Lathion held his sword over his assailant. His face darkened by the dimness of the derelict room. He had taken one of the men who had attacked the bar to question. No one could find them here, in one of the downtown nooks and farmhouses that so often were far enough away from the eyes of authority.
“Who gave you the order?”. Lathion probed.
The man still had his crooked smile, even after being tussled by a very angry mob at the bar.
“I must insist. I don’t want to resort to more unsavoury methods” Lathion fixed his collar. “Not after what they’ve already done to you”.
The man coughed. “We don’t know who gives the commands at the top. I receive all my instructions through letters they’re coded, but they’ve all passed through postage. All above the table, of course, we wouldn’t want to arouse any suspicion ” He tried to sit himself up “My comrades and I are all that are left of the first Plot; we don’t know that much.”
“Why me then?” Lathion inserted. “Surely Sir Dotchus or Ophelia the servant master would serve as better targets.”
The man croaked a laugh. “Is this the same ‘Sir’ Lathion who cut down 5 men and stopped my brothers from assassinating that bastard Cavellar?” he rested his back against the wall “My guess is they didn’t want any external factors getting involved.”
Lathion sheathed his sword, deep in thought.
“How did you know where I would be then? Or even who I was anymore.”
The man looked hesitant, but a glare from Lathion encouraged him to speak.
“We were told information had come from within the court itself, some secret record of your employment at the guard of the Lady Tictys,” he coughed again, his wounds clearly affecting him, though I had thought you were a knight of Cavellar, not of the queen herself.”
Lathion looked surprised, a mole at the very highest place of power, though he had already suspected this had to have been the case. He could no longer report the incident to the guard, not while doubting the authority that managed them. He’d have to continue to involve himself directly.
“You needn’t bother yourself with my occupation, just show me the place where you receive your orders.” Lathion directed.
The man had an unreadable expression on his face. Sorrow? Regret? Maybe it was resolve.
“I don’t think I’m making it out of this place,” he took a shallow breath “, I’m sure the other plotters have sent out a bounty on my head and my body is out of strength to deny them the collection.”
Lathion considered the man leaning on the wall; he didn’t seem to come from a noble or rich background. Tattered cloth, thrown together, with holes poked and the weaving frayed, though that may be from the fight.
“Why would you join the revolution? Do you not value your life?”
The man stared at him as though the answer was obvious.
“What has the Royalty ever done for the sake of peasants? Famine after famine, all they do is cling on to power.” he paused “You should join us, you’re just one of those tools to power, surely you realise this by now.”
Lathion peered back from the doorway. He would do just what he must do. He knew that the man could have been a murderer or a thief. He was just someone made bitter by his standing, by the bottom rung, but Lathion couldn’t find it in himself to hate him.
“I hope you make it out of here alive,” was left unspoken.
Sir ‘Dotchus’ Leeland was patrolling.
Cavellar had been acting strange the last couple of days. Beyond his childish antics, which there had been a couple, for one, he had gotten his leg nearly clamped off by a bear trap when he had run off in the forest in the middle of a hunting trip.
Cavellar seemed to be resigned, as though he was grieving.
He pondered something that Cavellar had claimed on the parapet, and though he tried to keep it from his mind, it seemed to nag.
“I wonder if there will come a day when the people no longer need me”.
He didn’t want to think about the day when the authority behind the throne was lost, maybe because his own safety and wealth relied on leeching off the Cavellar name, though maybe it wasn’t that at all.
He didn’t like to admit it to himself, but he had grown fond of Lord Cavellar. His blundering self would never be able to fix the throne of feudalism that he sat on, but he had this innate desire to right injustice.
Just yesterday, they had been outside the court investigating a series of reports of corruption by the city mayor. The mayor had unlawfully removed 50 peasants from their residences to make room for a new statue of his son.
If Cavellar had not been there, any other aristocrat would have laughed at the expense of the bottom rung. No Lord would punish an authority figure bearing his name; no Lord would risk the marriage of wealth and royalty.
His fear wasn’t for his own sake, but maybe for the rest of the Court of Dispodel. If not the Toddler Lord, who else would hold the power?
–
The Lady Tictys was known to be a queen of the ‘common’ person. Her father had been the captain of the guard, the ringleader of a very successful coup. She herself had only been a child at the time, not too poor, but locked in the prison of the ever-climbing ‘middle class’ whose unending ambitions could not be satiated.
Now she was in her palace, brimming with gold and jewellery, the picture of wealth in the country. The most influential men of the continent vying for her approval, raining her in gifts and requests. Let me have your army, your riches, your hand in marriage.
She was disgusted. Give one inch, and the fragile alliance between wealth and monarch would collapse. She was disgusted with the role of a queen, but wise enough to play it.
She wondered about her childhood friends, whether they survived into adulthood as she had, whether they knew it was that little girl who played on the street with them that had become the figurehead of the country.
She would reach out to meet them, but how would that look? A Queen in the home of a peasant? Like the doorknocker to revolution, they would call her weak, the peasant queen, the slave queen.
The fragile alliance between wealth and monarch would be broken, and she would be overthrown.
She picked up a letter. Lord Cavellar had sent a reply after she had sent him the enormous supply of furskins he had seemingly ‘needed’. He was a childish, petulant man, but he didn’t have the air of ego that other royals did. She enjoyed their conversations; he was always brimming with excitement, always willing to remove himself from power and take some outlandish perspective. He was the ‘toddler’ Lord after all.
‘Dear Lady Tictys
It is with gratitude that I read your letter affirming the treasury’s support of the purchase of one hundred thousand clotheskins for peasants under my care, which I had duly requested. Your generosity is well met and is, as always, sincerely appreciated.
With hushed secrecy but excitement, I write to you, hoping our sustained friendship would-
She stopped. Friendship? They were both nobility, yes, but he was a lord of the long-running line of Cavellar, while she had been just another runt. He was the archetype of the lord in his castle; she very well could have been one of those labourers under him.
Could she share genuine kinship with this kind of man?
She continued reading.
hoping our sustained friendship would keep this plot under the wraps for the time being:
I plan to abdicate from my position as Lord.
She laughed. This must be some kind of joke; he is known to be a bit aloof. He continued in the letter.
I know this may come as a shock, and I must admit I, too, was shocked at the thought. Though after consideration, I believe it to be the course of action I should have taken indeed far earlier in my hapless career as Lord.
I now believe I am a figurehead of a royal interest to colonise the common person impressed upon me by forces beyond my control. Truthfully, I wish to be rid of this imprisonment of communal wealth to only the nobility. I wish to be free.
Freedom? What wouldn’t a man like him know about freedom?
If he’d wanted, he could have moved his entire castle brick by brick on the backs of his servants to another country. Tictys scoffed; she would not believe what the letter was saying to be true
I must apologise for leaving my service of the crown, but let it not be a slight on your merciful rule. I am truly a thankless fool for all your favour, but this resignation I believe to be unavoidable.
I must beg, please allow my Duchy to remain within your territories, to retain the safe arm of protection you have kept around us. I aim to abdicate at a later date, leaving behind the throne to a recurrently elected official of the people.
Though I pray for a continuing friendship as I travel outside the continent, let this letter serve as the dissolution of the Noble family of Cavellar and as my pending resignation as the Lord of Dispodel.
To be continued.
Writer – Haran Thirumeni
Editor – Alvia Farooqui
Artist – Daniel Wang
–July 2025–
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