The Peasant Revolt
Leo, now cradled in Richard’s arms, looked up at his brother and said, “Something feels wrong, Your Highness.”
Richard nodded. Polbury lay barely ten miles from Venterum Castle and even closer to Milehaven. It was unnatural for highwaymen to roam so near the very heart of Zylan’s royal power.
“Which side do you suspect? The north, Derim, or Malong?”
“I cannot say yet.”
Their conversation never once entertained the possibility that the bandits had arisen spontaneously. Richard spoke again.
“I thought as much.”
He opened the carriage door.
“Your Highness?”
“Wait quietly inside.”
“It is dangerous, Your Highness!”
Richard did not agree. Leo was obviously helpless, and even if Herbert had been well he could not have fought. The two coachmen were never an option; they had other duties. He studied the robbers through the window. They had only surrounded Herbert’s carriage and were not acting with any real purpose. There were just eleven of them, and none were properly armed. That made the situation even stranger.
He ordered the coachman to stay put, then stepped down. In his mind, anyone who turned to highway robbery had to be either too poor to survive within the law or living so far from authority that the law could not reach them. These men fit neither description. Milehaven’s civic militia alone numbered five battalions under royal command, and Venterum Castle housed a hundred household knights plus three guard battalions. With such forces within half a day’s ride, no one would dare break the law. There had been no famine in the last two years, so food was not scarce, and wartime tariffs had not been raised, so necessities were not lacking. That was why he suspected the north, Derim, or Malong stood behind them.
Yet the men looked exactly like common highwaymen. Foreign agents stirring unrest would never appear in filthy, torn tunics, gaping shoes, and unkempt hair, armed with pitchforks, shovels, or at best quarterstaves. Nor would such agents number only eleven. Richard walked toward them with calm confidence.
“Heh-heh-heh, milord, hand over everything you’ve got!”
“Even their speech is perfectly that of highwaymen.”
“So what! Got a problem with that?”
“No. I am merely a little confused.”
Richard approached the bandits without hesitation. None of them had received any proper martial training; they held their weapons like farm tools. When they saw him striding forward, they raised their implements—Richard refused to call them weapons. They could never wound him.
“James, that wench looks like she’d fetch a fortune at the docks.”
“Right? Hey! Be careful not to scar her face, all of you!”
The bandits spun wild fantasies that could never come true. Ordinarily Richard would have sneered and cut them down at once, but their words struck him with unexpected force. Forgetting even to draw his sword, he muttered blankly, “Wench?”
Richard had dressed as a man, yet simply wearing male clothing could not hide his feminine figure, and his face was far too delicate. The bandits assumed he had frozen in terror. Fools grew brave in packs; without that false courage they could never have survived long enough to block the carriages carrying Richard and his party.
Richard’s mood soured. His male disguise had been exposed in an instant—or rather, the fact that he had become a woman had been forced upon him. Moreover, these men were highwaymen, but they were Zylan’s own subjects. He disliked the thought that his subjects could be so cowardly, ignorant, and dull.
The bandits, unaware of his thoughts, spoke their minds and reached for him. Richard had not been frozen by fear; he had been suppressing anger and irritation. The moment a hand stretched toward him, he moved. He seized the wrist, twisted it outward, tripped the man, and stamped on his neck. Then he drew his longsword. The motion was neither fast nor slow, yet so natural that the bandits could not immediately grasp what had happened.
Richard swung the blade horizontally, irritation plain in the stroke. One bandit’s head flew off. Using the momentum, he slashed diagonally across the shoulder of the man on the opposite side. The next man’s face displeased him, so Richard gripped the sword with both hands and brought it down hard. As the third man collapsed with his shoulder split, the blade stopped at the fourth man’s jaw. He drove the sword into the belly of the first man still pinned beneath his foot.
Only after an embarrassingly long moment did the surviving bandits realize what had occurred.
“This bitch…?”
The first to understand, aside from those already struck, cursed and swung his rake. Richard raised his sword to head height, stepped in, blocked the haft, and cut diagonally. The man whose hands were pinned to his own rake and whose shoulder was torn open could not finish his sentence. Richard’s movements had grown slightly quicker. He reached out and seized the quarterstaff thrust at him. The wielder tried to pull it back; Richard pushed instead, driving the staff into the man’s solar plexus. The bandit dropped to his knees.
Three men rushed him at once. Richard kicked the kneeling man aside. One tripped over his rolling comrade, but the other two did not. Richard cut twice in quick succession. Two axes and their owners’ wrists spun into the air. The remaining rake’s haft snapped; its head, propelled forward, struck its owner’s forehead along with Richard’s sword. The last man stood frozen. Richard dispatched the fallen, the winded, the forehead-struck, and the wristless in swift, precise order.
He shook the blood from his blade and asked the final bandit, “Where are you from?”
“P-please spare me!”
Richard sneered. “While still holding a weapon?”
The man flung his pickaxe away in panic and raised both hands. “I dropped it! I dropped it!”
“Where are you from?”
“Penhill! We came from Penhill!”
Penhill was a small village on the outskirts of Milehaven.
“How long since you left home?”
“Y-yesterday afternoon.”
Richard found it strange. These men had become highwaymen only today and were robbing right outside their own village; the timing felt unnatural.
“Why did you stop the carriage we were riding in?”
“Your—your companions are unharmed! We never touched them. Truly!”
Richard had said “we,” but the bandit did not understand. That was not the reason for his irritation, yet his voice rose slightly as he repeated the question.
“I asked why you stopped the carriage we were riding in.”
“We never meant to attack the carriage carrying Her Majesty the Queen! We were only celebrating the new queen’s accession and—”
“What?”
“We… we just held a festival to mark the occasion, played a bit of football with the neighboring village, and then a passing traveler started stirring things up, saying…”
When the full story emerged, Richard could hardly believe it. After three days of football the villagers had feasted with their neighbors. A traveler appeared, praised the young men’s strength and stamina, and urged them to carry out the new Queen Rachel’s “cruel decree” by slaughtering every Eranian in the district. The excited, drunken mob promptly destroyed the nearby Eranian quarter and roasted its inhabitants on spits. Still flushed with blood and wine, the traveler then claimed that every noble who had not lent money to Eranians must also die. Ten or twenty men banded together, blocked the roads, and robbed anyone whose clothing looked sufficiently fine—anyone they considered a “noble.”
The traveler’s ability to inflame hatred of the Eranians and then redirect it toward the nobility was as remarkable as the mob’s own depravity—especially his success in inciting them to kill Eranians. If that same man continued traveling through Zylan and succeeded in terrorizing all the Eranians within its borders, the damage to Richard could be severe.
The bandit’s account was rambling, but repeated questioning produced no contradictions, and the man lacked the wit to invent such a tale. Richard ran him through and walked toward Herbert’s carriage, thinking. The traveler had to be caught. No ordinary traveler could orchestrate such a scheme. He must be seized, his backers exposed, and executed according to law. First, however, Richard had to escape the unknown number of rioters still lurking nearby.
He entered Herbert’s carriage and shook the man awake.
“Herbert! Get up! Is the chancellor of Zylan really snoring through a crisis like this?”
Herbert started upright. “F-forgive me, Your Majesty! Have mercy!”
“Who said I was going to kill you?” Richard kicked him in the rear. At this rate Herbert would never pass for a competent chancellor. Leo had told him to be generous with the weak, but there were limits. Richard raised his voice.
“Move to the carriage behind us at once. Tell the coachman to unharness the horses. Understood?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I shall do so immediately.”
The coachman, not Herbert, answered properly. Richard glared at Herbert, who still stared blankly, failing to grasp the situation. Finally losing patience, Richard seized him by the collar and dragged him out of the carriage.
“Y-Your Majesty? What on earth…?”
Herbert saw the scene outside and recoiled. Dozens of corpses lay scattered across the ground—an unbearable sight, especially for a man who had lost consciousness during the fall of Erania. He clapped a hand over his mouth and began to retch.
Richard muttered, “Pathetic fool.”
The coachman offered, “I will move him.”
“No need.”
The coachman looked where Richard pointed. The other coachman and Prince Leo had arrived, each leading a horse by the reins. Leo already knew what to do; he handed his reins to Richard.
Richard said, “They claim they came from Penhill and joined forces with the neighboring village. We had best return to Polbury and take ship.”
“Be careful.”
“Against these wretches?” Richard gestured at the bodies with a mocking laugh. Leo shook his head.
“That is not the problem.”
The corpses’ clothing was indeed shabby, but what truly worried Leo was not the rioters themselves. Richard understood that as well. He smiled at Leo, then turned to the coachman.
“What is this mare’s name?”
“Bonnie Brownie.”
The horse Richard now held was, like her name, an utterly unremarkable brown mare from ear to hoof, muzzle to tail, and even in her large, plain eyes. Richard spoke to her.
“Your lack of distinction is your distinction.”
Bonnie snorted as if in protest. Richard chuckled and swung into the saddle. He leaned down toward Leo, embraced him, and said, “I know. I will be wary of whoever stands behind them.”
“Please be careful, Your Highness.”
Leo returned the embrace, his eyes trembling with anxiety. Richard spoke again.
“If you do not let go, how am I to leave?”
“Forgive me, Your Highness.”
“Do not worry. Do you truly believe these men could have already surrounded both Milehaven and Venterum Castle?”
“Your words are wise.”
Leo released his grip. Richard straightened in the saddle with fluid grace and called to the coachman.
“Coachman!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Ride to the Milehaven militia garrison and order the Raven Battalion to stand ready. Here is my dagger as proof of the command.”
He tossed the man the dagger he carried. The coachman bowed.
“It shall be done, Your Majesty.”
“You be careful as well, Leo.”
Without waiting for an answer, Richard spurred the mare. Bonnie surged forward. The second coachman saluted Leo and followed.
Once Leo had transferred to Herbert’s carriage, Herbert asked in a broken voice, “Where has Her Majesty gone…?”
“She has returned to Venterum Castle ahead of us.”
“Alone?”
Leo nodded. Herbert’s face grew even paler.
“That cannot be! The Queen riding alone into unknown numbers of rioters? Why did you not stop her, Your Highness?”
“Stopping her would have been useless. And it would have been wrong.”
“This… I cannot understand the Zylan way of thinking.”
While Herbert muttered in horror, the coachman asked, “Are you both aboard, Your Highness? Your Grace?”
“Drive on.”
The crack of the whip sounded, and the carriage began to vibrate. The sudden turn pressed them sideways; once they righted themselves, the carriage was no longer turning. Leo straightened and addressed Herbert.
“We do not know how many rioters there are, but the great knight Richard will not be endangered by mere rioters.”
“Even so, there was no need for her to head for Venterum. She could have returned to Polbury, levied the local militia and knights…”
“A ruler’s first duty is to defeat the enemy. Nowhere does it say that fleeing and abandoning the throne comes second or third.”
Herbert’s mouth hung open, unable to reply. This inspection of the Polbury arsenal had indeed been an impromptu decision rather than a formal procedure, and by law Queen Rachel was required to remain inside Venterum Castle. If the present uprising proved nationwide or even spanned several counties and demanded major military response, her absence would send a damaging signal to Milehaven.
“You are correct. Yet that does not justify sending Her Majesty alone into a place of unknown danger.”
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you not stop her!?”
Herbert’s voice rose; the carriage slowed for a moment before regaining speed. Leo answered calmly.
“Compose yourself. Do you truly believe my brother would listen even if I tried to dissuade him?”
“You should have made him listen!”
“He is already far away. We cannot catch up now, can we?”
“But…”
Herbert trailed off. He differed from Leo in many ways: he was a bureaucrat, not royalty, and a priest, not a noble. He did not trust Richard as deeply as Leo did. Yet Leo believed the greatest difference between them lay elsewhere. Leo had witnessed Richard’s martial prowess with his own eyes during the recent war. Herbert had not. Leo tried to reassure him.
“Once my brother is mounted, no mere rioters can bar his path. On horseback he is like a loosed arrow or a battering ram; anything that stands in his way crumbles in an instant. I have seen it myself, so do not worry.”
Even so, Herbert could not shake his unease. He asked, “Which memory is it that you saw, Your Highness? The memory from when Her Majesty was still a man, or the memory from now?”