The Last Moments of James Callahan
Over the North Sea
How strange, she thought, after a decade of waiting to find herself impatient on a half-hour helicopter trip. Ten years of exile in Chrinthania among the loudly ignorant and boorish surfers; ten years of dodging assassins sent by the Committee on the Common Welfare; ten years of grieving her dead brother and nephew, knowing the fate of her family would rest with her.
Next to the queen sat Phillip Clayburgh, recently reconfirmed in his title as the Marquess of Westergate. He was not the trustworthy sort, Jessica knew, and she was not sure if his rat-like eyes presupposed her inference or if her knowledge of his twisting career through the revolution shaped her view of his physical features. He sat more like the commoner he had been during the days of the gull than like the noble he was supposed to be and gawked out the window as they approached St. Adie’s Island.
Jessica shot a quick glance at her son James, hoping he would not be foolish enough to copy Westergate and act as a common tourist, but she need not have worried. Her eleven-year-old son sat upright in his seat, staring at the empty chair across from him. He was undersized, she thought, probably as a result of their less-than-royal diet in Chrinthania. A few weeks with a proper cook back at Jameston would strengthen him.
The capital had cheered for her when she arrived, as Westergate had promised they would. There hadn’t been a hint of the Gull Flag, not even one peak at red. Instead, St. Adie’s cross–the green saltire on a white field–flew from every pole in the city. She had not wanted to make a public appearance, mindful of what had happened to her nephew in a similarly naive fit of good will, but Westergate insisted there was no danger and, after five minutes of waving, Jessica had even started to enjoy it.
Then it had been straight to work. Confirm the Duke of Dorchet as her Prime Minister. He was no great intellect but the little Wyclyver with the oversized tophat had been with them throughout their exile. Authorize the expenditures for her official coronation. Send out the invitations to world leaders: the heretical little Walmies and Arcans, without whose underhanded Protestant tricks she might not now sit her throne; the arrogant and aloof European republics; the loud-mouthed Chrinthani, who certainly would follow no protocol but their own; the shifty traders from Karaya Kamot; the opportunistic and imperiled Victoria and Salvador; the decadent Kimunda and the frustrating Japanese. At least she could forgo invitations to the godless communists of Spyr and Beth Gellert. And nobody would even know where to send one for the Drapoel. Finally, she had to sign the execution orders for several batches of recalcitrant Gull terrorists and Ranaltist usurpers, may God have mercy on their souls.
“There’s the castle!” Westergate couldn’t contain himself.
James started to turn but a sharp look from his mother froze him in his seat. He had not seen the holy island before, having lived all but his earliest days in exile, but Jessica had drilled into him the necessities of royal decorum. Besides, despite Westergate’s unmanly excitement, St. Adie’s Island was nothing worth a second glance. A small, dreary, windswept rock on an unforgiving sea with a small, dreary monastery, whatever its history, overlooked by a small, dreary castle that was more folly than fortification.
Her stomach lurched as the helicopter descended and Jessica worried a brief moment of discomfiture may have passed her face. A quick glance showed the idiot Westergate still mesmerized by a small flock of monasterial sheep and her son looking at the empty headrest over her shoulder. As the blades slowed, white-coated Grenadiers ran to open the doors. Westergate disembarked first, smiling and waving to the official press documenting her arrival. Young James went next, hands clasped behind his back, face stoic, the perfect vision of an heir to the throne.
Then it was her time. At last.
The Queen arrives at St. Adie’s Island
St. Adie’s Castle
Alice had been a girl the last time she was here, so she supposed her memory might be tainted by nostalgia, but she remembered St. Adie’s as a cheerful place, where her older brother had claimed his crown, then chased her around the golden light in the Honey Room, tickling her when she fell. Those days had been, she realized, more than twenty years in the past. Now James was dead, hanged from a gallows in Gull Flag Square, and his son murdered on an airport tarmac, and all because her brother–so loving and caring to his own blood–could not see that things must change.
She rounded a corner into the grand dining hall. It had seemed so much bigger in her recollection, but here was a table with enough seats for twenty dignitaries–far short of the hundreds that might be accommodated at Jameston and hardly enough for the great event Alice knew her sister desired. Or perhaps that is why Jessica wanted to celebrate the return of the Callahans here at St. Adie’s: the limited space would force a limited guest list and, by exclusivity, return some of the mystique the crown had lost in a decade of revolution.
“Oh, your Highness. Please excuse us. We were not expecting anyone yet.”
Alice had interrupted the work of the castle’s caretakers. The old woman now bowing to her–had she been here in those halcyon days before the Gulls? Alice thought she looked familiar. Did this woman serve General Ranalte when he had thrown his great parties on the island, looking to claim some of St. Adie’s legitimacy for himself?
“Please, don’t allow me to interrupt your work. My sister will be here soon.” And you know what a bitch she can be. The bustle returned and Alice made her way through the dining room, doing her best to stay out of the way. She paused at the end of the room, looking back to confirm her first glance, and indeed – one half of the table was set with eggshell colored china, the other half white. None of it was terribly high quality. The woman who had first noticed her came up and scraped her head in a bow.
“Oh, please, your Highness, we sent to Jameston for new dishware a week ago, when we heard about her Majesty returning, but nothing has arrived. Citizen Madders took everything away. We had to make due with what the local gentry had saved away.”
“Surely General Ranalte left something behind?” Alice was delighted by the mismatched settings, mostly in the knowledge that it would drive her sister wild.
“Well, he did.” An older man pulled a credenza door open and produced a gorgeous china plate. “We didn’t think it would be wise to use them.”
Alice had only barely contained her laughter, but when she saw the plate it pealed out of her in long, unlady-like bursts. The staff stood around shocked, until the man at the credenza began to chuckle as well. He sat the plate, featuring Ranalte’s stern face gazing out from under a red beret and flanked by two gulls, on the table.
“No, that won’t do,” said Alice once she recovered. “Give it here. If my sister says anything, she is to be reassured this issue was my doing, and I did it to play a trick on her. She’ll believe it. And I know with such splendid help, everything else will go right for the dinner.”
As the staff busied themselves, Alice tucked the plate with General Ranalte’s face under her arm and made for the Honey Room. There in the warm golden light was the Duke of Evanpass, his eyepatch only managing to give him more roguish charm.
“I knew you’d come here eventually.” He waggled the brow above his missing eye. “God knows you never shut up about it.”
“There’s magic here.” Alice twirled through the furniture, waving her arms to kick up trails of particles which flared in the honey glow.
Evanpass lumbered to his feet, favoring the left by propping himself against a chair back.
“I’d never been invited. Your brother didn’t think highly of me.”
Alice waltzed to an inaudible tune closer to him, the plate still grasped in her left hand.
“Neither does my sister. In fact, neither do I.” She took him by the front of his white coat and pulled him into a kiss. They lingered long over the embrace until Alice’s free hand explored too far past propriety and Evanpass pulled back.
“I’d love to, darling, but your sister will be landing any minute now and it wouldn’t take much to send me to the gallows again.”
“And, if I’m lucky, it’ll take this time.” Alice took Evanpass’s hand and dragged him from the room.
“What are you carrying?”
Alice tucked the plate closer to herself and laughed. “A gift for Jessica.”
Pardens, Weshield
The rain was really coming down now, lashing at the windows and rattling them in their sills. Behind the desk of one of the city’s smallest police stations, a sergeant rubbed his hands together and held them above a space heater. He didn’t envy the suckers out on patrol right now, that’s for sure, but he had been lucky to have an uncle (by marriage, but close enough) who had been cagey enough about his politics to be placed in charge of the local police.
On the television, a blue-and-white royal helicopter was circling over a field of golden grass. The sound was turned off, but the subtitles flashing across the screen conveyed the reporter’s almost fevered excitement about the return of the Callahans.
The sergeant wasn’t a political man. He’d stayed out of the way of the Gulls, bad lot they seemed, and kept his neck at its proper length. Then he’d voted for President Ranalte whenever someone with a gun had told him it was time to vote for President Ranalte. Being drafted and serving two hot, miserable years on campaign against the Rumbiak Brigade in Victoria and Salvador had soured him as a potential Ranaltist. Now the Callahans were back and he felt like he’d hardly had time to miss them. At least this regime had a more cozy job than his last one.
The door pushed open and stayed open. The sergeant turned to yell at the fool to close it up, but then he noticed the fool was familiar. Old Harold Falt, a farmer from the village where the sergeant had grown up, some way off in the middle of nowhere. Falt had been a local muck-a-muck before the Revolution, the local squire, and the sergeant was surprised (though not disappointed) to see he’d made it through without being hanged.
Falt was holding the door open for a thin figure on crutches, who limped through the door at a glacial pace. At first the sergeant took the figure for a girl, as they had long brown hair past their shoulders and a long, delicate chin, but as they came closer he second guessed himself. They were dressed in a black-zippered jumper and blue jeans, both soaked through. The young person must have been fifteen or sixteen years old, but–and of course he checked–the sergeant didn’t see any chest development.
“What’s all this, then?” The sergeant leaned forward over his desk. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Falt.”
“And we’ve a while longer to go.” The effort of speaking sent Falt into a coughing fit. “I need you to call your uncle.”
“A pig’s chance.” The sergeant didn’t want to do anything to upset this plum gig. “Unless you’ve got Sam Longdale there, I wouldn’t lift a finger.”
“Better than Longdale.” Falt turned to the teenager. “Go on, then. Like we practiced.”
The teen nodded but didn’t make eye contact with the sergeant.
“My name is John Callahan, the son of James Callahan.” They paused for a moment. “I require transportation so I can take up my rightful throne.”
On television, two white-coated Grenadiers pulled the doors to the helicopter open. A man in a tophat disembarked, waving to the cameras.
“Go on, then,” laughed the sergeant. “What are you playing at, Falt? Everyone knows the Boy King was killed years ago, wasn’t he?”
“Show him, then.”
The teenager leaned hard on one crutch and reached into their jumper. Out came a golden, jewel-encrusted four pointed star against a circle, attached to a long, green, diamond-studded ribbon emblazoned with the crest of Shadoran. The sergeant gasped. He knew what this was. Everyone on the Shield knew. Ranalte had been furious when he discovered the Directory of Justice had not recovered it.
“The last gift my father gave me,” the teenager said. “The Star of the Sovereign and Grand Master of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Adie.”
“Good work, John.” Falt turned to the gaping sergeant. “So maybe you can call that uncle of yours, what?”
His Majesty, High King John III of the Grand Empire of the Shield (?)
