Rule

by Rowenna Miller

  “If any have skill with a sword, perhaps they can try their luck with the Serafan army,” Sianh said. “They seem to like Serafans, given how many of them have run to West Serafe of late.”

  “Now, that’s a fair offer.” Annette shared a sly grin with Viola. “Our families have both inquired as to the state of our villa in Port Royal.”

  “They were quite content pretending we didn’t exist until we had a nice house away from all this nasty democracy business,” Viola interjected.

  This earned a laugh, but Theodor quickly slipped back into pensive quiet, his brow furrowed with unspoken concerns. “Perhaps,” I said, “we should have a game of cards.”

  “We could play snapdragon!” Kristos said with an impish grin.

  “I am not,” Annette said, “falling for that again.” Setting things drenched in alcohol on fire was Kristos’s favorite tavern pastime, but Annette had been unimpressed with burning her fingers for sport fishing flaming raisins from a dish.

  “Burning Skies?” he suggested.

  “I do not know what that is,” Annette said firmly, “and I do not wish to find out. Don’t you play anything civilized, like dominoes?”

  “Perhaps he would be amenable if we set the tiles on fire,” Sianh said with a smile. “Come, Kristos, I will play this snapdragon with you.”

  Despite the warmth of the parlor and the chorus of laughter as Sianh and Kristos squared off in their game, Theodor stayed so quiet that I almost didn’t notice when he slipped away to our bedchamber.

  59

  FIRST THING THE NEXT MORNING, I HURRIED ACROSS THE CITY toward the temporary hospital set up to accommodate the wounded of both sides of the battle for the city. The Lord of Coin’s offices were still imposing, but the façade was now hung with gray-and-red banners as though signaling that it had been taken, officially, from noble control.

  “Sophie!” Emmi shouted across the crowded ward, earning sharp looks from the surgeons on staff and several of the nurses. She didn’t notice as she trotted across a floor cluttered with pallets, blankets, bandages, and bodies to bowl me over in an embrace. “You’re here!”

  “Yes,” I said, grinning despite myself. “And so are you.”

  Her smile faded, though she fought to keep it bright. “It’s—we’re trying, Sophie. We really are. I wish I’d learned more from you.”

  I surveyed the ward. This wasn’t even the worst of the cases, I knew—they were taken to the offices and anterooms of the old Lord of Coin’s establishment, not this open room. Still, the misery was written broad across the floor, as wounded and ill men bore patiently their pain or gave way to quiet moans or sobbing. Bandages binding heads, faces pale and sticky with fevers, red edges on the linen wrappings on shoulders and limbs, bodies absent arms and legs.

  What could a few clay tablets do against such suffering?

  “Get the others,” I said quietly. Swiftly, Emmi fetched Lieta, Venia, and Parit from corners of the room where they had been working. I waited, trying to avoid catching the scents of death and dying that settled in pockets and were borne on every puff of wind or passing nurse’s skirts.

  They greeted me briefly, but I cut our embraces short. “I know you’re doing your best,” I said, “but I think if we work together we can do more, in less time, for all of these men.”

  “How?”

  “I—there are ways of casting we didn’t learn from our mothers,” I said with a faint smile.

  Lieta’s brow constricted. “You found new ways of casting?”

  “Of course she did—our mothers didn’t teach us to sew with charms,” Emmi said.

  “Not just that. I can’t explain now, but I will.” I bit my lip. Part of me didn’t want to spread this knowledge, to expand who had access to the power I had uncovered. But what gave me the right to withhold it, to hoard it for myself? “For now, just hold hands.” I took Emmi’s hand in my left and Lieta’s in my right, and each reached out their free hand to Parit and Venia.

  I began to pull a thick cloud of charm, and I felt the energy of the women next to me building alongside it, surging as they saw the golden haze swelling above us. Like handling a fat fistful of carded wool, I drew threads of light, twisting them to strengthen them and then driving them into blankets and bandages, embedding them deep in the fibers. I worked like the machines in Fen, keeping multiple threads whirring at once, mechanized in rapid clockwork like the gears of those hulking iron looms.

  Beside me, Emmi gasped, and Lieta’s face shone with amazement. Parit went ashen, and Venia gripped Emmi’s hand so tightly her knuckles were bone-white. She reached a hand for Parit, and they closed the circle. The power around me surged, and I caught it, magnified the cloud of charm above me, stabilized it. Within a half hour, every shred of fabric I could find was worked through with charm, glowing golden to our eyes only.

  “Sophie,” Lieta said softly. “What miracle is this?”

  “It’s what you do, grandmother,” I whispered, struck reverent by the power of charm casting shared. “But carried out a little differently.”

  “But all of us together—you can do it alone?” Emmi asked, incredulous.

  “Yes,” I said. “But I wouldn’t have been half as quick, nor the charm as powerful.”

  “How did you find out how to do this?” Parit asked, half-inquisitive, half-accusatory.

  “I knew I could draw it without the needle and thread once I saw how the Serafans use music.”

  “We know all about that,” Venia said with a sardonic smile. “I’ve never been that ill before, except maybe on a particularly bad day of morning sickness.”

  “So I knew that you don’t have to handle a material, don’t have to work a charm into it by hand. That you could cast directly. I just combined that with what I know about charming materials,” I said with a shrug.

  “By all our ancestors, Sophie.” Lieta shook her head. “You make it sound so simple.”

  “We should tell the head nurse,” Parit said. “So maybe they’ll let us take a break.”

  Emmi, Venia, and Parit went off in search of the ward mistress, but Lieta hung back. “Sophie, I—do not take offense, please. But I had heard rumors of your casting. I did not believe them, but now that I see you know things I did not think possible, I must ask.”

  My stomach felt hollow, and I knew what Lieta would ask before she voiced the question. “Yes, you can do the same with curses.”

  “I thought as much, that one could. The Serafans certainly did. But, Sophie—can you?”

  I hesitated. “We all did a lot of things we wish we didn’t have to,” I said. “But yes. I cast curses.” The weight of those words was heavy, heavier than I had believed it could be.

  “Oh, Sophie.” Lieta’s face fell.

  “I’m sorry, I know I’ve disappointed—”

  “No, no, my dear. I am sorry. To do harm with one’s gift—it was not taken lightly, I am sure, but it will not leave you lightly, either, will it?”

  “No,” I confessed. I thought of the riflemen, bodies doubled over as they were racked with pain, of the soldiers enveloped by the darkness at Rock’s Ford, of the screams of dying men on the Royalist naval ship as it was engulfed in flame in the Fenian ocean. That was all done at my bidding, under the darkness I commanded.

  “And yet.” Lieta sighed. “And yet many others have caused pain as well. Many others have dealt out death like so many hands of cards.”

  “I suppose,” I said, “that it’s only the lucky ones who haven’t done something they’ll regret.”

  “I suppose you’re right. And I fear we aren’t finished yet.”

  60

  “FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS,” KRISTOS SAID, “IS THE SLATE OF nominations for the election of Galitha City’s councillors.” I sat in the gallery of the council chambers, what had once been the archive’s large reading room. Now the shelves of books were rearranged against the back walls so that the open space, with benches and a podium for the governors, could host the officia
l business of Galitha. Including mine. I fidgeted as I waited for the housekeeping portion of this session to be completed so that I could raise a grievance against the council—the continuation of Otni’s wartime work-for-rations system. Alice and my casting friends had all confirmed as I’d visited with them in the past weeks that most of their families didn’t get enough to eat under the system and couldn’t find a way to bring in more approved work. My palms were damp against my wool skirt; despite the late winter cold outside, the room was warm with the press of bodies, but I had chosen to wear my Reformist army riding habit quite deliberately.

  “Anyone with the requisite number of signatures may have their name included on the ballot,” said Maurice Forrest, who had taken a position as adjutant for the temporary governors. He read the names thus far included, heavy with Red Caps and early agitators of the movement. I nodded—it was fair, for them to be represented in some or all of the five seats on the council open to the city. “This is now the final opportunity for additions to the ballot,” Forrest said in conclusion.

  “There is one more.” A voice sailed over the heads of the gallery and the assembled council in front of it, followed by a blur of dove-gray silk and lavender wool cloak.

  “Miss Snowmont.” Forrest gave a stiff little bow in greeting. “You are bringing forward a citizen’s signature petition?”

  “Indeed I am,” she said with a bright smile. “My own.”

  A murmur from the crowd quickly accelerated into a torrent of objection and curiosity, and even a few hearty laughs. I assessed the three temporary governors presiding over the session; Niko scowled, Kristos allowed a little smile to play about his lips, and Theodor looked exhausted.

  “Surely,” Niko said, “you must be joking.”

  “Certainly not,” Viola answered with mock astonishment. “Who would joke about something so serious, so vitally historic, as our first elections in Galitha City?”

  “Viola, I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Theodor said carefully, “but you must know that you are not permitted to run for a seat on the council.”

  “Am I not?” Viola’s voice leveled and she met Theodor’s eyes. “I am lately a citizen of Galitha City. There is no law, of which I am aware, which would bar me from running. Nobles are permitted to run provided they have complied with the requisition of their property, which I have. You may all recall,” she said, gesturing delicately, “that I assisted in such efforts with the property of those nobles within the city.” She paused, as though considering more points to levy at the objections, though I was sure she already had them well-rehearsed. “There are in fact several nobles, of minor houses, already serving on the council, who were elected by their peers in Hazelwhite.”

  “Despite my concerns regarding noble inclusion on the council,” Niko said icily, “that is in fact not my objection.”

  “Oh! Well, I did collect the requisite number of signatures.” Viola handed the stack of papers to Forrest, who dutifully began to scan them. “More, in fact, than requisite.”

  “Significantly more,” Forrest muttered.

  “You’re a woman!” someone yelled from the council’s benches.

  “Very astute,” Viola replied without missing a beat.

  “Miss Snowmont,” Kristos said, still fighting back a smile, “it appears that your sex is, in fact, the objection.”

  “My sex!” Viola laughed. “There is no law barring my sex from running for the council.” She paused. “There is a law barring my sex from voting in the elections. But not from being voted for, as it were.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Niko stood. “We can’t be seriously considering this. We have more important matters to attend to than indulging this former noble in her delusions.”

  “Hold on a moment.” Maurice Forrest had a heavy stack of papers and was leafing through all of them, back and forth in a dizzying display of fanned pages. “Definition of nomination—yes, citizen—and citizen definition—yes—does not include sex within the definition of citizen.” He looked up, blinking. “The only requirements to occupy a seat on the council is to be a citizen in good standing with the law, selected by means of a legal election. Our legal documents do not define citizens as male.”

  “They don’t, do they?” Kristos said. I gaped at him. “Well, something for the council to take up another time if they so desire.”

  “Another time?” Theodor said.

  “We can’t take it up right now, it’s a charter matter, which means it must be added to the agenda two weeks in advance and with a written notice.” Kristos shrugged. “Can’t go against our own charter. Miss Viola Snowmont, consider your name added to the legal ballot of the elections for the Council of Country.” Kristos nodded once, and Viola returned it with a dainty curtsy, then sat down next to me.

  “Kristos knew, didn’t he?” I whispered.

  “He and Ambrose may have helped me check into the legality of the whole thing, yes. And Kristos suggested it needed to be quite public so that I wasn’t simply ignored.” She smoothed her silk skirt.

  “And what if you actually win a seat?” I whispered.

  “Wouldn’t that be grand?” Viola grinned. “Didn’t you have something you wanted to say?”

  I glanced around, noting the still-muttering councillors and Niko’s palpable dark mood. “Oh, excellent timing.”

  “That’s hardly my fault,” Viola whispered with a shrug. “Go on, now.”

  “Governors,” I said as I stood. “Permission to speak.”

  “Oh good gory offal, you’re not running, too,” a man nearby shouted.

  I ignored him even as another man replied, “We’ll have the Tea Party Council before long.”

  “It will have to be renamed the Quilting Assembly,” someone in the gallery suggested, to more laughter.

  I cleared my throat. “Governors? On a matter for the council.”

  Niko glared at the chatter and then at me. “Well, go ahead.”

  I spoke louder than the whispered jokes around me. “There is some concern about the wartime system of rationing still in effect in the city. We have requisitioned the financial and estate assets of the city’s nobility and are in the process of doing so for the rest of Galitha. Our ability to pay our soldiery will therefore soon be independent of any stores left within the city. Our trade networks will be opened and running as before—at least, as normally as can be expected.”

  “It’s a fair system,” Niko retorted. “Those who work are paid in what they need.”

  “It was a very good system for a city under siege,” I replied. “But this city is no longer under siege. There are people who cannot work under your system who go hungry, and their families have no way of making additional income or buying additional goods.”

  “That’s nonsense.” Niko waved his hand.

  “Wait, it’s not nonsense, really.” A man with dark hair clubbed with a red leather tie stood nervously. “My sister has a newborn, husband died in that last battle, she can’t work, and my rations don’t do well enough for all of us.”

  “So we’ll amend the system—”

  “No,” Theodor said, cutting Niko off. “The system as it stands puts too much power in the hands of the government. Just as the noble system before it did. It’s time it ended.”

  “The nobility were tyrants,” Niko shouted in reply, to some agreement among the council and the gallery.

  “Many a system of governance,” Theodor said firmly, “can create tyrants. We do not wish to become what we fought and died to overthrow.”

  “What we died to overthrow—as though you’re not the prime specimen of what we fought and died to overthrow!” Niko slammed his hand on the table in front of him, staring Theodor down in a clear challenge, but Theodor stood stoic, refusing to give voice to a duel of insults. His bearing was dignity personified, I thought with a swell of pride, but he looked tired.

  “Governors,” Kristos said quietly, “this is a matter for the full council to debate, not governors
, and temporary governors at that. I suggest we table it until the city’s elections are concluded.” He met my eyes and nodded. The gentleman’s agreement had been challenged, and publicly. Soon we could move forward.

  61

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO,” I SAID QUIETLY, AS THEODOR COMBED clove-scented pomade through his hair and gathered it into a queue. “Everyone would understand.”

  “I am a temporary governor of Galitha. I am the Reformist army’s commander. It is my duty.”

  “I think the circumstances a bit unusual, this time.”

  “If I am not there, it will be taken as a statement and that statement will be broadcast by Otni and his followers. That I’m still a sympathizer to the nobility.”

  “It’s your own father,” I said. “Your own father on the gallows.”

  “I know!” His hands trembled as he tied a dark charcoal ribbon around the leather holding his queue. “Divine Natures, Sophie, I know. In every inch of the law, in any law, this is the due course of action. I cannot afford—we cannot afford—to imply anything but complete acquiescence to and respect of that law.”

  I took his shaking hand silently. I was dressed in my gray-and-red riding habit again, freshly brushed and pressed and the buttons shined. I wondered when I could put it off for good.

  We walked to Fountain Square, cleaner and in better repair than it had been when we first rode in after the Battle of Galitha City, but still bearing deep scars. The ugliest was a gallows erected in the center of the square next to the fountain, which was neither running nor frozen but emptied of water. I accompanied Theodor to the platform set aside for the council members overseeing the proceedings, joining Kristos and Maurice Forrest in its center. Maurice was no charismatic personality, that was sure—but he shook Theodor’s hand gravely and I saw empathy in his soft smile.

  “Excuse me.” The voice preceded a parting of bodies and polite head tilts as Viola and Annette stepped through the crowd of councillors.