"Most foul, vile slave, godslayer-Emperor Albein, " the letter opened.
Alm knew he could not put a smile on every face. Wrote Talasio of Cinniholm, "The prince who pleases all, pleases none; short shall be his rule." Among a hundred ill-defined and vague claims and bits of questionable advice, it was among the more reliable supplied in the rulership manuals Alm had consumed by the dozen in his early years in Rigel. When, at Lukas' suggestion, the government opened a box for inquiries to be sent directly to the Emperor, in weeks it was overfull of complaints, threats, requests for legal rulings, and once sifted through, the odd letter expressing contentedness with imperial policy.
Alm had told himself, 'Of course, few men happy with their lot would bother writing to the Emperor to say so.' He hoped it caught an unhappy selection of society, those most likely to send scathing letters to a man they had never met. But this, the declaration of a religious revolt, carried through official messengers, was a degree more scathing than any piece of angry mail.
"Treasonous, sacrilegious swine! You sup with dogs and sleep with pigs, you cast down our gods and broke their idols. Horrid Zofian worm! Duma's Revivalists will spike your head atop your citadels' gates and drag your body through the streets, alongside your Zofian whore wife…"
Lukas trailed off. His monotone had done little to animate the rambling passage, and his uncertain command of the Duma Faithful's holy tongue had meant constant starts and stops throughout, and still he was the strongest reader of the language on hand. Celica knew only the Mila Faithful's equivalent. If similar in the age of the gods, they had divorced irreparably in the centuries since.
"This is poorly written," Lukas said. "I am by no means an expert, but I'm certain there was a spelling error in every sentence." Around the table, the others - Ezekiel, Magnus, Massena, and a smattering of other secretaries - had their gazes averted from Alm, disturbed by the slandering of their Emperor, or at least wishing to base their reactions to the letter upon his. Alm hated that - that they had to all pretend he was a finer being, a step above humanity, whose sweat didn't smell and whose nose didn't run in the spring.
"Skip ahead, until they say something of substance. Then just say what it is they want, or they have done. Save your breath, on the frivolous parts," Alm said.
Lukas paused as he read. On Alm's left, Celica sat with a hand under the table, driving her fingernails into her skin, too hard to be just an idle activity. Alm lowered an arm and took her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles. Her fingers wrapped around his, and she quit pinching herself.
"They say, they want your abdication and surrender to them, to be put on trial along with the empress. As well, the destruction of the Kingsfang, resignation of the cabinet, and re-establishment of the Duma Faithful," Lukas listed off. He frowned further. "And they have begun sacrificing children to Duma."
"His abdication?" Ezekiel asked. "Unusual. With what would they replace Alm? I would expect them to heap blame for their grievances upon 'wicked advisors', not the emperor himself."
That much was true - the serious demands Alm received always directed their fury upon his advisors. Imperial ideology held the emperor was Duma's vice-regent of Rigel; to claim the emperor did wrong would bring into question the god's judgement. With said god now dead, and his judgement in recent times perhaps questionable, Alm had wondered whether the doctrine would slip. Not until now, it seemed.
"What shall we do, then?" Alm prompted. "They are based in the north, correct?"
"Yes, they hold a handful of walled towns along the Kyer river," Lukas said, eyes on the page.
Walled towns. There were some tough ones in the north. It was always a hard fight to break in, so the troops were feeling murderous by the time they came into contact with the unarmed city-dwellers. Nobody looked good after a storming.
"General Zaniff has the command of the troops at the Kyer's mouth, correct?" Alm mused. "In winter quarters, but should be a few thousand once raised."
Magnus had the most experience in the north, and mumbled with a secretary sitting behind him. A backbencher, in one of the chairs along the wall behind the man he reported to, who sat with books of figures and documents to come up with just about anything - gate tax revenues in 378, storms along the western coasts in the past decade, or how many soldiers a general was tasked with maintaining.
"Two thousand foot, three hundred archers, one hundred horse," Magnus announced. Alm rounded it down to two thousand men - garrison commanders always over-reported their strength and pocketed the extra pay.
"Further up the river, that's Olkin in charge, right?"
A few seconds more ruffling.
"Yes," Magnus confirmed. "Roughly the same numbers, with another half thousand horse."
"Good." Alm said. "Tell both to raise their troops, then march along the rivers, make sure the rebels know what they're doing well in advance. Invest the first towns they come across. Send another four thousand north from the capital to join them. As soon as these 'Revivalists' see what's headed their way, they'll crumble. No need for bloodshed."
It was a beautiful plan. Simple; approach with overwhelming force, the rebels panic, collapse, and there's no need to use it. Then hang some ringleaders, and in a half year everyone would've forgotten about it. Alm eyed Celica. She seldom spoke at the meetings, and whenever the Faithful or gods came up, it was all pain from her. She nodded at him, faintly. As good an endorsement as it could've gotten.
"There is more," Lukas said. His voice had dipped, ever so slightly, into a tone Alm had come to know and fear. His beautiful plan started slipping away.
"They have… Prince Berkut, they say. They claim you usurped his throne, and they will restore him. They demand your abdication, that you be handed to them, with the empress, to be executed. The kingsfang is to be destroyed, the Duma Faithful returned to power, this "Prince Berkut" crowned emperor. And they have sent this letter to every major city, town, and army posting in the empire."
Eyes went wide around the table; Celica's grip tightened, her fingers pinching around his. ' Civil war,' that meant, if their cause got an inch off the ground. Their "Prince Berkut" was a fake. Alm killed the real one. But to most of the empire he was a foreigner, placed in power by a foreign army. His claim, of being sent into hiding by Rudolf, was based on an absurd story, and almost all of Rigel had spent years thinking the 'real' Albein Alm Rudolf died in childbirth. So what was the difference between a fake Albein and a fake Berkut?
If this "Berkut" gained supporters, it would take them at least several weeks to gather garrison units from the borders; the only consolidated force was with him at the capital. They had one chance to put the sparks out before the whole empire went up in flames.
And what is so wrong with that?
Alm hated the Duma Faithful, and he liked killing them. There was nothing better than seeing a power-obsessed, sadistic, tyrannic group of men lose everything. The Faithful were the real power in Rigel for centuries; many of the cantors had lived rich through all of it, extending their lives through human sacrifice. Then it took Alm just a few years to grind them into dust. Not one still lived in the empire. They had it all so well worked out for themselves, all their temples and men written down, recorded and mapped. It made it easy to keep track of all of their assets when they held power, and easy to wipe them all out when they lost it.
But these 'Revivalists' weren't the Faithful, not really. The few dozen great cantors, the ones with real power, had been confirmed dead. These were idiot cultists who couldn't spell, playing with fire. The emperor riding out himself to deal with them would only legitimize their cause.
Alm did the responsible thing.
"Mobilize the capital's army. As soon as half of it is ready, Ezekiel wil march on the Kyer," Alm stated.
"Of course," Zeke said.
"Crush them," Alm said. The general nodded. Celica's hand clenched, and her nails dug into him.
Celica wouldn't hold his hand, as they stood and returned to their apartments for afternoon chay. The others left, off to other duties. Alm gave thanks, again, for the thick walls of the emperor's bedrooms, as he shut the reinforced door, and all three latches. He turned to Celica, standing by their dining table. There was a tray with a teapot, cups, milk and honey to add, all expensive, fine dishes older than either of them. Alm approached, standing next to her, pouring tea for each of them. A cat, he didn't hear which, bolted through the rooms behind him, little footsteps thumping past. He slid Celica a cup, but she didn't reach out to take it.
"Crush them," Celica said. "Did you enjoy saying it? I think you must have."
Alm's tea was too hot, and he filled it to the rim with milk. He looked her way but didn't say anything. Usually she'd keep going. It wasn't really about the words, 'crush them,' or even his response to the revolt. He just had to wait her out.
"And? Why are you just staring at me?" Celica seethed.
"I am listening to you, Celica," Alm said.
"Then answer me!" she shouted. "Do you find that too hard to understand? You must be just ecstatic, you've got such a lovely slaughter cooked up. Shame you can't go."
Alm ground his teeth and glared down at her. "Well, Celica," he hissed, "I understand that you don't like this plan. Instead of shrieking about how horrible it is, you can come up with a better one. I should love to hear it."
"Is it too hard to try negotiating? See what they want, instead of slaughtering them."
"We know exactly what they want, Celica - it involves our heads on pikes and our bodies being dragged through the streets. I don't feel like meeting them halfway on that. And say we did talk. We send letters back and forth trying to convince them, maybe just put our heads on pikes, no to dragging our corpses through the streets after. All while they're crucifying and burning all the kids they can get their hands on, and the governors start talking with each other about if one of them should be emperor instead. Is that your plan?" Rant done, Alm took an unsteady breath.
She didn't say anything. Celica ground her teeth, opened her mouth for a moment, but thought better of it, and just scowled. She looked down at her teacup again. If she was a real highborn lady she would have smashed it. She wasn't going to. Never did, because people who spent years owning one singular drinking cup did not go breaking them in anger. She looked down, her face slipping from anger to sadness; hurt and regret at things she hadn't meant. Alm could give a sad, kind smile, say something nice, pretend to understand, and it would all be fine.
"Of course you've got nothing worth saying. Maybe your gods do," Alm added. Softer, but more harsh. He didn't know why he said it.
Celica looked up at him, shocked. She was just about to relent and he lunged in to get the last word. He wished he hadn't, but was in no mood to about-face and apologize. She didn't say anything. Just stormed into their bedroom, and slammed the door as hard as she could, which was very hard. The table jumped, the tray shifted precariously near to the edge, and the cats scattered standing behind Alm scattered. He waited a few moments. Sometimes after she did that she'd come back out for another word. After a minute, he knew she wasn't going to, and the conversation was over. He tried his tea, still too hot, and put it down. Alm's fingers tingled and shook with tension. For a second he entertained a brief fantasy, in which he threw the tea set across the room at an old, fragile-looking chair. He did the responsible thing.
He found the wall, the familiar brick one. His fist slammed into it, a right cross, a first, a second, a third, hissing with each impact. He stopped, and let out a shuddering breath, shutting his eyes, to push together the beginnings of tears. Alm wiped them away, from the corners of his eyes. He checked himself in the mirror, straightened his necktie, and smiled, like any ordinary day. Alm had harmed Celica once in his life, when he plunged the kingsfang through her stomach. The act had sickened him; he had been seconds from pulling the blade out of her and falling upon it himself. Never since had Alm laid a finger upon her. He knew that others knew they fought. He feared they also thought he beat her. Alm checked his fist. The skin of his knuckles was unbroken, pasty white without a hint of redness or bruising. All was well.
Celica was the one with the luxury of spending an afternoon fuming and unproductive if she felt like it. When Alm stopped, so did much of the government. He went early to his meeting, giving a friendly nod to the guards outside. They hadn't heard a thing. The walls were mercifully thick.
When Alm returned in the evening, the apartment was frigid and dark, the fireplaces unlit. The tea tray had survived another round, neither willing to break it out of fear of losing face. Some of both teas had been drunk, which he attributed to the cats.
Celica was knelt at her shrine. Silent, arms clasped in front of her, and still. She prayed for hours, sometimes. After their fights, she always ended up back at her idols. On the left, Duma in his dragon form; a redded gold, with rubies as his eyes, standing rampant. Alm had taken the idol as loot in the sack of a Faithful stronghold in the early years of the persecution, but Celica had reclaimed it from him. He couldn't refuse her. A matching idol of Mila - origins unrelated, instead a gift from the Mila Faithful upon their wedding - stood opposite to Duma. Dozens of candles illuminated the shrine - dozens of other small trinkets, the gods, and Celica. All glowed gold.
Alm leaned against the doorway to watch over her. She wanted them back, wanted them more than almost anything, that he knew. But there was no hope for it. Not her, not the Duma Faithful, not any petty cult aping them, could do anything to change that the gods had grown corrupt, then mad, then so quickly, died off before anyone could figure out what was going to happen next. The so-called-Revivalists could burn as many children as they wanted; they swam against the tide of history, and soon enough it would drown them.
But Celica, it would not. Alm was sure of that much.
She stood, with no warning. Shaky, stiff and sore after what may have been hours kneeling on the hard stone floor. Celica turned, and jolted at seeing Alm in the doorway, but said nothing. Her face was shadowed; Alm blocked most of the light from the other room, and facing him put the golden light of the candles to her back. But even in the dim light between them, Alm could make out her puffy, red eyes, and dark streaks down her face where tears had flown through her makeup.
'Mila's divine protection,' was what the goddesses' devotees had called her favor. But for Celica it was not any great divine intercession that had won her faith, Alm had long known. Celica's years in the Novis priory were the few in her life she was insulated from Lima's depravity, or the knives of Desaix's men. She had been taken from Alm, but she for a time, she was safe. He could respect it.
He reached out his marked hand, opened to her. For Celica that she had aided and now slept with the man who had ended the gods she loved so dearly, brought a pain he knew he could not understand. They would be shouting the same words and crying the same tears, for as long as Alm could imagine.
Celica stepped past his hand and wrapped her arms around him, her grip tight and shaky, resting her head against the center of his chest. Alm wrapped a spindly arm around her shoulders, lightly holding the back of her head with his other hand, and kissed the top of her head. She was freezing, from hours in the dark room. Her shakes subsided, and she rested herself against him, her breasts soft and squeezing against his ribcage.
We're such ugly people, and so good at hiding it.
AUTHOR NOTE:
Not as happy with how this one turned out as I was with "We would have a fine time living in the night"
Arguments are hard to write decently. Real life fights with a family member suck because they're a grinding, frustrating mess that lasts for hours until the more reasonable person gives up because it's not worth fighting any more. There are no snappy retorts, people rarely admit they're wrong without the most tortured "I am sorry that your feelings were hurt by what I said" sort of phrasing, and it mostly comes down to fighting it through until the end.
Good dialogue needs to be snappy, incisive, and should go somewhere, not be circular, and needs to be about something. I actually wrote the first and last scenes in this first and only came back to the fight when I was forced to. It feels like it's too short but I couldn't bear to write any more. The point was that they're both behaving shittily, Celica attacking Alm for making the least bad choice and Alm attacking a sore spot of hers for no reason. The door-slamming and wall-punching is cringey to read, but then it's cringey in real life too, so I guess I got that right.
Anyways, just my thoughts. It was a decent learning experience. Reviews/thoughts welcome.