coins. Then, leading the three bound prisoners before him, Vahan Lee entered the customs house.
The peasants who had watched the battle returned to their business, as unmindful of the struggles of their superiors as their superiors were unmindful of them. Still, they would take the tale to heart, and repeat it fervently whenever conversations seemed to lull. During the battle, the cart’s owner had fled, abandoning his possessions for fear of his life. As he went he had snatched the purse of de Casanova, and found that it contained one hundred crowns – an immense sum. So he took the money as due compensation and went off to Paris, where he made himself into a wealthy prince.
“We must be off as well,” said Willard as he took the soldier’s two remaining horses (the others had fled in the battle, and the old, hairy horse could not move for want of breath) and fastened them to the cart. The wagon’s harness was of an ingenious design that allowed it to accommodate either one or two horses. Willard and de Garcia soon had the two horses harnessed and they mounted the driver’s bench when they finished: de Garcia with the reigns and Willard with the watch. The others, meanwhile, had made the wagon itself suitable for a long journey by disposing some of its cargo of hay and installing themselves. With that, they drove off through the crowded streets of Bordeaux: Willard and de Garcia telling each other what had taken place since their escape from Castle Plantagenet, and those in the back doing the same.
“Vahan has left a letter of passage,” Willard said later, as he looked through the bag given him by Vahan Lee, “As well as a hundred crowns. Ivona, Horatio, and myself need nothing more, but we must arm you and the others. You are familiar with Bordeaux, are you not?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then I leave you in charge of the supplies, for I must become acquainted with Leggitt and this Patrick McConnell, about whom I have heard much and seen little.” He handed de Garcia the bag of money.
“You trust me so?” the other asked with rain cloud eyes. “I have betrayed the cause of freedom before.”
“The past will not return,” and Willard went to the back of the wagon.
Chapter 56
It was now early evening in the Atiltian forest, for the sun had fallen below the tree line and the remaining light came down like rain. The rebel city was more active than usual, as well as more crowded. In the lower city it was nighttime and few were out of doors. The horizon became a single, tree-limb mural in the distance, and only scattered violet patches gave evidence of the sky above. Below, the ground could be seen, though its foliage had been transformed into an enchanted jungle and the trees into its solemn guardians.
In highest branches of the city, however, it was still late afternoon. The Great Goliaths rose several hundred feet above the surrounding trees and the canopy below spread out like a meadow before them. Its branches wavered in the wind, undulating like green clouds or a groundless grass. The sky could be felt as well as seen, for the upper city reached into the clouds. As the moon and stars began to appear as slight impressions on the horizon, the rebels could reach out and feel the waters of the earthen aquarium flow over their hands. The forest was an ocean of unbroken green; the sky of unerring blue.
Yet it was in the middle city – the area nearest the tops of the surrounding trees – that the action was taking place. There the rebels had created a giant framework to stretch between the branches, with nets spread over the top to create individual squares of five square feet. In these squares the
Back and forth, up and down they went, and if any began to grow slack a rough voice would cry out, “Up there, man! Gylain will not be defeated by weakness, nor by half-hearted land-lubbers and sea-weeds! Up, and up! Forever upwards!” And the men pushed harder. The commander himself was not exempt from the exercise, but vigorously led the way – until a young officer called him to the side.
“Admiral,” said the thin-lipped, blond haired man, “Admiral, the ropes are prepared.”
“Good work, Barnes. Have the men lower them.”
“Yes, sir,” and Barnes turned and raised his fingers to his lips. A loud, piercing whistle followed, and a moment later two hundred ropes dropped from the branches above. The men grabbed onto them and pulled themselves upward hand by raw, bloody hand. Yet they did not moan as ordinary men would do, for they were fueled by the intensity of their Admiral and pushed to burning by his constant demand for revenge.
“Casandra will not be forgotten,” the Admiral muttered to himself.
“Sir, may I have a word?” interrupted Blaine Griffith, having just returned from a mission in Eden.
“What is it?”
“There is a rumor going about the city, sir: among the spies and soldiers.”
“Get on, what is it?”
“They say, sir.”
“Forget what they say – what have you seen?”
“Gylain is mobilizing his army. The city is heavily policed, the rebels are imprisoned, and the scattered fleets are collecting outside the harbor. No ships can pass in or out – except in Gylain’s service – and the Hibernian fleet is soon expected. It is my belief that he will send troops through the forest to the Western Marches, to make clear a place for the fleet to disembark. He comes to destroy the rebellion, to stop our recent advances with a firm and measured stroke.”
The Admiral stood there listening, but a reaction could not be seen on his countenance. “How long until they reach Milada’s castle?”
“Five days, at least. The Hibernians have yet to arrive and the land forces have just set out. There are men positioned to harass their advance throughout the forest, growing stronger as they near our strength. There are over five thousand men marching, though.” He paused and the Admiral remained silent. “They say Gylain strikes the rebellion down, knowing Willard to be away. He hopes to scatter us without our king.”
“Yet the rebellion did not start with Willard, and so will not end without him.” The Admiral turned to watch the men training a few yards to his left. Then, in a whisper, he asked, “How does Gylain know of Willard’s absence?” He spoke as though he feared the answer.
“Yesterday, before the city was put under military control, a Hibernian noble came through the Floatings as I was passing by. He was in a great hurry. His clothes were torn as from battle. I followed him to the castle and soon after the soldiers shut the gates and the harbor. None can come or go but through our secret entrance.”
“This man, did you recognize him?”
“I did,” and Blaine grew silent, unwilling to identify the man without an outright order.
“Speak his name.”
“De Casanova!”
The Admiral grew pale. His sea-salt face was too sun-dried to show emotion, but at this moment – for only an instant – he was a man who had been overcome. He looked to his feet and to the ground hundreds of feet below and was silent. “This is the time,” he said to himself, “The time when freedom must be bought with blood, and revenge with the death of friends. Yet look at me: for I will have it, though it only gives more to be avenged.”
He whistled loudly for the men to stop their exercises, standing silently as they congregated in the branches around him. Then, after a moment of mental absence, he began speaking to them in a deep and mournful voice:
“Men, this portion of your training has come to an end. But do not rejoice, for that portion which is to come will be only more difficult. It will be war, gentlemen. It will be death and hatred and revenge and bitterness. It will be what children are taught to abhor and men to manifest. You will slaughter, and you will be slaughtered; and your enemy will be a man who has done no wrong but to be put into the wrong army. He, himself, is not evil, just as you are not good. But he must be killed because he represents tyranny, and you must kill him because there is no one else to do it. So you will give yourselves to murder, for the purpose of peace. And once you give yourselves to it, you will never again be what you are today. In times of peace, you will remember. In times of love, you will not forget. Gentlemen, from this time forward you are no longer gentlemen – you are only men.
“Do you desire peace? Do you desire nothing more than tranquility? If a man is wounded in the leg, do they not amputate it to save his life? We are evil men, and evil is within us. To defeat this evil, we must amputate it; and to amputate it we must kill. That is peace, men, when there is no more evil and no more killing. Yet there must be war, and there must be killing – it is predestined by God that mortals kill each other, even from the first brothers to
