Page 72 of The King's Man 3

“It has the royal seal. Anyone looking upon it will know its validity. Those magistrates are as good as exiled from this town, and you and your men are rightfully instated as the governing members.”

“We have authority?”

“And a quarterly budget to manage. Alongside fair wages.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll defy you?”

“If I ever fail my people, I expect you to defy me.”

Bastion rocks back. He gestures and his men roll their whips to their belts. Then he rests a foot on the upturned stool and leans forward against his knee. To the king, he says, “After all the meritorious deeds I do for you, you’ll want to reward me.” He glances pointedly at me and bestows a wolfish grin upon Quin. “I’ll ask for him.”

On the evening of the ninth day of isolation, thirteen days from the sealing of the gates, the townspeople gather in anticipation of freedom. Bastion and his men are in the midst of it all, and Quin... I don’t see him. Haven’t seen him all evening. I hover at the edges, watching people raise their lanterns and dance. Listening to their songs, that carry for miles on the wind.

I return to the magistrate’s office and retreat to a rickety table in the courtyard. I bring out my grandfather’s books, some ink, and with the light from my lantern, write my notes on spare pages.

I startle at the call of my name and spy Olyn—wearing skirts, hair plaited over one shoulder in the fashion of unmarried females. She sets her pretty lantern on the table and falls onto the bench next to me, peering at my scrawls. “The whole town is celebrating, and you’re still at work?”

“It suddenly occurred to me, while standing amongst their songs.”

She looks at me.

“Songs carry messages, warnings,” I continue, tapping the paper with the feathered end of my quill. “They carry lessons from the past.”

She reads the ink I’ve spindled and laughs. “This the start of a song?”

“I’ll leave that to more talented people. It’s an evaluation of what happened here, what we would’ve done differently, how we can do better next time. It’ll also be a thought experiment, on what could have gone wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if things had worsened? What if the spread couldn’t be contained? If the disease had altered? Spread in other, more alarming ways?”

Olyn’s lips curl in a grimace, and she frowns. “Whatcouldbe done if it was worse?”

I flip the pages of my grandfather’s work and push them over to her to read. She scans the lines, flips the pages, scans more. Her eyes widen. She swallows and lowers her voice. “These types of books are banned.”

“Looking past that, what do you think?”

“I... I’m not sure. The ideas sound frightening. Like you’d get sicker from them. Even if they were allowed, I don’t think anyone would trust them.”

“This is its biggest disadvantage.”

“Not its biggest.”

I raise a brow. She pushes the book aside, grabs a handful of pebbles from the ground and steals a flower head from a nearby plant. She scatters the pebbles over the surface, then plucks off the five petals from the flower. She counts, and grabs another handful of pebbles.

“That’s its biggest disadvantage.” She points to the petals. “This is a rough ratio of vitalians to commoners. Even if...” She grabs another three flowers and scatters their petals betweenthe pebbles. “Even if all those with magic, including par-lineas,couldwield such spells, and assuming people would accept the spell... in the case of an outbreak on the scale we would be talking about, barely a quarter of the kingdom could receive the spell in time.” She looks at me. “Do you see? It’s impractical. It becomes useless.”

I stare at the pebbles in their masses on the table before me, the scant number of petals to reach them. This is the problem even without an outbreak. Too many people are without access to vitalians. They can only,maybe, get simplex spells from par-lineas. Mostly, they have people like Olyn, learning tricks from travelling healers from neighbouring kingdoms. Or figuring things out on their own, poisoning themselves if they get it wrong.

I pick up a petal and pinch it tightly between my fingers.

“Future husband! There you are.” Bastion waltzes across the courtyard holding up two jugs of wine. He leans between Olyn and me, sets them in spaces between pebbles, and climbs onto the bench between us with a slick grin. “Where’s the fun in your last night?”

He glances at Olyn and jumps an inch. His hand descends toward her chest. “Where’ve you been hiding those—”

She slaps his hand away with a roll of her eyes. “You never change, Bastion.”

“Why would I? I get everything I want.” He smirks at me, at her. “You know what else I want? You for my wife.” He slings an arm around my neck, and then hers. “A husbandanda wife. Life would be perfect.” In my ear, “I’d have a lot of fun with you.” Turning to Olyn, “And you could carry all my babies.”

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