Charles

  “Accept this blessing as a loyal subject of the Winter Queen,” says Elestrine. “May it keep you strong.”

  The woman to whom she’s speaking—who looks more used to pushing papers than scrounging for food—nods her thanks, takes her basket, and leaves. There are many, many people in line behind her.

  The steps of Parliament Hill offer an impressive view of the crowd. Elestrine’s “generosity”—and showmanship—have turned the grounds into the world’s longest breadline. There are, supposedly, countless other such facilities throughout Ottawa and across Canada, but everyone in the city seems to be coming here.

  “They come to see their hero,” Elestrine says during one of our breaks. “You see, Charles? It’s as I said.”

  There’s a lot about this situation that I don’t like, but one thing that sticks in my craw is being called “Charles”. Not even my mother called me that. But I have to admit that “Chuck” sounds wrong from her mouth, and her former preference for “Mr. Oakes” isn’t really appropriate under the…circumstances.

  “I’m the flavour of the month. Nothing more.”

  “I didn’t realize humans could taste months,” Elestrine replies. As frequently happens, I can’t tell whether she’s being earnest or just trying to bait me.

  She’s not getting a response either way. I return my attention to my constituents. “Here you go, buddy,” I say to the recipient—an octogenarian man with a cane and glass eye—as I hand him a basket. I pointedly refrain from launching into the prepared spiel about the Winter Queen’s blessings; this monkey may dance but he doesn’t recite party line.

  The man catches my wrist with a surprisingly firm grip. “So, you married her, eh?” he rumbles.

  “I did,” I say, with no particular inflection. What I really want to say is fuck off and don’t ask me about it, but a politician’s instincts are hard to surmount.

  “What’s that even like?” he asks. “With a Fairy, I mean? Do they have the same, uh…” He makes a gesture with his hand, in case I don’t get his meaning.

  “Do you want your food or not, buddy, ’cause my frigging arm is falling off,” I say with forced joviality.

  The old man gives me one of those laughs that’s halfway to being a cough and takes the basket. He leaves with a passing “Cheers, b’y.”

  “Out of my way!” I hear Audan’s voice shout from somewhere in the crowd. I’ve seen vanishingly little of him in the past few days; he now seems to be even angrier than usual. “Out of my way, you barbarians!”

  Elestrine hands her duties to an aide. “Calm yourself, General.”

  I strain to listen to their conversation, even as the line progresses. The exercise rapidly becomes futile as they lapse into the Fairy language—Everglacii, as it’s apparently called—but it’s not too hard to read their body language. Audan seems outraged about a crystal in his hand, the sort the Fairies use to record messages, and appears to be demanding an explanation for something. Elestrine, meanwhile, seems dismissive. This only makes him angrier, even as Elestrine grows calmer and more diplomatic. Audan spins on his heel and marches away, knocking over a knot of people with a wave of his hand. Elestrine rolls her eyes as she returns to our table.

  “Nothing to worry about, Charles,” she says, giving a non-answer to a question I didn’t even ask. I say nothing, returning to my duties.

  Suddenly, I freeze. Down the line, ninth or tenth from the table, I see Heidi Hiscox standing placidly and holding Oscar Cloutier on a leash (still a deer, of course; in all of the commotion over the last week, he’d entirely slipped my mind). This is going to be awkward.

  I grab one of the food baskets; then, thinking the better of it, I grab two, one in each hand. “I’m going on break,” I announce.

  One of Elestrine’s servants protests. “But you were just on—” Elestrine cuts her off, evidently seeing the wisdom in avoiding a confrontation between Hiscox and myself in view of the public. I shuffle off without thanking her and make my way along the line-up with a minimum of small talk before reaching my Parliamentary colleague.

  “Why, hello, Prime Minister,” she greets robotically.

  “Can we talk inside?”

  Hiscox shrugs and wordlessly follows me into the Centre Block, bringing Cloutier along with her. I get ready to recite the justification that I’ve been rehearsing in my mind; it has not sounded terribly convincing there, and I can already tell it will sound even less so out loud.

  “First of all—”

  Hiscox surprises me by dropping the leash and throwing her arms around me in a hug. “Are you alright, Chuck?” she demands. “I couldn’t believe what that bitch made you do!”

  I was so ready to be put on blast as a traitor that I’m actually not sure how to respond; a million words battle to be the first out of my mouth, and, in the end, it’s all that I can do not to break down crying on my former opponent’s shoulder. Finally, I take a deep breath and recount everything that happened.

  *

  “Charles Oakes, will you marry me?”

  I looked at Elestrine blankly, not quite believing what I’d just heard. “What?”

  “Charles Oakes,” she repeated, “will—”

  “Yeah, I heard you the first time!”

  She closed her mouth. My eyes wandered from her face to the ring in her hand. I’m still dreaming. I must be.

  As surreptitiously as I could manage, I grabbed one of the little hairs on my wrist and pulled. Ouch!

  Not a dream then.

  Elestrine looked at me in expectation.

  “This…” I said uncertainly. “Is this your idea of a joke?”

  “Indeed not,” she replied. “I am simply a woman asking her loved one’s hand in matrimony, as is fully in keeping with this land’s laws and customs. Of course, it’s my understanding that, traditionally, you ought to be proffering the ring, but—”

  “I am not your ‘loved one’!”

  “Well, that hardly seems your decision to make, my darling,” she laughed.

  “I don’t love you!”

  She sighed. “Perhaps not yet, but you’d be surprised how one’s attitudes can change over a century or so, particularly under the bonds of wedlock, which returns me to my original query: Charles Oakes, will—”

  “No!”

  Elestrine frowned. Then, she closed her hand over the ring and stood upright. “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Oakes, but that simply will not do.”

  “What do you mean ‘that won’t do’?” I snapped. “You need me to paint a picture for you? You’re evil! You’re a sadistic monster who’s occupying my country and murdering people for fun! Plus, I’m married!”

  “You could always get a divorce,” she chimed in.

  “I love my wife!”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Yes. This is one of the many reasons why I anticipate that you will make an excellent husband.”

  I gaped at her. “Are you fucking serious!?”

  “Really, Mr. Oakes, there’s no need for that sort of language. And yes, to answer your question, I assure you that I am gravely serious.”

  My first instinct was to walk away, but that would have been a bad idea. My second was to shake her—which would have been worse. So instead I stared at her, trying to come to grips with the situation. “So, this is your sick game,” I said finally. “Holding the lives of millions ransom in order to blackmail me into what? Marital bliss? Sleeping with you? You know, those fundamentalists were right; you really are the Devil!”

  Elestrine shook her head. “I ransom no one, Chuck. Your people will be fed—just as promised. But I had hoped you might be a little more grateful. To be perfectly frank, I feel you are acting a touch spoiled at the moment.”

  “Spoiled!?” I spat. “You expect me to be grateful that you’re not committing genocide?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are unbelievable!”

  “Believe it, Chuck,” she said, sounding bored. “I do love you, but this back-and-forth—”

  “Stop saying that! You don’t know what love is!”

  She smiled ruefully. “I can see our relationship will take work. No matter. May I be perfectly honest?”

  “Yes,” I replied, giving my best steely-eyed glare. “And if I were anything less than a gentleman, I’d say it’s about damn time!”

  “Very well. The truth is that ‘genocide’, as you call it, was my mother’s order the day she gave me this country to rule. We, of course, prefer the term ‘cull’, but…” She shrugged. “‘To-MAY-to, to-MAH-to’, as you might say.”

  “Ah, so you’re ‘just following orders’, as I might also say.”

  “Oh, do use your brain, Chuck! I am quite explicitly defying my orders. There will be no cull, at least so long as I am ruling here; which brings me naturally to my next point.”

  I suppressed the urge to say something cutting. “Go on.”

  “My mother, you see, will be much chagrined by my inability to follow her instructions. Chagrined enough, I daresay, to recall me and replace me with someone who will ‘just follow orders’.”

  “And what does this have to do with me?”

  “A great deal,” Elestrine replied. “You see, my mother thinks there are too many of you to reasonably rule—to digest into our body politic, as it were.” I flinch at the word “digest”, but she seems not to notice. “If, however, I can bring some guarantee of your loyalty, that may just be enough to assuage her, to avoid a cull altogether. For that, I need a tangible bond to bring our people together: an alliance, in other words.” She looked directly into my eyes. “A marriage, in point of fact.”

  I looked at her the way that Oscar Cloutier would presumably look at a pair of headlights. Then I made my decision. “Your Excellency, I hereby tender my resignation as Prime Minister. Effective immediately.”

  “Do you now?” she laughed.

  “You can’t ask this of me, Elestrine. I quit.”

  With that, I turned and walked away. I’d only just made it to the door when she called after me: “Understand, Mr. Oakes, that it is not my intention to threaten you. Nor do I mean these words as blackmail. But the plain fact of the matter is that everyone will die if you leave.”

  My hand froze against the door. Against my better judgement, I looked back at her. To the limited extent I could read her face, I saw no trace of dishonesty.

  “This is not a threat,” she repeated. “This is a warning. The Winter Queen needs a quid pro quo. You—and you alone—are in a position to offer it.”

  I let her words sink in; then, without conscious thought, I swung out with my fist and punched the wooden door of the Senate Chamber. “Find someone else!” I shouted, as much in pain as in anger. “Appoint a new Prime Minister!”

  “Ah, but you’re not just the Prime Minister, are you Chuck?” she asked, walking toward me. “In a matter of days, you’ve become a folk hero amongst your people, and I strongly suspect your cachet is only fated to rise once I introduce food rations. They will think—very nearly correctly—that you persuaded me to show such generosity. And that, my dear, counts for a great deal more than some mere legal title, both in politics and magic. That cannot be replicated. I am sorry to say, Mr. Oakes, that there is no one else.”

  I hung on the threshold for a moment. Then, in spite of myself, I started to chuckle. “Your mother would never recall you! Not in a million years!”

  “Would that that were true, Mr. Oakes, but you have not met my mother. One does not attain a title like ‘Winter Queen’ by being known for their warm and loving temperament. She will replace me. And then you, and everyone you love, will die. The only one who can stop that—who even has a chance of stopping it—is you. So, I shall ask you once again—and please consider more carefully this time.” She held out her ring to me again. “Will you marry me?”

  The gold in her hand gleamed red in the light of the painted moon on the ceiling. Seeing it there, I…

  It’s hard for me to put into words. What I felt, I guess, was the reality of the situation, crushing down upon me. Like I was standing up against a wall, with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

  “I promise I shall never treat you cruelly,” I heard Elestrine say. “After a while—”

  “Why did you even come here?”

  My voice came out so choked that I barely even recognized it as human. Elestrine looked at me in surprise. “Mr. Oakes—”

  “Why are you here?” I demanded again. “You? Your goddamned people? Why can’t you all just go away!”

  My knees finally buckled under the unseen pressure. “This isn’t fair!” I gasped. I felt tears streaming hot from my eyes. “This isn’t fucking fair!”

  A slender hand fell against my shoulder; I shrugged it off as hard as I could.

  “You are correct, Mr. Oakes,” came Elestrine’s voice, almost sympathetically. “This is not fair. But I do need an answer. For all of our sakes. Will you marry—”

  “Yes!”

  I looked up at her, hating myself more with each breath. “Yes, goddamn you!”

  *

  “And that’s how I betrayed everything I ever loved.”

  Hiscox needs a moment to take it in. “Wow,” she says finally.

  “Yeah.”

  “So, if you don’t mind my asking…” Hiscox begins, before hesitating.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know what happened to your wife? Your real wife?”

  “My ex-wife,” I say bitterly. “Meaghan. And no, not really. Elestrine got one of her judges to have her legally presumed dead.”

  “Is she?”

  “I don’t believe it for a second,” I murmur. “Last I heard, she was heading toward the border. The prairies in winter are tough, but Meaghan’s tougher. And…I know it sounds hokey, but…I’d know if my wife were dead.”

  Hiscox smiles sympathetically.

  “And it’s all over?” she says. “You’ve done the deed?”

  “Yeah,” I reply. “We were married in a private ceremony that same night.”

  “Is it…consummated?”

  I side-eye her.

  “Not my business.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Hiscox sighs. “Well, for what it’s worth, you’ve done a lot of good here.”

  “Really? ’Cause to be honest, I feel more like I happened to be in the right place at the right time to get entangled in some ludicrous Fairy power struggle.”

  “Maybe,” she concedes. “But you may have also saved the lives of every man, woman, and child in Canada; so there’s that.”

  “And helped a brutal murderer cling to power.”

  “They say politics makes strange bedfellows.” (I glare at her.) “Poor choice of words. Sorry.”

  I scowl. “Do you know what really galls me about this? It’s the fact that, moments before Elestrine proposed to me”—I glance around to make sure no one’s listening and lower my voice to a whisper—“a guy came to me talking about rebellion.”

  This doesn’t come as a complete shock to Hiscox. “I thought you said there’s no chance of victory?”

  “There’s not,” I reply. “But when has that ever stopped me before? I’m a labour organizer! Unwinnable fights are my bread and butter! But…what was it going to accomplish? So I rebuffed him. And then literally married into the corrupt power structure. I’m a sell-out.”

  “Why Chuck, I believe you’ve come down with a case of conservatism,” she teases. “Is a floor-crossing in the cards?”

  “There’s no need to be insulting.”

  Hiscox pats me sympathetically on the shoulder. “Is that food for me?” she asks after a moment, gesturing to the baskets I’ve set down beside us on a stone bench.

  “Yeah,” I say. “There’s some bread, some veggies, a hunk of meat—I think it’s beef. Or bison. It’s, you know, red.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “I don’t know. I just fasted for three days; shoe-leather would have tasted like frigging caviar.”

  “You don’t seem like the ‘caviar’ type,” Hiscox replies.

  “Yeah, I’m more of a chicken fingers–type guy, to be honest.” I pat the other basket. “One for Cloutier too, though he probably shouldn’t eat the meat, come to think of it.”

  “And it’s…safe?” she asks, opening her basket.

  “Sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Well, it’s just…people say things about Fairy food. Like it’s supposed give them power over you.”

  I grunt. “They’ve already got us by the short-and-curlies; how much more ‘power’ could they possibly need?”

  “Good point,” she says, withdrawing the loaf of bread. “Plus…for food that’s supposed to be supernaturally tempting, it looks an awful lot like it came from a cafeteria.”

  I smile.

  “Well. Bon appetit.”

  With that, she tucks into her food. She eats fully half of it before talking again.

  “This isn’t just a social visit,” she says, withdrawing a sheet of loose-leaf paper from her pocket. “I have a list of demands from Parliament. Maybe you can bring them up with the GG.”

  I accept the paper from her wordlessly, unfold it, and read slowly down the list. Most items range from difficult to impossible: ending the winter, restoring heat and power, guaranteeing existing property rights and compensating business owners for lost revenue (I wonder what idiot thought that was a priority). One, however, stands out as eminently doable.

  “Stay right there,” I say, rising to my feet.

  *

  “Are you certain of this?” Elestrine asks once I’ve escorted her back into Parliament. “He seems perfectly content as is.”

  “You wanted a better relationship with your human subjects,” I say, hating how it sounds. “This would be a show of good faith. And it’s the right thing to do.”

  Elestrine smirks but walks over to where the deer is kneeling and taps it on the nose nonetheless.

  A split second later, Oscar Cloutier, human once again, finds himself splayed out on the floor.

  “Where…” he sputters. His voice sounds odd, as if he’s unused to the feel of his tongue in his mouth. “Hiscox,” he recognizes. “Oakes. Why am I so cold?”

  “Get him something to wear!” I say, already stripping off my own parka.

  “Welcome back, Oscar,” Hiscox beams.

  “Back—where did I…?” His voice trails off. Then, after a moment, he says with somewhat more composure, “May I ask, why am I naked on a leash in the middle of the Centre Block?”

  I drape my coat over him. “There’s a lot to explain.”