Novel - Airman Read Free

called. A strong name.”
    Vigny bonged a knuckle on Lady Liberty’s chin. “Whatever he is called, this boy is indebted to Liberty.”
    This was the second omen of the day. Conor Broekhart would eventually pay his debt to liberty. The first omen was, of course, the airborne birth. Perhaps he would have been a sky pilot even without Le Soleil , or perhaps something was awakened in him that day. An obsession with the sky that would consume Conor Broekhart’s life, and the lives of everyone around him.
    And so a few days after Conor’s famous birth, Captain Declan Broekhart and his family sailed from France back to the tiny sovereign state of the Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast.
    The Saltee Islands had been ruled by the Trudeau family since 1171 when England’s King Henry II had given them to Raymond Trudeau, a powerful and ambitious knight. It was a cruel joke, as the Saltee Islands were little more than gull-infested rocks. By placing Trudeau in charge of the Saltee Islands, Henry fulfilled his contract of granting his knight an Irish estate, but also made clear what happened to overly ambitious knights.
    When Raymond Trudeau objected to the king’s grant, Henry delivered the often quoted Trudeau Admonishment.
    “You disagree with an appointee of God Himself,” Henry is recorded as saying. “Perhaps Monsieur Trudeau considers himself above his king. Perhaps Monsieur Trudeau considers himself fit for royal office. So be it. You shall take the Saltee Islands with my blessing, but not as baron. You are their king, King Raymond the First. I will demand neither tithe nor tribute from you or your descendants in perpetuity, and as an added reward, you may wear your crown to my court. Whatever you may find on those most bountiful isles is yours to keep.”
    Trudeau could do nothing but bow and stammer his thanks, bitter though the words were. This was a terrible insult, as there was nothing to be found on the Saltee Islands but seabirds and their droppings, and little grew there thanks to the showers of sea spray that coated both islands during rough tides, giving nothing to the Saltees but their name.
    But Raymond Trudeau’s fortune was not as bleak as it seemed. Following his effective banishment to the Saltee Islands, a strange glowing cave was discovered by one of his men, who was burning gulls from their perches. The cave was a glacial deposit of diamonds: the largest mine ever discovered, and the only mine in Europe. Henry had crowned Raymond Trudeau king of the most valuable estate in the world.
    Seven hundred years later, the Trudeau family was still in power in spite of over a dozen invasion attempts from English, Irish, and even pirate armies. The famous Saltee Wall held fast against cannon, shot, and ram, and the celebrated Saltee Sharpshooters were trained to shave the whiskers off a pirate a mile away. There were only two industries on the Saltees: diamonds and defense.
    The Saltee prison was packed to bursting with the foulest dregs of murdering humanity that Ireland and Great Britain had to offer. They worked the diamond mine until they had served their time or died. Most died. A sentence on Little Saltee was a death sentence. Nobody really cared. The Saltees had been making many people rich for centuries, and none of those many people wanted the status quo to change.
    Nevertheless, change was afoot. Now there was a new king on the throne, an American, King Nicholas the First, or Good King Nick, as he was known in an increasing number of households. Barely six months in power, already King Nicholas had drastically improved the quality of life for his three thousand subjects, abolishing taxes and building a modern drainage system, running through the town of Promontory Fort on Great Saltee’s northern tip.
    When the royal yacht, Razorbill , pulled into Saltee Harbour at dawn after a three-day voyage from France, King Nicholas himself was there to meet her. Truth be told, he did not much look like the other