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“Oh… oh, you really are a fool!”
Az glared at the aristocrat who was currently crouching over her, her rouged cheeks upturned in a deceptively mocking smile.
“Well, not to worry, darling. I really quite like idiots, actually! They just make me feel so good about myself.” Standing up, her rounded dress fell perfectly about her ankles to meet with sickenly dainty heels. “Come along, now. Oh, and don’t worry about making a mess! The cleaners will have it covered.”
In Az’s handcuffed state, she would’ve found it difficult to get up were it not for the guards that forcefully yanked her to her feet and dragged her forward. Her mind begged to scream, to attack, to throw every insult she could find in her extensive vocabulary of foul language at that sworn enemy sauntering in front of her, but she forced herself to remain silent.
She had to remain quiet. Complacent. She would lure Lady Annabelle into a false sense of security, then she would make her escape.
“What are you, Lady Az?”
The use of ‘lady’ in front of Az’s name was like a slap in the face every time Lady Annabelle said it, but it was Lady Annabelle’s house, and what she said, went. “When you first came here, shouting about revolution and all that nonsense, I was sure you were simply off your head. But now?”
The unusually discerning look Az was now subject to made her squirm in her disgustingly clean boots. It wasn’t often that Lady Annabelle was anywhere near threatening, but occasionally she would have a certain look about her that made you realise why she was the one in charge and not her husband. The man hadn’t even shown up for the entirety of Az’s stay and something about the easy familiarity Lady Annabelle had around the mansion in his absence told Az that the disappearance wasn’t unusual.
“ Now, darling, I have simply no idea about you. You’re certainly not anywhere near smart-” Az rolled her eyes - “but… well, you do things that I wouldn’t even expect the most imbecilic morons to attempt. And what’s more, you succeed. ” She stood up. “So what are you, Lady Az?”
“I’m an incompetent fool working with a bunch of other, way smarter people to try and make a better life for ourselves.” Az said flatly, the stock answer she told everyone.
“You’re not a fool, darling.”
“Well, I got myself trapped here, didn’t I?”
“My security is state-of-the-art, my father made sure of that. The guards employed here are some of the best in the country outside those who work for the King. If I am being utterly truthful, which I always try to be, I am incredibly impressed with how close you got to success.” Lady Annabelle’s gaze softened as she looked away, her voice growing quieter. “If anything, I am the fool.”
“Why would you-”
“The things you have told me- why, I was completely unaware of the things going on outside my own mansion. I praise myself for being better than my father, better than my husband, but really I am the same as- well, the same as all of us.” A slight cough, and her smile returned, though smaller than before. “You are free to leave any time you wish, Lady Az. I will not keep you here any longer against your own will.”
“They’re so infuriatingly obstinate!”
Az watched both fondly and regretfully as Lady Annabelle paced back and forth across the grass, struggling to make sense of some of the words Lady Annabelle plucked from her vast vocabulary but understanding the frustration behind them.
“I mean, it worked for me, did it not? You told me of the ghastliness going on outside my walls, I changed my mind, started conspiring with you to be rid of the King instead! What’s so different between me and all those other aristocrats?”
“Well, for a start, you’re actually a good person. Might have something to do with it.” Az leaned back on her hands, her hair whipping back and forth with the ever-changing winds up on the hills. “Most of those bastards aren’t like you, they already knew of everything going on, they just like their wealth and power too much to care.”
“But how can they not care ?” The devastated look on Lady Annabelle’s face would’ve been comedic if it weren’t so gut-wrenchingly genuine. “There’s people like you suffering down there, and they just turn a blind eye! It’s just- it’s so infuriating! It’s not fair! ”
“Well, life’s not fair Lady Annabelle, especially when you’re on the losing team.”
“I believe it’s daft to view things in teams .” Lady Annabelle muttered. "We're all people , at the end of the day. And your goal is for everyone to be equal, correct?”
“I mean, yeah , but like…” Az shifted until she was sitting cross-legged. “Teams exist anyway. You got us, and you got the aristocrats. Diametrically opposed, or whatever.”
“Well, I’m an aristocrat, darling. Are we diametrically opposed?”
There was a moment of silence, which Az only realised too late she should’ve plugged. “No, I mean- well-”
“Oh, it’s alright, Lady Az.” There was no ice in Lady Annabelle’s tone, only a quiet sort of sadness which Az had only heard once before, and which absolutely didn’t fit the enthusiastic woman. She immediately felt terrible that she had even let the conversation get to this point. “You’ve lived a hard life. It’s understandable you would be wary around people like me.”
Lady Annabelle stood up and dusted herself off briefly. “Well, I must be going. I’ve made a right mess in all the circles and it’s imperative I go and sort it out before things get any worse, or I put you or any of your friends in danger.”
Az watched wretchedly as Lady Annabelle picked her way down the hill. She would meet with her personal servant, Melissa, halfway, who would escort her the rest of the way back to her mansion, before settling into her drawing room to draft an extortionate number of apologetic (if subtly passive-aggressive) letters in an attempt to restore the fragile status quo that had kept the rebellion safe for years.
In her head, though, Lady Annabelle felt an unfamiliar stirring which didn’t translate to the words she was crafting. Az had repeatedly told her about the ‘small, repeated efforts’ which she and her allies were making to wear down the system - quiet, slow, methodical, something that kept them safe and that was utterly ineffective. Lady Annabelle knew about the royal hierarchy; she was very closely involved in it, and she knew that any small efforts were patched almost immediately before they could build up over time. However…
There were about 70 aristocrats (including Lady Annabelle herself) whose role was to serve the King closely and quell any unrest within the kingdom. Under ‘unrest’ likely fell the rebellion’s ‘small, repeated efforts’, which is why none of them were working.
However, if the aristocrats were to no longer be there…
Lady Annabelle’s mind kept whirring.
Lady Annabelle’s husband had recently come home, and Az was not happy about it.
She had warned Az to stay away from the mansion just for the short time when he was home, to focus on other efforts she could be making for the rebellion, and that she would go right back to helping them afterwards. Occasionally, though, Az would be walking the hills where she and Lady Annabelle had so often conversed and she would see them both, also on a walk, further ahead on the hills.
And Az was not happy about it.
She wasn’t sure what it was. Something about the distressed tone of voice Lady Annabelle had used the last time they had spoken made a flame of rage surge up inside Az that she just didn’t know what to do with. Her friend, Jack, back at the safe house, had commented that she was getting snappier than usual.
Truth be told, Az didn’t know how to stop it. Something in her brain was just screaming get your best friend away from this man, he’s not right for her, you can see how unhappy he makes her- etc. etc.
But Lady Annabelle had warned Az to stay away, and so she did. After all, what Lady Annabelle said, went.
But Az was not happy about it.
Lady Annabelle tried her hardest to loosen her uptight shoulders as Melissa brushed her freshly washed-and-dried hair. A knot remained in her stomach that wouldn’t unravel no matter how deeply she breathed.
“I just hope she won’t be too upset. Lady Az, I mean.” She commented quietly to Melissa. Melissa continued to labour with the hairbrush, her silence an unspoken gesture for Lady Annabelle to continue. “I mean, this has taken a long time to set up. Organise. And it’s all going towards her cause. So she won’t be too upset, right?”
There was a small pause before Melissa answered. “I don’t know Lady Az all too well, ma’am, but she seems to care deeply about you. I don’t think there’s any doubt she will be upset.”
“Maybe I even wanted it that way, deep down.” Lady Annabelle sighed. “But I don’t want to hurt her. It would really be better if she had never gotten to know me at all.”
“But then, ma’am, you would be the same as before you met her.”
A candle flickered at the corner of the dressing table. “You’re right, as usual.”
There was another pause, a long, contemplative one, only broken by the gentle rustling of hairbrush on soft locks. Then:
“Do you love her?”
Lady Annabelle blinked for a brief moment.
“Well yes, I suppose I do.”
Melissa ran down the road, a letter not addressed to her clasped tightly in her gloved hands. She didn’t turn back.
“May I have your attention, everyone, please?”
Lady Annabelle lightly tapped her dessert spoon on her wine glass as a table full of people as rich or richer than her turned from their conversations to look expectantly up at her. She shivered slightly; not from the cold, although the lack of a lit fireplace did cause a slight chill in the air, but from a strange mix of anticipation, excitement, and fear. This was it.
“I trust that you have all been enjoying yourself tonight. It has been too long since I’ve hosted one of these fabulous events, and it has been truly enlightening talking to many of you after such a long time.”
“Hear hear!” She heard from her husband beside her, smiling encouragingly at her. Her returning smile was tight-lipped, and she quickly looked back to the large table. In the background, she could see the large mahogany doors being shut and locked, leaving only herself and her guests in the room. Good. That should give the guards and servants enough time to escape. She swallowed.
“I understand all of you have been working increasingly hard to quell the pockets of rebellion that have been appearing here and there across our glorious kingdom.” A murmur rippled across the room, and Annabelle had to speak louder to make herself heard until everyone settled down again. “For the time being, because of your efforts, the rebellion has not made much headway.
“The leader of one of these rebellions is a girl named Az, who you may not have heard of. She keeps herself very hidden, you see.” The mention of Az made Annabelle hesitate, broke the flow of her words for a brief moment. But she persevered. “I personally had the pleasure of meeting this young woman. She showed me things about this kingdom which… I had not realised before. You may remember that I spoke out about it a little while ago, before quickly taking back my words. Well, I am not taking them back now.”
There was a faint satisfaction at the back of her mind as she watched the pleasant expressions of the surrounding aristocrats slowly twist as she continued. Mostly, she felt quite disconnected from the situation. None of this part really mattered. But she wanted to do it anyway.
“My dear guests, you see, I wish to clear up a few things before the end of the night, for I am afraid it may be… difficult for me to do so afterwards.” She turned towards her now horrified husband. “I wish to tell you, my love, that I prefer my time when you are not with me, and that I regret ever having gotten married to you.” A slight smirk crossed her lips at the expression that statement earned her. It had been a long time coming. She looked back to the table. “I wish for you all to know that I think you have been disgustingly cruel to fellow humans, and that I am glad that I will never have to associate with any of you again. But most of all, I wish to express my regret that none of you decided to show judgement wise enough to avoid me having to do this.“
Now she could see the first tremors of fear, rising above confusion, overtaking the room. And that fear exploded into full-blown panic when she pulled out the items she had hidden in her robes. Thank the lord for dresses with pockets.
Before she lit the stick of dynamite in her hand, she spoke the final few lines of her pre-planned speech, not really caring that it couldn’t be heard any more above the screaming. Nobody could escape. The doors were locked.
“Az told me that the only way to achieve change was through small, repeated efforts over time. But because of you, those efforts had been getting cancelled out. For years, at this point. So I’ve decided to take decisive action. I hope you understand my decision. I promise, it’s at least mostly political. Only slightly personal.”
And now for a quote of her own.
“See you in hell, fuckers.”
She threw the lit stick of dynamite into the loaded fireplace.
Melissa turned around, and before she knew herself, she had fallen to the floor.
She made sure her tears didn’t stain the envelope.
The envelope that was meant for the one Lady Annabelle loved.
And it wasn’t her.
Everyone in the safe house crowded around the TV, taking turns banging it, shouting at it and turning it off and on again while Max attempted to fix the aerial outside. It had been damaged in a recent storm and not only was it imperative to get it working again so that they would have knowledge of the news and recent things that were going on that were important to their cause, but also nobody wanted to be stuck in a small house with way too many people crammed inside without some kind of turn-your-brain-off entertainment. Az stuck herself to the back wall near the door, wanting to be able to hear when Max needed to get back in and also wanting to stay as far away from the rowdy crowd as she could. Just because she led these people, didn’t mean she wanted to get that up close and personal with them.
She was worried about Lady Annabelle, although she would never admit that to anyone here. The only one who had ever actually met her was her friend Jack, and while he didn’t seem to dislike her per se, the whole interaction was certainly a bit awkward. He still didn’t know why she would willingly associate with an aristocrat (“You know, the enemy ?”) but accepted that having eyes on the inside was a useful thing (“I guess ”). Still, though. She was worried. Lady Annabelle hadn’t been speaking to her for a few days, what with the arrival of her husband, and the few times they were able to talk she had been… quieter, more withdrawn.
She was broken from her thoughts by a knock at the door. Must be Max. Since the group was still yelling at the TV, she supposed the aerial must be beyond saving. Shit, that’s annoying.
The plywood door creaked open.
“Who are you?”
In a situation like this, Az would usually have been on the defensive, or shut the door immediately, but something about the broken young girl on her doorstep pulled at her heartstrings. This wasn’t a threat, she had been doing this long enough to tell.
There wasn’t any answer from the girl. Just a slightly crumpled envelope shoved into Az’s hands.
Az read it. And then she ran.
The smoking desolation of what had once been Lady Annabelle’s mansion continued to smoulder around Az’s hunched silhouette. And she screamed, and screamed, and cursed the gods and the monarchy and herself and Annabelle and everything that existed in the entire wretched universe until her hoarse throat gave way to wracked tears instead.
My dearest Lady Az,
I am afraid that I am to make a dreadfully terrible decision tonight. However, I hope that whatever the outcome of this whole situation, it will benefit you and your cause in some way.
I must keep this brief, as I am to be hosting a ball tonight for many of the aristocrats and politicians who so often impede you and your brilliant associates. Do not worry, I don’t plan to be hospitable in the slightest. I am very certain that whatever I say will be sure to shock them in a way that you would be proud of.
While getting ready for this ball, a most loyal friend of mine, Melissa (the personal servant I have mentioned before, but she is so much closer to me than that that it feels insensitive to reduce her to simply a servant) and I had quite the enlightening conversation which made me realise many things about myself. It makes me feel much worse about what I am to do tonight.
I have disguised tons of dynamite in my fireplace and running underneath my floors in the hopes that I may eliminate all these adversaries of yours that I am hosting. But I am to be the trigger, in a sense.
I love you, Lady Az. I wish I could have told you in person, but I am afraid it was only tonight that the revelation came to me. I do hope you’ll forgive me for what I have done.
Your dearest,
Annabelle