Beneath Ceaseless Skies #114

by James L. Sutter

  Issue #114 • Feb. 7, 2013

  “Beheaded by Peasants,” by James L. Sutter

  “The Crimson Kestrel,” by Leslianne Wilder

  For more stories and Audio Fiction Podcasts, visit

  http://beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/

  BEHEADED BY PEASANTS

  by James L. Sutter

  Alana leaned against the stone sill of the gallery’s window and watched as the riders galloped through the front gate. From her high perch she could follow their twisting route down from the palace, harnesses jingling and hooves clattering on cobblestones as they wove between thick-timbered shops and row houses. Then they were out, through the gap in the city walls and into the last of the evening sun.

  Two of the riders turned and thundered south along the Traitors’ Road toward Charleston, through fields where farmers reaped in rhythmic motions, backs bowed and filling the air with drifting motes of grain as mule-drawn threshing machines trundled along behind them. The remaining rider continued back east, the way they had come. Alana watched his dust cloud shrink, then abandoned the window and moved down the corridor, slippered feet whispering across bare stone.

  Her father was still in the high-ceilinged audience chamber. On the far wall, the Great Seal of the Oracle loomed large behind the throne and dais, its royal book-and-skull insignia emblazoned in gold leaf. Her father stood beneath it, as he always did when holding court, along with several advisers and Tyrus, the captain of the guard. Each of the advisers—old men with beards and robes—was doing his best to talk over the others.

  “My lord, the beastmen—”

  “—if they were to take Harrisburg—”

  “—the damned Virginians will seize the opportunity to break away again, and—”

  “—with winter coming, the passes—”

  The old men faltered and fell silent as they noticed Alana.

  “My apologies, Father,” she said. “Am I interrupting?”

  Lord Erick Young-Allen, First of the Dying, King and Steward of the Appalachian Empire, was a barrel-chested man of Noreastern stock. Though only a few inches taller than Alana, with lines of gray twisting through his bushy black beard, he still managed to exude a palpable air of command. Now that beard split in a wide smile.

  “No need to be shy, gentlemen. You’ll be giving your contradictory recommendations to Alana soon enough. Yet I believe I’ve heard enough for today. You have your orders—I suggest you make good on them.”

  There was a chorus of “aye, m’lord,” and the men filed out of the room. Tyrus made to follow, but the king waved for him to stay. The young captain took up his usual position to the right of the throne, beneath the great tapestry showing the Taking of the Virginias. Alana did her best not to look at him, fearing that something might show in her face. Instead, she focused on her father.

  “Trouble to the east?”

  The king waved again, as if the matter was a fly to be chased away. “When isn’t there? The beasts of York are ever at our door. Their fields are ash, and their water poisons them and twists their children. Why shouldn’t they seek to take ours? I could almost pity them, if I didn’t know better.”

  Alana nodded. Privately, she didn’t know how he could be so cavalier about it. She’d grown up listening to tales of the beastmen and their blasted lands, the cratered and ruined ghost cities where those who had been human before the Breaking had grown warped and hateful. As a child, she’d snuck out of bed and hidden behind curtains in the feast hall to listen as her father and his generals drank and told stories too dark for children’s ears—the Battle of Scranton or the Razing of Jersey.

  Her father must have caught her expression, because he shook his head.

  “No need to worry, child. Our deaths are foretold.” He made the sign of the Oracle, then smiled. “And if that isn’t enough for you, three legions stand between them and our border. The beastmen have honored the truce for half your life—this is just the usual saber-rattling. Isn’t that right, Tyrus?”

  “Certainly, my lord. My lady.” The guard captain’s gaze flicked to Alana for only an instant before returning to a careful study of the far wall.

  “They mentioned Harrisburg,” Alana pressed. “Surely the Foundry’s not in danger?” Everyone knew that the forges and factories of Harrisburg were the main reason the Appalachian Empire had stood for so many generations. Half the metal goods in the palace came from the Foundry, and any legionary worth his commission wore Harris-forged plate. Even more important were the huge farming machines that let one field hand do the work of twenty, or the great war bombards that roared with the fires of Hell itself.

  A cloud passed over her father’s face. “No,” he grunted. Then, more softly: “No. The Foundry is well defended. It’ll take more than the trolls of shattered York to get through one legion, let alone three.” He sighed. “But you didn’t come to discuss troop movements.”

  She shrugged. “I was just about to go to bed, and came to say goodnight.”

  “Bed?” He frowned. “But it’s not even dark out.”

  “I’ve been feeling tired.”

  The king turned the full force of his attention on her. Suddenly Alana understood how his subjects must feel under that gaze—knees loose, throat dry, sweat welling up between her toes. It was all Alana could do to keep her teeth pressed together, fearing that if she opened her mouth, everything would come pouring out.

  The king’s grin reappeared.

  “You’re bored.”

  Relief surged through Alana in a cold wave. She shook her head quickly. “Of course not, my lord!”

  Her father laughed and clapped his hands together.

  “Come now, none of that. You’re long since of age for better things than keeping an old man company. Look at you! Twirl for me, girl.”

  It was an old request. As a child, Alana had loved skirts and dresses, the way they flowed and swirled when she moved. She had spent her childhood twirling in them, spinning until she made herself dizzy, while her father laughed and her mother chided.

  She spun now, slowly so that the rust-red hem of her skirt lifted only to her ankles, rattling the chatelaine keys at her belt. She held out her arms as she revolved, then finished facing her father again.

  His smile was wistful. “By the oracle, Alana, you grow faster every year. It crushes my heart to say so, but you’re no longer my little girl. You ought to have a husband.”

  Marriage. Given half a chance, her father would marry her off to one of the Iberian ship-lords, with their blue-water fleets and claims of a royal line stretching back before the Breaking. Or maybe to one of the dark-skinned Tejano Kings of the southwest, with their horses and buckskins. Whoever he picked, it would be someone of station—someone who would expand the holdings. Blood married blood.

  “Well, I fear it won’t be this year,” her father continued. “It’s too late to send out emissaries before winter closes the passes. You’re stuck with me for a while yet.”

  Alana smiled. “I think I’ll survive.”

  Her father clapped his hands again, this time a command. “Off to bed with you, then! Perhaps tomorrow you can run the council, and I’ll walk through the fields and dream of princes. What do you say to that, eh?”

  Alana stepped forward and kissed his cheek lightly. “As you wish, my lord.”

  * * *

  With the moon still down, the streets were as black as a privy chute. Alana’s foot struck a loose cobble and sent it skittering down the road, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from cursing. Instead she clutched Tyrus’s hand and hissed, “Can’t we have a light?”

  “Not yet.” The guard captain’s voice wa
s low, completely devoid of her own frustration. The man saw like a cat in the darkness, and moved just as well—a quality that both irritated and appealed to her. It made no sense that a man whose business was swords and soldiers should move like a dancer, when all her years of etiquette training left her stumbling like a drunken cow.

  Tyrus squeezed her hand and pulled her around a corner, his other hand coming up to rest along her back. The familiarity of the gesture made Alana shiver, and she quit trying to see and simply let him guide her.

  At last they stood in front of a cellar door set at an angle to the street, its weathered wood barely illuminated by a neighbor’s lantern. Tyrus reached down and knocked quickly and precisely—twice, then three times.

  There was a pause, then the sound of a bolt being drawn back. Tyrus lifted up the heavy door, and Alana moved in, following the cloaked shape that was already retreating down the exposed steps.

  Inside was light and warmth, a root cellar lit by a dozen tallow candles. The walls were lined with wooden crates and rough cloth sacks that had been pushed out of the way to create an open space in the center, barely wide enough to accommodate the room’s handful of occupants. All eyes turned toward Alana and Tyrus as they emerged from the narrow staircase.

  The assembled faces were young, though not as young as Alana’s eighteen years. At twenty-four, Tyrus was easily the eldest among them. All had the smooth cheeks and rounded edges of merchant children, and though their cloaks were dark and nondescript, there was no denying the quality of the cloth.

  Commoners, yes—but the most privileged among them, the artisans and scions of wealthy families. There were no laborers and field hands here. The true peasants would join them when the time was right, but the people of the field had other things to spend their energy on, such as securing their next meal.

  The assembly nodded respectfully to Tyrus, but Alana’s greetings were more mixed. Dowdy Tabitha, the beekeeper’s moon-faced daughter, had to visibly stop herself from bowing. Most of the others—Omar the blacksmith, Rass the scholar, Crispin the wainwright’s apprentice—regarded her with a mixture of excitement and mistrust. Only Rhena, the sharp-chinned woman whose clothes were almost as fine as Alana’s own, regarded her with visible contempt, tight lips twitched up in a half-smile.

  “So we’re the last, then.” Tyrus shrugged off his cloak. “What have we missed?”

  “Only the usual.” Omar’s voice was flat and strong, the ring of a hammer on steel. “Nattering about broadsheets and speeches and sending runners south to coordinate with other holdings.”

  Rass, a thin young man with a rare pair of pre-Breaking spectacles, harrumphed uncomfortably. As a student at the college, devoted to analyzing the texts of the ancients, he still wasn’t used to the blunt speech of non-academics.

  “I hardly think,” he began, “that discussing the precise messaging of our transition can be called ‘nattering.’ If there’s anything the surviving histories have taught us, it’s that the ability to inflame the human spirit with words and vision is every bit as important as the pre-Breaking technologies which we—”

  “As I said, the usual.” Omar smiled thinly, and Rass suddenly noticed a blemish on his glasses and began cleaning them.

  “But now that you’re here, Tyrus,” Rhena purred, “perhaps we can actually discuss something worthwhile.” Around her, several heads nodded.

  “Bows,” grunted Omar. “I’ve got every smith and apprentice who’s for us hiding away what swords and mail they can, but a farmer in armor is still a farmer. Bows, though—every field hand with two arms can draw a bow that’ll punch through chain like cheesecloth. And they can cut and string their own without raising suspicion. The king’s men won’t look twice.”

  At this, Rass found his voice once more. “Again with the weapons! As I’ve said a dozen times, it’s far too soon for such concerns. Every day that we wait brings more people to our side. Impatience on our part will cost lives, Omar. The timing—”

  “The timing will decide itself,” Tyrus said. “The king has grown weary since the queen’s death. He will pass the crown before long. He’s said as much to me in private.”

  The folk around him nodded and muttered agreement. Not for the first time, Alana marveled at how smoothly Tyrus flowed into the role of leader. There was a reason why guardsmen twice his age chose to follow him.

  “And what if Her Ladyship changes her mind?”

  Rhena’s voice was soft, yet it carried easily.

  “What if the princess decides that being queen is more fun than helping a bunch of dirty peasants usurp her throne?”

  Tyrus’s hands balled into fists, but Alana touched his arm.

  “I have no wish to rule,” she said. “I was born to privilege—as were all of you, in your way—yet I understand it for the fluke of chance that it was.” She stepped forward as well, letting all eyes fix on her. “My father is a good man, and a good king. The empire has grown strong under his line, but I think it will be stronger when every man and woman takes its rule for their own.”

  Rhena snorted. “And so you’ll give away the throne. Just like that.”

  “Rhena,” Rass broke in, “Alana has been—”

  “No.” Alana raised a hand. “Rhena’s right to be skeptical. Why would I give up power for some abstract philosophy? I dare say she wouldn’t.”

  The surprise on Rhena’s face was gratifying, but Alana didn’t waste time on it.

  “My father has given his whole life to the empire. As one of the Dying, even the mystery of his own death has been taken from him. He serves his people, and bears the weight of hard choices. And what does he get in return?

  “Hatred. The resentment of his own people. One township screams at him for not helping in a drought, and the others scream at him for levying taxes to help the first. They burn him in effigy for conscripting their sons into the same legions that guard them from the beastmen. Every step he takes, he’s dogged by advisors and malcontents who think they could do better.

  “You think the king is a tyrant, but he’s not. He’s a scapegoat, a straw man for all the empire’s problems. And I want none of it. It’s time the people stepped up and took responsibility for themselves.”

  The room was silent. Alana took a last look at all of them, then moved back out of the circle, taking her place next to Tyrus.

  Unsurprisingly, Rhena was the first to find her voice.

  “Pretty words,” she said, pointedly ignoring Alana and addressing the rest of the group. “But is it solely the ideals of the revolution that motivate her, I wonder?”

  All at once, the fire inside Alana shifted. Her cheeks grew warm, and she adjusted her own position to stand a polite distance away from the guard captain.

  So what if they knew about her and Tyrus? She’d told the truth—she didn’t want to rule. And while her father was a great man, it didn’t make sense for blood alone to determine who should lead. Look at Tyrus: his parents were farmers, yet he had risen through the guard ranks on the merit of his own skill and intellect, and—

  Alana tamped down that thought. This wasn’t the time to wax romantic. She would abdicate to the people because anything else would only prolong the problem. And if that meant she was no longer a princess of the Dying, with a princess’s responsibilities, and could instead marry whoever she chose, well....

  She realized that the rest of them had resumed talking—Tyrus and Rass about how best to rally the people to the cause before any of the lesser lords of the southern holdings could arrive to claim the throne for themselves, and Omar about building up the local militia as soon as the city was taken, lest one of the returning legions decide to instate itself as a new aristocracy.

  At last Crispin tapped the empty hourglass and noted that they’d best get home before the moon rose. With a rustle of cloaks, the conspirators made ready to leave.

  Omar was the last to hood himself. As he did, he called out a final question.

  “When, Tyrus? I grow tired o
f waiting.” His voice was not quite a threat. While the others were motivated by idealism or petty jealousy, Omar’s rebellion was personal. As a child, he had seen his father hung for stealing horses from the royal herd, with King Erick himself pronouncing the judgment. In her heart, Alana knew he wouldn’t be happy until her father hung from the same gibbet as his.

  Of course, Tyrus would never allow that. He was no murderer—and he loved her. Whatever happened with the revolution, Tyrus would protect Alana and her father to his last breath.

  He started to speak, yet again Alana stepped in front of him, matching the big blacksmith stare for stare.

  “Soon,” she said. “The time of the monarchy has passed. Together, we will see an Appalachia ruled by free men and women.” Quieter, she added, “You’ll have your revolution, Omar. I swear it.”

  The big man watched her, thick arms crossed in front of his chest. Slowly, he nodded.

  Not trusting herself to say anything more, Alana turned to Tyrus. He was standing with his own cloak half-on, watching her with blatant admiration. On impulse, she grabbed his hand and held it, then swiveled around, eyes daring anyone to comment.

  Without a word, the would-be revolutionaries trooped up the cellar stairs and out into the night.

  * * *

  Alana was walking through the market, followed discreetly by two guardsmen and enjoying the riotous colors of the assembled bicycle carts, when the runner found her. Cutting between two fruit merchants who stood with heads bowed, the liveried man dropped to one knee on the cobbles and brought a knuckle to his forehead.

  “M’lady, your father requests your presence at once.”

  Alana thanked the man automatically and slipped him a coin—freshly minted copper, not one of the adulterated pre-Breaking pennies. Her father wasn’t the type to summon her so brusquely. Waving her thanks to the merchants, she turned and began to move back up the steep streets toward the palace as quickly as propriety would allow. Even as she went, she saw the red mass of the signal balloon leave the palace roof and sail high into the cloudless sky, bearing its burning beacon aloft. The townsfolk saw it as well, and their frightened mutters followed her to the palace gates.