Wildwood Imperium (Wildwood Chronicles 3)

“You’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” said the badger. “Caliphs: members of the Synod, Mystics who meditate at the Blighted Tree. Wasn’t much of a thing during the Svik regime; Lars followed in the footsteps of his uncle, Grigor, and made much of keeping South Wood a secular place. Free from the taint of religion, you see. But it’s out with the old and in with the new. With the Sviks gone, the Synod came roaring back and all these folks come out of the woodwork, having secretly been praying to the Blighted Tree all along, in the privacy of their own homes. Way I see it, gives people hope when they didn’t have it before. And what with the hard winter, they’ve needed it.”

They lapsed into silence, with Prue watching the trees feathering by and the badger politely humming along with the music on the radio. When the song break came up, he was pleased to hear the trumpet fanfare that introduced the next number. “Here it is!” he said. “Like I said, played on the hour, every hour: ‘The Storming of the Prison.’”

Prue listened closely as the words came flowing in a river of static through the radio’s single speaker:

O the storming of the prison

On the evening of the day

When the maiden came a-riding

And we cast the bums away

And we all came out to meet her

With the wagon and the babe

And we all marched to the prison

For to free the poor enslaved

The badger chimed in on the third verse:

O the storming of the prison

At the end of our despair

Give the Avians their freedom

As they rise into the air

Let the fascists die and wither

All the retinue demands!

Let their children hear them suffer

At the Maiden’s stiff command

And the blood of all the martyrs

Will not be shed in vain

At the storming of the prison

We will all be free again.

The triumphant melody was taken up by the brass ensemble and was blatted out ad nauseam until the song slowly faded into silence. The badger looked back at Prue, smiling. “See?” he said. “You’re a hero!”

Prue was still processing the lyrics. “I didn’t command anything.”

“Well, no,” said the badger. “It’s metaphorical. Figurative. You didn’t literally command that the children of the fascists see their parents suffer. Poetic license.” He paused, breathing in through his snout deeply. “Stirs the heart, it does.”

“I actually don’t like the idea of children’s parents suffering at all—or anybody, for that matter,” said Prue, now gathering steam. “I think it’s pretty awful, actually.”

The badger laughed nervously. “It’s the fascists who are suffering, though. I mean, that’s who we overthrew, right?”

“Even fascists,” said Prue. “Whatever a fascist is.”