until they had reworked the entire world in their own republican image.
There was a constant flow of news from across the border. Noble families were being disenfranchised or forced to swear allegiance to that hellish parliament of murderers. Every common man of Denland considered himself a king now. They had abandoned all their trades and labour, and were clamouring for more blood and more rebellion. They were joining the army, or else being drafted. Reports were contradictory, frightening, impossible, save that it was all happening just over the border.
And then everyone knew, almost on the same day, that the Denlanders were coming. Their Parliament, having cast off the God-given guidance of kings, knew that its artificial and tenuous rule could not last so long as Lascanne continued to hold out the example of a benevolent monarchy. For this new, cruel Denland to survive, they must shutter the lanterns of monarchy among their neighbours, lest that light show them the blood on their own hands. So said the papers.
Lascanne’s only possible response was to meet them at the broken ground of the border, and throw them back.
And then there had been the day when the army marched through. Emily remembered it well: all those gallant men in their red coats heading north for the border, to meet the rabble of the Denlanders. Who could not have believed that a few clashes would have finished it? Lascanne’s army had never been large, but they were brave, and they had right on their side. Emily could see even now the gleaming helms, the long column of cavalry, horses as proud as the men themselves. She could see the great dark lengths of the cannon, the marching pride of Lascanne’s infantry. Some had been local men, whose families had cheered and waved. Others had simply been youthful and courageous and smiling, and young girls had put garlands around them and embraced them. Alice – Emily’s younger sister and a constant trial to propriety – had even kissed one.
Emily had remonstrated with her, but not too hard. It was all patriotism, after all. So she had watched, along with her sisters Alice and Mary – and Mary already growing large with child then. She had watched with Mary’s husband Tubal, and with young Rodric who had talked so excitedly about one day himself taking the Gold and the Red: the King’s coin and the King’s uniform.
And that gallant host had marched away and gone north to win the war. And the papers had reported their brave deeds, the battles and the heroics. They had carried the war deep into Denland, during those early months, and everyone had assumed that would be it. When the wounded came home – when the increasing numbers of wounded came home – they were still predicting it would be over by the end of the year.
And the year came and went, and the papers grew less specific regarding precisely where the fight had been taken to, and the wounded grew more numerous, until there were new hospitals being built to take them – in isolated places where people wouldn’t have to see. And the following spring the recruiting sergeants were passing from town to town, talking of the joys of a life in the army, and how the war was almost won anyway. They had gone amongst the men of Chalcaster and everywhere else. They had commissions to sell for those with money, and honest soldiers’ uniforms for those without. They were not short of volunteers in those early days, and again the family had turned out to cheer, waving a flag or two for the lads who were bold enough to carry a gun in service of the King.
Mary had borne her child by then, and she had held little Francis to her breast as they cheered heartily away, secure in the knowledge that none of their family was going.
But soon enough after that had come a proclamation. It seemed that the patriotic goodwill evidenced in Chalcaster could not have been shared across the nation because, despite the best efforts of the recruiting sergeants, the tally had come up short. The King was deeply sorry to ask more from his beleaguered people, but the war had reached a critical stage. They could not give the world over to the murderers of Denland simply for want of a few more muskets. Regretfully, the King’s writ therefore demanded each household give up one of its menfolk to swell the ranks of