Holes in The History of The Universe

15: The Riot

Around a week afterwards, Samual awoke in the middle of the night to the faint sounds of shrill screams and excited, angry ragings from outside. Without sitting up, he continued to listen, hoping it would give him some sort of context, but when that failed, he rolled over so he was facing Alastair, who huddled beside him for warmth, asleep.

Slowly, he shuffled away from him, and pulled himself upright, hoping to somehow get out of bed without waking him. Because he almost always went to bed first, he was positioned next to the wall making his journey onto the ground even more difficult, but somehow, by moving far more painstakingly slowly then he could bare for long, he managed it, and was soon throwing his robes over his head and rushing out the door to survey the hill.

It looked over a small dirt road winding to a bridge across the river, which led to the parts of the city used for the higher classes, specifically the area containing the church, market, and apothecary, as well as several disease ridden neighborhoods, so they knew the land quite well. Yes it made things easier, and their home was right on the edge, serving not only their frequent trips, but also their quarantined lifestyle.

He soon noticed, granted, after quite a bit of confused scanning, some sort of riot going on in the town, apparent from the soft orange pixie lights flickering in the distance, as well as several groups of people carrying weapons and more torches to the location. Still not satisfied he jogged down the hill and joined them, receiving no decent answers whenever he asked a question.

The yelling became unbearable as they entered the palace area, but still he persisted, and when he got the opportunity, he slunk to the side of a boy in his late teens.

"Excuse me," shouted he, over the scattered, deafening rawrs, "what on Earth is going on here?"

"We're going to overthrow the patrician!" He screamed at the top of his lungs, though it seemed to be meant as a release of thoughtless adolescent excitement rather than a legitimate answer, and he received a few cheers as a result.

Samual watched as the head knight, with a sword at his side, and several advisors stepped out of the gates, immediately rocks were thrown, even sending one of them slamming to dirt, his head jamming against a rock, and then he lay still.

Samual stared, his eyes growing wide and shaky. He thought back to all the macabre homes he had been to, all of their pain and confusion, and Alastair's, and his, and then he turned to the man with the hunting bow, and ran.

Without bothering to explain, he grabbed several arrows from the quiver while the man was shooting, and dashed, then slid like a sports player, to a pile of rotting corpses. He jabbed the arrows into them, and... oh yes, he should pray, for Alastair, at least. 'Oh Heavenly Spirit, and the good men whom I will never know,' and back across the market he ran.

'May you have loved ones who will grieve,' he handed him the arrows with a shrug, 'may you have sins that will be forgiven,' the man aimed his bow, 'may you look back and remember joy in your short life,' it hit someone stepping out the gate in the centre of his chest. 'Amen.'

Triumphantly, he skipped all the way back to the village, far more excited than he should have been, but all that ceased when he reached the base of the hill, to find Alastair rushing down it towards him, awkwardly trying to place his mask on properly as he went.

"Samual," he hugged him, then pulled him away, "where in God's name were you? Please don't scare me like that," he then took another step back and frowned, "why are you covered in blood? And for goodness sake, where is your mask? What were you even doing over there?"

Samual looked down and dragged his feet around the dirt the way only a guilty child can, "there was a protest happening outside the palace."

"Yes, based on the yells and torch light, I assumed so, but don't tell me you actually attended it."

"Well... yeah, I was curious, so I decided to head over there. Actually, I even stabbed a corpse with an arrow, and there was this guy with a bow, and he hit one of the nobles at the gate with it."

Alastair's eyes widened until they were almost bigger than the lenses on his mask, and he stared gaping, for practically a minute, "you what?"

"Uh," Samual didn't know if he was happy or disappointed, "yeah."

"What were you thinking, boy? Don't you know how flawed those people's logic is, and how irresponsible they're being?" He pointed his finger stiffly up the hill, "come inside, now."

Silently, he followed him into the house, and a long lecture on the ridiculous theories surrounding the street violence he had just witnessed soon followed. Near the end, it began to sound less like a scoulding, and more like Alastair was just talking to himself, perhaps hoping his unbearably bored child was still paying attention, "

and of course these people always think they aren't afraid to die until they wake up coughing the next day, why, half the time they don't even have the plague, they just caught cold from running around at night. Honestly, there's a reason why you don't often see people running around at night."

That was around where Samual stopped paying attention, though, he supposed his mentor had a point, and he would see it more clearly the next day.