The One Safeguard...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Posted by kind permission of pierot, whose NPC this is.

An antipathy to change was an odd trait in a monarch of the Court of Spring, and it was one which Magdalena would have denied in herself, had anyone asked her, and had they been able to pay the price for her answer.

Still. London was still a twitchy place even now, more than thirty years after the Great Betrayal, and this business of the Knight Watchman was causing uneasiness in steadier people than her. To him would fall the responsibility of assuring the successor to the Winter King, to Tommy D himself, who had been the power in London ever since his indomitable will had forced him a second time through the Hedge, and into history.

And she didn't know any of these people.

"Feel free to lie," she said lightly into the quiet hall, "You probably will." And a lie could tell as much as a truth, and that was something the Watchman should know, as well, though if they had not earned that knowledge then she would not place it like a child's bauble within their grasp. "But are you bribable?"

"I am over-clever," said the first.

"I am not loyal," said the second.

"I am foolish," said the third, though by the currents running like a riptide through the room she knew that these were not the answers heard by others.

And none of them were what she wanted to hear.

She butterflied over to the dais that was hers and her court's, raised for display. And she listened to her court, who unanimously chose the known over the unknown, which was little enough of change or hope. But it was their answer she gave to Sebastian when he asked, in her own gentle voice, for in this place, at this time, she had little desire, and theirs was great.

"The Winter Court names Slink as the new Night Watchman," announced Sebastian, and she could not say she was surprised. Nor did she mind; not then. Not until, like little drops of rain gathering into a storm, a muttering in the room arose, and Kia and Ethan followed grim-faced in its wake.

"It is his right," she said to them, confusion touching the edge of her thoughts in a flurry of feathery mothwings. "He must have reason. He was the first Knight Watchman. He was betrayed by the first Winter King. He must have reason. He was... he came back through the Hedge twice. Nobody's ever done that."

Their faces did not change.

"Oh," she said, and felt the first chill touch of Autumn like an icy kiss upon her pretty neck.

There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust.