Mercy Rides Free

My name is Mercy, and I am a constitutional monarch. That means I have no power. Also I am seven.

My favorite colors are peach and azure, and my favorite animal is the unicorn. I have six unicorns. Their names are Cumulus, Cirrus, Altostratus, Mama, Papa, and Mr. Thunderclap. My real Mama and Papa disappeared when I was little and I don’t remember. Prime Minister Astiriarchas says that the generals and the Parliament are still looking for the people who did it. Gam and Tyburn said that Prime Minister Astiriarchas lies, but we all need to pretend that he’s telling the truth. Gam is the second cook. Tyburn is the Royal Philosopher. Gam taught me how to read.

When I ran away from Castle Rocktop, I wanted to ride Mr. Thunderclap. Tyburn made me pick a different unicorn, because he said Mr. Thunderclap is too young and he would throw me to my death. Gam said no to Mama because lady unicorns often disobey, so I rode Altostratus instead.

Gam packed me three sandwiches with lots of strawberry jam. “Ride hard, Mercy,” she said. She didn’t want me to see her crying, but I did. “Our friends are waiting for you. Pass those mountains before dawn, my sweet girl, and don’t you dare look back!”

Tyburn didn’t say anything. He was too busy burning down the stables with magic so they wouldn’t know right away that Altostratus and I were gone.

— # —

It was forever later and still smelled like smoke when I told Altostratus again that I was cold and I didn’t like riding him and he’s my third-best unicorn.

Altostratus stopped and turned his big, gray head so one of his eyes was looking at me. He said, “Mercy, we have a long way to go. If you keep complaining, I will drive my horn straight through every doll in that rucksack of yours.”

“I only have one doll.” That made me angry because there were three more I wanted to bring.

“I don’t care,” Altostratus said.

“Fine,” I said. I wished I was riding Mr. Thunderclap instead.

— # —

We kept going all day long. I ate my sandwiches. Altostratus stopped to let me pee in a bush. He peed in the road. “Gross,” I said.

“Just get back in the saddle.”

“How? You’re too tall.”

“Get on that big rock over there.”

“I can’t, it’s too big!”

In the end, a nearby bridge troll heard us arguing and he came and helped me up. “Push hard,” he said to Altostratus. “The river says there’s a warrant already, and the generals are riding for her.”

“Why do they care?” I said. “I don’t have any power.”

The bridge troll shook his head in disbelief. “Doesn’t she know anything about politics?”

“What are politics?”

Altostratus thanked the troll and set off at a trot. “He means that Parliament needs a monarchic figurehead, or the spell that binds the three houses will no longer hold.” He spoke patiently, the way Tyburn did when he lectured. “The magic that seals the constitution forces the houses into allegiance with your crown. That’s why Tyburn and Gam are sending you away, and that’s why the generals want to capture you. Whoever controls the crown rules the nation, you see?”

“Ugh, I’m so bored.”

Altostratus stopped explaining things after that.

Also we got chased. Altostratus made me lean forward and hold onto his neck. I shut my eyes so I don’t know what really happened. I just remember Altostratus shouting really loud, “You cannot defeat the storm!” He swung his head back and forth like it was a sword, and he got blood on my favorite azure dress.

When I opened my eyes again, Altostratus had leapt over a really big gorge, and there were people shooting arrows across to stop the generals from following us.

“Are you all right, Mercy?” Altostratus said once we’d passed through the gates in a big stone wall. He was breathing hard.

“I’m cold,” I said. I was scared, too. “Are we in another castle?”

They shut the gates behind us once we were safe inside.

— # —

At first I got to sleep and eat a lot of food. It didn’t taste like Gam’s cooking, though, and there wasn’t any strawberry jam, and I don’t like melted cheese. Then it was boring, because I had to sit in the same room all day long while the council talked. They said I was there to prove to the representatives of the three houses that the crown supported them, even though I never said okay. They never spoke to me and I only had one doll.

They had a big map with lots of colors hanging on the wall across from my chair. They kept pointing to it and arguing. They pointed at the castle where we were, in a periwinkle part shaped like a unicorn’s mane, with mountains. Castle Rocktop, where Gram and Tyburn were, was in the ugly green part shaped like a unicorn’s neck that had lots of trees and rivers. The swamps below us were amber, with little lines running through that they said couldn’t support an army. The country below our country was azure, and everything else was ocean.

I said I wanted to leave.

The man who was kind of in charge stood up. He was a commander with a big stiff coat, and he had purple in his cheeks. He looked like Prime Minister Astiriarchas when he used to kneel on the carpet of my throne room and tell me what to do. “Your Highness belongs here with us.”

“Why?”

“With Your Highness’s presence, this council will unite the three houses against Prime Minister Astiriarchas and his army! We will restore this nation to glory, and return the stewardship of this land to those to whom it rightfully belongs.” The others murmured their agreement. They sounded like a herd of grumpy unicorns.

I scowled at him. “But I don’t want to sit here anymore. My butt hurts and I hate melted cheese.”

He got even more purple. Before he could answer, though, a woman with silver hair pulled back in a tiny bun stood up from her place in the circle of hard chairs. The others went quiet right away. “Would Your Highness care for a pillow?” she said after a little pause.

“I want Altostratus!”

“Who?!” said Purple Man.

“Altostratus.”

“I see,” said the silver-haired woman. I liked her more because she wasn’t purple and she was listening. She was smarter than the others, too. If she were a unicorn I’d call her Mrs. Thunderclap. “Is Altostratus your pet unicorn?”

“He’s not my pet.”

She nodded slowly. “Ladies and gentlemen of the Republic,” she said to the others. They all sat up very straight. “Let the council adjourn for a recess, and I will escort Her Highness to visit her companion. On the way I will explain her part in the prime minister’s deposition.”

“What’s a dumb position?” I said once the others left. Now that they were gone I didn’t mind the chair.

“A deposition. We will replace Prime Minister Astiriarchus with a government chosen by the people’s electors. We’ll see that the tyrant’s rule comes to an end.”

I wasn’t sure about the word `tyrant’. Maybe Altostratus would know.

She continued. “With Your Highness’s leave, we shall soon launch an assault upon Castle Rocktop.”

“Why?”

“To avenge your parents’ deaths at the hands of Prime Minister Astiriarchus,” she said. “He and his army have starved this nation for long enough. They’ve robbed free men of their land, imprisoned our scholars, and deprived the primo gentry of their rightful places in Parliament. It’s up to us to fight back.”

“You want to attack the castle?” The castle was in the ugly green part of the map.

“The castle is Astiriarchus’s stronghold. We will destroy him and every traitor within sight of it.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone.”

I had trouble imagining everybody in the castle being dead. “But what about Gam and Tyburn? What about my unicorns and dolls?”

Mrs. Thunderclap clasped her hands. She was standing close enough to me that she smelled like the steel of the rings on Altostratus’s bridle. “Your Highness,” she said, “we have rescued you from Astiriarchus. Your loyal subjects made great sacrifices to bring you here, to us.”

“What if I don’t want to be here anymore?”

There was a pause, and it was long enough that I figured out that even though she was calm now she might get very angry next. That was scary because at first I’d thought she was my friend like Gam.

Her eyes narrowed. We stayed like that. Finally, she said in a voice that was tight like a string pulled between two hands in a cat’s cradle, “Your Highness does not get to choose.”

I held on tight to the arms of the chair. They were carved like leaves.

Mrs. Thunderclap tilted her head to the side like she was going to shake water from one ear. “Now. Would you like to see your unicorn?”

— # —

That night, I tried to escape on foot by myself to go warn Tyburn and Gam, but it didn’t work. I got caught on the stairs and the man with the purple cheeks shouted and I shouted back.

I tried again early in the morning, and the soldiers caught me at the gates. This time, they locked me in the stables with a chain at my ankle. It was heavy and it hurt, but Mrs. Thunderclap didn’t care. She wasn’t pretending to be my friend anymore.

“Like it or not, Your Highness will remain with us,” she said as they locked the shackle. “We cannot afford to lose the allegiance of the three houses.”

“But I want to go home!” I said.

“We are going to turn Castle Rocktop into rubble and smoke. Your Highness should accept this sooner rather than later.”

When she was gone, Altostratus shook his mane furiously. “Mercy, what were you thinking?”

“But they’re going to go to war. They’re going to attack Castle Rocktop!”

“They were always going to go to war, child! Didn’t you listen to anything Tyburn ever told you?”

The other unicorns murmured their agreement from the opposite side of the stable. “It’s true,” said a lady unicorn who hadn’t yet told me her name. “Conflict is inevitable.”

“But I don’t want to go to war!”

“It doesn’t matter what you want!” Altostratus said, stamping the ground of his stall with his foreleg. “Evil and violence are inescapable! That’s what the world is, Mercy. Your presence here ensures that the Republic will unite the three houses and defeat Astiriarchus. Do you know what that man does to the talking beasts who refuse to follow his edicts? I’ll tell you whom he sends to the tanneries outside those castle walls. If you care about people, well, he’s executed plenty of those, too.”

“Stop!”

“No, I won’t stop. I risked everything to bring you here. I did it to free my people and yours.”

“But…she put me in chains.”

“Do you think I chose this stall for myself, Mercy?”

I hugged my knees to my face so I wouldn’t have to look at the tall gate with the metal latch that he couldn’t undo himself because he didn’t have hands.

Altostratus sighed. “I know the men and women of the Republic aren’t what you hoped for,” he said. “Maybe they’ll ruin everything, too, but life is full of compromises. Anything to be rid of Astiriarchus.”

“You’re just giving up.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” he snapped and tossed his head. I glared at him very hard. Everything was so unfair. I was supposed to be a princess and now I was chained up and my third-best unicorn was mad at me.

“You’re not free now, either,” I told him before my chin could get wobbly like it does when I’m about to cry.

“Maybe not, but if we can’t be free, then we have to make our peace with those in power.”

“Not Mrs. Thunderclap.”

“Who?”

“She chained me up!” Now I was crying, all because of him.

His dark eyes softened. “I know, child,” he said. “I’m sorry. But look at me. I’m locked in here, too, because I thought it might be better. It has to be better. That’s all we can do.”

That just made me angry. “I want to go to the place where it’s azure!”

“What is she talking about?” said the lady unicorn whose name I didn’t know.

Altostratus sighed. “Wherever it is, I’m sure it’s not any better.”

— # —

For two days, Mrs. Thunderclap pulled me out of the stables and dragged me to the council chambers to sit there while all the grumpy men and women made their plans. I stared at the map so hard it stuck in my vision. Periwinkle, ugly green, amber. Like the shape of a unicorn’s head. Purple, green, yellow. Under that, azure. I felt squished between the colors. The council was getting their army ready but I didn’t understand a whole lot more.

At night Mrs. Thunderclap locked me up again in the stables. She didn’t talk to the unicorns on her way out.

Altostratus watched her leave. “Did you know she used to be a poet?” he said.

— # —

On the third night, I was dreaming about sandwiches and colors when I figured out what I needed to do and it woke me up. “Altostratus!” I cried out.

The unicorns huffed. “Go back to sleep, will you?” said the lady unicorn, who’d told me the day before her name was Sally.

“No!” I told her. “Altostratus! Wake up! I know what to do!”

Altostratus shook his head where he’d been sleeping standing up. “What is it, Mercy?” he said wearily.

“I’m a constitutional monarch!”

“I know that, Mercy. Go back to sleep.”

“No, you stupid horse! It’s the politics! You should have told me!”

“What is she talking about?” said Sally.

“The only reason they’re keeping me here is because of the sacred spell that binds the three houses and their stupid armies to my crown,” I said. “So, what if I’m not here?”

“You’re chained to the wall of the stables, Mercy.”

“Only because you won’t help me escape.” I dragged the heavy chain across the smelly hay of the stable floor so that it was within reach of Altostratus and the other unicorns. “Is it close enough? Come on, break it.”

“Mercy…”

“You can smash it with something, right?”

“Even if I could,” he said, “then what?”

“I have a plan! We’re going to the country that’s azure!”

“What? Where? How? Neither of us knows how to get away from here!”

“I do! I’ve been staring at that stupid map for three whole days. You follow three roads and a river, and you go through the swamps. They can’t follow because the swamp roads can’t support an army, and if they can’t follow us, then the spell that brines the three houses will fail, or something. I can explain on the way.”

The other unicorns pawed at the ground with their hooves, listening in. “They’ll catch us, Mercy,” Altostratus said.

“Not if we leave right now. Come on, I can stop everybody all at once, Altostratus!”

“How will we topple Prime Minister Astiriarchus if—”

“He’ll topple anyway, because of me not being there. Right?” I crossed my arms. “If there’s nobody like me around to force the biggest army in the whole country to take a side, then everybody in the three houses has to make up their minds for themselves. They’re not forced to fight for people who are just as bad as each other.”

He stared. “It might not work. Giving people the freedom to choose, I mean. Humans can make very bad choices on their own.”

I rolled my eyes because he was taking so long to agree with me. “I know, okay?”

“Do you? Just because the armies aren’t bound to your crown doesn’t mean they’ll be any more righteous without you.”

“But if I go away then everybody’s free to be stupid the way they want. Even all the talking beasts!”

“Mercy, I don’t think you understand—”

“Oh, come on,” said Sally. “Do you have a horn or not, Alto? The child’s right.”

“She’s chained to the wall!”

“Honestly,” said Sally. “Bring it here, Mercy.”

I dragged it as close as I could to Sally’s stall. “Can you open these gates with your fingers, little one?” she said as I heaved it nearer.

“Yes,” I said even though I didn’t know.

Sally bent her head as low as she could over the shackle. It took a long time and I realized that I was cold and I had to pee and I was hungry and I didn’t want to ride Altostratus for the three days it would take to travel the road south through the swamps and not the hills. But I also didn’t want to stay locked up, and I decided that maybe everything was terrible but I was still important and if it meant that I didn’t have to live my whole life like I’m a doll, then I would try.

Finally Sally picked the lock, and I opened her gate after fourteen tries, and I opened the other gates, and the unicorns waited until Altostratus and I were good and ready and I’d stolen a saddle and some bread before stampeding together and breaking down the gates that locked us in. And I left behind the second castle and Mrs. Thunderclap and the very last of my dolls, and Altostratus and I both yelled to the sky as we escaped to the south, because we were scared but we were also brave, and we knew we had to try.

© 2023 Elizabeth Cobbe

About the Author

Elizabeth Cobbe is a writer who has worked as an arts critic, journalist, and playwright. Her short fiction has appeared in or is forthcoming from Fireside, Daily Science Fiction, and Kaleidotrope, and she is a graduate of Viable Paradise 2019. She lives in Austin.