by Juliet Kemp
“Have the child however you like. By full-contract, by child-contract, with no contract at all. But if you tell me that you are concerned with the future of the House, if you wish to carry our vote and to lead the House, it is high time that you take that seriously.”
“My Heir needn’t be of my body,” Marcia objected.
“Indeed not. You might well prefer to adopt.”
“I could look among the cousins.”
Madeleine grimaced. “You could, but you can scarcely offer to name one of your age-mates as Heir, and by the time we know what the next generation looks like it will be getting late for you to raise a child yourself. One child is hardly enough, in all honesty; not everyone is suited to this job.”
“Mother…”
Madeleine took a long breath, and shut her eyes. When she opened them again, there was an ache and an honesty in them which stopped Marcia in her tracks. “The House needs someone to be Heir after you. You get to choose how that happens, Marcia. But as your mother, I would wish for you at least to think of a child, of your body or otherwise. I would wish a grandchild, not only someone to be named once you are Head.”
It wasn’t even that Marcia hadn’t thought of the matter herself, before. She knew how this worked as well as Madeleine did. It was just… she wasn’t ready, yet, to think about that future. But – when would she be ready? If she had to do this thing anyway…
“What do you want me to say?” she asked, slowly.
“I am not asking you for a decision this moment. I ask that by, let us say, next Mid-year, you take steps towards having a child.”
“And in exchange, I can carry our vote tomorrow, and vote to give the Guilds their extra seats.”
Madeleine nodded.
She’d have to do this, sooner or later, anyway. She might as well get something out of it.
“Very well, Mother,” she agreed.
Storms and the angel, what was Reb going to say?
Surely this wouldn’t come as a surprise to Reb. They both knew who Marcia was, and what that meant. And it needn’t affect what she and Reb had together. Except in that who Marcia was, and who Reb was, did affect their future, and they both knew it, and neither of them wanted to speak about it.
They’d only been together for a couple of months. She was taking this all too seriously.
Her mother was smiling at her, relief clear in her expression. “I will support your vote whole-heartedly,” she said. “I will give it to be understood that you have convinced me, and that I believe you to be correct.”
Marcia swallowed. “Do you, though? Believe me to be correct?”
“I… have concerns. But you make valid points, and you will be Head, in due course. You care for our House as much as I do. I will be telling the truth.”
Having her mother’s support – having bought her mother’s support – felt like more of a relief than she wanted it to.
Marcia quirked an eyebrow at her. “Well, this is politics, Mother. Haven’t you always told me that truth is a thing to be used?”
Her mother smiled at her fondly. “I’m glad to see that you listen to me some of the time,” she said, and patted Marcia’s cheek.
k k
Daril glared at the message in his hand. It bore Marcia’s seal, and it said:
One. And you? Will lay it tomorrow, if you confirm. M.
So Marcia had found one of their needed votes. Her own, most likely. (He certainly hoped so. She could move the motion regardless, but it would look weak if Fereno moved it but didn’t vote for it. If Nisha had talked her own Head around, they might not, in that case, stay talked around.) And he hadn’t got around Gavin yet. This was… unsatisfactory.
He couldn’t put it off. They didn’t have to lay the motion as soon as tomorrow, but if the Houses didn’t shift, and soon, there was a real risk that the Guilds would try making their own cargo negotiations. Once that happened, the Houses would be even more set in their position; whilst the Guilds would be developing the means of moving on without them. The Houses were right in the middle of making themselves irrelevant, with great self-congratulation. Daril had to get on with his part of this.
He’d got into this with the idea of annoying Gavin; but shortly after his meeting with Marcia he’d realised that whilst annoying Gavin might be satisfying now, convincing Gavin to agree with him would be – well, a shame, in one sense, but a better long-term tactical move.
Ideally, he’d like to carry the vote himself. He could use the boost. But Gavin’s agreement would suffice. It would be easy enough to subtly spread the word that it was Daril’s work.
So. Gavin might be stubborn, and hidebound; but he was also a sharp operator, with an eye to the reputation of the House, and to Marek’s future. Daril just – ‘just’ – needed to convince him that both would be served by this change. And if that didn’t work – well. There were alternatives.
He chose his moment carefully. Gavin was always more compliant immediately after dinner; and Daril had spoken to the cook beforehand. He sat at the table with his father, being as polite and affable as was feasible, without tipping over, he hoped, into being suspicious. Gavin was observant, drat the old buzzard.
“Well then, my boy,” Gavin said, pushing back his plate and sitting back in his chair. “What is it?”
“Excuse me?” Daril said. Dammit.
“M’favourite food, you at your best – you can be charming, boy, when you put your mind to it, never been in doubt. Out with it. What do you want?”
Fine, perhaps he hadn’t quite been subtle enough. But Gavin sounded amused, rather than irritable, so it had worked.
“This business with the Guilds, Father.”
Gavin scowled. “Wretched upstarts. Don’t know what they think they’re playing at.”
Daril let the first part of that slide. “What they’re playing at, Father, is messing with our bottom line. Not to put too fine a point on it. That rearrangement of cargo we discussed the other week? We need small things, fairly light, easy to pack, if we’re not to breach our contract.”
“Jewellers, maybe the Broderers, the Spicers,” Gavin said, almost automatically. “The Haberdashers, some of them work in small goods more than cloth.”
“Indeed. If only any of them were prepared to talk to me.” Daril’s bitterness wasn’t feigned. He’d been frustrated and angry to have to make the change, but it was even more frustrating not to be able to. “The ship has to go in two days, to make her schedule. We’re going to have to pay for the use of the space, plus a fine for change of cargo, and with no profit out of any of it.”
Gavin looked like he’d bitten into a pickle. “And what? You want me to go back on my decision about these medicines?”
“That wasn’t my suggestion,” Daril said, then added, “Although, if you would care to do so… the providers aren’t Guilded, so they’d not be affected.”
Gavin scowled. “No, I stick by what I said. I don’t believe it’s safe, or wise.”
By the angel, when he was Head, he was going to trade the damn stuff by the shipload.
“Then we need another solution.”
“More unguilded goods,” Gavin looked away.
“Father. You know as well as I do that there’s next to none of that. No one in a Guilded occupation is going to trade in their goods, regardless of whether they’re a member or not.” The Guilds all had roughly the same rules on that. There were, for example, embroiderers not in the Broderers Guild who made stuff for sale in Marek, mostly to the lower classes. The Guild permitted that, but not trading it outside of Marek; not that it was good enough to trade well anyway. Anyone breaching that agreement would lose suppliers, under Guild pressure; for a House to even consider it would be a wholly shocking suggestion in normal circumstances.
“I suspect that my medicine people will be wrapped into the Apothecaries at some point,” Daril added, “but they can get away with it until that happens. No one else will risk it.”
“They won’t la
st,” Gavin said. “The Guilds. They’ll learn that they need our acumen. Our experience. We just have to outlast them.”
“They might learn that, or they might not,” Daril said. “The question might come down to whether the Houses or the Guilds have the best-stocked coffers, and I’m not sure I want to gamble on that. Father, there’s nothing stopping them from trading on their own behalf. Rules, custom, yes, but they’ve broken those already. Why stop there?”
“They haven’t the skill,” Gavin scoffed. “The Salinas will skin them alive.”
“And then they’ll learn, and improve,” Daril said. “Meanwhile, the Guilds are making money, even if less than they’d make with us; the Salinas are making money; and the whole Oval Sea is learning to get by without whatever the Guilds can’t manage to trade on their own behalf. The only people really suffering will be us, Father.”
“The Guilds won’t trade much on their own,” Gavin said. He seemed infuriatingly incapable of grasping anything that deviated from his own established opinion. Surely he hadn’t always been this bad? “Once it’s resolved, there’ll be a backlog in demand right across the Oval Sea. Premium prices. We’ll make it all up then, if we hold our nerve.”
“Or they’ll have found other goods, other suppliers, and they won’t care to pay ‘premium prices’ for ours,” Daril said. “If the Crescent Alliance were to stop sending us rice and silk, the wheat and potato and fine woollen folks would step into the breach. There might still be a market for rice and silk when it came back, but it would have shrunk, and you know it. The same applies to everything we trade out from here. Father, this is a gamble.”
“We’re traders, Daril. Gambling is what we do.”
“Not when it’s not necessary. And not when we don’t have the dice weighted.”
Gavin scowled again, his face creasing up into folds. “And what’s your answer, then, boy?”
“Support them,” Daril said, bluntly.
“What? Support these… manufacturers?”
“Support them, in exchange for preferential treatment for our next cargos,” Daril said.
Gavin’s eyes narrowed; calculating the weight of his different concerns. Daril pressed the point.
“Every other House is burning their bridges. Why are we burning ours along with them when instead we could profit from the situation?”
“The other Houses won’t have anything to do with us should we move. We need allies in the Council.”
“If we’ve supported the Guilds, we’ll have allies in the Council. The Guilds will support us while the other Houses are angry. In due course, it will lose relevance. We have a great deal to gain here, Father.”
“Us alone? Won’t fly.”
“No. House Fereno will vote with the Guilds.” Or someone would, but Daril couldn’t afford to seem uncertain at this point.
“Will they now. How interesting.” Gavin looked sharply at Daril. “What’s going on between you and that Fereno girl, then? You’re both Heirs now. There can’t be anything formal.”
“With Marcia?” Daril couldn’t suppress the horror in his voice. “Hells, no.”
“She drags you back in here after whatever that was at Mid-Year, you’re plotting with her now… You were together once, I remember it.”
“That was ten years ago, Father,” Daril said. “I assure you, Marcia and I do not feel like that about one another.”
“Always been at odds with House Fereno,” Gavin said, scowling again. “And now you want us to stand with them to back a bunch of grubby-handed makers and labourers?”
Calling the Guildwardens either grubby-handed or labourers was a hell of a stretch, but Gavin could tend his absurd prejudices if he wanted. What mattered was the vote.
“I won’t pass up an opportunity, Father, a profitable opportunity, just because of some hereditary enmity,” Daril said. “Didn’t you work with her mother a couple of months back?”
“Would have been a shame to pass up on the opportunity,” Gavin said, then realised he was echoing Daril’s words and frowned.
“Exactly. Exactly. So. House Fereno and House Leandra, working with the Guilds, and putting one over thereby on every other House too busy posturing to make the most of the situation. And,” Daril leant forwards, “we will be seen to be leading Marek. Power-brokers, Father. You know how valuable that is.”
“Hmm.” Gavin’s eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Daril thought he’d won.
Then the old man sat back, and shook his head. “No. Enough. I won’t have it. We must stand with the Houses, and the Houses must remain in control. I won’t fall to these threats.”
“Father…”
“I said, enough. I’ve given you a fair hearing. I won’t have it, and that’s an end of it.”
Daril’s jaw clenched.
“Very well, Father.”
He would have to move on to his second plan. Which, unfortunately, meant that he was about to have an uncomfortable evening.
He slipped his hand into his pocket to reassure himself that the antidote to the emetic was still there. His medicine-makers had been very helpful. Not that he could take it right now; it would look suspicious if only one of them were ill. He hadn’t eaten as much of that syllabub as Gavin had, but it would be enough. If Gavin had agreed, he’d have given both of them the antidote in the port; as it was, he’d just have to wait it out and take it once he’d been ill enough to allay suspicion.
He poured port for both of them, anyway, and made polite conversation with Gavin while he got through his glass. Finally, he was able to retire without it looking like he was doing so through anger. Gavin needed to believe that all was well between them.
“I find myself tired, I’m afraid,” he said, apologetically, as Gavin gestured towards the decanter. “I think I’m for my bed.”
“Very well boy, very well. I must say, it’s good to see you taking disagreement gracefully,” Gavin said. “I’ll see you for the Council meeting tomorrow, then.”
No you won’t, Daril thought.
It was a high-risk strategy, to be sure; if Gavin could prove it, he could disinherit Daril, which was why he too had to be visibly unwell tonight. Unwell; but well enough, with his younger constitution (and the help of the antidote, once he’d been conspicuously sick once or twice), to carry the House vote tomorrow.
Of course, Gavin would be furious once he recovered. But what option would he have? Their public feud over the Heirship had done enough damage to their House’s reputation. Daril’s vote tomorrow would set House Leandra up as a power-broker; Gavin could accept that, or he could destroy it by setting himself against his Heir. Gavin would be furious, but he’d knuckle under rather than make the House a laughing-stock. Daril was greatly looking forward to that interview.
Marcia wouldn’t like any of this in the slightest, were she to find out about it; but then, it was none of Marcia’s business. He was in this for himself, and his House, and he was about to do very well by both of them.
TWENTY-ONE
Marcia woke early, and restless in a way that could only be resolved by exercise. There was no doubt in her mind about why she was restless, any more than there was about why she’d slept badly and woken early. She’d had a message from Daril, late in the evening, saying only,
Two.
Which meant she would be laying the motion at the Council this afternoon. They couldn’t delay any further. The Heads weren’t going to get any more amenable with time; they’d spent the last two days talking themselves deeper and more securely into their existing positions. The Guilds must know that too; and the longer she delayed, the more likely it was that the Guilds would decide to make their own move, and the gulf would grow wider.
Even with Madeleine’s backing, she was anxious. But there was nothing she could do about anything this morning. She had to get out of the house.
She wanted more than just a walk in Marek Park, inviting though the autumn breeze was when she opened her bedroom window. Instead she went down to th
e salle on 4th Street and spent a deeply enjoyable hour in swordplay. She stopped briefly at the baths on the way back, then went back up to the House, feeling significantly better.
The feeling didn’t last. There was a message waiting for her on the shelf in the hall. She opened it there and then, standing in the hallway; and her heart fell. It was terse, it requested (in language that strongly suggested ‘demanding’) her presence at her earliest convenience, and it was from Selene.
She glanced over at the clock that stood in the corner of the hall and grimaced. She wished, now, she’d spent a little longer at the saal; as it stood, with a couple of hours of the morning still left before she needed to get ready for Council, it would be difficult to argue that ‘at her earliest convenience’ wasn’t ‘now’. And when it came right down to it, diplomatic niceties notwithstanding, the Teren Lieutenant had the authority to make this request. Still, Marcia lingered for a moment, hoping that something would mysteriously arise that prevented her from going.
Nothing did; and she sighed, penned a swift message to Selene, and went upstairs to change into full House formal. The message had that kind of tone; and if she was about to get into it with the Teren Lieutenant, she wanted as much of the pomp of her position behind her as she could muster. Also then she needn’t change again before Council.
It seemed impossible that this could be about anything other than the Guilds. But even if Selene were willing to interfere openly and directly in the matter, could she, how could she, have found out about what Marcia was planning? The Guildwardens wouldn’t have spoken of it beyond other Guildwardens; they had more sense than that. Nisha wouldn’t betray a confidence.
Daril, now – well. It was more than possible. Daril wouldn’t hesitate to betray her if it suited him; but on this occasion, she didn’t think it would. She didn’t think he’d been lying, or even dissembling, when they’d spoken; she thought he genuinely agreed with her on what was best. And he’d sent that message last night. He couldn’t have told Selene.
Of course, everyone knew that Marcia had been talking to the Guilds. They just didn’t know that she’d talked Madeleine round, or any other House, nor that she was planning to lay a motion on the matter today.
