The Right Side of History (Schooled In Magic Book 22) by Christopher Nuttall (top ebook reader txt) 📗

“I’m meant to be neutral,” Emily reminded her.

Lady Barb snorted. “Let me ask again,” she said. “What side are you on?”

Emily hesitated. She wanted to side with the rebels. She had very little love for the aristocracy. Dater wasn’t a bad person, but he was fighting for a terrible cause. And she still found the very concept of aristocracy to be offensive beyond words. The first generation of noble lords might take their duties seriously. Future generations would fixate on the rights and ignore the responsibilities. It wasn’t as if the royalists deserved to win.

And yet, history told her that revolutions often descended into bloodbaths as provisional governments tried to put their societies on a sound footing. Royalists would be hunted down and killed without any regard for evidence or the rule of law. Anyone who dared speak out against it would be hunted, too, on the grounds that only a royalist would suggest there was anything wrong with persecuting royalists. There would be coups and countercoups and the whole government would dissolve into madness and death, unless a Napoleon or a Stalin took control. And that would almost be worse.

Taking control was the easy part, she thought. Actually keeping control is a great deal harder.

Lady Barb leaned forward. “Picture this,” she said. “A royalist army is advancing on the city. You can stop it. What do you do?”

Emily winced. She knew what would happen when - if - an army breached the walls. Rebels had no rights. The entire city would be stormed in an orgy of raping, looting and burning as soon as the walls crumbled. Dater might try to stop it, but even he couldn’t keep his men under control. The capital would be utterly destroyed, the population killed. By the time the city was reclaimed and renamed - again - there would be nothing left. And if she could stop it from happening...

She looked down at her hands, something churning in her gut. Lady Barb was right to ask the question and yet... she wasn’t sure what she should do. She’d been sent as a representative of the Allied Lands, not... she hadn’t been sent to join the rebels. And yet, she didn’t want to turn and walk away. The vast majority of the population was completely innocent. They didn’t deserve to be killed by a victorious army.

And the rebels can’t surrender, she thought. They’ll be hanged as soon as the city is in royalist hands.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “What should I do?”

“You should give the matter some thought,” Lady Barb said. “Preferably before you have to actually make the decision.”

Emily smiled, rather wanly. She’d always appreciated Lady Barb’s bluntness. The older woman could be harsh at times - she’d never had any qualms about pointing out the flaws in Emily’s arguments - but there was no doubting that she meant well. Emily loved her for it. Void might be the closest thing to a father she had - everyone assumed he genuinely had sired her - but Lady Barb was very definitely her mother. She could talk to her about anything.

“I’d want to side with the rebels,” she said. “But it depends.”

Lady Barb quirked an eyebrow. “On what?”

Emily sighed. “Back home, there was a concept called the right side of history. The person who came up with it believed that history was a constant march towards democracy, progressivism and liberalism and that anyone who fought for them was on the right side by default. But... many revolutions became dictatorships and tyrannies in their own right and ended up worse than their predecessors. History doesn’t have a side. It just is.”

“You’re waffling,” Lady Barb said.

“I want to support the rebels,” Emily confessed. “I want to believe they will make things better for everyone. But I’m afraid of what they could become.”

Lady Barb said nothing for a long moment. “It seems to me,” she said finally, “that you’ll have to make a choice, sooner or later. And you should think about it, like I said, before you actually have to make it.”

She tapped the pile of letters. “The Whitehall Conference is taking shape. Every person of power within the Allied Lands is either attending in person or sending a representative. Not before time too, as the rumors of war are getting worse. This mess” - she waved a hand at the window - “might not even be the worst of it. A bunch of kingdoms are currently on the verge of war with their neighbors, a handful of estates are pushing out their borders... people are taking sides, Emily. If the conference fails...”

Her voice hardened. “The rebels have demanded the right to send representatives, too,” she added. “Did they tell you?”

“No.” Emily shook her head. “What happened?”

“The royalists have demanded, in turn, that the rebels be blocked,” Lady Barb said. “I suspect certain people are hoping the matter will resolve itself before they have to make a proper decision, one way or the other. If they refuse to accept rebel representatives, the rebels would be quite within their rights to refuse to recognize the conference as legitimate and deny any obligation to go along with the final outcome. Ironic, but...”

Emily nodded in understanding. The White Council had been founded and shaped by people wise enough to accept the realities of power. If the rebels had power, if they were the effective government of Alluvia, they couldn’t be denied a seat on the council. Their interests had to be taken into account, if there were to be any hope of convincing them to go along with the majority. And yet, there were over twenty monarchs - and countless smaller lords - who’d throw up their hands in horror at the thought of letting the rebels have a seat. They’d sooner recognize a powerless king than grant representation to regicidal rebels.

Except it would be pointless, Emily thought. Dater can make all the agreements he likes, as the legitimate king, but