The Blue Star

by Fletcher Pratt

“At Drog, below the pass that leads through the Ragged Mountains to Rushaca, there is an inn. Some eight days gone there came to it a carriage, bearing one of the ladies of the court, oh, a beautiful lady, all dressed as though for a ball. She came from the north, from Zenss, where the court is, and as the road leads to Tritulacca ultimately, her actions roused some suspicion in the mind of the innkeeper. He is a true patriot, and thought she might be carrying wealth away out of the country in violation of the decree against it; watched her, and noticed that she was very careful of a certain casket. The innkeeper thereupon summoned people’s guards, who seized the casket and broke it open. They found no money, but they found—this.”

Mathurin drew from his papers one that seemed to be of parchment, and waved it aloft, so that all could see that it bore at its foot a huge blue seal, star-shaped, the sign-manual of the chancery of the realm. There were sharp intakes of breath and stirring among the chairs; the Episcopal who had been fanning himself stopped. The sturdy man who had described himself as the Marquis of Palm stared aloft with his mouth open and a frown on his face.

“Shall I read it to you? No, not word for word, for it is written in Tritulaccan, and with the stupid, decorative court phrases that try to hide real meaning.” (Rodvard thought: he has more orator’s tricks than I ever would have imagined.)

Pause. “Here it is, then: a missive, signed with the name of Count Cleudi, himself a Tritulaccan by birth, to Perisso, Lord Regent of Tritulacca, but bearing as proof of genuineness, the seal of our Gracious Majesty, the Queen. The substance of it is that while without doubt the rebellion of her cousin Pavinius, aided though he is by the Mayerns, will soon be put down, the war is likely to be long and wasteful. Her gracious majesty therefore consents to the proposal of the Lord Perisso, made in the name of true religion and the old friendship between the two houses, that he shall join the army of Dossola with not less than sixteen shars; and in return for this, it is graciously conceded that Tritulacca has a just claim to the city and province of Sedad Mir. And some of these Tritulaccan shars shall pass to the war by way of Netznegon city, to suppress certain disorders there. The rats! There is no dealing with such people!”

“Shame!” shouted someone almost before he had finished, and now all over the hall men were on their feet and shouting, but among other cries there was one of “Forgery!” Mathurin seemed to be waiting for that moment. “Forgery!” he cried, his voice going up almost to the cracking-point. “If you think it is forgery, look at it yourself,” and threw the paper outward, as one might the caught hunted animal to the dogs. “Will you call it forgery when I tell you also that the whole Tritulaccan fleet has been placed on war standard? The nation is betrayed!”

Now the tumult seemed completely out of hand, men moving from place to place confusedly or trying to say something (and in every eye Rodvard could catch there was nothing but mere fury, which expressed itself in a color of maroon). Mathurin looked out on the scene, making no effort at control; but from the first row there rose a tall old man with white hair and a face set in a habitual expression of benevolence, who raised high his white staff of office, by which Rodvard recognized him as the Arch-Episcopal, Teurapis Groadon.

Eyes caught the staff; voice after voice was abstracted from the uproar until only a few still tried to speak, then two, then none. The Arch-Episcopal waited until there was a silence broken only by a cough; Mathurin pressed Rodvard’s shoulder to read the eyes, but the old man only cast one swift glance at the dais before turning to address the assembly.

“Ser writer,” he said, “and you, lords and estates of the realm, this is not a pleasant thing that we have heard. There may be some question of the authenticity of this message, or it may have been written merely to deceive; a document from the hand of the heretic Pavinius, who would make himself the equal of God. Yet I will not deny that we must behave as though it were true; for if we do nothing, and it proves to be so, it will be too late. And for myself I fear it is true; for it is given to the spiritual estate to discern the machinations of the powers of evil. There is before us, then the question of how, joying in the protection of God, we can circumvent the machinations of the Enemy, who has made man and women naturally good, into instruments of evil.

“Let us therefore prayerfully address ourselves to the question of how the realm may escape this trouble. In an emergency equal to this, in the reign of King Cloar with Queen Berdette the First, the assembly of the realm set aside their rule in favor of their daughter, with her husband, the great King Crontinianus, of glorious memory. But now there are no heirs female, and of heirs male, only Prince Pavinius. Thus we seem faced with the hard choice of accepting him, and so selling the soul to preserve the body, or of adhering to the Queen’s will and saving the soul through bodily submission to Tritulacca. But I do not think God demands of us such submission, for our God is a God of joy.

“We are here met in the high assembly of the realm, which I hold to represent what of the power material has failed to protect its own; and the power spiritual is fully represented. Therefore, though such a step has no basis in law or custom, I say let us set up a regency in the time of a living Queen. It should have members of lords and estates to show forth the source of its authority; and since the true enemy is that power of evil which has led our good Queen astray, I humbly offer to preside.”