RABBLE-ROUSING
This story came from a week of #WIPSnips prompts, which I decided to make into a short story on a whim. Enjoy!
The rebellion lives and dies on its stomach.
Go too long without capturing important centres of production – the farms, the slaughterhouses, the markets – and your insurgents would starve. But overreach, stretch yourself too thin, and they would be wound up by the military with ease.
This I surely knew when I approached the river market, whose Overseer had cause to sooner turf me out than hear my plea. There was a man who listened only to the clink of the coins, the whisper of gold crossing his palm! And who was I, who could provide none and promise less, to cross his threshold?
The Overseer was a pale man who spent all day shut up in his tent, at the boundary between the docks and the market. He counted the coins that passed across his threshold: on the one side to pay out; on the other to keep as profit. His lackwit announced me and I bowed low as I entered, heedless of his pale eyes that saw little, and his ever-moving hands that felt everything that passed by him.
The Overseer laughed when he heard my plan.
‘Rebel!’ he cried. ‘Against the Beneficent Empire? When they pay me to sit here all day and count the cost, raise the profit, earn my bounty?’
‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘You could join with them. Benefit from the heroic rebellion. Be seen as an ambassador of the people, a community leader on whom they can rely.’
‘And what would be the benefit of that?’ the Overseer asked, grey eyes twinkling. I shrugged.
‘Well you’d get to keep your head.’
That caught his attention. He scowled at me, his fingers pausing ever so briefly in their task of shuffling the gold.
‘You come here to barb me with idle threats?’ he hissed. ‘I could have you killed for that!’
‘You could, but you won’t.’ I sat cross-legged on the floor. ‘It does you no benefit to kill me at this point. Not until you’ve heard me out, anyway.’
‘There’s more?’ the Overseer asked, exasperated already. I rolled my eyes.
‘Of course there’s more!’ I sighed, and waited until I had calmed down before I explained.
‘You see (I said), the rebels need supplies. They are lacking in strong arms and stout shields, and food in general. That’s why they’re rebelling. Your point on the river, as it meets a toll bridge and borders the docks, is the perfect place for them to muster and resupply.’
The Overseer’s lips curled up in an avaricious smile.
‘You mean…?’ he let the question hang, and I nodded as I finished the thought.
‘-you could sell them weapons and armour at a premium.’ I grinned. He grinned back. His hands flickered greedily over the piles, gold glinting as it shifted.
‘But not,’ I continued, ‘the food. That, I think, would go too far.’ His smile faltered.
‘If they are in such need, I can charge what they like!’ he cried. I held up a placating hand.
‘Only until they decide you’re more trouble alive than dead,’ I warned. ‘Remember, they do not obey your emperor; they will happily kill you if you provide to stubborn an obstacle.’
‘Hrrm… fine!’ the Overseer snapped. ‘I’ll give them a discount on the food. But they pay triple for the swords!’
‘I think that will be equitable,’ I said, saying nothing of how much they would pay for spears or shields or bows and arrows. That conversation could come later.
Butcher’s Row was my next stop, a long line of streets in front of the slaughterhouses. It was here that, after the throats had been cut and the hide flensed from the flesh, or the necks wrung and feathers plucked for pillow and down, the corpora were turned over to those who trade in cuts. Here the butchers clove shoulder from leg and rib from back, separated the wing from the body with practised ease, and even saved the tongue and tripe for those as could only afford the mealiest pies.
Here was the reign of the Cutter, who had steel knives aplenty and a great red face, and who saw most of his work turn towards the seat of the emperor, whose courts feasted on veal and lamb and venison, and fowls of all sort and stripe. But the Cutter had no notion of that; only of the coin that graced his palm.
The Cutter considered my words carefully as I laid out my petition.
‘You want us to take up arms against the emperor?’ he asked. ‘March north with all the spears and swords of the rebellion and attack the very heart of the empire?’ He glanced down at the fat coin pouch at his belt.
‘I simply ask that you practise your trade against a more deserving meat,’ I said. ‘The emperor has grown fat off your trade for many years; but what little profit you see is squandered to afford the merest basics of food and shelter! Why not show him, personally, just how much your work is worth?’
The Cutter considered this; and, in all, he took far less convincing than the Overseer.
‘I’ll talk it over with the lads tonight,’ he said. ‘No promises, mind!’ But there was a look in his eye that was as good as any word.
My last stop on this road was farther north, but it seems the Beneficent Empire was one step ahead of me on this one. As I continued down my path, someone stepped out of an alley behind me and caught me smack on the back of my head. As I collapsed in the street, I saw the golden crest of the emperor himself beneath the shadowy cloak…
When I awoke, the emperor awaited me. He was old and wizened and he smiled benevolently as I lifted my head ever so gently, until I was seated.
‘So,’ said the emperor. ‘Tell me of this rebellion that approaches!’
I looked around; I was flanked on all sides by black-clad guards, their spears pointed resolutely at my chest. I shrugged and began to regale him.
‘Your worship,’ I said. ‘This rebellion is inevitable. You have a starving populace, a people who produce all for you, but see no benefit. Your Beneficent Empire is anything but.’
‘Ah, but it benefits me!’ the emperor cried. ‘Surely that is the most beneficent an empire can be!’
‘To whit does it benefit you,’ I asked, ‘that your farmers must sell all their crop and still not have enough to eat? How do you benefit when your markets are corrupt, their overseers stealing all the profit for themselves while the sellers see nothing? And to what benefit of yours is it, that the butchers send all their meat to your palace, and see scant few coins in return, hardly even enough to keep a roof over their heads?’
‘To my benefit!’ the emperor cried again. ‘I get the meat from the butchers, and keep much coin! I get the coin the overseers steal in the form of tax and bribes! And I get the grain from the farmers and pay barely a penny to them per ton! This Beneficent Empire is to my benefit, from all!’
‘You march to your fate with a smile,’ I said ruefully. ‘Even your guards must see; the rebellion hearkens to your door. Ten thousand starving farmers, bellies filled with food from the market, armed with swords from the same, flanked by butchers who will test their well-honed knives on your own flesh… surely even your guards can figure the arithmetic on that score.’
The emperor continued with that self-same smile. But only for a few minutes, before the captain of the guard drew up his spear, and ordered his men to do the same. The emperor was unseated that very same hour, and executed that afternoon.
As I left the palace, I reflected that there had been no need for a rebellion at all; not when one person can sow the rumour among those closest to the emperor, and trick them into turning on him without the starving masses needing to lift a finger.
All the better for it. Those farmers really were too hungry to rebel properly!