How to say it? “Just see to it that a message gets to Verice Demansk. Tell him—oh, what, exactly? Just tell him to remember, that’s all, and think about it now and again. The word is ‘duty,’ I believe.”
He turned and passed through the gate. Then, once he reached the street beyond, set off toward the Forum of the Virtuous Matrons and the Council Hall beyond it. Moving, of course, in the stately manner which befitted a man of his stature.
He could sense Kata’s eyes following him. And found it rather charming that, after more than sixty years of a life filled with struggle and travails and schemes, not turning around to meet that gaze was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
* * *
The chamber seemed almost like a madhouse. Men were screaming at each other, whispering in knots, scurrying from one clique to another. A fight even broke out at one point, with two Councillors hacking away at each other with their ceremonial short swords. Fortunately, the age and portliness of the men involved—not to mention the dullness of the blades themselves—made the thing more comical than deadly.
Still, in all his decades Jeschonyk had never seen the Council in such complete disarray and showing such a total lack of respect for decorum. In retrospect, he realized that his own insistence on maintaining traditional dignity had been pointless. He could have taken a hundred as his bodyguard, and no one would have noticed.
Of course, the guards wouldn’t have let them come into the chamber itself, he mused, so what would have been the point?
Undreth sidled up to him. “The only way we’re going to get order here,” said the skeletal Watchman of the Door, “is to make a deal with Albrecht and his people. They’ve got half the Councillors—at least half—lined up with him now.”
The old man gave his fellow Watchman a vicious sidelong glance. Potbellied Kirn was clustered with Albrecht himself. “He’ll be no help, be sure of it.”
As a last resort, the two Watchmen were supposed to establish order in an unruly Council. But, even leaving aside the question of how the two oldest men in the room could do so anyway, the fact that Kirn wasn’t even pretending at neutrality made that option unworkable.
Sourly, Jeschonyk bowed to the inevitable. “Make the deal, then. I assume he’ll want first speaking privileges.”
“That, and no time limit,” muttered Undreth. A moment later, the oldster scuttled off.
The extent to which Albrecht now controlled the Council was made clear very quickly. Within a minute after Undreth conferred with Albrecht, the chamber was returning to order. Albrecht was a superb Council politician, whatever his modest achievements as a military leader, and he had his people well organized. Whether through pre-arrangement or simply on-the-spot coercion—prearrangement, was Ion’s guess—even the most unruly Councillors were taking their seats and falling into silence.
Jeschonyk saw no reason to bother with the ritual speech which normally opened a Council meeting. He’d already done a quick scan of the chamber and seen that none of Demansk’s closest allies had even bothered to come. Not even Kall Oppricht, who rarely missed a Council meeting. Once silence had finally settled over the chamber, he simply nodded at Albrecht. “Councillor Albrecht, I believe, has something he would like to say.”
“Indeed so!” Before Jeschonyk had even taken his seat, the leader of the opposition was standing in the middle of the floor beginning his speech.
Quite a speech it was, too. Drav Albrecht was a big man, with just enough fat to make him imposing instead of obese. He had the standard practices of Vanbert oratory down pat, and was quite an excellent speaker. The fact that the speech was sheer drivel—coming, at least, from such as he—didn’t make the words seem any less grandiloquent.
—ancient traditions, now in dire peril—
—mortal danger to the liberties of the fatherland—
—one Marcomann was enough—nay, too much!—
Undreth had taken a seat just behind Jeschonyk himself. The Triumvir felt the old man’s withered, arthritic hand on his shoulder.
“This is worse than I expected,” hissed Undreth. “Much worse.”
Jeschonyk nodded. I should have listened more carefully to Verice. He always warned me Albrecht was impatient—impatient to the point of recklessness.