Category Archives: Excerpt

Eaglethorpe Buxton Preview

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I took him at his word and stepped back into the inn, where I was directed to the second door on the left at the top of the stairs.  Here I found a very nice room with a large bed covered by a straw mattress, and upon that, my duffle bag and saddlebags.  I had brought two changes of clothing including a very nice shirt given to me by my cousin Gervil’s friend Rupert.  Rupert’s real name is Sally, but he has preferred the name Rupert as long as I can remember.  This shirt was a sort of peace offering which I am sure Rupert hoped would make me forget that he bit me on the back of the neck last time I was visiting.  I was not mollified at all, because though Rupert possesses relatively few teeth, they are very sharp and ought not to be employed during kickball games anyway.

Eaglethorpe Buxton Preview

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We stood at the corner of the Avenue of Spires and the Avenue of the Unwashed Masses, in the shadows of the storied spires and amid the throngs of unwashed masses.  I had been looking for a pie shop and my best friend in the world, Ellwood Cyrene, was looking for a weapons smith who could sharpen his short sword.  Coming up the avenue, which is to say the Avenue of Spires and not the Avenue of the Unwashed Masses, was a line of mounted knights and in front of them, on a proud white stallion, in shining armor, with a purple cloak, shining blond hair, was Elleena Posthuma, Queen of Aerithraine, Guardian of the Faithful, Protector of the Realm, and the only woman in the entire world that I have ever truly loved.

“Majesty,” I said as she passed, bowing deeply at the waist.

She continued on without a glance, as did the entire line of knights.

“WTF?” said I.

“What are you on about?” asked Ellwood.

“She didn’t say anything.” said I.  “She didn’t even glance down at me.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t understand it.  She should have known me.  I was once privileged to spend a fortnight in her company.”

“Eaglethorpe,” said Ellwood.  “She’s the Queen.  She doesn’t know you.  Get it into your head.”

“The Queen of Aerithraine and I are like this,” said I, crossing my fingers.

“Eaglethorpe, you and the Queen are not even on the same hand.”  Ellwood folded his arms across his chest, and cocked his head to the side.  “Do you think that armor made her ass look big?”

Eaglethorpe Buxton Preview

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I ran down the alley, and every zombie within
the sound of my shout, which is to say all of them, followed after me.  Zombies can’t resist a big juicy brain, especially one that can perform geometric calculations, solve quadratic equations, or conjugate verbs in a foreign language, none of which I can
actually do, but zombies are perhaps not as discerning as they should be.

I darted this way and that, easily outpacing the decaying monsters.  They were slow but came on inexorably, which is to say unrelentingly or inevitably or remorselessly, or in this case all three.  I rounded another corner and came face to face with the end of the alley.  It was a dead end, which would have been ironic had I been chased by living things, but as I was being chased by dead things, it was just sort of poetic.  I turned around and the zombies continued toward me, just as inexorable and unrelenting and inevitable and remorseless as before.

Eaglethorpe Buxton Bits

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It was just about time for elevenses when I spied two snowshoe hares sitting beside the road munching on a few sprigs of green which poked out of the snow.

“Hop down,” I told the orphan.

“Why?”

“I want you to get a rock and bean one of those hares,” said I.  “If you can kill it, we can eat.”

“I don’t know that I can hit it.”

“It can’t be more than thirty feet away.  Any boy could hit it with a rock from this distance.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on boy.”

The child slid to the ground and then picked up a likely looking stone from a small pile not too far from her feet and hefting it back, launched it in the general direction of the hares.  She didn’t have much heft, and with the lob she put on the rock, if it had hit the hare, it would have done nothing more than make it angry.  Of course there was no chance of that, since the course of the missile was off to the right by a good thirty degrees.  The hares started and took off over the snow, disappearing among the trees.

I am usual content to rip off pay homage to Shakespeare when I’m writing Eaglethorpe Buxton, but here I’m stealing from paying tribute to Mark Twain.  I have a heavily annotated copy of Huckleberry Finn that I’ve read a dozen times, and this little bit comes right out of Huck’s attempt to “borrow” some things when he’s dressed as “Sarah-Mary.”

The Story of the Story of the Queen of Aerithraine

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My son, my daughter, and I used to enjoy playing D&D, sometimes with one or more of my nephews and my son’s best friend.  The story of Queen Elleena of Aerithraine came right out of our D&D campaign.  Aerithraine was the most powerful country and one of the few relatively safe places in a world full of ogres, dragons, monsters, and demons.

I even had a little figure of Queen Elleena, though she had been designed as a character from an official D&D game.  She’s sitting on the shelf just to my left as I write this, just beneath a dragon and a little left of Darth Vader.

I’ve never thrown away any piece of story that I’ve come up with.  I still have a few of them from our game that may end up in a future Eaglethorpe Buxton story and pieces of my other stories will become parts of my new books.

 

The Rest of the Story of the Queen of Aerithraine

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I put away my knife and then climbed back into the saddle.  The orphan had regained his feet and I reached down, took his hand, and lifted him back into his spot behind me.  He reached around my waist and held on tight.

“Thank you,” he said.

“All is well,” said I.  “A few goblins are no match for a trained warrior.”

“Then how did they manage to prevent Prince Jared from becoming the King of Aerithraine?  Did they catch him asleep and murder him?”

“One might have supposed that under ordinary circumstances.”  I continued my story.  “These times were not ordinary.  Goblins are not only small and stupid and smelly; they are disorganized.  But every once and so often, there comes along a goblin who is big enough and just smart enough to unite the goblin tribes and lead them on the warpath against the civilized lands of humans.”

“I had always heard that none of the human lands were truly civilized,” said he.

“What an odd and unorphanish thing to say.”

“Um… oh.  I’m just discombobulated from the incident with the goblins.”

“Even so,” I agreed.  “Well, at the time my story takes place, there was one such goblin king, who came to power by killing and eating his many rivals.  And as happens when the goblins become unified in such a way, they experienced a population explosion.  The mountains of the Goblineld were teaming with the little blighters.  When the mountains could no longer contain them, they swept out across the southern third of the Kingdom of Aerithraine, destroying everything in their path.”

“Frightening,” said the orphan.

“Quite frightening.”

“Still…”

“Still what?”

“Humans are so large and goblins are so small.  You vanquished three pairs of goblins, and did it quite handily too.”

“Thank you.”

“And you don’t seem particularly skilled or particularly bright.”

“What?”

“I just wonder that an entire human kingdom could not put together an army to destroy even a large horde of goblins,” said the orphan.  “I would imagine that even a well-trained militia could do the job.  I once heard the story of the Calille Lowain who held off five thousand goblins at Greer Drift.”

“I don’t know that story,” said I.

“Perhaps I will tell it to you sometime,” said he.  “But what about it?  Couldn’t the humans defeat the goblins?”

“There were tens of thousands of them.  Hundreds of thousands.  Thousands of thousands.  But you are right.  In other times, such hordes were sent packing, back to their mines and tunnels in the Goblineld.  This time though, the goblins had a hidden ally.  Far to the east, the Witch King of Thulla-Zor, who is always looking for ways to cause destruction and chaos, saw this as an opportunity.  He supplied the goblin king with magic and weapons, and sent trolls and ogres to strengthen his ranks.  None of these facts were known to King Justin when he rode forth with the Dragon Knights to meet them.

“King Justin, his three younger sons, and all of the Dragon Knights were slaughtered—to a man.  Prince Jared, who had been in the north fighting sea raiders, hurried his forces south, only to meet a similar fate.  The goblins were waiting for him.  The entire southern third of the kingdom fell– and remained in the goblins’ filthy little hands for almost twenty years.  And the Goblin King feasted on the spoils of war, sitting on his throne far below the surface of the mountains, drinking his disgusting goblin wine from a cup made from the skull of King Justin.”

“How horrible,” murmured the orphan.

“Yes indeed,” I continued.  “And I think the worse part of the story is what happened to Queen Beatrix.”

“What happened to her?”

“She died.  She died of a broken heart.  And her unborn child almost died with her.

“Unborn child?  It didn’t die?”

“No, the court physician cut the child from the Queen’s belly.  It was a tiny baby girl.”

“Queen Elleena!” snapped the orphan.

“She should have been,” said I.

“What do you mean?”

“She should have been Queen the moment she was birthed, but that wasn’t to be.  There were too many competing interests at court.  Too many nobles wanted the throne for themselves.  And in the chaos that followed the fall of the south lands, they might have done it, had it not been for the church.  Little Princess Elleena Postuma was whisked off to the temple in Fall City, where she stayed for the next fourteen years, and Pope Bartholomew became the regent of the kingdom.”

“Did they keep Elleena prisoner in the temple?” wondered the orphan.

“Of course they didn’t,” said I.  “Though I will wager she sometimes felt that she was in a prison.  She could go anywhere she wanted to as long as she stayed in Fall City and under constant protective guard.  In the meantime she was given all the training and education that was necessary for one who would one day rule.”

“It is like prison,” said the orphan.

“Neither you nor I will ever really know the truth of that.”

At that moment, I spied a light in the distance.  The story, or at least this chapter of the story over, conversation ceased.  I urged Hysteria forward, which is to say I encouraged her onward toward the distant light, which turned out to be a small cabin on the side of the road.  Yellow light spilled from its tiny windows onto the snow.

Not having had the best of luck so far that night with regard to welcomes, which is to say that I had been attacked three times already that night, two times of which I have already described for you here, I dismounted and crept around to the side of the cabin to the window and peered inside.  Lying on the floor in a pool of blood was a man in common work clothes.  The single room of the little cabin had been ransacked.  And dancing around, or sitting and singing, or drinking; were more of the little, round-headed blighters, which is to say goblins.

The Story of the Queen of Aerithraine

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Hysteria clomped along slowly down the snow covered road for some time.  The orphan was so quiet that for a while I thought he must have fallen asleep.  But at last he stirred and shifted a bit in his seat, which is to say upon Hysteria’s flank.  I myself had been quiet as I remembered the events of that horrible night.

“What are you thinking about?” asked the orphan.

“I’m thinking about that horrible night,” I replied.

“Did you never find your family?”

“No, though I searched for weeks.  My mother was to make me a blueberry pie that night, and I not only have never seen my mother since, I did not get to eat that pie either.”

“I’m sorry I brought up such a painful memory,” he said, then paused.  “Do you suppose that the purple drops on the floor could have been from your blueberry pie?”

“Fiends!” said I.  “To rob a man of his mother and his pie in the same night!”

“Perhaps it were best that we think on something else,” said he.

“Perhaps,” I agreed.

“If you are really such a great story-teller…”

“The greatest in the world.”

“And if the story of the Queen of Aerithraine is a great story…”

“Wonderful.  Exciting.  True.  Profound.”

“Well, maybe you could tell me the story.”

“I get half a crown for that story in Illustria,” said I.

“I have a shiny penny,” said he.

“The story begins in Aerithraine, far to the west, along the coast of the great ocean sea.  From storied Illustria, its capital, to Cor Cottage just outside Dewberry Hills in River County, Aerithraine has been a great and powerful country for some seven hundred years more or less.  By more or less, I mean that it has been more or less seven hundred years that Aerithraine has been a country and that it has been more or less great and more or less powerful during those seven hundred years.  But about fifty years ago, it was less.  That was when the old king died, and as is the way of kings, a new one was crowned.  He was King Julian the Rectifier.

“He was called Julian the Rectifier because he was chiefly interested in rectifying.  He spent most of his time rectifying.  He rectified all over the place.  And he was good at it.  He rectified like nobody else.”

“It means setting things to right,” said the orphan.

“Of course it does and that is just what he did.  Under his reign, the kingdom was prosperous and wealthy.  And, as he wasn’t so interested in warring as in rectifying, there was peace throughout the land.  King Julian had only one son, and he passed to that son the strongest and wealthiest kingdom in all of Duaron, and if it had only remained so, Elleena would have become nothing more than a minor princess perhaps.”

“Which would not have made a half-crown story,” pointed out the orphan.

“That is so.”

“Carry on then.”

“King Justin was the son of Julian.  I hear tell that he was once called Justin the Good and Justin the Wise, though now when story-tellers refer to him, they usually call him Justin the Weak or Justin the Unready.”

“What do you call him?”

“I just call him King Justin,” said I.  “Though I truly believe he may deserve the title Justin the Brave, it is not what the listeners want to hear.”

“Go on.”

“King Justin married a princess from the faraway land of Goth.  The Arch-Dukes of Goth, which is to say the rulers of that land, have for generations, maintained power through a tightly woven web of treaties with its mighty neighbors.  Their chief barter in this endeavor is the marriage of the many female members of the family.  I hear the current Arch-Duke has but four daughters at least as of yet, but his father who was Arch-Duke before him had seventeen, and his father, which is to say the grandfather of the current Arch-Duke had nineteen.”

“That hurts just thinking about it.”

“What?”

“Nothing.  Go on.”

“It must have been quite a coup of diplomacy for the Arch-Duke of Goth to make a match with the King of Aerithraine, but he did, marrying to the King his daughter Beatrix.  And though I hear that the women of that country wear too much make-up, she was never the less accounted a great beauty.  She had pale white skin, raven hair, smoldering eyes, and a gold ring in her nose, as is the fashion in the east.

“King Justin and Queen Beatrix had four strong sons, the eldest of whom was Prince Jared.  He was particularly beloved of the people.  I saw him once when I was a child of four or five, sitting on my poor old father’s shoulders as the Dragon Knights passed on their tall white steeds.  That is to say, I was seated on my father’s shoulders and the Prince was not.  Neither were the Dragon Knights or their steeds.  I don’t remember why the Prince and the knights were in River County.  It was too long ago.  He would have grown to be King upon his father’s death if it was not for…”

“Goblins!”

“Yes, that’s right.  You didn’t say you had heard the story before, though I’ll warrant it wasn’t told as well…”

“No!” screamed the orphan.  “Goblins!  Right there!”

He pointed straight ahead, and sure enough, stepping out of the shadows and into the moonlight were a half dozen creepy little man-things.  They were no more than three feet tall, their over-sized round heads, glowing eyes, and gaping maws giving away their identity.  As they came closer those mouths widened into grins filled with jagged little teeth, looking far too much like the teeth on the blade of a cross-cut saw for my taste.  They brandished what weapons they had, mostly things they had picked up from the ground—a stick, a length of cord with a knot in it.  But a couple of them carried old, discarded straight razors.

The Two Dragons: Chapter 19 Excerpt

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Zurfina had insisted that they spend the night at home before going to their respective assignments, and now that Senta reached the field near the Regmont apartment building, she was glad that they had.  The men who were assembled there, more than two thousand if Senta’s estimation was correct, all looked bleary-eyed and tired.  Then again, Senta doubted that she had slept any more than they had.  Her destination was obvious.  The late Professor Calliere’s balloon stood, rivaling the eight story apartment buildings across the street.  It was fastened to the ground by dozens of ropes and at its base was the large wicker basket that served as the passenger compartment.  Wizard Smedley Bassington stood next to it.

“Are you ready?”

“As ready as I can be,” replied Senta.

A small bird flew down and landed on Bassington’s shoulder.  It was no bigger than a man’s fist, with a bright yellow band across its belly, and brown and black wing feathers.  It chirped several times.  Bassington cocked his head and listened.  Then the bird took off again.

“New pet?” wondered Senta.

“An informant.”  The wizard smiled.  “The news is good.  The lizzies have deployed most of their forces to support the Freedonians.  The attack that we have to face will be much smaller than anticipated—no more than three thousand.”

“Really?  Only three thousand?”

“That’s nothing for magic of our caliber.”

“So that means that Zurfina has to face ten to twenty thousand enemies by herself?”

“She does have the Colonial Guard with her.”

Lawrence Bratihn approached the two from the direction of the mustering volunteers.  He looked at Senta for a moment as if assessing whether to say something, but decided against it.  He looked to Bassington.

“The plan?”

“The plan is the same.  Have the men fan out around the northern edge of the evacuated area.  Let Senta and myself deal with the bulk of the lizzies and then, when we signal, move in and clean out the rest.”

“How far away are they?”

“About five miles,” replied Bassington.  “So, let us get into position.”

Bratihn nodded and jogged back to the men, while Senta climbed into the basket.  The wizard climbed in next and he was followed by a woman in a khaki dress and blouse.

“Do you know Mrs. Hollerith?”

“Of course,” replied Senta.  “What are you doing here?”

“I learned how to work the balloon when I helped the Professor survey the peninsula eight years ago, though I haven’t been up since.”

“I was hard pressed to find a balloon veteran,” said Bassington, as Mrs. Hollerith pulled a handle from the mechanism suspended over the basket, sending flames shooting upwards.

“Cast off!” called Mrs. Hollerith, and the ground crew unfastened the lines as quickly as they could.  In scant moments, they were ascending past the tops of the highest buildings in Port Dechantagne.  Senta looked down to see the volunteer soldiers moving away in long snaking lines toward the east.

“How high are we going?”  Senta wondered.

“Just high enough to get a clear view,” replied Bassington.

“I don’t know what kind of a clear view you can get.  There are so many trees.”

“We just want to be able to see the lizzies moving into the area.”

“Can’t we do that from the top of a building?”

Bassington looked at her.  “Would that be anywhere near as exciting as this?”

Mrs. Hollerith gave one more pull on the handle controlling the ascent, and then looked over the edge along with Senta.  The balloon was fastened with only a single long rope, the other end of which was wound around a large spool attached to the ground.  The spool was quickly unwinding as two men stood, one on either side, watching it.  When the balloon had almost stopped, the men locked down the spool, making the basket jerk as it reached the end of its tether.

Senta pulled the mirror from her belt and looked into it.  Her own face looked back at her.  She looked terrible.  She had dark circles under her eyes and her face was drawn.

“Uuthanum,” she said, touching the mirror with her index finger.  Her own image was replaced with a view of Zurfina from above.  She was standing in some kind of small wooden-floored room.

“Hello Pet,” said Zurfina looking up, but not quite meeting Senta in the eye.  “Are you up in your balloon?”

“Yes.  Can you see me?”

“No, but I can hear you.  I may well be as high up as you are.  I’m in the observation tower.”

“I thought you didn’t want to go up this high.  Isn’t that why I’m in the balloon instead of you?”

“No.  I don’t want to fall down from this high.  That’s why you are in the balloon instead of me.”

The Two Dragons: Chapter 18 Excerpt

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Senta grasped her face in both hands as she stared at the photograph hanging above Zurfina’s bed.  What could she have been thinking?  Photographs were by their very nature limited to black, white, and shades of grey.  This picture however had been hand colored over the image, so that the result was much more real than a painting.  In front of a lush green forest backdrop was a Mirsannan divan with long wooden legs and large lazy padded arms but no back.  Reclining across its width, one arm draped over the end, one leg bent lazily at the knee was Zurfina, naked, not even a feather boa, silk stockings, or a piece of jewelry to clothe her.  And lying across the divan in the other direction, in a mirrored pose, was Senta—just as naked.  Her front bits were hidden behind Zurfina’s flaring hips, but her bosoms were right there for God and everyone to see.

“Well honestly, Pet, I’m chuffed.  I don’t think it could have come out any better.”

“I…”

“You love it too.”

“I… somehow thought that painting over it would… obnubilate it… a bit.”

“Why would we want that?  Look how lovely you look.”

“No one can ever see this,” said Senta.

“No one will see it.  It’s here above my bed.  Who could possibly see it?”

“Every man in Port Dechantagne.”

“Cheeky twonk!  I’ve been virtually celibate these last few years.”

“Well, now you have a reason to stay that way.”

“Quite the reverse.  I think viewing this picture might add to the… flavor of a gentleman’s visit.”

“Eww!”

“Isaak appreciated it.”

“Eww.  You mean Isaak Wissinger?”

Zurfina nodded.

“Double Eww!”

“Well, surely you’ll show it to…” Zurfina snapped her fingers, searching her memory.

“Graham.”

“Yes, surely you’ll show him?”

“No.”

“But didn’t he propose marriage?”

“How did you know about that?”

Zurfina cocked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, alright.  You know every intimate detail of our conversation but you can’t remember his name.  But, no, he didn’t propose.  We’re just promised.  And no, I’m never going to show him this picture.”

“He will see your fanny eventually.”

“Of course he will, but he doesn’t need to see yours.”

“I think Smedley would like it as well.”

“Bloody hell!  That’s just disturbing.  You will hide this whenever you have anyone, man or woman, in this room.  Cast one of your famous obfuscations on it.  Otherwise… I’ll pinch you… hard.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Watch me.”

“Fine.  It seems such a waste to have this wonderful picture if I’m the only one who gets to see it.”

“You should have thought of that before you talked me into posing with you.”

“Well, enough of this,” said Zurfina, stepping across the room to her dresser and opening the top drawer.  “I have something for you.”

She returned with two small identical hand mirrors.  Handing one of them to Senta, she said. “These will allow us to communicate and to observe.”

Senta examined her mirror.  It seemed unremarkable.  “Uuthanum,” she said.

The image in the mirror changed from one of her face to a view looking down upon Zurfina from above and in front.  She could see her own legs in the corner of the glass.

“You see?” said Zurfina, looking up and therefore out of the mirror, though not quite meeting Senta’s eyes.

The Two Dragons: Chapter 17 Excerpt

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“Good day, Mother Linton.  How lovely that you could join me this afternoon.”  Iolanthe wore, for her, an unusual day dress.  It was light blue satin with a dark velvet mock-coat.  The front left far more cleavage than she was used to wearing, but some of that was covered by the bouquet of flowers gently tucked at the base and flaring outward.  She was without a doubt the most beautiful woman seated in Bonne Nourriture.  She stood up to shake hands with the priest.

Mother Linton accepted her hand.  She wore her traditional robe, black with one white stripe running down from each shoulder.  Her hair had grown quite long and straight since coming to Birmisia and it had gone completely grey.  Sitting down, she added the white linen napkin to her lap.

“Don’t you prefer Café Etta?” asked the priest.

“I thought this was more appropriate.”

A lizzie, wearing a white apron, handed each of the women a paper menu.  “Ssessial is glazed iguanodon.”

Mother Linton curled her lip.  “I’ll have the chicken salad.”

“The same for me,” said Iolanthe, and smiling, handed back the menu.  She watched the reptilian waiter depart.  “You do know there are no chickens in Birmisia, don’t you?  Our salad will most likely be velociraptor.”

“Hmph.  I don’t get the opportunity to eat out very often.”

“That’s a shame.  I find it advantageous.  It gives me a chance to take the pulse of the community.”

“I don’t need to know the pulse of the community.  I am not a politician.”

“At least not a very accomplished one,” said Iolanthe.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean, Mother Linton, that this business with the Zaeri has grown tiresome.  Despite the fact that I have no strong religious feelings, I understand that you do.  That, and the fact that I respect strength in a woman, is why I’ve not interfered with you leading your flock.  But now you are becoming a danger to this colony.  If you drive wedges between the Kafirites, the Zaeri, and the lizzies now, we may not be able to unite against Freedonia.”

“The lizardmen are nothing more than animals, and the Zaeri are infidels.  They killed Kafira.”

“Well yes.  Some of the Zaeri did kill her.  Some of the Zaeri were her followers.  Some of them were her apostles.  And as you priests so often seem to forget, Kafira herself was a Zaeri.”

“Don’t presume to teach doctrine to me.”

“Fine.  Politics then.  If I have to, I will have you removed from Birmisia and sent back to Brech.”

“There is a word for defying the authority of the Church,” hissed Mother Linton.  “It’s heresy.”

“Yes.  I could be burnt at the stake,” said Iolanthe.  “If it were three hundred years ago.  There’s a word for defying my authority too.  It’s called treason, and they hang people for it.  Still.”

“You care nothing for Kafira or the Church.”

“You are absolutely correct, Mother Linton.  I care only for Birmisia Colony.”

“You care only for your family name.”

“One is the same as the other,” said Iolanthe, her voice cold steel.

“I’ll have you excommunicated.  How will your family name look then?”

“I doubt the Church hierarchy will be so inclined when I show them the evidence that you had Yuan Weiss try to assassinate me.”

“I…”  Mother Linton gulped for air.  “I never did any such thing.”

“Oh, I admit that some of the evidence had to be manufactured, but it is very convincing.  Here comes our ‘chicken salad’.”

The lizzie waiter returned and placed a large plate in front of each woman.  Iolanthe picked up her fork and took a bite.

“No,” she said.  “This is nowhere near as fine as Café Etta.  Aalwijn Finkler knows how to run a top-notch establishment.  You know, I believe he is a Zaeri.  And if I’m not mistaken, he married a nice Kafirite girl.  I wonder.  Do they attend your church or do they go to shrine?”

Mother Linton glared back.  She had not touched her food.  Iolanthe took another bite.

“Do you know what they have done to the Zaeri in Freedonia?” she asked.  “They chased most of them out.  Those who couldn’t get out, they herded into work camps.  They murdered tens of thousands of them.”

“That’s just propaganda.”

“No it isn’t.  It’s the truth.  And after the war is over and the extent of the Freedonian atrocities is revealed, good compassionate Kafirites everywhere are going to be shocked and angered at what was done in their name.  Freedonia will become synonymous with prejudice, hatred, and evil.  And the world will look at Birmisia, and what will they see?”

Mother Linton said nothing.

“They will see harmony.  They will see Kafirites and Zaeri working together for the greater good of Brechalon.  And they will see my family as the architects of this veritable utopia.  But there will be plenty of rewards to go around.  I offer you a part of this.  You don’t have to let go of your prejudice and hatred.  You just have to swallow it way down inside, and not let it back out.”

“For all your arrogance, you cannot see the future,” said Mother Linton.  “The Freedonians may march right over this city tomorrow.”

“I do not think so.”

“Are you counting on your Zaeri witch to save you?”

“As a matter of fact, I am.  What are you counting on?”

“What would you have me do?” asked Mother Linton sullenly.

“Do what you should be doing.  I don’t care whether you let lizzies in the church or not—I gather there aren’t that many interested anyway.  Just let those mixed families like the Finklers and the Korlanns attend church together.  You might even find a new convert.  You will need someone to replace Yuan Weiss after all.”