I glanced around, noting the still-muttering councillors and Niko’s palpable dark mood. “Oh, excellent timing.”
“That’s hardly my fault,” Viola whispered with a shrug. “Go on, now.”
“Governors,” I said as I stood. “Permission to speak.”
“Oh good gory offal, you’re not running, too,” a man nearby shouted.
I ignored him even as another man replied, “We’ll have the Tea Party Council before long.”
“It will have to be renamed the Quilting Assembly,” someone in the gallery suggested, to more laughter.
I cleared my throat. “Governors? On a matter for the council.”
Niko glared at the chatter and then at me. “Well, go ahead.”
I spoke louder than the whispered jokes around me. “There is some concern about the wartime system of rationing still in effect in the city. We have requisitioned the financial and estate assets of the city’s nobility and are in the process of doing so for the rest of Galitha. Our ability to pay our soldiery will therefore soon be independent of any stores left within the city. Our trade networks will be opened and running as before—at least, as normally as can be expected.”
“It’s a fair system,” Niko retorted. “Those who work are paid in what they need.”
“It was a very good system for a city under siege,” I replied. “But this city is no longer under siege. There are people who cannot work under your system who go hungry, and their families have no way of making additional income or buying additional goods.”
“That’s nonsense.” Niko waved his hand.
“Wait, it’s not nonsense, really.” A man with dark hair clubbed with a red leather tie stood nervously. “My sister has a newborn, husband died in that last battle, she can’t work, and my rations don’t do well enough for all of us.”
“So we’ll amend the system—”
“No,” Theodor said, cutting Niko off. “The system as it stands puts too much power in the hands of the government. Just as the noble system before it did. It’s time it ended.”
“The nobility were tyrants,” Niko shouted in reply, to some agreement among the council and the gallery.
“Many a system of governance,” Theodor said firmly, “can create tyrants. We do not wish to become what we fought and died to overthrow.”
“What we died to overthrow—as though you’re not the prime specimen of what we fought and died to overthrow!” Niko slammed his hand on the table in front of him, staring Theodor down in a clear challenge, but Theodor stood stoic, refusing to give voice to a duel of insults. His bearing was dignity personified, I thought with a swell of pride, but he looked tired.
“Governors,” Kristos said quietly, “this is a matter for the full council to debate, not governors, and temporary governors at that. I suggest we table it until the city’s elections are concluded.” He met my eyes and nodded. The gentleman’s agreement had been challenged, and publicly. Soon we could move forward.
61
“YOU DON’T HAVE TO GO,” I SAID QUIETLY, AS THEODOR COMBED clove-scented pomade through his hair and gathered it into a queue. “Everyone would understand.”
“I am a temporary governor of Galitha. I am the Reformist army’s commander. It is my duty.”
“I think the circumstances a bit unusual, this time.”
“If I am not there, it will be taken as a statement and that statement will be broadcast by Otni and his followers. That I’m still a sympathizer to the nobility.”
“It’s your own father,” I said. “Your own father on the gallows.”
“I know!” His hands trembled as he tied a dark charcoal ribbon around the leather holding his queue. “Divine Natures, Sophie, I know. In every inch of the law, in any law, this is the due course of action. I cannot afford—we cannot afford—to imply anything but complete acquiescence to and respect of that law.”
I took his shaking hand silently. I was dressed in my gray-and-red riding habit again, freshly brushed and pressed and the buttons shined. I wondered when I could put it off for good.
We walked to Fountain Square, cleaner and in better repair than it had been when we first rode in after the Battle of Galitha City, but still bearing deep scars. The ugliest was a gallows erected in the center of the square next to the fountain, which was neither running nor frozen but emptied of water. I accompanied Theodor to the platform set aside for the council members overseeing the proceedings, joining Kristos and Maurice Forrest in its center. Maurice was no charismatic personality, that was sure—but he shook Theodor’s hand gravely and I saw empathy in his soft smile.
“Excuse me.” The voice preceded a parting of bodies and polite head tilts as Viola and Annette stepped through the crowd of councillors.
“You didn’t have to—” I whispered as Viola embraced me.
“No, but it seemed only right. To be here next to Theo. He’s stood by us often enough,” Annette said. She was paler than usual, dressed in a dark gray riding habit trimmed in black. Viola’s gray silk gown was covered by a black mantelet. The councillors had worn dark clothing, too, and all the square looked as though it were the site of a massive funeral. It was, in some sense—today we buried, in symbol, at least, the end of the nobility and monarchy of Galitha.
I stood as close as I could to Theodor without imposing on his image of governor of Galitha, and I noticed that Viola and Annette did, as well, forming a semicircle of silent support around him as the three prisoners were led from the Stone Castle to the gallows.
I scanned the scene, eyes narrowing as I realized that Niko was nowhere to be seen. As a governor, he ought to have been on the platform with us. I caught Kristos’s eye and mouthed the single-word question. Niko? His brow furrowed and he shook his head slowly, answering, I don’t know.
My eye caught a brief flash of light—not physical light, I saw instantly, but charm. I tensed, but it was only Emmi, standing next to Parit, Venia, and Lieta near the stairs of our platform. Emmi held up a simple linen banner embroidered in Pellian weeping hearts and sunrises—the designs used for funerals and naming ceremonies, respectively. An ending and a beginning represented in fabric, the threads glittering with faint magic. I swelled with pride in her—she had learned to cast in stitching without any more tutelage from me. I could have cheered out loud, any other time, but instead I gave her a small smile in acknowledgment.
The trio of condemned men ascended the platform. Silence reigned across the square; I had wondered if there would be mockery, cheers, shouts of acclamation or condemnation, or if the people of Galitha would bear the weight of this moment quietly. We had treated Westland, Pommerly, and Merhaven well, I was relieved to see—their clothes were clean, and they had been given at the least soap and water as they all looked well-kempt. Yet they were broken, too, without bearing any bruises or wounds, in a quiet submission to their fate.
They had chosen it, I reminded myself. Time and again, at each juncture, chosen to deny the common people any rights, and even when the law had demanded their compliance, they had rebelled against it. They had rebelled, I reminded myself. They were the traitors.