The Queen's Executioner

by Christopher Mitchell

  She paused to gather her composure, and left the classroom.

  ‘What did she mean?’ Killop asked, as the double bell sounded a few moments later.

  Simiona walked over and sat down by the captives. ‘She said, if you lose you temper again, you’re going back to the slave pits.’

  ‘Is that true?’ Bridget asked. ‘Can she do that?’

  ‘My master would never allow it,’ she said. ‘He has all kinds of plans for you. What did the professor say that angered you all?’

  ‘Some bullshit about how we were the bad guys in the war,’ Bridget snapped.

  ‘And,’ Killop said, ‘about how we killed some Rahain who weren’t soldiers, during a battle.’

  ‘Oh?’ Simiona said. ‘The battle where the professor’s friend died? I remember hearing about it at the time. You, I mean the Kellach warriors, attacked the baggage camp, to distract the Rahain army while you burned their mangonels.’

  ‘Their what?’ asked Killop.

  ‘Stone-throwers,’ Bridget muttered. ‘Six of them.’

  ‘You know of this battle?’ Simiona asked.

  Killop suppressed a curse. Was she talking about Marchside, where he had led a company in an attack of the rear camp of the Rahain? Where he had personally cut down many non-combatants, while his sister Keira had torched the giant stone-throwing machines? Had he killed Geolaid’s friend?

  ‘We’ve heard of it,’ Kallie said.

  ‘Many of the peasants here in the capital rioted when the news arrived,’ Simiona said, ‘demanding the army take revenge for the atrocity. There was a tangible feeling of anger in the air, a taste of which has recently returned, after the terrorist attack on the coal depot.’

  ‘What attack?’ Bridget said.

  ‘Apparently a rogue fire mage is leading a band of renegades in the Kellach territories,’ Simiona said, a wild light in her eyes. ‘They attacked a massive mining operation, killed hundreds, and burned the entire place to the ground.’

  The captives stared at her in stunned silence.

  ‘They’re sure it was a fire mage?’ Killop asked, keeping his racing nerves under control.

  ‘Yes,’ Simiona replied. ‘She was seen by one of the survivors.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘A woman, yes.’ She arched her eyebrows. ‘What’s got into you lot?’

  They said nothing. Killop sat back, in shock. Was his twin sister still out there, fighting?

  ‘Killop,’ Simiona said, studying him, ‘do you know a female fire mage?’

  He opened his mouth to answer.

  ‘We knew loads of them,’ Kallie said. ‘Every village had one. They all died in the war, as far as we know.’

  Simiona glanced from one captive to the other. ‘You never talk about the fire mages,’ she said. ‘I would be very interested in hearing about them.’

  Killop stared at the floor, while Bridget and Kallie remained silent.

  ‘That’s all right,’ Simiona said, a hurt expression on her face. She got to her feet. ‘I’ll see you all tomorrow, then.’

  ‘Bye, Simi,’ Bridget said.

  The captives watched her leave the classroom.

  ‘For fucksake, Killop,’ Kallie said. ‘You were going to tell her about Keira.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t.’

  She glared at him. ‘You’re a fucking liar. I could see you opening your mouth, about to tell that Rahain cow everything.’

  ‘Simiona’s not a cow.’

  ‘She’s one of them.’

  ‘But she’s a slave, like us,’ he said. ‘She had nothing to do with the war. It’s not her fault.’

  ‘So you fancy her too, do you? Do you dream about her as well?’

  Killop bit his tongue.

  ‘And,’ Kallie went on, ‘the way you were fawning over Geolaid. “You can tell us, professor, it’ll make you feel better.” It’s like you’ve forgotten what those bastards did to us. Some nice food, a comfy bed, and a set of clean clothes was all it took, and yer a happy wee slave.’

  Killop sat in silence, his face dark.

  Kallie stood. ‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘I saved your life at Marchside, while you were slaughtering the carpenters and cooks. And the armourers. If you had died there, then all I would remember of you was that you were a hero, and my lover.’

  She walked to the door.

  ‘Want me to come?’ said Bridget.

  Kallie shook her head, and left the classroom.

  Killop and Bridget sat in silence. He went over Kallie’s words. She was right about some of what she had said. He did feel empathy with some of the Rahain, especially other slaves like Simiona, and the four that did their cleaning and cooking. How could he hold them responsible for what had happened to the Kell? Kallie hated them with a passion, and without exception, but Killop’s hatred had been diluted by seeing signs of kindness and vulnerability in some of them, and he was incapable of hating Simiona just because she was Rahain.

  Had he been about to tell the Rahain slave about his sister, when such information could prove to be dangerous for them if Simiona chose to repeat it? If the renegade fire mage was Keira, then the Rahain authorities would no doubt be very interested to learn that her twin brother was in custody in the capital city. He had to be more careful, Kallie had been right about that.

  ‘She’s wrong, you know,’ Bridget said, ‘about you dying at Marchside. She didn’t mean it. It was you that pulled me through these last few thirds, and there’s no way Kallie would still be around if you hadn’t taken care of her.’ She paused.

  ‘Is there a “but” coming, Bridget?’

  ‘But,’ she smirked, ‘you’ve got to watch you don’t get too close to them. I agree with you about Simi, she’s not a cow, but that doesn’t mean we should trust her with our secrets. She’s been a slave all her life, her loyalty is to Laodoc, and she’d betray us if he ordered her to. She’d hate herself for it, but she’d still do it.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I get it. I’ll be more careful.’

  Bridget nodded. ‘Now all you’ve got to do,’ she said, ‘is stop dreaming about Daphne Holdfast.’

  Chapter 13

  Waylaid

  Rahain Capital, Rahain Republic – 25th Day, Last Third Autumn 504

  Laodoc glanced up from his book as the waiter approached.

  ‘Your tea, Councillor.’

  ‘Thank you, my man.’

  He watched as the servant arranged the cups, spoons, bowls, and a teapot painted with little yellow flowers onto the table in front of him. As the waiter departed, Laodoc stole another surreptitious glance around the busy café. Tea from the Holdings had become very fashionable in Rahain over the proceeding thirds, and teashops like the one he was sitting in had sprung up all over the city. This was Laodoc’s first time in such a place, the location for the lunch date having been selected by his younger son.

  Laodoc cursed under his breath. He should have had someone show him what to do, he thought, worried he was going to look like an amateur. At home, he had steadfastly refused to drink, or serve, the strange foreign brew, finding it risible that anyone would pay to burn their throats with scalding liquid.

  There was an almost ritual-like quality to the manner in which the other café patrons went about preparing their tea, involving pouring, sieving and stirring in a precise order. He looked down at the table, his eye catching the little bowl of brown crystalline sugar, another item imported from the bountiful plains of the Holdings Realm. The Rahain upper classes couldn’t get enough of the stuff, and when it had first arrived it had sent the nobility into a sweet delirium, distracting them from the growing troubles within the republic.

  ‘There you are, father.’

  He looked up to see his uniformed younger son approach, a weary smile on his handsome face.

  ‘Commander Likiat,’ Laodoc said, standing, and shaking his son’s hand. ‘It’s wonderful to see you, my boy.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Likiat said as he sat. ‘Took a b
it longer than I’d hoped to file my reports.’

  ‘It’s no trouble,’ Laodoc said. ‘Tea?’

  ‘That would be marvellous.’

  Laodoc poured, holding the metal sieve over each steaming cup in turn. ‘Sugar?’

  ‘Two spoons, please.’

  His son loosened the buttons on his tight army jacket, and sighed. ‘This is the first chance I’ve had to relax in a while.’

  Laodoc stayed quiet, passing his son a cup, and stirring some sugar into his own.

  ‘You can say it, father.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘I told you so.’

  Laodoc chewed his lip.

  ‘You were right, father,’ Likiat went on. ‘The campaign against the Kellach rebels has been, well, not a complete disaster but, as you probably guessed, I’m back in the capital to request extra funding, and more troops. A lot more troops.’

  ‘Then the rumours we heard…?’

  ‘Are all true, I’m afraid,’ Likiat said. ‘Chasing bands of renegades over the mountains all autumn, it was like hunting ghosts. And that damned fire mage. Ambushing and burning our supplies faster than we could fly them in. Hitting the mines, our camps and forts. We nearly caught her on three occasions, and each time I lost hundreds of soldiers, incinerated. I even saw her, once. It’s the same mage that burned our artillery at the battle of Marchside, I’m sure of it. I thought we’d got her under the temple to their fire god, but she must have slipped away.’

  Likiat tailed off, staring into the distance.

  ‘I offered my resignation, of course,’ he went on. ‘The High Senate refused it. They said that out of the officer class I have the most experience of the occupied lands, and I must finish what I started. So I told them I needed another forty thousand soldiers.’

  Laodoc gasped. ‘And what did they say to that?’

  ‘They’re going to vote on it, tomorrow,’ Likiat said, ‘and then, if the High Senate approves, it’ll be the City Council’s turn.’

  His son looked at him, his eyes dark.

  ‘Will you speak against me again, father?’

  Laodoc sipped his tea.

  ‘Yes.’

  His son glared at him.

  ‘Because I must,’ Laodoc said. ‘Because I believe that this expedition serves nobody. However, I will temper my language this time. I will say that your actions have been brave and noble, and no blame or fault accrues to you. You did your duty, as any loyal and diligent Rahain should. But, having said that, it is time to admit we are over-stretched, and pull back.’

  ‘No father,’ Likiat said. ‘It’s time to do what we should have done in the first place. Eliminate the savages, eradicate them completely from the entire peninsula. We were too quick to withdraw the army at the end of the war, while ragged bands of barbarians still lurked in the high mountain passes. We were so greedy to begin mining, we left ourselves vulnerable to terrorist attack.’

  ‘My son,’ Laodoc said, selecting his words with care, ‘are you suggesting that we kill all of the native people that remain in Kellach Brigdomin? The children? The old folk?’

  ‘They are vermin!’ Likiat snapped back. ‘You must not think of them as people. They understand nothing of civilisation or law, or common decency. Maybe if they had remained up in their mountain caves, and allowed us to carry on the work of progress in peace, we could have ignored them, and permitted them to live. But, father, the atrocities they have carried out!’ He banged his fist on the table, rattling the delicate teacups. ‘They barred the doors of a sleeping block for requisitioned miners, and burned the place to the ground, slaughtering five hundred defenceless serviles in their beds! Serviles who had never wronged them, and who had looked to their betters to protect them.’

  He lowered his eyes. ‘We were thrashed. Well, not again, father. If the senate approves my suggestion tomorrow, then I intend to put an end to the rebellion – and make an end of the Kellach Brigdomin.’

  ‘Remember,’ Laodoc said, ‘that nearly two hundred thousand of these savages are currently enslaved here in Rahain. We’ve had to draft many more brigades of peasantry to guard them, to cover our losses on the peninsula. If the Kellach slaves learn of what is happening to their homeland, there may not be enough soldiers here to prevent them from rising up.’

  Laodoc felt a twinge of guilt for not voicing his true feelings, and for disguising his disgust at his son’s plan. Let Likiat think his objections were purely pragmatic, let him not suspect his growing fondness for the three Kellach slaves in his mansion.

  ‘Perhaps you have a point, father,’ Likiat muttered. ‘The troubles affecting the city came as a surprise to me, I’ll admit. I can understand the need to keep sufficient troops here, to quell the current unrest among the lower classes.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Laodoc said, ‘if you were to reduce the quantity of troops in your request to say, twenty thousand, and limit your offensive to the north-western quadrant of the peninsula, Kell as I believe it’s called, you could secure the mines there, and get the coal flowing in. Then you would be a hero to the under classes in the city, the man who stopped them freezing over winter.’

  ‘And what about the mage?’

  ‘It sounds like she will come to you, if you restart the mines. Set a trap for her.’

  Likiat looked thoughtful. ‘And afterwards,’ he said, ‘once the peasants here in the city have been pacified by the heating being turned back on again, I can request the additional forces. By that time the mage will have been captured or killed, and I can clean up the rest of the peninsula in no time.’

  He looked Laodoc in the eye.

  ‘Thank you, father,’ he said. ‘Sound advice. For a moment I thought you had gone soft on me, but I was forgetting how long you’ve been in politics. Will you vote for the proposal, if I amend it as you suggest?’

  ‘Of course,’ Laodoc said, groaning inwardly, having caught himself in his own trap. This would take some explaining to Pleonim’s Liberals, and Niuma would probably punch him in the face for supporting the import of coal from Kellach. Also, he was making a fortune from his shares in the Grey Mountain coal mines, the value of which would again plummet if supplies started to arrive from the occupied peninsula. He realised that none of it mattered, if he had just stopped his son from slaughtering a hundred thousand Kellach Brigdomin civilians.

  Across the table from him, Likiat smiled, and sipped his tea.

  ‘Have you noted everything down?’ Laodoc asked, as his carriage was pulled through the city.

  ‘I think so, master,’ Simiona said, checking her hand-written list. ‘Matching set of cups, bowls, saucers and a teapot. Silver spoons, steel strainers, and orders for tea and sugar from Douanna’s trading house, all to be delivered before Winter’s Day.’

  ‘I heard that Lady Douanna is back in town,’ Laodoc said. ‘If you happen to bump into her when you are making the order, be a dear, and remember to ask if that fierce Holdings woman still works for her. Inquire if she would like to visit us, to see how our Kellach are doing. I think she may well be pleasantly surprised.’

  ‘Yes, master,’ Simiona said, a tiny frown at the edge of her lips.

  ‘Don’t you like her?’ Laodoc asked. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised of course, considering the way she spoke to me last summer.’

  ‘It’s not that, master,’ Simiona said. ‘It’s just that Killop and Kallie have been getting on together so well recently.’

  Laodoc’s tongue flickered in confusion. ‘And what does the Holdings woman have to do with that?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Simiona went on, her cheeks reddening, ‘that time Miss Daphne visited, she and Killop made some sort of connection. According to Bridget, who is the only one of the three who will talk about it, they stared at each other for several minutes, and Kallie got jealous and angry. The two of them argued for thirds afterwards, and even fell out about it for a while.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Laodoc said, pursing his lips. ‘Tell me, Simiona, are you attracted to K
illop?’

  The slave’s cheeks flushed even deeper.

  ‘No, master!’ she cried. ‘I mean, he’s good-looking, I can see that, just as I can see that Kallie is very beautiful. But the Kellach are so different from us, I could never think of them in that way.’

  ‘And yet Killop and the Holdings woman were capable of staring at each other with carnal desire?’

  ‘Yes, well that’s what Bridget said.’

  ‘Do you want to know something very strange, Simiona?’

  She nodded.

  ‘The five sub-continents that came together in the Collision,’ he said. ‘All different, yes? Different species of birds, mammals and so on?’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  ‘However, did you know that the large, mammalian creatures the Holdings call cows, also exist on the Kellach peninsula? And that’s not all. The cereal crops, wheat and barley, are also found in both places, even though they are at the opposite ends of the continent.’

  Simiona raised an eyebrow.

  As she was about to speak, the carriage jolted to a halt, and shouts were heard out on the street.

  ‘Whatever is it now?’ Laodoc muttered, opening the shutters on the side of the carriage, and peering through the window at the crowd outside.

  ‘Get down, master!’ Simiona screamed, pulling Laodoc by the arm. They fell to the floor of the carriage as a rock smashed through the window, sending jagged fragments of glass showering over Laodoc and the slave.

  ‘My master is a city councillor!’ he heard Beoloth call out from the driver’s bench, amid the roar of angry voices surrounding them. The carriage shuddered as more stones thudded against it. Laodoc curled up in terror as Simiona huddled next to him, keening lowly. The door of the carriage was yanked open, and arms reached in. Hands grabbed hold of Laodoc’s coat, and he was pulled out and flung to the ground.

  ‘Gold-tongued bastard!’ someone shouted, his accent low and coarse. ‘Kill him!’

  ‘Torture the shit out of him first!’ a woman cried.

  ‘Hold on!’ an older voice called out. ‘Calm yourselves. If this old boy really is a city councillor, we can use him to bargain for food and fuel. He’ll be worth nothing to us dead.’