“Alright, what’s next?”
An aging man in a dress uniform with wispy
hair and a salt and pepper beard growls orders from a
lush canopy bed.
Another man cowers up to the edge of the bed,
saluting. He is tall and thin, but his hunched shoulders
and bowed head makes him seem small.
“A letter – a public letter, published and distributed – from the, *ah*, opposition, my lord.”
“Damned opposition. I’ve always hated the
fucking opposition. For thirty five years they’ve whined,
complained about this or that. The opposition has no
idea what it is to lead, to rule.”
He always spits that word, “opposition”, like it’s
bitter coming out.
“Not like they have any power anyways.
Shouldn’t let them fluster me; best thing to do would be
to ignore them, don’t read a word they print, stop myself
from getting angry.” He locks eyes with me.
“Boy, when we’re angry, we make mistakes. Never let your
opponent frustrate you. They’re sniveling rats too afraid to
pick an open fight; they want you to surrender the field.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll remember that.” A stranger’s
words crawl out of my mouth. He begins to dismiss the
attendant, but before the words can come out he hacks
into a handkerchief: it comes away with a spot of blood.
He pushes it into the voluminous blankets in front of
him, hiding it.
He pauses for a moment, then, despite his
admonitions, he snatches the letter from his aide’s outstretched hands. It crumples where he grabs it. He reads
in the candle light, murmuring phrases now and then.
“The tyrant… oppression… the masses… enemy
of…!”
He barks a harsh, mirthless laugh.
“They call me an enemy of the people! A betrayer of the common man! They’ve forgotten, I suppose, all I
did, all I sacrificed for them!”
He’s laughing himself to tears now, but behind
the front of ecstasy his face is purpling with rage. Once
he calms himself down from his laughing fit, his face
assumes a ceramic disposition: it’s a look I remember from
when I was young, when he led tens of thousands from
the back of his stallion, saber in hand. He gestures at the
two guards standing at the door dressed in their ornate
uniforms – blue and purple, fringed in gold with flashing
tasseled epaulets – and holding muskets taller than I am.
With a deep bow, they exit the bedchamber.
I move mechanically to his side so I am sitting
at his right hand; it is my place of honor as his heir. The
rest of the men and women crowding them room pack in
tighter, jockeying for the nearest spot.
“They’ve forgotten. What I’ve done, who I am.
Remind them. Purchase the presses, and the editor’s office,
and the building they’re in. Produce propaganda for
eighteen months, then quietly raze them all. Construct
a barracks of the gendarmery on the land. Find out who
wrote this drivel, and have them brought to court by a
shell corporation on charges of…” He pauses, running a
hand through his wispy hair.
I pipe up. “Perhaps, libelous sentiments?” Of
any possible charge, libel came with the most lenient
sentiment: a heavy fine and up to five years unpaid public service in the form of manual labor. They’d come out
the other end broken
and indebted, but alive.
“Bah, nonsense. Indeed my boy, someone would suspect you
of counterrevolutionary sympathy! You must steel yourself
to the enemy.”
My father has taught me well: my own ceramic
mask holds back any hint of shock or dismay.
“No, the charge will be inciting unrest, or maybe
counter-revolutionary ideals.” Death, if found guilty –
which they would be.
My father looks to one of the men in the room.
It doesn’t matter which.
“Pick the charge. Have it done. A shell corporation: falsify
records, make it convincing. This is a private
citizen carrying out civil retribution, not an act of state.”
The man bowed, then scurried away. The
man they accused and killed would be innocent. They
wouldn’t devote the resources it would take to launch a
proper investigation, and besides, I covered my tracks
well.