The afternoon light in the Marquis's solar was thick and stagnant, heavy with the scent of beeswax and the cloying, fermented sweetness of a half-drained decanter of Jurat red. Marquis Alexis Preston reclined in a high-backed chair of carved mahogany, his fingers tracing the gilded rim of a silver goblet.
Outside the leaded glass windows, the inner courtyard was a study in forced perfection. He watched, with the lazy detachment of a god, as three servants labored over a single hedge, their shears snapping with rhythmic, submissive precision.
"Chirp for me, little fledglings," Alexis murmured to the silence of the room, his voice a silk-wrapped blade. "Shear away the unruly, lest I find the excess in your own idle tongues. Perfection is no mere request; 'tis the tithe you owe for the very air I permit you to breathe."
To Alexis, the world was a collection of things to be owned, shaped, or discarded. He had calculated the hiring of those Earthling slave-soldiers with the cold precision of a moneylender. By pushing the "rebuild" phase onto them, he had intended to let the heavy work—the back-breaking clearing of dragon-scorched earth—grind them into the dust.
He tilted his goblet, watching the dark vintage cling to the silver. "Why should a scion of Jurat soil his buskins with the soot of a dragon's tantrum? Nay, let the outlanders bend. Let these 'men of iron' learn that here, the only metal of consequence is the coin that buys their wretched souls. Every callous upon their palms is a gold crown preserved in my vault."
Even with the sizable commission reward, he figured he would save a fortune in Jurat lives and gold by letting the "expendables" break first.
"They hail from a world of gears and godless hubris, or so the tales spin," he chuckled, the sound dry as old parchment. "How grand they must have felt amidst their towers of glass. Yet here they bide, scavengers of the ash-heap. They are naught but draft beasts in finer tunics. Let them heave the stone; let them choke upon the cinders. I shall pay the commission with a smirk, for a broken tool is far cheaper to maintain than a proud one."
He leaned back, his eyes narrowing as he envisioned the Earthlings in the wastes, their spirits fracturing under the relentless sun.
"By the time the final stone is seated and the last field purged, they shall have forgotten the very taste of defiance," he whispered, his gaze drifting back to the servants in the courtyard. "A man whose spine is warped by labor hath no strength to hoist his head in mutiny. They shall be as these wretches below—mute, hollow, and perfectly yielding. Work them, then. Scourge them until their very marrow cries out for the mercy of the sepulcher, for I shall grant them only the mercy of more toil."
The Marquis drained the rest of the wine, the fermented sweetness coating his throat like syrup.
"Indeed," he toasted to his own reflection in the leaded glass, "let the earth swallow their vitality. I shall remain in the cool of the shade and await the harvest of their ruin."
The silence of the solar was not merely broken; it was murdered.
The heavy oak doors groaned on their hinges. Pageboy Mark Alexander burst into the room. He did not offer the customary bow. He stood in the center of the Sugukun rug. His fine blue livery was ruined, caked in a fine, chalky white dust. Mark was trembling, not from the chill of the highlands, but from a frantic, wide-eyed energy.
Alexis didn't move his head. He merely shifted his gaze, his voice a bored, silver-tongued drawl.
"Thou returnest with unseemly haste, Mark. I trust thou didst find the Earthlings cowering in their hovels?"
The boy gasped for air. He could not find his words.
"Deliver thy report, boy. I imagine they were quite pathetic. Were they pleading for a pittance of grain to stave off the rot of the fens?"
Mark shook his head, his chest heaving. He fumbled with a roll of thick, brilliantly white paper.
"Nay, my Lord. They... they have raised a city."
Alexis raised an eyebrow. "A city? Amidst the charcoal and dragon-spittle?"
"Tis a citadel of madness, Excellency. I beheld children—peasant whelps—seated in ordered rows."
"Rows?" The Marquis sneered. "Waiting for the lash of the overseer, I presume?"
"Nay, my Lord. They were being schooled in letters. They were reading aloud as if they were acolytes of the capital."
Alexis froze. The silver goblet in his hand caught the light. "Literacy for the mud-stained? What mummer's farce is this?"
"There is more, my Lord. There is a hall... a place where commoners go merely to cast grievances against the crown's hand."
The Marquis let out a short, sharp laugh. "Grievances? To whom? To the very dirt they till?"
"Against thy name, Excellency. And I saw a village maid... she offered no proper obeisance as I passed. She regarded me as if I were a mere traveler on the road."
The Marquis set his goblet down with a slow, deliberate click. A shadow crossed his face.
"The wench is but a symptom," Alexis whispered. "But coin is the sovereign cure. Tell me of the treasury, Mark. I assume they have at least been diligent in wringing my subjects dry."
Mark swallowed hard, looking at the floor.
"How much tax have they gathered in my stead?" Alexis demanded. "How much gold sits in the coffers awaiting my triumph?"
Mark's voice was a mere whisper. "None, my Lord."
The Marquis went still. "None? Is the vault a void?"
"They levy no tolls, my Lord. They collect no taxes."
"They permit the merchants to pass unburdened? By what right?"
"They claimed... they claimed the road is for 'flow', Excellency."
The Marquis surged to his feet. The movement was a violent eruption of silk and suppressed rage. His heavy chair clattered backward, hitting the floorboards with a thud that vibrated in the masonry. With a jagged sweep of his arm, he cleared the side table. Silver goblets went flying, clattering across the hearth in a series of discordant, musical shrieks.
"None?" Alexis roared, his face contorting into a mask of aristocratic fury. "They have cast aside the Divine Order for... what? Flow?"
"They speak of efficiency, my Lord," Mark stammered.
"Efficiency? This is no governance! 'Tis a blasphemy against Tradition! Letters for the serf? Recourse against the Law?"
He began to pace, his boots striking the wood like the tolling of a bell.
"They are tainting the well, Mark. Dost thou not perceive it? They are teaching the livestock to contemplate. If the hierarchy of blood be forsaken, the very foundations of our world crumble into the abyss."
"They seemed... well-pleased, my Lord."
"Contentment is the province of the thoughtless! They spread an infirmity of Unstable Changes. They cloak their anarchy in the mantle of utility. They mock the very soul of the Divine Order. If a peasant can read, he forgets his station in the loam. He looks upon the sun and fancies it his own."
"The populace follows them, Excellency. They harbor no fear."
"Therein lies the terror! If a maid does not bow, she beckons the ruin of all propriety. The pillars of the world are being toppled by Earthlings who play at divinity. I granted them a death sentence, and they have fashioned a laboratory for chaos. They dream of a new world upon my soil?"
He grabbed the roll of white paper from Mark's hand and crushed it.
"They build no city," Alexis hissed. "They build a pyre for our very way of life. And they expect me to furnish the coin for the matches they use to ignite it."
"What is thy command, my Lord?"
Alexis looked toward the window, toward the scorched horizon. "We shall remind them that in Jurat, 'flow' is governed by the blood in one's veins. And if their blood will not follow the ancient channels, it shall be spilled until the earth regains its proper hue."
Chief Knight Jed Miller stood at the center of the long stone table, his hands resting on the pommel of a broadsword. In the shadows, the Tax Collector waited, his fingers twitching at the mention of "none."
"Thou hast summoned the steel, my Lord?" Jed Miller's voice was a rough growl.
"Jed," Alexis said, hovering over the map. "There hath been a breach of natural law. These Earthlings are not restoring; they are dismantling. They have forsaken the tithe. They have traded the lash for the alphabet. They have rendered the Preston name a jest to children who should be tilling the furrow."
Jed Miller leaned over, scowling at the bridge diagrams. "Tis sturdy. Far too sturdy for the hands of slaves. This is craft meant to endure a century. They overstep their station by a league, my Lord."
The Marquis slammed his fist onto the table, the blow landing directly over the lake. "They have usurped the 'Best Conditions' I intended to claim as my own! Jed, assemble the First Wing of the Knights. Summon the Tax Collector. I desire every wharf, every span, and every measure of salt to be tallied. If they offer defiance, remind them they are but property. I will not have my March 'civilized' by men who belong in shackles. I want the Earthlings broken, and I want their 'citizens' driven back into the dirt where they belong!"
The grand courtyard was now a staging ground for a crusade. The Marquis stood on the stone balcony, his knuckles white as he gripped the railing. Below him, fifty knights in polished steel adjusted their lances, their banners—the golden falcon of House Preston—snapping in the wind.
Servants who had been pruning hedges an hour ago were now frantically loading heavy wagons with iron shackles and thick, leather-bound tax ledgers. Jed Miller mounted his great-warhorse, a beast of black muscle that stamped its hooves against the cobblestones.
Mark Alexander stood by the Marquis's side, the color drained from his face.
"My Lord..." Mark whispered. "They have brought great harvest to Pirus for thy sake. They have transformed a charnel house into a garden."
Alexis didn't look at him. His eyes were fixed on the lead knights as they began their trot toward the gate. "Wealth without fealty is a dagger at the throat, boy. A garden that flourishes without the gardener's iron hand is but a wilderness of Anarchy. I would rather reign over a graveyard where every stone knows my name than a paradise I did not plant myself."
He made a final, sharp flick of his wrist.
The heavy iron gates of the mansion groaned open, a long, low scream of metal that echoed across the valley. Jed Miller raised his gauntleted hand, and with a thunderous roar of hooves, the knights surged forward. They became a silver serpent, winding its way toward the dark, ancient silence of the Pirus pine forest.
The Marquis watched them go until the dust settled, then turned back toward his solar. He returned to his wine, a cruel, satisfied smile playing on his lips. He was the gardener again, and the pruning of the "unstable" had finally begun.