For kings, there is no peace.
——Shakespeare, "Henry VIII"
When your head is submerged in filthy mud, when your ears are covered with roadside straw, when the boiling blood in your heart flows out through a wound, at moments like these, what would you remember?
Is it fear, is it agitation, is it sadness from imminent departure from loved ones, or is it a desire to see the world one last time?
No, none of those.
Arthur only felt an unusual tranquility.
He was so tranquil, he could distinguish every sound entering his ears.
It was the sound of raindrops, the fall of horse hooves, the strike of a Civilization Cane on a skull, the hoarse roaring of Tom and Tony, like the thunderous roar of a locomotive on the railroad.
He was so tranquil, he could see or recall many things. He saw all twenty-one riot scenes that erupted across London tonight, and many things before the riots began.
What's stranger than the initial chaos before a riot?
