by Juliet Kemp
Well, it would, because Athitol-Head’s generation – and Madeleine’s, and Gavin’s – had made sure of that. But that wasn’t an argument Marcia wanted to get into either.
“Mm,” she said, instead, through her pleasant smile, and, after another moment, Athitol-Head sniffed, and turned, and swept away. Wretched woman.
Athitol-Head was on her way to the motions-board. Marcia’s stomach flipped. Athitol-Head’s shoulders twitched – surprise? disapproval? both? – before she began to turn, and Marcia hastily looked away. She didn’t want to allow Athitol-Head to catch her eye. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Athitol-Head go over to where Daril was still speaking to Haran-Head. Marcia bit the end of her tongue, and stayed where she was. Daril would say what he would say, truthful or otherwise, and she had to let that happen.
Several Guildwardens were clustered around the board now; and Marcia could see the news beginning to percolate around the room. She was grimly aware that however much she might be trying to avoid it, someone was going to talk to her, sooner or later. Everyone knew what she’d been up to. After the Guildwardens, she was the next likely candidate to have laid the thing. And it wasn’t like she wouldn’t have to speak up once she was in the Chamber. She might as well speak in favour now as then. She’d only left it unsigned to buy as much time as possible before she was challenged.
She’d heard nothing from Nisha about a third vote. Two would be enough, but… Maybe she’d be able to say something during the discussion to persuade someone else. She hadn’t wanted to go into it this way; wouldn’t be doing it at all just yet if it weren’t so clear that in a few more days the rift between Houses and Guilds would be unbridgeable…
“Marcia!”
She turned round. “Nisha? What are you doing here?”
“Message for you,” Nisha said. “Really I suppose I should wear a nice red armband, no? I need a moment in privacy.” She jerked her head at one of the small alcoves off the main foyer, and Marcia, a little reluctantly, followed her in there, feeling eyes on her back.
“I got you another vote,” Nisha said, her voice low, once they’d closed the curtain behind them.
“What? Who?”
“Kilzan, of course.” Nisha looked smug. “I found out some very interesting information about Kilzan-Heir.”
Marcia’s eyebrows shot up. “Blackmail? Nisha…”
Nisha shook her head. “Not exactly. More that – you know the old man’s been wanting rid of Yttra for ages, and who can blame him. That’s what happens, though, when you name someone you barely know as Heir, right? Anyway. All he had was suspicion. I managed to establish that Yttra’s been defrauding the House. Hard evidence, you understand, not speculation.” She looked pleased with herself. “She’s about to be accused of serious assault, to boot. Kilzan-Head will be disowning her immediately.”
Marcia looked at the curl of Nisha’s smile, and made a deductive leap. “And bestowing the Heirship on you instead?”
Nisha bobbed a dainty and self-satisfied curtsey. “And in the process I talked him into voting with you, should the issue arise, and I suggested that it might do soon. He’s not particularly impressed with House Fereno at the moment, but I think I convinced him that perhaps you were seeing a bit further than the rest of them were. I… have some links with the Guilds myself, which may have helped.” She meant, Marcia was fairly certain, that she’d offered Kilzan-Head some particularly good contracts. But that, too, was something Marcia didn’t intend to enquire into. The vote itself would suffice.
“Nisha, you’re a star,” Marcia said fervently. “By the way – did you hear anything from Aden?”
Nisha shook her head. “Not a thing. It was always a bit of a long shot, that. But this is good enough, right?”
“Yes,” Marcia said, as convincingly as she could. It was, technically. Three votes. More than enough. But she could have wished for more.
The rustle outside indicated everyone was going into the Chamber. Marcia nodded to Nisha, ducked out, and went into the Chamber to take her place.
Selene was sitting in the same place as when she’d opened the Council session. Marcia’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. She hadn’t seen Selene go in. She hadn’t expected her to be here at all. The Teren Lieutenant could attend, most certainly, there was no question of that. But the previous one never had.
Selene could attend. And… Marcia’s stomach lurched, and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. She had a vote, didn’t she? The Lord Lieutenant could vote, if they wanted. They never did; it was unheard of, for centuries. But… it was there.
She felt almost outside her body as she took her seat, counting through the votes. Ten Guild members. Thirteen Houses. Three voting with the Guilds. Thirteen-ten, so even if Selene did vote, it wouldn’t matter. If everyone kept their word. It didn’t help to shake the feeling of doom pressing on her shoulders.
She sat down, and took up the pencil and paper that was left by each seat, to send a note to the Reader’s Clerk, quietly sitting now by the door through to the Chamber, to check whether she was right about Selene’s vote.
Technically, yes. However no Lord Lieutenant has exercised it in modern times, the note she got in return read. Marcia folded it into halves, quarters, eighths, and put it down.
No Lord Lieutenant has. That didn’t mean Selene wouldn’t.
But either way; there was no point in delaying this further. She felt sick enough as it was; she wanted to get it over with. As soon as the Reader began the session, she stood up and moved the motion.
“That the Chamber increase the Guild votes to thirteen,” she proposed. She’d decided to leave out the casting vote for now; if someone else wanted to put it in, they could. Marcia herself rather liked the idea that any measure that couldn’t gain some support from one side or the other was doomed. If anyone else didn’t, it was up to them to suggest alternatives.
Athitol-Head was already on her feet, the frown-lines on her face deep. “I move that this be discussed in Small Chamber.”
“I oppose,” Marcia said, stomach tight with anxiety. She’d anticipated that this might happen, and there was no counter she could think of. With the motion to the Small Chamber both proposed and opposed, it was up to the Reader to decide whether it was suitable to move it.
To her surprise, Jyrithi-Head got to their feet. The subdued browns and deep blues of their Council-formal gown swirled around them. “Before the Reader makes their decision,” they said, slowly. “I urge them to consider this carefully. Of late, we have moved a great many decisions to the Small Chamber. Of course, there is an argument that as we know which way the Guilds will vote, this is a matter for the Houses to decide. But equally, I feel there is more weight to the point that as this concerns the Guilds so closely, it would be a miscarriage of our governmental system were we not to allow them the right to decide on this matter.” Jyrithi-Head looked around. “I urge the Reader, and my fellow Heads, to consider most carefully what is best for Marek in this matter.”
The Reader was frowning as they banged their staff on the floor. “Motion is dismissed. This will be discussed here, in full Council.”
There was a rustle of discontent among the House benches, but Marcia breathed a sigh of relief.
And wondered whether what Jyrithi-Head had said indicated that they might have one more vote than she had counted on. House Jyrithi had a tendency to keep itself to itself; but Marcia had always seen Jyrithi-Head as among those who wished to cling as hard as might be to their House privileges. But then… Jyrithi had voted with her mother when the Guilds were included, hadn’t they? She stared at Jyrithi-Head, wondering, and they turned their head, caught her eye, and gave her a bland smile that told her nothing.
She had three votes in any case, which carried the vote; but that didn’t mean that the Houses would fall neatly in line, that the rest might not try to push back. An extra vote could make all the difference in how functional this change would be; on whether it resolved the
divisions in Marek, or deepened them.
k k
Marcia barely remembered what she’d said to propose the motion, afterwards. She knew she’d spoken well; she’d practised debate since she was a child, part of her education first as potential Heir, then as likely Heir, then as confirmed Heir. She’d made notes, beforehand, and she knew she’d spoken to the notes. The importance of a strong relationship between the Houses and Guilds in Marek. Her regret that the Houses had failed to listen to the Guilds, and thus that the Guilds had reached the point that they’d been forced to express themselves quite this strongly. (She had to say something about that. She couldn’t directly address the matter of ‘giving in’, of being ‘held to ransom’, as Madeleine had put it, but she could do her best to reframe the Guilds’ ultimatum.) Her desire for the Houses and Guilds to move forwards together, strengthening Marek and increasing its prosperity and its sway in the world.
She said all of those things, but even as she heard her own voice in her ears, it felt pointless. Surely everyone in the room had already made their minds up. And until Daril cast House Leandra’s vote, the Houses would assume – clearly were assuming, from the impatient looks cast around the Chamber – that it would go their way.
The trouble would come when the vote passed. What the resolution said, and what might in reality happen next, were different things. Marcia wished she could be certain that they would coincide.
Warden Hagadath spoke next, after Marcia had sat down and allowed her legs to shake under her gown. Their speech went nearly exactly as Marcia would have expected. It was clear that it, too, wasn’t going to sway anyone’s vote: there was nothing there that hadn’t been in the calmer of the news-sheets about the matter, although Hagadath at least refrained from any of the more flowery or aggressive statements that they might have made. Throughout the speech, there were frowns and rustles from among the Heads. Those Heirs who were present, Marcia thought, looking around, were perhaps more on the side of the Guilds, or at least more open to persuasion; there were more thoughtful looks among them, and more deliberately neutral expressions. Not that they would, with the exception of her and Daril, get to vote.
Daril, across the room from her, sat back at his ease, a small, borderline smug smile on his face. Marcia was gloomily aware that Daril must have worked out a way in which this was going to be a good financial deal for House Leandra. He’d been right about the status impact, showing Leandra as power-brokers, but that would never have been enough by itself for him to take the risk. And certainly not for Gavin to agree. There was another angle on this for Daril, or Leandra, or both.
Marcia was so busy worrying about what might happen next, and telling over the ideas she’d come up with to sway the mood of the Chamber, afterwards, if that were necessary, that it was a complete surprise to her when Selene stood up and indicated to the Reader that she wished to speak.
The Reader frowned. This was not within the expectations of the Chamber. A speech at the Opening, yes. For the Lieutenant to attend, perhaps. But a speech in the normal way of business? They hesitated for a few moments, while Selene looked more and more impatient, and then gestured to give her the floor. She was, after all, entitled to it, just as she was entitled to vote. And Marcia was gut-wrenchingly sure, now, that she would do so.
It shouldn’t matter. But would it?
“I am surprised,” Selene said, her voice carrying forcefully around the Chamber, “that the Guilds would forget themselves in this manner; and still more surprised to see House Fereno supporting this absurdity. House Fereno, it seems, forgets the position of the Marek Houses. Forgets the important role you hold, linking Marek to Teren and maintaining Marek’s, and thereby Teren’s, position in the trading community.”
Selene didn’t appear to notice, but Marcia did: the Heads and Heirs shifting their weight as she spoke, beginning to frown in a different way. Was Selene about to stab herself in the foot? Was there a way she, Marcia, could draw attention to that? And what would the implications of that, itself, be for Marek’s future? She caught Daril’s eye across the Chamber. He had one thoughtful eyebrow raised.
“The Guilds do valuable work, of course,” Selene was saying, her tone faintly dismissive. “But it is the Houses which hold Marek, and which create it in all its strength. I urge you to consider this carefully when you vote. I am sure you will wish to maintain the power of your position, rather than to dilute it by sharing it with a set of people whose oaths and motivations may be very different from your own, as nobles of Teren.”
There was an audible intake of breath at that last statement; but Selene didn’t seem aware of it. She sat down with a self-satisfied smile.
It took a moment for the Reader’s eyebrows to come down, then they banged their staff on the floor to quell the rustlings and murmurings around the Chamber.
Selene had been dripping that version of the Houses and Marek into people’s ears since she arrived; Marcia was certain of it now, even though she herself hadn’t heard much of it. She thought she’d convinced the Houses, or enough of them, that Teren was their future, instead of just their distant past. She wanted to pull Marek backwards. But Marcia, looking around the Chamber, felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Selene, she thought, just might have finally and publicly overplayed her hand.
“Further to speak?” the Reader demanded, and Marcia found herself on her feet again.
“You have heard the words of the Teren Lieutenant,” she said, finding the words just in time to say them, and hoping they wouldn’t dry up in the middle. And that she was judging the mood of the Chamber correctly. “The Heads and Heirs of the Marek Houses are Teren nobles, she says. True, that is part of our history; but is it, now, today, our most important truth? Our most important loyalty? Are we not Marekers, above all? The Lieutenant wishes us to see ourselves as Teren first; she wishes us to draw away from the Guildwardens, our fellow Marekers. Are we certain that she has the best interests of Marek at heart? It seems to me that the Teren Lieutenant,” she gestured at Selene, “has another agenda. It seems to me that Marek, as we have been until these last few days of argument, is strong, and prosperous, and powerful. It seems to me that Marek rejoices in links throughout the Oval Sea that Teren does not have. It seems to me that by driving a wedge between the Houses and the Guilds, Teren might seek to limit our power…”
“Not so!” Selene protested.
The Reader banged their staff. “I will have quiet while Fereno-Heir speaks!”
“I invite the Houses to consider this most carefully,” Marcia said. “Do we wish to align ourselves with our own city, our own citizens? Do we wish to move our city forwards, together? Or do we wish to allow Teren to increase its control now that we have so nearly shaken it off altogether. Do we wish to acquiesce meekly to Teren preferences? We may be Teren, but we are Marekers first, and we must look to our responsibilities as Marekers before our links to Teren.” She shrugged. “I for one care much more for my House here than I do for lands I have never seen in Teren. And I am suspicious of the attempts of the Teren Lieutenant to convince me otherwise. I do not know what she has in mind, but it seems to me that whatever it is, it concerns Teren rather more than Marek.”
She sat down. She couldn’t tell whether she’d swayed anyone. Selene stood to answer, but the Reader waved her to sit again. She hesitated for a moment, and the Reader waved at her again, more forcefully. She sat with visible ill grace.
“We proceed to the vote,” the Reader said.
The Reader called for the ayes. The Guilds, of course, all ten. She stood, herself, and opposite her, Daril got to his feet. Shocked murmurs ran around the hall. Kilzan-Head, to her left, didn’t move, and Marcia swore under her breath. If Selene voted, they would be even. And the default, in the case of a tie, was the status quo.
Just as the Reader was about to gesture them to sit down, Jyrithi-Head stood, slowly but with their shoulders set. The murmurs intensified. Jyrithi-Head was staring across at Selene, their eyes j
ust a little narrowed, and Marcia noted it for future reference. Then, hesitantly, not meeting anyone’s eyes, Tigero-Head rose. He didn’t quite straighten all the way up, his shoulders hunched against the whispers from the rest of the House benches, but he was standing. Had Aden had come through, after all? Or was Andreas finally starting to think for himself? He’d be dealing with Marcia for a lot longer than he would be dealing with the current Heads, wouldn’t he. She should make sure she met with him, as soon as possible after this.
Four votes. She hadn’t begun to think of four votes. A wild elation began to bubble up inside her. Daril, opposite, was smirking more widely now. The annoying arse.
The Reader waved them down, and called for the Nays. Eight Heads, and Kilzan-Head still seated. The Reader waved a hand towards him, and Kilzan-Head slashed his hand sideways, gesturing abstention. Well. That was at least better than voting against. Fourteen, eight, one. It was a victory, but was it enough of one?
Selene hadn’t stood. Her face was set like granite. But she too could count. Marcia would have bet every penny in her pocket that Selene had been planning to vote no. Marcia wished that she had voted anyway; that she had demonstrated her contempt for Marek’s customs more clearly, that the Nays were taken first. But Selene wasn’t that stupid.
The Heads sat, and the Reader said, “Fourteen ayes. Eight nays. One abstention. The ayes have it.”
A babble of voices rose through the Chamber. Marcia couldn’t quite make out the overall tone.
The vote might have passed; but would it hold? Athitol-Head was the only one that Marcia thought might have the strength to spearhead any resistance. Standing against the Council’s sworn decision – it had happened in the past, Marcia knew, but it was costly for everyone involved. She could only hope that Athitol-Head – and the rest – would not see it as worthwhile to challenge the Council, however unhappy they might be.
Surely, at this point, they must know that they couldn’t risk further antagonising the Guilds. Mustn’t they?
