--Nate.”
He walked back to the little shed and put the letter next to all the other artifacts of Nate’s life, the things that proved he had existed - that he had lived and died.
All three of them stood in silence for a few minutes.
“Have you showed anyone else?” Will asked.
“I only showed Nate’s parents,” Martin said quietly.
Nate’s parents were both elderly and had trouble getting around. Like Nate, nearly everyone in the village liked them, but they weren’t seen in public much.
Will nodded.
“That’s for the best.”
He slept a little better when he went home that night, and when he got up the next day he worked twice as long on the airplane, and kept the lathe spinning almost whenever there was electricity to power it.
At the next village meeting, Ms. Diane raised the topic of Nate. Will wasn’t sure that anything had ever surprised him more in his life, as he was quite sure that Ms. Diane would have preferred everyone to forget about her exchange with Martin.
“I inquired with the local regiment and I was told that Nate Larson has been transferred to a logistics detachment in the capital on special assignment, serving at the King’s pleasure,” she said. “He is very much alive and well. Obviously there has been some misunderstanding.”
Will half-expected Martin to leap up again and start shouting, but he didn’t. Martin was conspicuously absent from the village meeting, his usual seat next to Will and Harry vacant. Harry kept looking at the empty seat and chewing his straw quite a lot harder than he usually did.
“Additionally, I have some exciting news,” Ms. Diane continued. “In celebration of the recent victories at sea, the King’s Guards will be holding a parade in the village this afternoon.”
This created a buzz in the audience. Some townsfolk were saying things like, “the King’s Guards?” and “this afternoon? So soon?”
“Be sure to attend,” Ms. Diane continued. “Everyone should come out to see the parade.”
When the town meeting had ended, Will walked back out into the street to find it much changed. A uniformed soldier, his outfit much smoother and sleeker than the usual boys, with crisply combed hair and a vivid patch on his arm that marked his status as a guardsman, was patrolling the street. Someone had painted regular lines on the street, a few feet apart, stretching for hundreds of yards in either direction. Will had seen things like this when he was in the capital. The lines were markings for a parade.
The King’s Guard started to arrive around noon. A special train, obviously a much newer model than the ones Will was accustomed to seeing, pulled into the station. More soldiers quite as crisp and well-uniformed as the first piled out of their cars. They took up positions in accordance with the parade markings in the street, even though the parade was not scheduled to start for another hour or so.
Noticeably, all the soldiers from the local regiment had disappeared. The canteen was empty, and the moonshine still that usually ran 24/7 had been left completely unattended. There were no longer any soldiers at the market, bartering or extorting goods from the townspeople as they usually did, and even the tobacco-chewing navy officer who sold things out of the back of his truck had disappeared.
People from other villages, maybe even other cantons, also began to arrive by train to see the parade. Some seemed excited and others confused, but they gathered around the town hall and the canteen and lined the streets, waiting restlessly.
A few hours after the town meeting had ended, just as the villagers were being instructed to gather to watch the parade, Martin re-appeared. He had another black eye, and his face was more bruised and bloodied than ever.
“What happened?” Will asked.
“Not now,” Martin said.
Officers from the King’s Guard were walking up to each person and asking to see their residency papers. When the officer reached them, Will and Martin produced their papers. The man wordlessly inspected them and moved on.
Will tried to engage Martin in conversation a few more times, but each time he said, “not now,” and waved Will down. The parade started on schedule, as Ms. Diane had said. On the instruction of one of the officers, the Kings’ Guardsmen began to march down the street, their boots hitting the parade markings exactly as they performed high-kicking step after step. There must have been hundreds, if not thousands of them. It occurred to Will that there were many more of them than there were villagers. After the infantrymen came vehicles. A large armored car trundled by, followed by artillery pieces and then modern treaded tanks, the new types with big turrets like domes. It went on for at least an hour as they ground on at low speed. There were hundreds of military tanks and trucks to see.
As he watched them, Will vaguely thought about the farmers. Many had trucks, but many more still hauled their goods to town on the backs of horse-drawn carts, or hand carts if they didn’t have horses. Obviously the King’s Guard had no such deficiencies.
There was one thing that interested Will. An aircraft was pulled past them, on the back of the truck. It was an absolute top-of-the-line cutting edge fighter - a sleek form, with those new swept wings and a ferocious-looking propeller on the front, flanked by two machine guns that Will knew were timed to fire through the blades. While he took little away from seeing it as part of the parade - in fact, he would have preferred to have seen it flown rather than slowly paraded past them - he could not help but admire the workmanship and technology that the capital commanded. This highly advanced aircraft was far beyond anything he could hope to build.
Eventually, the parade ended. There was no announcement or speech to accompany it, but at the end the crowd burst out cheering and clapping, and they joined in a chorus of “All Hail King Edward.”
Then, just as quickly as they had come, the King’s Guard left. The soldiers and vehicles piled back onto the train and it left the station, zooming off. The people who had come from other villages to watch the parade started to leave as well. Will primarily felt confused as he saw these people wait for their trains, or else ask for directions or instructions on how to get back to their own villages.
“Let’s get a drink,” Martin said, tapping him on the shoulder.
Chapter 14
The canteen was almost vacant when Will and Martin came back inside. It looked strangely huge without the usual gaggle of local soldiers that occupied every corner and crevice of the place. Mack was still standing behind the bar, wiping a glass. Martin sat down at a table and ordered some drinks. Will sat down next to him and accepted his beer. Martin looked like he wanted to say something but remained silent for a long time as people slowly filtered in behind him. He waited for a reasonable din of conversation to build up around them, then spoke in a low, conspiratorial voice.
“Why do you think they decided to hold that parade today?” Martin asked. “Do you think it was just to celebrate? Or to impress us? Or to distract us? Or to scare us?”
Will shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“I think it was a message,” Martin said quietly. “I think they were trying to say. ‘Don’t mess with us. You can’t win.’”
“Maybe.”
Martin sighed and fell back in his chair. “And why do you think that they wouldn’t tell us that Nate had died? We both know he’s dead. He died on our table. It’s because admitting he died... they might have to admit that the Navy had lost that battle. And they didn’t want to say the Navy lost. I’ve been trying to figure it out. I have some books on military tactics and weaponry and command and all that stuff, and I’ve been reading them.”
“You read too much,” Will muttered quietly.
“I don’t think lying about losing the battle serves any purpose,” Martin pushed on. “There’s no point in telling your sailors that one of their own is alive when he’s dead, or that they’ve sunk ships that they haven’t... you remember what Nate told us? About how he’d radioed for reinforcements, but he knew that they wouldn’t come becau
se all the gas had been stolen and sold?”
The image of the tobacco-spitting man with the truck flickered through Will’s mind.
“Yeah,” Will said. “I remember.”
“Well, I asked some of the guys around here,” he said, gesturing to the canteen. Soldiers had only just started to filter back in. “They said it was pretty well known that stuff was constantly being stolen and sold, ‘army surplus.’ But command was hopping mad that they lost that battle. There was an internal inquiry about how the fuel went missing. And you know what they decided? They said that the fuel was stolen - by Carl Garrett.”
Will cast his mind back. Where had he heard that name before? Then he remembered. The man with thinning hair and filthy clothes, and Ms. Diane’s condemning voice.
“This man, Carl Garrett, has confessed to the heinous crime of stealing shipments of equipment from the train station - equipment that was being shipped to the front line for our soldiers’ use - and selling it for personal profit.”
And he also remembered seeing that same man outside the mountain prison, being knocked to his knees by the guards, and then shot and killed.
“But he’s dead,” Will said slowly. “He can’t have been stealing fuel. He was exiled and died years ago.”
“Exactly. I asked around, and they said they’d been blaming that guy Garrett for all kinds of stuff! Tank of fuel went missing? Garrett’s fault. Engine hasn’t been maintained? Garrett stole the parts. They blame all of it on him.”
“I wonder if he ever even did anything in the first place,” Will said slowly.
“I have no idea,” Martin said, shaking his head. “But listen, there’s more. I’ve been thinking... You remember the bags of grain that we received a few months ago? The ones with the patches? And the flag of the Black Force?”
Will nodded.
“What if the King is in league with the rebels?” Martin hissed.
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. They always tell us that the attack, the invasion is right around the corner, but it’s never come, has it? How long has the ceasefire been holding? They’re always talking about the rebels, but we never see them. They don’t really ever shoot at us, or attack us, or anything like that. Ms. Diane is always saying that we have to continue to sacrifice for the sake of the King’s war. What if - what if the King is just telling us about the war, about the fighting, just to keep us in line... so... so we have it in our heads that there’s someone out there trying to kill us and destroy us, and there’s really no one out there. It’s just a bunch of other soldiers, pretending to be rebels. Will, what if there are no rebels?” he hissed the last words with zeal. “What if none of it’s true? Maybe the King just wants us to believe that there are rebels so we’ll think he’s the only thing protecting us, him and his guards and his tanks and his artillery, and we’d better do what he says or the rebels will destroy us? What if they just sometimes stage battles every now and then to make us think that it’s true? And Nate - Nate... he got sacrificed to keep up... to keep up the illusion.”
Will’s mind boggled at this idea. He sat back in his chair and thought about it.
“What about my parents?” he said slowly. “And my house? My parents were good people. They didn’t disobey the King. Why would he have killed them?”
“Maybe it was just random,” Martin hissed. “Just to make us think that there was a danger out there, that it really might kill us at any minute, so we’d work hard and follow orders. Maybe this is how the system works, Will. Maybe they kill people at random sometimes to maintain the illusion, just to make us think that there’s a threat...”
But something about this theory didn’t make sense to Will.
“What about those pamphlets?” Will said slowly. “The ones that dropped on Harry’s field. The ones that the army came to retrieve.” He massaged his stomach. “They really were about to arrest me. If it hadn’t been for that one soldier-” he glanced towards the vacant seat where the scrawny, tall soldier usually sat, “-they would have arrested me. And they beat you up over them too. The captain said they were rebel propaganda. If they weren’t rebel propaganda - if there were no rebels - then who sent them?”
For a few seconds, Martin looked dumbfounded. “I - I don’t know,” he stuttered. “Maybe, maybe those pamphlets said the truth and they didn’t want us to see them.”
Behind them, Old Pete had walked into the bar. He was too short to jump spryly onto the bar stool, but with the help of his one good arm he hoisted himself up and perched in his usual position. Mack brought him hard liquor and he drank it in one or two gulps. Will thought back to Pete’s old war stories and the stump he’d had instead of an arm because of enemy action, of all the battles he said he’d fought and how he accused the younger generation of being too soft and not really fighting the rebels.
“And if there are no rebels, if there is no Black Force, then who did Old Pete fight? Is he a liar? Did he lose his arm in an accident? And, if they were trying to make us think that the threat was out there, Martin, then why refuse to admit that Nate had died? I get that you think... they were trying to cover up the stolen fuel... but if they wanted us to believe that the war is real when it’s not... then they should have told us Nate died. There would have been no point in staging a real naval battle, far away where no one could see it, and then lying about it.”
Martin opened his mouth and then closed it and frowned.
“But there’s something between the King and the rebels. We know there is. Look... you know I’ve always wanted to study, Will. I’ve been reading and reading as much as I can, all the history and all the technical manuals... the textbooks... philosophy... everything I thought was useful. I can tell you exactly what the grain output for the whole nation was last year on the basis of what it says in the history books. The books about the King’s War say what battles were fought and what happened, but they’re missing something. Who are the rebels, Will? Why did they rebel? It wasn’t against King Edward, or even his father, King James. It was against his ancestor, King Samuel, but nothing says why. The only thing I can think is that the rebellion wasn’t real. King Samuel saw he was losing control and decided to create a reason for people to believe in him, to trust him, to depend on him. So he had the country fight itself.”
Will shook his head. More of his conversations with the old soldiers were flickering through his mind. Something the scrawny soldier had told him now bubbled to the surface.
“I dunno if anyone’s told you but there is no ceasefire anymore. We shoot at each other all the time. We’ve got - must be a hundred artillery pieces lined up in our base and on the mountainside, just pointed east at the rebel positions. And from my post in the base, I can see their guns pointing at us. And sometimes we start shooting at each other. It happens all the time.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Will said at last. “But the rebels are real, Martin. They killed Nate. The ceasefire line out there is a real ceasefire line.”
“Have you ever seen a rebel?” Martin demanded insistently. “Any of these people who are supposedly coming to kill us?”
“No, but they have,” Will said quietly, gesturing to the soldiers around them. “And I trust some of them. I don’t think they can all be liars.”
Martin sighed. “Fine. But Will... I think we should think about getting out of here. Escaping. Your plane-” He stopped mid-sentence. Ms. Diane had walked past their table and she was glancing in their direction, shrewd calculation again written across her face.
“Meet me out by the new well tomorrow, ten AM sharp,” Martin hissed, and with that he stood up and left the canteen.
Will went to the new well the next day at ten AM, but Martin did not appear. Nor was he at his surgery, which was still being occupied by navy sailors, nor was he at his parents’ house, nor anywhere else in the village that Will looked. He was nowhere to be seen the next day or the day after that, or the day after that. An entire week went by. People start
ed to ask after him, and Martin’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Steagal - who had both taught Will at school - started to walk to other villages to ask if anyone had seen him.
At the next town hall meeting, after the usual chants of “All Hail King Edward,” Ms. Diane stood to speak. Her eyes were downcast and her expression grim.
“I have some very sad news for you today,” Ms. Diane said. “I have learned that our village doctor, Martin Steagal, has been killed by the rebels.” A wave of chatter rippled through the townsfolk. “He was called to the army base at the front line to treat a wounded soldier and was killed by a rebel sniper. I’m very sorry. We should all take solace in the fact that he died for his country, and take it as a reminder that we all must continue to sacrifice for the sake of the King’s War.” Though her tone was low and solemn as she said this, just for a moment, Will saw a glint of triumph in her eyes.
Will was sure at first that Martin’s body would not appear. It would simply disappear as Nate’s had done, but he was wrong. The army returned Martin’s body to his family the next day. He had been shot in the back of the head.
They held a funeral that afternoon, with Ms. Diane delivering a hastily prepared eulogy. She said things like how he was a credit to the community and recalled his work giving medical attention and food to the homeless boys, giving them shirts, and how he used to buy medicine for patients when his understocked surgery did not receive what he needed from the canton hospital. She also reminded everyone that it had been his idea to dig additional wells to find more groundwater, and that this might well save them from another year of starvation. In summary, she said, everyone owed much to Martin Steagal. His parents wept. Will hardly listened.
The next day, as Will was working to fix an old camera with a broken timer, Harry came into his garage. Harry said nothing, but just stood there for a minute.
“Something broken?” Will asked.
The King's War Page 11
