Aljandrr's Speech

“The council lies to you! Misleads you! Keeps you in ignorance!” Aljandrr

said.

            His voice boomed across the market and harbor, and he hoped it shook the Manor walls and windows.

            “Who remembers if my father lied? The King was truthful, honest, right up to revealing his own family’s location, which did lead to their death. Deaths, remember, at the hands of our Council!”

            Aljandrr spotted the loyalists in the crowd, and captured their eyes, glowing red like irritated insect bites. He knew he had them listening, even if they wanted to bash him for every word. He continued.

            “The Council steals from you! The taxes leave families without food, and ruin business!”

            “You should appreciate the taxes,” a voice called out. “They pay for the city!”

            “Sure, you’ve been told that,” Aljandrr said. “But what is the state of our city? Crumbling walls and roads. School children who don’t read. A harbor threatening to dry up without fish. Boats drifting on the water as the ropes rot from the basin. Our food was once plentiful! A surplus! And now we ration! We once had medicine and now our children die!”

            Aljandrr choked on the last line, which fought him. His thoughts returned to Pori, the fisherman, whose daughter died in arms. He didn’t want to think of her. He didn’t want to remember her pained, bloated face as she rasped her last breath, unable to even mutter a cry. He fought tears, and closed his eyes. His head dropped and the crowd went quiet. He opened his eyes to see them leaning forward, as if trying to listen to his tears fall. He cleared his throat, and brought his head up. He did not wipe away the tears.

            “Did my father steal from you? Did any of the slaughtered aristocracy? How often did guards come to your homes and demand your petty change at the point of their spears?”

            “Never!” a woman shouted.

            Bellows of agreement followed her cry. Aljandrr hit a nerve. He pressed on.

            “The Council kills. Murders. The Council threatens other nations and causes them to cut off trade and arm their borders. We used to be the center of the world! My father was not just King of Walker’s Rest. He was king of the globe!”

            There was movement in the back of the crowd. Aljandrr saw people being thrown like pillows kicked from a bed, weightless as linen bags in the wind. The crowd dissipated as if smoke in a fan. The guardsmen were coming to take him, Aljandrr knew, and shot a look at Levi’i, his protector. She leapt on the stage and covered him with a blanket, pushing him off the stage.

            The guards still came, and those who fought them were instantly beaten. Aljandrr saw a man get a spear through his stomach. His blood spattered a nearby woman, who grabbed her children and sprinted through the market. A guard began to chase her. Aljandrr looked away before he saw the guard catch up to her. Aljandrr cursed his nonviolent oath, and bit his lip for being unarmed.