Week Twenty(March. 9 - March. 15)- Topic: Hope
Winner: Pixie (Sunny)
Lies Spawn Hope
By Pixie (aka Sunny)“Everybody’s here. We can start, if you’ll all shut up,” the voice came from within the depths of the black hood. Everyone fell silent as directed, not many people disagreed with Not, they didn’t fear him, they admired him.
“Blake, what have you done?” I asked.
“Iro and me took down the bodies from the gallows and buried them in the forest, well out of the way. We made sure no one would find ‘em,” Blake answered immediately. I was the only girl in the group of miscreants and one of the smallest but they all listened to me too. I had proved that was a better skilled fighter and Not had appointed me as second in command.
“Good,” Not said, grinning. “ Our beloved king is starting to the feels loss of control, his examples keep disappearing.”
“I stole a sleeping guard’s dagger!” exclaimed Emerson, the youngest of the group at only ten years old.
Not laughed, “Excellent Emerson! He’ll being sorry he was sleeping!”
Each member of the group reported on what activities they had done to discredit the king. The peasants had been overworked and taxed out of what little money they had for generations and we were trying to start a revelation, make the people realize the king was human and that they could get rid of him—whether it was with an assassin’s arrow or a more concordant way.
Finally it was my turn, I was always last. “What about you Kat?”
I grinned, “I did some lovely pictures of the king, getting richer and the poor getting poorer because of it on the West Wall.” The west side of town where were the peasants and working class lived, the people who couldn’t read, “And on the East Wall I put up slogans and another excellent picture of King Josiah.”
“Good,” he said smiling. I was one of the few who could read and write, and I could also draw which meant I got basically the same job each week; graffiti.
“Alright, we need to start some rumors about the king, the nastiest ones you can think of! Spread them as wide as you can, we need to make the outraged, say he’s think of putting on another tax, anything plausible,” Not said enthusiastically, waving his long-fingered hands in the air, gesticulating. “All right, the meetings’ over.”
“Wait a moment, I think Not should share with us what he’s been doing this week,” I said loudly.
Everyone stopped and turned to look fist at me and then at Not. Not still had on the casual smile as usual. “What do you mean Kat?” he asked delicately, but I could see the apprehension in his eyes.
“Well I followed you to your house after the last meeting—“ I was cut off by Not.
“You followed me too my house?!?!?!” he asked, outraged. We held the meetings in the abandoned jailhouse because he didn’t want us to know were he lived.
“Yes, curiosity may have killed the cat but it only brought me some interesting information.” I said, flicking my dark braid over my shoulder.
“Oh really?” he asked. “And what was that?”
“ I watched the house until you left and then I snuck in and had a look around. I found your study and noticed you……… obsession over the exiled prince,” I said.
“What prince?” asked Emerson.
“There were three princes actually,” said Not quietly. “Abraham, Jonathan and Josiah. Abraham died of fever when he was two and left Jonathan to become our king. When the princes were sixteen their parents both died and Josiah immediately exiled his brother, there was no real reason he just wanted the thrown. I found out that the brother died several years ago.
“My father was printer so we had many books including a family tree for our royal family. I found out about Jonathan and then one day somebody pointed out to me that I looked like the exiled prince. Extraordinarily like the prince. So I had the idea to throw this fat, sorry excuse of a king with a myself, a man who’s lived a worker’s life and knows what needs to be done!” Not finished talking and a light burned in his eyes.
I grinned, Not was charismatic and an excellent speaker and he had won them over. They felt even more enamored of him than before.
“So, we’re going to lie to everybody?” asked Emerson eagerly.
“Lies can be good things too!” said Not hurriedly. “In this case; lies spawn hope. Hope for everybody.”
I knew that Not hadn’t told us the complete story from the start because he was worried that we wouldn’t like the idea, that we would think he was conceited, but I knew that they would think it was a great idea. They would all love to be part of a revolution that put a peasant on the thrown.
Read more of Pixie's writing:
http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/1814...
Read other wonderful stories from this contest here:http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1166...
