Django Wexler - The Shadow Throne

“No one said anything about casting anyone down,” Peddoc said. “Perhaps His Grace needs to be persuaded to accept a. . quieter role, but I don’t think-”

“Orlanko doesn’t matter,” Maurisk said. “Once we establish the Deputies- General-”

The room dissolved into babble.

Faro touched Raesinia’s shoulder and leaned close. “I warned you.”

“We’re so close,” Raesinia muttered. “They know they have to do something .”

“They’re worried about being played for fools,” Faro said. “It’s a lot to risk, after all, if you don’t know what you’re going to be getting.”

Raesinia’s eyes found Maurisk. He shrugged uncomfortably, as if to say, What do you expect me to do?

On the other side of the room, Dumorre had gotten out of his seat and advanced on Peddoc, while several of the Monarchists had their hands on their swords. The actual content of the argument was all but inaudible under the babble of voices. But Cyte was looking directly at Raesinia, wearing a thoughtful expression.

“I have an idea,” Raesinia said. “Faro, is there a room upstairs we could use?”

“Probably. But-”

“Grab a pen and paper and meet me up there. Tell that Cyte girl that I want her opinion on something, and see if she’ll come up, too.”

Faro looked doubtful. “Are you going to try to draft something yourself?”

“In a way. I think I know something they can all agree on.”

“If you say so.” Faro looked around at the scene of barely restrained violence and shook his head. “I think it’ll take a miracle.”

The news took some time to filter out of the Gold Sovereign. There were more arguments as various parties explained the Declaration to one another, got things wrong, compared rumors and counterrumors, and generally milled about. Some bright soul managed to hurry to a printer’s shop and get to work setting the brief document into type, and once the presses were rolling, more accurate arguments spread up and down the length of the Old Road. Maurisk, Peddoc, Cyte, and Dumorre all spread the word to their followers, and small groups formed up, then became large groups as more and more people drifted in.

By the time the sun had reached the meridian, the mob was in motion. A vast procession, stretching down the Old Road to Bridge Street, and running from there to the Saint Vallax Bridge and across to the Island. Raesinia, walking amid the boisterous crowd at its head, could look out over the river to the Island’s western tip, where the black walls of the Vendre were waiting.

Faro and Maurisk walked beside her. They had filled Maurisk in on Ben’s murder and Cora’s abduction.

“You should have told me sooner,” Maurisk said. “You know I want to help her, Raes. It’s just the others-”

“I know.” None of the faction leaders had particularly firm control over their flock. “We’ve got them moving. That’s the important thing.”

Faro shook his head. He was holding a copy of the Declaration, whose ink was still wet. “Only by storing up a lot of trouble for the future.”

“We can deal with the future when it gets here. Right now. .” She shrugged.

“How did you know they would agree to this?” Faro said, flapping the paper.

Raesinia took it from him and looked it over, smiling to herself. It was only a few paragraphs long, and said nothing about principles, vetoes, taxation, or even the rights of man. Instead it laid out two simple demands: that Danton and the other prisoners taken to the Vendre be released, and that the king allow the assembly of a preliminary Deputies-General, consisting of the signatories and other eminent citizens, to debate all the questions to be addressed.

“Well,” she said, “first of all, I showed it to them one at a time. So for all they knew, the others would sign, and if they got left out they’d end up without a seat at the table.”

“That was clever,” Faro allowed. “But still!”

“Think of it this way,” Raesinia said. “You’ve got a gang of students who spend all their time arguing with each other in coffeehouses and wine shops. What’s the one thing they can all agree on?”

“I wouldn’t have thought there was anything,” Faro said.

“That they like to argue,” Maurisk said.

Raesinia smiled. “Exactly. So if you want to get them to agree to something, promise them the chance to argue on a really grand stage.”

Faro chuckled dryly. He dropped back to walk beside Raesinia, letting Maurisk get a little ahead of them, and bent to speak into her ear.

“I know you’re angry about what happened to Ben,” he said, “and I know you want to help Cora. But you’re not going to be able to stop this now. You realize that, don’t you?”

“I know,” Raesinia said, quietly. “We’re in it until the end.”

“I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

Raesinia’s smile faded. “So do I.”

MARCUS

The gray light of dawn filtered into Saint Hastoph Street, dispelling the shadows. With them went Marcus’ hope that the fires that had glowed all night outside the walls might be some kind of bluff. The mob, glimpsed as specters amid a sea of torches, gained an alarming solidity, a mass of people spreading from shore to shore of the narrow island and stretching back through the side streets toward Farus’ Triumph. Marcus estimated there were several thousand he could see, and who knew how many more hadn’t been able to push to within sight of the walls.

It was Fort Valor all over again, except instead of a few battalions of Royal Army musketeers and a half battery of artillery, Marcus had forty-odd badly frightened Armsmen and a contingent of guards from the Ministry of Information of highly dubious reliability. And the mob below showed none of the Khandarai reluctance to attack-Marcus could see a half dozen ladders already under construction, and the men on the parapets had to duck bricks and other missiles.

The outer wall of the Vendre was a good thirty feet high, so it took a strong arm to loft a brick over the top of it. There were plenty of strong arms down there, though, and one of the Concordat men had already suffered a broken arm, while one of Marcus’ had nearly been knocked from his perch by a ballistic cabbage. At least here, unlike at Fort Valor, there was a proper fire step, so the men could crouch behind the parapet and be shielded from below.

For all its sinister reputation, the Vendre was as obsolete a fortress as Fort Valor had been. Originally built to supplement the water batteries that were Vordan’s primary defense against a river-borne attack from the south, its seaward walls were thick and honeycombed with embrasures. The landward fortifications were something of an afterthought, a simple stone wall to enclose an inner court and provide an outer line of defense. When the dawn of modern artillery had spelled the doom of stone-walled forts all across the continent, the Crown had turned it over to the civil authorities, who had put it to work as a prison.

Marcus’ current troubles hinged on a technicality. As a prison, the Vendre was under the command of the Minister of Justice and the Armsmen, and as captain of Armsmen Marcus ranked anyone in that organization except for Janus himself. However, the Armsmen had long ago seconded use of the structure to the Minister of Information, and so the everyday command and garrison of the place was drawn from the ranks of the Concordat.

The man who now presented himself to Marcus was, therefore, nominally under his command. He wore a captain’s bars at his collar himself, however, and his look and bearing said that he considered Marcus, at best, an equal. He wore a curious outfit, something like a Royal Army officer’s uniform but in black instead of blue, with silver buttons and trim, and covered by one of the black leather greatcoats of which the Concordat was so fond. He offered no salute, and Marcus gave him none in return.