Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)
Liz Braswell
To Elizabeth (the) Schaefer, who started off the series as
one of my editors, and continues on as a good friend.
This book is for everyone who helps protect
Ariel’s ocean—which includes you, whenever you
eat sustainable seafood and skip the straw!
—L.B.
In the foothills of the Ibrian Mountains…
Cahe Vehswo was in the field repairing a wooden fence. It was less to keep the wolves out than to keep the stupid sheep in, where the only slightly smarter child-shepherds could watch them.
It was a beautiful day, almost sparkling. The pines weren’t yet brittle from late summer heat and the deciduous trees were in full glory, their dark green leaves crackling in the wind. The mountains were dressed in midseason blooms and tinkly little waterfalls. The clouds in the sky were ridiculously puffy.
The only off note in nature’s symphony was a strange stink when the wind came up from the southern lowlands: burning animal fat, or garbage, or rot.
Everyone in the hamlet was out doing chores in such forgiving weather; rebuilding grapevine trellises, chopping wood, cleaning out the cheese barrels. No one was quarreling—yet—and life on their remote hillside seemed good.
Then Cahe saw something unlikely coming up the old road, the King’s Road. It was a phalanx of soldiers, marching in a surprisingly solid and orderly fashion considering how far they were from whatever capital they had come. With their plumes, their buttons that shone like tiny golden suns, and their surprisingly clean jackets, there was almost a parade-like air around them. If not for their grim, haughty looks and the strange flag they flew.
An order was cried; the men stopped. The captain, resplendent in a bright blue cap and jacket, rode up to Cahe along with his one other mounted soldier, who carried their flag.
“Peasant,” he called out—somewhat rudely, Cahe thought. “Is this the township of Serria?”
“No,” the farmer started to say, then remembered long-forgotten rules for dealing with people who had shiny buttons, big hats—and guns. “Begging your pardon, sir, but that’s farther along, on the other side of Devil’s Pass. People call this Adam’s Rock.”
“No matter,” the captain said. “We claim this village and its surrounding lands in the name of Tirulia!”
He cried out the last bit, but the words bounced and drifted and faded into nothing against the giant mountains beyond, the dusty fields below, the occasional olive tree, the uninterested cow. Villagers stopped their work and drifted over to see what was going on.
“Begging your pardon again, sir,” Cahe said politely. “But we’re considered part of—and pay our taxes to—Alamber.”
“Whatever your situation was before, you are now citizens of Tirulia, and pay homage to Prince Eric and Princess Vanessa.”
“Well, I don’t know how the king of Alamber will take it.”
“That is no concern of yours,” the captain said frostily. “Soon the king of Alamber will just be a memory, and all Alamber a mere province in the great Tirulian empire.”
“You say Tirulia,” Cahe mused, leaning on the fence to make his statement sound casual. “We know it. We buy their salted cod and trade our cheese with them. Their girls like to wear aprons with braided ties. Perde, son of Javer, sought his fortune down south on a fishing ship and wound up marrying a local girl there.”
“Fascinating,” the captain said, removing one hand from his tight grip on the reins to fix his mustache. “And what is the point of all this?”
Cahe pointed at the banner that flapped in the breeze.
“That is not the flag of Tirulia.”
In place of the sun and sea and ship on a field of blue that was familiar even to these isolated people, there was a stark white background on which a black-tentacled octopus with no eyes gibbered menacingly. It looked almost alive, ready to grab whatever came too close.
“Princess Vanessa thought it was time to…update the sigil of house Tirulia,” the captain said, a little defensively. “We still represent Tirulia and the interests of Prince Eric, acting for his father, the king, and his mother, the queen.”
“I see.” Another villager started to speak up, but Cahe put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Well, what can we do, then? You have guns. We have them, too—to hunt with—but they are put away until the boars come down from the oak forests again. So…as long as the right tax man comes around and we don’t wind up paying twice, sure. We’re part of Tirulia now, as you say.”
The captain blinked. He narrowed his eyes at Cahe, expecting a trick. The farmer regarded him mildly back.
“You have chosen a wise course, peasant,” the captain finally said. “All hail Tirulia.”
The folk of Adam’s Rock murmured a ragtag and unenthusiastic response: all hail Tirulia.
“We shall be back through this way again after we subdue Serria. Prepare your finest quarters for us after our triumph over them and all of Alamber!”
And with that the captain shouted something unintelligible and militaristic and trotted off, the flag bearer quickly catching up.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Cahe shook his head wearily.
“Call a meeting,” he sighed. “Pass the word around…we need to gather the girls and send them off into the hills for mushroom gathering or whatever—for several weeks. All the military-aged boys should go into the wilds with the sheep. Or to hunt. Also, everyone should probably bury whatever gold or valuables they have someplace they won’t be found.”