"Snippet: Colin & Ellena" by Emilie Aurora Finn

“I must say that I am very relieved to see that our views correspond on this point, your Majesty,” the sharp-faced, dark haired noblewoman seated opposite the Queen said with an expressive lift of her dark brows. “I was concerned that you might see the disgruntlement of a few peasants as a danger.” The brows contracted. “I suppose it is, but I am convinced that the greater danger lies in disrupting our social and economic foundations while engaged in a war.”

“Indeed, Lady Kaitlin,” Queen Ellena murmured. “I must agree that this is not the time to discuss any changes in our laws and traditions. There is too much at stake.”

“Quite right.” The Lady rose. “Thank you for seeing me, your Majesty.”

“Of course. You may go.” The Queen held out her hand, and Lady Kaitlin took it and touched it briefly to her forehead as she curtsied, in the ritual gesture of submission to the Monarch and land. The Queen checked a sigh as the Lady left the room. As soon as the door closed, however, the sigh escaped almost as a sob, and she brought her hands to her temples as if in an attempt to soothe her pounding head.

With an almost inaudible snick, the bookcase of expensive, leather-bound books behind the Queen’s chair swung away from the wall to reveal a narrow doorway. The Queen rose quickly and turned to face the tall, solidly built man who stood in the passageway beyond. His blunt, square-jawed face and grey eyes topped with bushy eyebrows that matched the graying brown of his wiry hair contrasted well with Queen Ellena’s round, finely chiseled features, deep blue eyes and honey-colored hair, but the most striking difference between the two was that while Ellena wore the traditional flowing blue robes of royalty, the man was dressed in a rough woolen smock and scuffed brown leather trousers and boots. As the Queen turned to face him, he stepped into the room and pushed the bookshelf closed behind him.

“I’m sorry, Colin.” The Queen’s voice trembled only slightly as she spoke.

Colin shook his head. “Don’t be. You’re doing what you think is right.” His tone of voice was carefully neutral.

Queen Ellena let out another sigh, this one of exasperation. “No I’m not, and you know it!” she said sharply. “But what else can I do? Lady Kaitlin is right. The middle of a war is not the time to throw the country into civil turmoil.”

“And you can’t afford to lose the support of your faithful nobles.” The trace of sarcasm that had crept into his voice did not go unnoticed.

“Colin, You know that I can’t lose the support of the Faithful, whatever the cost. I’m fighting a losing battle with a powerful country, and nearly a third of my most powerful citizens want me to lose! Oh, they’d never say so, but they want what the Arcanian way of life can give them, never mind that the land must be poisoned to achieve it! I can’t fight this war if I lose all of my internal backing.”

“You persist in seeing peasants as powerless,” Colin responded irritably. “Can’t you see what a disaster losing the loyalty of the peasants would be? It’s happening. Unless you allow them some basic freedoms – ”

“The nobles command the peasants in their lands, Colin. If I lose the nobles, I’ve already lost the peasants, and it won’t matter if I lose their personal loyalty.”

“Ellena! How can you be so blind? A third of these nobles who command the peasants are Progressives. If those nobles try to convince their peasants that life will be better for them under the rule of a Progressive leader and raise an army, the only thing that could save us from a civil war is the peasants’ personal loyalty! And the only reason some of the peasants in the more unpleasantly oppressive lands run by your Faithful,” he said the word with killing emphasis, “haven’t rebelled against those nobles is because of their personal loyalty to you! If you lose the peasants, we’ll have a civil war, and the Arcanians will come in and crush us all!”

“What would you have me do, Colin?” The Queen’s quiet voice was like ice.

“Allow the peasant children to leave the farms if they wish, and attend schools in the cities. Open the Guild apprenticeships to the peasant as well as the merchant class. Give them some choices in their lives, so that they don’t feel so much like slaves!”

“If the peasants leave the farms, who will grow the food, Colin? And when there are so many peasants seeking their fortunes in the cities that the cities are overcrowded, and poverty and crime spiral out of control because only one in every three people can actually find a job – what then?”

“You can’t know that that’s what will happen. And the alternative is the Arcanians’ devices. The peasants hear that there are machines that will do the work of five men in the field. Why won’t the Queen let them get the machine, and let the people choose something more pleasant and fulfilling to do in life?”

“Colin – ”

“I know,” he held up his hand. “You don’t have to explain your reasoning there, your Majesty, because I agree. They don’t see that it takes men working in manufactories to build the machine, more to make replacement parts, more to repair it when it breaks and someone to actually run it. Ultimately this replaces the peasant class in their own homes on farms with a manufactory class in smelly tenements in the cities. I’ve been to Arcania! But our people don’t see that, now. They see that the Queen is living in luxury while they starve. And the Queen is trying to enslave them forever. If you don’t do something to counter that, you’ll have peasants turning en masse to the Arcanians. That would pave the way for a civil war – maybe even a coup. Is that what you want?”

“But don’t you see, Colin?” Ellena’s voice was tired and dispirited. “If  I allow them all to leave the farms and migrate to the cities – if I allow them to be merchants and guildmembers instead of farmers – if too many of them leave the farms – It will all happen anyway. If there aren’t enough people to grow the food, we’ll have to use machines or starve. If there are so many unemployed people in the cities, we’ll have to employ them in manufactories to make the machines. Then it won’t matter if Arcania rules Lauralia, or I.”

The depth of hopelessness in the Queen’s voice startled and dismayed Colin. She doesn’t see a way out of this, he realized, feeling as though a chunk of wet clay had settled in his belly. She believes we’ll fall no matter what she does. “What if – you just relaxed the strictures a little?” he suggested hesitantly. “Just – allowed for exceptions in extreme cases, or had a quota of peasants who could leave if they chose from each village?”

A small smile tipped the corner of the Queen’s mouth at this attempt to cheer her. “I believe that would satisfy neither party. Lady Kaitlin and the Faithful would be annoyed and less supportive, and the peasants would, rightly, feel that I was tossing them a sop.”

He nodded resigned agreement. “What will you do, then?” he asked quietly.

“We will change nothing in Lauralia. We will continue to oppose Arcania and all it stands for. Eventually we will fall, either to a coup within the palace led by Progressive nobles and disgruntled peasants, or to the Arcanian army before our people can organize their coup sufficiently. If there is a coup, they will be backed by Arcania, which will then take over.”

He was taken aback at such stark realism. “What then?”

“When that happens, my daughter must be taken from the Capital, hidden somewhere, and protected. It is my hope that after a few years of Arcanian rule, my people will be ready for the reappearance of the old Royal House. It will be up to Elizabeth, I believe, to save the land.”

“What of you?”

“I – ” the Queen’s voice shook violently. “I will have failed every trust I was born to uphold. I hope that I will simply die swiftly, and on Lauralian soil. But someone must see that Elizabeth is taken away safely. I have a plan. Will you help me?”

Colin knelt, taking her trembling hand in his own large, work-worn ones and raising it to his forehead with profound reverence. She gently freed the hand, and turned it to cup the side of his face as he replied, “I am yours to command, as I have always been, my Queen.”