Camille VII: The Malinoise

Now that Camille was rid of that bothersome Guardian, left behind to deal with her thuggish comrades, it was hard not to see this as a success even beyond her initial hopes.

Almost a hundred Malinoises were following her through the tunnels, each of them personally victimized by Avalon in the last hour due to the violent eviction of the tunnels that Perimont’s minions had enacted.

That last refuge of so many without warmth or shelter, a place of conviviality not designated for dwelling or labor, where people could get together for a brief instant and forget the bleak world above, all of it was now closed to them.

The fact that it was a vaguely foul-smelling hole in the ground made no difference now that it was behind them, only the story of lost greatness and the ends it could be turned to.

Walking through the lively impromptu shelters beneath the ground had served its primary purpose of keeping the Guardian’s at arm’s length, but those fools had gone and followed the backup plan as well, rousing the whole of to flee on penalty of imprisonment or death. They’d burned and blocked off the last possible home that remained to most of these people, however humble the habitation.

And to think, some of them would have friends, family, those outside, all of them now with more reason to be sympathetic to the plight of occupied Malin.

Arriving here had been a rude awakening in so many ways. Malin found new ways to fail to live up to Camille’s dreams and memories nearly every day: Fuite Gardens was overgrown to the point of anarchy, with several rare species dead from neglect alongside poor Pierrot who’d so loved attending to them; the castle where Mother had spoken strategy with King Romain, reduced to crumbling half-towers and stray stones on the ground; and the Temple of Levian, home, sinking into the sea it had been built to coexist with, to draw strength from, destined to be buried beneath the waves.

It was visible at the end of the tunnel now, Lunette’s moonlight glinting off the cracked blue stone at the top of the pyramids. The serpents heads that had once adorned them were missing entirely, rather than damaged. Probably stolen. Perhaps they were sitting in a Cambrian museum right now, a footnote to the greater defeat. Luce had mentioned that Colin Renart’s old lanterns on the New Bridge had been taken for such a purpose, leaving everyone to stumble blindly across it on moonless nights.

But the worst of it was that no one seemed to care. The few notable families whose reputation and resources survived the Foxtrap had only managed it by renouncing everything the city had once stood for. The Acolytes of Levian, mother’s followers, reduced to an instrument of political cover living off the largesse of a criminal, however noble their leader’s aims. Even the commoners, so many of whom would have lost parents and siblings in the Foxtrap, seemed numb to all but what they needed for survival, no room left to care about lost honor and traditions.

But those arrogant fools had given them a reason to care again, something they couldn’t ignore. Doubtless, similar actions would follow. It’s impossible to enact a coup without some kind of crackdown, all the more so in occupied territory. Curfews, edicts, prohibitions… Clearing the tunnels would only be the beginning.

And thanks to Luce and the vows I made, I have every permission to do my utmost to oppose it. After so many miserable months here, finally, everything was coming together.

Camille allowed herself the slightest smile as she held up her hand, signaling everyone to stop before the end of the tunnel. She turned back to face the crowd following her.

A few winter coats were scattered throughout, mostly the same wool garments from northern Avalon that Camille had spent so much time handing out, though one boy bore a down jacket fit for a man thrice his size, depleted and patched in several places. The rest were dressed for a Malin winter, a few layers of doublets and raincoats with the odd hat. Prepared as they might be for the rainy and the humid, no one here was properly equipped for the unbearable cold.

No one save myself.

Next to the Malinoises of Guerron that Camille had spent so many years attending to, arbitrating justice for, and plotting the homecoming of, these people were a puddle before an ocean. How could these scraggly poor even compare to Étienne Marcel, the king’s own groom of the vestments, or Sire Raoul de Montgallet, hallowed veteran of the Winter War? Lady Madeleine Lazare, the Mesnil brothers… The very comparison was unfair, when Mother had so carefully chosen who would join them in exile and who would be forced to remain.

But they have Lucien, and freedom, while these people have only me standing between them and Avalon’s oppressions.

“Avalon’s Guardians are no longer following,” Camille declared, to set them at ease. “For those of you who have homes to return to, places you can stay, I intend to lead a group through the tunnels anew, taking care to remain out of their sight.” A few nods responded to that, but not many, and one of the children looked visibly uncomfortable at the very thought. “As for the rest, beyond us lies the Great Temple of Levian, a monument of better days.

“I have stocked it with provisions ample enough to feed thrice your number, in anticipation of this day.” The freezing temperatures made preservation easy, at least. “For, though I had every hope to the contrary, some dark part within me knew that the day would come that Avalon broke its word. Prince Grimoire might have relaxed the worst of it, but he remains a foreigner, accountable to a system incapable of understanding.” A foreigner I need to see back in power before the end of this, lest my soul end up enslaved for eternity. “Perimont, Whitbey, Grimoire, all are limbs of the same giant stepping on us, holding us down, disrespecting our character and our glory.”

Some of the older ones looked alert and engaged, but mostly, they all seemed numb. Hard to blame them, with the last place they’d had to call home up in smoke.

“This is our home!” Camille shouted, the sound echoing off the tunnel walls. “Ours! And yet we are made to be foreigners in our own nation, serfs before a tyrant lord. We toil in their fields and factories while they grow fat off our labor, their armies bolstered with our strength, their very tools of destruction created off of our industriousness, their lies upon our lips lest we be punished. I appear before you today not as Lady Leclaire, not as the Spiritual Liaison, but a Malinoise. This city is my home, and I would sooner lose my soul than let it fall further into depravity without defending it!”

That got applause, at least. Finally.

“‘Cept it’s not really your home, is it?” a dark haired lad of about seventeen shouted from within the crowd.

“She just saved us, you ingrate!”

“Stop,” Camille said, cutting off the chatter before this could devolve any further. “Come here, you of the provocative question.”

“Guy,” he corrected, stepping towards the front, eyes still defiant. Of course your name is Guy. “You abandoned us. Ran away with your knights and your servants and left us all to rot. How can you say this is your city when you haven’t even lived here as long as I’ve been alive?”

Khali’s curse, an entire life of exile. Camille narrowed her eyes. It’s terribly rude to make someone feel that old. “I was seven, following my mother’s orders, though it pained me to do it. She did abandon you, and for that, I want to offer my apologies to each and every one of you. If I’d had the choice, I would have stayed to fight.”

“You have no idea what we’ve been through. You’ve never gone hungry, or felt the cold. From your first day to your last you’ve been coddled, offered the world and indignant that you cannot also possess the stars.”

I should see if he wants to work at my journal, turning a phrase like that. “Have you ever seen the inside of an Avaline prison, boy? I have, for months. Living off scraps of bread and water in a tiny box somehow bereft of light yet exposed to all the elements. All for daring to question oppression. Have you faced death?” Camille pushed the shoulder of her coat back, revealing her bare shoulder, the round scar from Aurelian’s bullet still visible.

A mark of failure, and vulnerability. It was painful just to acknowledge it, let alone show it to the teeming masses, but… The situation demanded it, and it was true besides. “I was punctured and discarded, slain by a superweapon of Avaline make. From there, my last remaining home was taken, burned and subsumed by the same sage of flame who betrayed us all and ushered in the darkness.”

She tugged her shirt and jacket back into place, smoothing out the resultant wrinkles. “I conquered death so that I might return and fight. I could not choose on the day of the Foxtrap, but I can today, as can we all. My Lucien lies over the water, longing for the day I can return to him, and yet I choose Malin. I returned to liberate you, and I won’t stop until I do.”

Next, Guy would probably object on the basis of practicality, arguing that all of it was still hopeless, futile. Camille had a rebuttal ready, emphasizing Avaline division and weakness, and the hidden strength of Malin. She’d given it a thousand times before when courting allies for reclamation, and while it rested more on emotion and rhetoric than fact, that had often been no obstacle. She readied herself to rebut, but the moment never came.

Her response seemed to satisfy the annoying boy. His eyes were still narrowed, no doubt skeptical that she could live up to her promise, but he didn’t raise another objection, and neither did anyone else.

You can’t forget that this is a different audience, with different expectations. Mother and Emile had both emphasized that, each in their own way.

“Now let us go!” she finished. “A most busy night awaits.”

≋

Busy indeed. Camille had needed to spend hours organizing everyone at the Great Temple, ensuring that they had warm fires and food while the bulk of the supplies remained hidden, and the smoke could vent out through underwater tunnels meant to deliver Levian his offerings so as not to give them all away. But of course those had been designed for largely symbolic purposes, and for small burnings of candles and incense rather than roaring fires.

That meant not only digging around in the walls with decades-old rusty pipes, but also constantly walking far enough back to assess the risk posed by the remaining smoke trailing into the dark sky. Eventually, it had seemed simpler to get the temple baths back up and running than to spot-check half a dozen different fires, but that in turn meant hours more work and more energy burned.

At least it worked.

The bells marking hours had ceased since the coup, so it was impossible to gauge exactly how much time had passed, but it certainly felt like days. Many of the Malinoises had slept and awoken several times, while Camille considered herself lucky to have stashed enough pixie powder to avoid falling over on her feet.

And that was before having to lead all the errant Malinoises home.

Those who’d merely been visiting the tunnels, who’d had other homes to return to, had melted away as they’d walked under the city, Camille directing each along the most efficient path to their respective quartier. Efficiency was vital for all who wished to avoid detainment and questioning, just as much as it was for her.

None of them knew this place like I do. Some of the old paths she’d favored had frozen over or flooded, but neither was an issue for her beyond a bit more power expended, and each obstacle overcome had the benefit of making pursuit less likely. A benefit to avoid Charlotte just as much as the others, really.

The expedition became a seemingly never-ending task as more gathered to join them at every entrance, most mercifully headed back to the Great Temple with the others, but so many more in need of a way home outside of the Guardian’s watchful eyes. Apparently Whitbey had instituted a curfew above, with any remaining on the streets after nightfall subject to detainment and then, presumably, torture.

Of course, that meant no one was allowed out at all. The entire city had ground to a halt while the coupists consolidated their control, nothing allowed to resume until it was indisputable and complete. The deliveries of firewood had ceased, operations into the forest suspended. No one was allowed in or out of the Governor’s mansion. Even the journals had replaced the entirety of their content with an elegant engraving of a swan intended for a fluff article on migratory patterns, blown up to fill the page.

Scott came through, it seems.

Such actions made a certain amount of sense, of course. For all their reckless butchery, they weren’t entirely stupid, at least not all of them. It was certainly in their interest to behave this way, seizing the means of legitimacy through force of arms, but fortunately it also made them predictable.

Already, it was working against them. At every juncture, there had been long overdue words of appreciation and thanks, hanging sweetly in the air.

“When King Romain ruled, we never had to deal with nothing like this,” an old man had said under the exit to the old merchant quartier, his ears grey with frostbite. “The whole city’s been going to shit for twenty years, and it’s about time we got things back to the way they’re supposed to be.” He’d given her an encouraging nod before going on his way.

“Way I hear it, you was part of the reason the Governor got himself buried,” a middle aged woman had said, then winked. “Keep up the good work.”

“Levian’s blessing to you, Lady Leclaire,” a few others had said, which was perhaps the most encouraging of all.

Beyond mere words, some of the children had gone so far as to offer gifts, from a green ribbon to a glass marble to a woven doll of straw. Somehow, a boy no older than twelve had managed to scratch Camille’s likeness into paper with charcoal merely in the time they’d been walking. One audacious little girl had even slipped her a handful of psyben root along with a scrap of paper advertising her services when her father’s eyes were turned away.

Camille had accepted every one. Regardless of their lack of utility, each represented appreciation. Gratitude. Belief in me, and free Malin.

At last.

You were right, uncle. Adoration cannot be assumed, it must be earned. Camille spared a moment of worry for him, caught in the middle of complicated and vicious politics in a city occupied by spirits. He’d been trained as an Acolyte and the brother of the High Priestess, but his latest fights were decades behind him. His duties since the Foxtrap had largely been caretaking, rather than martial.

And yet, returning from his disappearance proved that he was a survivor. He’d escaped Camille’s and Lucien’s downfalls in the wake of the duel and bided his time, choosing the moment to return when he was needed most. Even if it didn’t suit his nature, he would acquit himself as he had to, no matter the cost.

As must I, Camille thought, turning back to the man before her.

“It’s inevitable that word will get out, and then the coupists will have no recourse but to march on the Temple. What do you think they’ll do to the people inside?”

Pierre Cadoudal, current leader of the Acolytes, kindhearted provider for the misfortuned, and part-time puppet in service to Jacques Clochaîne’s business interests, met Camille’s eyes evenly. “Yes, that is a very dangerous situation which you have contrived. And now you want me to send everyone sheltered here to your tinderbox, expel them from safety that they might find danger?”

“Danger will find them no matter what. The only reason you haven’t gotten a knock on your door yet is that they know to go through Clochaîne first.”

He frowned at that, but didn’t dispute it. “I have, as it happens. Captain Whitbey himself appeared before me and demanded a list of every soul taking shelter within my halls. Lady Perimont needed to be sure that no subversive elements were taking advantage of my kindness, that’s how he put it.”

“And you refused?”

He rubbed darkened eyes, clearly not well-rested himself. “I told him it would take a day to prepare. We don’t question those who enter, for all are welcome.”

“Stalling,” Camille summarized. “I’m guessing you went to Clochaîne for help, and he didn’t even bother respond. Too busy, no doubt.”

“He sent a message,” Cadoudal hissed through grit teeth. “Until all of this finishes shaking out, none of us are to make any waves. Or any enemies.”

Even better. “If I were in your position, and didn’t want some fraction of those in my care hauled away for ‘subversiveness’, I would probably be pretty grateful to find that a colleague had prepared an alternative site with warmth and supplies.”

“It’s taking a stand, which endangers everyone else.”

“What is the alternative? The death of a thousand cuts? Whitbey will not spare you unless you follow his every whim. Before long you’ll be writing lists of everyone who enters your temple and passing them along to the forresters. At that point you may as well die, for all the good you’d be doing them.” She gestured back to the main hall, where malinoises continued to shelter around Pierre’s fire. “You do not trust me, not fully, and I cannot blame you for that. So instead—” She flicked over the marble she’d been given over to the Acolyte, who caught it with one hand. “—I want you to supervise it. Whatever you think of me, I trust you to have the people’s interests foremost in mind. Lead your ward to the Great Temple, and take charge of all who have gathered there. Draw on my supplies, tend to their needs, ensure that order is maintained, and—should the worst come to pass—let a signal blaze high into the sky, and I will return to aid you.”

Pierre bit his lip, weighing the decision. For the first time, he truly looks like an Acolyte of Levian.

“I’ve framed this as a choice, but for a man such as you, it really isn’t. If you refuse me now, then soon Whitbey will return, and you will be asked to commit a betrayal to those under your protection, one I know you are not capable of. Then you’ll need to make a stand just the same, in this indefensible place, with no power behind you. Then you’ll be able to help no one.”

“Very well,” he said, managing to make it sound like a curse. “I’ll begin gathering everyone. There are sick who cannot be safely moved through the cold, but I shall—”

“I leave the details to you.” Camille patted him on the shoulder. “And thank you.”