Worlds Unseen by Rachel Starr Thomson (best classic novels TXT) 📕

“So says every man, before he is lost,” said Virginia. “I do fear for you. I have seen you, sometimes, and there is a great black cloud around you that whispers and calls to you. And a woman.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lord Robert said, suddenly irritated. “I suppose everyone has a ‘cloud’ at times, of emotion of one sort or another. And what do you mean, a woman?”

“A woman who occupies your thoughts and your longings,” Virginia said. “I have seen her in your memories.”

Lord Robert laughed a short, humorless laugh and said, “It’s just this sort of thing that makes the villagers hate you.”

“I know,” Virginia answered, and said nothing more. Lord Robert silently chided himself. He had let something slip through his fingers, he was sure of it. After a while he turned to apologize, feeling sincerely guilty for his words-but Virginia was asleep.

The laird did not sleep well that night.

*

Dusk had fallen when Nicolas and Maggie rode into the city of Pravik and wound their way through the narrow streets. The black waters of the Vltava River cut through a ravine in the center of the city, dividing level streets from those that rose up the sides of a high plateau, crowned by the dark aspect of Pravik Castle. Fifteen bridges spanned the river, their lamps glinting off the water far below. The dark shapes of mountains and foothills stood sentinel beyond the city.

The streets were still and empty, and the step of the horses beat hollowly on the cobblestones. The air was uneasy; it whispered in Nicolas’s ears and twitched in the horses’ tails. Maggie leaned over and stroked Nancy’s neck just before they stepped onto the Guardian Bridge, a silent archway lined with white marble statues.

Nicolas pointed up the steep hill on the other side of the bridge, to the place high on the plateau where torchlight glistened and the milling silhouettes of a body of people could just be made out.

“That’s Pravik Castle,” he said. “Looks like something’s happening up there.”

Maggie squinted into the darkness at the shadowy bulk of the castle. Nancy stamped nervously, and Nicolas said, “Let’s go see. Come on!”

Maggie followed Nicolas onto the bridge, where the strange white figures held out their hands in silent pleas. The lamplight on the bridge flickered off the statues’ empty eyes and lit the sides of the ravine, carved deep and narrow by centuries of water. Halfway across the bridge, the sounds of unrest from the crowd around the castle began to mingle with the rushing spray of the river. Nicolas spurred his horse on faster.

They rode up the streets until they reached the edge of the crowd. There were hundreds of men gathered around the gates of the castle: merchants and university students, chimney sweeps and lamplighters. They carried weapons, such as they had. On the other side of the gates, half-hidden by the shadows, stood row after row of High Police, the ends of their spears shining in the torchlight. Their swords, long and sharp, rested in black scabbards. The soldiers were as silent and unmoving as the statues on the bridge, but their eyes glistened with threats.

A young man, tall and darkly handsome, had mounted a wagon, where he shouted in a strong voice. The crowd around him had quieted, and only their muttered agreements betrayed how strongly his words struck their hearts.

“The Overlord has no right to deny us a voice!” the young man said. “The Governing Council speaks for us, the people… how can they if they will not hear us? Let the Overlord know that we will not leave these gates until they are opened to us, and we are given the right to speak!”

An old man in the crowd shouted something back at the young man, who answered with an imploring look at those around him. “We cannot allow the Overlord to take more from us. Already he bleeds us dry! In our schools, our universities, he denies us the right to know what is true. I know! I am a student, and every day I must sit and listen only to those things which the Overlord-indeed, even the Emperor himself-deems necessary for me to know! And you, the workers and merchants who are the lifeblood of this city! The taxes taken from you snatch the very food from your children’s mouths. Now they will take those same children from you. The Man Tax is an evil that ought to have been strangled the day it was born. Instead it has taken your sons from your hearths and sent them to become wolves.”

He gestured to the silent rows of soldiers who watched and listened from the other side of the gate. “The High Police! What are they but slaves, taken from our numbers before they knew enough to know what was worth fighting for? My brother was taken from my parents when he was thirteen years old-as you have all lost brothers, and sons, to their ranks. And now they will lower the age of the tax, and we will lose our children when they have scarcely learned to walk and talk! Seven years old! That is what the Emperor has decreed. That is what our Overlord bows to without protest. We shall not allow it! We are here to protest, and our cries will rise above Pravik until they reach the throne of Athrom itself! All we ask is a voice in the council tonight. Stand strong, and be heard!”

The young man jumped down from the wagon, and Maggie found that she could still see his head above the crowd. He strode up to the gates and shook them until the iron rattled deafeningly.

“Tell me!” he demanded of the soldiers. “What does the Overlord say? Will he listen now? When will the gates open to us?”

In answer there was only silence, only the glaring malice of the High Police.

Nicolas leaned over and whispered, “Some of those soldiers could be looking their own fathers in the face now, and it wouldn’t make a difference to them. The Empire has trained away every shred of family loyalty and love that ever existed under those uniforms. That’s why the Man Tax is so hated.”

Maggie looked back at the glinting spears behind the gates and shivered. “It is the same in Bryllan,” she said. “Only our boys are taken much older, when they are nearly men. Why so young here?”

“Because the Eastern Lands have always been breeding grounds for revolutionaries,” Nicolas told her. “Gypsies wander here, and they taunt all men with a vision of freedom-even if it is a tattered, starving, outcast freedom. And there are others who work to keep revolution alive. In the universities. The Eastern Lands are a threat to the Empire and they always have been.”

The young man leaped back onto his wagon and continued to speak, but Maggie was engrossed in the faces of the crowd, and his words were lost on her ears. The men in the crowd showed faces filled with fear and anger; some lined with age and some smooth with youth; fathers who longed for their sons and boys who wished for their brothers. Many in the crowd were young, clean-shaven men who bore the good clothes and uncalloused hands of university students, and they, who had perhaps suffered least, seemed most determined to bring change. Maggie noticed a few men who wore homespun clothing and carried pitchforks and homemade spears-farmers, these, with rough hands and weathered faces. They seemed out of place, awkward though not fearful, and they kept silence and watched the others.

The crowd fell quickly silent as a man approached from the inside of the gates and ceremoniously unlocked them. He stepped out into the street and surveyed the crowd with a look of high disdain.

“The Overlord of the Eastern Lands, his lordship Antonin Zarras, wishes me to inform you that you will not tonight, nor ever, be admitted inside of these gates.” His announcement was greeted with an angry murmur from the crowd.

“And if we refuse to leave,” the young leader answered, jumping down from the wagon again so that he stood looking down into the eyes of the official, “then his lordship the Overlord will not be admitted outside of these gates.” There was a cheer of encouragement, and the young man wrestled his way in between the slightly open gates. “We have a right to be heard!” he shouted, even as he allowed the man to shove him back outside and clang the gates tightly shut.

“Give us our voice!” a big man shouted at the retreating back of the official, and his call was taken up by the crowd. “Give us our voice! Give us our voice!” The chant became a deafening chorus.

Once again the gates were opened. This time an old man and a young woman were escorted through. High Police stood silently beside and behind them, and the old man held up his hands for silence. Amazingly, the crowd began to calm.

“Professor Huss,” one of the university students called. “Tell us what is happening in the council!”

Maggie snapped her attention to the old man at the sound of his name. Jarin Huss. He was old and tall and rail-thin, and he wore long red and brown robes. A thin grey beard twisted its way nearly to his waist. The respect he commanded was obvious; his quavering voice quieted the mob. The woman who stood beside him was young, but there was a deep gravity in her face that made her look much older. She wore a long, regal blue dress with gold trim, and her long, light brown hair fell past her waist in graceful curls. She bowed her head respectfully to the crowd, and Maggie saw heads bowing in response as recognition lit in many eyes.

“My friends,” Professor Huss said, “the Overlord will not admit you to the council. You know this. We have done all we can, but the council will not be moved on your behalf tonight.”

“Is there nothing you can do?” an old man cried, and Nicolas flinched at the sound of the heartbreak in his voice.

“Not tonight,” Professor Huss answered. “I am sorry.”

“We will not leave.” It was the deep voice of the big man, who stood with his brawny arms crossed over his chest. “We have a right to speak.”

“Speak, then!” Huss said in frustration. “I cannot force the council to listen. My friends, go home. Sleep in your own beds tonight. We will do all we can for you and your children; yes, even tonight, we will continue to fight the battle of words for you. But I implore you, do not stay here. I do not know what will happen if you do.”

“You are only one man,” said a young man, a university student with a nervous face. “Professor, you have already tried to sway the council. I do not mean to offend, but… well, have you not failed?”

There was a long quiet as Professor Huss bowed his head, and the woman put out her hand and touched his arm comfortingly. It was she who answered, her voice tense.

“We have not failed until we are dead,” she said. “Do not give the Overlord an excuse to move against you. Spill blood tonight, and that is failure. Go home, my people. There is nothing else to be done.”

Maggie found herself searching out the young man who had so galvanized the crowd with his words. She found him easily. He was standing near the gate, listening with his head half-bowed. As she watched, the young man lifted his head and met the