Rule

by Rowenna Miller

  “You didn’t have to—” I whispered as Viola embraced me.

  “No, but it seemed only right. To be here next to Theo. He’s stood by us often enough,” Annette said. She was paler than usual, dressed in a dark gray riding habit trimmed in black. Viola’s gray silk gown was covered by a black mantelet. The councillors had worn dark clothing, too, and all the square looked as though it were the site of a massive funeral. It was, in some sense—today we buried, in symbol, at least, the end of the nobility and monarchy of Galitha.

  I stood as close as I could to Theodor without imposing on his image of governor of Galitha, and I noticed that Viola and Annette did, as well, forming a semicircle of silent support around him as the three prisoners were led from the Stone Castle to the gallows.

  I scanned the scene, eyes narrowing as I realized that Niko was nowhere to be seen. As a governor, he ought to have been on the platform with us. I caught Kristos’s eye and mouthed the single-word question. Niko? His brow furrowed and he shook his head slowly, answering, I don’t know.

  My eye caught a brief flash of light—not physical light, I saw instantly, but charm. I tensed, but it was only Emmi, standing next to Parit, Venia, and Lieta near the stairs of our platform. Emmi held up a simple linen banner embroidered in Pellian weeping hearts and sunrises—the designs used for funerals and naming ceremonies, respectively. An ending and a beginning represented in fabric, the threads glittering with faint magic. I swelled with pride in her—she had learned to cast in stitching without any more tutelage from me. I could have cheered out loud, any other time, but instead I gave her a small smile in acknowledgment.

  The trio of condemned men ascended the platform. Silence reigned across the square; I had wondered if there would be mockery, cheers, shouts of acclamation or condemnation, or if the people of Galitha would bear the weight of this moment quietly. We had treated Westland, Pommerly, and Merhaven well, I was relieved to see—their clothes were clean, and they had been given at the least soap and water as they all looked well-kempt. Yet they were broken, too, without bearing any bruises or wounds, in a quiet submission to their fate.

  They had chosen it, I reminded myself. Time and again, at each juncture, chosen to deny the common people any rights, and even when the law had demanded their compliance, they had rebelled against it. They had rebelled, I reminded myself. They were the traitors.

  Theodor stood still as a post in front of me, and I knew he was repeating this rehearsed speech in his own mind, to keep out the simple fact that one was his father.

  Before the pronouncement could be read, a clamor broke out from the quarter of the square nearest the Public Archive. I turned, stomach falling like stone, to see a crowd of men in red caps and red sashes, bearing banners and led by Niko Otni in a new scarlet frock coat. Many of them carried long knives or clubs—whether intending to use them or in show of force, I couldn’t tell. Kristos’s mouth clenched into a thin line, and most of the councillors rustled, concerned, among themselves.

  Niko and his men marched through the crowd to the center of the square and took positions in front of the gallows, facing them, in lines and columns like soldiers.

  “Sweet Sacred Natures,” Viola whispered in condemnation as they stood in rank and file like a military parade. “They’ve made it about them.”

  Niko stared up at the former king of Galitha with an unnerving grin. “You thought to take on a country, to take on the people of Galitha. We’re stronger than you, even with all your money and all your power.”

  “Oh hell,” muttered Kristos. “He shouldn’t be allowed to talk.”

  Theodor and Maurice shared a glance. Theodor couldn’t be the one to speak, not now. With the weight of the role of adjutant of the council bolstering his slight frame, Maurice mustered his largest voice and called across the square, “There is a proper order for these proceedings. Please allow the pronouncement to be read and—”

  “We’ve got our own pronouncement!” Niko yelled. “That hanging is too good for these men. Still wearing their silk suits, their good shoes—why, are those jewels in your buckles?” He laughed, insouciant, at Pommerly.

  “Please allow the pronouncement to be read and the proceedings to continue,” cried Maurice Forrest, but he was quickly drowned out in shouts and jeers from the Red Caps. Now the composure on the gallows was beginning to crack—Pommerly was sweating and Merhaven swallowed, rapidly, eyes darting from the Red Caps to the platform. What did they intend to do, drag these men from the gallows and beat them to death? Sunlight glinted from a scythe in reply.

  This wasn’t the answer. Maybe the former king and his traitorous confidants deserved a painful death at the hands of those they had oppressed. But the people of Galitha didn’t deserve rule by mob. We had fought to give them something better than that, to give them fair laws and real justice.

  Silently, I slipped back into the crowd of council members, the press and swell of their bodies swallowing me. I found Emmi in the crowd by her banner, the white linen and the faint charm glowing dimly.

  “Take my hand,” I whispered urgently. Emmi threw the banner over her shoulder like a dishrag and motioned to Parit, next to her, to come closer. I inhaled deeply as I centered myself and reached for the charm magic. Dark magic danced nearby, almost nipping at me with its intensity, and I knew—its presence was a byproduct of fear, drawn by my own lack of control. I knew I could bury curse magic quickly in Niko’s scarlet coat and incapacitate him almost instantly, but that would only cause more serious problems later. Instead, I pushed the darkness away with a steady, deliberate hand, and focused on the light.

  I felt when Venia and Lieta joined the chain of hands as the charm I had pulled surged in strength. I wove a net of light, pulsing with goodwill, patience, love—anything that might cool hot tempers and quiet angry minds. Anything that might turn them away from violence. Emmi squeezed my hand tighter as I settled the net across the backs of the Red Caps first. It was impossible to tell if there was any change in their intentions, but I doubled the loop of neighborly goodwill around Niko, tightening it as I pressed it deep into the red wool of his coat.

  “Here, now,” Kristos said, hopping down from the platform in a nimble jump, “we’re a nation of law, not a government by riot. We’ve earned that.” His voice rose—he wasn’t speaking only to Niko or even all of the Red Caps but to the entire crowd. This was about keeping their faith, not just dissuading Red Caps from riot. I turned the charm toward the rest of the crowd, enveloping all of us, myself included, with bright fortune.

  Kristos strode toward Niko confidently. The charm driving outward over the crowd constricted and tensed as I cut it off and started another, a new charm for safety, ribboned first around Kristos. “We’ve earned the right to try these men, and to judge them, and to carry out a sentence. We don’t have to resort to shouting in the streets any longer, to brandishing pitchforks and scythes.”

  “Come now, Balstrade,” Niko said, voice lowering. “It’s not over and done so easy as hanging a few men. You know that as well as I.”

  Charm pulsed over the whole crowd, but nothing compared to the fire in Niko’s eyes or the confidence in Kristos’s voice. “You’re right. It’s far from over and done. We have work to do. Right over there.” He gestured to the Public Archive, where the council had been meeting. “We have elections to hold. We have laws to write. We have a city to rebuild, and I say the sooner the better. Put this aside and then we can get back to work.”

  Murmurs of assent buoyed Kristos’s words. I didn’t know, would never know, if my charm had effected the openness toward peace and the refusal of violence, but I slowly uncurled my hand from Emmi’s. I could see Niko’s plans pivoting. If he pressed ahead with a demonstration of retribution, too many of the crowd would turn on him and his Red Caps. He glared past Kristos toward the platform, toward Theodor and the women flanking him, and then shot a pointed look at me.

  “Then the Red Caps will witness the end of what we started. And never fo
rget,” he said, “that we started this.”

  Theodor stared straight out over the crowd, face like stone and taut as a spring. I rejoined him as the brief pronouncement was read. I don’t think any of us really heard it, though we knew what it said—treason, rebellion against Galitha’s laws, death. Death in every word of it. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought Theodor’s father searched for his son’s eyes, to meet them to say some final farewell that we had denied him in speech.

  I closed my eyes when the trapdoors opened and the men fell. I couldn’t help it, but I still heard the creak and rattle of the wood and the rush of weight, plummeting downward, unchecked. The cumulative breath that the crowd sucked in and held, for a long moment. Next to me, Theodor made no sound save a tiny, choked sigh.

  62

  THE WEEKS FOLLOWING THE EXECUTION HUMMED WITH A QUIET industriousness. Across the city businesses reopened, and crews of citizens employed by the council began repairs to the pockmarked roads and crumbling buildings. Ships sailed into the harbor for the first time in months, bearing goods from southern Galitha, the Allied States, and Fen. The city’s elections came and went; to Theodor’s surprise, but not mine, Viola was elected a councillor alongside three prominent Red Caps and one bookish printer with nervous, rabbit-like mannerisms and startlingly anarchist opinions.

  “We needed at least one solid anarchist,” Kristos said as we gathered at the council chambers for the swearing in of the final councillors. “He used to print our broadsides, back when we were just the Laborers’ League.”

  “Oh, how far we’ve all come,” Annette said with a laugh. “Viola looks well.” I’d made her a tailored gown for the occasion, working together in the firelight of the parlor after my long days of helping Hamish and the charm casters in the hospital. The charcoal gray was cut like a man’s double-breasted frock coat in the front but swept into a gown’s long skirts. I thought, with a pang of nostalgia, about the pink gown she had first commissioned from me. How far we’d all come, indeed.

  “A word?” Niko’s dark eyes blazed and he stood too close for my comfort. “In private.” He glanced to Theodor and Kristos, who stood talking with Maurice Forrest and Hamish Oglethorpe.

  I stiffened. Next to me, Annette laid a hand on my arm, protective. Though she had eschewed her admiral’s sword, I knew she carried a slim naval dagger under her skirt. I laid my hand over hers.

  “Privacy will be difficult to find here, I’m afraid.” I inclined my head toward one of the archive’s windowed alcoves. No one stood in the curve of the window itself, though plenty of councillors stood nearby, consulting a map of southern Galatine port cities. “That might be the best we can do.”

  “Very well.” He marched toward the window, then whirled to face me before I had a moment to even think what he wanted. “I know what you’ve done.”

  I stepped back, afraid of the intensity in his eyes. “What did I do?”

  “You know damned well. Your casting.”

  I swallowed hard, remembering the deep gold I’d woven through the crowd at the hanging. I had expected Niko to find out from someone who could see the charm, eventually, and I had anticipated his fury. “What of my casting?”

  “How else did that noble bitch get elected, save your meddling?”

  Fear broke like a soap bubble and I almost laughed—but then it settled like a film over my relief. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t—that I wouldn’t—use my abilities to affect political outcomes. Niko believed I had. And if he believed it, who else did?

  “I didn’t do anything, Niko. She won the seat on her own.”

  “Whore’s ass, she did.” Niko shook his head. “It’s not right. You can seed whatever you want with no one knowing, make people… do things.”

  “I can’t do anything of the sort,” I bristled, but I couldn’t forget the Serafan methods of influence, of weaving magic and reality together to make friend and foe alike react however the caster chose. I had, in some immeasurable way, affected the crowd in Fountain Square, pushing them away from violence and toward benevolence. “And I certainly wouldn’t.”

  “I don’t feel like listening to one of your treatises on ethics, Sophie, so let me simply say—I won’t stand for it. I’ll figure out how you do what you do and I’ll put a stop to it.”

  I stared back at Niko, squaring my shoulders. “Viola won her seat fairly. Just as those three Red Caps and the anarchist did.”

  “So you say. But so help me, Sophie, if you interfere with the selection of the governors. If your noble-born fiancé takes the rightful seat of one of our people—”

  “If he does, it will be because the council feels it is in this nation’s best interest that he take a large role in leading it!” I took a steadying breath. “Besides, I can’t simply make people do what I want. It doesn’t work like that, especially for an election.”

  “So it does work like that, sometimes.”

  “No!” I sighed, exasperated. “If it concerns you, I will remain absent for the nomination and confirmation of the governors.”

  “It does more than concern me. That this has gone unchecked, that you continue to bolster your noble friends, that you’re like as not a traitor to the new Republic.” He leaned closer, so that I could smell that morning’s sausage and onions on his breath. “It concerns me gravely.”

  “I don’t have to stand for these sorts of insults. If I were a man—”

  “If you were a man I’d have finished this already,” he said flatly.

  I turned on my heel and returned to Annette, who was now joined by Kristos and Theodor. “We’re going to have to do something,” I said through breath that began to shake, “about public perception of charm casting at some juncture.”

  “I’ll have to find a new printer,” Kristos joked quietly, but he took my hand and watched as Niko strode back toward the councillors’ platform.

  The five new councillors were sworn in and presented promptly with a full agenda, including the nomination of governors to supplant the temporary positions we’d created during wartime. Annette and I left quietly, and I saw Annette sneak a last look at Viola as she rose to address a question about the ledgers of seized noble property. Annette smiled to herself.

  I spent the day with Alice inventorying the wartime fabric reserves in preparation for decentralizing Niko’s storehouses, and came home with a head swimming with yardage and broadcloth widths and numbers of bolts of linen. Shortly after, the rest of the household arrived home in a chorus of laugher and shouts as they burst through the door.

  “Meet the official, not temporary, fully vetted governor of Galitha!” Viola cried.

  “The, as in singular?” I smiled. “Which one of you?”

  “Theodor,” Viola said, beaming. “Voted near unanimously to nominate him.”

  “Told you they’d pick you as one of the governors,” Kristos said. “As sure as I always win at dice.”

  “I beat you at dice last night,” Theodor said with a weary smile. “I don’t know. I wish…” He paused. “I shouldn’t have accepted the nomination.”

  “But you are more qualified for the position than anyone else. They know that. They know they need someone who has led before. Who understands how laws work,” Sianh said.

  “Kristos didn’t accept his,” Theodor said. “He was nominated, Sophie. Nominated first, before anyone else.”

  “And declined.” Kristos shrugged. “As it turns out, I’m excellent at political theory but actual politics? I can let someone else take the reins. I’d rather write the first pamphlets and books of the new Republic.”

  “You can’t stand people disagreeing with you.” I laughed. “If you write books, you don’t have to listen to what people say about your ideas.”

  “I can’t stand people with bad logic disagreeing with me and having equal say as I do,” Kristos said. “Theodor has the patience of a nursemaid for putting up with them. You should see him—he can manage to wrangle them like a sheepdog among goats.”

 
“And I now have a five-year term herding the goats,” Theodor said, disquiet deepening the wrinkles around his eyes.

  “I say this deserves a celebration!” Viola said. “I’ll bring up a bottle of sparkling wine from the cellar—it’s still there, isn’t it, Theo?”

  He opened his mouth to protest, then simply nodded. “There’s still a case of the Urusine and a few of the sparkling Lienghine.”

  I caught his hand. “Would you like to step outside for a bit? While Viola whips a party out of a bottle of wine and some old prunes?”

  Theodor nodded with a grudging laugh, and we walked out into a bright winter afternoon. It was perhaps curiosity and perhaps nostalgia and perhaps a bad idea that drove us along the road toward the public gardens. Tents and brush shelters skirted rosebushes and fountains, temporary shelter for an overwintering army. The only space where the rows of wedge tents were absent was the labyrinth of boxwood, and I wondered if its paths and dead ends would soon hold canopies of pine branches for those still lacking shelter.

  “The last time we were here,” Theodor said slowly, “was Viola’s party for the passage of the Reform Bill.”

  “We thought it was over then.” I sighed.

  “We were inimitably stupid.” Theodor stopped and watched several men coax a thin blaze out of the coals of their campfire. “Perhaps we still are, if we think it’s over now.”

  We rounded a bend in the path, and I saw it—the greenhouse. “I wondered if it would still be here,” I confessed. “I didn’t want to say anything, didn’t even really want to hope that it survived.” Tentatively, I pushed on the door, partially blocked by a shattered flowerpot, and stepped inside.

  Sunset etched bright hues into the glass walls and ceiling, bringing color into the garden plots inside, though most of the plants had withered without watering. I gently touched one exception, an East Serafan cactus blooming with tiny yellow flowers.

  “I don’t imagine I’ll have much time to bring it back to its former glory.” Theodor pulled his penknife from his pocket and sliced the stem of a dwarf rosebush. “No sap at all, she’s dry as kindling.”