by Erik A Otto
Finally, Clyve looked mortified. Father didn’t make idle threats, so he knew it was real. Half his trust was, well, half his trust, and Father had much accumulated wealth.
Clyve tried to defuse the situation. “Father, I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn. If you will forgive me, I would—”
Bartholomew Bronté leveled his eyes at Clyve. It seared off his words. Then he said coolly, “I will not forgive you, and if you speak one more word to me this day, you will no longer bear my name.”
At last, there was silence. Absolute silence, in fact, for about a minute. Then Father’s knife and fork worked on his plate, breaking the quiet. The others resumed their meals, but not a word was said by anyone for the rest of the meal.
When his plate was wiped clean, Father threw down his napkin and said, “Baldric, when you’re finished, my study.” He stood up and marched out of the room.
Baldric could see the look of anguish in his mother’s eyes, her meal gone awry. He said, “Mom continues to cook majestically. I saw a bilberry pie in the kitchen, and bilberry pie only goes well with civilized conversation, so I suggest that’s what we have when we adjourn to the sunroom. Thank you, Mom, for such a delicious meal, and I look forward to dessert.”
She smiled at him, but it was a weak smile, born more of politeness than of happiness. She stood up from the table and began clearing. Baldric helped as his brothers adjourned. He hoped that they would show some good sense and come to amends.
But when the dishes were put away, he heard more squabbling coming from the sunroom. He sighed in frustration. He needed to go see Father, but he crept up to the door and eavesdropped on the conversation first.
Radley was speaking: “…a naustic. It would be my duty to teach you, but if you will not be taught, you would be cast out. Sorry, brother or not, as a priest sworn to the Canons, it would be my duty to rid the realm of you. The Canon of Protection states, ‘The path to virtue requires us not only to protect the virtuous but also to pacify those who seek to corrupt us.’ I suppose now you could be considered my half brother, so my conscience would be less impacted by my duties.”
Clyve shot back, “I would love to see you try to send me to some Fringe camp. Nobody’s going to let that happen. Father’s saying those things because he’s worried about his business dealings, not because he actually thinks the witless Sandaliers will be coming after him. And you know what, once this ridiculous day is over, it will only take a few of us with common sense to rid the realm of you and your damn Canons. I mean, they aren’t even our Canons. They’re from Belidor!”
How could they still have the nerve to argue? It was exhausting.
Let them argue, Baldric thought. If Father’s wrath wasn’t enough, there was nothing Baldric could do. And it was best not to keep Father waiting. Baldric, at least, wanted to keep his full share of Father’s trust.
He left them to their bickering and returned to the study.
Father wasn’t stooped over his papers this time. He was circling the room, pouring water into his panoply of wyg lamps as the light from the window started to fade.
“Sit,” Father said.
Baldric sat down in the wooden chair on the other side of his desk.
When Father joined him, Baldric noticed a few gray hairs standing up on his head. His angular face seemed to have dulled its edges in the more forgiving light.
Baldric expected he would be charged with the task of bringing Clyve in line. He dreaded it more than Radley, because at least Radley could be reasoned with. With Clyve it was always about being right, and rational thinking had nothing to do with it.
But that wasn’t what Father wanted at all.
“I want you to talk to Darian. Radley is lost to me, as is Clyve. They may return to me, in time, but they are past influence. As for Myron, he is of the same breed as Clyve. Until he learns to be his own man, he and Clyve will share the same foibles. I will do what I can to drive a wedge between them, but I’m not hopeful that we can sever their troublesome bond.
“Darian, though…Darian is young. Yes, he’s timid, perhaps fearful, but he can be molded. I’m confident his disorder can be overcome. It’s time to ensure he doesn’t follow the twins or Radley. I need you to make him understand how to be a Bronté. He must learn discipline, loyalty, and good virtue. Can you do that? Can I entrust that to you?”
Baldric was shocked. Father seemed to be essentially casting three of his brothers out from the family. And yes, Darian had potential. He was crafty and hardworking. But a representative of the Bronté name? With his strange verbal outbursts many thought he was some sort of half-wit. Who would take him seriously?
Father continued honing in on Darian. “Most importantly, in the near term, we need Darian to learn to be a good soldier. Then he will learn discipline—with discipline he can conquer his fits.”
Baldric was skeptical of Father’s logic, but wasn’t about to disagree. “I can work with him when we head north after the Day, assuming we’re assigned to the same regiment.”
Father nodded and said, “I will see to it.” Then he looked thoughtful again.
“Have you heard any more news of the north?” Baldric asked.
Father squinted at him. “No, nothing really. There are inklings of more Belidoran reinforcements coming, but it’s mostly heresay. The great houses are all providing supplies, making weapons, and enlisting their own kin, so we must do likewise.”
“Yes, Father.”
Baldric was sure there was more to it than that. The supplies would buy him some favor, as would his sons’ service. Father had a strategy for dealing with each house, each customer, each soldier, and each priest. Perhaps someday he would reveal these plans to him. But on this day, Baldric was happy enough to not be punished for his brothers’ actions. Baldric felt privileged enough to still be the one Father trusted.
“Baldric, two more things. First, do not speak of this conversation with your brothers. You know this. The second…I still have faith in you, son. Don’t succumb to your brother’s foibles.”
Baldric nodded.
“You can go,” Father said, and then he returned to his papers.
Baldric left the study.
The conversation was unsettling. Before facing the sunroom again, Baldric found a seat on a step before the kitchen. Something felt wrong about Father’s position. Baldric had trouble putting his finger on what it was at first, but then he came to a realization. For all his insolence and stupidity, many of Clyve’s words at dinner rung true for Baldric. He was just saying what all of them wanted to say. Well, except Radley, of course.
It was hard to know how many people really believed in the Day of Ascendancy—or, for that matter, all of the other prophecies and ceremonies thrust upon them by the priesthood. Father never spoke of it, and yet he seemed to reveal his position in his answer at dinner. He never said it, but he never said he did believe either, and that was just as important. It made Baldric wonder if what Clyve said was true—that the Canons were full of falsities, most notably the Day.
So while he shouldn’t be feeling any kind of sympathy for Clyve, somehow he still did.
Whatever he believed, whatever was true, he must follow the rules. Father was clear on that.
Baldric made his way back to the sunroom, fearing the worst. Instead he found Clyve and Myron sitting peacefully on the couches. They were reading, of all things. Radley was nowhere to be seen, and Darian was in his corner reading as well.
“Hello, Baldric,” the twins said, almost in unison.
“Where’s Radley?” Baldric asked.
Clyve said, “Oh, he adjourned for the evening. We had our arguments, but then we kissed and made up like good brothers.” Clyve said it without expression. Darian looked down timidly, murmuring something to himself. Myron was the tell. His eyes darted back and forth and he bit his lip. Some ruse was afoot. As to what, exactly, it was hard to know.
Baldric was too tired to guess. “Fine,” he said, and he sat down on the oth
er side of the room against the window, grabbing the latest farming almanac for a scan. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Myron look to Clyve and snicker. Clyve flashed a mischievous grin, and they both pretended to read again.
Baldric tried to ignore them. He remembered Father’s words; Clyve and Myron were no longer important. Darian should be his focus.
And then, just as he was beginning to read the almanac, it happened.
At first Baldric felt light-headed, almost dizzy. He looked upward and noticed a peculiar expression on Myron’s face. A frown had occupied Clyve’s. And Darian no longer had his head down. Rather, his head was up, and his eyes were unusually wide-open and pronounced. Then, there was a sound. It was like a giant horn was blowing a thousand miles away.
Things started to move.
The wooden planter on the dresser he’d righted earlier began to canter. A glass on the table fell off and shattered. Plates with pie remains fractured on the floor. A feeling of vertigo assailed him, like a well of ants crawling up his throat.
The movement accelerated. Furniture slid as the whole room seemed to be shifting around him. The table crashed into the couch. The dresser toppled over and the pot crashed. They had shifted at least forty-five degrees by the time he realized what was really happening.
It was happening. The world was turning upside down.
Clyve was a mask of fear, and Myron just held on to the wall, looking mortified. Darian managed to scurry across the room. He was staring out the window as he screamed, “You act in an ether of ignorance! You act in an ether of ignorance!” He was mimicking someone. Perhaps Radley? But did Radley ever say that?
Myron pointed with a limp hand at the window.
“What did you do, Clyve?” Baldric asked. He was unresponsive.
“Myron, what did you do?” Baldric barked.
As the room continued to turn around him, Baldric peered outside to where Myron was pointing.
It was hard to follow the vector of Myron’s arm from across the rotating room, especially because they were sliding down onto the sidewall. Baldric was forced to push a couch aside feverishly to avoid it falling on him and Darian. Nothing had been properly bolted down. Of course not—it had been Clyve’s responsibility to prepare the sunroom for the Day.
Baldric had no more patience. He grabbed hold of Darian’s arm through the jumble of furniture, gaining his attention. “Tell me, Darian, what did they do!”
“They…they tied him up…to show him he was wrong, to teach him that…”
Baldric looked outside again. Finally Baldric saw where Myron had been pointing.
Matteo save them.
Radley was gagged and wrapped in rope, tethered to a stake in the ground outside the house. But the stake wasn’t near a hearthstone or a mooring line. It was in the fertile ground of the estate. He hung from the stake precariously, now parallel to the rotating earth, as the angle continued to shift, passing ninety degrees.
One hundred degrees.
At least the mooring lines seemed to be holding the estate in place. Myron, Clyve, and Darian began sliding to the ceiling, but all eyes were fixed on Radley. In the distance, his silhouette hung off the poorly fixed pole at a nearly impossible angle. Through a fit of squirming, he managed to extricate himself from the rope binding his arms. He tore out the gag and began desperately climbing up the rope toward the stake above him.
One hundred and ten degrees.
Baldric could see parts of the Harper estate falling into the sky as poorly strung mooring lines flailed upward to follow structures they had released like some earthly octopus. The main Harper house fractured apart like it was caught in the center of a tornado.
One hundred and twenty degrees.
One hundred and thirty degrees.
The angle was too much. The stake that was Radley’s only connection to the earth released its hold, and Radley fell into the sky with it. As he fell, he let go of the rope tied to the stake, and it dangled behind him. The brothers all tracked him in horror as he careened into the twilight.
Before Baldric lost sight of Radley altogether, he saw him open his arms to the precipitous sky, readying himself for Matteo’s welcoming embrace.
Chapter 2
The Jailor
Zahir hung in the air at the peak of the revolution. His only lifeline was the knotty twine that reached up to a hearthstone above him. As they careened into the sky he also bore the full weight of the princess from the rope tied to his hips. She scrambled and swung on her rope stupidly. Did she want to make them both fall? At least she didn’t scream as some women from Judud Jawhar might.
The hearthstone was at least fifty feet up. He began trying to climb up, but the rotation continued, and he realized if he just held on the danger would pass.
When he was almost parallel with the ground he reached out to the grass, grabbed a clump, and swayed toward it. The tension on his hands, arms, and neck eased as his shoulder pressed against the earth and gained weight. He let go and slid along the ground until the rope became taught with the hearthstone again. With his hands free, he could pull out his sword, which had thankfully not fallen from its sheath.
Eventually the rotation stopped completely.
He stood up and pointed his sword at Hella. She was still holding firm to the ground despite the fact that gravity had returned. When she finally did begin to rise, she looked disoriented, like she was drunk.
“I will not kill you, Princess,” Zahir said.
Hella gained her footing and squatted in readiness. She frowned defiantly, her eyes darting around.
Zahir sheathed his sword.
Hella didn’t move from her tensed position. “Why the change of heart?” she asked.
He pointed out to where the men were chasing them. “They’re dead now, fallen into the sky. They can no longer speak about Wahab’s man helping the princess.”
“Oh, I see. You’ll help me as long as it doesn’t hurt your boss politically.” Her hands were on her hips, and her speech was laced with sarcasm, as if there was something wrong with her implication.
“Yes. If I’m seen with you in Jawhar, I have to kill you, or at least kill who sees us. Otherwise, Wahab is tied to a traitor who tried to kill the Herald, and Habib has no one to check him in the council.”
She still had her hands on her hips, so Zahir just shrugged. He could do no more to convince her of the obvious logic.
Zahir tired of waiting. There was still one who could be alive. He’d seen a man holding on to a spindly bush for most of the revolution. It was only near the end that he’d lost his grip and fallen into the sky. By that time, the revolution was nearing its end, such that he began angling back into the ground nearby.
If he was alive, Zahir needed to finish him quickly.
“Put your hood on and come,” he said to Hella. When she hesitated, he pulled her by the rope tether, gently at first. She capitulated and moved without him having to pull more forcefully.
It took some time, but they found the man among the fields of talahi grain. His body was relatively intact, but his head was twisted at an abnormal angle. The grain had been pushed down in a swath where he’d landed meteorically. His head was also blue and swollen.
“I will cut off the head to be sure,” Zahir said.
She just stared at him with bulging eyes.
If she didn’t want to look away, so be it. He managed to sever it in one clean motion. The neck must have snapped when he was launched into the ground.
“Come. We go south. We can move faster now,” Zahir said.
An uprooted trunk of a dead tree impaling a moored stack of hay bails.
An old couple in torn clothing sitting forlornly in the skeletal remains of their homestead.
A farmer bathed in red, butchering dozens of dead sheep outside of a collapsed barn.
A girl, no more than ten years old, hanging limp off a tree branch.
What started the world turning? What stopped it? Why did the rivers and streams h
old firm? These were weighty questions, questions too heavy to measure with so many disturbing sights and sounds on the road.
It was true that Matteo dealt a harsh hand to many of his people, a hand that often seemed capricious, but it wasn’t Zahir’s charge to scrutinize Matteo’s justice, nor was it his charge to intervene. He stayed at a distance and ignored the many pleas for help.
The princess didn’t talk for a while, which was nice. Maybe her reflection on her heathen beliefs would quiet her.
It wasn’t that Zahir didn’t like conversation. He would give much to speak with his wife, Gharam, and his daughters. He hoped they were safe and the mooring lines held in Kalianca. But he didn’t trust this princess. Yes, she was nice to look at, but she had too many Belidoran mannerisms and was always so crafty with her words. Their conversations reminded Zahir of the Belidoran prisoner Madena who would grovel with fancy talk about what was right and wrong and then steal food from the children in her next breath.
They made good progress for the rest of the Day. He bought new horses off a farmer for a price twice as much as they would have paid in Kalianca. Maybe this farmer thought horses would be scarcer now. It was true, but the people needed to ride them would be scarcer as well.
Aside from the pleas for help, most people ignored them. Buildings were torn apart across the ravaged countryside, looters were everywhere, and the military would have their hands full dealing with them. In fact, Zahir and the princess rode close by a group of militia on a tight path, and they didn’t even glance their way.
As a result they became more comfortable taking the frequently trodden roads. It would be easier for the horses, and best to take advantage of the confusion to extend their distance from Judud Jawhar as much as possible.
