What madness.
A sight he expected from the colonies… some 15 years ago?
Not a single royal guard had died… all he saw was a field of shoddily dressed bodies, contorted in their last breaths. No grimacing from death rattles, only rigid expressions of… fanaticism? like holy warriors going to war… waterlogged red, the villa turned a marsh of blood.
The smell of copper and rust. It moved him not.
Was he really so useless to the crown? So unfit for his post?
No, no… this was something else.
Not a single whisper of rebellion, no association, no conspiracies… these madmen had sprung up from somewhere unseen, like worms after a spring rain.
Too far in his own head… his shoes were soddened red, half stepping in a puddle of blood.
This one… middle aged, emaciated. A musket wound had prettied him up. Cracked up, blooming, like a ripe plum splattered on the ground. Missing teeth on the somewhat intact lower jaw. Dirt under the nails… what kind of worker? Or was it dirt from scampering into the villa.
How to identify this one…
‘Hah…’ He looked up, the pretty autumn sky, clouds as lead smoke filling up heaven… like the lead musket balls. ‘Leave it to the others.’ Walking away from the body, his footfall crackled, crushing the dry leaves under, occasionally ceasing when he stepped on stagnant blood.
A guard, red, gold, white, half saluted, tall as a beanpole —fresh blue eyes muddied with the frigid blood-mire of guilt— and spoke, an authoritative voice weakened, diluted in the sadness contained within the autumn air.
“Minister de la Rosa, please follow me.”
“Mhm.” He hummed out. Taking off his blood tinted shoes to the momentary confusion of the guard, as he entered the villa’s main building.
“What has his Majesty said?” The minister asked.
The guard’s gray feelings flared.
“A top asking for your presence, nothing more.”
‘A black mood, yes, yes…’ He prepared. He had failed his king a second time on this matter. Alphonse was not one with much a liking for screaming tirades… but, if this is what he was met with, he accepted it. True stupidity… he looked worse than Bassáth now.
A shiver. Hands in the pockets of his overcoat. Was it suddenly colder?
“How many would you say there were?” He asked the guard.
“I… I…” Was it a dream…? “a hundred fifty, perhaps?” A hundred and fifty unarmed madmen storming the villa. This had to be Hiéron’s greatest failure.
A fitting thought as he passed a portrait of his Majesty Alexandre.
A hand on his face, pulling down.
Servants were questioned by Hiéron agents. Was it good that he had sent his agents ahead? Or was it an insult to arrive later than his subordinates?
A meek looking maid trembled, still hearing the muskets scream, the men combust in rage.
An old gardener looking fellow sat while talking. Although composed, his hands tightened… righteous indignation perhaps?
The inside of the manor was in a… suspended state. Two worlds, separated by only the building walls. So picturesque, so beautiful… unmarred by the battle —massacre, more like it—, outside.
The gold, lustrous… the chandeliers, the silk, the ornate rugs… silver accented furniture, carved by some masterful hand. The ceiling, high and florid, the large, draping red curtains…
“What?”
The guard slightly whirled, rapidly straightening again.
Two others turned.
“Your Majesty, Minister Lanthym.” De la Rosa greeted with a bow, rapidly composing himself.
Alphonse, seated on the grand stairs, spoke to the guard.
“Return.”
“Yes, your Majesty.” The tall melancholic answered with a deep salute.
And turned away.
Lanthym merely stood, eyes curving back, fixed on the body sprawled on the ground, a pool of blood encircling it… like an island on a sunlit sea.
How had one of the madmen reached the manor hall…?
He braced for whatever his King would utter, yet…
All kept silent.
Finally, Alphonse spoke, nothing but a confused grimace on his face.
“Raoul… Is this all not too absurd…? or am I going mad?”
Not a hint of anger flushed his tone.
“Huh?” The minister was truly stunned.
“I feel like in a play…” He rose, and circled the body while comfortably pacing, a gold feathered griffon flying around strange carrion. “Or a dream…”
“Your Majesty, I, the Hié—” His confession —an admission of guilt—, effect of what he believed to be a rhetorical comment from the monarch… ‘The Hiéron is so incompetent I feel as if in a dream.’ or something of the sort, was cut short.
“Dispense of the formality…” His mist-eyes rose, ultramarine and saintly… if separated from the king they would turn to priceless jewels. “Do you feel guilt?”
“Yo—”
A rising hand perched on his shoulder.
“Do not… I detest self-flagellation….” He straightened his posture, arched from gazing at the corpse, and ran his fingers back through his hair. From under a red coat, lined tastefully with gold accents, he pulled a cigarillo… lit suddenly, he took it to his lips. A puff of smoke warned the king’s next words. “To hold you at fault for this… It would be… as the emperor lashing his astrologers after the sun chose not to rise for a day…” He scratched his brows with a free thumb. “In short, it is not only futile… I would be punishing an innocent.”
De la Rosa, however, insisted.
“Your Majesty, with all do respe—” A tired look from the king sniffed out his phrase.
“I’m sure you know, and I know as well… Lanthym here knows too. These people, these madmen, they came out of nowhere… No organization, no gatherings, no coordination. At first, they were twenty or so… all commonality was artistry and poverty… now, with these hundred and fifty, give or take…” He ashed the cigarillo into a golden case, looking down, punctuating his words. “I have truly started to believe there is something… some lunacy, something… just out of sight… this” He gestured wide, extending his arms. “This, it is wrong.” His head shook involuntarily.
Lanthym scoffed.
An eyebrow raised, a questioning tone draping his words, he spoke.
“So what? wish to bring a name-singer? perhaps an alchemist, an astrologer? Worse yet, a hierophant straight from Aamártus?”
Alphonse seemed to not notice the remark.
“Then? Alistair, can you make sense of this…?”
“Poverty is not uncommon, and it drives men mad. Especially artists, who are already half lost. Outbreaks of collective… animic imbalance, hallucinations, crazed fervor and so on are not too strange a sight, one must merely look at history…” Clutching his chin, the old minister hummed. “Certain growths, ill processed, in low quality grain… contaminants in water, exposure to deep-earth vapors, allucinatic herbs… all these, if distributed broadly, in the slum markets where cleanliness and rigor are nary in sight, would lead to symptoms… inflaming the humors of these already rebellious and… unhappy individuals… it is not then, too wrong” He emphasized, with a side eye at Alphonse. “to conclude the possible origin of this behavior…” A hum segued into the tail end of his reflection. “This phenomenon was not localized to some miserable artists unhappy at the crown, this time, or just the attack on this villa… rue des blessés was in turmoil… rue Vuillard as well… I believe it is logical for us to inspect incoming grain in the slum markets, their waters… structural deficiencies in the south side… consumption of hypnocaustic brewages and herbs... as well as the situation of the multitudes in these two streets…” A satisfied hum finished his monologue. “No need for hierophants.”
“Contact the gendarmerie after we’re done, Raoul… Have them carry out what Alistair recommended.”
“Yes… However, may I ask, why did you call me, if it is not for a scolding…”
“God… Am I some tyrant?”
“Perhaps.”
Alistair responded in jest.
The king sat by the corpse, one hand holding his cheek, the other on his cigarillo.
“This one.” He pointed with the lit tobacco. “Used the chaos, somehow… and eluded the guards, climbed up to the second floor, entered through an opened window? Alerted not a single servant, nor the Hiéron agents you had stationed here, and attacked Marenisse and Heos.”
Raoul shook, vexed.
“She killed him… with…” The king leveled his head to the ground, one cheek on the floor, and aimed his hand at the knife, deeply buried into the dead man’s chest. “That.”
De la Rosa copied him.
He saw, lightly jutting out, a crude wood handle, almost imperceptibly raising the corpse’s stilled chest.
“That…?” The minister murmured.
Alistair slid into the exchange, finding an opportunity.
“May I ask why the third queen consort, and the young prince, were still in this villa after a crazed attack by madmen?” Actual confusion skimmed through the cracks of his tone. “Why was I not told of this first, seemingly otherworldly siege on the royal family at the time of its occurrence?”
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Alphonse retorted, disinterested.
“The Hiéron had nothing on the first attackers. Even after I interrogated their leader, or their lead… the head madman… I aimed to bait a new attack… and then get information… hear, even a whisper, of organization in the southside, or other back alleys of the city… I suppose we accomplished half the goal…” The king rose, dusted himself, and threw the extinguished end of his tobacco in the golden case. He looked at Lanthym, dead eyed. “I assure you, minister Lanthym… there will be no vapors, no hypnocaustic herbs… no growths… to explain this.”
Having expected an answer that would quell his doubts, Alistair spoke, incensed.
“This is profoundly out of character for you Alphonse… You could have left decoys in this villa, and moved her Highness and the prince…” He waved indignantly. “No, no, why endanger the life of these two people…? Whom, I know you hold in highest importance in your heart. Have you gone mad?”
The king rose his gaze, piercing the gilded roofs, the clouds…
“I just knew… somehow, I knew… they would not come if Marenisse and Heos were not here… and, I also knew they would be unscathed…” He sighed, then chuckled. “Perhaps I have truly gone mad… My apologies Alistair, I will consult with you if the need arises… you are first minister for a reason. I do not know what came over me.”
Lanthym looked at his king, bewildered.
Raoul’s voice interjected.
“Her Highness and the prince… are they truly uninjured?”
“Yes… Marenisse is not even shaken… and Heos is sleeping.” He turned his back to Lanthym. “How do you suppose he managed to enter the manor?”
De la Rosa rose. Still fixed on the corpse.
“There have been no rains these last days…” He paced, aiming to look at the dead man from a different angle. “The leaves stuck to his coat… and…” He pointed and the loose leaves on the hall’s grand steps. “Those, are not from hawthorns nor sycamores…” He took one, freeing it from the coat, closely observing it. “This one is from an apple tree… that one, a plum tree.” He turned to silence for a moment. “You are still getting the orchards watered, yes? I suppose there lay the mud’s provenance…” He folded to the side, to see the man’s fingers. “These are rather rugged, wounded? I cannot tell though the blood… and would not know if it’s the cause of work or climbing the manor’s side... If he were an artist, I would expect…” He stood upright and sighed. “This is pointless… you know all this already?”
“Yes.” The king deadpanned. “I wished to consult you on how he got past the guards and the servants.”
“Luck? Fervor…? He clearly scampered through the orchards and up the walls… how he did that, how no one noticed him… I would not want to accuse the royal guards of incompetence… or worse…” He slicked back his falling obsidian hair. “Wish to investigate… surveil…?” He innocently recommended.
The king pondered.
“Guard.” He intoned, with more heft than his words before.
A uniformed man, tall as two, and perfectly proportioned, entered the hall, saluting, silent.
“Call for Visurgis. I need him.” Alphonse ordered without looking the man’s way.
The guard saluted again and left.
The three men waited in silence, Lanthym, particularly, was still dazed… be it his king’s strange endangerment of two of the only people he loved… The vague, mystical haziness he used to justify his behavior, or his quick, surprisingly immediate —perhaps feigned?— yielding to critique… It was all truly incomprehensible.
Alistair tapped his foot, thinking.
Then, a tall, greyed man, clean shaven and extremely dignified, in a red, gold, white uniform, entered, bowing with reverence. A hint of shame colored his imposing, knightly frame.
“Your Majesty. You called for me.”
“Adalmund, what do you believe caused this… overt humiliation of the royal guard.”
“My incompetence, your Majesty. I ask you punish me.” The commander kneeled, his tone now dripping with shame.
Alphonse kept silent.
The two ministers shared a heavy look.
“Should I punish, not only you, but the entirety of the guard…? After all, to allow such an attempt on the prince’s and queen’s life… is it not the sin of all guards?”
“The men of the guard defended this manor valiantly, it is only because of my ineptitude as their commander, as tactician, and as guard, that the prince and queen were put in peril. All punishment should befall me, all penance should be borne by the guard’s commander.”
Another heavy silence covered them. Alphonse bore his eyes at the old guard’s bowing head. His arm outstretched to the side; the king pointed to one of his ministers.
“Minister de la Rosa, here, —although he wished not to malign the royal guard— believes it would be pertinent to investigate the men, to hold them under Hiéron scrutiny, for, other than luck, or… the powers of an entity otherworldly…” He chuckled. Raoul’s eyes widened at this obvious bending of his words. “The only logical reason for this man’s” He kicked the corpse, marring his shoe in red. “unimpeded infiltration into the manor hall, would be the existence of a traitor… a rogue agent in the royal guards who aims for the prince’s life, collaborating, or using, these madmen.” He sighed. “Tell me, guard commander Adalmund Hessiah et Visurgis… what do you think of this theory.”
Although his face went unseen, from the tensing of his muscles, and the tightening of his fists, the commander’s opinion seemed clear.
“Your Majesty, such a thing is impossible. Not only are guards selected from the scions of royalist families, but they are also beholden to each other, and the Hiéron, this is impossible… impossible… You know these men, your Majesty, this is fantasy.” His tone, even weakened by guilt, allowed no retort.
“Hm… So, I must punish you, not only for your failings, but for the guards’ sin… and, if there is a traitor, your negligence and shortsightedness have helped hide him, willingly or not…” His foot tapped. “…commander, hand me your sword.”
Unquestioningly, Adalmund unsheathed his saber, held at his waist, and presented it, flat, with both hands, to his king.
Alphonse took the saber.
“I can think of no other punishment, with such sins accrued, than death. If I intend to take your head, here, guard commander Adalwin, would you protest, would you resist?” The king’s bland tone, muted, turned his words to cold steel, far sharper than the blade at his hand.
“No, your Majesty. If it is so, then it shall be. My life is yours, and I see no other medium of absolution for my incompetence.”
The Blood-caped hummed. His left hand rose, the argent saber, unsheathed, hovering over the guard’s neck.
Alphonse stood, like this, contemplating, for a few breaths.
“See, Lanthym? I am no tyrant.” He smiled.
The blade returned to his side, then, turning it, aptly, with only a hand, he held its sharp end, pointing the handle at the kneeling man.
“Such extreme measures will not be necessary… Here, your blade.” Adalwin took it, sheeting it once more. “Have the men hold the villa’s perimeter, and keep the detachment I ordered on Marenisse and Heos.”
“Yes, your Majesty.”
“Return.”
The commander rose, bowed, and left the hall, walking proudly, nobly.
Once he had left, Alphonse spoke once again.
“Have two agents per guard, surveil and investigate them anyway, including Adalwin.” He ordered the air while adjusting his sleeves.
Unsurprised, Raoul assented.
“It will be done.”
Lanthym shook his head, his foot starting to tap again.
*
“You remember nothing?”
“Nothing after I killed him, I must have fainted… Hit my head...” Marenisse wondered, although no wound showed on her brow.
“And you, Heos? Do you remember?”
The child eyed an illustrated collection on the birds of Romanse. Looking up, distracted by his father’s question, he spoke.
“Hum… I remember running… then…” He shook his head, turning back to the book.
Alphonse, although not surprised at the child’s lapse in memory —several things could explain such forgetfulness—, was mildly worried at the prince’s indifference… He had not seen his mother take the attacker’s life, yet, he had heard the screaming, the powder and fire crack the air apart, his mother’s order to run… he had seen the crazed madman… yet, seemed, unmoved… He had only a year of age, a strange, prodigious grasp on language did not exempt him from the particularities of infancy, at least, that is what the king supposed… Could this child understand what had happened? consider, in his mind’s palace, his close shear with death, his mother’s life tethering on the edge…?
He decided, until the villa was cleaned, the corpses investigated by the Hiéron, and all had returned to normalcy, he would keep Heos in the upper reaches of the manor. Space and entertainment were abundant… after, he would move him, with Marenisse, to the palace… something he was rather reluctant to do… However, he understood the importance, Marenisse convinced him, as well; she who had, before, so zealously insisted on moving to the villa.
“Come Heos.” The queen consort picked up the prince, his hands still holding the tome, as she settled him on the large bed, cradled with her. “Heos, mama has a question.”
The prince, an innocent, wondering look clear in his eyes, looked up at his mother.
“Yes mama?”
“Would you like to leave, Heos? We will move to the palace, where you’ll get to play with and meet your brothers and sisters, we’ll see the city, and you will get to see swans… it will be more fun….” She smiled.
“Really?! Hmm… Ok. But can we come back later? I like this house.” His jolly tone made his words all the more infantile.
“We’ll come back, but it will take some time.” Alphonse added.
“Mhm…” He returned to the book.
The queen merely smiled.
“How did you take the knife from him?” The king questioned, curiosity clear.
“What? You doubt me?” She grinned at the king. “Please… Am I some feeble dame? He was crazed, frenzied, and I still took it from him…” She laughed. “Perhaps I should be the one guarding Visurgis?” She raised an eyebrow in thought, smugly asserting. “Hm! If I hadn’t been in this cumbersome dress, perhaps I would have taken his head as well, not just his life!”
Heos stopped reading and asked.
“Mama, what is “take his head"?"
Marenisse looked stumped for a moment.
“To utterly defeat someone.” She nodded, a satisfied look on her face.
“What Is u— ut— utte— utterly.” The word finally stammered out.
“Well…”
As the prince and queen went back and forth, Alphonse sank deep in his mind, analyzing all that he knew of this event. The suddenly appearing madmen, the impossible intrusion of the knife wielding lunatic into the manor… most importantly… he would understand if they wished to kill him… but an infant prince? And for a second time… The location of the manor was no secret, yet… why had they come here first, instead of the palace? as if they knew they would find his child here… Why were they all artists? When they identified the bodies, would they all still be misérables? What about the other outbursts across the city…? Why had he been so sure no harm would befall the prince or queen? It was not just a gut feeling, an instinct… it seemed to be an evident truth, something so obvious there was no point in questioning its veracity… something hung deep in his consciousness…
As he spiraled, a guard’s voice crossed the room’s threshold.
“Your Majesty, Minister de Lamartine has arrived.” He declared.
“Let him in.” His soliloquy dissolved into the back of his mind.
A slightly disheveled, ordinary looking man entered, his brown eyes nervously scanning the room. After seeing all those present, whole and unharmed, he heaved a sigh of relief.
“Lamartine!” Marenisse exclaimed. “You’re fine, are you? I heard you were caught up in the disorder at rue Vuillard…”
Heos smiled.
“Uncle!” He happily blurted out.
Roderin’s heavy breaths stilled.
“God… from what I heard you two had been attacked.” His tone showed genuine gladness at their being unharmed.
“Marenisse killed the attacker… fainted after… all is well.” Alphonse assured his friend.
Both men half-hugged.
Roderin sat in a carved, silver accented chair, deep rose-brown aromatic wood making up its body.
“Really?” He asked, a bit incredulous.
“Of course! You doubt me too?”
“No, no… it is just surprising… I am fine as well, Minister d’Ruissaumbe had… uh, invited me out to lunch. I was with him, and we rerouted… we returned, as his retainer noticed some commotion ahead.”
“Hm.” Alphonse merely hummed.
“You killed him? And the guards… the Hiéron?” Roderin returned to surprising, although believable news.
“Gods, I. Killed. Him. Would I let some possessed plebeian attempt to take my son’s life and not… summarily execute him!? Marenisse declared, haughty and prideful.
“Madness. He got past them, climbed up to the manor’s second story and got in.” The king asserted, as for the matter of the secret protectors.
“I did not hear much from the Hiéron agent you sent to the ministry… How is the city?”
“All is calm now. The crazed have been taken by the gendarmerie or killed. We will see…”
Heos jumped into the conversation.
“Uncle, we will go to the palace, did you know? How is the palace?”
“The palace…? No, I did not know… It is a beautiful place; you will like it.”
The prince, convinced by Lamartine’s brief words, widened his eyes, now filled with expectation for the place where he would be moved into.
And as all conversed, Alphonse returned to his thoughts. The was something… what was it? The air fluttered… something, something… just outside. He looked out the window, the lead gray sky, cloud filled… The pale gloom, like fingers, raining down, crushing under their weight the fragile form of his reign…
The day was dying down.
He closed his eyes.
How tired…
Even steeped in madness, it was all so drab.