The Sword and the Plough (20 page)

“
Welcome Trion!” A man’s deep voice cried
out abruptly, breaking the silence. Two hundred voices echoed his
cry. “
Welcome Trion
!”

“Major Waterman,” a voice nearby exclaimed.
“Glad to have you with us, sir.”

Excitement now spread rampant across the
cage. Despondency evaporated and sudden hope took its place.
Laughing faces pressed against the wire and arms stretched forth to
wave in greeting.

“
Good old Trion!” someone exclaimed
suddenly over the welter of voices. “Bloodied those Megran dogs a
bit, I’ll bet – gave them a whipping.”

“Shut up, royalist swine,” the Megran guard
at the cage door snarled, but the excited throng ignored him and
the defiant taunts and jibes carried on.

“So, Ferdinand’s won a few minor planets,”
another voice bellowed. “Wait ’til he faces the queen. She’ll send
him packing with his tail between his legs. She might even cut it
off.”

Hoots of laughter and cheering followed this
last remark, growing louder as it gathered momentum across the cage
until, like a titanic wave breaking, two hundred voices cried out
as one.

“
Long live the queen!”

The crowd of prisoners began to surge
forward like a
giant
sea.

The Trionians hesitated.

“Hurry up! Get in!” the Megran guard at the
door shouted.

But the flood was upon them. Before the
Trionians could move, a mob of prisoners rushed the open cage door.
The guard slammed the door shut and jumped back, his pistol pointed
stiffly at the jeering crowd. In an instant, he had scrambled up
onto the ledge and the safety of his fellows, leaving the Trionians
outside the cage.

“
Long live
the queen!”
The cry came
again and multiplied in a tumultuous burst across the sea of
captives.

The Megran guards took a step forward, their
rifles raised.

“
Long live the queen! Long live the queen!
Long live the queen!”

The Trionians found themselves swept up in
the turmoil and pandemonium. They clasped at the dozens of
outstretched hands; embraced their grinning comrade prisoners
through the cage wire. They hollered with the multitude, their
voices straining.

A Megran lieutenant used a loud hailer, but
his call went unheeded.

A rich contralto launched into the
traditional royal hymn of praise. Two hundred voices joined her.
Lars knew the words but vaguely. He heard snatches he recognised as
the ancient words rang out.

“
Send her victorious… happy and
glorious.”

Lars sang along with the words he
knew
, Judith Warner’s
squeaky soprano and the governor’s lusty bass in fervent chorus
beside him.

“
Long to-o reign ov-er us…”

The Megran guards stepped up, aimed their
rifles above the crowd. Their lieutenant raised his arm.

“
Fire!”
The
light-bolt rifles discharged a crisscross of
blazing bolts into the cellar ceiling showering burning rock
fragments onto the frenzied horde below.

The anthem faltered amid cries of pain.

Lars heard the order.
“Ready!”
Saw the guards
raise their rifles for a second volley. Saw two hundred prisoners
crouch low.

“
Fire!”
The Megran rifles roared again.
Blinding bolts of white

light burned into the high dome ceiling. A
fiery hail of punishing particles rained down on the defenceless
multitude below.

Two hundred voices cried out in shock and
pain as the glowing splinters seared human flesh. Lars groaned out
loud as a white-hot shard creased his neck.

Then, above it all, a woman’s voice rang out
strong and clear.

“
Long live Bess.”

Another voice took up the cry. More followed
and yet more, until it had become a rousing chant.

“
Long live Bess. Long live Bess…”

The Megran lieutenant raised his
arm.
“Ready!”

The guards raised their rifles.

The prisoners crouched, arms covering their
heads. Many of the male prisoners attempted to shield their female
companions.

Somewhere close by a woman sobbed.

Then suddenly, as suddenly as it had
begun, the chanting died away. Lars looked up. Near the centre of
the cage a solitary prisoner in grey civilian clothes stood above
his prone fellows, his craggy face topped by a shock of pure white
hair, his bony arms outstretched in supplication, calming the
troubled sea.

The Megran lieutenant nodded. The guards
lowered their weapons.

Slowly, painfully, the host of prisoners
stood hiding the old man in their midst.

There was no further attempt at resistance.
In less than a minute, the Trionians were bustled in with the other
prisoners, and the cage door shut and barred.

“Lars?” Caroline touched his arm. There was
an angry red burn across the back of her hand. “I’m so sorry we got
you into all this.”

Lars shot her a smile and shrugged. “It’s not
your fault. I got myself into it.”

Lars rubbed at the burn on his neck. It
still stung painfully. He glanced unhappily round at the crowded
scene about him. Now he was worlds away from his sister;
light-years across the galaxy’s boundless wastes; if only the two
of them had gone back to the farm when they had the chance. Long
ago, when they were both children, he had promised Helen he would
never leave her behind. Now he had to wonder if he would ever see
her again…

* * *

“
Hakim! Hakim!”

Twelve-year-old Lars stood at
the front door of his friend’s thatch and stone cottage. The door
was open – the custom on Trion.

Green fields were already in abundance on
Hakim’s land, with young trees sprouting as windbreaks along fence
lines in every direction, as far as the eye could see.

“I’m out back, Lars. Come on through.”

The sound of a hammer echoed from the yard at
the back of the house.

“Mum said to bring you eggs and milk,” Lars
called. “I’ll leave them inside, shall I?”

“Yes thanks, Lars, it’ll be cooler there for
them.”

Hakim’s black stone cottage had only one
room, and the back door was directly opposite the front. Lars could
see his friend working in his yard, nailing planks to make the top
for a table.

“Good to see you, Lars,” Hakim said, as his
young friend made his way through to join him out back.

“You’ll remember to thank your mother for me,
won’t you?”

Warm brown eyes smiled out from beneath a mop
of tight black curls.

Hakim was dressed in homespun cotton field
clothes, grey from the ubiquitous black dust. His olive skin was
streaked with black where the dust had stuck to his sweat, looking
like tribal war paint.

The area just outside the back door lay
strewn with off-cuts from his furniture in the making.

“
Well, what do you think of my handiwork,
Lars? Just the essentials to begin with – a bed, a table, and two
chairs.”

“Two chairs?” Lars queried.

“Of course,” Hakim replied with a smile. “I
must have somewhere for my friend, Lars, to sit.”

Hakim had turned twenty the previous month,
but to twelve-year-old Lars, Hakim had been a grown man for as long
as he could remember.

Hakim had come to Trion three years earlier
as a stowaway aboard a freighter. No one had been able to determine
where to send him back to. Finally, he had been allowed to stay as
a refugee.

The Kelmutts had taken him in and he had
become one of the family. Hakim had worked hard, first as a
labourer on other people’s farms, then later as a contractor with
his own rock plough. He had saved to buy a piece of land and build
his own home.

“
Mum said to invite you to dinner – that’s
if you want to.”

Hakim gave a surprised look. “If I want to?
Have you ever known me turn down your mum’s cooking?”

“Mum said seven o’clock.”

“Right.”

Lars watched Hakim drive three more nails
into the tabletop, and then tap in the nail heads with a punch.

“You’ve never told anyone where you come
from, have you?” Lars asked suddenly.

Hakim laughed. “No I haven’t.”

“Are you ever going to?”

“
It’s not important anymore, Lars. The past
isn’t worth remembering when it’s mostly bad. But, if it ever seems
important to tell someone, I promise you’ll be the first to know.”
Suddenly, Hakim glanced up past Lars. “Hah, look who’s
here.”

Lars spun round. His little sister, Helen,
was standing in the doorway, stubby pink fingers tugging agitatedly
at her shirt. Her bright yellow overalls were grimy with black dust
at the knees. She had obviously fallen on the way over.

“Lars didn’t wait for me,” the child
complained, her bottom lip starting to tremble. “Mummy said he had
to wait, but he didn’t.”

Hakim knelt down in front of the child and
took her small hands in his. “It’s all right, Helen,” he said
softly. “You knew where to find him. Lars didn’t really mean to
leave you behind.”

Hakim wiped away the incipient tears. The
child smiled.

“Will you sit next to me at the dinner
table?” the little girl asked.

“Of course,” Hakim returned gently. “That’s
the best seat at the table. And Lars, you won’t ever leave her
behind again, will you?”

“No,” Lars promised.

“Lars! Thank the stars.” Caroline had to
raise her voice above the commotion of the cage. “Father and the
major have been looking all over for you.”

“For me?”

She nodded. “Father’s asked for a meeting of
planet governors and other planet officials, and he and the major
want you to attend.”

“Me?”

Caroline smiled at his puzzled expression.
“Father thinks a lot of your resourcefulness and the major does,
too,” she explained. “We all do. We want you there when we discuss
our options.”

“Our options?”

“Yes, ways in which we might help the
queen.”

She cast a sly glance at the cellar roof
above them.

“Apparently, we’re right beneath Ferdinand’s
palace,” she continued with a grin. “I think he’s afraid of us and
wants us where he can keep an eye on things.”

Caroline took Lars by the hand, her small
strong fingers entwined in his.

“Let’s go see if we can dream up something
that will really worry him.”

Some thirty or so of the planet heads had
already gathered by the time Lars and Caroline arrived. They were
sitting in a circle. Several of the group sat cross-legged, others
had arms clasped round raised knees, while others, less supple
perhaps, had their legs out straight, their hands tucked under
their thighs.

Most of the men and women in the circle were
middle-aged or older. Many wore the queen’s red. Their numbers also
included some of Ferdinand’s top military staff who had not seen
eye to eye with the prince. Rumour said several dissidents had
already suffered summary execution.

Outside the circle, the main body of
prisoners created a din of raucous chatter, a barrier against
Megran ears, while the tallest of them stood in a close ring round
the meeting to counter enemy eyes.

“Ah good, Lars, you’re just in time,” the
governor said with a smile, indicating a space beside him. “We’re
just starting.”

A stern looking elderly man with bushy white
hair, sitting across from Lars, held up a bony hand for silence. It
was the same old man Lars had witnessed quell the near riot in the
cage some twenty minutes or so earlier. The old man wore no uniform
to denote his title or importance, but instead a plain grey suit.
But no badge of rank was necessary; there was an aura about the man
that spoke for his authority.

“
Lord Magnus Southern, governor of Lumai,”
Caroline whispered as she squeezed down beside Lars. She sat
cross-legged, tucking her gown round her feet. Her gown no longer
seemed so incongruous in this setting. There were several women
similarly attired.

“
Ladies and gentlemen,” Lord Southern
began. His voice was surprisingly clear and vibrant for his age.
“The governor of Trion has asked me to convene this emergency
meeting of Commonwealth heads.
Unfortunately
, we
are
all
able to
attend – Prince Ferdinand being the one exception.” There was a
ripple of amusement at the old man’s grave irony. “I see no need
for the usual protocol and pleasantries, indeed this is not the
time or place for those. We are here to pool our information and
decide on an immediate course of action.”

He paused as a muttering of surprise rippled
through the meeting. His thin white hand went up again for
quiet.

“No,” he said quietly, shaking his head. “I
have not forgotten where we are, but that must only make us the
more determined.”

For an instant, he saw again the Megran
trooper point the light-bolt pistol at him the night of the ball.
He had been certain then the man would shoot. Yet, to his surprise,
he had been completely unafraid. He had been more concerned for the
safety of his people. He felt the same way now.

The horror that had met his eyes as his
captors led him away – the charred rumps of sentries cut down by
light-bolt fire, along with the strange stench of burnt human flesh
– would stay forever, etched in his memory. Prince Ferdinand had to
be stopped.

“As chairman,” the governor of Lumai
continued. “I am going to open the meeting by outlining the
situation as I see it. Please do not hesitate to interpose if you
have a contrary opinion.”