Imara.
Janida stood still with her robes fluttering around her. Despite the wind, she put back her veil. Her face bore no expression, not even annoyance with the storm. Imara raised her own veil. Willow thought the two had never looked more alike, red hair peeking out from beneath the veils, blue eyes blinking away dust, faces dispassionate as if this were any other meeting.
Imara shifted her weight, a nervous movement that transformed her into an uncertain girl not sure of her reception. “Mother,” she said. The wind captured her word and blew it away so rapidly only Willow and Janida could hear.
Janida took two steps forward and put her arms around her daughter, drawing her close. She said something in Eskandelic that the wind carried away, but Imara laughed, a choked sound that was almost a sob, and returned Janida’s embrace. Then Salveri was there, gathering up both women in his arms, and Willow took a step back, feeling like an intruder. She felt Kerish’s hand on the small of her back and looked back at him, but despite his touch his attention was all on his parents and sister.
Maitea, clearly recognizable despite the veil, came forward to shout something over the howl of the wind. Janida nodded, and gestured at the lead carriage. Imara shook her head, plucking at her dark robe, and pointed back at the Residence. Janida shook her head. “They’re arguing over whether Imara is dressed properly for the voting,” Kerish said, his face pressed close to Willow’s ear. “Mother says it’s irrelevant. She’s probably going to win the argument. But we’d better hurry. Being late could be fatal to our cause.”
Kerish was right. After only a minute of arguing, Imara climbed into the carriage, followed by her mother and father. Willow ended up in a carriage with Kerish, Giara, and Alondra. The four of them rode in silence. Willow couldn’t think of anything to say, so she held Kerish’s hand and blinked away the specks of dust the wind blew into her face. If not for the wind, she could appreciate the coolness that came before the storm. The rain would come in the middle of the vote. How would it sound, all that water drumming away on the roof of the Jauderish and its elaborate glass lens?
Only a few people walked the streets that morning, most of them with their heads bent against the wind. The impromptu markets that sprang up wherever the roads met and widened were gone. A donkey brayed and planted its feet near a fountain, determined to get a drink no matter how its owner cursed it. Willow watched the little drama until the carriage turned a corner. Whatever had happened to Rosamund, the ill-named mule that had carried them from Tremontane to Eskandel? She hoped the creature had found a good home in Belenda.
More carriages swung into line behind them, painted all sorts of bright colors, some with real gilding. Willow didn’t recognize any of the emblems that flew wildly above each carriage, and the occupants were mostly anonymous in their white robes and veils. It should have felt like a celebration, all that white, but Willow felt instead as if she were going to a funeral, possibly her own. She shook her head to dispel the image. “Something wrong?” Kerish said.
“Just trying not to entertain disturbing thoughts.”
“Do not fear, Willow,” Alondra said. “Catrela correct is. We have done all we can.”
Willow said nothing. They were right, there was nothing she could do, and that drove her mad with frustration. She returned to going over her contingency plan: pack the bags she’d bought a few days before in the Tremontanan enclave, leave a note for Janida, give the bodyguards the slip and disappear into the city. She glanced at Kerish, who sat in profile to her. She still hadn’t discussed the plan with him, and now she wasn’t sure why not. Possibly she just didn’t want to face the possibility that he’d tell her goodbye—or the possibility that he wouldn’t. He might want to marry me, she thought, but he hadn’t said word one to her on the subject and she felt shy about bringing it up. What did he want, really?
The carriage drew up to the base of the wide stairs of the Jauderish, and Kerish helped Willow down, then offered her his arm. As the carriage rattled away to take Giara and Alondra to the principalities’ entrance, Imara alit from the other carriage, her veil once again secured over her face. She took Kerish’s other arm. “It is good to see you again, brother,” she said, “and better to see the two of you as one.”
“I’m glad you came home,” Kerish said. “What about Petrosh Pieran?”
“He will attend upon Father tomorrow, to ask his blessing upon our union. But I will go with him no matter what Father says.” She sounded mulish. Willow suppressed a sigh. Imara coming home was a step in the right direction, but she and her parents had a long way still to go.
They joined the others ascending toward the beaten brass doors set in their keyhole arch. There were far fewer than there had been on the solstice, and all of them were veiled against the wind. Willow had to use her free hand to keep her headscarf from flying away and saw several other women doing the same. She and Kerish weren’t the only ones hurrying through the doors, though they were undoubtedly the only ones hurrying to get away from the buzzing, tingling sensation of the brass.
This time, Kerish led Willow and Imara to a spot near the middle of the bowl, just above the wide aisle that divided the spectators’ benches from the padded seats belonging to the principalities. “We want to hear everything clearly,” he said, “and there’s no reason to get up and leave in the middle, so we don’t need to sit near the doors.”
“Our question is last on the adjeni, isn’t it?”
“Yes. That’s good for us. If Mahnouki’s question fails, some of those who voted in favor of it might decide, as long as we’re spending resources, to support ours.”
“That doesn’t seem likely.”
“It’s not. I was trying to be optimistic again.”
Willow squeezed his hand. “Kerish, I wanted to talk—”
At the base of the bowl, near the altar, a woman dressed in black who did look as if she were officiating at a funeral began speaking. Kerish hushed Willow. “It’s starting,” he said. “That’s the voleni responsible for overseeing the voting. She and her assistants are all scholia masters—that’s supposed to make them beyond manipulation. Really, they’re no less corruptible than the average person, just because they’re masters, but in practice they take their roles very seriously.”
Someone behind them said something irritable. Kerish turned his head and replied, shrugging, then gave Willow an apologetic look. She nodded in understanding. Time to listen, not that she understood any of it.
She knew how the system worked because Janida had explained it to her the night before. “This,” she’d said, extending a brass coin toward Willow, “a voting token is. Each token stamped with the name of a principality is, and enameled black or white. Black for no, white for yes, you see? For each question, a principality puts one of these into the voting box. They counted are, and the names of each principality recorded are. So all can see who has voted in what way.”
“You don’t keep that secret?”
“With so many parjeni and parjenisur, it important is to know if one’s proxy is honest. If not, a principality may choose to withhold support from its parjeni the following year, or may extort greater promises in exchange for overlooking a bad vote.”
“That’s a lot of votes to cast.”
“Many principalities will have already delivered their voting tokens to their parjeni, for them to prepare their votes. Only a few will cast their votes directly. Once the votes counted are, the answer to the question recorded is, and preparation for the next vote begins.”
“Serjian is parjeni to a lot, though, right?”
Janida had shaken her head. “Not as many as makes me comfortable. But we have powerful allies, and it will have to be enough.”
Now Willow looked around the Conclave bowl at those allies. She recognized the Dekerian Prince, and could identify tall Torossian Kharalin despite the veil. Jamighian Vijenci’s white hair made him stand out, though Willow couldn’t tell which of the sisters was Issobela. The vojentas did
n’t seem to have designated seats the way the princes did. But there were enemies, too—Sahaki Karalhi to Vijenci’s left, and the Gharibi Principality, and of course Mahnouki Ghanetan, just taking his seat. Felix’s future depended on these men and women.
Brief fury gripped Willow, that a child’s life could be so controlled by the whims and desires of others. Of course, you could say that about all children, as Willow knew from experience, but it just seemed so much more wrong in Felix’s case, so unfair. Nan had made Willow’s life hell, but at least she was related. These were effectively strangers to Felix.
The voleni finished speaking and took two steps to the right, which put her directly behind a wooden lectern carved with tropical flowers. “Abakian,” she said.
“Yes,” Abakian Benjedan said.
“Altiri.”
“Yes,” said an old man, his voice so faint Willow had to strain to hear it.
The voleni called out more names, all in alphabetical order. A roll call. At one point, the voleni spoke a name and got no response. She waited a few moments, then repeated the name. After a third repetition with no answer, she moved on, and one of the assistants drew a line on a sheet of paper, presumably crossing out the name. Willow wished she dared ask Kerish or Imara what it meant—would a principality just not show up if they wanted to protest the whole adjeni?—but she was conscious of the irritable man on the bench behind them and stayed silent.
Eventually, the voleni reached the end of her list with only two other principalities not responding. She nodded to her assistants. Eight of them picked up wooden boxes and carried them to the ends of the rows of seats. The voleni raised her head and spoke a long sentence in a clear, ringing voice that surely carried to the top of the bowl. Immediately, several Princes stood, some of them holding cloth bags. The assistants moved along the rows, offering the boxes to the Princes, who dropped brass tokens or bags into them and resumed their seats.
As soon as all the Princes were seated, the assistants brought their boxes to a long wooden table containing several deep trays. Willow had to resist the urge to fidget; even the soft sound of fabric rustling would have echoed in the silence. The assistants gathered around the table, dumping out the contents of the little sacks and sorting rapidly. The ringing clatter of brass against brass chimed through the silent room. Another black-robed assistant stood nearby, rapidly scribbling on a sheet of paper. Willow discovered she was leaning forward and made herself sit back, wishing the bench had a back to it.
Finally, the assistant handed the sheet of paper to the voleni, who scanned it and handed it back. She returned to her lectern and spoke again. The assembled crowd, including the ones near Willow and Kerish on the benches, murmured quietly. “They voted against lowering tariffs on certain Veriboldan goods,” Kerish said. “Nothing earthshattering. The next question is about raising tariffs on those goods.”
“Are there any other exciting questions? Other than the obvious?”
“A few.”
The man behind Willow again said something in an irritable voice. Kerish responded at length, something that included his name, and the man jerked backward, then scooted down the bench away from them. Imara chuckled. “I hate trading on the name, but it’s sometimes effective,” Kerish said with a grin. “The next one’s starting.”
Willow surreptitiously stretched her back. How many questions were on the adjeni? This was going to be a very long day.
The next vote, and the next, went the same as the first—Princes dropping their tokens into the boxes, the clinking of brass on brass, the announcement of the outcome. The result of the fourth vote caused an uproar stilled only by the voleni banging on her lectern with a stone-headed hammer. “They voted to recall the ambassador to Tremontane,” Kerish whispered. “That’s a huge mark in our favor.”
“Because it indicates they question the legitimacy of Terence’s rule?”
“Exactly.” Kerish gripped Willow’s hand. “It’s not enough, but it’s something.”
The voting continued. Kerish whispered the results into Willow’s ear. Funding for various government projects, including one to open a new scholia dedicated to inventing and researching Devices. That one was voted down. “Next year,” Kerish said. A few more relating to Devices. One or two proposing laws related to taxation, both of which were approved. Willow’s back ached and her jaw hurt from suppressing yawns.
Rain began pattering on the roof after the seventh vote, a gentle sound that turned torrential and forced the voleni to shout over it. Willow eyed the lens. Hard raindrops smacked against it, throwing up tiny splashes. Umberan would smell wonderful when the storm passed, fresh and vibrant, the colors of the trees and the flowers magnified by a million tiny lenses clinging to them. She had a sudden memory of Aurilien in spring, when rain fell almost every day and the city was gray and bleak, and wished with all her heart she was home. If the vote didn’t go their way, she’d almost certainly never see it again. She closed her eyes. Dear heaven, she thought, but couldn’t find words for a prayer.
A murmuring rose up from the seats below them, and Kerish gripped her hand again. “This is it,” he said. “The Mahnouki question.”
It was only her imagination that the Princes rose to their feet with more eagerness than before, dropped their tokens into the boxes with more force. Willow realized she was clutching Kerish’s hand so tightly her nails were digging into his skin, though he didn’t complain. He sat leaning forward slightly, his eyes fixed on the table where the counting was in progress. Willow made herself breathe, slowly. The clinking continued for an eternity. The scribbler seemed to be taking much longer than before, carefully noting each name and its vote.
Finally, the assistant brought the paper to the voleni, who nodded. She returned to the lectern, gripped it with both hands, then paused just long enough to make Willow want to leap from her seat, run to the base of the bowl, and throttle the answer out of her.
The voleni spoke, a long, musical sentence that seemed a counterpoint to the rain still thrumming on the roof. The Conclave erupted in exclamations. Kerish’s grip grew momentarily tighter, then fell away entirely. “It’s over,” he said. “They voted in favor of Mahnouki’s question. Just barely, but it’s a majority.”
His words echoed hollowly in Willow’s ears. She reached up to touch her face, which had gone numb. “They can’t,” she said, even though she’d been expecting it. “I thought—”
“There’s still a chance, if Serjian becomes vojenta mahaut.”
“We needed to win the question for that to happen,” Imara said.
“I know.”
He took Willow’s hand again, this time gently. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What will you do next?”
“I—”
The voleni banged her hammer on the lectern for quiet. She spoke at length, gesturing with the hammer toward the lens. “She said there’s one more question on the adjeni and everyone can shut up until it’s answered,” Kerish said. “She was more polite about it.”
“What’s the point? Mahnouki already won.”
“It’s tradition.” Kerish made a sour face. “We might as well stay to the end. It’s not as if we have anywhere else to go.”
The boxes were already proceeding along the rows. Willow could see Salveri’s face clearly. He was impassive, just as if the question meant nothing to him. Mahnouki Ghanetan was openly gloating. Strangely, he was the only one. Even Abakian Benjedan looked dispassionate. But Willow remembered that Abakian wasn’t going to vote in favor of Mahnouki’s question, so he’d lost as well, hadn’t he?
She sat back, surreptitiously straightening her spine. She had a few days before she’d have to implement her plan, plenty of time to gather supplies and prepare Felix for a life on the run. Ernest might be a problem, but she wasn’t going to separate the boy from his dog, not after he’d already lost everything else. Maybe she didn’t need to elude the bodyguards, if she could convince Janida that she knew what she was doing. And Kerish—
The room erupted in a clamor that drowned out the rain. Princes and veiled harem members leaped to their feet and began shouting. Salveri remained seated, expressionless as ever. Imara gasped. “What happened?” Willow said.
“A miracle,” Kerish said. “They voted to support Felix in his claim to the Crown.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
“They did what?” Willow exclaimed, leaping to her feet. Everyone around her stared, but she had eyes only for Kerish, who looked as stunned as she felt. “But—”
“I don’t know. Mother was very clear that Eskandel couldn’t do both.” Kerish grabbed Willow’s hand and pulled her down to sit with him. “It’s going to be down to the vojenta mahaut to figure it out. Sweet heaven. This is going to mean political turmoil for the next year.”
“Or longer,” Willow said. “If that voyage doesn’t pay off, your economy is going to hell.”
Kerish hushed her, nodding toward the lectern. The voleni was addressing the audience, and when she finished speaking, everyone rose and made their way to the exits. Kerish stood and drew Willow up next to him. “Fifteen minutes for using the facilities,” he said, “and last-minute maneuvering, if I know Mother.”
Willow followed him and Imara out of the bowl, but found she didn’t need to relieve herself and instead took a walk around the antechamber, stretching her legs. She stayed well away from the brass doors; she didn’t need any more agitation. Both the Mahnouki and Serjian questions answered in the affirmative? She wished she knew by how great a margin the Serjian question had passed. Kerish had said it was close for Mahnouki. Not that she understood how that translated into deciding on the vojenta mahaut.
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