by Tim Stead
“They’re on our side?” Catto asked. Nobody answered him. Cain went down the steps three at a time. He drew the bolts on the postern with his own hands and stepped out of the city. They were still kneeling, hundreds of them.
“Stand,” Cain said. “Narak says that no man should kneel to another.” The commander stood, and behind him the black clad ranks stood too. “What is your name?”
“I am Florian Dantillia, Captain of the Pledge,” the man said. “The men you spared, our forefathers, made this pledge and we have come to serve. The honour of the Wolfen does not die.”
Cain looked back. Catto and Spans had followed him, but Dunsandel and the other officers still stood above the gate. This was truly the miracle that he had needed. He had spared a few hundred men a century ago, stopped the killing when it could have wiped them out. The Wolfen had named themselves after Narak, or Skal Hebberd had, he couldn’t remember. These men had been given land and melted into history, but apparently they had not forgotten. Cain put his hand on Dantillia’s shoulder.
“You are most welcome, Captain. How many men do you bring?”
“Five hundred, General.”
It was almost enough. He turned around and faced the city.
“Open the gates!”
9 The Great Council of Afael
The council chamber – formerly the ballroom of the Falini family palace – was far more crowded than usual. Francis Gayne had put the word about that something remarkable was to take place, counting on the people’s curiosity, and it had paid off. He wanted witnesses. He wanted hundreds of them.
Of course, his rumours would have reached his enemies. Gayne would not have acknowledged enemies among the common folk a year ago, but experience had taught him otherwise. There were rich and powerful people in the city that lacked noble blood, and they had seen the populist movement as a chance to replace the overthrown, the dukes and the king, with themselves. He knew that some of the elected here had bought their seats with bribes and threats, promises and violence.
That was why he needed a dragon.
He thought he’d spotted Torgaris’s avatar when he came in. There was a hooded figure, taller than most men and thin, wedged into a corner at the back of the room. He couldn’t see its face. He was sure that whatever an avatar looked like it would be unmistakably inhuman.
There was another surprise as well. The woman he had seen talking to the dragon in its pavilion was present as well. She was not at the back, but had positioned herself on a balcony overlooking the council table. She seemed unafraid, more interested than involved, he thought, as if she was studying them.
A spy?
If she was, then she was a bold one. Besides, nothing that passed here would be secret. Gayne had seen to that.
Keron, the other elected man from Dock Ward sat down beside him.
“The men are ready,” he said, keeping his voice low. Gayne nodded. It was always best to have a backup plan if you were trying to change the world. Keron had placed forty Dock Ward men in the grounds, all surreptitiously armed, all waiting for Keron’s signal. He hoped they would not be needed.
The room continued to fill. Spectators packed in and elected men and women were forced to weave through the crowd to take their seats at the tables. He could see the two men from North Ward conferring, and it seemed that they, too, had brought a backup plan. Francis could see several hard-looking men standing in the crowd behind them. Most of them were staring at Francis.
That could be a problem. While he was delighted for the dragon to witness the proceedings, he had no desire to demonstrate those powers that he possessed in front of it, or indeed in front of the people of Afael.
“Time?” Keron asked.
All the elected were here and the room was full. There was no point in waiting further. Gayne stood. He had brought a metal blank with him from the forge and now he used it to bang on the table in front of him. The crowd gradually hushed.
“Arbiter, I wish to speak,” he said.
The Arbiter, a man from City Ward, had been primed. He handed Gayne the Speaking Stone. That gave him the right to hold forth.
“You all know me,” he said. “I am Francis Gayne and I started out in this cause before it was a cause. I’ve lost good friends, I’ve spilled blood and I’ve bled for the city. Now we stand here in this grand room claiming the spoils of tyranny for the people of Afael, and that is a good thing.” There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd. “But I tell you that even now we are not safe. All the freedom that we have won may be snatched away in a moment by ambitious men. Duke Kenton would be king. Even now he marches south with his men to claim our city as his own. He will not succeed.” A muted cheer. “He has thousands of men, but we have tens of thousands. We have walls, we have soldiers, and we have right on our side.”
“Get to the point, Gayne.”
The voice came from across the room. Someone from North Ward, perhaps.
“There is another danger,” he said, ignoring the remark. “And that danger is here with us in this very room.” His claim set off a wave of angry muttering, a few shouted objections. “There are other men who would be king, men who stand in the shadows behind some of the seats here. I propose that we who have been elected swear an oath, a binding blood oath, that we shall serve our people, ward, city and nation, and no other, as long as we sit in these seats.”
A blood oath was an old and disused tradition. To swear such an oath meant breaking it forfeited your right to life. There were more objections, but Gayne ploughed on.
“Since I have proposed it, let me be the first to swear!” He picked up a piece of paper. “I, Francis Gayne, elected of Dock Ward, do swear by my blood that I take this seat to serve the people of Afael, Ward, City and Nation, and that I serve no other man or power but in my lawful employment as a citizen of Afael.”
The noise around him grew as he spoke. The far side of the room, however, remained quiet. The two North Ward elected were conferring. Gayne passed the paper and the speaking stone to Keron. The big man stood. He swore the oath, his deep voice booming over the babble around him. When he’d finished, he passed the stone and paper to his left, to the elected of Bridge Ward. This, too, had been planned. The men of Bridge Ward had agreed to swear the oath, and now they did so, and the room began to quiet again. After all, who could now object? Four of the twenty elected had sworn. If any refused it would look bad.
The next ward was East. The first elected took the paper and the stone. She gave Gayne a sour look.
“We should have discussed this,” she said.
“Do you object to the wording?” he asked.
“I object to the procedure,” she replied, but studied the paper. “The wording, no. But a blood oath?”
“It is binding,” Gayne said.
“It is just words, unless you have a dragon hidden under your table.”
Gayne felt his heart beat a little faster. He took a deep breath. “Could you fit a dragon in this room?” he asked. “Anyway, the oath is before the people. It cannot be denied.”
She shrugged. “I will swear,” she said, and did so at once. Now the room had stilled completely, and her colleague followed her lead. Now six had sworn, and it quickly became eight. It was like a wave rising, gathering strength until it arrived at the elected for North Ward.
The first elected for North Ward looked at the paper.
“I have been chosen by the citizens of North Ward,” he said. “Why should I swear this oath?”
“Do you know Tollan Chaini?” Gayne asked. The North Warder was enviably smooth.
“I know him of course. He is a prominent citizen of North Ward.”
“Do you serve him?”
It was a bald accusation.
“Chaini employs many people. I have done work for him in the past.”
“But not now?”
“Now I sit as the elected for North Ward.”
“Not as a proxy for Tollan Chaini?”
“If you wis
h to accuse me of something, Gayne, you must have proof.”
“I will accept your word and the swearing of the oath as proof of your innocence. Do you work for Chaini?”
The man looked about the room. Hundreds of people were watching him, and there was a degree of tension in the air. By this time twelve of the twenty had taken the oath. The wave was breaking over North Ward. Gayne looked up at the woman who had been with the dragon. She surely knew that Torgaris was concealed at the back of the room, surely knew that a lie must be exposed. She was smiling, intent on the proceedings below. Gayne turned back to the council.
“I do not,” the North Warder said. That was probably enough, but Gayne wanted more.
“Then take the oath. What are you afraid of?”
The man sighed. He leaned his head towards his colleague and they exchanged a few quiet words. He straightened up again and looked Gayne in the eye.
“Very well,” he said. He held the paper in one hand the speaking stone in the other and read the words in a sardonic, sing-song voice. He passed the paper and stone on to his colleague, who swore with considerably more gravitas. Gayne glanced back at the corner where the hooded figure stood, but there was no reaction there. Some of the other elected expressed objections, but all of them swore, every man and woman.
The stone and the paper were passed back to Gayne. He put them down and pulled out another paper, the one that he had shown to Torgaris a few nights before.
“Now we move to the matter of the day,” he said. “But before we do there is one piece of business yet.” He turned and looked back at the hooded figure. “How many of them lied, Torgaris?”
The room erupted. People screamed, but very quickly it became apparent that there was no actual dragon anywhere nearby. Gayne hadn’t expected the reaction, but it played to the drama of the moment, and when the noise subsided again the hooded figure took a few steps forwards. When it spoke Gayne knew that he wouldn’t have to rely on its appearance to convince the people that it was a dragon’s avatar. The voice was deep as the sea and shook the room.
“Three,” it said.
The avatar threw back its hood, and Gayne wasn’t disappointed. Yellow dragon eyes looked out from a smooth black face that bore only a passing resemblance to a man.
“Which ones?” Gayne asked.
The avatar pointed, an impossibly long black finger reaching towards the guilty. “The two from North Ward, who are clearly in the pay of Chaini, and that one from City Ward.”
That was a surprise. Gayne looked at the man, who stared back at him with blank eyes, and then, in a flicker of movement, raised a crossbow and shot at him.
Gayne didn’t have time to duck, nor did he have time to summon his power, such as it was, to save himself. Despite that he felt it, a wave of warmth flooding across the vast chamber. There was no way that the City Warder could have missed him. They were twenty feet apart. Yet somehow the bolt clipped his shoulder and flew high, miraculously missing all those crowded behind him and burying itself in the wall twenty yards further on.
The crowd reacted. Hands grabbed the man and pulled him over backwards. Fists and boots flew. Gayne was too stunned for a moment to do anything. Someone had just tried to kill him, and they’d failed because…
He looked up at the balcony and she was watching him. She wasn’t smiling any more, but looked concerned. When their eyes met she turned away and vanished into the crowd.
“Stop!” Gayne shouted, but he wasn’t talking to the mysterious woman. “Leave him be!” The crowd obeyed, surprisingly. They withdrew from the bowman, but it was already too late. The man was clearly dead. Gayne had known about Chaini and North Ward, but hadn’t suspected City Ward. Now his best chance of finding out who was behind it was gone. The second elected of that ward still remained, held by a couple of burly men, but she looked frightened and confused. If Gayne was any judge of people she was as shocked as anyone else by what had happened, and Torgaris had not pointed to her.
“Let her go,” he said. “She spoke only the truth.” They let her go, but Gayne knew that although innocent she would probably know something. She must have spent at least some time with the dead man, must know some detail that would set Gayne on the right path. But that would come later. Now he needed to seize control again, to get to the main business of the day.
He banged on the table again with the iron blank and the room fell silent.
“There will have to be a fresh choosing in North Ward,” he said. “But that cannot stop us.” He walked out from behind his table into the space between the elected. He turned slowly, taking in the crowd, allowing them to focus on him. “You will all have wondered, I am sure, what kind of city you are going to live in now that the King is dead and the dukes have died or fled. I will tell you.” He paused. This was the moment he had worked towards since that incident by First Bridge. He felt his gut tighten. He couldn’t afford to get this wrong. He took a deep breath.
“This room in which we stand was once used for dancing. Think about that. It was used for nothing else. When the Falinis wanted to invite their many friends over to dance they used this room. They didn’t eat here or sleep here or even read a book here.”
He waved his arm as if to show them all the vaulted ceilings, the hanging chandeliers, the delicate plasterwork that still framed the windows.
“Dancing,” he said. “I’m a blacksmith. I hammer steel by day and if I am good at my job, I hope one day to buy a house with eight rooms, to have a wife and children, and to ride a horse and perhaps own a carriage. That is my dream. I will drink good ale with my friends and love my wife.” He shrugged. “Who could wish for more?
“But that life, that pleasant, easy life with its house and horses and even the forge would fit over there,” he pointed. “In that one small corner of this room that is set aside for dancing.
“I ask you, should one man – one man with a wife and two children, have so much while others starve? I am not against money. I like it. But there is a line to be drawn somewhere between wealth and obscenity, and this room, this house, is the other side of that line.
“I had a friend called Johan Paritti. He was a thinker, a man of peace, and he died with an arrow in his back trying to save this city from those who would be our rulers. Johan spent many years of his life trying to imagine a fairer world.” He held up the paper in his hand. “This is what he came up with. I will read it to you and then pass the speaking stone back to the arbiter and we will discuss it.” He looked around the room once more. His ground work had paid off. There were plenty of artisans in the crowd and a lot of people from the poorer wards.
He lifted up the paper.
He began to read.
10 The Declaration of Johan Paritti
It is my belief that the nation of Afael should exist for the benefit of its people. At present this is not so. The great and lesser lords harvest the country’s wealth for their own comfort and keep the peace only with steel and blood. It is a system that ensures that all but a fortunate few live on the edge of poverty, dirt beneath the feet of our lords, and have no say in the course of their lives. This should change. This must change.
In my heart I see a different world, a fairer world where no man or woman bows or kneels to any other, but all stand equally before the law, all draw equally from the well of common wealth, and all steer the course that pleases them if it harms no other.
The rulers of the people will be chosen by the people every year, two from each city ward or similarly sized town or rural district. They will form the great council of Afael.
Decisions made by the great council will be by free vote, a simple majority carrying the decision.
There may be non-voting members of the council as the council sees fit. These members will have the right to speak and advise on matters in which they have exceptional knowledge.
Guilds will be created for every appropriate trade.
Guilds will have exclusive control of their trade. Penalties will ap
ply to those who practice a guilded trade outside a guild.
Guilds may charge each member according to their status, as master journeyman and apprentice, and half of that charge will be passed on to the council to fund its activities.
Guilds will set up training schools and fund them. They will also ensure standards within their trade.
Guild officials will be elected by journeymen and masters every year.
The council values the labour of a man at a minimum of five coppers a day.
Nobody may pay a man less than five coppers a day for work done.
If a man is unable to find paid work he may opt to work for the council. In this case the council will employ him for three days, and in exchange for those three days’ work will provide him with accommodation and two meals a day for the week, leaving him four days in which to seek employment for the following week.
Those working a three-day for the council will be set to civil tasks, maintaining the fabric of the city and of the country.
The council will also pay for schools. The schools will provide for all children between the ages of ten and twelve. They will teach reading and the working of numbers.
On completion of this basic education children may be apprenticed to a guild trade and educated in a guild school. Otherwise they are free to take up an unguilded trade.
Justice will be served in each district by the elected members for that district who shall sit in judgement on all cases that do not concern strictly guild matters. If a man or woman be found guilty, he may appeal to the Dragon Court and there exonerated if innocence be found.
Punishments may consist of fines, servitude or death, depending on the severity of the crime. Servitude will be in the service of the city, a benefit of twenty-five coppers being paid to the wronged party each week if it is deemed appropriate.
A determined attempt to escape servitude may be punishable by death. This, also, may be appealed to the Dragon Court.