I take it your revolt is not engineered for the benefit of your fellow-nobles, or as an attempt to reestablish your mother's blood claim through the Calahanras family. Wherefore is it, then?"
I looked up in surprise. "There ought to be no mystery obscuring our reasons. Did you not trouble to read the letter we sent to Galdran Merindar before he sent Debegri against us? It was addressed to the entire Court, and our reasons were stated as plainly as we could write them--and all our names signed to it."
"Assume that the letter was somehow suppressed," he said dryly. "Can you summarize its message?"
"Easy," I said promptly. "We went to war on behalf of the Hill Folk, whose Covenant Galdran wants to break. But not just for them. We also want to better the lives of the people of Remalna: the ordinary folk who've been taxed into poverty, or driven from their farms, or sent into hastily constructed mines, all for Galdran's personal glory. And I guess for the rest of yours as well, for whose money are you spending on those fabulous Court clothes you never wear twice? Your father still holds the Renselaeus principality--or has he ceded it to Galdran at last? Isn't it, too, taxed and farmed to the bone so that you can outshine all the rest of those fools at Court?"
All the humor had gone out of his face, leaving it impossible to read. He said, "Since the kind of rumor about Court life that you seem to regard as truth also depicts us as inveterate liars, I will not waste time attempting to defend or deny. Let us instead discuss your eventual goal. Supposing," he said, reaching to pour more tea into my cup--as if we were in a drawing room, and not sitting outside in the chill dawn, in grimy clothes, on either side of a fire just as we were on either side of a war--"Supposing you were to defeat the King. What then? Kill all the nobles in Athanarel and set yourselves up as rustic King and Queen?"
I remembered father's whisper as he lay dying: It had sounded fine then, but the thought of giving any hint of that to this blank-faced Court idler made me uncomfortable. I shook my head. "We didn't want to kill anyone. Not even Galdran, until he sent Debegri to break the Covenant and take our lands. As for ruling, yes we would, if no one else better came along. We were doing it not for ourselves but for the kingdom. Disbelieve it all you want, but there's the truth of it."
"Finish your tea," he said. "Before we find our way to a more comfortable conveyance, I am very much afraid we're both in for a distasteful interlude.
I looked up in surprise. "There ought to be no mystery obscuring our reasons. Did you not trouble to read the letter we sent to Galdran Merindar before he sent Debegri against us? It was addressed to the entire Court, and our reasons were stated as plainly as we could write them--and all our names signed to it."
"Assume that the letter was somehow suppressed," he said dryly. "Can you summarize its message?"
"Easy," I said promptly. "We went to war on behalf of the Hill Folk, whose Covenant Galdran wants to break. But not just for them. We also want to better the lives of the people of Remalna: the ordinary folk who've been taxed into poverty, or driven from their farms, or sent into hastily constructed mines, all for Galdran's personal glory. And I guess for the rest of yours as well, for whose money are you spending on those fabulous Court clothes you never wear twice? Your father still holds the Renselaeus principality--or has he ceded it to Galdran at last? Isn't it, too, taxed and farmed to the bone so that you can outshine all the rest of those fools at Court?"
All the humor had gone out of his face, leaving it impossible to read. He said, "Since the kind of rumor about Court life that you seem to regard as truth also depicts us as inveterate liars, I will not waste time attempting to defend or deny. Let us instead discuss your eventual goal. Supposing," he said, reaching to pour more tea into my cup--as if we were in a drawing room, and not sitting outside in the chill dawn, in grimy clothes, on either side of a fire just as we were on either side of a war--"Supposing you were to defeat the King. What then? Kill all the nobles in Athanarel and set yourselves up as rustic King and Queen?"
I remembered father's whisper as he lay dying: It had sounded fine then, but the thought of giving any hint of that to this blank-faced Court idler made me uncomfortable. I shook my head. "We didn't want to kill anyone. Not even Galdran, until he sent Debegri to break the Covenant and take our lands. As for ruling, yes we would, if no one else better came along. We were doing it not for ourselves but for the kingdom. Disbelieve it all you want, but there's the truth of it."
"Finish your tea," he said. "Before we find our way to a more comfortable conveyance, I am very much afraid we're both in for a distasteful interlude.
( Sherwood Smith )
[ Crown Duel ]
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