“Isn’t it?” Rafferdy said, and now his voice and his expression
were utterly serious. He looked not at his opponent, but rather out across the Hall. Lords shuffled on the benches as his gaze swept over them. “For I wonder, what is the difference between a lord who speaks out against a particular law and another man? If the only difference is a fine coat and wig … well, a lord looks much like any man when dressed in sackcloth and a noose.”
Davarry appeared ready to issue a hot rejoinder to this, but he was perhaps saved from further damaging his cause by the loud noise of the High Speaker’s gavel banging against the podium.
“The lord’s time is expired!” the High Speaker called out. “The lord will remove himself from the floor and take his seat!”
With a bow, Rafferdy did.
“I say, that was really splendid!” Coulten whispered as Rafferdy returned to his seat.
“I’m not certain Lord Davarry would agree with you,” Rafferdy whispered back, doing his best not to grin as he cast a glance in Davarry’s direction.
That Davarry would see such an expression was assured. The place where the Magisters sat was not far away, for over the last few months Coulten and Rafferdy, along with some of the other younger lords, had migrated from the back of the Hall toward the front. They had taken to calling themselves the New Wigs, as they had all recently adopted Rafferdy’s habit of wearing a wig to Assembly—though these were not to be confused with the matted mop-ends worn by old country lords. Rather, their wigs were simple yet elegantly styled affairs, and they had a silvery color to them, as opposed to the blue tint favored by the Magisters.
Speaking of whom, the Magisters were all of them glaring in Rafferdy’s direction—something which gave him great delight.
“I almost couldn’t believe it when Davarry snapped at the bait you’d thrown out,” Coulten said under his breath as, at the front of the Hall, the Grand Usher began to drone on about some matter of protocol. “But he did, and now everyone’s neck is itching as they imagine what a rope feels like. I don’t suppose anyone will want to debate the act now.”
Rafferdy sighed, his delight receding a bit. “Oh, they will eventually.
Davarry won’t let it go, and a lord is bound to forget about his neck if his arm is wrenched hard enough. But this will at least delay things. If nothing else, I’ve given them doubts about granting Lord Valhaine and his Gray Conclave any more authority than they already have.”
“I should hope so,” Coulten said. His nod was emphasized by the pillar of his wig, which had been constructed to dramatic proportions to contain the tall head of hair concealed beneath. “The Gray Conclave has too much prerogative as it is. Besides, I don’t understand why Davarry should want to support Lord Valhaine. After all, it was on Valhaine’s order that all secret magickal societies were banned. And we all know Davarry wears a House ring under his gloves like most of the Magisters.”
Rafferdy’s gaze shifted a few degrees, and now it was not at Davarry he gazed, but rather at a pale-haired man who sat just behind him. Even seated, the other lord was tall, though his shoulders were somewhat hunched inside the heavy, thickly ruffled black robe he wore despite the sweltering heat in the Hall. Unlike all the other Magisters, he did not wear gloves. Instead, his hands were bare except for, on the right, a ring set with red gems, which even at that moment he was turning around and around on his finger. Other than Rafferdy, he was the only man in the Hall who wore a House ring openly.
“Poor old Farrolbrook,” Coulten murmured in Rafferdy’s ear, having noticed the object of his attention. “I’m surprised the Magisters still let him sit with them. Though I suppose it would be an embarrassment for them to cast out one of their own, especially the man who had once been their leader.
They
could never publicly admit to a mistake. And I suppose he doesn’t seem quite as mad as he did a few months ago. At least these days he has the sense to sit there and say nothing.”
It seemed impossible, as Coulten’s whisper had been very low, but just then Lord Farrolbrook looked up and turned his head in their direction, as if he had heard his name uttered. His blue eyes seemed overly bright, but they were otherwise clear.
Suddenly, the High Speaker’s hammer clattered down three times, signaling the end of the session.
“Thank goodness, I thought this would never end,” Coulten said, leaping to his feet, a hand on his wig to keep it steady. “Come on, Rafferdy, let’s get to the Silver Branch before all the benches are gone.”
“That’s a capital idea,” Rafferdy said, rising. “My throat is wretchedly dry after all that speaking. I am sure I will expire if I don’t have a whiskey soon.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” Coulten said cheerfully. “For if you expire, how can I win back the twenty gold regals I lost to you last night?”
And he seized Rafferdy’s arm, towing him from the Hall.
T
HE TWO FOUND THEMSELVES in a great crush upon leaving, as the Hall of Citizens was letting out at the same time. Also, there was a sizable throng of people on Marble Street, as was usually the case these days. The people gathered near the foot of the steps that swept down from Assembly. The majority of them were ill clad and poorly washed, and they shouted and shook their fists as the members of Assembly came down the steps.
The particulars of their declarations were lost amid the cacophony of calls and yells, but from what snippets could be understood, their complaints mostly pertained to the exorbitant cost of food and candles, or the lack of decent work for men seeking employment in the city. Easier to make out were the insults, though the presence of a line of stern-faced soldiers made certain it was only words that were hurled toward those departing Assembly, and nothing more substantial.
Rafferdy and Coulten jostled their way down the steps, then climbed into one of the waiting carriages as the redcrests brandished rifles fitted with bayonets and kept the crowd at bay.
“They seem to grow more numerous and indignant each day,” Coulten said as the driver shut the door. He took off his wig,
which otherwise would have scraped the ceiling, and dabbed at his brow with a handkerchief. The carriage was like an oven inside, for the lumenal continued to stretch on. “I wonder why they keep letting such people into the city.”
“They’re fleeing the troubles in the Outlands,” Rafferdy said, gazing out the window as the carriage started to roll down the street. “Where else can they go?”
“To Torland, I suppose.”
Rafferdy gave him a sharp look. “And be conscripted to fight for Huntley Morden?”
“Better than to fight for him here, I should say.”
Rafferdy looked again out the carriage window and noticed, for the first time, how a few of the men in the crowd wore green ribbons tied around the white sleeves of their shirts. The Morden crest, of course, was a green hawk set against a white field.
He shook his head. “I would think they risk attracting the notice of the Gray Conclave by wearing an infamous symbol so openly.”
“That’s a curious thing to hear coming from you, Rafferdy.” Coulten gestured to the House ring in plain sight on Rafferdy’s right hand. In contrast, Coulten’s hands were covered by kidskin gloves.
Rafferdy looked at the blue stone set into his House ring. What did it matter if he wore it openly? Had he not already attracted the attention of Lady Shayde? And there was no one more prominent in the Gray Conclave than her—barring her master, Lord Valhaine, himself. No, there was no use covering it up now; it would only make him seem as if he had something to hide.
Which, of course, he did.
Rafferdy tightened his right hand into a fist, then pounded on the roof of the carriage. “Faster, man!” he cried out. “We are dying for whiskey in here!”
Fortunately, it was not far down Marble Street to the Silver Branch, and once free of the crowd before Assembly, the carriage proceeded swiftly to its destination. Rafferdy and Coulten disembarked
and, passing the pair of black-liveried guards that stood at either side of the door, entered the tavern which for more than two hundred years had been frequented by members of Assembly following a session.
And it seemed half of Assembly was already here. Rafferdy surveyed the scene, searching for a space. The heavy beams overhead were stained from years of tobacco smoke, and the eponymous branch hung from the centermost beam. It was more of a club than a branch, really: a heavy scepter gilded in silver, which long ago had been granted as a symbol of honor to the man who, it was deemed, had won an important debate in Assembly.
These days the branch was bolted to the beam, having too often in the past become an all too real weapon—one which was used to crack skulls when arguments from Assembly were rekindled and made hotter by drink.
“Over there,” Coulten said, pointing.
Several members of the New Wigs sat at the end of one of the tables, though like Rafferdy and Coulten they had removed their headpieces now that they were outside the Hall of Magnates. The young men waved and gestured to a pair of spaces they had reserved. Rafferdy waved back, and he and Coulten proceeded through the crowded tavern to join their companions.
They managed to catch a harried barkeep as he passed, seizing the bottle and cups from the tray he was carrying. The man began to protest that these were intended for the lords at another table, but his complaints were silenced by a half regal Coulten tossed on the tray, and so cups were filled and passed all around.
Rafferdy took a drink of his whiskey, then nearly choked upon it as he was subjected to a number of claps on the back. The other young men grinned, congratulating him on his work at Assembly that day. A few of them went so far as to propose they stand up on the table, wrench the silver branch from its the beam, and present it to Rafferdy as a tribute for putting Lord Davarry in his place.
To Rafferdy’s relief, this stunt was not attempted. They returned to their seats, and soon the conversation turned to other topics—namely,
who owed whom from last night’s game of dice. Rafferdy was allowed to drink his whiskey in peace, and he gave a sigh as he took a sip of the sweet, smoky liquid.
“Speaking of gambling, I’d wager we’re not the only ones who believe you bested Davarry today,” Coulten said, leaning to speak in Rafferdy’s ear so he could be heard over the din in the tavern. “Though I’d say some would just as soon strike you with the branch as hand it to you.”
Trying not to make a scene of it, Rafferdy glanced over the rim of his cup. After a moment he saw them: a group of younger Magisters, still in their bluish wigs, casting sour looks in his direction.
“Maybe they don’t like the taste of their punch,” Rafferdy said.
“Oh, they have a bad taste in their mouths, all right,” Coulten said cheerfully. “You made their leader look a fool—though he certainly lent you some help in that regard.”
Rafferdy raised his glass. “To Lord Davarry,” he said, and drank.
Coulten drank in turn. “I still don’t know why Davarry is so keen on that dreadful act,” he said, setting down his empty cup. “When Rothard was king, all the Magisters did was work against him. But now that the king is deceased, they’re all for shoring up royal authority.” He scratched his head, causing the mass of his hair to rise higher yet. “It hardly makes sense. Why are they for the Crown all of a sudden? After all, it’s not as if they’ll let the princess put it on her head.”
Coulten’s nature was so naturally cheerful and guileless that Rafferdy sometimes forgot that he could often be clever. His companion had raised a valid question. Previously, the only party in the House of Magnates that had supported the ultimate authority of the Crown was the Stouts. In contrast, the Magisters had always argued for the primacy of Assembly’s power.
Then two things had happened.
The first item was the dissolution of the Stouts. The violent murder of their leader, Lord Bastellon, followed shortly by the death of King Rothard, had dealt a similarly fatal blow to the Stouts. While it might have been expected they would rally together in their support of Princess Layle, this had not been the
case. King Rothard’s writ of succession had never been ratified, casting the entire matter of royal authority under a cloud of uncertainty.
A strong leader might have been able to galvanize the Stouts, but there was no one with Bastellon’s weight (at least not figuratively) to take his place. With neither a leader to guide them nor a crowned monarch to rally around, the party quickly unraveled. Some of its members left to join other parties, while a number retired from Assembly altogether, for the Stouts had always contained a disproportionate number of elderly lords.
With the Stouts out of the way, it appeared there would be nothing to stop the Hall of Magnates, led by the Magisters, from asserting the authority of Assembly over that of the Crown. That was, until another event occurred—namely the death of Lord Mertrand.
Whether Rafferdy and Coulten had perhaps had something to do with this, Rafferdy was still not entirely certain. Following Lord Eubrey’s death, Rafferdy and Coulten had quietly and anonymously spread rumors among the young men in the Hall of Magnates regarding Lord Mertrand and the occult order to which he belonged, the High Order of the Golden Door.
They did not reveal the horrible details they had learned: how Mertrand had recruited young men descended from the seven Old Houses and delivered them to the magician Mr. Gambrel (known to most as Lord Crayford), and how by means of awful magicks Gambrel turned them into gray men—lifeless shells that no longer housed a man’s soul but rather daemonic entities. All they did was say they had heard whispers that Mertrand had used some young men for ill purposes, and that he was to be avoided at all costs.
Rafferdy did not know if these rumors had helped to bring suspicion upon Lord Mertrand. Regardless, it was soon reported in the broadsheets that he had been linked to the death of Lord Bastellon, and though he professed his innocence, he was to be tried by the Gray Conclave. Then, before the trial could commence, Mertrand was found dead in his house in the New Quarter.
Or rather, some parts of him had been found, for his demise had reportedly been of a ghastly nature. The stories in the broadsheets claimed that he had been killed by an accident involving some magickal experiment.