Conquest of Avalon

Fernan VIII: The Revolutionary

Right now, the greatest luxury of all would be a moment to breathe.

Fernan hunched himself back against the wall slightly, trying in vain to give himself a bit of space in the crowded room. The air was thick with the scent of sweat and smoke, and warm enough to blur everyone’s outlines, which only made recognizing people in the sea of new faces harder. The crowd filled the Lord’s council chamber to bursting, with about a third clustered out on the balcony in the autumn chill, and a stream out the door to the much larger group gathered outside.

Mom was keeping them occupied, thankfully, relating what had happened and what was to come, keeping their spirits high in the wake of such unexpected success, while inside, Michel had her proxy.

With so many people streaming in and out, kicking up clouds of brown and red dust, it was hard to be sure exactly how many had been lost, friend or foe, but more than a dozen bodies were already stacked up outside, and the pile was only growing as they combed through the castle.

Fernan hadn’t lost anyone he knew, which a guilty part of him felt grateful for, but it had been a near thing. Yves was only barely clinging to life, stable enough to rest in bed, according to doctor Sézanne, but with the hole in his chest, he could die at any moment. Maxime hadn’t escaped unscathed either, with a nasty gash across his hands and two missing fingers from the slash of a guard’s blade.

At least he’s alive. I don’t know what I’d do if something had happened to him. And Michel and Mom, miraculously, were a few scrapes and bruises away from being completely unscathed.

They’d moved out all of the chairs from the council chamber to try to make room, and some of the exhausted and lightly wounded were convalescing atop them out in the hall with Michel. Really, they should have done this in a larger room, like the great hall where the wedding had been held, or the justice chamber where the trials had been held.

But the latter was in ruins from the fight with Valentine Valvert, and the former still had aristocrats inside, in the process of negotiating their surrender as pistol-wielding Montaignards guarded the door. Maréchal Augustin, the courtier that had arguably started all of this mess, seemed to be their de-facto leader as one of the only sages left on their side, and he seemed to be in no hurry to stand down.

And with all the food they have in there left over from the feast, why wouldn’t he stall? From his perspective, there was no downside to hunkering down and hoping all of this was stamped out, and the other nobles with him seemed to be united in that. Augustin had yet to reveal exactly who else was in there with him, and it was impossible to get a decent headcount without knowing which wedding guests had already departed before all of this had started.

Guy Valvert had commanded his guard to stand down, at least, which at least made it safe to move about the castle, and the agitators from outside had wasted no time in moving in, disorganized as the whole thing ended up.

Florette had started the Montaignards training with pistols and whatever other tidbits she’d gleaned from the Fox-King or Leclaire to help keep things running smoothly, but they were outnumbered more than ten-to-one by the crowd of sympathetic citizens Michel had been addressing outside, many of whom didn’t even have weapons.

For the most part, that was a good thing. Violence was the exact opposite of what they were trying to do here, and the less they drew on it, the better. Feeling a little safer wasn’t worth what the alternative would cost.

But between the loyalist Imperial guards, all of the nobles in the great hall and the Valverts and Magnifico in the tower cells, things are looking awfully precarious. That was even before thinking about the Châlice Mercenaries, who were surely already on their way back from the futile dragon hunt Fernan had sent them on, and might well be ready to force the miners back to work at sword point.

That made resolving their decisions here and now all the more important, but the nobles weren’t the only ones who seemed to be in no particular hurry, given that three hours of argument had already passed in the council chamber without any success at resolving their next course of action.

This was supposed to have been settled before they made any active moves, but Phillipe Montrouge’s trial and Fernan’s would-be exile had forced things to a head before all of the debate could be resolved, which left them stuck in this fetid room yelling at each other instead of actually making the changes needed to help people.

“You are arguing that rule by the people is too impractical to implement. I am informing you that elevating any one, any dozen, to stand above the people is no democracy at all.” Maxime pounded his bandaged fist against the table without thinking, then winced. “I saw it happen with the Thirteen, trying to outdo each other in their brutality against criminals while their corruption skated by without a second look. We cannot have a true city government with a lord ruling over us, even if we’re the ones who choose.”

“Citoyen Aloutte’s conduct was unbecoming of the Thirteen, and she will doubtless be removed by the people in her next election, but that does not make the institution illegitimate!” Citoyen Darce’s face was glowing red, the heat clearly proving a bit much for him. “Nevertheless, Maxime is right about the folly of this proposal. The Thirteen are chosen promptly, democratically, and continuously. No matter how egalitarian the fashion by which your new lord is chosen, the moment they ascend to power, they would be just as unchecked in their will as Valvert. Not a single rational mind would dispute that fact.”

Evidently, Maxime’s position was not unopposed. Yvain Delion, one of the newer Montaignards that Michel had brought into the fold, had made a fortune selling insurance for merchant vessels, and had provided almost ten thousand florins for the cause. “We’re talking about Fernan Montaigne! If ever there was a man less incorruptible, I’ve yet to meet him. He has the peerage for Leclaire to respect his rule, and the kindness to ensure that Valvert’s folly would never be seen again.” Flattering words from a man I don’t think I’ve said two words to. More concerning was the wave of approving nods Fernan saw rippling through the room.

“We hold King Harold captive!” This time, Maxime was aware enough to avoid jarring his injured hand. “His royal personage is the ultimate bargaining chip. Leclaire will have to do whatever we say if she wishes to keep Avalon sufficiently deterred from sailing their ironclads into Renart Bay and returning Malin to their ever-growing list of conquered cities.” Maxime shot Fernan a sympathetic look. “Aside from which, Fernan had expressed precisely zero interest in assuming such a role. Nothing about that has changed, unless I’m mistaken…?”

Maxime let the half-question linger as Fernan tried to consider his response. An elected lordship carried obvious benefits, preserving the will of the people in Guerron while actually carrying a chance of remaining uncontested by the Empire, if they negotiated things right. And as much as Maxime hates the idea, he still left the door open for me to push for it if it’s what I want.

Is it?

The obvious answer was no, but Fernan knew where he stood with Camille and Lucien, and he could hardly deny that, out of anyone in this room, he stood the best chance of resolving the rest of things peacefully. And it would put a stop to this infighting, if nothing else. We could finally start moving forward instead of squabbling amongst ourselves. If it was something Fernan had to do, briefly, before stepping aside like the petit Nicolas Condorcet, would that really be so bad?

But whom would I be stepping aside for? It would maintain the precedent of a lord’s dominion over Guerron, and it would only take one successor deciding he had no interest in elections to return things more or less to how they’d been before. The Empire would hardly stand in their way if they did.

It doesn’t matter if Valvert is gone if someone just as bad gets just as much power once the dust settles. Even the potential for it was unacceptable.

“No man shall rule Guerron alone,” Fernan answered, after keeping the room in suspense longer than he’d intended. “What good is removing Valvert if we simply replace him with one of our own?”

“Sire Fernan, you are hardly—”

“Moreover, it doesn’t change what needs to happen next. However Guerron is organized, we need to send terms to Malin immediately if we want any hope of surviving their reprisal. We can hold elections soon for a city council in the vein of the Thirteen, or a larger assembly, or vote directly on our policies. No matter which way we go, we need to survive long enough to get there.”

Delion’s aura went yellow, but he didn’t contest the point.

“Then we’re resolved,” said the rude doctor, Georges Sézanne. “The captives will remain in our custody while we issue demands to Malin: recognition of our chartered rule of Guerron while continuing to pay homage to the Empire in name, though no longer in taxes or spiritual aid. At last we’ll be able to remove ourselves from these costly spiritual conflicts that do not concern us at all. If Soleil’s seat had not been in Guerron, Glaciel would never have attacked us.”

“I wouldn’t mind officially disbanding the Temple of the Sun,” Fernan began…“But I’m not sure how Gézarde would feel about it. And I definitely don’t think it needs to be part of the ransom negotiations. It’d be making things more contentious than they need to be. Not to mention the fact that Glaciel still would have attacked the sun’s seat, wherever it would have been, and that might have meant that defending it would have failed. The whole world might have been lost, but instead, we were able to stand together and drive her back. With spirits and their children beside us.”

“The contentiousness of the demand is exactly why we must include it.” Michel spoke softly, but the room fell silent to accommodate him. “Do you think we’ll have an easier time coming to an agreement once we’ve sent Valvert back and lost some of our leverage? Our most contentious demands have to be negotiated now, while Malin has no choice but respect them. Freedom from the tyrannical whims of spirits must be on that list, or we’ll only see another White Night. Another Aurelian Lumière plunging the world into darkness for his own ambitions.” He paused, carefully choosing his words. “And I believe it must include independence as well. Homage to Malin could see all of our gains reversed in time.”

“We’d still be cutting them off from our taxes. It’s just a nominal concession to try to keep them from sending soldiers after us. And to show that we’re in it together against Avalon.” Because if anything happens to Magnifico, we’re all just as fucked.

“Then concede later, in exchange for concessions of theirs. Don’t negotiate yourself down to a lower starting point before your opponent has even heard what you want.”

“Fine,” Fernan said, eager to end this discussion. I’ve seen this before, in Villechart, the anger and hate, even though we were the one who’d wronged the geckos. As callous and immoral as most spirits might be, that wasn’t all of them, and it especially didn’t account for their children caught in the crossfire.

That had been the entire reason to depose Flammare, sparing thousands of innocent Hiverriens from his war of total annihilation. It put a pit in Fernan’s stomach to see allies here embracing the same kind of beliefs, even if he understood the sentiment after the carnage of the White Night.

“Nor should we limit ourselves needlessly,” added Phillipe Montrouge, the trader whose arrest had started this whole mess. “Even if Guerron lacks the strength to stand alone, the Empire is not our only option.”

The Condorcet representatives nodded fiercely at that, though they were delusional if they thought that their collective and Guerron had a hope of resisting half the continent together.

Charles des Agnettes, the sage of Fala whom Fernan had fought beside in the Battle of White Night, had largely refrained from speaking, but his aura had been steadily darkening ever since the topic of the spirits had arisen. “Lumière acted on his own, a rogue and a traitor to his spirit. We had to endure the darkness because he didn’t respect the dominion of his patron spirit, not because he did. Have you forgotten how crucial spirits were to our victory in the White Night? The image of Corro of the Wastes dueling Queen Glaciel, both of them large as a building, would seem to be rather memorable, no? Or Gézarde’s gecko children, the first to feel winter’s bite, blasting the Hiverriens back across the ice so that we could progress? Just because Guy Valvert leapt to excess doesn’t mean we need to tear down society. I for one think that an elected lord is an excellent compromise.”

“Shouldn’t you be cloistered in the great hall with the other aristos?” spat Citoyen Courbet. “Soleil was a tyrant and a fiend. Whatever Lumière’s motives, his actions were noble and necessary. Renouncing the false saviors is only reasonable, and the true goddess Khali will welcome all new acolytes with open arms.”

“From her Nocturne prison?” Maxime wrinkled his nose, apparently not bothering to maintain his ruse as loyal Condorcet bodyguard anymore. “Khali didn’t seem to notice the hundreds of people sacrificed in her name every year. I hardly think she’ll help us out now.”

“What on earth is a goddess, anyway?” asked Sézanne.

“A spirit just and true, awash in a sea of false idols and charlatans.”

“So it’s just a Great Spirit that you happen to like?”

“My judgment is immaterial. What matters is—”

“Is keeping Guerron’s people safe and prosperous,” Fernan interrupted. Enough is enough. “That’s why we did all of this in the first place. Spiritual matters can wait. I’ll take Mara up to see Gézarde today, and we can resume the conversation at a later time. In two days I’ll have another chance to try talking to Camille Leclaire.” If she doesn’t snub me again. “We shouldn’t send our messenger any later than that.”

“But taking care to avoid saying the wrong thing is just as important, in its own way,” Michel said, which wasn’t terribly helpful.

“Which is why we need to drill down to very specific, earthly demands.”

Michel nodded. “What we want in an ideal world, and perhaps even more than that. We’ll be lucky if Malin is willing to grant a fraction of what we ask for. They know we can only kill Magnifico once, and doing so would doom the entire continent to Avalon’s conquest.”

“Then, I say again, we must consider alternatives to the Fox-King’s regime.” Montrouge laced his fingers together, waiting until he had the room’s full attention. “A Guerron free from the tyranny of spirits and sages cannot and will not be acknowledged in Malin. Even deposing Valvert is likely enough to poison our relations there forevermore. They’ll wish to retaliate, and we need to give them good cause to reconsider.”

Darce nodded. “If you commit to renouncing the false hierarchies and evil patrons of the past, the Condorcet Collective is prepared to offer our firm and steadfast support, both financially and in strength of arms.”

“Khali will enrich your mind and strengthen your arm, as she has done for us, allowing survival even when the entire continent is set against you,” Courbet added.

“Great.” Maxime rolled his head back. “We’ll have a few more florins in our pocket and a few hundred more swords at our side when the Fox-King leads an army through the pass to kill us all.”

I thought we agreed to move past this for now. “Regardless, spiritual matters will have to wait until—”

“International alliances are an earthly concern, a vital one to our very survival,” Montrouge interrupted. “And Avalon is prepared to offer us everything we want, so long as we return her king. Harold Grimoire promised as much himself.”

“What?” Fernan blurted out. “You can’t seriously be suggesting we align ourselves with Avalon.”

“It bears consideration,” Montrouge insisted. “As things stand now, we’re no friends of the Fox-King. And King Harold promised—”

“He promised Aurelian Lumière the position of the sun. He promised Duke Fouchand the respect and sanctity of a guest. He promised me his help in finding the Duke’s true killer, and used it to hide the evidence of his own misdeeds.”

“Agreed. His promises are worth less than the contents of his privy,” said Charles. “A lot of good people would still be alive if he hadn’t wormed his way in here. Even more, when you consider his responsibility for plunging the world into darkness.”

“He left Charenton alone. And Dimanche. They’re aligned with Avalon, but they still have their independence. Can you imagine a city government, equal to all, but backed by the power of the world’s greatest military? The Fox-King would faint on the spot.”

Courbet flashed a giddy orange at the prospect, though still darkened in color. “The Collective would be more than amenable to such a choice. Even after all this time, some of us still have friends in Cambria. Assurances could be secured, if need be. It would be just as much in their interest as ours.”

“Friends in Avalon?” Fernan couldn’t help but ask. “You serve Khali, and their nation was built on sealing her away. Not to mention being on the other side of the world.”

“The bloodline Grimoire only became royalty because of their allegiance to Khali. They abandoned her in the Age of Gleaming, and much of Cambria with them, but Khali still has loyal servants in high places, and with them, friends of Condorcet.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Darce hedged. “But they do send us aid covertly, more likely because they know we put it to use against their enemies like Micheltaigne and Plagette than out of any loyalty to Khali. I’m sure that the Thirteen would support this course.”

“Splendid!” Montrouge nodded enthusiastically. “I urge you all to consider the benefits. King Harold was happy to offer an Avaline protectorate over Guerron to Lumière, and but for his treachery and ambition, he could have had it. Fernan could now, or a duly elected council to represent us all. Or think of Charenton! Magister Ticent just had to hand over a baby, and they let him rule Charenton unmolested for decades. And Harold Grimoire is far more valuable than Robin Verrou ever was.”

“Or Dimanche,” Maxime countered. “The Countess danced to Avalon’s tune for nearly as long, and yet a boat of starving refugees still turned up on our shores. How well do you think Avalon is serving them, at the moment? Why should we expect any better?”

Thank you, Maxime. “Not to mention Gézarde and the geckos. Whether or not Avalon secretly likes Khali, they’re not going to want the sun and his children to have a place in any kind of arrangement we might make.”

“King Harold is an even greater opponent to liberty than Valvert. Granting him any kind of dominion over Guerron would be a step back, not forward. I am intimately familiar with the perils of finding a solution worse than the initial problem. Learn from Condorcet’s example, rather than following it to the same bloody ends.”

“Why would you slander your homeland like this?” Courbet called out. “Had you been raised anywhere else, you’d simply be another follower, your mind constrained and limited by artificial, unjust hierarchies of magic and nobility. Instead, you got to live in the freest nation on Terramonde.”

“Until the moment I was arrested without cause,” Maxime fired back, but his voice was already beginning to be drowned out by larger arguments about looking to Cambria versus Malin, independence versus protectorate, lordship versus democracy, and even within the latter, republicanism versus direct rule by all of the people.

Fernan could barely hear himself think, let alone cogently respond to any of it. For some reason I believed that without all of the arrogant, ignorant aristocrats, things would be easier. What was I thinking?

Mere hours ago, they’d all been united for the people of Guerron, against Valvert and his callous indifference, his councilors’ malicious corruption. How had that unity shattered so quickly?

If we can’t come to an agreement, Avalon or the Empire will have no trouble cleaving through our divided ranks and seizing whatever remains. This fractiousness had to end, but Fernan didn’t see a path to do it.

Judging by their respective shouting and moody silence, Michel and Maxime didn’t seem to have any great ideas either.

Fernan was just about ready to walk out the door and get some, maybe talk to Mara and Gézarde before coming back, when it swung open right into his face.

His mom was on the other side, a concerned purple tint to her aura.

“What is it?” Fernan asked, fearing he knew the answer.

“The mercenaries were spotted on the horizon. They’re going to want to talk to Valvert or force us back into the mines, neither of which we can give them.”

“Oh,” he said mutely, cold dread filling his heart as he looked back at the contentious arguments filling the room.

“I think you should treat with them again,” she said softly, barely audible above the din. “There might be an arrangement we can come to. If nothing else, you can buy us time to prepare a defense.”

“No, of course. Right.” Fernan blinked rapidly, trying to get his thoughts in order. “Right.”

“Just fly away if anything goes wrong. The most important thing is keeping yourself safe.”

It’s not, and we both know it. But the sentiment was nice, and it finally spurred Fernan to action.

“Everyone quiet!” He turned and shouted, instantly driving the arguments from the room. “As of now, all previous matters of discussion are on hold while we prepare defenses for Guerron. The Châlice Mercenaries have returned, and we need to be able to greet them on equal footing. While I’m out meeting with them, I want you all to listen to Mom and Michel and start fortifying the city.”

“That’s Eleanor Montaigne, to be clear,” Michel smoothly jumped in, sliding towards the exit to meet up with them. “Everyone, follow me outside. We’re going to sort ourselves into three groups. If you can fight with a sword, join Charles in the courtyard as he goes over tactics and battle maneuvers. We don’t have a lot of time, but any training is massively better than nothing. If you’re good with a bow or a pistol, follow Eleanor to the ramparts. We need to slow them down as much as possible before they even reach the gates. Anyone else who can help, go with Maxime. You’ll be preparing supplies, oil, taking stock of our munitions, and warning the rest of the city. Take care not to panic. Our cause is just, and we have already triumphed against great odds to stand here today…”

He continued on, leading the throngs of people back towards the castle’s courtyard, still awash with dust and blood, but Fernan didn’t stay to listen. Steeling himself for his task, he took flight with a burst of flame. His task was too important to tarry with.

Because if I can’t talk them around again, today’s fighting will look like nothing by comparison…