The abandoned warehouse was packed with people who had come to hear Princess Ardria’s words. The Brigadier kept a careful watch over them as she spoke, alert for any of the King's men who might have tried to sneak in in disguise, assassins intent on killing her or wizards intent on cursing her. He'd tried to persuade her many times, over the seven days they’d been in Charnox, to keep a safe distance from all these strangers, but she was insistent that her message would be better received if she actually moved among them, as a gesture of trust, and he had to admit that it seemed to be working. She had gained a massive following in the city, to the extent that anyone trying to do her harm would probably have been torn apart by the crowd before he could do anything about it himself.
Darniss also spoke, confirming everything that Ardria said and freely confessing that she had once been her mortal enemy. Her conversion to reluctant ally gave her words greater weight, and both Ardria and the Brigadier could see the effect they were having on the crowds, the way they gathered around to hear her speak almost as much as they did around the Princess herself. Darniss seemed to relish it, to the discomfiture of the two Helberions. She was clearly enjoying her new status as the ‘disciple of the messiah’, the sinner who had repented and who thereby embodied the message with more strength and purity than those who’d been with the Princess all along. The Brigadier frowned unhappily, but there was nothing he could do about it.
The gate guards who'd escaped from the palace with her also helped spread the message, telling the crowds what they’d seen during their escape. Radiants using their control of the winds to pursue their enemies, proof that the old tales of how they could control the weather were true and that, therefore, the drought that had stricken the country was either their doing, or they had done nothing to prevent it. They wanted the Carrowmen so desperate that they saw the invasion of Helberion, to which the Radiants had given years of bountiful harvests, as the only way to escape starvation. The Brigadier saw heads nodding as she spoke, heard shouts of anger and agreement and voices raised against the King, the collaborator in the war against humanity. Many people called out for an uprising against King Nilon, crying out that they should storm the palace immediately, drag him out and hang him, but the majority of the citizens were still afraid of the army. What if they seized the palace, they said, killed the King and then the army returned from the conquest of Helberion to exact terrible vengeance against the rebellious citizens? The people of the city outnumbered them many times over, it was true, but the army had guns and cannons, while it was the rare citizen who could arm himself with anything more deadly than a pitchfork or a kitchen knife.
“So what are we trying to achieve here?” the Brigadier had asked one evening as they ate their evening meal alongside the family that was giving them shelter that night. “There are ways for a rebellious population to overthrow an army, but they require years of preparation. Do you think we'll be able to remain at liberty that long?”
“You yourself told me about the plan you and father drew up to destroy Carrow’s army,” the Princess had replied. “Have you lost faith in your own defence strategy?”
“I told you that it was a long shot, that it depended upon the Carrowmen doing what we wanted them to do every step of the way. Only a fool puts his faith in something like that. If the plan worked, all well and good, but we have to proceed on the assumption that it didn’t.”
“So you counsel despair? You think we should spend the rest of our lives hiding in some remote part of the world, forever fearing discovery?”
“Not at all. If victory is no longer possible, then I would seek revenge, but these things require careful planning. It would be the project of a lifetime, not achieved in just a few days.” He’d waved a hand to take in all the people of the city around them. “The King may not have taken any open action against us yet, but that's because he's taking note of the ringleaders, those who support you the most vocally, the most enthusiastically. We cannot delude ourselves, there are spies for the King at every meeting, watching, taking notes, and one day people will start disappearing. Before long, the only people left will be those capable only of grumbling, without being brave enough to take any open action. That is how Nilon will take back control of the city. Not with some great roundup carried out by soldiers, but by secret agents kidnapping your greatest supporters and taking them away to be tortured until they name their co-conspirators.”
“I agree that it will take years,” the Princess had said while the family at whose table they were sitting watched and listened nervously, wondering whether it had been wise, after all, to shelter these people. “But the King cannot arrest everyone, not even if it’s his secret intention to destroy this country. Even the quietest, most timid man will rebel if the consequences of inaction become too obviously intolerable. Plus, people tend to become swept up in events. If we can generate enough momentum, events will spiral out of the King's control, no matter how many people he arrests and tortures.”
The Brigadier thought back on that conversation as he watched the Princess walking amongst the throngs of grimy, working class city people, most of whom had legitimate reasons to be resentful of the nobility. Carrow nobility, he reminded himself, but in a way that made it even worse. They currently saw Princess Ardria as their great hope, their saviour from the oppression of King Nilon's regime, but how long would it be before that hope began to wear thin if nothing concrete came of it, if the starvation and the fear of the King's men went on for too long? And what would replace the hope and expectation when it finally went? The Brigadier could all too easily imagine a wave of resentment sweeping towards her, resentment for having raised their hopes and then dashing them.
The King entrusted her safety to me, he mused unhappily, but how can I protect her when she takes it into her head to do something like this? It was his duty to keep her safe, but it was also his duty to obey her, as a member of the family to which he had pledged his lifelong loyalty and devotion. He sighed. Royals should stay in palaces, where they're safe, he thought. They should delegate tasks like this to people who were more... Expendable. Like him.
He edged his way through the crowd until he was close enough to hear what she was saying to the group of factory workers clustered around her. “...and it’s people like you that the Radiants are particularly afraid of. Operators of machinery. We know that there's one machine in particular that they're especially afraid of, the development of which they are desperate to prevent. We have people in Helberion working on it, but even if we fail, someone somewhere will invent it sooner or later if technology is allowed to develop unchecked. The only way they can be sure of preventing it is to eliminate all technology, therefore, and all people with technical knowledge. They want to eliminate you!”
“Then why didn't they take action a hundred years ago when our technology was so much more primitive?” one of them asked. “Why didn’t they kill Edward Hill when he made the first steam engine?”
“I know the answer to that question. As you probably know, I was blessed by... By agents of King Nilon...” She glanced across at Darniss, who was holding court at the centre of another large crowd some distance away. “And left to turn into a demon. I was cured, but before that happened I developed telepathic abilities and was able to overhear the Radiants as they spoke amongst themselves. There were two factions among them. One faction wanted to do as you suggest. Crush all technological advance before it could take hold, but the other faction was stronger. This faction believed that humans made better Radiants if we were left to our own devices, to live as we chose. I suspect that the followers of this faction realised their mistake when Maxine Hester created a working prototype of what we’ve come to call the Electric Messiah. One thing is certain, though, and that is that if we lose this war, they will not make the same mistake again. Mankind will never be allowed to develop any kind of technology ever again. Nothing more sophisticated than the wheel and bows and arrows...”
She was interrupted as a man came crashing through the door, his face flushed with excitement. “The army is destroyed!” he cried, making everyone in the room stare at him in astonishment. “The army of Carrow has been destroyed!”
“What was that?” someone asked. “What's that you say?”
“The army of Carrow has been destroyed!” the man repeated. He had a naturally loud voice that carried easily above the noise of the crowd. “I keep pigeons, we use them to send messages to each other! My friend in Outrell told me that his friend in Denton had heard that the entire Carrow army's been destroyed while besieging Marboll! They planted explosives under their trenches somehow and blew them all to hell!”
The crowd was sceptical, though. The idea that Carrow was sure to win had become so ingrained that it would take more than a third hand rumour to shake it. People continued to quiz him for more details and he was happy to oblige, but the majority of the crowd went back to what they were doing before. The Brigadier made his way closer to the Princess, though, who turned to him. “Was that your plan?” she asked. “The plan you worked out with my father?”
He nodded. “The plan was to dig our trenches above hetin tunnels, which we filled with explosives, then fall back and allow the Carrowmen to occupy the trenches. If what that man's saying is just a wild fantasy, then it bears a remarkable resemblance to what we were actually planning to do.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide with delight and hope. “You believe it then?” she asked.
“It's possible,” he replied. “We can't be sure, of course. We have to wait for independent verification...”
People standing alongside him had overheard, though. “The Brigadier says it’s true!” one of them said. “He says it’s true! The Carrow army really has been destroyed!”
That's not what I said...” began the Brigadier, but the crowd was in uproar now and his voice was drowned out. People began milling about in agitation and excitement and the Brigadier urged the Princess to make her way to the corner of the room where he could protect her from being crushed. There was a table standing nearby and he dragged it over so that he could put her up on it if necessary. “That's not what I said!” he repeated, and was ignored again. People began calling out that they should storm the palace immediately and great cheers of agreement went up. People began leaving the warehouse to take the news to other people.
“They're not listening!” said the Princess, shouting to be heard above the clamour. “They want it to be true!”
“But what if it isn't? They have to wait until we know for sure.”
“They're not going to wait. It's going to happen, right now, and there's no way we’re going to stop it, any more than you can keep a keg of gunpowder from exploding once the spark hits it.”
“They're disorganised. A rabble, a lynch mob. They could end up fighting each other as different people try to take charge.”
“There's nothing we can do to stop it. All we can do is keep out of the way.”
Even that turned out to be a forlorn hope, though, as the crowd turned to them. “Lead us!” they shouted to the Princess. “Lead us to the palace!”
“This is an internal Carrow matter,” The Brigadier said. “We cannot get involved.”
“But you started this! You came here to lead us in revolt!”
“We did not. We came to negotiate to King Nilon, to try to end the war with our country.”
“But the war's over now! You heard what he said!”
“We can’t assume that on the basis of...”
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The crowd wasn't in the mood to listen, though. The demand that the Princess lead their march on the palace grew ever louder, and the Brigadier feared they might try to seize her, take her with them by force. He began to get seriously worried and searched around the room, looking for a way to get her to safety. “Perhaps we should comply with their request,” suggested the Princess, and a roar of approval rose from the crowd.
“Out of the question!” said the Brigadier, but Ardria put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You said the crowd was disorganised, leaderless,” she said. “If we led it, we could make sure it doesn't get out of control. We could give it unity, stop it from fragmenting into rival factions. Reduce casualties, make sure there's just one person in control when it’s all over.”
“Leothan would have my head!”
“No he wouldn’t, not if you were obeying my orders. Brigadier, I command you to help me lead these people. I command you to help us take the palace.”
“I strenuously object, Your Highness!”
“Noted. Now obey my commands.”
The Brigadier sighed, then took a deep breath as he prepared to address the crowd. “Silence!” he roared, his voice so penetrating and powerful that the whole room fell silent and stared at him in amazement. “Princess Ardria will lead the assault on the palace!” he said. Someone began to cheer, but he fixed the man with his eyes and the cheer died in his throat to become a cough of embarrassment. “However, we will proceed in an orderly fashion! We are not a rabble! We are being led by a Princess of the royal house of Strake and we will behave accordingly! We will not just go charging off to be slaughtered by the palace guard! We must first muster our forces, become organised and then present ourselves to the King so that he can see what faces him! Then, most importantly, we must give him the opportunity to surrender himself, with a promise that he and his family will be allowed to live the rest of their lives in exile...”
“Hang the King!” someone shouted, and many people shouted their agreement. The Princess tapped the Brigadier on the shoulder to get his attention, then gestured to the table. The Brigadier nodded and put his hands around her waist, lifting her up with scarcely any effort. Then he turned back to face the crowd. “Silence!” he roared.
“The King must hang! He has to pay for...”
“I said silence! Princess Ardria of Helberion wishes to address you!”
The Princess waited patiently until she had their full attention. She was still wearing the clothes of a common working woman, but she stood with all her customary pride and majesty to that it seemed as though the drab grey and brown cotton was some kind of illusion and that she was actually dressed in a silken gown more befitting her station. Some of the people in the crowd even bowed their heads, as if they'd only just become aware that they were in the presence of royalty, the heir to a whole kingdom. That brought a disquieting thought to the Brigadier's head. Once the revolution began in earnest, it wouldn’t stop with King Nilon. Everyone in the country of noble birth would be a target, and that might mean that Princess Ardria herself might become a target! At the moment the crowd loved her, but that might change in a moment once their bloodlust was fully roused. The Brigadier forced himself to stand easy, his arms folded across his chest, fighting a powerful impulse to put his hand on the pistol at his belt.
“The Brigadier is right,” she said, and her voice was clear and strong, carrying easily to every part of the large warehouse. “If we butcher and slaughter King Nilon and his family, we become no better than them! If we are to fight, it has to be for a just and noble cause, to achieve a righteous objective. If you want me to lead you, then we will conduct ourselves in a civilised fashion, accepting the surrender of anyone who wishes to do so and treating them with mercy and respect. Any killing of an enemy soldier who is trying to surrender will be treated as murder and the perpetrator will be hanged.”
Uproar erupted as everyone in the hall objected. Above the clamour, the Brigadier and the Princess were able to hear the occasional individual word, but no more. The crowd pushed forward, threatening to overwhelm the Brigadier and crush him against the wall. He drew his pistol and fired a shot at the ceiling. The crowd immediately fell silent, staring in shock.
“You heard the Princess!” shouted the Brigadier. “We are willing to oversee the disposition of justice, but we will not be a party to mob rule. If you are not willing to abide by her rules then we will leave and you can deal with King Nilon in whatever way you see fit!”
“What gives you the right to make the rules?” shouted a man at the front, no more than three feet from the Brigadier. “You're not Carrowmen! You don't know what it’s been like for us...”
“We asked her to lead us!” another man shouted at him. “Haven't you been paying attention?” He came forward, then turned to address the crowd. “We all want to be ruled by King Leothan, right? The justice and fairness with which he rules Helberion is known to us all! Well, he won’t rule forever, and when he goes back into the ground this woman will be queen of Helberion! Queen of us all! What she just said, the terms she just set out, are part of the justice we want, for our country, for our families! Isn't that right?” There was some uncertain murmuring. “Well, isn't it?” he pressed.
“Justice, yes!” The first man said. “And that means that Nilon has to pay for his crimes! The whole rotten regime has to pay! We can't let them just get away with it, retire to a life of luxury paid for by the blood of our loved ones!”
“You're Den Wilks, aren't you?” said the second man, sympathy in his voice. “Your son was arrested and executed for treason.”
“He tried to stop the guards from beating up a friend of his, they came from the same herd. He was...”His voice broke as emotion threatened to overwhelm him. The other man waited patiently for him to continue. “He was hanged in Hutton Market. There was nothing I could do...” When he spoke again his voice was loud with anger. “They made me watch! He wasn't even declared yet and they hanged him and they made me watch! You can't let them get away with that!”
“Mister Wilks,” said Princess Ardria, her voice gentle and sympathetic. Den Wilks turned to look up at her. The Princess sat on the table and prepared to climb down from it. The Brigadier came forward, suddenly afraid, but she waved him back. She slipped gracefully down to the floor and came forward to stand before the angry man.
“Nothing will bring your son back,” she said. “If you see King Nilon hang the way your son was hanged, will that give you peace?”
“It'll be justice!” he replied, but he sounded suddenly uncertain, disarmed by the woman standing in front of him. She looked small and frail beside the large, muscular man. He looked as though he could have snapped her like a twig before she could make a move to defend herself, before the Brigadier could do a thing to intervene, but she stared up, unafraid, into his face.
“And then what?” she asked. “Will you hang all the guards as well? And all the informers who worked for them? They all have families who probably love them as much as you loved your son. Many of them may want revenge, just as you do. So they kill your people to get even and you kill their people to get even for that... Where does it end? Would you see the killing go on for generation after generation, or do we end it now?”
He shook his head as he searched for words to answer her. “What you ask... It's hard! You don't know what you’re asking! You can't know unless you've lost someone you love!”
“I've lost no members of my family to the Carrowmen, it’s true,” she said, “But I have lost people I care for. I know my pain must be a tiny thing compared to yours, but I do have some small understanding of what you’re going through. There's a part of me that cries out for vengeance, but the good of the Kingdom comes first, and the good of the Kingdom requires peace, even if that means that some evil people must be allowed to get away with their crimes. It means that, if King Nilon gives himself up when he sees us coming for him, the killing can end here, now. Your families can live in peace and security, not having to worry about members of the former regime seeking revenge on them. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but I’m asking it nonetheless. Will you put aside your need for revenge for the sake of peace and security?”
She reached out a hand, and the man stared at it for a moment, as if it were a snake that might bite him. Then he reached out and took it. He nodded, and then trembled as a different emotion took hold of him. No longer anger but sadness and grief. She half expected him to burst into tears, but he had enough pride left not to want to break down in front of so many people and so he swallowed it down with an effort and nodded again. Then he turned to address the crowd.
The Princess is right,” he said, his voice steady as he regained control of himself. “We will comply with her wishes, with her command. We will give the King and his family the chance to surrender, if they want to.”
But he's hoping they won't want to, the Brigadier knew. He's hoping they'll make a fight of it. He may look for a way to force a fight! I'll have to keep an eye on him! A hubbub of agreement was sweeping through the crowd, though. The Princess had won them over. He stared at her with admiration. The way she’d turned the man around... He'd been the key to turning the whole crowd, but it had been an immense risk! A huge gamble! If things had gone wrong for her... The Kingdom comes first, though. That was the motto the Helberion royal family had lived by for three generations, and she believed in it as much as her father and grandfather. She will make a truly great queen, he thought, and a part of him hoped he'd live long enough to see it, even though it would mean that King Leothan had died before him, something he was pledged to prevent.
“Send people out into the city,” the Princess then said. “Spread the word that no action is to be taken yet. We must first find out what’s really happened in Helberion. If the Carrow army really has been destroyed, then we can decide how we're going to take Greyspike Palace. If the report we heard was inaccurate, though, if the Carrow army is intact and returning, then we will have to lie low while we decide what we’re going to do. No-one is to take any independent action, though. No guards are to be attacked, nothing is to be sabotaged. That will only tip them off that something is in the wind, and if anyone is captured we won't be able to do anything to save them.”
She was giving orders with a natural authority, the Brigadier saw, and the crowd was nodding, drinking in every word. They belonged to her now. They were organising themselves, some people on the edges of the crowd were dispatching others to go out and obey her orders. He saw the Princess taking note of the order givers, the people she would have to recruit as deputies and officers in her army. Den Wilks would be one of her most senior officers, he knew. One effective way of dealing with potential dissenters was to give them positions of authority. It disarmed them, kept them from being able to claim that their opinions were being ignored, and it kept them within sight so that the Princess would know immediately if there were some discontent simmering beneath the surface. The Brigadier didn't think they'd have any more trouble from Wilks, though. He'd been won over too completely. From being her most vocal opponent, he might well go on to become her most loyal supporter.
Suddenly, there was a commotion by one of the entrances, though. One of the men who'd gone running off to spread the questionable word of the destruction of the Carrow army had returned and was saying something in a very excited tone to everyone around him. The Princess turned her attention towards him, and the entire crowd followed her gaze. “What is this?” she demanded.
The man shouted something at her, but it was lost in the excited gossip that was rising around him. “You there,” said the Princess to the man standing closest to her. “What is your name?”
“Solomon Deere, Your Highness,” the man replied.
“Mister Deere, please go fetch that man over here, so he can tell us what has him in such a state.”
The man bowed, then started pushing his way through the crowd. A few moments later he returned with the other man in tow. “Come here,” commanded Ardria. “Do you have news for us, Sir?”
“Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but I went out to tell everyone the news, about the Carrow army, and...” He stared nervously, as if afraid that he wouldn’t be believed and that punishment would follow.
“Out with it, Sir. You have nothing to fear. What do you have to tell us?”
He swallowed nervously before speaking. “Well, it’s just that, all the guards have gone, Your Highness.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“The people I spoke to said they were all seen heading back to the palace, Highness. Some palace guardsmen came out of the palace, went to all the guard houses in turn and ordered all the city guards back to the palace. There's not a guard left anywhere in the city, ma'am!”
Ardria stared at the Brigadier, who stared back. “Maybe King Nilon heard something that alarmed him,” mused the Brigadier. “He has a telegraph line to his troops in Helberion. If something had happened to them, he’d be the first to know.”
“Could it be possible that their army really has been destroyed?” asked the Princess, her heart hammering in her chest with excitement that she struggled to control. “Could your plan really have worked?”
“King Nilon appears to be preparing for a siege,” replied the Brigadier. “He's expecting the palace to come under attack and he’s preparing to defend himself. That's worrying.”
“Worrying? Why?”
“If his army’s been destroyed and he’s expecting a popular uprising, you'd expect him to flee with as much wealth as he can carry before he’s surrounded. For him to defend himself, though, suggests that he's expecting reinforcements to come and save him. Maybe his army suffered a defeat but avoided total destruction and what’s left of it is coming back here. Either that or...”
“Radiants,” said Ardria, reading the thought in his eyes. “There could be a Radiant army on the way.”
“Speculation is pointless,” said the Brigadier, though. “We need answers, and the only place to get them is Greyspike Palace.” He was itching to go, she saw. To go to the palace, maybe find a way to sneak inside and get some answers, but he also didn't want to leave her side, among strangers who might still turn on her if the fortunes of war went against them. The Princess saw his dilemma, though, and had the solution. “We'll all go to the palace,” she said. “All of us, every one in this room. See if Nilon will be willing to speak to me.”
The Brigadier was hesitant. They needed time to organise themselves properly. At the moment they were still little more than a mob that had chosen a spokesman. It would take days, weeks, to formalise things, to create a framework of authority that would hold people in place. They had no choice, though. Events had overtaken them, and they could either go with them or be swept away by them. He nodded therefore. “To the palace!” he said, and the crowd parted to let them through as he and the Princess walked, steadily and sedately, towards the nearest exit.