She would have to thank Dayne for that.
Chapter 10
THE ALASSAN COFFEEHOUSE was a dark, quiet establishment, nestled in a back alley on the southern edge of the Trelan neighborhood, a few blocks’ walk from the shipping docks and the Royal College. A strange, subversive set of city blocks, about the only place in Maradaine where foreigners lived outside of the Little East, certainly the only area on the north side. The coffeehouse was run by a pair of brothers from Imachan, whose cousin was one of the key coffee importers to Maradaine. Coffee drinking was an uncommon pastime in Maradaine, limited to those with cosmopolitan tastes. Wealthy sophisticates would not dare step into a place like the Alassan, so the clientele was composed almost entirely of current and former students, and mostly those whose politics did not fall into the mainstream. Those who knew that none of the Six Parties truly represented the people.
The Alassan offered several isolated tables, and at each one clades of radicals would whisper of revolution and subversion, at least in the abstract.
Until this morning, it had been in the abstract for Lannic and his friends.
None of the customers paid him much mind as he came in. He may have shown his face at the museum, but clearly no one in here now was aware of that. Or if they were, they secretly admired him.
Khalal Alassan gave him a slight nod from behind the counter, sending him to the back room. Khalal was no fool; he was surely aware of what had been plotted under his roof. That said, if the Parliament and the Palace were burned to the ground, Khalal would likely chuckle to himself and get back to work.
Braning and Kemmer were in the back room, as were a handful of others. Lannic knew each of them, men who shared their values, even if they hadn’t been at the museum. That had been part of the plan, of course, as the Chief had outlined it. The Chief had made it clear that even if things had gone monstrously wrong at the Museum—and it couldn’t have gone much wronger—that there should still be allies ready to take further steps.
They were here, and they were ready.
“Have we seen Tharek?” he asked, sitting down at the table.
“I haven’t,” Braning said. “Look, Lannic, I know you like him . . .”
“And we agree he is useful,” Kemmer added. “Saints know he knows what he’s doing.”
Braning nodded. “He’s not like the rest of us, you know? I’m not sure why—”
“Friends,” Lannic said, shaking his head. “I know he’s new to you, but I implore you, trust in me. I’ve spent many long nights talking with him, and I’m convinced his heart is as true as all of ours.”
“True and ready,” came words from the entrance. Tharek stalked into the room like a cat on the hunt. “And believe me, gents, no one is more upset by the failure of our mission today than me.”
“Don’t say that, Tharek.” Lannic pushed a chair out.
“I missed the shot and Parlin still breathes!”
“Keep your voice down,” Kemmer said. “It was the Tarian. We couldn’t have planned for that.”
“Besides,” Braning added, “from what I hear, we did a lot.”
“How do you mean?” Lannic asked.
“Well, the plan was for Parlin to be dead and Barton to be soiling his pants, right? Well, they’ve both soiled their pants, and the whole Parliament is in a state of panic. Good on us.”
“Except the Chief was plain in what we were to do,” Lannic said. Parlin had to go, for falsely holding up the idea that he was a “people’s man.” That was what the Chief wanted, and Lannic agreed. That was the message that needed to be heard.
“We have to make it right,” Tharek said.
“What about our statement? Kemmer, you had a contact for getting it out?”
“Bastard rabbited,” Kemmer growled. “I’ve got a few other possibilities, but nothing solid.”
“We need to get the message out,” Lannic said. Everything was pointless without the statement, the manifesto. Else it was all just senseless violence.
“No, we need to lie low,” Braning said. “We made some noise, now let it simmer.”
“Simmer?” Tharek said. “Hardly. The fear out there is thick and hot, and we must use it while we can.”
“Use it?” Lannic asked. This was intriguing.
“The Parliament is scared right now. But not scared enough.”
“Right,” Lannic said. “None of them are going to change how they vote, or resign. None of them will step aside and truly let the will of the people rule!”
“Not yet,” Tharek said. “But we’ve planted a seed of fear. And now we water that seed with blood.”
“How do we do that?” asked one of the radicals in the back. Yand, probably.
“Parlin?” Lannic asked.
Tharek nodded. “And I know how to get to him. Tonight.”
“His home?” Lannic asked. “Surely he’s protected.”
“I can deal with that. And we won’t do it in his home. We want the fear to grow, we need it to be public.”
“Yes!” Lannic said, unable to control his excitement. “That will make them all scurry, and the people will see this supposed august body for what it really is!”
Murmurs and nods of agreement filled the room. Only Braning looked nervous.
“We can do this,” Lannic said, putting a hand on Braning’s shoulder. “We need to do this, you know that. For Shaw, and all our friends.”
Braning nodded. “For Shaw.”
Lannic turned back to Tharek. “So what is your plan?”
Tharek started to tell it, giving each man his part. It was complicated, but brilliant. And it would cut right into the fetid heart of the parliamentary elite.
* * *
There was a nervous energy in the air as Dayne worked his way over to The Nimble Rabbit. The news of the museum incident had spread; fear and trepidation radiated off of the citizenry. People walked the streets, with glances over their shoulder, quiet murmurs. Dayne saw more than a few furtive looks his way. Of course, he was still in his Tarian dress uniform, sword strapped to his belt. He hardly looked inconspicuous.
Also, if any of those people read The Veracity Press, they had seen him, lauded as the hero, put in the center of events. That wasn’t right. Beyond the fact that he had failed—he had made a choice that killed one of the Patriots—he had fully learned the dangers of infamy. He could not let the mistakes of Lacanja repeat themselves here. He had to stop Hemmit and the rest of them from writing about him, before it caused more trouble.
Several people sat at the outside tables at The Nimble Rabbit, including familiar faces: Hemmit, Maresh, Lin, sitting in a crowd of almost a dozen. They immediately perked up and recognized Dayne as he approached.
“There he is!” Hemmit stood and raised a wineglass to Dayne. “Good friends, this is a man! This is what we should aspire to! This is what we should celebrate!”
Dayne bit back his temper as best he could, throwing the copy of The Veracity Press on the table. “This is how you celebrate me, friends?”
“And a blazing good likeness, if I do say!” Hemmit said. “Well done, Maresh.”
“Lin helped,” Maresh said.
“The likeness isn’t my problem, Hemmit!” Dayne said, more snarl in his voice than he had intended. He leaned hard onto the table, shaking all the plates and cups. “You made the story about me!”
“The story is about you, Dayne.” Hemmit snatched the copy off the table. “What do you want it to be about? The Parliamentarians who stood knock-kneed while the Patriots ranted? Or the King’s Marshals who did nothing while you and your friend saved everyone in that room?”
“Including me,” Maresh said.
Dayne stared hard at Maresh. “I didn’t see you there.” The ugly idea hit Dayne’s mind—that he didn’t see Maresh because his face was hidden behind a kerchief.
&n
bsp; “I think your attention was elsewhere,” Maresh said. Dayne nodded. He had to be fair—he had hardly spent any time in the main hall, and in his memory, the crowd was exactly that—just a sea of faces. His own father could have been in there and he might not have noticed.
“And the rest of you?” Dayne asked.
“Stuck outside,” Lin said. “We were late, and trouble had already started.”
“But we got the word from eyes inside,” Hemmit said. “Including Maresh. Oh, we dug for some truth today!”
“Dayne,” Maresh said, passing a cup of wine to him. “You saved us all. End story. People need to know that.”
“People need to know that a man steps up and does what needs to be done,” Hemmit added. “Not a politician yammering on to line his own pocket—a man. With sword and shield.”
“Shield and sword,” Dayne corrected.
“Sorry?” Lin asked.
“It’s the oath,” another woman at the table said. “The Tarians swear to stand up, with shield and sword.”
“But I’m not a Tarian!” Dayne snapped. “I’m just . . . just a Candidate.”
“Just a Candidate,” Hemmit said. “Saints, the modesty!”
“I shouldn’t be the story,” Dayne said. His energy sapped out of him. Deflated, he sat down and drank the wine. “I shouldn’t be praised here, for so many reasons . . .”
“You’re wrong,” Hemmit said. “You are the story. And those two Parliament men are. And the marshals. And even the Patriots. Every man needs to have a voice. The Parliament and the marshals are making official statements, and what are they showing? Cowardice.” He poured himself another cup of wine, drank it down, then filled his cup again, followed by topping Dayne’s. “The Patriots said that there is a toxin filling this city, and they may be right.”
Dayne perked up. That was a troubling thing to hear Hemmit say. “How do you mean?”
“I mean the very men who are supposed to be the spine of the nation, to be men, are unable to face the very people they represent. Even Parlin, who is supposedly a hard-fisted Saltie, had no interest in hearing people speak their grievance.”
Lin shook a finger at Hemmit. “Speak their grievance? Is that what the Patriots were rutting well doing?”
Hemmit tapped a finger on the table, hard enough to shake it. “What I’m saying is, beneath their violence, their histrionic display, there rests a legitimate argument, something the people feel.”
“What’s that argument?” Dayne asked. “I didn’t hear one. I only heard ignorant ranting from a group of morons who think quoting from the first chapter of Haltom’s Practices of a Free Man means they understand the full scope of the founding of the Parliamentary Monarchy!”
Everyone at the table was giving Dayne their full attention now.
“A scholar and a warrior,” Lin said. “That, dear Hemmit, is the mark of a true man.”
“I couldn’t disagree,” Hemmit said. He pushed the wineglass closer to Dayne. “All right, Dayne. Tell me what the story needs to be.”
Dayne pointed to Maresh. “He’s the story.”
“I am?”
“You are,” Dayne said. “You and every other civilian and peer in the museum.”
“You’re the one who did something, though,” Hemmit insisted.
“Yes, but that’s my oath. To the Order, to the people. My choice, to step in harm’s way. Same with Jerinne, same with the marshals. And to some degree, the Parliamentarians. They accepted their Chairs, and with that, a certain burden. But Maresh and the other civilians did no such thing. They went to a museum, and for that, the Patriots terrorized them.”
Someone at the end of the table started speaking. “They took extreme measures just to get their voice heard!”
“The Patriots claim to speak for the common man, yes?” Dayne said. His mind was spinning a bit. He had come to the Rabbit so angry about being pushed into the center of the story that he hadn’t thought about the whys and hows behind the Patriots’ attack. “But what were their goals, their demands?”
“They said it, if not clearly,” Maresh argued. “They want to increase the voice of the common man. They want to kick out the corruption in the Parliament. And they made Parlin the centerpiece of that argument.”
Dayne nodded. “All right. But every common man has a voice, he has a vote. And with that, every man is part of the process to change the Parliament. The ten archduchies each fill ten chairs, and every man gets to stand up and say who is in those chairs.”
“I hardly do,” Maresh said. “I’ve voted the past three years and never had a right say.”
“Wait, wait,” Hemmit said, focusing on Maresh. “Montrose is a Populist. Didn’t you vote for him?” Dayne was familiar with the 2nd Chair of Maradaine, a man known to be honorable and sensible.
“He’s an old man who’s sat in Parliament for over twenty years,” Maresh said. “I don’t buy his ‘common shepherd’ act one jot.”
“You had your say, even if your choice doesn’t win,” Dayne said, “and that’s the point. Every year, every single year, the body of the Parliament changes. And even if you don’t get your way, Maresh, you still get your say.” He tapped his finger on the copy of the Veracity for emphasis, and paraphrased from the Rights of Man. “Your voice, your opinion, unrestrained.”
One man at the end of the table scoffed. “Unless you live in Corvia. Or Monitel. Or one of the Napolic colonies. Filled with Druth citizens who have no voice in the Parliament.”
A woman next to Lin added, “Every archduchy is filled with citizens with no voice. They’re called women.”
A third student shook his head, “Neither suffragism or the Added Chairs movement will address the real problem.”
“But we need—”
“I agree, but that doesn’t change—”
“I get your point,” Dayne said, feeling somewhat shamed. There were many voices silenced, not represented in Parliament. “Our voting system has a long way to go before it is just. But we also can express our dissatisfaction freely and openly.”
“Aren’t the Patriots exercising their right to expression as well?” offered someone at the table.
“More like the right to carry arms,” Lin said.
“Abusing it,” Dayne said. “The Patriots, for all their rhetoric, want their vote to count more than anyone else’s. Since their right to expression hasn’t given them what they want, they’ve taken up arms to force it.”
“The nobility does the same thing, just with money,” Maresh said. “You can’t tell me that every Disher in the Parliament isn’t deep into the pocket of some lord or another.”
Dayne wasn’t going to concede that. “That’s not the same thing. They can be voted out if the people don’t like them. Gibbs lost his chair just last year.”
“To another Disher!” Maresh shouted. “Nothing changes!”
“Of course, the Traditionalists do not control the august body,” Hemmit said. “So that hardly matters.”
“The Minties and Crownies can’t hold their coalition without the Frikes,” Maresh said. “You can’t tell me the Frikes wouldn’t align with the Dishers to stay in power. No moral center.”
“The Functionalists will keep the government running,” Dayne said. He never liked calling the Functionalists “Frikes,” and he was far more likely to vote for a Functionalist over anyone else. They understood the fundamentals behind making government work day to day, year to year, in a way that supported all Druth citizens. Everyone else at this table was clearly a Populist—if not further on the fringe—and Dayne could see the appeal.
Maresh continued. “What good is running if it doesn’t help the people? None of the Six Parties represent the voice of people like us.”
Dayne realized something. “Wait, wait. Parlin is from Acora, right?”
“That’s right,”
Hemmit said.
“And Barton. Traditionalist from Maradaine?”
“Of course, he’s a Disher,” Maresh said.
“What is it?” Lin asked.
“Of the two of them there, wouldn’t it make sense for the Patriots to be more angry at Barton? Focus their rage on the member of Parliament who has opposing politics, and represents them here?”
The other woman—the suffragist—offered an answer. “But Parlin should represent them. He should be the one fighting for them, and he doesn’t. They may hate Barton, but Parlin specifically failed them.”
“But he didn’t, because he’s not their man,” Dayne said. “Not any of ours. In the next election, all of us—”
“Not all of us.”
Dayne amended his point. “Those of us who can vote, including the Patriots, vote for the Chairs from Maradaine. Whoever Acora votes to represent them is their business, not ours.”
Lin chuckled. “You are all terrible fools,” she said, her sweet Linjari accent nearly dripping all over the table. “I would put hard crowns on the fact that they didn’t give a saint’s damnation about the particular politics of either man. It was a public event with two men from Parliament, thus it was an opportunity. They would have done the same with any two from the august body.”
Maresh nodded, “She’s right.”
“Of course she’s right. She’s smarter than the rest of us.” Hemmit took a charcoal pencil out of his pocket and scribbled a few notes, speaking as he wrote. “They couldn’t care less about anyone’s politics, anyone’s choice. All they care about is using their force of arms here to subvert the true voice of the people there. That’s what the story is about.”
Dayne chuckled. He might not agree on everything with the man, but Hemmit had a sharp mind, and Dayne couldn’t fault the man’s dedication. He glanced around the courtyard, noting the long shadows on the ground. “What’s the hour?”
The Way of the Shield Page 11