The Devil, His Cat and the Fiddle

[Havenshire]

September 20th, 1952

John Walker sat in a room the colour of dried blood, looking out a tinted window on a square that some had named Red Square. He sat by a fire, its crackling logs casting sparks which illuminated his ruddy face, giving him a red sheen. In such poses he had been nicknamed by some the Red Devil. In his liver-spotted hands he cradled a nearly-empty bottle of Red Label Whiskey. This was the source of his other nickname.

He took another deep swig from the bottle, feeling its burning liquid run down his ageing throat, giving him a few brief moments of the feeling of being alive, before once again the weight of the cold and pain of his aches crept up on him again, souring his mood. He snarled, and threw the bottle away, where it clattered on the floor next to several others. He looked down at the heavy ledger laid out in front of him on his lap, stained with whiskey drops and smearing the neat, crisp ink. It was the Financial Records for the last quarter, the only true and accurate account of production, market exchanges and all other matters financial within Havenshire. It was his duty as Premier to read through them, and determine wether the producers should be rewarded, chastised, the targets revised, or whatever. He was the Supreme power in the People's Republic, and though in law this power derived ultimately from the people and the Central Congress, in truth he knew it derived from the Unions, the Co-operatives, and the People's Army. The Army he had helped forge in the Civil War, which in the twelve years since he had continued to improve and discpline, and create a truly effective fighting force.

He smiled to himself, briefly, forgetting the figures and the drudgery of communist accounting, as he pictured a square filled with neatly arrayed blocks of men. The dark forest green of the People's Army Infantry. The khaki of the People's Army Tankers. The sage green of the Artillery. The sky-blue of the Airmen. The deep black of the People's Navy. The white of the Medical Corps. The light blues and browns of the Reservists and the Supply Corps. All represented, block after block marching in mechanical precision before him, his balcony, his view. They would salute and shout as one, a deafening roar, "WALKER, HAVENSHIRE, SOCIALISM!" As if all three words were intrinsically one. He had pinned medals to chests, and seen the light of zeal and deep abiding love in the eyes of men. He had also seen the cold, neutral stares of those suppressing intense loathing and hatred for him. That really made him smile.

He fumbled around for another bottle of Whiskey, and, not finding one, he became angry. "Boy!" He yelled. "Bring me more! How can a Premier work under these conditions? Fuck and Damnit!" he swore, grumbling. He looked again at the page. Fucking maths. How does it work?

He remembered now, long ago, sitting in a stark classroom, a teacher sneering at him, throwing chalk at him. "If you can't do your maths, boy, how can you ever be anything?" He had been caned more than once before he finally realised how he could best show the teachers, show them all. Every night of every day for years he had forced himself, by candlelight or otherwise, to look at the numbers as they swam and danced before his eyes, and force a sense to them. Pyschiatrists these days might, if they dared, suggest Walker had been Dyslexic or Dyscalcic. But whatever the truth, he had mastered the numbers, the algebra, the trigonometry. He had been the one chosen by his Union, at the age of only twenty-five, to go to University in Darrow, and there meet the extraordinary Robert Clynes.

A young boy in a crisp uniform rushed in with a crate of new whiskey bottles. "As you commanded, sir! Fresh from our stocks." Walker merely grumbled. "Piss off."

Walker turned the page, doing the sums in his head and on his fingers. He'd get through it all, even if he had to finish another crate.

 

[Havenshire]

September 28th, 1952


The wind rattled the shutters and made a low moaning noise which penetrated even the thick walls of the Palace of the People. Rain drummed like so many fingers against the windows, casting a grey mood over the assembly. It was the Inner Cabinet meeting room, all mahogany, red velvet and white teak panelling, in the finest of socialist realist styles. Sat around a table made for just twenty-three people, was the Inner Cabinet and their advisors, and, at the head, presiding over all, sat the ruddy-faced Premier himself, his grey-white moustache stained with whiskey and his spotless, pristine black teacher's coat somewhat stiff and stark from the many launderings with starch it had gone through.

John Walker looked at the nervous men- and one woman- who made up the inner core of his government. One of these twenty-two people, he knew, would succeed him. But he didn't know who, and had no intention on earth of naming any of this useless rabble as his official successor. The thought of the plans already being drawn up by these...vermin, to jostle for power and secure their own little rubbish heaps to be king over almost made him smile. If he had one of those Atomiser Bombs the science fiction pulps were going on about, he reckoned, he'd use it right now in this room, and wipe out everything he had come to despise and hate about the government he had spent years personally crafting and cajoling to be that way. It was almost a paradox, but he cared not.

"..I think therefore we can come to a conclusion on the trade agreements with Miroslavl." Some thin, weasely voice was saying. Walker had been barely paying attention to this meeting, just glaring and occassionally making harumphs of approval or throat-clearing coughs. He found that if he just kept them perpetually afraid of them, he could get out of actually having to tell these fucking worms to actually do anything. They just sort of did it all themselves, in a way that made some kind of sense, somehow. It would never occur to them, however, that they didn't need him. He had pruned all of the imagination, all of the ambition, out of government at an early stage. There might yet be some, he reflected, lingering on somehow in the Camps up North, who would try once word of his inevitable death finally broke, to claw back the power they had once so fleetingly tasted. If those rats manage to crawl their way back here, good fucking luck to them.

"The next matter on the agenda. The Worker's Republic has made a suprising and bold request for over four hundred of our Sparrowhawk fighter-planes, and ammunition and parts for all of them. Theyre also asking we delegate some of our fleet to escort the delivery of these fighter-craft all the way to...no, i'm sorry, this must be wrong-"
"Read it out!" barked Walker, causing everyone at the table to flinch. Except Macclesfield. That cold fucker. Behind his eyes blazed grandiose dreams. Walker had long ago nicknamed him the Robot, both because Macclesfield had once tried to seriously suggest that Computers could be used to ease the burden of government, but also because he seemed so emotionless and distant in his manner. Though it concealed the raging passions Walker knew lay within. He dreams of a future of gleaming skyscrapers, moving walkways, atomiser bombs and fucking helicopters everywhere. It was so pathetic Walker couldnt help but admire the audacity of such a man having so insane a vision.

Didn't we used to dream of a brighter future?

The nervous Minister cleared his throat, and continued to read. "It seems Carentania wants us to make a massive effort to support the Boliaturans, comrade Premier." The Minister then sat down, the matter on the table, pale. Walker simply frowned. "And what does our Chairman think of this?" he said, indicating George Macclesfield at the other end of the table. How that worm got to be Chairman he'd never know. Maybe he used one of those fucking televisions to hypnotise everyone.

Macclesfield replied cooly. "I think it would be wise to support the Worker's Republic at this time. Plus, we might aswell get rid of our Sparrowhawks through some constructive manner. I don't see us having much use for them now."
Walker nodded. "Very well. Minister of War, if you're done shaking like a jelly, authorise it. Admiralty, Air Force, whatever. Agree to their demands. This time." And just like that, it was done. Walker suppressed a desire to begin a coughing fit.

"Ah, comrade Premier-"

"I said, do it."

The Minister wisely swallowed his protestations.

"The next item on our agenda-"

 

[Havenshire]

October 7th, 1952

The Museum of the Revolution was a popular exhibit, given that it was essentially the former Garland's main residence when in Westhaven. Its baroque and neoroman architecture stood it out as an oddity in the City of the Twentieth Century. A wedding-cake of a building, surrounded by jagged knife towers and crumbling grey bricks, the contrast seeming only to emphasise yet more the ancien grandeur of the Palace.

But no tradesmen's entrance greeted visitors. The main gates were permanently open, never to be shut again. The doors closed only late at night and during the winter, and then only to preserve the heritage of the nation from thieves and weather. In the main concourse, polished marble floors and thick velvet rugs, once worn smooth by the feet of aristocrats, was now scuffed by the blacksooted boots of holidaying miners, steelmill workers, and countless other members of the Havenite proletariat. Entry was free, but a Donation Box was prominently sited near the front. Maintaining interest in the Museum of the Revolution was not difficult, but sometimes maintaining donations was.

Walker found himself in a private section of the Palace, in amongst the Rose Gallery. He was contemplating an original copy of the Aren Queen Adeliza as Venus, painted by the master himself. He found the picture amusing. It was essentially pornography of a woman who, in her day, had commanded even more power than he himself now did. He tried to imagine someone painting his grey, bloated stomach and withered penis. The image almost broke his brain with its absurdity. He looked around the rest of the Gallery. The most prominent painting, King Adam the Uniter, was of the Second Great Uniter in Havenshire history. Adam of Westhaven, they called him. The painting showed him in the garb of the Tiburan Emperor, Gayus Julius Kaysar*. Another absurdity from a forgotten age. He had himself once posed for a painting, in full Field Marshall's garb. It was all too easy to imagine now, some distant warlord or conqueror, many centuries from now, standing in a similar gallery, admiring a picture of Premier John the Liberator.

"Ah, comrade Premier, the Ambassador from Miroslavl is on the phone. He wants to speak to you on a matter of urgency." another tiresome lackey, he thought. Miroslavl. I wonder if Adeliza, her breasts on show to the artist, had to take a message about some far foreign war. Or maybe it was Adam, dressed as a long-dead Tiburan, who ordered the sinking of Breotonian ships in that great trade war.

"Fine, fine. I assume this blasted Palace has a phone-line somewhere."
"Yes, comrade Premier. Installed in 1905 as a matter of fact-"
"Whatever."

Brushing past the lackey, he shuffled off to wherever the Phone room most likely was. Walking down long wood-panelled corridors, he realised they were identical to the ones in his own Palace of Progress. He smiled at the architect's conceit. Power is built on an illusion of itself. Those with Power have no Imagination, no soul. Breasts, Tiburans, Dresses, Columns. All props for a theatre without meaning.

Reaching for the somewhat antique phone, he picked it up.
"Alright, Ambassador. I trust this is a matter of importance. The People's Assembly has already voted, as you know. Our hands are tied."
"I appreciate that, Premier, truly. and I appreciate you taking this call with me. I know how busy you must be-"
"Save it. Now, tell me about this scuffle your Fleet has had.."

 

[Havenshire]

October 13th, 1952

Premier Walker wheezed with difficulty as another bout of hacking coughs doubled him over. His doctor steadied him, a hankerchief pressed against his mouth. Eventually, the coughing fit passed, and he could rise, shaking, from the floor. The doctor impassively disposed of the hankerchief in a nearby bin. It was soaked in blood droplets. Another damp cloth was provided, wiping down the Premier's sweat-drenched brow. His uniform was unfolded, and his mishapen, stubby feet were guided into the tight black socks and jackboots that he would wear the rest of the day.

So began another day of torture for the ageing dictator.

He moved with iron resolution through his routine, signing documents, meeting ambassadors, ministers, bureaucrats, millitary officials. Signing documents again, affixing his seal. Waving at a small parade of the Crimson Marines, the elite vanguard of the People's Armed Forces. A large number of them had already been covertly dispatched to Raigestan, where they would help train the Raigestani to fight the Danes. The rest were being mobilised for a brewing conflict North of Havenshire, on the rolling waves of the Northern Thaumantic.

Interestingly, a small company was now being trained to become the 1st Heliborne- a regiment of rapid deployment light infantry/marines who would operate entirely from helicopters. The idea was a novel one, but currently difficult, as to move even a single company was estimated to require as many as 15 Hummingbirds, possibly as many as 20. A heavier, more durable helicopter was in the prototyping stage, but would not be available in sufficient numbers for this kind of operation untill this time next year at the earliest. Walker found it all airy-fairy technocracy, but he permitted it since it was at least cheaper and more practical than building Strategic Jet Bombers or those ridiculous atomizer bombs some within the ministry dreamed of. He snorted. He knew when he died the Technocrats would sweep to power, but if there was one thing he intended to leave as a legacy, it was a competent, useful set of Armed Forces. Havenshire would be defended, he decided. Whatever it cost.

Finally, it was one of his rare moments of rest. This time he was sat in a bar that had been cleared for him. Some good-will trip to a local brewery. A glass of Potenzan wine sat before him. He didnt normally care for wine, but this stuff was the best, and it amused him to speculate how it had come into this country. Noone would tell him, and asking would probably lead to the supply drying up out of fear. He wouldn't want that. He downed the glass like it was a shot, and grimaced only slightly. "Good stuff, good stuff. Very rich." he grumbled to himself. Noone would ever accuse the Premier of being a Wine afficionado.

He gazed out across the empty counter-tops, seeing the smoky haze of long vanished cigarettes, the varnished wood spoiled by years of spilt beer and cider. He reminded him of better days, simpler days, when he would meet in Union Clubs and rant and roar and fundraise for the Miner's Union. He sighed. He had been a young man then, with a young wife. His wife was never mentioned now. It was one of the few subjects that could still bring him real pain. The deep pain only the drink could erase.

He flashed back, briefly, to that darkest day. Her lying there on the bed, the claret dripping from her wrists, drip drip drip. The note. She had found out about the executions he'd had to preform when Stanchester fell. She accused him of being the Monster he had sworn not to become. The names she had listed he had forgotten in a blur. The faces of boys, women he had shot haunted him, so he poured another glass of that wine.

"Anna..." he breathed quietly to himself. Then a polite cough. It was Colonel Blood, again. The nameless, non-existent quiet man who everyone assumed was a secretary. The head of his most secret section within the Central Intelligence Bureau, the spies who watched the spies. They produced no paperwork, bringing only death warrants. More names, more faces.
"What do you want this time?" he barked harshly.
"Ah, Premier, a small matter. Some Fennian lads, merchant marine most likely or whatever passes for it in that country. Probably even socialists. But they ran their mouths in one of our more...public bars. You know the usual sort. I have taken the liberty of ensuring they are returned to their country in short order. Just need an Extradition Order..." he presented the document from somewhere.

Walker sniffed. Extradition. So no new names this time. A small part of him sighed in relief. "Good. Wouldn't want to provoke these crazy bastards too soon, eh?" He chuckled more out of habit than a genuine sense that something funny had been said. A pen was presented, he took it in his hands, and scrawled the usual scrawl on the line. A biro, this time. He marvelled at the strange new pen. No heavy ink lines, pressed in too hard by his meaty fingers. An efficient and odd little writing implement. He still remembered the chalkdust on his fingers as a child, trying to make his letters on the blackboard.

Memories. The only things he had left. Well, that, and near total autocratic power over a nation-state of nearly ten million people.

 

[Havenshire]

October 20th, 1952

The logs were crackling in the grate, as the discussion in the Cabinet Room went on long into the night. All throughout it Walker had kept mostly silent, sitting in his long, heavy padded chair, a doctor at his side. In the past, he had kept these sort of meetings lively by exercising total control. Now he felt himself growing weaker, the cold gnawing at his bones, the fire inside his belly no longer enough to keep him warm. Sometimes he had to fight hard to prevent from just degenerating into an hour-long coughing fit. Sometimes he lost that fight. He knew his time was coming. But whatever the vultures might think, it was not yet past.

For everything he had paid, he would keep Havenshire together a while longer. And that was why he now knew he had to act to end this damnable Crisis, before fools gave away the Motherland to fascists out of fear.

"Comrades, please. It has grown far too late. Let us have Order." said Chairman Macclesfield ineffectually. And this was the man who imagined himself a successor to the Premier? Too weak, too weak.

"Everybody Shut the fuck up and listen to me you pissants!" Walker roared with a burst of strength, instantly quietening the whole room. The crackle of logs could be faintly heard. Outside rain continued to drizzle down the faint windows, saturating the Red Square. Always it was rain, heavy, clammy rain. Snow might come in December, they said. If snow came, Walker knew, it would be his last winter.

Generals, Ministers and Bureaucrats all turned to regard their ailing leader. The one man who could lead them out of this mess of their own making.

"Admirals, you have confirmed that above and below the waves, we are an equal match individually for the Fennian Union or the Teloran Republic, but combined they would beat us. You have neglected to examine the possibility of war with the Danish Thaumantic Fleet, possibly because you know that such a war would be simply too catastrophic to contemplate. Great Engellex too, has been neglected in your calculations, because they alone possibly number as much as -all three- of the other navies combined!" He spat at his Admirals, his fury building.

They stood in silence, sensing not only more fury was to come, but, possibly, one of his grand ultimatums, which they hoped would be the solution needed to this crisis.

"Generals, you have for some reason presented a report on how we might repel the Danish or Engellexic armies were they to invade, but again I see you have neglected to consider the possibility of these two Great Powers collaborating in such an effort, and how completely that would overmatch even our unconventional efforts. The Fennians and Telorans might lack the capacity to invade us, but their forces too might be deployed as auxillaries were such a Coalition to manifest. A worrying failure of imagination on your part."

He turned now, steadying himself as he rose from his chair.

"I will not even begin to address the contempt I have for the People's Air Force. Our Jet force might grant us an initial edge, but only for the first day of hostilities. Sheer weight of numbers would grant total air supremacy to our enemy by day three at the latest. That I had to do these calculations shows how lazy you have become on your laurels, and with your pet projects. I know about the Missiles you dream of fitting to these Jets, imagining somehow this will make them invincible in the skies!"

Then, as the millitary flinched from his assault, he spun quickly to face the bureaucrats and ministers, ignoring the spots that threatened to cloud his vision, refusing to acknowledge how weak he had physically become.

"Havenshire starves, and you talk of abandoning the Northern Thaumantic and our fishing grounds. I say we need not do either, though even with them we still need new influxes of food. Macclesfield has presented a ludicrously optimistic vision of farming reforms based on pie-in-the-sky technologies not yet even tested. Perhaps in a few years such might be contemplatable. But now we need new allies. Carentania, our glorious brother, has doomed itself by stirring all of the reactionaries to unite against it. Even if all revolutionaries stood shoulder to shoulder, our might would not be sufficient to dint theirs. Let us not doom ourselves futilely for the sake of a bunch of Eyetie Slavs, eh?"

Walker reached with deliberate care for a glass, sternly ordering his doctor to pour. The whiskey would defeat the shakes, and delay the collapse he felt building. Long enough for him to finish his work here.

"Minister Welks, you have the solution before you. Co-operate with the editor of the Clarion for once, and also the Central Intelligence Bureau. Let them rattle their sabers and crow about glorious victories over the mighty communist enemy. Such propaganda helps us more than it hurts. Let them fear us so mightily, and feel proud as cockerels when we slink away. The Fox is more cunning than they, and there is more than one way to get chickens." He smiled cruelly.

"Let this conference happen. Potenza, Ivernia, Frescania, I care not. Make public and effusive our desire for peace and brotherhood. Invite even those royalist shitheads the Engelish. We will welcome them and grant them every demand they make. Withdraw our forces- I assume they have already been withdrawn- and continue to fish. We can plant operatives on every fishing vessel of note, stop any infiltration or defection. Meanwhile, we will approach Boreas and Himyar, and let them trade with us, and send us their grain and foodstuffs, in exchange for the things we will deny to Europe. The usual material, of course. They will cheer at how they have thwarted us, whilst we will continue on, with dignity. I doubt even they in their rabid madness will pursue further aggression once it is clear we will not be continuing our slinkings around their farms. Raigestan we can allow to fall further into the shadows. It was always a sideshow anyway."

Then, with great effort, Walker strode from the room. "You are all dismissed. Get to it."

 

[Havenshire]

December 29th, 1952


By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling
Michael they are taking you away
For you stole a Kingsman's corn
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

Low lie the Fields of Aoidh Mor
Where once we watched the stork birds tall.
Our love was on the wing
we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Aoidh Mor.

-Old Ivernian/Carnic Folk Song

It was a cold, dark evening, the same as many that came before it, in the Red room where John Walker often sat, the stench of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey staining the tattered and peeling wallpaper. A small fire lay in the grate, whisps of smoke gently curling up from burning fag-ends and crunched-up paper-balls, the remnants of legislature and government documentation which had annoyed or bored the great Premier.

Somewhere, a gramophone sat, atop a pile of unwanted ledgers and government portfolios, and music emanated gently and with a soft crackle, as a record span, deep groves run in the soft disc by a thousand repeated playings. A singer's voice, long dead or dying, preserved for eternity, in an echo of its once powerful solemnity and beauty. The song it sang was the Fields of Aoidh Mor, a folk song banned in Havenshire for its popularity with Carnish Nationalists. If any Cadorans knew that the tune was enjoyed- indeed, a deeply personal memento- for their most hated enemy, it is difficult to guess how they might feel. But as a song of grief, perhaps it is to the good that those who cause the most grief might also seek succor for their own grief, in a song produced by a people they have spent so much of their lives destroying.

Such thoughts came to Walker, a man given to much introspection, more so than ever. The winter had been long and mostly empty. The Conference over the An Lyric Sea was long over, the Stonewall had done his job, and now Havenshire was bound by whatever fool nonsense had been decided at that event. International events bubbled and boiled, this or that tension rising and falling. Places with names so distant and foreign, clamouring for his intention. Sikandara. Potenza. Parthia. They might aswell be the Moon, or the Past, or Fairyland. So distant were they to he, to his thoughts, his experience, his cares. Ah, no. Not quite. The Past was nearer than Potenza. Nearer still, catching up.

Walker found himself coughing again, as he sipped- yes, sipped, for once- at a glass of whiskey, as he read a report on a Christmas Uprising that had been crushed in one of the camps. Conspicuously absent from the report was a motivation or reason for this spontaenous prisoner riot. Walker suspected a degree of bloodthirsty zeal on the part of the Commandant. Perhaps he had simply massacred most of his charge to save on food. But at the same time, the Camp had been drawing upon an unusually large food ration. More so than other Camps in the area. It was a quandary. Prisoners often riot because they feel they have no choice, a stark desperation brought on by starvation. But if they were fed well, why risk death trying to storm machine-guns?

He held back a racking cough, blood slick in his raw throat, as he contemplated the puzzle. He would have to send an Investigator. Someone from the CIB, obviously, shake them up. Yes, Walker had a keen nose for rats, and he would find them all, eventually.

The record spun into silence, the song done. It would play the song again, in a little while, no doubt. He'd probably have to get up and reset the Gramophone, but his legs felt too stiff and cold to move. He sniffed. Arthritis, the flu, and a failing liver. It was a wonder he was still all together. He smiled grimly to himself at the thought, though once again a heaving, lung-splitting cough destroyed any notion of actual laughter or merriment.

"Boy!" He wheezed. "Bring me the Doctors, my medicine." Once again, blood spotted his hankerchief. This time it was so dark it was almost black. Not good. "Boy! Where are you?"

A shadow moved, out from the door. A man in a black trenchcoat, his eyes mirrored by dark shades. His skin stood out, pale and stark, and he gave a grin, stark as tombstones. This man couldn't have looked more like the physical incarnation of Death if he had tried.

"Gah! You gave me a fright. CIB man, eh? Get me that lazy...fucking...boy..." He found himself struggling to speak now, the coughing fit had him so deep. He was spitting blood from his lips now, and his face had turned crimson from the effort, sweat beading on his brow.

"So...the Great Dictator's time has come at last." The man smiled, rolling his 's's, playing the role of Melodramatic, Macabre Death to the hilt. Alarm bells began to ring in Walker's head, but his burning lungs robbed him of agency.

"Who...the...fuck...are...you?"

"I am...a Store Clerk. Come to collect a Bill. You...have a substantial debt...to pay, Mr.Walker." The Black-coated man advanced like a shadow, his pauses almost mocking Walker's own inability to speak.

"Fuck...off...I'll...have...you...shot!"

"No, Mr.Walker. You will have no more people shot. It is...Time. The Right Man in the wrong place...can make all the difference...in the world." Moving like a blur, the black-coated man grabbed the struggling, wheezing fat dictator, who kicked and fought, old instincts still fresh despite age, weakness and years of complacency.

"I...won't go!" he managed to gasp out, but his body betrayed him when he needed it most. Strength ran from his limbs, as tight, gloved hands wrapped themselves around his throat, and he was pinned back to his chair with suprising force.

"Fight, don't fight, you'll die the same as the rest in the end. I have brought Time to so many people. I wonder, would you remember their names, their faces? I remember every single one. Every single...time." The blackcoated man shot a glance at Walker's battered swiss clock, lying on its side, part of the general mess of the Red office.

Walker found himself struggling to breathe, his eyes fogging. He was already dying, and this...stranger...was hastening the process. Noone would ever suspect that the Great Premier's last coughing fit had been...aided...by another.

Everything was going dark, now. The song began again, on the Gramophone, more crackly than before. He gazed up, at the too-bright, flickering bulb on his ceiling, the peeling paint and cracks standing out, bold as day. He could smell the old-leather on the gloves that choked him, and the faint hint of an old cologne. Even as everything began to recede and blur, everything stood out in bolder clarity, like an after-image, bright and fading all at once.

A long, slow, gasping rattle came forth from his battered and bruised lips, one last gout of black-red blood, and his eyes went white. John Walker was dead.

we had dreams and songs to sing
It's so lonely 'round the Fields of Aoidh Mor.

The time was 10:14pm. The Stranger left, a shadow disappearing as he had come.



By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling
Nothing matters Mary when you're free,
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled they ran me down
Now you must raise our child with dignity.

 

[Havenshire]

December 30th, 1952

Early Morning


The Clock had stopped. Time had run out, all the sands from the hourglass spilled. A glass fell, a scream yelled. Walker's cooling body was found, amidst a mess of his papers and empty whiskey bottles, his ledgers overturned. His blank, murky eyes staring accusatorily at the door, where he had fallen. The news spread fast, faster than you would have thought possible in those days. Telegraphs clattered in the dawn, Morse signals flashed to ships at sea, Radios blared the Internationale, Red Flag, Flowers from the Forest, and terse bulletins.

The Great Leader was dead. The Revolution Continues.

In Factories throughout Havenshire, In Collectives, in fog and flood-water bound farming-towns and lumber-mills, in starving, freezing, huddled masses around small fires in Re-education camps, in millitary bases, in lonely fishing smacks bobbing up and down on a heaving grey sea, the news was recieved with a unanimous sigh of relief, a brief feeling of elation. But then it passed, and a grief, a real, soul-wrenching grief, gripped countless hearts. It was not the sorrow for the passing of a Dictator- though for appearance's sake many would claim it was thus- but a true, loss of faith and hope. What would happen now? The certainty and comfort of an unchanging situation had been upended.

The World was Turned Upside Down.


For those who had been powerful, too close, too obsequious and devoted to Walker, this was the most dangerous time. Those who had parroted his quasi-vanguardist line too well, those who had soaked their hands and feet in oceans of blood, those who had fed others into the fire....Their time was up, as surely as the sand had run out of Walker's glass. Suitcases were packed, papers shredded. The Crimson Marines were activated, as was the City Garrison for Westhaven and Clyneston. This was not reported, or recognised.

The Submarine fleets were recalled. The whole nation held its breath, whilst the long knives were drawn from their long-hidden sheaths, and sharpened.

Before Walker's body was finally committed to its mausoleum, yet unbuilt, in February 1953, many more of his comrades would join him in death. A Power Struggle was coming. A New Broom to sweep old ideas away.


The Devil was dead, but his fiddle played on. And the Cat...the Cat would dance.

 

[Havenshire]

January 15th, 1953

Premier Macclesfield gazed at his new office. He had decided not to claim Walker's red room, and not just because it stank of old whiskey and the sweat of a tyrant who had, apparently, choked on his own blood in the room. He also felt that, for what he hoped to achieve, seizing the office of the Red Labeller would be too bold a move. What this was...what was happening...lacked any name, but it didn't need one. A vacuum existed, and untill it was unequivocally clear who was in charge- untill the People's Assembly ratified it, and untill Walker's body was finally laid to rest- Macclesfield's position, and the position of everyone in the Central Congress, was transitional. Walker had moulded the whole system to suit himself, and now that he was missing, everyone was trying to play chess without queen or king pieces.

So it was that Macclesfield had relocated himself from the Chairman's Office to the Observation Room. The highest room in the Palace of the People, it was not well suited to being an office space. But the symbolism was clear. He would work in a place where he could always watch , both the world outside and the proceedings of the People's Assembly below. He smiled. Let them make of that what they wished.

He was busy hammering away on his new typewriter- a model expressly imported from Ivernia, the very latest, better than the clunkers churned out here in Havenshire- when a man in a dark trenchcoat slipped into the room. Macclesfield recognised him. One of the CIB's best assassins, a Liquidator. He did not know the man's real name, but between themselves he was simply... Comrade Smith.

"Well, Comrade Smith. I must say I'm suprised to see you here so soon. I had thought you would take a few months off at least, if not permanently vacate the country." Macclesfield said, carefully. He had his suspicions, of course, but no proof. Nor did he particularly want proof. Smith was a tool who in his own using had made himself obsolete. Macclesfield had no time for the murderous games Walker liked to play, setting ministry against ministry, keeping everyone on their toes. Though, Macclesfield supposed, he might need Smith for somewhile yet, untill the pattern he wished to enforce on the governing of the People's Republic could set, and the present power struggle ended.

"Indeed, such was my plan." he said, in his slow, sibilant voice. "However, a small matter has come to my attention that I, as a professional courtesy, thought you should know."

Macclesfield perked up at this. The Liquidator was never his pet or lackey, but someone who he had entered into a mutually beneficial partnership. He did not command the assassin, nor did he have a great deal of authority over the Central Intelligence Bureau in general. That partnership was now concluded. What Smith offered however...clearly, for his own reasons, he desired to continue that partnership.

"You intrigue me, Smith. Very well, what have you found out?"

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is grown increasingly bold. They will shortly arrive to demand you authorise the lease of Estborough Naval Base and all its facilities, for the use of a Foreign millitary naval formation, in exchange for which they will spin you a pretty story of securing an open highway to council-communist dominion in the Danish colonial empire and more besides. They will neglect to inform you, of course, that they were also paid somewhere in the region of 15 Million Shillings, with more payments likely to be made directly to them in lieu of the usual docking fees and port tariffs."

Macclesfield's jaw dropped. It was simply too incredible to be a lie, yet...what in blazes did the Foreign Ministry think it was doing?

In anwser to his unspoken question, Smith continued. "I believe Alan Wilks thinks he can get your job, Premier. Certainly so plum a foreign policy objective, if substantiated, will impress even the hardliners, and be sufficient to override the no doubt considerable rage of the People's Admiralty."

He frowned, pursing his lips. "So, the cat dances..." he muttered.

Smith raised a brow questioningly, but did not speak.

Pushing aside his typewriter, Macclesfield took out a clean piece of notepaper, and uncapped his biro. "I want you to take this note to the Admiralty Headquarters at Estborough. I also want you to get in touch with our supporters in the millitary. We can't cancel the deal without losing face, and I doubt we could stop the First Jutish Fleet if they wanted to dock in our ports anyway. But we can negate this victory for the Foreign Ministry in many other ways." Once he had finished his note, he folded it, and applied the seal of the Premier's Office.

Once Smith had put the note away in his large coat, he stood, silently.

"I suppose there is the question of why you brought this to my attention, and what you could want in exchange for this assistance you have rendered to me."

Smith nodded. "I need access to files sealed to the Premier's Office. My efforts to obtain them on my own have met with...resistance."

Now it was Macclesfield's turn to be suprised. "What could you possibly want with files that secret? I can't imagine there is anything of interest or worth to you that the CIB does not already know about."

"There is one thing...Project 453. I want to know everything about it, and whose in charge."

"I've never heard of such a Project." Macclesfield confessed.

"No...you wouldn't have. But get me the documents. The usual drop place will suffice."

Smith left, without waiting for a reply. The Premier sighed. This new partnership was, he sensed, going to be as...interesting as their previous one.

 

[Havenshire]

February 12th, 1953

Macclesfield sighed, massaging his temples. It was proving more difficult and time-consuming than he had thought, to establish control and consensus over the wheels of administration that had trundled on on automatic pilot since the death of Walker. He had expected some initial resistance and wild policy-making, of course, and even a fair amount of blood spilled. But the sheer inertia he was working against was...daunting. The Power struggle was one thing, he thought. Actually asserting that power over a bureaucracy as stagnant and autonomous as Havenshire's was...something else.

He considered the men he was supposed to be listening to. Another dreary meeting, another list of demands and mealy-mouthed platitudes to the "Acting" Premier. By a quirk of Constitutional Law, they couldn't hold the full People's Assembly vote to officially ratify him untill the previous Premier had been buried. He'd delayed the funeral as long as he dared, but it looked likely the full vote would occur now on April 1st. Fool's Day. The irony was strong. Still, the full ratification was not yet as certain as he'd liked. He'd managed to head off the exploding self-importance and almost treasonous foreign affair deals of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yet he could not punish them, for to do so would be to admit that an entire ministry had openly colluded with a monarchist power. In many ways, it was simply easier to allow the Danes their port facilities and then deny anything had ever occurred.

Of course, whilst that might be the public stance, privately Macclesfield had assigned CIB "minders" to the top echelons of the Ministry. They had vigorously protested, but after humiliating the People's Navy and Army with their grandstanding, there was noone they could turn to for protection. Which meant that for all his obvious ambition, Foreign Minister Wilkes was trapped. Meanwhile, CIB agents were gleefully ransacking the enormous foreign archives, dating all the way back to 1927 when the People's Republic had first been founded, worming out every little back-alley transaction, every nugget of consorting with unsavoury foreign powers. A hefty dossier was being built up on all of them.

Of course, such an expenditure of manpower and resources to regain control in that sector meant -another- sector of Havenite power decided to use this opportunity to declare itself petty mandarins of their little microkingdom of power. In this case, it was the Co-operatives.

Always occupying an uneasy position of semi-autonomy from the Government, the co-operatives were the cornerstone of Council Communism, the physical proof that this road to Communism was better than Vanguardism. Whereas a Vanguardist state had to set prices and determine value itself, aswell as manufacture everything in sufficient quantities to meet demand, the flexibility of a co-operative allowed the producer to be both businessman and consumer. It was this economic freedom, scant as it actually was, that defined Havenshire. It was this seperation between state and supplier, between the worker and the worker's representative, that Clynes had worked so hard to enshrine. Somehow, he had known that bureaucrats made for poor industrialists.

Which was why it was all the more frustrating that, in loyalty to those very principles, they were now baulking at his demands for reform, to meet his grand designs of an overarching Business Council, who could act as overseers and ensure that pricing and productivity met forecasted expectations.

To Macclesfield, the future lay in technocratic forward planning by trained experts, to meet the challenge of the growth of fully capitalist societies and states. To the Co-operatives, a Business Council was just more government meddling. He couldn't even get them to agree on the need for state watchdogs on financing.

As the arguements wore on, he knew he had to play his trump card.

"Comrades, please. I have heard your arguements, and I understand your concerns. But it is time we faced facts. Last year, we suffered a famine in which several thousand of our comrade citizens starved to death, or froze due to hypothermia. There were weather problems, I grant you, but it is abundantly clear that our current system is not working!" This took them aback, and he pressed on, before they could realise how tangential this point actually was to the discussion.

"Comrades, I believe that it is possible for us to unleash the full potential for productivity and progressivism within our nation. I offer you freedom from government shackles, from production quotas. You can hire who you want, and lay off who you want, and produce what you want. I offer you complete freedom in this regard. I offer this because we are a small nation, with a large government, and i have learnt well that counting beans does not make them grow. I offer you this because for too long we have been more concerned about watching each other, rather than watching ourselves, and the task at hand." He was not a born orator, it was a skill he had to learn, and had practiced often since he had made his first, stumbling debut at a pre-revolutionary student debate club.

Now he let his rhetoric have full force, even though his audience was not a crowd, but a table of muttering business representatives.

"Comrades, I offer you this, and ask only- only! That a small advisory board be formed, from amongst yourselves, to curb excesses. I do not want them poking every factory looking for saboteurs or counting the merchandise. I want a Business Council so that you can focus on exactly that- the business of enriching your communities, of developing them prosperously. You are not Capitalists, concerned with making yourselves wealthy. You are not vanguardists, to be concerned with making the state wealthy. You are Council Communists, as I am, and I firmly believe that a Council of Businessmen is needed for the good of the people, to be a voice for the development of that branch of prosperity, exactly as there is a Miner's Union to speak for the needs of miners, and also ensure that the communities of miners are well served."

Finally, they seemed receptive. It was a difficult offer to make- to grant them seemingly more power- but ultimately he had to trust that out of the chaos of their own petty production wars, an order of prosperity would emerge. When he asked them- and he would ask them- in a short while, to manufacture and provide enough equipment to kit out several armies, it would be with this power they would have to achieve that demand. He only hoped that they would not spurn the opportunity that such massive production efforts would present. He only hoped that the rewards he could get by trading such materiel to other communist factions around the world would be worth it in the long run.

Guns or Butter, he remembered. I will be the first Premier to get both.

 

[Havenshire]

A TREATISE ON MONARCHO-CAPITALISM AND ITS GLOBAL HEGEMONY
by Professor Ethan Sorkin​

Note: This paper was published to be presented to the Symposium of the People's Republic of Havenshire in Westhaven in 1939, however it was suppressed and its author has not been seen in academic circles for some time. The paper has, mysteriously and unaccountably, been published abroad for Scientific and Political Science Journals in Danmark and Sylvania.


The history of Western European political evolution is the history of the merging of two parallel, distinct, and arguably diametric political trends that have evolved concurrently over at least the last 1100 years, in every society primarily inhabited by caucasians, from the Occident to the farthest corners of Sarmatia. This paper will attempt to examine how these forces, specifically Monarchism or Autocracy, and Merchantilism or Capitalism, have fused and now presently dominate the Earth, and how even now these forces exert considerable influence on the social, political, economic and ethnic evolution of not just peoples living under these systems, but all peoples everywhere.

Whilst some might see this as an ambitious remit for a single paper, it is nonetheless a subject that has been considerably overlooked by political scientists, even those as astute as the academics of Westhaven and Cazma. Yet to truly understand not only our own present system and its aspirations, but the direction it is going, it is vital that we come to grips with Monarcho-Capitalism. If we continue to ignore the omnipresent, global influence of Monarcho-Capitalism, which reaches even into Havenshire and Carentania, we risk becoming subject to it ever more fully, even now.

Let us take our own nation as an example of the evolution of Monarcho-Capitalism. As astonishing as it may seem to present onlookers, Havenshire was once the most archetypal and deeply entrenched Monarcho-Capitalist societies in Europe. The High Prince was supreme, delegating all financial power to favourited gentry, whose success in enterprise was rewarded liberally with titles, effectively erasing any meaningful distinction between the empowered middle-class and the aristocratic bourgeoise. It was this, and still is, this total fusion of two-thirds of a society's body, to collaborate in the oppression and suppression of the entire remaining, much larger third, which characterises Monarcho-Capitalism so completely.

But perhaps this definition is over-simplistic. What, in generic terms, is Monarcho-Capitalism, and what does it hope to achieve? Broadly speaking, Monarcho-Capitalism, as manifested in such states as Wiese, Danmark, Ivernia and even Havenshire untill recently, is a state where ultimate political power is wielded by a hereditary or self-appointed autocratic leader, who nonetheless maintains power through a decentralised system of commerce and finance, rather than a traditional feudal structure of land-lords and the overt threat of naked force.

The contradiction implicit in Monarcho-Capitalism, of a supreme political power nominally independent of commercial concerns, which nonetheless relies heavily on the power of the market, is an obvious one, yet one that has not, at least for the past two-hundred and fifty years, had any noticable effect on the efficacy of Monarcho-Capitalism as a system that persist in near-global hegemony.

The danger in defining Monarcho-Capitalism as such, however, is to create an artifical distinction, that states that lack a hereditary or autocratic leader, or which do not wield power through the markets must therefore not be Monarcho-Capitalist in nature. As any cursory glance of the Great, Regional and nominal powers in Europe today would demonstrate, this is clearly not the case. Even Republics, who eschew autocratic leadership but embrace whole-heartedly the free markets, and People's Republics, who may embrace autocratic leadership but reject whole-heartedly individualist enterprise, are clearly influenced, willingly or not, by the hegemony of Monarcho-Capitalist systems.

But is this necessarily a bad thing? What afterall, is Monarcho-Capitalism aiming to achieve? An overt-goal seems to be lacking. No two monarcho-capitalists, much less states, seem to share a common vision of where their country or they themselves are necessarily going. There appears to be no shared weltanschuung, No common dream. Sometimes, notions of "The Occidental Dream" are theorised by philosophers of that continent. The concept, broadly summarised, is that any man might come to the fresh frontiers of the occident, and, through individual hard work, make of themselves whatever they so desire. This Dream is often referred to, when reference is necessary, in works seeking to explain or define capitalism. However, this dream cannot, clearly, hold any weight in a Monarcho-Capitalist society. Whilst a man might conceivably or theoretically strive hard enough to become the richest man in his nation or even the world, ultimate political power is still denied to him by right of birth. This final barrier, whilst railed against by many capitalists, is nonetheless a necessary check in the system. It is for this reason that I believe that Monarcho-Capitalism has succeeded in establishing such global hegemony.

Wether by accident or design, the seperation of the two equal and opposite spheres of power, the financial and the executive, could not be more distinct. This fusion, of an institution and personage from pre-enlightenment times, with concepts, trends and institutes of post-enlightenment ones, is clearly an effective system, one where even its drawbacks may be seen as unintentional benefits.

Monarcho-Capitalist states are, of course, by nature, frequently engaged in the business of making war. The product of labour is expended vastly, ever more so in these industrial and post-industrial times, in such destructive enterprises, a natural check on the growth of markets and the individual power of the capitalist, whilst simultaenously engaging the attention of individual Monarchs, often whom are the subject of these wars, various Succession or territorial disputes of one kind or another serving to ignite convenient conflagrations, which are obsessed over with petty detail, and prevent any one Monarch from upsetting the global hegemonic balance of Monarchs unduly.

The genius of the system is further revealed when one considers who the bulk of those actually engaged in the war are. The ill-educated, mean-blooded masses, whose toil keeps the whole engine running in peace-time, are fed into that machine during war, their blood and anguish lubricating the gears, and keeping them from effectively rising up.

The efficacy of this system cannot be now doubted. However, the most worrying aspect of Monarcho-Capitalism, its growing and total influence, is overlooked in favour of its more visible acts of aggression. The duology of such a fusion, between strong individual and diffuse collective, might and money, divine right and secular shrewdness, is one that worryingly can be seen manifesting even in systems which do not subscribe to Monarchism or Capitalism, and which yet are demonstrably independent from these systems.

The increasing political power garnered to the post of Premier, for example, may be explained as a reaction to recent events, a lack of confidence in leadership of the people after such a ruinous and difficult civil war, where brother fought brother. It is easy to understand why any people would seek out a Strong Man, one capable of uniting the disparate factions and guaranteeing, or appearing to guarantee, total safety. One might also imagine the cultural and historical legacy of Monarcho-Capitalism, leaving residues in people's habits and minds, difficult to shake off even after so catastrophic a defeat for its agents in this country.

Yet the fact remains that we can see an emerging duology of power, worryingly similar to that evident in Monarcho-Capitalism, arising even here in Havenshire. Premier Walker has abolished term-limits on his own office, and begun vigorously to campaign for yet more executive and even legislative power. In exchange, he has granted ever looser and looser control over the Co-operatives and Unions to its nominal Representatives. Whilst in a Council-Communist system a representative is the first amongst equals, frequently privately accumulated wealth is utilised by those desiring to be representatives to either buy the votes of their co-operativists, or maintain their hold on the collective through simple accquisition and monopoly on key resources important to that community.

Whilst some have attributed this to the natural byproduct of a society still transitioning to full Communism, it is worth noting that such elements are not, as far as this author can tell, apparent in Carentania.

Wether this similarity to Monarcho-Capitalism will continue to manifest in Havenite society, in the words of the great government propaganda piece, the Clarion, "only time will tell".