A Father's Choice: The Misrule, #1

By Andy Graham

A future earth. A government's secret. An honest man's choice.

Rick Franklin is a model soldier, devoted to his wife and daughter, and loyal to his friends. But when he becomes a reluctant hero for a president that is soon overthrown, his fame puts him and everyone close to him in danger.

As he struggles to keep his family safe, Rick discovers the murderous truth behind the Silk Revolution - a secret that stretches to the dark heart of government.

Will he risk everything for what he knows to be right or hide behind a lie?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andy Graham
• Release date: Mar 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781393614227

Book preview

1

A COIN

In the old fairy tale, the traveller carried his fire in his leather rucksack. It was always lit, always warm. Wherever the man stopped for the night, he would pull out the fire, unfold it and lay it on the ground. He would reverse the process the next morning and continue his journey, a crimson glint seeping through the stitching on his bag. Aerfen’s father had told her the tale and that’s what she saw now.

The man in front of her picked up the flickers of light one by one. Colours skittered across the walls of the canvas shelter. He kissed each spark and packed the balls of fire into the bag of powder. Under the scars and burns, the fingers he had left moved with the precision of a watchmaker. Aerfen had been brought up by those hands. They’d fed her, taught her to tie her laces, to write. They’d comforted and disciplined her. They’d taught her what soap was for. Her father loved her. She had learnt so much from him. Why didn’t she have any patience for him?

She had snapped again this morning, impatient with his inability to grasp all the wireless technology sweeping the nation, frustrated because he couldn’t remember his passwords. His response? To kiss her forehead. She had felt ashamed and said, I’m scared.

So am I, her father had replied. That makes what we fight for even more important.

These things you make. What they do to people. It didn’t seem real before.

Neither did life before I met your mother. He had pulled her close, held her tight enough for her to feel the thud of his heart. No one will think any worse of you if you change your mind about tonight, Aerfen.

The tent walls cracked in a gust of wind. Aerfen’s fear spiked. She hadn’t changed her mind. She had made the journey with her father and the rest of the rebels. Just as she had promised herself she would. Carefully, her father reached for another steel ball. His fingers patted it into the grey powder, like the young saplings he planted in the Weeping Woods.

Aerfen closed her eyes. Remembered.

On the morning of her seventh nameday, she had woken to find the hands that seemed so much a part of her childhood had a finger missing. Her leathery-headed father, who had labelled each of the lines on his face after one of her misdemeanours, brushed off the questions. He had sat her on his lap and brushed her hair, humming to her until she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.

It happened again when she was a teenager. This time she had been awake when he turned up missing a thumb. She had pestered him until he told her the truth.

Then the hands that had taught her how to live and survive taught her different things. Things she hadn’t thought one person could do to another. The things she had only heard in whispers were now words in her bathroom, being washed down the plug hole with the swirling red water.

She blinked, the cold air stinging her eyes. She wasn’t at home. Not a child. She was in a tent in the Weeping Woods. Aerfen reached into her fatigues. The metal disc was still there. She wanted to be sure. The torchlight flickered. Her fingers clamped around the token in her pocket. With glacial stillness, her father picked up a nail. It was long and rusty. He whispered something to it and pushed it into the powder with the pad of his remaining thumb.

The tent walls flapped around her. Aerfen was vaguely aware of the speech rising and falling between the tree trunks outside, of words that whipped the wind into a frenzy and scared the bright eyes of the forest predators away. For all that they were metres away and joined by the same cause, the other people could have been on a different world.

Her father had been excused from the gathering. She had slunk away, picking her way through the starlight that frosted the ground. She had heard variations of the speech many times. The first time had been while she had been dressing the stump of her father’s thumb over their chipped sink.

The words in the night reminded the listeners of the bastards who had taken everything from them: the soldiers that had ransacked homes, blitz mined the valleys and stolen their gods; the men who had demolished temples and built their own on top, reclaiming land like one dog marks its territory over another’s. They had tried to beat the language out of the young. Aerfen was one of those children; the scars on her back still smarted when she thought of it.

It was a peculiarly inventive way of eradicating language and culture. Any child caught speaking their mother tongue had a hanky tied around their neck. The knotted hanky was passed to the next child heard using the language. The child wearing it at the end of the day got strapped.

The day after Deian, her father, had given her the speech she could now hear through the canvas, Aerfen had fastened one of her mother’s old hankies around her neck. It had still smelt of her perfume, roses. Aerfen had slept in it and gone to school wearing the hanky the next morning. She had refused to take it off, even when the teacher’s cane snapped on her back. The next day three of her friends had done the same. Within a week, the entire class was wearing them. A month later, the school.

As terrified as she was, this was her cause now. Her inheritance. Not being considered old enough to be legally classified as a woman hadn’t stopped the enemy from abusing her like one. The men from Ailan had bloodied her, taken what should have been hers to give. Now it was her turn. She was going to take their crusade back to them.

Six months ago, she had followed her father to her first meeting. There had been a brief flash of anger, then he had hugged her. The tears rolling down his face had been both sad and proud. That evening, the order had come from the faceless leader of the Council to attack the castle on the border. Aerfen had wanted to be part of it.

She had begged her father while they sat on the edge of the bath. He had finished cleaning his teeth, spat the froth down the plug hole which had taken away so much filth and pain from their family, and taken her face in his hands.

There had been no tears, no attempt to talk her out of it. He had cleaned her up the day after the soldiers had defiled her. He had buried her mother. He knew why she wanted to go. Her father had just said, It’s easier to hate someone else than it is to love yourself. Whatever happens in Castle Brecan, don’t forget that. Don’t gloat. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t even enjoy it, just get it done.

Now she was here. Waiting. Fear and sweat creeping down her spine.

Aerfen’s thumb rubbed over the rough metal edge in her pocket. Despite his warning to her, her father was whispering the hate into each piece of metal he packed into the gunpowder.

The last ball bearing flashed its oily message around the tent. He sat back on his haunches. Have you got it?

Aerfen rooted in her pocket. Yes. Here.

She held out the coin. A Mennai crown, the old type that the villages still used. It was warm in her hand. Slippery. When their leader had sent it through the clandestine channels, Aerfen wanted the honour of looking after it. She had spent weeks guessing at its symbolism. Was it a vindictive tax payment, blood money or something else? In the end she had settled on something much simpler.

For luck? she asked.

Her father smiled, gun-grey eyes twinkling under milk-white hair. Squeezing her hand as he took the coin from her, he slid it between a cluster of nails. For luck.

2

TRUST ME

Rick Franklin watched his twin moon shadows coalesce. The rifle slung low over his shoulder blurred, then shifted into focus. He murmured a hurried wish, tapped his forehead, his heart and his right hand with his left. The tradition was supposed to be performed naked but he wasn’t sure Lieutenant Chel would approve.

High above him, partially hidden by grey clouds, the constellations glittered. The Jester teased the Dancer while the Little Cleaver watched. Dotted amongst them were an increasing number of winking red dots. There was a scuff of boots to his left.

Do you think anyone ever got what they wished for? the other soldier asked.

I doubt we could find out, Rick replied. This double lunar eclipse is pretty rare.

Stann reached up a hand to grasp at the moonlight. Shadows danced on the stone behind him. When I was a kid I told my mum that one day I’d be rich enough to buy her one of the moons. Just one, I wanted to leave the other for everyone else.

Generous of you.

Deluded too, even for a kid. There’s no way you get rich wearing this uniform. He plucked at the triangular badge on his sleeve.

The wind swept past them. It tugged at Rick’s trousers, moulding the dark cloth to his legs. Stann gazed upwards. I still think there must be a better way of tapping the moons than this mining mission. Surely there’s a way of harnessing all the light up there? All those winds shifting the clouds around? We’d need a way of getting the power to these computers of ours to gorge on, though. You know, like an aqueduct for electricity.

Nice idea, Stann. Maybe you can apply for Sci-Corps, the staff are short a few scars. You’ll bring the average up nicely.

Back home they’re saying this lunar mining mission of yours is gonna turn the moons against us. They reckon for every chunk of rock we take, the moons are going to take a wish and twist it inside out. That people like you, the sparkies that worked on the project, are going to pay first and worst.

It’s not my mission, Rick replied. And you Axeford folk were always a little too poetic.

Stann’s head whipped round, a finger jabbing towards Rick. And you people from Tear always thought too much of yourselves. You’re no cleverer than all those bloody pigs you have there.

The moons slid across the sky. The crisp outline of his shadow lost its definition. C’mon, Rick said and pulled out a screwdriver. Let’s get moving. I don’t want to get shot for the sake of an old tradition.

Stann spat between the battlements. The spittle arced through the air and was swallowed by the creeping mist below. Lieutenant Chel wouldn’t shoot you for staring at the moons. He’d probably knock you around a bit but a few bruises make a man look good.

I’m not talking about him. Rick nodded towards the forest. The Weeping Woods were restless tonight. The branches twitched in the wind, moonlight shimmering on the leaves.

The Mennai? Stann laughed. Don’t have the balls. Not even these death-before-dishonour separatists we’re watching. I’d bet my left hand on that. I heard they’re using girls to do their dirty work now ‘cos their brothers and fathers are too scared. My mother has more testosterone than any man in this wretched country.

Does that explain the moustache?

Stann grabbed a fistful of Rick’s lapels and yanked him close. He stank of sweat and grease and violence. What did you say?

"Your moustache, Stann, Rick said, struggling to keep a straight face. You were unusually advanced in that regard. You know, nature and nurture, feeding the seed."

You’re trying to be clever again, aren’t you, Franklin? Good job we go way back. I’d have given anyone else a little character around their eyes for that. He shoved Rick backwards and held up his left hand. Smells of respect. That’s what Dads used to say. He held up the right. Smells of disrespect.

Something cracked in the forest below. A handful of birds spilled out of the trees and disappeared into the night. The two men hunkered down. One lean, one muscular. One blonde, one dark. One angry to the other’s calm. They had been grudgingly inseparable since before either had teeth. Even now, in the military, they had ended up in the same unit.

What’s your infra-red camera say? Stann whispered, peering round the crenellations.

It’s not working, none of the cameras on this wall are. That’s why we’re here, remember?

Not that one, genius, your mobile one.

Rick held it over the edge of the ancient stone. Moss tickled the burn scars on his wrist. Nothing there. Nothing human anyway. Maybe it’s the moons, come to take some pre-emptive revenge. Rick chuckled. A thin sound that felt too loud when Stann didn’t join in. Healthy disrespect, he thought. That’s the way to deal with your fears. Never laugh at them; never let them laugh at you.

Still not funny, Stann said. He tapped the small camera mounted on the wall. They may not be working but they’d be a great place to hide something. Squirrel it away for a later date.

Where?

The cameras, fool. It’s the last place you’d look for something. Who watches the watcher, right?

Full of ideas tonight, aren’t you, Sub-Corporal Taille?

Stann grunted as the lens hissed as it refocused on something in the woods. He stared down his rifle sight. Sure you wired them things up OK?

Trust me, Rick said. The smell of damp stone and decay was rank in his nostrils. This whole place just felt wrong to him. A bird hooted at the base of the hill, even that noise sounded off. The fault must be somewhere else. I’m sure I know where it is. I just can’t place it.

‘Trust me’, he says. If only. Stann vaulted onto the wall and stared out over the forest canopy that stretched below the hill. Come and get me! His shouts faded into the leafy night. I’d rather die of bullets than bickering.

Get down, you idiot. If Chel catches you, he’ll give you a makeover not even your dog could love.

I’m bored. Stann dropped to the ground, grabbed a handful of gravel and threw it off the walkway. A soldier scurrying across the courtyard swore up at him. Stann hurled curses at the retreating figure. I haven’t even had a decent fist fight since getting to this pile of rubble, given someone the old Stann Taille one-two, the stumble-and-feint routine.

That’s beyond old. No one falls for that unless it’s a no-budget film company.

This sucks, Stann said. The food sucks. Lieutenant Chel sucks and all this waiting around for something to happen sucks.

We’re outside. It’s better than being cooped up in the barracks back in the capital. Something’s up, sure as eggs came before chickens. The riots and those walls they’re building there are just the start of it.

Private Lee said the new walls around the capital are to keep us villagers out. He said they’re gonna put border controls in, that we’ll have to patrol them. Stann bowed his head. His blonde hair looked green in the moon light. Not sure how I feel about that.

Orders are orders, Stann.

I didn’t sign up to fight my people. They’re not my enemy. And when did the army tame you? I’ve barely seen you for a year, you get dumped into this unit out of the blue and you’re all obedient now?

I don’t know why I’m here, either. I was told it was important, that’s all. My leave got cut short because of this posting. I missed my Rose’s fifth nameday.

There’ll be plenty more for you to go to. Stann peeled some moss off the stone and flicked it at Rick. And don’t think that means I’m gonna forgive your dig at my mother. Some things are just not said. Wives, mothers, girlfriends and daughters are off limits.

Stepmothers, mothers-in-law? Grandmothers? Your enemy’s mother? asked Rick. My great-aunt Eleanor is someone’s daughter and she’s a fearsome woman when she gets riled.

Don’t complicate the theory. I break things, you fix things. Let me have my turn at the clever stuff for a change.

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. The wind whipped the clouds into a frenzy. The same wind hissed through the leaves of the forest surrounding the castle. It swept across the top of the wall, buffeting Rick. Cold air swirled up his sleeves and dragged shivers down his spine.

Stann stamped his feet. This wind sucks, too. It makes me nervous. Not knowing why it makes me nervous makes me more nervous.

My wife’s people have a fairy tale, Rick said. They believe the wind is a collection of all the bad things that have ever been said. The stronger the wind, the more hate is being spoken. It’s the world’s way of cleansing itself or warning us.

Yeah, well, your wife’s a bit odd round the edges.

Rick ran a thumb across the shiny skin circling his wrists. The scars prickled, like a thousand tiny scabs were being pulled off. Off limits, remember? Thryn made her choice. Let it go, Stann.

The squawk of birds filtered through the leaves below. The thick forest was threatening to drown the ancient castle the soldiers had taken over a few weeks back. Fallen clouds seeped through the trees; slow, grey flames that licked at the base of the walls. Stann prodded Rick. "How did you keep your wife out of the immigration camps? You’ve always been cagey about that."

The scars around Rick’s wrists hurt now, a dull pain, a good pain, a pain with a purpose. It wasn’t very scientific but it made sense. An ex of mine returned a favour. I threw in some extra wiring for a new camera system of hers and she pressed the right buttons.

Beth?

Rick nodded.

"Always the same story. Bribes, barter and blackmail, the oldest currencies in the world. Guaranteed they’ll outlive this new swipe-card currency the government is planning. Well, let’s hope for Thryn’s sake you love her more