For once, everything was going just the way Leo hoped.
“I’d like a show of hands!” he told the Hall of Mirrors. “Nothing hidden. Nothing suspect. Each man makes his loyalty clear. Now. An open vote for our new king.” A vote observed by him, who had all the armed men in the city, not to mention at least a hundred in this room, firmly under his command. Only a fool calls for a vote when he hasn’t made sure of the outcome, after all.
Isher stood, precisely on cue. “I propose that the new monarch picks up the bloodline of the old! I propose that our new king should be the natural grandson of our much-missed King Jezal.” A man he’d showered with scorn when it suited him. “I propose, as our next ruler, the infant Harod dan Brock!”
Leo watched the Representatives. Reading their expressions. Guessing their intentions. Many weren’t happy. But none had the stomach for a fight. They’d have voted for a cart of dung if it meant things went back to some kind of normal, and business could be done, and jokes made, and strolls taken in the sun, without the nagging fear of the long drop from the Tower of Chains.
Leo gave Glaward the nod. “All those Representatives who wish to vote for the infant Harod dan Brock as the next High King of the Union,” he roared, “raise your hands!”
On the noblemen’s side of the hall, arms shot up so fast it was a wonder they didn’t fly off. On the commoners’ side they were slower. But they soon saw which way the wind was blowing. With varying expressions of worry, dismay and disgust they raised their hands. Only a few stubborn holdouts sat glaring at the prospective monarch, arms folded, and Leo took careful note of their names. They could be tastefully weeded out later.
He didn’t look much like a king, as Leo glanced around. He looked like a white bundle in the arms of his mother, who with her unerring instinct for the centre of attention appeared to have swapped babies while the voting was underway. But King Harod the Second was raised to the throne, as his grandfather King Jezal the First had been, by near-unanimous accord.
The ringing applause jerked the infant monarch from his sleep and caused him to start bleating. But he’d done his work for today. Savine caught Zuri’s eye and nodded towards the door, and the cries of the latest High King of the Union faded from the room.
Heugen was already on his feet. “His Majesty is, quite clearly, too young to govern in his own right.” He pointed at Leo as though the idea had just occurred. “I propose that his father, Lord Leonault dan Brock, and his mother, Lady Savine dan Brock, govern in his stead as Lord and Lady Regent.”
“I second that!” shouted Isher, popping up from his seat again like a toy on a spring.
“I third it!”
The nobles rose as one. The commoners were less happy than ever, but Jurand gave a subtle signal and the guards began thumping the butts of well-sharpened polearms on the tiles to send up a menacing rattle, and it quickly spurred the loiterers to their feet. Judge had taught them well. Nobody wanted to be the last one sitting. They’d let the sluice open a crack and the flood had forced it wide. Now there was no closing it, and they all were swept away into the future.
Leo gritted his teeth, rocked his weight forwards and stood. Ignoring the pain was easy. He’d been through the fire but, seeing his reflection in the many mirrors, it wasn’t flattery to say he was still a fine-looking figure.
“My thanks! I humbly accept this great honour, this great responsibility. I’m a soldier first, but now is the time for healing wounds. For reforging what’s been broken, stronger than ever. For making us a Union again!” He thumped his fist on the table. “We’ll have a new age, my friends! Not the corruption of the old regime. Not the folly of the Breakers or the madness of the Burners. The best of both worlds! Justice and good government for all!”
Now there was wholehearted support. The Representatives were already rushing forwards. Queueing up to sign. Noblemen first, as was only right, Isher smiling at their head.
The sun rose on a new age. One that Leo would shape as he saw fit. Savine might not like how he’d done it, but it was done, and all their ambitions realised. How could she not be pleased? How could she not be grateful?
Leo lurched around on his false leg to grin at her.
But she was sitting up tall to look towards the grand declaration, watching intently as the first signatures were scratched beside it.
We Must Have Enemies
Vick was so tired that when she sat, she nearly missed the chair. She’d been tired for months. For years. She couldn’t remember not being tired. And the broken nose by no means helped.
But prisoners won’t interrogate themselves.
“So…” she said, the word a slightly painful sigh. “Master Sarlby.”
The sight of his face made her feel a bit better about her own. Gunnar Broad had smashed it to barely recognisable mush. You could’ve said he was lucky to be alive, after the beating he’d taken. But lucky was a tough word to use about a man sitting where he was.
“Not much need to refresh our memories as to your crimes, is there?” she asked. “You’ve been up to your eyes in the Great Change, right back to Valbeck. You were at Judge’s side in the Court of the People. You herded dozens off the Tower of Chains.”
“I did,” said Sarlby. There was a sloppy sucking to his “d” sounds. The broken jaw, maybe. “And I’d do it again.”
Vick pressed gently at the aching bridge of her nose. She was past disgust. Far past outrage. It just made her tired, now.
“Where’s the Weaver?” she asked, without much hope of an answer. “Where’s Pike?”
“I don’t know,” he growled. “But if I did, you think I’d tell you?”
She glanced, heavy-lidded, at the box of instruments. “We could try it and see.”
“You’re a traitor. To your kind. To yourself.” He worked his tongue around his broken teeth and spat on the table. “You’re a liar and a thief and a traitor to everything.”
Vick shrugged. “And?”
“And you’ll never beat us! We’ll be back! More of us than ever! More’n you can count!”
It wasn’t the least bit funny, but Vick couldn’t help herself, she snorted out a chuckle, then had to wince at the flash of pain across her face. “Folk can’t wait to be rid of you. Breakers and Burners, they’re cheering the end of you. You said you’d strike a blow for the common man. All you did was starve them, freeze them and kill them.”
She sat forwards with a grunt. Damn, she was aching. “Truth is—and take it from someone who spent a dozen years in prison—in the end, people don’t really care much about being free. They want to be warm and well fed and to not have to worry. In particular, they want to not have to worry about being thrown off a tower for wearing the wrong shoes.”
Sarlby frowned down at the table. She thought it was a frown, anyway. Hard to tell exactly where the corners of his mouth were. “We were in the right,” he muttered, though it sounded like he was trying to convince himself, rather than her. “You’ll see.”
“I doubt I will. But I know you won’t.” Vick pressed a thumb into her stiff hip as she worked her way up from the table. “They’re hanging you tomorrow.”
Tallow was waiting outside in the damp-smelling corridor, a book clutched in his hands and his big, sad eyes on her, as if he still hoped, even now, that she might somehow have the answers. Damn, he was more like her brother than ever. That made her tired, too.
“Another one for the list?” he asked, falling in beside her, their footsteps echoing dully from the damp walls.
She gave a grunt, eyeing the doors as they passed.
Tallow shook his head as he made a little mark in his book. “Feels like the Lord Regent’s lists are even longer than Judge’s were. At least they’re being dealt with quietly. Not splattered across the moat.”
“That’s better, is it?”
“I guess once these are cleared that’ll be it. Back to normal.”
“That’s what the Breakers said. And the Arch Lector before them, for t
hat matter. A couple of enemies to cross out. Just get to the bottom of the list. Except the list kept getting longer.” She ventured a little sniff, a squeak of barely moving air in her swollen face, a hint of salty snot at the back of her throat which she could never quite manage to swallow. “We must have enemies, Tallow. Always.”
“You’re a ray of sunshine.”
“Sunshine’s not really appropriate for an executioner. Specially one with a broken nose.”
They rounded the corner and Vick stopped dead.
“Oh, bloody hell,” squeaked Tallow.
They’d been expecting her, but the sight of Savine dan Brock under the House of Questions was still as shocking as suddenly spying a diamond in the gutter. She looked a different woman from the one Vick first met in that bouncing carriage on the way to Valbeck, with the glassy perfection of an expensive doll. The same immaculate poise, perhaps, the same assessing eye, but more honest. More human. Fewer jewels, less ornament, lots of virtuous white. The Mother of the Nation, they were calling her. She’d even somehow turned the clipped hair and the scar into advantages. She looked beautiful and like she didn’t care a shit about anyone else’s opinion.
“Lady Regent.” Vick gave an awkward bow. “I apologise, but my curtsy’s a thing no one of your refined tastes should be forced to see.”
“I have braved worse horrors, Inquisitor Teufel. Are you Inquisitors again?”
“I’m not sure anyone really knows at this point.”
“We are all finding a course through uncharted waters.” Though she looked to Vick as if she knew exactly where she was headed. “Are you well, Master Tallow?”
“Tolerably so…” he managed to gurgle out. “My lady.”
“Tolerably well is as well as can be hoped for these days. I understand you swore an oath of loyalty to my son.”
Vick raised her brows. Even that felt like an effort. “I spent years working for your father—your adopted father, not the other one—so I learned how to take a hint. I got the strong feeling your husband’s offer was to swear the oath and stay in the Inquisitor’s chair or refuse and go in the prisoner’s one. But then I’ve always been a traitor and a liar so… wasn’t difficult to do.” She gave a hopeless shrug. “Far be it from me to stand in the way of the new Union. Or the new new Union, is it?”
The Lady Regent had the good grace to show a touch of guilt about the way it had all turned out. She even managed to make that look good. “Please believe me when I say that things are not the way I wanted them.”
You can never let them see your feelings. Never let them think you’ve got any. Show hurt, you’re asking to be hurt. But Vick was so tired, and broken, and aching. All she could think of, for some reason, was Sibalt’s last sad smile. Malmer and the rest dangling over the road out of Valbeck. All those names carved into the Square of Martyrs. All those people who fell from the Tower of Chains.
She found she’d stepped close to Savine, found she was looking her right in the eye, found that, for once, she was being honest. “Just… tell me it’ll be better.” Her throat felt tight, like she still had Corporal Smiler’s hands around her bruised neck. “It doesn’t have to be some paradise.” She had to force the words through gritted teeth. “But it can’t all be for nothing, you understand? It can’t.”
It was quiet, in that shabby corridor, for a moment. The Lady Regent blinked at Vick as if she saw her for the first time. Then she gently nodded. “I understand. And I will do my best.”
“Good.” Vick cleared her throat. “Good.” She turned away, trying to swallow that lump in her throat, wiping her eyelids with a knuckle. Tallow stood against the wall, staring at her like he’d seen Euz rise from the grave. “What?” Vick snarled at him.
“Nothing,” he squeaked.
She set her jaw and gripped the door-handle. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
She’d never had much dislike for the prisoners. Even disapproval was an effort these days. But for this one she could make an exception.
“There are still some men it’s a pleasure to hang,” she said, planting her fists on the scarred tabletop.
Spillion Sworbreck cringed in his chair, stripped naked, cheeks tracked with the tears he’d notably failed to cry on behalf of all those he’d sent to the long drop.
“Inquisitor, please,” he babbled, “you are a woman of the world. You understand the position I was in, the compromises that had to be made. I am, I freely admit, a weak man. I have always been so easily led! Swept up by great passions and powerful personalities like a leaf on the wind! I am pleading with you. I am begging you—”
“No point asking my forgiveness,” said Vick. “I’m not allowed any. You might have more luck with her.” She nodded towards the door. “But I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Oh,” he said, in a very small voice, as the Lady Regent swept in with chill majesty. “Oh dear.” She arranged herself on the Inquisitor’s chair with a rustling of expensive silk while Sworbreck shrank further and further into his seat, chains faintly clinking. If he could’ve sucked his head into his shoulders like a turtle, Vick imagined he would’ve.
“He was caught at the docks,” she said. “Trying to get out of the city disguised as a woman. One of the few people in the Circle of the World who can safely say they look worse than me in a dress.”
“Lady Savine…” His eyelids fluttered and fresh tears ran down his face. “Lady Regent, I beg of you—”
“Shut,” hissed Savine furiously through her gritted teeth, “your fucking mouth.” She closed her eyes, composing herself, took a breath, then opened them, flinty hard. “Understand… the restraint it takes on my part not to see you dragged up the Tower of Chains and flung to your death.”
“I do understand, Your Highness, I do, I do, please, you must see, I… I lost perspective.”
“Perspective? Is that what you lost?”
“I got carried away… and not for the first time. When I was in the Far Country, Fates help me… I am so easily dragged off course! I never learn! It was the times… it was Judge… I didn’t know what I was doing!”
“Please! All you got carried away with, Sworbreck, was your own power, and cruelty, and self-importance.”
“I am a worm,” he whispered, head hanging, tears dripping. “An utter worm!”
“Oh, no. Worms do some good.” Savine slowly sat back, lip wrinkled with disgust, the angry flush fading from her cheek. “Cowardly liar you may be, ridiculous fantasist you may be, disloyal scum you certainly are, but for reasons I cannot divine… people listen to you.”
“They do, Lady Savine!” A sudden hope lit his face. “Your Highness, Lady Regent, I am ever so keen to be of service, in whatever humble and lowly way—”
“You will write of me again,” said Savine.
“I will?”
“Just like you did in The Darling of the Slums. Your best work.”
The flicker of a smile on Sworbreck’s lips. “You think so?”
“The best turd in the sewer,” growled Vick, making him cringe again.
“You will rain praise upon me,” said Savine.
“I will lavish you with compliments, Your Highness! I will burnish your legend! I will raise you up on a cushion of eulogy. The deliverer of the people! The Mother of the Nation! You and your children,” blubbered Sworbreck. “And your noble husband—”
“My children, yes. My husband can extol his own virtues.”
“Sure you don’t want to hang this bastard?” asked Vick. Seemed there was no more justice in the world than there had been when Judge sat in the Court of the People. But then justice had always been in short supply. Who’d know better than her, who’d had years of her life stolen for someone else’s crimes?
The Lady Regent considered her carefully. “You spent years working for my father. You should have learned not to hang what you can use.” She narrowed her eyes at Sworbreck. “I suggest you get to your press and keep it hot. You live now to make me loved. And you will live precisel
y as long as you are useful to me.” Savine stood, looking down her nose at the sobbing ex-prosecutor. “Not an instant longer.”
A Sea of Power
“Welcome, one and all, to this exceptional general meeting of Adua’s Solar Society!”
Curnsbick, resplendent in a waistcoat embroidered with blazing suns, flung wide his arms and delivered a beaming smile. The applause was positively thunderous. All the pent-up terror and frustration of the last few months released in an outpouring of joy and relief.
“With thanks to our most radiant patron, Her Highness the Lady Regent and Mother of the King, Savine dan Brock!” Curnsbick humbly bowed his head towards Savine’s box and she lowered her fan to give a nod and smile of her own. There was a kind of ripple through the audience as every face turned towards her. The ovation grew, if anything, even louder. Her smile grew, if anything, even wider. Joyous screeches, admiring coos. Someone shouted, “The Mother of the Nation!”
Savine liked to think she had changed. She was by no means the same woman who had sat in this box two years ago, jealously hoarding up the adulation. But who dislikes being applauded? She blew Curnsbick a kiss. Sentimental folly, perhaps. But that seemed to be in fashion.
“So much has been wantonly destroyed!” called Curnsbick as the clapping tailed off. “Everyone here has lost friends! Colleagues. Partners. Family.” His voice faded to a croak and he had to pause. The crowd murmured encouragement, wiped eyes, urged the Great Machinist on. He made a fist and shook it at no one in particular. “But we who remain must not allow ourselves to be buried in the past! We cannot afford to wallow in regrets and recriminations. We must look to the future. Our departed friends would not want their seats here to sit empty. Already we have new members, young investors, dynamic inventors boiling over with ideas and enthusiasm, keen to push the great work forward!”
Rowdy cheering. While attention was elsewhere, Savine slipped behind her fan and took the tiniest pinch of pearl dust, eyelashes fluttering at that delicious, invigorating burning in her face. Thank the Fates, trade of all kinds was flowing once again, at least for those with the money. She liked to think she had changed, but the Mother of the King, like any mother, needs a little something from time to time.
The Wisdom of Crowds Page 48