~Mary~

As always, the cross breeze made for pleasantly cool relief in the otherwise stuffy council chambers. It was only through her curiosity as a bored child in years past that she had discovered the seat, but it was worth every bit of the lingering embarrassment. As a rule the sessions of the council were long, but this session had the makings of something truly legendary. The obligatory arguments on how taxation was to be managed had been derailed by a slip in procedure which had required that the minutes be rewritten before things could continue. The scribes had taken an admirably short quarter bell to get things in order, but it had still been enough time for an argument to break out between two of the sitting members. When they finally calmed down enough to resume, the direction of the breeze had switched twice.

Whichever scribe had been tasked with keeping the time while he was transcribing had forgotten to continue updating the display somewhere in the rush to rewrite the minutes, so as they dithered on, the only indications that time was still passing that Mary had left were the semi-regular interruptions and changes of direction of the breeze. The unrelenting bickering helped to keep the din from ever getting too quiet.

"I know you to be a decent man, but I can't in good conscience allow your willful ignorance on modern theory damage the citizenry! It is well and good to give the common man the freedom to make choices for himself, but to not put up the necessary guardrails is a dereliction of duty!"

"You assume that we do not have the necessary capacity to correct his path when he walks astray. It is not as you say putting up guardrails, but rather a constriction which he will intuit, as all those closer to the land are like to do, and then fight against!"

Her father looked only as annoyed as a parent might have been because their toddler had swiped a pastry just out of the oven and slightly burned themselves. The chiding tone and the small words helped with the effect, but it was mostly in the way that he limply waved the gavel like it would've been a waste of effort to use it for a lesson that was no doubt already learned. "Gentleman. It is hot and I am tired. If I was tired because I did not sleep well, then I would not bring it up. The reason that I am tired is because we voted on that score and moved on, yet this is the fourth time I find myself stopping you."

The silence was louder than the argument if only because Mary had momentarily forgotten what it was like. Neither of the offending nobles made to resume their points and none of the others found new ones to introduce.

"Moving on, it has been brought to the attention of this council that complications arose in dealing with a planned uprising in the township of Cyrane. The local lord, Baronet Hamen, found a stockpile of weapons, and through the service of one of our inquisitors, he discovered that the town was planning to rise against him and petition the kingdom for self-rule. All those above the age of nine years were executed for treason against the king and all the remaining children were dispensed to other family if possible, or if not, put into inquisition training. One such family now alleges that the evidence leading to the executions was planted and the investigation was not done by the proper procedure," Mellok said.

"If he didn't use a strong approach, it would encourage others to do the same. In uncertain times like these, we cannot afford to second-guess the authority of our fellows," said Count Hakshaku. His words prompted enthusiastic applause from a majority of the council.

It was one of the few who didn't clap, Duke Seffith, who responded. "I must agree that it would not be wise to allow this to cause another unfortunate event, but your conclusion seems to be missing the point. Our authority is not second-guessed because our divine right to rule dictates that it shall be so. Such a failure can be nothing but proof that Hamen is not one of us. I say that he should be stripped of his title and executed for his attempt to impersonate his betters."

"And is it your place to question the workings of God?" Count Hakshaku retorted. "I would not so hastily throw out one of our number for a misstep as small as this. Furthermore, it is only the word of a family member who no doubt wants recompense for justice being served that makes this claim. Without irrefutable evidence that Baronet Hamen acted against those he to be innocent, we must lean on the side of caution and forgiveness."

The assenting majority was made up of those most vulnerable on the council, the counts who had been awarded the post and now only tried to keep grasp of it. Duke Seffith, Baron Bremer, and Duke Asquith were all entrenched enough in their land holdings that even without their seats they would be among the most powerful in the kingdom. Mary's familiarity with some of the counts who inevitably rotated through the council wasn't all that high, but these three had been on the council for as long as she had been alive.

"Before we stray too far from the question at hand, our job now is to decide if and how we pursue this case. Our decision should not be based on assumptions but rather the facts," Mellok cut in.

Mary felt a draft coming from an unusual direction and checked behind her. One of the side entrances was open. She followed the path that led out from the entrance with her eyes to find Prime Minister Finer and Jezbeth whispering in his ear. From her lips, Mary thought she saw Jezbeth say, "–as planned."

Her attention didn't go unnoticed though. Jezbeth stopped whispering and gave Mary a conspiratorial wink before exiting through the same side entrance. Prime Minister Finer gave no sign that anything had happened, he simply sat attentively, as if interested by the now obvious outcome.

"Since an inquisitor was also involved, I vote to affirm Baronet Hamen's verdict and drop the matter." A chorus of ayes from the four other counts on the council gave Count Hakshaku a majority.

Mary tasted bile at the too familiar sight. One of the scribes put to ink a decision that would have seen the streets crowded with the common workers, pitiable beggars, and wealthy merchants. If only the inquisition wasn't so damnably good at their real job.

***

"I take it that this is about Cyrane?" Jezbeth asked.

Mary bit back the most snide remarks that came to mind. "How terribly astute of you. If we go forward with the plan as it stands, it won't be seen as reform. It'll be seen as a crusade with Cyrane as the martyr. It was already going to draw attention and bring some of the more radical elements to the surface, but this will set them up to push for more."

"We're running out of time. If we don't make our move, then 219 dead will be a drop in the bucket. Every one of these incidents just makes the outer lords more desperate to start something and redirect the anger even if it means taking things into their own hands."

Mary winced at the number of dead. It was one thing to hear that a village had been put to the sword, but it was another to find out how many individual lives had been snuffed out. "I understand that. My point is that we must be very careful that this is seen as a precaution and not as a weapon."

"Of course. I am never incautious. When luck is never on our side, the only thing that we can do is prepare every eventuality." Jezbeth stood up. "We'll announce our proposal through the prime minister's office so that it can be plausibly separated from today's decision. Your father shouldn't be informed beforehand or it may be seen as him putting his finger on the scales."

***

~Darren~

The last time I had been in the lower wharfs was for the hostile takeover that we had pulled off right before the trial. There were no signs of the violence from back then that I could see, but it was often difficult to judge whether what I saw was a result of violence or lack of upkeep. The few people that roamed the streets at night were either obviously of a certain sort, or they kept their heads down and eyes forward. I was adopting the second approach while I searched for the contact that I had left here.

Finally I spotted the hunched over form of a beggar with a sky blue handkerchief barely sticking out from the folds of his heavy coat. Unlike some of the other beggars who joined together in small groups to watch out for each other, he kept to himself and didn't even attempt to beg from the passerby. I drew out the matching handkerchief and mimed wiping my nose with it. As planned, when I went by him, he suddenly reached out and took my arm as if he wanted to beg some money from me.

"How much can you give me?" he asked.

"91134." The last step in the identification was offering this absurd amount. If it turned out to be a real beggar then they would take it as a bad joke. It was the correct man though since he gave me a slip of paper and then shoved me to the ground as if disgusted by my lack of charity.

The shove wasn't gentle and the wound in my side blazed with pain. I let the very real pain take over rather than try to act it out. My contact retreated into an alley and no one came to help me while I struggled back to my feet. I checked the slip of paper and sure enough there were directions to where they had set up their operations.

I made my way to where the majority of my operations would be headed from. It was the one place that the loanshark couldn't have had a hand in setting up and therefore the one place she didn't know of. There was little to no difference between it and the buildings surrounding it on the outside, but inside was a different story. Inside was where a small armory's worth of weaponry lay stacked against one wall and a lavish desk and chair awaited me.

Only three others were with me. First was Hector Wissel from the days of my father's stint as the head of the organization. He was experienced but perhaps not as flexible as he would need to be in the coming days. Second was the contact, Mel, the placeholder who had set this place up and waited in the lower wharfs for things to settle back down. He had been recruited before he could get snatched up for the inquisition's training program when his parents had died, so he was well trained and not on any of the rolls. Last was the newest recruit, Lan Wexler. He had wanted revenge for his wife and daughter and who was I to not give him that chance? He would have things he needed to learn, but he was exceptionally loyal.