Behind the cardinal the rest of the speakers sat crammed into the benches of the chancel, the rose window of smoked glass seeming to hang over their heads like a murky sun. Zosia had met with most of these representatives already, and had been more than happy when they had decided that neither she nor Indsorith should sit with them at the front of the Chainhouse. Instead the two women were to wait in the audience, sitting with the common people until called upon. Not one for squeezing in and out of benches, Zosia had compromised by posting herself and Indsorith in one of the confessionals that ran alongside the nave, busting out the grate that divided the booth so they could see each other as they talked. It had felt pretty damn satisfying to use a war nun’s sainted hammer to smash up the latticed likeness of the Fallen Mother and toss it on the floor for Choplicker to gnaw like a choice bone. Couldn’t be good for his teeth … but then again, monster that he was, maybe it just made them sharper.
Indsorith had been wary of attending the meeting at all. She doubted the gesture of opening up Castle Diadem to the public would be enough to win over the very revolutionaries that agents of the Crown had apparently been torturing in her name, but Zosia eventually convinced her. Boris’s dissident organization was but one of the many factions who now claimed a stake in Diadem’s future rule, and there had to be countless loyal subjects who would take heart in the news that the Crimson Queen had survived Pope Y’Homa’s assassination attempt. Indsorith and Zosia publicly paying the revolution the respect it was due with a little genuflection would go a long way to ameliorating any frustrations certain parties might have with the surprisingly alive Stricken Queen or her less popular successor.
This would-be senate’s invitation for the former regents to take part in their inaugural summit wasn’t just a smart move, it was a necessary one. The Burnished Chain had overthrown the Crown and then cleared out of Diadem so fast there was a vacuum to be filled here in Samoth’s capital, yes, but there were also twenty-two other provinces in the Crimson Empire to consider. Each of these had a regiment loyal to the sovereign of the realm, in name if not in recent deed. Having a Crimson Queen or two willing to bestow legitimacy on the new government was also essential to staving off civil war and beginning the long process of freeing the Star from tyranny.
Or so the reasoning went. Zosia was rather skeptical of the revolution’s long-term prospects even without little potential complications like Ji-hyeon’s long-overdue ass finally leading the Cobalt Company through Diadem Gate. Yet with each passing day that possibility seemed more remote—Zosia dearly hoped the kid was all right, that there had simply been some change in plans, but if so, why hadn’t Hoartrap appeared to alert her? Anytime she let her imagination loose she pictured the old sorcerer opening up the Lark’s Tongue Gate with promises of leading the Cobalt Company safely to Diadem, only for the First Dark to swallow up every single one of them without so much as a burp. The image of Hoartrap overestimating his ability to lead a large force through the Gates and inadvertently dooming the entire Cobalt Company wasn’t too far a stretch … but then neither was the far darker scenario of Hoartrap duping Ji-hyeon into sacrificing her entire army for some heinous ritual that required thousands of souls voluntarily entering a Gate. The sorry truth was she didn’t trust the Touch any more now than she had when they’d first summoned their devils together all those years ago—as a matter of fact, she probably trusted him less, now that she’d gotten to know him better.
Anyway, fretting over the dismal possibilities only distracted her from the matter at hand, and as far as such things went the sudden arrival of General Ji-hyeon and her wannabe Cobalts would be a blessing for Diadem’s new parliament compared to who else might crash their inaugural ball. What would this amateur government do if the Black Pope sailed the Imperial fleet back into Desolation Sound? Or if the resurrection of Jex Toth caused some unpredictable mayhem, as Indsorith feared? Or thinking even simpler, what if an opportunistic noble from a neighboring province joined forces with a Crimson colonel to invade Diadem and make a claim for the throne?
Yet even assuming nobody came knocking at the city’s admittedly impressive gate for the next hundred years, Zosia doubted this crew could amicably rule for a hundred days before a fresh power struggle led to even worse riots than before. She had gone into the meeting fairly hopeful, but after hours of droning speeches with conflicting messages about Diadem’s future she was less than convinced they could all work together … but then Choplicker seemed to have dozed off on her feet, and if he was bored that had to be a good sign, didn’t it?
“I don’t like this talk of martyrs,” murmured Indsorith from the other side of the confessional. “Especially coming from an officer of the Burnished Chain.”
“Well, at least he’s winding down,” said Zosia as the cardinal raised his bandaged hands in the air to punctuate his call for a newer, kinder interpretation of the Chain Canticles. “And they did crucify him, so I understand being hung up on martyrdom.”
“Wouldn’t he have had to stay hung up to actually be a martyr?” said Indsorith, and Zosia almost lost her shit. Not because it was hilarious, because really now, but just on account of how good it felt to see Indsorith well and truly on the mend, her personality coming out along with her stitches. Indsorith had lived, she had made it, and all because Zosia had done the right fucking thing for once and come here to Diadem instead of cutting out on the Cobalts the way she’d planned. One year ago Zosia had been snowed in at the back of an ice cave in the Kutumbans, obsessing over all the tortures she would inflict on Indsorith for the murder of Leib and the rest of the village, and now they were cutting up in church like a couple of kids dragged to mass. Holding up her own injured hands, Indsorith said, “At least Y’Homa is consistent in her madness—she never liked me, but nailing up her own people …”
“They say even a few of the Holy See ended up like that, and entire factions of the rank and file faith. It was like a screaming forest, one of the rebels told me, and even as quick as the wildborn moved to take them down, plenty bled out before they could be saved.” Their talk of tortured cardinals and bishops and priestesses roused Choplicker enough to sleepily raise his head and look around the crowded Chainhouse.
“I’m just surprised they didn’t crucify the wildborn, too,” said Indsorith.
“I guess Y’Homa tried to fumigate their monasteries instead,” said Zosia. “The what do they call it, the Pens? Except some of those in charge of passing out the poisoned censers refused and warned off the wildborn clergy instead, so they were able to escape.”
“Say one thing for the Burnished Chain, they make us look like sane and sensible sovereigns.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” replied Zosia, trying not to smirk, and then marveling at herself—when was the last time she had tried to stifle a smile instead of faking one? Ever since that drunken night in the kitchens when she’d found herself unexpectedly opening up to Indsorith she had felt more and more at ease with the last woman she would have ever expected to befriend. Whether you wanted to attribute it to their similar experiences, the ensuing worldviews, and cynical senses of humor, or just a natural kinship, their bond grew swift and strong. It probably didn’t hurt that Indsorith was rather cute, too, but Zosia had known plenty of gorgeous people she despised, so you couldn’t put too much import on that.
“I’m guessing you weren’t brought up in the church?” Zosia asked her bored friend.
Indsorith shook her red tresses, taking a nip from her silver flask and offering it to Zosia. “Devils, no, my mother hated the Chain even more than she hated you and your Cobalts. Well, maybe not that much, but close, close.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for taste, is there?” Zosia declined the flask, knowing it only contained cold-brewed kaldi and not wanting to get any more jittery after chain-smoking her corncob pipe all through the summit. Maybe it was the smaller size of the bowls leading her to pack more of them, but she always seemed to overdo it with cobs. By the six devils s
he’d bound, Zosia needed to get serious about finding a block of briar to make a proper pipe …
“My turn to guess,” said Indsorith. “I’m imagining you as a choir girl in a rural Chainhouse … from a devout family of farmers … a bright future in a nunnery …”
“Warmer, warmer …” Zosia grinned.
“… until an illicit tumble with an Usban missionary cost you everything.”
“Ew!” Zosia couldn’t help but imagine Fennec. “I’ll have you know I don’t raise my habit for just any—”
“Shhh!” hissed a teenage boy at the end of the closest pew, shooting daggers at the open doors of the confessional.
Zosia rolled her eyes but saw Indsorith mouth Sorry at the lad. And that right there was why the girl had made a better queen than Zosia, because Zosia just couldn’t be fucked. Granted, this cardinal at the Onyx Pulpit had suffered, and he’d clearly been on the right side when Pope Y’Homa announced her apocalyptic plan, and his version of Chainite theology might not be as bugnuts and violent as the old school—he was one of the good ones, as Leib would describe religious neighbors who didn’t try to cajole them to their mossy altars in the heart of the aspen wood. Yet as hard as Zosia had tried to pay attention to this man’s words she found it impossible to stomach a sermon, and that was just what this was. A humanist one, especially compared to those that must have been given in this Chainhouse before the fall, but underlying it all was the inevitable message that the Fallen Mother witnessed all mortal deeds and would judge them accordingly.
“… This is why faith in the Fallen Mother is not itself any measure of goodness in one’s breast,” said the bruised cardinal. “The Deceiver forever seeks to use our sacred virtues against us, tempting us with those sweetest of fruits. Deny him. Blessed are the proud, for they shall seize the Star. Familiar words to even nonbelievers, I am sure, but too often their meaning is perverted. This is no justification for tyranny nor an appeal to pettiness—on the contrary, it is a call to be as strong and resolute as our maker, to take the authority for salvation into our own hands instead of waiting for the Allmother’s intervention. We must live our lives as though this frail world is all we have, and we must be proud enough to believe we can save it. We must deliver justice to those in need, instead of sitting by and allowing crimes to go unanswered, relying on a posthumous evening of scales. Do not wait for a god—act as one. Thank you, my friends.”
And that was it, not even a safe roads guide you to her breast to wrap things up. Zosia wished she’d paid more attention after all as the cardinal shuffled over and sat beside the disfigured mother superior who had spoken before him on behalf of the surviving reformed anathemas, as she referred to her wildborn sisters and brothers. The use of that term had almost caused a fight to break out, the cyclopean representative of Diadem’s small and previously underground population of unaltered wildborn leaping to her hooves and demanding an apology. Now the two speakers studiously ignored each other, sitting on far ends of the chancel. How many of the so-called Chainwitches who had been left behind by their pope still remained loyal to the church, albeit as the evolving institution this cardinal championed, and how many had rejected their Chainite upbringing entirely, allying themselves with those who sought to destroy the institution in all its guises? Zosia hoped in time all the poor indoctrinated wildborn came around, casting off the Chain that shackled their souls to scripture penned and interpreted by people who saw them as inferior by birth.
“Thank you, Cardinal Obedear,” said Eluveitie, the ancient matron whom the rest of the representatives had unanimously voted to chair this summit. It was the only thing they had all been able to agree on. As she rested her hands on either side of the lectern’s uppermost wings Zosia squinted, thinking at first it was a trick of the candlelight and the cloud-darkened clerestory windows, but no, she saw the woman was missing every single one of her fingers. “We have heard many arguments this day, and much anger. This is as it should be—if there is no debate at the start of something new and great, then somebody is muzzled. We seek to change Diadem, and in doing so, we seek to change our very world. It shall not be easy. We seek to please the many instead of the few, to hear the faintest whisper of the downtrodden, and to speak for those who have no voice at all. It shall not be easy.”
Frail as she looked, the old woman’s voice was strong and warm, commanding, even. She was a natural leader of mortals, and stirred by something in her tone as much as her words, Zosia wondered if this was how folk must have felt back in the day, when she’d given her own speeches in town squares and atop hay wains. The peasants must have felt something to throng to her banner the way they had.
“How many of us wished for freedom from the Crown and from the Chain? How many of us prayed for it, to forbidden gods or unforgotten ancestors or anything else that might listen? How many of us thought we knew exactly how Diadem should be, once that happened?” This drew a few self-conscious chuckles from the sea of citizenry filling the pews. “And how many of us never thought that far ahead, thinking it would be enough to be free? I tell you, my friends, I have wished for this day, I have prayed for it, and while I do not know exactly how our city shall best flourish in the days to come, I have thought far enough ahead to know this much: it shall not be easy. The yoke has been removed from our back, but how shall the fields be tilled? The prison door has been torn from its hinges, the jailers have all gone, but where shall we go, how shall we survive, when all we have is each other? I do not know, and it shall not be easy … but it is better. Aye, it is best.”
A rumble of assent, boots and turnshoes and rag-swaddled feet stamping the floor. Zosia found herself leaning forward in her seat to better hear over the tumult.
“We come together this day to be heard, yes, but we also come to hear one another,” said the chairwoman, looking almost like a mendicant friar of the Ten True Gods of Trve in her simple robe of brown homespun. “We shall leave here with more questions than answers as to our future, and I say again, that is how it should be. Beware of those who offer easy solutions to hard struggles! We have talked of rights and privileges and ownership, and we have talked of whether we should have any rights or privileges or ownership at all. We have heard why we should have a thousand new laws and a militia to enforce them, and we have heard why we need but one law, the law of mutual respect for all citizens of our city.
“We have heard why those who swore allegiance to Chain or Crown ought to be exiled, or worse, and we have heard why we should build a new Chain, and a new Crown. And we have heard why suffrage is the first step to deciding what our first step shall be, but a dozen different ideas of what suffrage might mean. A dozen different ideas of how we might administer it, and protect it from corruption, and all the rest. To be honest with you, my friends, my neighbors, what I have been telling you all along very much applies to this inaugural meeting of Diadem’s concerned people: it has not been easy. But it is better. It is best. And slowly, carefully, respectfully, we shall address all matters in turn, and while it shall not be easy, it shall be easier than what we have lived through to reach this happy, happy day. We are free.”
That got half the Chainhouse on their feet, stamping and cheering, but Eluveitie waved them back into their seats with her stumpy hands.
“Freedom means many things, friends! We are free, yes—free to build a beautiful shining city where all are equal, but also free to sink ourselves in a mire of competition and bickering and inaction. We have much to decide. And now that we have heard as many contradictions and dissenting opinions as any novice lawyer might be expected to soak up in a dozen lectures, let us adjourn and ponder and debate again before we decide anything.”
The cheers and applause and foot-stamping that answered this was a little more subdued than it had been before, maybe, but at least everyone was awake again after a very long day. Eluveitie let them go on a little longer this time before silencing them again, and then cleared her throat. “As a last order of business, I have two announcem
ents to make.”
“Here it comes,” grumbled Zosia, and glancing over she saw that Indsorith looked about as nervous as she felt. Eluveitie had been polite but less than awestruck when she had met the Stricken Queen in whose name she had fought the powers of Diadem for over twenty years, taking the news of Cold Cobalt feigning her own death with about as little surprise or excitement as anyone Zosia had yet told. They had made small talk, of all things, and the old rebel leader explained to Zosia how she and Indsorith would publicly be brought into the fold of the new leadership.
“First, if Indsorith of Junius could please join us,” said Eluveitie, her avoidance of any of the regent’s titles no accident. Setting her jaw and stiffly rising from the confessional, Indsorith walked up the side aisle with deliberate slowness as the secular congregation reacted as though a saint had descended from the heavens in their midst … or a devil had risen from the First Dark. Zosia winced on her fast friend’s behalf at all the hissing, but Indsorith was a big girl and didn’t flinch. Nobody threw anything, so it could’ve gone worse. Once she had climbed the scalloped stairs to the Onyx Pulpit and taken her place at Eluveitie’s side, the chairwoman said, “Indsorith of Junius joins us not as a despot, but as a simple citizen of Diadem. Is it not so?”
A War in Crimson Embers Page 21