Shadows of the Scriptures

TWENTY: The Smell of Herbs

“Let the Session begin,” said his Gracious Majesty Alain Khad every other afternoon, and so the Sessions began.

He was finding the overhead dome more and more fascinating with each passing day. At least it was pretty to look at. At least it didn’t shout. He couldn’t say that about the people who flooded the throne room every week on Jinzl with their countless complaints and demands, pleas and requests. Plaintiffs squabbling. Farmers grumbling about lack of rain, as though he were buddies with Joe Esper. Make-belief priests hosting immolations to help win the war at hand. Actual priests and even placated Seers moaning about the coming of the Great Disaster, of the Third Quenching nigh at hand.

Pirates from the Reef Harbor and away – pirates! Whichever King had ever had to deal with pirates himself? – having grown bold, demanding ships in that the protestants had burnt them to ashes. 

The protestants. The bloody revolutionaries.

That pots-darn Parush!

Alain couldn’t make it to the end of the day without hearing the man's name from half a dozen worried mouths. He had the general public, at least the majority of Charmat, convinced that Alain was an insipid, unqualified ruler. What was worse, was he was nudging them to radical action now. It seemed in scarcely a month the revolutionaries had gone from picketing noble landholdings to sticking garden rakes into the nobles’ necks.

Revolts against the crown were constant, no matter the ruler and no matter his subjects. Where there are those in power there will always be those who oppose them. But this Parush, he had to have been planning this for quite a while now. Years, perhaps. Orchestrating meetings under false names, pulling strings over the nobility’s thick fat self-obsessed heads.

More and more citizens were being arrested, at a rate where Alain could see the day when the cells would hold more of Rivate’s population than its houses. Prisoners had even had to be transported to Pahujan, so many were there. In return placated mages from Pajuhan's Houses of Ations were delivered to Rivate; they would be needed to take care of the increasing disorder here.

Some good word came from Aleth Sanghon in that he had the Dassan fortress secured, having destroyed the Ptirrens’ siege over the princedom entirely. But bad word was attached to it: the Rys Ami were real. They had had to fight literal Shadows to accomplish taking over the Dassan fortress.

And when Aleth Sanghon, Canton of Ras Demin, Slaver of Death, says that Shadows have learnt to fight – you had best believe Shadows had learnt to fight.

Commander Maurya had not lied.

What sorcery this was no one knew. Not to mention nobody had the faintest idea as to what the Ptirrens might do next. In this mire they did not need this Parush character to hinder them further.

Lawmaster Roshuk Cromius suggested they have the man assassinated. The votes were split four to three amongst the council, in favor of the assassination. But Alain thought it best to consult the General; Alrej Whasu was, after all, the one who spent most time on the field, working day and night to thwart these rebels. And Whasu advised against it. If we have him killed, he reasoned, the people will see it as an act of cowardice on your part, your Grace. Who knows what they’ll do then? Only tyrants have their enemies silenced; true rulers defeat theirs.

Whasu’s vote had to count double, for it sounded wise to Alain, so the assassination plan was introduced to the mud.

Highsecretary Anauj Orlocke put in his recommendation. “A public execution,” he said, tapping his brass stump of a leg, “will do nicely the trick of trashing morale.”

“No, fool!” snarled the Namesake Fanzel Elroy. Or, as he was better known, Lord Fanzel the Fiddler. (This epithet was coined by the late King Aryan Khad II.) He had no distinctive feature, except for a small handlebar moustache which twisted unceremoniously at the ends. “An execution will entirely spoil the order I have achieved by diplomacy!”