queen, always said she was a ridiculous drunk!”
Eustace gave Volgha a sheepish grin. Volgha shrugged and nodded.
“More than a few of us,” said Eustace. “Chamberlain locked up almost all of the servants!”
“Is that why we’ve had to do our own laundry?”
“Probably.”
“We’re terrible at it.”
Volgha gave Eustace a pointed look and waved her hand in a “get on with it” circle.
“Listen, Reg,” said Eustace, “the servants are all out here. We’ve unionized, and we want to air our grievances.”
“What’s ‘onionized’ mean?”
“We’ve formed a club,” said Eustace. “All of the servants are throwing in together to demand better working conditions!”
“Well that sounds like a good idea,” said Reg. “Are guards allowed in the onion?”
“We could do it that way,” Eustace answered, “though it might make sense for you to have your own union. It’s mostly a question of the charter paperwork—”
“Could you please just open the door?” asked Volgha. It was good that they were talking, but it was a pungent conversation from her side of the barrier.
“Hello, Volgha! It’s me, Reg!”
“Yes,” said Volgha, “hello, Reginald. Could you open the door, please?”
Another silence. This one was longer, then more muttering. Angry muttering. Hard to make out, especially over the booming sounds of the bombardment.
“Are you still there, Reginald?”
“Enough talk!” said the unmistakable voice of King Chamberlain from the other side of the door. “You are in defiance of the crown! I will spare your lives, but only if you go back to the dungeons this instant, and wait there until you can stand trial for your crimes!”
“What crimes?” shouted Eustace.
“Treason! Malfeasance! Conspiracy to form a union, forming a union, and jailbreak!”
Someone else was speaking inside the room, but it was too faint to hear.
“No, union, not onion,” said Chamberlain. “It’s like a committee that gets to negotiate with the crown, only the crown does not negotiate! It tells its subjects what it expects, and it expects those wishes to be obeyed!”
“Just like you obeyed Her Majesty?” shouted Eustace.
“That’s different!” countered King Chamberlain. “Look, the door stays shut, there shall be no unions, and you lot should head back to the dungeons if you don’t want my elite guard to put you down with swords and crossbows! What? I don’t care if they’re your friends, they’re committing treason!”
A silence erupted violently from the other side of the door. It was the sort of silence that was constantly interrupted by swear words and the sounds of a struggle that involved several people, and that was constantly interrupted by the sounds of boulders striking the castle walls.
As silences go, it was not a very respectable one, at least until the sounds of the struggle stopped, and then it was (aside from the bombardment, but one can’t have everything).
“Er, Reg?” Eustace knocked lightly on the door.
“Just a minute,” said a voice on the other side of the door, which belonged neither to Reg nor to Chamberlain. Volgha looked around at everyone on her side of the door. Everyone shifted nervously. Volgha decided to concentrate on feeling impatient, as that was less nerve-wracking than whatever
feeling everyone else was having at the moment.
You should go in without me, cawed Redcrow. I can’t hold a club.
Eventually, there was a sound from the other side of the door not unlike that of a heavy bar being lifted. Then there was the sound of a knob turning, followed by the opening of the great wooden doors. Everyone in the servants’ union reflexively cringed, and subsequently found their spirits running the gamut from mildly relieved to overjoyed at not being mowed down by crossbows.
Slowly, and with no small amount of trepidation, Volgha led the filthy lot of them into the throne room. The guards were all standing with swords sheathed and crossbows slung, smiling. They parted as Volgha made her way up to the dais. There she finally saw Chamberlain, sitting on the throne, bound and gagged, with Reg holding onto his shoulder. Chamberlain was wearing a sneer and a crooked crown. Reg was wearing a big, goofy smile.
“Hello, Volgha,” said Reg. “Are you going to be the queen now?”
“Yes she is,” said Matilda.
“No I’m not,” said Volgha.
“Yes you are,” Matilda demanded, hands on her hips. “I’m calling in my favor.”
“What? What favor?”
“In the dungeons. I agreed to help you fix the whole Loki thing, but I said you’d owe me a favor, and you agreed.”
Volgha remembered. How could she have forgotten about the favor?
Oh, she’s good, cawed Redcrow.
“She’s got you there,” said Krespo.
“No, she hasn’t! That’s not the sort of thing you collect favors for. It’s too big!”
“Says who?” asked Matilda. “We didn’t agree to limitations on terms.”
A pair of booms rocked the throne room. They must have been getting very close.
“If that’s true then she’s right,” said Eustace. “Contracts with union labor must have limitations placed at signing.”
“You stay out of this,” said Volgha.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” said Eustace. “She’s a union member, and I’m compelled to advocate for her rights.”
“I didn’t even know about the union at the time!”
“All the same. I thought witches knew that favors are binding contracts?”
And there it was. The logic was indisputable. If Volgha refused to make good on the request, the entire economy of favors could be ruined for all witches everywhere.
Her hands balled into fists, and she shook with rage. The Witching Way frowned upon being too greedy when collecting favors, but then again, Matilda wasn’t a witch. It wasn’t fair!
Ooh, cawed Redcrow, in a very gloating way. Who’s concerned about what’s fair now?
“Quiet, you,” Volgha snapped. “Look, it was a favor, not indentured servitude. Doesn’t it matter that I don’t want to be in charge of everything?”
I’m afraid it’s your destiny, said Osgrey.
“Oh good,” shouted Volgha. “Look who’s awake!”
“Who?” asked Krespo.
“Osgrey,” replied Volgha. “You don’t know him.”
Confused glances circulated among all in attendance.
You’ve done during the course of the sunset what no one in your family has done for hundreds of years, said Osgrey. You’ve cared. You’re on the cusp of restoring balance to the land! You’ve proven that you’re fit to rule.
“I was just trying to get everyone to leave me alone,” said Volgha. “I don’t want to be Queen Volgha, or Warden Volgha, or anything else but the Winter Witch! You can even have that title back, I don’t need it! I just want to go home!”
That’s why it must be you, said Osgrey. You have the ability to rule and the humility to do what’s best for the kingdom, not for yourself.
“But what about the Witching Way?”
Oh, you’ll have plenty of time for that, said Osgrey.
“How? I have a kingdom to rule and a land to quell!”
“You’ll have help,” said Krespo.
“That’s right,” said Eustace. “Your popularity with the servants’ union is very high right now.”
I’ll handle all of the high-profile adoration, cawed Redcrow. For the greater good, so you can keep up the humility.
“You’re a prince,” muttered Volgha.
Really?
“No.”
Tease.
Everyone was quiet for a moment. Volgha’s apparent argument with herself had abated, and the silence was only occasionally broken by the sounds of the bombardment.
A sinking feeling was coming over Volgha. She had to honor the favor, and it didn’t seem that anyone else was able to fill the roles. She’d have to take on faith that she’d have help.
Wait. No, she didn’t! She’d be the queen, wouldn’t she? Her sister hadn’t done anything useful in her entire life, which meant that the kingdom must have largely been ruling itself for years.
It seems like you’re out of objections, cawed Redcrow.
Volgha sighed.
“All right,” she muttered, frowning.
“Really?” said Matilda, smiling brightly.
Volgha shook her head. “It seems I have no choice.”
“Well in that case …” Reg plucked the crown from Chamberlain’s head in lieu of finishing his sentence. He held it as Volgha walked up the steps to the dais, pausing with a puzzled expression.
“Do I put it in your head?” Reg asked.
“You can just hand it to me,” said Volgha, who was herself unsure of the protocol in this situation. He did so and then lifted Chamberlain out of the throne by his shirt.
Volgha could feel the eyes of the guards and servants alike as she looked at the throne. She hadn’t thought that this moment would be so overwhelming, but then, she never thought she’d have to be a queen either. She set the crown on the throne’s velvet cushion and turned around, just as the bombardment shook the throne room with another solid hit.
“First things first,” she said. “Reg, send a couple of your men to run a white flag up to the battlements.”
“You’re surrendering?” Reg’s triumphant smile turned quickly downward. He appeared to be very hurt.
“No,” said Volgha. “The invaders are on our side. I just don’t want them to damage the castle any more than they have to.”
“Oh.” Reg now looked only mildly confused. He pointed to a couple of guards, then jerked his thumb toward the door.
“Now what about him?” asked Reg, giving Chamberlain a good shake.
“Put him in the upper dungeon for now,” commanded Volgha.
“The upper dungeon?” Eustace seemed unhappy with the decision.
“No one should have to go into the lower dungeons,” said Volgha. “You know that better than anybody. Besides, I’ll have a use for him shortly.”
27
Alexia had been blissfully unaware that she’d been deposed at all until she was asked to come down from the tower. Then she was furious, especially at learning that Volgha would be the queen in her stead. The sheer petulance of the fit thrown by the ousted lunatic was the stuff of legend, leaving not a single unshattered bit of glass in the throne room. Volgha would have been upset about it, but she knew from her time in Midgard that this sort of thing could be good for the economy.
The former White Queen was entitled Princess Alexia, given an impressive collection of tiaras, and retired to her family’s summer villa with a small retinue of union servants and guards. Chamberlain was sent along with her and tasked with reminding Her Highness that she could neither demand anything of her servants that would violate union rules, nor could she execute or imprison them because, among other reasons, the villa had no dungeon.
It’s quite possible that the only thing Volgha liked about being a queen was the relative dearth of requirements. If her forebears had done one thing right, it was to ensure that Aurorian monarchs would be free to go as mad as they liked.
I just think you’re passing up an opportunity, cawed Redcrow. Wouldn’t you like to wait a fe
w evenings? The courtiers must be foaming at the mouth to lavish affection on their new queen.
“Absolutely not.” Volgha shivered a bit at the thought. She imagined that sort of lavishing would have a very greasy texture. She wanted no part of it.
But think of the economy!
“The economy?”
Yes! All of the investments that they’ve made in licking your sister’s boots have been completely wiped out. The kingdom is in turmoil! Chaos! You have to allow the rebuilding to start, or who knows how long the recession might last?
“An interesting theory,” said Volgha, “but my boots won’t be the ones worth licking.”
She was glad to have found a way around the whole monarchy issue. She was standing in the throne room with Eustace and Reg, awaiting the arrival of Matilda. She’d been summoned from the kitchens and, unsurprisingly, arrived promptly. She shuffled in quickly, her eyes darting warily about the room.
“Yes, Vol—er, Your Majesty?” she said.
“Don’t you start,” said Volgha.
“Oh,” said Matilda, her shoulders relaxing. “I just didn’t know, now that you’re the queen and all.”
“About that,” said Volgha. “I’m not sure I appreciate your compelling me onto the throne.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, Majesty, but you’re not sitting on the throne, strictly speaking.”
“Nor do I intend to, literally speaking.”
Clever girl, that one, said Osgrey. Cleverness in girls wasn’t permitted when I was a boy.
“Favors are powerful things,” said Volgha, “but I’m afraid you’ve outstretched this one.”
“Have I?” Matilda cringed.
“You have. So I’ve decided to alter our arrangement a bit.”
“Have you?” Matilda hunched a bit farther.
You’re enjoying this, cawed Redcrow. You’d be really good at wearing the crown, you know.
“Wearing a crown is easy,” Volgha said to Redcrow, then turned back to Matilda. “Ruling a kingdom is not. You’ve put me in a difficult situation, so you’re going to help me out of it.”