If the general rhetoric that dominated social clubs and public spaces favored by the Nationalists was any indication, the people of Caelia suddenly expected King Hylas to be a paragon of virtue, descended from a legacy of the same. Syliva's allegations were treated as much more startling than they should have been, and became a talking point anytime she was criticized by the Nationalists' opposition. When people pointed out that she had stolen most of the kingdom's wealth and murdered thousands of people when she arrived two thousand years ago, her supporters would simply ask, "What about Flaedin's betrayal?" or "what about" any number of scandals that were entirely unrelated to Syliva's faults. Pragmatic voices like Vaerla's were generally ignored.
The Vulpine Post ensured the information about Hylas's family spread everywhere while glossing over Syliva’s own involvement in all of it. Broad Beard Press picked up and ‘reported’ on every ridiculous rumor that got started on the city streets, claiming that Hylas's family had been involved in things like sex trafficking, and had a secret police force silencing any whistle blowers (except Syliva, obviously, who was too powerful to be silenced by the king’s "henchmen"). Both heralds most persistently advanced the idea that King Hylas was in the pocket of the Gnoman Empire, even printing letters to the editor that suggested Hylas was actually born in the Gnoman Empire, with the Broad Beard’s writers going so far as to claim that Hylas was a Gnoman himself, somehow passing as a human. One contributor even claimed he wasn’t passing that convincingly – the king simply used forced perspective and custom made furniture to appear larger when in public.
Despite the absurdity of some of the claims, the xenophobic and anti-intellectual Nationalists turned against Syliva's final target. First they had haraseed the students and faculty at the university, then the ethnic minorities within the city, followed by the upper middle and upper class residents of Kingstown. Now, finally, they turned on the government itself. A massive crowd was gathered outside the king’s manor, while just up the road, on the walls of the castle, Syliva conferred with her favorite minion, Baryd.
"Although your supporters only constitute a portion of the Nationalist Party, I’ve back-channeled with many of the movers-and-shakers among the Nationalists as you asked me to, and convinced them that they should be concerned about maintaining group cohesion, and that they should start supporting you lest they be usurped by your followers.”
“And that’s working? I have enough followers for them to take me seriously now?”
"Well," Baryd pressed his hands together, pleased with himself, “thanks to yours truly and the support of your heralds, I think we pretty thoroughly convinced everyone opposed to your supporters that they are in the minority at this point.”
“Really?” Syliva looked to What’s-her-name for confirmation.
“It’s true, ma’am. We polled in the streets yesterday asking people their leanings, and people’s actual leanings are very different from how they estimate their neighbor’s political leanings. Across the board, people overestimate the prevalence of extreme Nationalists in the city by twelve percent or more. We think it's reasonable to assume the disparity is much greater outside the city.”
“Your supporters are very vocal,” Baryd said, “They’re very good at making themselves appear more numerous than they are, and The Vulpine Post is very good at inflating those numbers further.”
“Oh, that must be demoralizing…” Syliva smiled.
“Without The Kingston Herald around to provide any resistance to the idea, it might even be enough to effectively silence your opponents,” Baryd said, “At least for a while. Having the support of the people might be less important right now than having the people believe you have their support."
"Still, if I'd wanted a cult-following, I would have started a cult. I need enough supporters to overthrow a centuries old monarchy. I can't do that with support from... what? Three percent of the people?"
"It's a process. The Nationalist leaders in the House of Lords will say nice things about you to hang onto your followers, and that persuades other Nationalists to… you know, not hate you. The final challenge is transforming that absence of antipathy into genuine support for what you plan to do. We'll need to broaden your appeal beyond the extreme hard-liners among the Nationalists. The hard-liners want to see the whole system torn down, which works well enough for you, but most Nationalists are more moderate. They don't want the monarchy destroyed, they just want Caelia’s king replaced with someone outside of the royal line,” Baryd explained, "We just need to convince them that you are that person, and that if some people have to die, it's just a matter of omelettes and eggs."
“Persuading your 'moderates' to support that seems like a considerable challenge,” Syliva said skeptically. Regime changes among the soft-skinned primates were often effected the same way they were among sabretooth prides, terror bird murders, or firecat hives. The ruler was struck down, and all of his or her potential heirs - be they cubs, hatchlings, pups, or children - were put to death. Syliva's impression from talking to What's-her-name was that most of the kingdom's people lacked the ruthlessness for that.
“Oh, it's always easier to convince a moderate person to suffer extremism, than to convince an extremist to accept moderacy. Few people hold a moderate position on anything because they've weighed the options and found the middle of the road the best choice; most just lack the spine to take a side, and those people will ultimately follow the herd whichever direction it shifts."
"If that's true, it seems that madam would be currying favor with a fickle base."
Syliva was surprised that What's-her-name had interrupted Baryd, but she did agree with her, "I need more than passive spectators who will drift with the wind, Mikhail. At least for the time being. Once I've secured ownership of the King's lands, it will matter little, but to do that, I need support."
Baryd defended his plan, "It may not be possible to persuade the moderate Nationalists to support a coup before the fact, but I guarantee you they will support it afterwards."
"How?"
"Ever heard the phrase, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'?" Baryd asked, "People like to be consistent. It gives themselves a sense of internal coherency. A person needs to feel like they have principles, drives, and believe that they follow those drives, or else their identity unravels. Conflict between attitudes and actions become insufferable, and people will do whatever they have to to resolve that sort of dissonance."
"Mikhail, I remain unclear about the answer to my problem, and find my time - my very, valuable time - slipping away as you speak.
"Commitment and consistency," Baryd explained, "Right now the weak voices among the Nationalists are allowing the more extreme members to do as they please. The Broad Beard's latest initiative has been reinforcing the idea that silence is support. We're telling the extremists, the hard-liners that the silence of the majority of their party represents their endorsement, encouraging them to keep at it, while convincing those who've been silent that, if they haven't been willing to stand up and speak out against the rest of their fellows by now, then they must be all for it. The Broad Beard came up with a catchphrase, ‘Fresh blood on the throne, one way or another.’"
Syliva chuckled; Baryd’s approach to marketing was delightfully morbid. "Amusing, but how does that help?" she asked.
"Our repeated use of that phrase has been preparing people for the grimmest possible outcome. When it all, inevitably, comes to that point, most people won't be able to say they didn't know what they were in for, and they'll have to support it after the fact to be consistent with their silent commitment before."
"This is more of your bardic magic, isn't it?"
"Actually, it's called psychology..." Baryd said.
"Same thing: hocus pocus," Syliva said. She swung her massive head around to look at What's-her-name, "How close are we to finishing this? How many people would be upset if the king died?"
What's-her-name shifted uncomfortably, as if she didn't want to answer the question. Syliva glared at her until the woman started talking, “Well, the truth is... King Hylas doesn’t have many supporters anymore, ma’am. While the people of Kingstown are clearly divided on the issue, they have little impact on the House of Lords so, as you've said before, they don't really matter. The dwarven cities continue to be relatively uninterested in most of the kingdom's political matters. And many of the Lords and representatives from the countryside have swung vocally against King Hylas. As you know, the primary opposition to the Nationalists was coming from the Monarchists, Caelians devoutly loyal to the crown, but among the politically active public, most of those who initially opposed the Nationalists, have now withdrawn their support for King Hylas.”
“So the monarchists no longer support their monarch?” Syliva smiled.
“No ma’am. Based on your testimony before the House of Lords, the leaders of the Monarchists have formally disavowed King Hylas’s legitimacy.”
“I assume they're unlikely to shift their support to me, though?”
“No ma'am. They want to restore the rightful bloodline to the throne," the small woman explained, "to find a descendant of Caelus IV to replace Hylas.”
“Well, that doesn’t help me much, does it?”
“The important part is they won’t be supporting Hylas,” Baryd said, "They may not be putting a knife in your hands, but they certainly aren't tying them any longer."
"But," What's-her-name said, "There are still the Neo-Monarchists to be concerned with.”
“Neo…?" Syliva looked irritated, "Where are these groups coming from?!”
Baryd waved a hand as if it was nothing to be concerned with, “They’ve all been around a long time; they just didn’t start giving themselves names until we made the Nationalists into a legitimate political party. Now they think they’re all legitimate.”
“Well what do these 'Neo-Monarchists' want?”
“Your death, ma'am,” What's-her-name said bluntly.
“A lot of people want that,” Syliva said, “That’s hardly a basis for a group identity, is it?”
“Well, they formally want you dead as a matter of policy," Baryd said, "Like the Nationalists they want to replace Hylas with someone from outside the bloodline, but they’re looking for a spiritual successor to Caelus IV – and basically, whoever kills you gets the job.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Syliva commented with slight aggravation.
“You can’t argue that they don’t have high expectations, though,” Baryd said.
Syliva glared at Baryd’s irreverence, and what’s-her-name tried to ease the tension, “If they want someone like Caelus IV, it should be someone that madam has killed, shouldn’t it? Maybe they should get a necromancer to dig up a spiritual successor, right?”
Syliva looked at the small woman with an oddly unsettled glance.
“Well, I mean not really... obviously," the woman stammered nervously, "I was just joking. But I mean, you killed Caelus, not the other way around. Getting killed by you is his legacy, so someone who’s really like him in the ways that count should be dead." The woman laughed nervously, trying to explain the points of her convoluted attempt at humor, "I mean… satirically... right?”
Baryd ignored the woman's anxious babbling and eyed Syliva's reaction suspiciously, “You did kill Caelus IV, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Your tongue flicked across your left nostril when she mentioned it,” Baryd said, “It’s one of your tells.”
“Tells?” Syliva said, “I don’t have tells.”
Baryd looked slightly annoyed by his employer’s uncooperativeness, “I mean ‘tell’ in the sense that it’s… it’s a little thing you do whenever you want to subtly invite someone to ask you more about yourself.”
Syliva tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at Baryd's weak attempt at diplomacy, “If that’s the best you’ve got I’m working you too hard, Mikhail.”
“Oh come on!” Baryd smiled, “I know there’s a story here you want to tell! Maybe we can use it somehow!”
“I don’t see how you possibly could,” Syliva examined her claws.
“You hired me to see opportunities where you don’t – at least tell me.”
Syliva glared at What’s-her-name, “Do I need to spend five minutes threatening you or do you understand the consequences of indiscretion?”
“No ma’am, I understand. I won’t say a word.”
“Very well. The truth is that I did kill Caelus IV. And as far as I know he is still dead.”
“There’s a margin of error there?” Baryd was honestly surprised, “I assumed you… ate him.”
“When Caelus and his knights confronted me in my castle I killed them all. Eleven men and two women, all killed inside the castle. I didn’t eat them, because I thought the corpses might somehow make for a nice display at some point. I mean, it didn’t work out. Most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition anyway, and by the time I found a taxidermist willing to assemble and preserve the pieces of the knights that I dismembered, they were long past saving. I had to settle for having their armors mounted for display. Well, that and a nice ivory necklace I had made for myself.”
“But?”
“But I curled up and went to sleep, as one does after killing a dozen or so of you people, and when I woke up, one of the corpses was missing.”
“Missing? As in it just walked off while you were asleep?”
“I don’t know Baryd. I was asleep.”
“Was it Caelus’s corpse?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t really tell them apart before I ripped them apart and lit them on fire, and it was certainly more difficult afterwards.”
“So…" Baryd struggled to process this new insight into Caelian history, "Are you saying there’s a one in thirteen chance that Caelus IV is wandering the depths of the castle as a member of the vengeful undead?”
Syliva shrugged, “I thought I’d killed him once before in an earlier battle, but somehow he popped up again. That was likely just an oversight on my part, and the missing corpse is likely of no consequence at all. I do roll around in my sleep sometimes, so it’s entirely possible the missing body is just smeared under part of the treasure hoard.”
“Well I imagine there would have been a smell if you’d just lost the body…”
“There are always smells,” Syliva said, “It’s not as if I’ve ever had the throne room fumigated.”
“I could arrange that ma’am…” What’s-her-name said hopefully.
Syliva glared at her, “I like it the way it is.”
“Right, well, let’s not run that as a story right now,” Baryd nodded.
The Vulpine Post ensured the information about Hylas's family spread everywhere while glossing over Syliva’s own involvement in all of it. Broad Beard Press picked up and ‘reported’ on every ridiculous rumor that got started on the city streets, claiming that Hylas's family had been involved in things like sex trafficking, and had a secret police force silencing any whistle blowers (except Syliva, obviously, who was too powerful to be silenced by the king’s "henchmen"). Both heralds most persistently advanced the idea that King Hylas was in the pocket of the Gnoman Empire, even printing letters to the editor that suggested Hylas was actually born in the Gnoman Empire, with the Broad Beard’s writers going so far as to claim that Hylas was a Gnoman himself, somehow passing as a human. One contributor even claimed he wasn’t passing that convincingly – the king simply used forced perspective and custom made furniture to appear larger when in public.
Despite the absurdity of some of the claims, the xenophobic and anti-intellectual Nationalists turned against Syliva's final target. First they had haraseed the students and faculty at the university, then the ethnic minorities within the city, followed by the upper middle and upper class residents of Kingstown. Now, finally, they turned on the government itself. A massive crowd was gathered outside the king’s manor, while just up the road, on the walls of the castle, Syliva conferred with her favorite minion, Baryd.
"Although your supporters only constitute a portion of the Nationalist Party, I’ve back-channeled with many of the movers-and-shakers among the Nationalists as you asked me to, and convinced them that they should be concerned about maintaining group cohesion, and that they should start supporting you lest they be usurped by your followers.”
“And that’s working? I have enough followers for them to take me seriously now?”
"Well," Baryd pressed his hands together, pleased with himself, “thanks to yours truly and the support of your heralds, I think we pretty thoroughly convinced everyone opposed to your supporters that they are in the minority at this point.”
“Really?” Syliva looked to What’s-her-name for confirmation.
“It’s true, ma’am. We polled in the streets yesterday asking people their leanings, and people’s actual leanings are very different from how they estimate their neighbor’s political leanings. Across the board, people overestimate the prevalence of extreme Nationalists in the city by twelve percent or more. We think it's reasonable to assume the disparity is much greater outside the city.”
“Your supporters are very vocal,” Baryd said, “They’re very good at making themselves appear more numerous than they are, and The Vulpine Post is very good at inflating those numbers further.”
“Oh, that must be demoralizing…” Syliva smiled.
“Without The Kingston Herald around to provide any resistance to the idea, it might even be enough to effectively silence your opponents,” Baryd said, “At least for a while. Having the support of the people might be less important right now than having the people believe you have their support."
"Still, if I'd wanted a cult-following, I would have started a cult. I need enough supporters to overthrow a centuries old monarchy. I can't do that with support from... what? Three percent of the people?"
"It's a process. The Nationalist leaders in the House of Lords will say nice things about you to hang onto your followers, and that persuades other Nationalists to… you know, not hate you. The final challenge is transforming that absence of antipathy into genuine support for what you plan to do. We'll need to broaden your appeal beyond the extreme hard-liners among the Nationalists. The hard-liners want to see the whole system torn down, which works well enough for you, but most Nationalists are more moderate. They don't want the monarchy destroyed, they just want Caelia’s king replaced with someone outside of the royal line,” Baryd explained, "We just need to convince them that you are that person, and that if some people have to die, it's just a matter of omelettes and eggs."
“Persuading your 'moderates' to support that seems like a considerable challenge,” Syliva said skeptically. Regime changes among the soft-skinned primates were often effected the same way they were among sabretooth prides, terror bird murders, or firecat hives. The ruler was struck down, and all of his or her potential heirs - be they cubs, hatchlings, pups, or children - were put to death. Syliva's impression from talking to What's-her-name was that most of the kingdom's people lacked the ruthlessness for that.
“Oh, it's always easier to convince a moderate person to suffer extremism, than to convince an extremist to accept moderacy. Few people hold a moderate position on anything because they've weighed the options and found the middle of the road the best choice; most just lack the spine to take a side, and those people will ultimately follow the herd whichever direction it shifts."
"If that's true, it seems that madam would be currying favor with a fickle base."
Syliva was surprised that What's-her-name had interrupted Baryd, but she did agree with her, "I need more than passive spectators who will drift with the wind, Mikhail. At least for the time being. Once I've secured ownership of the King's lands, it will matter little, but to do that, I need support."
Baryd defended his plan, "It may not be possible to persuade the moderate Nationalists to support a coup before the fact, but I guarantee you they will support it afterwards."
"How?"
"Ever heard the phrase, 'in for a penny, in for a pound'?" Baryd asked, "People like to be consistent. It gives themselves a sense of internal coherency. A person needs to feel like they have principles, drives, and believe that they follow those drives, or else their identity unravels. Conflict between attitudes and actions become insufferable, and people will do whatever they have to to resolve that sort of dissonance."
"Mikhail, I remain unclear about the answer to my problem, and find my time - my very, valuable time - slipping away as you speak.
"Commitment and consistency," Baryd explained, "Right now the weak voices among the Nationalists are allowing the more extreme members to do as they please. The Broad Beard's latest initiative has been reinforcing the idea that silence is support. We're telling the extremists, the hard-liners that the silence of the majority of their party represents their endorsement, encouraging them to keep at it, while convincing those who've been silent that, if they haven't been willing to stand up and speak out against the rest of their fellows by now, then they must be all for it. The Broad Beard came up with a catchphrase, ‘Fresh blood on the throne, one way or another.’"
Syliva chuckled; Baryd’s approach to marketing was delightfully morbid. "Amusing, but how does that help?" she asked.
"Our repeated use of that phrase has been preparing people for the grimmest possible outcome. When it all, inevitably, comes to that point, most people won't be able to say they didn't know what they were in for, and they'll have to support it after the fact to be consistent with their silent commitment before."
"This is more of your bardic magic, isn't it?"
"Actually, it's called psychology..." Baryd said.
"Same thing: hocus pocus," Syliva said. She swung her massive head around to look at What's-her-name, "How close are we to finishing this? How many people would be upset if the king died?"
What's-her-name shifted uncomfortably, as if she didn't want to answer the question. Syliva glared at her until the woman started talking, “Well, the truth is... King Hylas doesn’t have many supporters anymore, ma’am. While the people of Kingstown are clearly divided on the issue, they have little impact on the House of Lords so, as you've said before, they don't really matter. The dwarven cities continue to be relatively uninterested in most of the kingdom's political matters. And many of the Lords and representatives from the countryside have swung vocally against King Hylas. As you know, the primary opposition to the Nationalists was coming from the Monarchists, Caelians devoutly loyal to the crown, but among the politically active public, most of those who initially opposed the Nationalists, have now withdrawn their support for King Hylas.”
“So the monarchists no longer support their monarch?” Syliva smiled.
“No ma’am. Based on your testimony before the House of Lords, the leaders of the Monarchists have formally disavowed King Hylas’s legitimacy.”
“I assume they're unlikely to shift their support to me, though?”
“No ma'am. They want to restore the rightful bloodline to the throne," the small woman explained, "to find a descendant of Caelus IV to replace Hylas.”
“Well, that doesn’t help me much, does it?”
“The important part is they won’t be supporting Hylas,” Baryd said, "They may not be putting a knife in your hands, but they certainly aren't tying them any longer."
"But," What's-her-name said, "There are still the Neo-Monarchists to be concerned with.”
“Neo…?" Syliva looked irritated, "Where are these groups coming from?!”
Baryd waved a hand as if it was nothing to be concerned with, “They’ve all been around a long time; they just didn’t start giving themselves names until we made the Nationalists into a legitimate political party. Now they think they’re all legitimate.”
“Well what do these 'Neo-Monarchists' want?”
“Your death, ma'am,” What's-her-name said bluntly.
“A lot of people want that,” Syliva said, “That’s hardly a basis for a group identity, is it?”
“Well, they formally want you dead as a matter of policy," Baryd said, "Like the Nationalists they want to replace Hylas with someone from outside the bloodline, but they’re looking for a spiritual successor to Caelus IV – and basically, whoever kills you gets the job.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Syliva commented with slight aggravation.
“You can’t argue that they don’t have high expectations, though,” Baryd said.
Syliva glared at Baryd’s irreverence, and what’s-her-name tried to ease the tension, “If they want someone like Caelus IV, it should be someone that madam has killed, shouldn’t it? Maybe they should get a necromancer to dig up a spiritual successor, right?”
Syliva looked at the small woman with an oddly unsettled glance.
“Well, I mean not really... obviously," the woman stammered nervously, "I was just joking. But I mean, you killed Caelus, not the other way around. Getting killed by you is his legacy, so someone who’s really like him in the ways that count should be dead." The woman laughed nervously, trying to explain the points of her convoluted attempt at humor, "I mean… satirically... right?”
Baryd ignored the woman's anxious babbling and eyed Syliva's reaction suspiciously, “You did kill Caelus IV, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Your tongue flicked across your left nostril when she mentioned it,” Baryd said, “It’s one of your tells.”
“Tells?” Syliva said, “I don’t have tells.”
Baryd looked slightly annoyed by his employer’s uncooperativeness, “I mean ‘tell’ in the sense that it’s… it’s a little thing you do whenever you want to subtly invite someone to ask you more about yourself.”
Syliva tilted her head and raised an eyebrow at Baryd's weak attempt at diplomacy, “If that’s the best you’ve got I’m working you too hard, Mikhail.”
“Oh come on!” Baryd smiled, “I know there’s a story here you want to tell! Maybe we can use it somehow!”
“I don’t see how you possibly could,” Syliva examined her claws.
“You hired me to see opportunities where you don’t – at least tell me.”
Syliva glared at What’s-her-name, “Do I need to spend five minutes threatening you or do you understand the consequences of indiscretion?”
“No ma’am, I understand. I won’t say a word.”
“Very well. The truth is that I did kill Caelus IV. And as far as I know he is still dead.”
“There’s a margin of error there?” Baryd was honestly surprised, “I assumed you… ate him.”
“When Caelus and his knights confronted me in my castle I killed them all. Eleven men and two women, all killed inside the castle. I didn’t eat them, because I thought the corpses might somehow make for a nice display at some point. I mean, it didn’t work out. Most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition anyway, and by the time I found a taxidermist willing to assemble and preserve the pieces of the knights that I dismembered, they were long past saving. I had to settle for having their armors mounted for display. Well, that and a nice ivory necklace I had made for myself.”
“But?”
“But I curled up and went to sleep, as one does after killing a dozen or so of you people, and when I woke up, one of the corpses was missing.”
“Missing? As in it just walked off while you were asleep?”
“I don’t know Baryd. I was asleep.”
“Was it Caelus’s corpse?”
“Honestly, I couldn’t really tell them apart before I ripped them apart and lit them on fire, and it was certainly more difficult afterwards.”
“So…" Baryd struggled to process this new insight into Caelian history, "Are you saying there’s a one in thirteen chance that Caelus IV is wandering the depths of the castle as a member of the vengeful undead?”
Syliva shrugged, “I thought I’d killed him once before in an earlier battle, but somehow he popped up again. That was likely just an oversight on my part, and the missing corpse is likely of no consequence at all. I do roll around in my sleep sometimes, so it’s entirely possible the missing body is just smeared under part of the treasure hoard.”
“Well I imagine there would have been a smell if you’d just lost the body…”
“There are always smells,” Syliva said, “It’s not as if I’ve ever had the throne room fumigated.”
“I could arrange that ma’am…” What’s-her-name said hopefully.
Syliva glared at her, “I like it the way it is.”
“Right, well, let’s not run that as a story right now,” Baryd nodded.
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