Haydn of Mars (2 page)

At the podium he rambled on, his words booming through the Hall of Assembly.
 
Built in the ancient days of solid sandstone, with arching support beams of the now-rare junto tree gleaming a deep rich red as they met overhead in a domed cap of the polished bronze ten-pointed star of the Assembly of Mars, the very sight of the Assembly Hall still took my breath away; the fact that now the Hall stood half empty, with the presumed fleeing of many of its elected members, filled my heart with shame and anger.

Hadrian's basso boomed past the allotted time.
  
I rose to speak as was my right – and yet I was ignored.

I stood taller, and finally Frane, her figure resplendent in bright red robes, her short mane coifed to perfection, uncurled herself from her seat and stood.
 
She held up a long-fingered paw, nails enameled a gaudy crimson, and Hadrian immediately stopped, in mid-sentence.

“The chair will recognize Haydn of Argyre,” Frane purred theatrically.
 
But before I could speak she added, “In good time.”

“By the laws of assembly I demand to speak now,” I replied, keeping my anger under control.

“The laws of assembly have been...suspended,” Frane answered.
 
“You should have arrived for the pre-assembly meeting, Haydn.”

“I was not told.”

“Pity.”

Frane curled herself back into her chair – which, I noted, had been newly adorned with rubies and deeply blue sapphires set in star-shaped gold settings, making it more throne than Assembly Speaker chair.

Frane retracted her nails and waved a paw at Hadrian.
 
“Continue.”

After a moment, seeing no point in continuing to stand, I regained my seat.

“And so,” Hadrian droned on in his deep voice, “the degenerate J'arn race, as well as the rotted branches of its descendent tree, the “K'fry, the Yern, the L'aag, the Sarn, and the other minor twigs of this infested, useless wood, should, in my opinion, be banished from the lands of the superior race, the only race, the pure race of the F'rar.
 
For as we now know, the F'rar, and only the F'rar, are the Mother and Father of all that is good on Mars, all that is pure, and sane...”

I listened to this swill for another twenty minutes, and then, finally, I had had my fill of it.

Uncurling into a standing position, as tall as possible, I pointed a straight finger at Frane and shouted over the basso monotony of Hadrian, “This is an outrage!”

Hadrian, startled from his own monotony, was instantly quiet, and there was silence in the cavernous Hall of Assembly.
 
Even Frane merely narrowed her eyes.

“I demand to speak!”

Hadrian, beginning to sputter, gathered at his notes and looked to Frane for guidance.
 
Without taking her eyes from me she said to the fat boor, “You may finish later, good Hadrian.
 
Let Haydn speak.”

She waved a languid paw at the podium, and I made my way quickly to it, passing Hadrian on all fours as he passed me, his pile of notes spilling from the pocket of his vest where they had been hastily shoved.
 
There were some titters of amusement from the gathered assembly, but a sharp look from Frane quieted the hall.

I stood at the podium and clutched it with both paws.
 
I knew how angry I looked, but there was nothing to be done.

“This entire proceeding is contemptible!” I began.
 
I heard my words echo and fade into the back of the hall; to my further anger I watched as one row after another of the assembled members rose to leave.

“
Sit down and listen to me!”
I shouted, and some of them stood in place to regard me; there were former colleagues in their number – friends, even – but after a moment they turned to slink away into the back of the hall.

“It seems you are losing your audience,” Frane purred.
 
She could not keep the amusement out of her voice.

“Then I'll direct my comments to you.”

“Fine,” she said.

“What you have done – what you are doing – will not succeed.”

“Dear Haydn, it already has.”

Fat Hadrian disappeared through a rear bronze door, letting it close behind him with a clang.
 
The Hall of Assembly was empty now.

“You cannot hold all of the people in your hand.”

A moment passed, as Frane locked eyes with me.
 
I saw a score of emotions in her gaze, among them triumph, as well as a trace of something lost long ago between us.

The moment passed, and she clutched her paw closed, and leaned forward with abrupt energy.
 
“In my
fist
,” she said.
 
“Fear will hold them here.
 
And terror will keep them here.”
 
She leaned closer, nearly uncurling from her throne, slowly opening her fist until her flat long red claws were protruded toward me.
 
“I would be afraid if I were you, Haydn.
 
I would feel
terror
.”

“What do you–?”

At that moment Jamie, my page, appeared behind me, face blank with fear.
 
He put a paw on my arm.

“They want me to take you.”

“Where?”

“I would go home, if I were you,” Frane said, and I turned to confront her.

My voice was a whisper.
 
“What have you done?”

“
Terror
,” Frane answered, her eyes slitted and bright with hatred.

Jamie was clutching my arm.
 
“Come now, Haydn, before she has you murdered here and now!”

“
What have you done?
” I screamed, letting Jamie pull me back a step. “War would be madness!”

“There will be no war,” Frane said, curling herself into a more comfortable position on her throne.
 
I saw that its seat had been brocaded in deep blue, with threaded pictures of ancient cats, wearing the crest of the family of F'rar.
 
As she stretched up momentarily, before settling down into a more comfortable position, I saw that her own figure was brocaded in gold in the center of the seat.

She closed her eyes, feigning sleep, and a smile came to her face.
 
“There will be no war.”

I thought suddenly of the many empty seats in the Assembly, how few of the other tribal representatives had made their way to the Hall that morning, how the few who were not F'rar looked ill at ease, afraid, even.

Outside the Hall, there came a suddenly horrid screech, a scream of agony that as abruptly ceased; then there came another.

“Go home,” Frane whispered languidly.
 
“The republic is dissolved.
 
I am Queen.”

“The only reason you aren't dead is that Frane wants you to see what she has done, because of your father.
 
Because of...you.
 
But she will have you killed later.
 
Parterine and Colin are already dead.”

“Kaylan...” I said.

Jamie would not look me in the eye.
 
“I tried to tell you about our movement months ago, but you wouldn't listen.
 
Now it is your only chance to survive.”

“Frane doesn't know about you.”

“If she knew, I would be dead.
 
We would all be dead.”

“I must go to Kaylan.”

“You must not go home, Haydn.”

“No one will prevent me.”

I looked at this youngster, this boy I had known from his birth, this page I had taken for granted for so many years, in a new way.

“You knew of all this,” I said.
 
Around us, the streets were swept clean of citizens, the tall buildings of Wells shut against the daylight.
 
The sun overhead was a small bronze coin in a high pink sky.
 
The day was as still as death.
 
I thought briefly of the crowds I had seen around the outside of the Hall of Assembly, the red-shirted thugs surrounding one or two citizens, some of whom I knew – the flash of curled daggers against the light of that bronze coin, the screams as Jamie hurried me past, not letting me stop to help.

After a moment Jamie answered.
 
“Yes, I knew of most of it.
 
All of our group did.
 
But we did not know that today would be the day.
 
And we did not know that Frane would act so...decisively.”

“That's a well chosen word, Jamie.”

If you murder your foe, there can be no war.

He smiled briefly, perhaps at my bitterness.
 
I followed him through a narrow alley between two tall sandstone buildings; as we emerged into a square I heard a far-off howl of pain.
 
I turned, my instinct to help, but Jamie took me by the arm and begged me to move on.

“We must take back ways,” he explained; “there are redshirts who no doubt would consider it a badge of honor to kill you, no matter what Frane's orders.”

We continued in this fashion, making our way through Wells by less-traveled corridors.
 
There was not a soul to be seen on the streets.
 
As we passed through the bazaar section, the widest avenue of Wells, closed always to all but foot traffic, I was struck dumb by the silence, the abandoned or unopened stalls, their canvas covers flapping in the wind.
 
Pink dust swirled in empty streets where thousands of citizens would normally be jostling one another at this time of day; the sound of laughter and the happy cries of children had been replaced by eerie, dry silence.
 
I paused to look behind us; there, in the distance, at the end of the avenue, stood the old Imperial Tower, the seat of government when Mars had been ruled by monarch instead of legislature.
 
It was a magnificent structure still, it's slender, sand-colored columns topped by spired towers, its central bulk, darker in color, rising even above these to a massive bell tower whose four-sided clock face, white as polar snow, dominated the entire city.
 
As I watched, the hour struck, sending a hollow, deathly-deep
bong
over the empty seat of power.
 
Higher yet above that clock tower sat the old Imperial throne room, gilded in gold and bronze.
 
I had no doubt that at this moment Frane was ascending the ancient stairs to take her place on the most magnificent of thrones.
 
I had curled up in that throne once, when I was yet a kitten, placed there by my father.
 
I could almost see the last king, the first true republican of Mars, looking down at me grimly, a strange light in his eyes, his lips pulled back in what I thought was a smile, though his voice held no humor.

“Take pleasure in the feeling, young Haydn,” he had said to me, snatching me from the throne even as I became comfortable, and setting me on the floor, “and pray that you, or anyone else, never feels it again.
 
It is the mark of death–”

Barely two months after that day, my father lay dead in a pool of his own blood, victim of an assassin's dagger...

Jamie's fingers were curled around my arm, hurrying me on.

“We must go--”

“Kaylan–” I said again.

“I beg you once more not to go home,” Jamie answered.
 
“There is a safe house waiting, and transportation out of Wells.”

“As I said, I will go home first.”

Something hardened in his eyes.
 
“Very well.”

Overhead an airship passed, its sleek ovoid shape, painted blood red, slicing the sky.
 
Something small and black dropped from it as it floated over the city, and a moment later there was a flash of light brighter than daylight, followed by a thudding boom that I felt in my chest.
  
This was followed by a rising mushroom of gray-white smoke.

“That was the Hall of Assembly,” Jamie said, in shocked awe.

My gaze drifted back to the clock tower, the throne room above it. “She won't need the Hall, now that she is Queen.”

“She is not the true Queen.”

I ignored his comment.

We moved quickly.
 
My thoughts were only of my husband now.
 
We reached the city's outskirts, and then suddenly left Wells behind.
 
I glanced back to see the lazy black smoke of new fires dotting the pink city behind us.
 
I turned away.
 
I had walked this road a thousand times, which led to the highlands above Wells; its cobblestones were well known to my steps.
 
But now the climb was a long one.

“A final time I beg you–” Jamie began, as we topped the rise that led to the scattering of homes overlooking the far plain of Noachis Terra.
 
It was one of the most beautiful of all places on this part of Mars to live, and my steps became faster when my home, wide and serene, magnificent among the few homes up here, rose into view.