by Jake Bible
Corbin tugged at Gornish’s elbow and led the thankful man away through the milling groups of passengers and stewards. Alexis watched them go with a bemused smile.
“I like that man,” Alexis said.
“I like it when you say ‘royal decree,’” Eliza grinned. “Maybe you can say it to me over and over later this evening?”
“If the day doesn’t tire us both out,” Alexis said.
There is a commotion towards one of the side tables and soon shouting could be heard. Then there was the crash of glassware and the shouts rose in volume until the atrium was filled with a roar of angry voices.
“Steward Thierri’s party,” de Morlan said as he hurried over to Alexis’s side. “His choice of passenger representative was seated two chairs down from the one that represents Sector Glebe.”
“Steward Alote’s sector,” Alexis said.
“Precisely,” de Morlan nodded.
“Helios,” Alexis sighed as he rubbed his face. “This meeting is about the passengers and not about petty feuds between stewards.”
“The passenger delegates represent their sectors,” de Morlan shrugged. “Which means they bring their stewards’ grudges with them to the tables.”
“Shaowshit,” Alexis said and pushed past the steward. “I’ll teach them what this day is supposed to be about.”
“Your highness!” de Morlan called out. “Sire, no!”
He tried to follow the angry master, but the taller man’s stride was too much and he soon lost him in the crowd. As soon as people saw who was walking amongst them they parted and the master could move even faster. De Morlan was held back even further as the crowd closed in behind the striding Alexis.
“Don’t try to catch him,” Eliza said from de Morlan’s side. “Just get there in time to minimize the damage.”
“My mistress,” de Morlan said with surprise. “You should not be here! Please, your highness, return to your table!” He looked about for Corbin, but couldn’t find the head guard. “Here, I will escort you.”
“Like Helios you will,” Eliza snapped, yanking her arm away from the steward as he took it to steer her back. “I saw the look in Alexis’s eyes. His patience is thin and he’s ready to make an example. He has too much of his grandfather in him.”
De Morlan looked from the mistress to the crowd that was gathering and following the master to the side of the atrium.
“You need to go control this situation,” Eliza insisted. “Now.”
“Fine, your highness,” de Morlan said. “But you do not leave my side, understood?”
“Did you just talk to me as if I was a child, Steward de Morlan?” Eliza grinned. “Can I have candy if I’m a good girl?”
De Morlan’s jaw dropped in confusion and embarrassment.
“Close that trap, Alasdair,” Eliza said as she took the lead. “You’ll attract honey wasps.”
Eliza pushed through the crowd to reach her husband just as he was pulling two men off of each other. She shook her head and stopped at the edge of the fight, watching her husband tower over the much older and much shorter passengers.
“Is this how you want to legislate?” Alexis shouted. “With grudges and fists? How is this behavior any better than just letting the stewards decide your fate? You two should be ashamed of yourselves and think long and hard on whether you are the right men to represent your sectors!”
He gripped a skinny, freckled man by the back of the neck and shook him.
“What is your name, sir?” Alexis barked.
“Deck Boss Bothe Teg, your highness,” the man winced.
“And you?” Alexis asked the other, equally pained man.
“Sector Warden Montieth Wyatt,” the other man replied, his mouth a rictus of pain as the master’s grip increased.
“Well, Sector Warden Montieth Wyatt and Deck Boss Bothe Teg,” Alexis smiled, violence shining from his white teeth. “Shake hands now and call your stupid bickering over and done with. Extend those hands or I will cut them off, do you hear me?”
The two men stared up at the master, their eyes wide with fear and confusion. Then slowly they extended their hands and shook.
“Good,” Alexis said, letting them go and shoving them away. “Now if you don’t mind, I would like to start this meeting so we can make history.”
Deck Boss Teg stumbled as he stepped away from the master and his feet went out from under him. He tried to break his fall by grabbing one of the tables, but his hand slipped and instead his head smacked a corner. The man crumpled to the ground and there was an audible gasp.
“Father? Father!” a younger man shouted as he shoved people out of the way to get to the fallen deck boss. “Oh, Helios! Father!”
Blood pooled around Teg’s head and the younger man fell to his knees and lifted him into his lap. The older man’s eyes were blank and glazed, showing his soul had already fled the flesh.
“No! No!” the younger man screamed. Then he looked up at a stunned Alexis. “You killed him! You killed my father! He was a good man! He was good!”
“Oh, Helios…” Alexis whispered.
“Alexis? Come along,” Eliza said as she moved forward and took his hand. “We need to leave.”
There were harsh whispers and grumbles started to move through the crowd as Eliza looked about, suddenly fearful for her and her husband’s safety for the first time that day.
“Alexis,” she hissed.
“I’m sorry,” Alexis said, gently moving away from his wife and crouching before the grief stricken man and his dead father. “It was an accident, I assure you. I’ll compensate—”
“Compensate?” the man yelled. “Compensate me how? With a new father? You can’t get a new father when one dies! It’s not like you and your stillborn brood! One dies and you can fuck the Ploervian whore you married and make another one! I’d fuck that slut too if it would bring my father back! But it won’t, so take the whore cunt away from here!”
The whispering crowd went silent at the man’s words. Alexis didn’t move or say anything for a long while. Then he abruptly stood up, walked over to de Morlan, removed the man’s long blade, spun about and jammed it through the eye socket of the grieving son.
Blood spurted out around the blade as Alexis leaned into it, kneeling as he pushed it through the man’s skull up to the hilt. The master’s face was one of shaking fury and he moved in close to the second dead man.
“See who you can fuck in Helios, asshole,” Alexis snarled.
Then he stood up and yanked the blade free, whipping the blood from the metal in one shake of his hand. He turned to look at the crowd and was about to speak when several roars were heard and six men shoved through, all running at the master with blades drawn.
“Alexis!” Eliza screamed.
The master spun about and ducked low just as the first blade swiped empty air where his head had been. Alexis slid his long blade easily into the attacker’s soft guts and pulled to the side, sending intestines spilling out onto the floor.
“Corbin!” Eliza screamed, the only voice in a stunned crowd. “Corbin!”
Even the other royal guards stood silent and still, their minds confused by what they were seeing.
A second attacker brought his blade down with both hands, but Alexis raised his blade in time to block the blow. He stood up, his long legs like unstoppable pistons, and shoved the man back with one hand while he reached out and snagged the man’s short blade from his belt. Before the attacker could regain his balance he found his own short blade sticking out of his chest.
Alexis strode forward and pulled out the short blade, then spun and threw it at a third man that came at him. He smiled as the blade slid into the man’s forehead like a knife through butter. On some level he wondered what the man had used to sharpen the blade.
“Sire!” Corbin yelled as he finally reached the fight. “What are you men doing? Stop this!”
The head of the royal guard hurried at the master and grabbed him by both arms j
ust as another attacker was about to meet Helios in person.
“Sire! Stop!” Corbin shouted up at Alexis’s ear. “Stop now!”
Alexis threw off his protector and whirled on him, long blade ready for battle. Corbin parried and knocked the master’s blade to the side, but didn’t unhand it.
“Corbin,” Alexis said, his voice calm and even, not matching the wild look in his eyes or the way his chest hitched up and down with the exertion and adrenaline. “About time you showed your face.”
Corbin shook his head and frowned as he stood back from the master. “Sire, I was—”
“No matter,” Alexis said, waving his hand as he tossed the long blade to the ground. “All of these men? Have them brought to their knees and lined up.”
“All men of Sector Glebe and Sector Gwalter will step forward!” Corbin shouted. “Do so now!”
Almost two dozen men reluctantly separated from the crowd as guards hurried forward and shoved them to their knees. They looked up at the master, many with nothing but rage in their eyes, but most with terror and sadness.
“You hold a grudge against each others’ sectors for what reason?” Alexis snarled. “Because your stewards say so? Cowards. All of you. I bring you here to be able to speak and think for yourselves and all you do is pick other men’s fights. You don’t deserve a voice. None of you do.”
He stood up and walked slowly away from the line of men, his eyes focused on Corbin’s.
“Cut out their tongues,” Alexis said. “And if a single one makes a sound while you do it then execute them all.”
Corbin watched his master for a second then moved in close, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Please, sire, do not ask me to do this,” Corbin pleaded. “This was all a mistake.”
“Are you saying the Master of Station Aelon made a mistake?” Alexis grinned. “Please, guard, say what you just said again.”
Corbin closed his mouth and swallowed hard then shook his head.
“That’s what I thought,” Alexis said. “Now. Cut. Out. Their. Tongues.”
“No, Corbin, do not,” Eliza said as she moved forward and pushed the miserable head guard out of the way. “Because my husband is about to rescind that order and turn and apologize to these people. Do you hear me, Alexis Teirmont? There will be no tongue cutting, no executions, and no more violence today. Turn and show these men mercy and show your people the humility I know you possess.”
“You are shaming me in front of passengers,” Alexis said. “De Morlan? Take my wife away from here. This is no place for a—”
The slap came so fast and hard that Alexis didn’t have a chance to brace for it. Even at the awkward angle of the blow, his head still nearly whipped all the way about. He raised his own hand in retaliation, but then his whole body went cold and numb with the awareness of what he was about to do.
“Show them,” Eliza said, not flinching an inch from the raised hand above her. “Show them now.”
“My love,” Alexis whispered, his hand falling slowly to his side. “Forgive me.”
“I already have,” Eliza replied. “It is their forgiveness you need.”
Eliza reached up and stroked her husband’s cheeks, wiping the single tear away that escaped the corner of one eye. She gently pulled his face towards her and then kissed the quivering lips once they were close enough.
“You are not a monster like your grandfather,” Eliza said. “Nor a fool, like your father. You are Alexis the First and a man unto yourself. You wanted to make history today. Now is your chance.”
She kissed him again then placed both hands on his chest and pushed him away from her. Alexis looked at her for a long minute, his eyes going over every detail of her beautiful face. He saw everything he loved about her in that moment and knew this day would be lodged in his heart for the rest of his life.
“People of Station Aelon,” Alexis said strongly as he turned and addressed the crowds, both on the ground and up on the four levels. “I speak to you not as master of station, or as his highness or sire or whatever names we royals were given so many hundreds and hundreds of years ago. No, I speak to you as a man; a man just like you.”
He smiled at an older woman who stared at him in fear.
“Well, maybe not just like all of you. I don’t exactly have the anatomy for it. But I do have the same heart and that is from where my words usher forth.”
Eliza smiled and put her hands to her mouth, knowing the feared Teirmont storm had passed. She just hoped another wasn’t on the horizon.
“I called this meeting of passengers to show the people of Station Aelon that it is time to recognize who you are and how none of this would be possible without every single person’s effort,” Alexis said. “I witnessed that on Helios as I led regiments of men to their death. At the Battle of Aelon Prime, I watched as wave after wave of brave young men fell under the flechettes and blades of the Burdened. Those masters of warfare fought and killed blindly for the Way, not once thinking of sparing a life instead of taking it. They had no emotion in their eyes. Not like the Aelish. No, the Aelish, even in death, showed who they were. Men of courage, bravery, fear, regret, love, loss, and humanity.”
Alexis looked up towards the very top level and pointed at a woman by the railing.
“You. Ma’am, what’s your name?”
The woman looked about then replied, “Helen, your highness.” Her voice echoed about the quiet atrium.
“Helen,” Alexis nodded. “Did you lose anyone in the conflict?”
“I did, your highness,” she said with a shaky voice. “I lost my cousin.”
“Did you love him?”
“I did, sire.”
“Do you miss him?”
“Not as much as my aunt does, your highness,” Helen responded then gasped at her own impertinence. “I mean that—”
“Where is your aunt?”
“I am here, sire,” a woman responded, moving next to her niece. “I lost my son as well as a younger brother.”
“And I want you to know I am truly sorry for that,” Alexis said, bringing murmurs of surprise from the crowd. “I am sorry to all of you for the rash actions I took when I proposed sending fighters down to the planet with the rest of the stations. It was a fool’s errand and here I stand before you all, a fool.”
Voices cried out, “No” and “You are not!”. Alexis smiled and held up his hands.
“No, it’s true,” he replied and walked over to the corpses of the men he had just slain. “Here is proof of my foolishness. My continuing rashness.” He looked over his shoulder at de Morlan. “Make sure their families are taken care of for life, steward. Pay them directly from my personal accounts.”
De Morlan started to protest, but Eliza’s hand on his arm quieted him.
“I wish I could pay all of those that lost loved ones under my leadership on the planet,” Alexis announced. “But I cannot. Instead, I can offer you a chance to stop me, or any master from here on out, from acting like a fool. By creating a meeting of passengers, I am creating a legislative body that can keep the monarchy, as well as the meeting of stewards, in check. If any other leader decides he will use the people of this station like pawns, he will have to ask the people’s permission directly. That is my payment and my penance for my sins.”
He turned about in a circle, making sure to look at the entire atrium, making sure they saw the sincerity on his face.
“Thank you for being here today,” Alexis said. “And I hope you can forgive me for what I have done and will have presence of mind to keep me from repeating it.”
The atrium was silent for several seconds then voices were lifted as one in a riotous cheer. Arms were pumped into the air, scarves and hats tossed about, women and men turned and kissed passionately as everyone was swept up in the moment.
One of the kissed was Alexis as Eliza hurried to him and nearly leapt into his arms.
“That is the master I love and the man I married,” she cried just before
her mouth found his.
De Morlan stood there, happy to see the sway his master had over the people, but saddened by the blood that still pooled upon the ground and the corpses that were being gently lifted up and carried away. He watched one body being taken through the crowd when he saw Steward Stolt staring at him. The man smiled then nodded and slipped back into the still cheering throng.
The steward was not comforted by Stolt’s smile.
“Your highness,” Corbin said roughly. “I would feel much more comfortable if I could show you back to your table. There is still much tension here.”
“Yes, of course, Corbin,” Alexis replied as he lifted his wife up into his arms.
The crowd quickly parted for the master and mistress, and many hands reached out to touch the passing royals. It took them some time to get to their seats as every steward in their path insisted on saying words and congratulating the master on such a fine speech and such honest sentiments.
By the time Alexis was seated again, his arms felt like wilted scrim grass and he was sweating heavily. Eliza laughed at a joke a steward told and glanced over at her husband to see how he liked it, when she saw the look on his face.
“Oh, for Helios’s sake,” she whispered as she moved her chair closer. “You’ve hurt yourself, haven’t you?”
“I’m fine,” he snapped. She raised her eyebrows quickly and he closed his eyes. “Yes. My wound is on fire.”
“Corbin,” Eliza ordered and the man came forward.
“Yes, your highness?”
“Can you provide us with some privacy, please?”
“Certainly,” he replied and snapped his fingers.
Several guards came forward and cleared the area around the master’s seat, creating a human wall of privacy.
“Let’s see what we have here,” Eliza said as she untucked her husband’s tunic and pulled the shirt up over his head. “Helios…”
The wound was puffy and an angry red. Black lines spread out form the oozing gash and Eliza’s fingers traced them, measuring each one. She narrowed her eyes and patted her husband’s cheek.
