Preserving Hope

by Alex Albrinck

  “Secondly, if this works as I suspect it will work, everyone will realize that Arthur is adding nothing to this process. He is claiming Elizabeth as property, as his slave, to sell off. She is not; she is nearly an adult, and as such should have the freedom to live her own life and profit from her own work and knowledge. Eventually, everyone will come to realize that there’s no need to go to Arthur first just to drop off a coin; it’s more economical to go directly to Elizabeth. That will erode Arthur’s own wealth and power.

  “And third, if I’m wrong, the advances people make from learning what Elizabeth knows – once she learns something – should improve the quality and quantity of goods they make. We’ll be able to make more frequent Trading trips, and earn greater profits with the quality of the goods produced. In other words, if we have to keep paying people to make good decisions for a while until they make the correct decisions on their own… we’ll have the money to do so.”

  “Let me see if I understand this,” Gerald said. “In the current approach, Arthur gets wealthy for doing nothing, Elizabeth gets weakened by doing everything, and everybody else gets poorer. They get poorer because they are paying Arthur for the privilege of Arthur doing nothing, and they get poorer for perpetuating a system of evil. In the new approach, Arthur loses power and makes no money, Elizabeth gets wealthy for teaching everyone, and we get wealthier both because we’ll make more frequent and more profitable Trading missions, and because the whole community starts getting the new abilities we’ve all long waited to develop.”

  “Well said,” Will replied, smiling.

  Gerald smiled as well. “I’m in.”

  Eva, Aldus, and Matilda agreed as well. All eyes fell on Eleanor, who smiled. “That’s a fantastic plan. I like it. How do we make it work?”

  Will sighed. “Before any of us can make it work, we need to make sure that Elizabeth is on board. If she doesn’t want to do this… well, then there’s nothing further to be done. And it’s possible she won’t. Why would she want to help people who’ve made her life a nightmare for these past many years, people who were part of her mother’s death? What if she’s someone for whom a large amount of money is simply not a motivating factor?”

  Eva sighed. “And unfortunately for your plan, Will, I think Elizabeth is exactly someone like that.”

  Will, who’d been married to the Elizabeth in the future, silently agreed. He had the feeling this complex plan was doomed from the start. But at least they would try.

  X

  Return

  “No.”

  Neither of them were surprised at this response. Still, Will and Eva — designated by the Traders to talk to Elizabeth — were a bit disappointed that she had no interest in going along with their plan. It was, after all, a plan meant to lessen her suffering.

  “You’re sure?” Eva replied. “This will relieve you of the experimentation that’s been going on for so long, and you’ll get to make quite a bit of money, and—”

  “I have no interest in money,” Elizabeth replied. “Everything that’s happened to me has happened because that man wanted money. I’m not his daughter, I’m his possession, to be sold to the highest bidder for his own profit, without concern to my well-being by him or the people who buy me. You want me to help the people that have supported this idea, the people who have bought me? No. I won’t do it. I won’t help them, not a single one of them.” She folded her arms across her chest and scowled.

  Will was privately impressed with this spunk. He’s seen and heard little to suggest that the girl had much reason to be anything other than despondent, and as such her strong response was a pleasant surprise. Eva had shared more detail about Elizabeth’s life in the village on their journey back to the village, and Will wished he was one who couldn’t keep his word. He’d vowed he wouldn’t kill anyone, no matter how much they might deserve such a penalty, but he wanted desperately to make an exception for Arthur and several other members of the community. A man named Maynard, like Gerald a former soldier, seemed to by Arthur’s unofficial bodyguard, and he was known to talk to others to see what substances seemed to cause Elizabeth the greatest pain – and then force her to consume all of them each time he hired her. He was the worst of the sadists, though certainly not the only one.

  Eva noted that Elizabeth was routinely sad and depressed, though the girl said it wasn’t caused by the testing itself. It was something deeper, something she couldn’t – or wouldn’t – tell Eva. Her only joy, Eva said, had come when Eva had privately apologized to Elizabeth for failing to stand up for the girl and her promises to do what she could to treat her well in the future, and try to convince others to do the same. Elizabeth would spend a great deal of time in Eva’s room, where the older woman would feed her and hold her as her body struggled to process whatever poison she’d been fed that day. Eva had become the mother Genevieve struggled to be, the mother the girl had lost on that horrible day, and Eva provided the small sliver of love and compassion Elizabeth so desperately needed.

  Elizabeth’s overall impression of humanity, however, was horribly marred by what she’d experienced in her life, and she believed that kindness was a rare exception. People would use her up without concern of what happened to her, and Elizabeth frequently expressed a desire to die and be free of the pain of living.

  The fiery response, then, suggested that she was fighting back.

  “I respect that, Elizabeth,” he said. “And I pledge to you that I will do everything in my power to make sure that the treatment you’ve received is eliminated. Not lessened, not made less frequent, but eliminated. I will work to make sure that it simply can’t happen.”

  Elizabeth turned her dead eyes on him. “And how do you propose to do that?” It was a tone of extreme weariness, as if her frail frame simply couldn’t bear the weight of any more scheming. That was how Elizabeth had always acted, with a few brief glimpses of the fire and determination he’d come to know so well so many years into the future. There was so much missing from her life that time spent in the presence of the handful of people who weren’t out to hurt her in some fashion was the closest thing to relief she got.

  “I am going to get you out of here, enable you to move far away, with plenty of money, in order for you to live a healthy life.”

  Elizabeth laughed without humor. “My father—” she spat out the word “—would seek me out and hunt me down, without question. His power in this community comes from holding the keys to the ultimate prize — my volunteered service.” She rolled her eyes, an expression apparently common across the centuries for teenage girls. “And besides, I’m not the one who’s done something wrong. Why should I be the one to leave?”

  Neither of them had an answer to that.

  “I’ve just arrived here,” Will said, looking directly into her blue eyes. “It seems like a community with great promise, should it ever move away from a system that relies on the enslavement of one its own. Yet from what I’ve been told this place is an earthly version of hell for you. I must ask: why do you want to stay? Don’t you want to leave?”

  Elizabeth looked at the ground, her flaming red hair spilling over her shoulders as if to mask her face. “This is where I belong. I want to make it right, not leave it wrong. I know that I can make it right in time. I owe it to my mother, too. And to the people here who at least care enough to try to make this something other than hell on earth for me.” She looked up, and her blue eyes were moist with tears as she looked at Eva and then back to Will. “That is what I want, Mr. Stark. Do what you can to help that happen. I don’t need anyone trying to help me leave.”

  Will simply nodded.

  “The people here are overwhelmingly good,” Elizabeth said. “I know that to be true.” Will caught the quick flick of her eyes in his direction, a secret message only for him. “I want them to change. I don’t want them dead. If I leave, my father will pit them against each other and they will exterminate themselves vying for his favor. We have to expose him for what he is. W
e have to depose him, Mr. Stark. But I won’t kill him, or let anyone else kill him either. He’s my father. My greatest wish is that he will see this community thrive outside his control and realize how much his tactics prevented that improvement. What better punishment for a man so lustful for power and control, so desperate to find the secret to develop superhuman abilities, than to see them develop after he’s no longer in charge? I told you I won’t help the villagers develop the abilities they so desperately want, that they’re willing to watch me suffer so they can achieve them. They’ve not earned that right. But I will help them become people that I want to help reach those goals.”

  Will smiled, and Eva joined him. Her spirit was generous and inclined to see and seek out the best in everyone. Though Arthur had wronged her, though she had every reason to want to see the man dead, she sought instead to teach him the error of his ways, and this from a girl who had rarely known kindness in her life. His admiration for this young woman, for the future version of her who would one day be his wife, grew ever greater.

  “I will do what you wish,” Will said. “Tell me, and I will help you however I can.”

  “As will I,” Eva said. “However, Will, we must first return to the center of our community; it is time for our midday meal, and everyone will be eager to greet us and collect their purchases and profits.”

  Will nodded, and with one last glance and smile at Elizabeth, he followed Eva out of the room and headed toward the front gate, leaving Elizabeth behind. The girl’s emotions trailed after him, a mixture of everything but happiness.

  “I really thought she’d go along with that plan,” Eva mused, hefting a large sack full of coins and the slivers of wood recording the transactions from their journey.

  “Yet I think that’s part of the issue,” Will said. “We made a plan, one heavily dependent on her acting in a certain way, but we never asked her what she wants to do. She’s never in her life, from what you’ve told me, had the freedom to do what she wants. From her very childhood, she’s been shuttled around from one cruel master to another, living purely to help them succeed in areas where they weren’t willing to suffer through the pain of progressing toward their goals. They work hard at everything but what they most want, and demand that ultimate sacrifice from one unable to refuse that demand. I can see why she’d be upset; we show up under the guise of helping her, and yet we expect her to behave in the way we tell her.” Will motioned to Eva, and she handed over the sack, allowing him to share the burden of carrying it.

  “We aren’t telling her to do anything,” Eva hissed, the tense whisper coming out more harshly than she might have intended. “It is in her own best interest. We want her to succeed; doesn’t she know that?”

  “I think she does,” Will said. “But we’ve not treated her as a human being either, have we? We’ve not asked if she wants help, or if she does, what form she wants it to take, or what she wants to do with her life. She’s developed incredible power, Eva; you know that as well as me. Perhaps she’s content to go through the guise of suffering to perform her own research without alerting anyone as to exactly how powerful she’s become.”

  They were too near the village center for Eva to respond, but her face suggested she was thinking this through in depth. Perhaps, in the minds even of those who’d chosen to look out for her best interest, she was not a person, but a pawn to be manipulated to someone else’s ends.

  They arrived at the opening near the gate. The horses they’d ridden and driven back were in the barns, watered and fed, and the carts they’d brought back sat there in their glory, the tarps still securely fastened down. The Traders would distribute out the requested purchases to each member of the community, along with the profits they’d earned from sales and the savings made on purchases. Eva’s careful notes scratched on the tree bark “paper” would ensure that nothing was taken before it was officially handed out. If they were short any item or any money, then all members of the community would find their rooms ransacked to locate the missing goods, and the guilty parties would be expelled immediately. “We had that happen once,” Eva had told him during the trip home. “I’d never seen a crowd so hostile to that point; it was matched only by the crowd that… well, when Genevieve died. This community does not like to feel cheated, regardless of the form. As you might expect, it hasn’t happened again.”

  Once the community had assembled, Arthur jumped up on the seat of one of the carts in order to be seen by all. “Our Traders have returned!” he shouted, and the crowd roared with excitement. “I invite Eva forward to provide a full accounting of the journey and oversee the distribution of goods… and profits!” Louder cheers this time.

  Arthur reached a hand down and assisted Eva up to the seat. She gave him a sideways glance, as if surprised by the friendly gesture, and then stood to face the crowd. “My friends, we come bearing news of our most profitable Trading mission to date. I believe most of you will find your profits to be quite extraordinary. I do want to give credit to our newest Trader, Will, whose gifts for trade are matched only by his courage.” The Traders applauded vigorously. The others looked toward Arthur, who was still perched on the wagon seat with Eva. After a noticeable pause, Arthur began to clap as well, and the rest of the community soon joined him. Eva shot Arthur a withering glare, and he returned a simpering smile her way.

  Great, Will thought. Everything is a political power play, and I’m caught in the middle of it. It was concerning to see what amounted to battle lines being drawn, and the apparent inability of any villagers to act without some type of approval from Arthur. They couldn’t even cheer the news of tremendous profits without waiting to see if Arthur approved? He knows it, too. He waited just long enough to start clapping to make it clear to Eva that everyone follows his lead.

  Eva began calling out groups: smiths, farmers, millers, weavers, carpenters, foragers. Each group came forward and received their specific purchase requests and an accounting of the financial aspects of the transaction. Will worked with the other Traders to locate their purchases in the wagons, and brought them forth as Eva called everything out. Most people purchased necessary supplies and raw materials: seeds, yeast, needles, farming tools, saws, hammers, cookware, and raw iron. Many also had requested various luxuries, including clothing, jewelry, and other items. Will hadn’t noticed it before, but the Traders were certainly more shabbily dressed on a daily basis than others. He imagined that they’d been putting their earnings into caring for Elizabeth for quite some time, and had spent little on themselves. He experienced a feeling of gratitude for their sacrifice on her behalf.

  The process took hours, and was highly inefficient. Will would often have to search each cart for the correct supplies, and the supplies required for the person waiting were frequently buried at the bottom, rather than at the top where they would be easily accessible. He made a mental note to think through a better approach to their return trip; perhaps separating supplies by profession and calling each profession in order to ensure no digging was required. He also wondered if they might, perhaps, be better off setting up a store of the likes he knew in his time. Rather than trying to make individual purchases for people and then match them up, perhaps they could purchase popular items in bulk, and then sell at a profit within the community. He’d need to talk to the other Traders about that idea. He scowled, realizing that they’d only be able to try something that different after getting the approval from the other villagers, and more specifically, from Arthur. Given that the idea would come from Eva’s Traders… he knew already that the idea was doomed to failure.

  It was nearly evening when the last individual received their money, supplies, and personal treasures. The Traders were exhausted, but happy, as Eva concluded the transactions by dropping fifty gold coins in each of their coin purses. They walked to the center of the community and had their fill of their evening meals, each dropping a copper in the hand of the cook, who ladled each a full bowl of a steaming beef and vegetable broth and a small lo
af of bread. Many of their neighbors walked by, and called out words of thanks for the terrific profits they’d netted as the result of the Traders’ efforts.

  As the sun set, Will made his way back to his room, next door to Eva’s. He’d not seen Elizabeth since that morning; she’d stayed put in Eva’s room all day. Apparently, Eva had “purchased” Elizabeth for the duration of their trip to watch her room, so as to prevent her from being treated poorly in their absence. Will had a hunch that Arthur wouldn’t honor that “purchase” since Eva wasn’t around to verify that it had been carried out. He wanted to speak with Elizabeth, find out just how far she’d progressed, and talk to her about what she wanted to accomplish and how he could help. He could check on how she’d been treated in their absence as well.

  Will snapped his fingers and turned around. He walked to Arthur’s residence, and, unsure of social conventions of the time, used his own and knocked. Arthur opened the door. “Will!” he exclaimed. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  “I would like time with Elizabeth tomorrow.”

  Arthur blinked, and then smiled. “Will, Elizabeth’s time is very valuable. I’m afraid she has quite a full calendar several months in advance.”

  “I’ll give you a full gold coin instead of the usual silver coin.”

  Arthur paused to consider it. “I’m not sure if that’s wise, Will. What will I tell Maynard? He has quite the temper, you know, and might not take kindly to having his schedule altered in that fashion.”

  “I’m certain that the gold coin can prove quite useful in changing his mind and easing his excessive pain and grief over the matter, Arthur.”

  Arthur chuckled. “You do have a way with words, Will, but unfortunately, words alone won’t enable me to talk to Maynard. However…” Arthur paused dramatically.

  Will sighed. “What do you want, Arthur?”

  “If I had a gold coin for my own troubles, and another to ease Maynard’s concerns, I believe we could make it happen.”