Chapter Fourteen

From Here

Change happens slowly.

But events can certainly give it a kick up the ass.

As soon as word got out that King Balduin was dead, it turned out that most of the court had never liked him to begin with, but had been unfortunately ill at the time and so unable to confront him. Many of them had also been secretly planning their own revolutions—so secretly, in fact, that no one had heard about them. If all of them were telling the truth, then Balduin would have been unable to go to the bathroom without tripping over assassins and rebels who ought to have been dropping from the ceiling or peeping out from behind every potted plant.

The nobles of the court had survived through the years by bending with the winds of change, adapting to new monarchs and shifts of power, and they had every intention of weathering this latest upheaval in the same way. Unfortunately for them, the revolution had a leader with a highly tuned bullshit sensor, which the arrow through his chest had somehow missed.

It was a paler Wylder who stood before the court in the Great Castle's throne room the following morning. His arm was in a sling to take the pressure off his torn shoulder muscles and blood still stained the bandage on his chest. But he was nonetheless defiant.

"It is my intention to identify those who aided the late king and those who stood against him. Because I am a fair man, I will not imprison, execute or otherwise physically incommode those of you who did nothing while the Gath burned. However, I do expect those people to voluntarily step down from their positions, sell their houses and property for something more modest, and donate the proceeds to a fund I am setting up to help all those who suffered under Balduin's rule. If you choose not to do this, if you choose to pretend you were in opposition to him and I find out the truth, then I will reluctantly tell the executioner to start sharpening his axe."

The assembled nobles looked uncomfortably around at each other, all trying to decide if their level of self-serving inactivity was enough to qualify as ‘opposition'.

"My advice," Wylder continued, "is to err on the side of caution. If you are having trouble deciding which side you were on, then you were on the wrong side. If you are struggling to decide if you did anything to oppose Balduin, it is because you did nothing. Maybe we are all of us culpable in what happened, and so we shall all pay and try to make restitution to those who actually suffered. Speaking of which, my colleague Gerda will now lead you down to the dungeons so you can help set free every person down there. Some will need help in getting out, all will need food and water. Many will need a place to stay and I expect you all to make the most of your position while you still have it."

I'd never seen the Lords and Ladies of the Court move as fast as they did then, following Gerda, all keen to help an old man upstairs or throw open their palatial home to a family in need, in the hopes that such selfless acts might allow them to keep that palatial home.

"A few will slip through," noted Wylder, as he seated himself on the edge of the dais on which the throne stood. He wouldn't sit on the throne itself. Though he was clearly in charge (and had earned it) and had some blood ties to the royal family that put him within the royal succession, he had no desire to be king.

"We always do," noted Nicolo, darkly. He hadn't forgiven himself for his own role in Balduin's reign, although the bandaged wounds across his body showed that he'd made some atonement in blood.

"It's not as if I'm blameless," replied Wylder. "That's one reason I'm not cracking down and filling the cells. We all share the blame so we should all put it right. We don't need another leader who just imprisons everyone who disagrees with him. Frankly," his gaze drifted to middle distance as if he was contemplating some just visible future, "I think a good ruler should surround himself with people who disagree with him; how else would he test his own beliefs?"

"The king should have good council," I nodded.

"I'm not sure we want another king," mused Wylder. "You know what they say; power corrupts and absolute power turns you into a murderous bastard with no sense of right or wrong. I'm paraphrasing."

"No king?" wondered Nicolo.

"I've spoken to many and I believe there might be better systems of government," Wylder nodded. "I've got some ideas. The people should have more say in who rules them."

"Maybe they should rule themselves," I suggested.

"Let's not go mad," Wylder raised an eyebrow. "I think you still want nobility in charge. We are bred for it."

"‘Inbred' is the word you're looking for," I retorted.

Wylder slapped his thigh and laughed. "You see? This is what I want in my council. Honest disagreement. People should not be afraid to tell me things I don't want to hear. Like I'm inbred. (True of course; the family tree looks like a briar patch.) Having women on the council will upset a lot of people—which is a damn good reason to do it in my view. The other reason is that you're smart as a whip and a damn good fighter. Will you join me?"

I was taken aback. The idea was tempting. There were a lot of people in the Gath who needed help and I had some ideas too…

But then again, wasn't that the problem? Wylder had ideas, I had ideas—we both wanted to help the people but we were both ready to tell them what was best for them rather than asking them. Whether I wanted a place on Wylder's council or not, my place ought to go to someone who actually lived on those streets.

"You don't want me. You want someone from every district. Not the Dukes; someone who lives there in the thick of it. A representative."

Wylder shrugged. "That's an idea. Sounds like I'll have a roomful of people all telling me why their district is the most deserving, but I daresay it has its merits. But I still want your advice. There is a place for you here, if you want it."

If I wanted it.

What did I want?

My eyes went to Nicolo.

"I'm not putting The Unbreakable on any council," said Wylder, misinterpreting my look. "I'm sorry, Nicolo."

Nicolo smiled. "I neither wanted nor expected that. But to hear you call me by name? That's reward enough."

"Good, because it's all you're getting." Wylder's eyes flicked between the two of us. "Would I be right in thinking you have plans of your own?"

We hadn't talked about it, but as I looked at Nicolo now and saw his smile, I realized we didn't have to. We both knew that we wanted.

"I think we're going to leave Woodfall Gath," I answered.

***

It had seemed like a big decision when I said it, but of course it was not so earth-shattering as all that since things had changed. Without Balduin tying Nicolo to the Castle Complex, we could come and go as we pleased, and Wylder set aside apartments for us in the Great Castle's east wing that would be ours whenever we needed them: for a weekend, for a month or forever (‘ We have a lot of space now I've turfed out most of the court .'). I was sure we would use them, for we both were curious to see the results of Wylder's experiments in governance, and to stay in touch with friends we'd made during the revolution. But our hearts were somewhere else.

In Simnel…

I felt physically lighter as I packed up my few meager belongings, ready for the biggest move of my life. I was moving to a new place with the intention of settling there, of getting married, of starting a family and of being part of one. I was moving with the intention of being happy and was doing so for me, not because of a job. It was a wholly selfish thing, but I felt that I'd earned it.

"You're sure you'll be happy there?" Nicolo had asked—after all, it was his family we were going there for, not mine.

"I'll be ecstatic." They might not be my family in the strictest sense, but I felt that Maria and Ranolf, Peri and Cady, were as much like family as anything I'd ever had. Closer actually—the life of an assassin is a lonely one.

Neither Nicolo nor I had grown up with real families, so I was now as excited at the idea of being part of one as I was about any other aspect of this move.

"I was certainly happy there last time," I added.

"Me too," smiled Nicolo. "But we can't have sex all the time."

I laughed. "You certainly think a lot of yourself! But that wasn't the only reason I was happy there. It was the people, the place…"

"The quiet."

"Yes." There was a special quiet in Simnel that had nothing to do with silence and more to do with calm. I wanted that right now.

"Although the sex was good too," added Nicolo.

"Yes," I grinned. "But like you say; not all the time."

"No."

"Two or three times a day will do."

"Except on special occasions."

"Exactly."

We'd talked about getting married before leaving the Gath—Wylder had offered the Great Cathedral for the ceremony and the Great Hall for the reception. But we'd both preferred the idea of something small and quiet in Simnel.

"Of course, you're invited," I'd told Wylder.

"I'm not going to some damn country village," the Gath's new ruler had scoffed. "Sitting alongside the pigs and the goats. I'll send a present. Maybe a sword so you can kill yourselves when you get bored."

It was Wylder's way of saying ‘congratulations' and I would miss it. Just as I would miss him. He'd become an unlikely ally and a friend.

The one thing I regretted was that I hadn't had a chance to say a proper goodbye to Arthur, who Kerys had taken back to Rand. In the wake of Balduin's death, it was considered best to get him back to family (or as close as he had left) as soon as possible—what he'd seen when he'd secretly followed us on that mission was more than a boy of that age should ever see.

It was a surprise therefore when Kerys came back with the boy in tow.

"He was glad to see them and they were glad to see him," she explained, while Arthur sat quietly at the table, "and they'd got a room ready for him and everything. But he didn't want to stay."

"Why not?"

Kerys sighed. "Maybe too many memories. That was where he lived with his family. All dead now. Tough for a child to deal with that. I think he's ready to make some new memories in a new place and with a new family. That is..." She tapered off in a suggestive way.

It took me a moment to glean what she meant. "You mean…?"

Kerys nodded. "I think that's what he wants. But he knows it's up to you."

I looked at Nicolo to see if he wanted what I so desperately wanted, and the smile on his face told me all I needed to know.

So, it was that when Nicolo and I rode out of Woodfall Gath, two days later, leading a pair of mules which carried all our possessions, we were accompanied by a third, smaller horse.

As we passed out of the Gath, through the constant work in progress of its ever-expanding outskirts, Arthur's grave young face split into a smile. It was bright and true and, most importantly, it was childlike. Arthur had seen so much in his few short years, and so much of it bad. Now he had a second chance at childhood. I wondered how he'd get on with Peri. Obviously, Cady would be the ringleader of the three of them. And then, in the years to come, there would be more—I was very sure about that.

A family.

If you never had one yourself, maybe you were all the more certain about wanting to build one. Simnel was a great place to raise one, with occasional visits to Woodfall Gath to see Uncle Wylder, and in the other direction lay the hills and the Great Steppe. Beyond that, were the origins of both Nicolo and Arthur. Would we ever venture out that way to see what and who we might find?

Who knew.

The great thing about the future is that it can hold whatever you want, and yet it's also constantly surprising.

Certainly, when I first came to Woodfall Gath, and when I first laid eyes on Master Nicolo, I could never have imagined where it would lead.

The End

~~~~~

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