The Shadow Throne

CHAPTER TEN

RAESINIA

By the time she got away from Ohnlei, Raesinia was nearly frantic.

Things were happening, out in the city; the streets had taken fire. But she’d been stuck in her room in the palace until nearly dawn, greeting a steady stream of high-ranking messengers sent from her father’s sickroom, all coming to assure her that no news had yet emerged. They all knew he was going to die, of course, and all of these counts and other scions of nobility were eager to get their foot in the door with the new center of power. Raesinia greeted each one less courteously than the last, until she finally couldn’t stand it any longer. Sothe had put it about that the princess had gone into hysterics and been put to bed with a sleeping draught, and the two of them had escaped.

It was hard, not staying with her father. But Indergast wouldn’t let her be in the room with him, and in any case she thought that if he knew the whole story, he would approve. The good of the country and the Crown came first, even before family. Raesinia closed her eyes in a brief, silent prayer. One more day, Father. I know you’re in pain. Please, just give me one more day. Even the thought made her feel guilty.

The first light of day was just showing in the east, but torches and lanterns were still burning up and down the Dregs. All the cafés were packed, colored flags hanging limp in the hot, dead air, and armbands, sashes, and other proclamations of allegiance seemed to adorn everyone who passed the windows of her carriage. Raesinia put the string in her pocket and fingered the blue-green-gold butterfly pinned to her shoulder. She hadn’t seen anyone in those colors so far, and she was beginning to worry.

There were broadsheets and pamphlets everywhere, their smudgy ink still wet. Every hack writer and handpress in the city seemed to have sprung into action, and the boys who usually sold papers for a penny were giving away stacks of them to anyone who wanted to read. Anything more than an hour old was tossed aside in favor of the latest news, so the carriage wheels rattled and crunched down a street paved with discarded paper. Raesinia wondered how much paper there was in the warehouses of Vordan, and what would happen when it ran out.

She caught sight of the sign of the Blue Mask, but the density of the crowd increased, slowing the carriage’s pace to a crawl. Frustrated, she kicked the door open and hopped down into a swirl of excited, arguing young men. She edged around a contested space, where a wild knot of Utopians were arguing with a Rationalist sub-sub-subcommittee, and managed to make it to the edge of the street, up against the windows of a café. From here, she could see the blue-green-gold flag of the Mask, hanging in a long row with all the others.

Sothe materialized at her side. One nice thing about Sothe, Raesinia reflected. You never had to worry about waiting for her to catch up.

“This is a madhouse,” Raesinia said. “Half the University must be out here.”

“And more besides.” Sothe sounded grim. “This isn’t safe. We should go back.”

“We created this, Sothe. We can’t go back now. Besides, we’d never get the carriage turned around.” Raesinia tried to force a note of cheer into her voice, though she had to shout to be heard over the tumult. “Come on. Let’s see if the others are still here.”

They picked their way, slowly, through the crowd. Every faction and sect seemed to be out in force tonight, striving to take control of this critical moment with all the volume they could muster. Reunionists preached the virtues of a united Church, Republicans had taken up Danton’s call for the Deputies- General, and a thousand splintered bands of Utopians shook worn copies of Voulenne’s Rights of Man at one another. Gangs of Feudalists, with their antique flags, shouted at phalanxes of Monarchists, refighting the battles of Farus IV that had been dead and buried before Raesinia was born. And everywhere the papers, with huge, jagged type, letters in different styles, random splashes of ink from malfunctioning presses, anything the printers could think of to draw the eye. More carriages had gotten stuck and been abandoned by their passengers. The drivers sat playing cards on the boxes, resigned to waiting until the crowd broke up. Judging by the reek of horseshit, some of them had been there for a while.

After ten minutes of making progress only by vigorous application of her elbows, Raesinia broke into the clear. The street in front of the Mask was empty in a wide half circle around the doorway, as if it had been enchanted with an evil charm. The interior was dark, and it took Raesinia a moment to realize what was wrong-the big, expensive single-pane windows had been shattered and lay in glittering fragments all around.

“Oh God.” Raesinia took a step forward, automatically, and felt Sothe’s restraining hand on her arm. “What the hell happened?”

She looked around, wildly, and grabbed a hapless Individualist by the wrist. He squawked as she dragged him into the cursed, empty circle.

“What happened?” He stared at her, blankly, and she raised her voice. “What happened here?”

Her victim, a freckled boy with sandy brown hair and a bewildered look, glanced at the broken windows and shook his head.

“Concordat,” he said. “They raided quite a few places before the street really filled up. After that people started running them off.”

“Raided? What for?”

“How should I know? I heard they were just rounding up whoever they could find and hauling them off to the Vendre.” He brightened. “See, it proves the fundamental illegitimacy of collectivist ruling structures that, in a crisis, they must always resort to coercive measures or violence. A truly just polity would emerge spontaneously from-”

Raesinia left him to babble and grabbed for Sothe. “Orlanko’s people were here. They found us.”

“We don’t know that for certain,” Sothe said. “Other cafés were hit as well. But it’s possible.” She frowned. “I told you we couldn’t keep them off forever.”

“We have to find them,” Raesinia said.

“Don’t be foolish,” Sothe said. “If they were taken, they’re on their way to the Vendre.”

“We have to find them. You know what happens to people in there!”

Sothe fixed Raesinia with a withering look. “Of course I do. And I know what Orlanko will do to you if he discovers you’re involved.”

“But. .” Inspiration struck. “They know me, don’t they? When he starts asking for information, they’ll give him a description, and Orlanko will be able to put the pieces together if anyone will.”

“They might not talk,” Sothe said, but she looked unhappy.

“Everybody talks, eventually. You told me that, Sothe.”

“I know.”

“Then let’s go! If all the streets are as crowded as this one, they can’t have gotten far. We can-”

“Stage a rescue? Have you got a bag of bombs under your skirt you didn’t tell me about?” Sothe shook her head, a calculating look in her eye. “I’ll go. You stay here.”

“You know I won’t be in danger-”

“You will be,” Sothe said. “You may not be able to die, but if you get caught, we lose everything.”

“What if they catch you and make you talk?”

Sothe smiled grimly. “Believe me, I have plans against that contingency.”

“But-”

“Besides, I’ll move faster without you. Just stay here. Stay in the crowd, and keep your head down. I’ll find a way to get word to you as soon as I have news.” She glanced at the ruined Mask. “And stay away from this place. It may be watched.”

“Sothe. .”

“We don’t have time to argue about this.”

“I know.” Raesinia took a deep breath. “Just. . bring them back, all right? And be sure to come back yourself, too.”

“I’ll do my best.” Sothe gripped Raesinia’s hand for a moment, squeezed, and let it fall. “Remember. Stay where there’s a crowd, and don’t do anything to get their attention.”

Raesinia nodded, her throat suddenly thick. Sothe turned on her heel and stepped into the crowd, slipping through the packed street like a ghost. She was lost to sight in moments.

Beast, Raesinia swore, alone in a semicircle of clear cobbles. Balls of the fucking Beast. She’d always known this was a possibility, of course. The whole conspiracy had been a desperate throw of the dice. Once it became clear that her father wouldn’t live out the year, she’d had no other choice. Only a popular uprising against the Last Duke could free the kingdom of his malign influence, and so she’d set about creating one. But it wasn’t supposed to happen like this. What possessed Vhalnich to arrest Danton? I thought he was smarter than that.

The sound of someone calling her name made her jump. It was accompanied by a wooden crash and a lot of swearing. Raesinia turned and saw a light flickering somewhere inside the ruined coffee shop.

“Raes!” The voice was hoarse, desperate. It was Ben. Oh, hell. “Raes!”

Raesinia spit a curse and ran inside the Blue Mask.

The common room had been comprehensively destroyed. Every table lay in splinters, the chairs had been kicked to pieces, and the intricate bronze-and-copper coffee apparatus on the bar lay in twisted metal fragments. Broken wine bottles were everywhere, and the smell of the stuff, slopped on the floor and soaking into the rugs, made Raesinia’s head spin. It was mixed with the reek of urine from a smashed chamber pot, and the gritty, earthy smell of powder smoke.

The light was coming from the back, where the conspiracy had held their meetings. Raesinia passed through the smashed door and hurried across the wine-stained footprints. The door to their room was broken, too, and the table they’d sat around had been overturned. Ben was standing by the window, peering carefully around a jagged rim of shattered glass.

“Ben?”

He turned around, narrowly avoiding cutting his arm open on the remains of the windowpane. “Raes!”

She barely had time to brace before he was on top of her, both arms wrapped around her in a bear hug. His lantern, hanging forgotten in one hand, swung wildly and clipped her painfully in the small of her back, but she managed not to make a sound. Her feet briefly left the floor, and his scratchy, unshaven cheek was pressed against hers.

“Thank God,” he was saying. “Thank God. I thought they’d got you.”

“Ben. I’m fine. Please.” He didn’t show any sign of letting go, so Raesinia wriggled her arm loose and pried him off. “Ben! I’m fine, really. What happened? Where are the others?”

His eyes, bloodshot and teary, took a moment to focus on her, and he swallowed hard. “I haven’t seen Sarton. Maurisk is in some kind of meeting with the other groups. They’re trying to decide what to do, but when I left they weren’t getting anywhere. I lost Faro somewhere in the crowd, but he’s okay, I think. Cora. .”

He paused.

“What happened to Cora?” Raesinia said, the pit in her stomach yawning wider.

“They took her,” Ben said. “The Concordat. I was across the street when they got here, a dozen men. They broke the door down, smashed the windows, and started chasing people out of the place. They must have been here for us. They just let everyone else get away. A couple of them were searching, smashing everything, and then they brought Cora outside and put her in a wagon. I wanted. .” His fists clenched. “I wanted to help her. But there was nobody on the street then. And I wanted to warn you, and the others-”

“It’s all right,” Raesinia said. Her stomach felt sick-not a sensation she encountered much anymore-but Ben was clearly on the point of hysteria and needed reassurance. “We’ll find her. Ben, listen. I have an idea. Once things calm down-”

“Actually,” said a voice behind them, “you’ll see her much sooner than that.”

There were two men in the shattered doorway, in shabby trousers and slouch caps. They looked like University students, but the one in front carried himself in a fighter’s crouch, and his compatriot held a cocked and loaded pistol. Raesinia froze.

“What?” said Ben, slightly slower on the uptake. “Who are you?”

“They’re Concordat,” Raesinia said. “I imagine they were waiting for us.”

“Very good.” The leader inclined his head slightly. “I am Andreas, and I do indeed serve His Grace the Minister of Information. You are Benjamin Cooper, I believe, and you are the mysterious Raesinia with all the bright ideas. Please don’t try anything heroic. My companion is an excellent shot.” His face was blank, but there was something hot and bright in his eyes, as though he wished they would try something. Raesinia risked a glance over her shoulder and saw another pair of figures through the window, waiting in the alley outside.

“What do you want?” Ben said.

Andreas shrugged. “His Grace would like you to answer a few questions. If you’ll come with us, I assure you that you will not be harmed.”

Fuck. Raesinia ran through scenarios in her head. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Andreas obviously hadn’t recognized her on sight, but if she was taken to the Vendre, it would only be a matter of time. A quick escape might work, but it would leave Ben behind. And Sothe is halfway to the Vendre herself by now. She spit a silent curse at herself for ignoring her maid’s advice. Of course Orlanko would leave someone to watch the place. Oh, saints and martyrs.

Now what?

Her eyes flicked to Ben and she found him looking back at her. Raesinia’s heart gave a sickening lurch as she realized he was about to do something stupid.

No, no, no, I’ll think of something. Don’t-

“Raes, run!”

Ben threw himself forward, head lowered like a bull. He covered the distance to the doorway surprisingly quickly for someone of his bulk, but not quickly enough to prevent the Concordat agent from pulling the trigger. Raesinia saw blood spray from Ben’s back, but the impact wasn’t enough to stop him, and he crashed into the gunman with all the momentum he could muster and slammed him against the opposite wall, sending the pistol clattering to the floor.

Andreas spun sideways, slick as an eel, still blocking the corridor leading to the front room. Raesinia forced herself into motion, hard on Ben’s heels. She bounced off the corridor wall, faked one way, and darted the other, trying to slip past the Concordat agent’s outspread arms. He followed her easily, and as she tried to squirm by he grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her back toward him. His other hand went to her elbow, palm out, forcing her arm into a painful lock and pushing her to the floor.

At least, that’s how it would have worked on any normal human being. Raesinia let him pull her around, gritted her teeth, and kept coming. Something in her elbow went crunch, and then the bones of her forearm broke with an audible snap. The second of surprise this bought her was enough to deliver a quick kick to the back of Andreas’ knee, folding his leg up around the blow and sending him toppling to the floor. Raesinia met his jaw with one of her knees on the way down for good measure. She heard the clack as his teeth met, and his hands slipped off her shattered arm.

Ben was still on his feet, barely, with the other Concordat agent slumped against the wall in front of him. The front of his shirt was slick with blood, as though someone had hit him full in the chest with a bucket of red paint. She grabbed his arm with her good hand and pulled, and he stumbled into motion, but the movement sent fresh waves of red into his already sodden clothing.

The common room of the Mask was shattered and empty. By the time they reached the front door, Ben was weaving, and his legs gave out after they’d taken a few steps into the cobbled street. Raesinia tried to support him, forgetting that she had only one arm to do it with, and they both went down in a tangled, gory heap. Raesinia pushed herself up one-handed, letting Ben roll onto his back.

He gasped for air and tried to speak, but his voice was so thin she had to bend close to hear.

“Run,” he said. “Raes. . run. .”

Instead she shouted for help. A few eyes had already turned their way, but it took a moment for the crowd to realize what was happening. Then a woman screamed, high and shrill, and people surged forward in an effort to find out what was going on. Raesinia looked up at the Mask and thought she saw Andreas, framed in the rear door of the common room. He was gone almost at once. They won’t dare, she thought. Not in the crowd, not tonight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have listened to Sothe. Oh, Ben. .

“A doctor!” she said, to the first young man whose attention she managed to catch. “I need a doctor. Now!”

But, turning back to Ben, she saw it was obvious that he had passed beyond the help of any earthly medicine. Blood pulsed from the hole in his chest with every heartbeat, but the stream was weakening into a trickle even as she watched. His lips moved, and she bent close to hear.

“Raes. .” His breath was ragged. “I. . I l. . lov. .”

“I know.” Her eyes were rimmed with tears. “You weren’t exactly subtle about it, Ben. Who did you think you were fooling?”

She leaned across his body, gore squishing in their clothes, and pressed her lips to his. His mouth was full of the warm, coppery taste of blood.

By the time she straightened up, even the trickle from his wound had ceased. Raesinia climbed wearily to her feet, her own shirt dripping and ruined, her face smeared with red. She straightened her arm and felt the binding going to work, broken ends of bone snapping together like a pair of magnets, the ruined joint rebuilding itself as muscles reknit around it.

She was surrounded by a ring of nervous onlookers, not wanting to get too close to the gory spectacle but pressed near by the mass of those behind who wanted to see. Raesinia touched the butterfly pin at her shoulder, leaving a smear of blood over the colors.

“This man was just murdered by a Concordat agent,” she said. Quietly at first, then again, louder. “This man was just murdered by a Concordat agent!”

I’m sorry, Ben. Whether or not she’d returned his love, he’d been her friend; one of her only friends, if she was being honest. Though, in an odd way, she thought he would approve of being used as a symbol. He would understand that we need to keep moving forward. Later, in private, there would be time to mourn.

“Who is in charge here?” she said, shouting to be heard over the babble that had broken out. She raised one red-stained hand to point a finger, scanning round the circle. “Who’s in charge?”

“There’s a council,” someone offered. “At the Gold Sovereign.”

“They’re not really in charge,” someone else said. “They just like to argue.”

“The notion of someone being in ‘charge’ is fundamentally illegitimate,” said a third, “and indeed emblematic of a failed notion of the management of human affairs-”

“Take me there,” Raesinia said. When this failed to produce an effect, she swung her arm, spattering the first rank with thickening drops of Ben’s blood. “Now!”

They took her to the council. First, though, she consented to an offer from a stout middle-aged woman who turned out to be a proprietress of a nearby boardinghouse, and went for a quick sluice-down and a change of clothes. She emerged, not exactly clean-her hair was a fright, in spite of several washes-but not looking as if she’d just stepped out of a slaughterhouse. The only clothes the woman had been able to find to fit her was a young girl’s sundress, pale green linen with foaming lace sleeves that Raesinia had torn off and thrown away. She kept the three-color butterfly pin, now filmed with crusty red.

The Gold Sovereign was an ostentatiously expensive café on the corner of the Old Road and Second Avenue, done up in a faux-baroque style complete with gilded plaster columns in the facade. Its blue-red-silver flag proclaimed it a bastion of the Monarchists, and Raesinia knew by reputation that it played host to gatherings of those University students who moved in the most elevated social circles-the children of counts and other noble relatives, with a leavening of families who had been wealthy long enough to merit a kind of quasi-nobility. Even in the current state of emergency, the place had maintained an air of reserve, and two footmen in long coats and white gloves stood beside its door, to keep out the rabble.

Faro was also standing by the door, tapping his foot and fiddling nervously with the grip of his dress sword. The crowd was thinner here, and he saw Raesinia coming up the street and hurried to meet her.

“My God,” he said. “Raes, are you all right? They told me something happened-”

“Who else is here?” Raesinia said.

“Maurisk is inside. I heard a rumor that Sarton was picked up outside his apartment, but no one seems to know for certain. I haven’t seen him. And you know they arrested Danton yesterday.”

“They snatched Cora from the Mask,” Raesinia said, her voice carefully controlled. “And Ben is dead.”

“Oh no. You’re certain?”

She wanted to scream at him, I practically took a bath in his fucking blood-of course I’m certain! With an effort, she kept her tone level. “I was with him. We went into the Mask to see if anyone was still there, and Orlanko’s people were waiting for us. He helped me get away, and got shot in the process.”

“Balls of the Beast,” Faro swore quietly.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“What the hell do we do now? They obviously know who we are. Maybe if we got out of the city-”

That seemed a little cold to Raesinia, but Faro had never been one to worry about others when his own skin was endangered. For all that, Raesinia felt sorry for him. In spite of his protests that he was just as serious about the cause as any of the others, he’d always treated the conspiracy like a game, and now things were in deadly earnest.

“Don’t fool yourself,” Raesinia said. “You can’t get far enough, fast enough that Orlanko won’t find you.”

“Then we might as well turn ourselves in now and save him the trouble,” Faro said. “Once all this dies down-”

“We can’t let it,” Raesinia said. “I know we planned on having more time, but this is it, Faro. If we can’t pull it off now, we never will.”

“But. .” He gaped at her. “We’re not ready. We’ve barely even started! We were going to arrange the Deputies, and contact the Armsmen, and get Danton to talk about. . I mean. .”

“We’re out of time.” Raesinia took a deep breath. “The king is dying. Soon. Tonight, maybe.”

“Saints and martyrs. If that girl gets on the throne, it’s all over. Orlanko might as well put the crown on himself.”

“I think she’ll listen to us,” Raesinia said dryly. “If we can show her that the people won’t stand for Orlanko and his Borelgai allies running things. That means today, while they’re still angry. I don’t know what the duke thinks he’s doing with all these arrests, but he’s got half the city up in arms.”

“There’s a rumor it’s the new Minister of Justice’s doing. Apparently Orlanko didn’t want Danton arrested, but this Count Mieran overruled him.”

“That has to be a lie,” Raesinia said. Father said I could trust him. “I mean, from what I’ve heard of Count Mieran, he and Orlanko hate each other. And it was definitely a Concordat team waiting for us at the Mask.”

Faro shrugged. “I’ve heard more stories tonight than I care to count. It doesn’t really matter one way or the other, though, does it? What are we actually going to do? We haven’t got anything prepared. We don’t even have any way to get to our money without Cora. What does that leave? Send Maurisk in to argue politics with the duke?”

“We need them.” Raesinia waved a hand at the street, now outlined in the soft light of the rising sun. The crowd had only grown larger since daybreak, a new wave of early risers mixing with those who’d been unable to sleep. “This mob is in the wrong place. If we could get them over to the Vendre-”

“What? We’d storm the walls?”

“We could threaten to. Pressure them into letting Danton go.”

“That’s pretty thin, Raes.”

“Look at it from their point of view. How are they going to get rid of us?”

“Canister,” Faro said promptly. “Double load at thirty paces. There’ll be arms and legs all over the square.”

“Even Orlanko wouldn’t dare. The whole city would turn on him.”

“Are you certain enough that you’d be first in line?”

“I would.”

Easy for me to say. Though she had to admit she’d never been dismembered. She wondered what would happen. Would my arms and legs grow back, or would I have to go around and collect them?

Faro threw up his hands. “What’s the use in talking about it? You haven’t been listening to them argue in there. I don’t think you could get this lot to agree that the sun rises in the east, and that happened not ten minutes ago.” He shook his head. “I want to help Cora, too. But we’re not going to do it by climbing the walls of the Vendre.”

“Danton could get them to do it.”

“Danton could talk them into forming a human pyramid so he could drive over the walls in a cart,” Faro said. “But we haven’t got Danton. That’s the whole problem.”

“Let me talk to them.”

She brushed past him, and Faro fell in behind her. He waved to the footmen, and they held the door of the Gold Sovereign open to admit her.

“Raes,” Faro said.

“What?”

“Ben. He’s. . really dead?”

She closed her eyes. Her lips still tasted faintly of blood. “He’s dead.”

“Damn.” He repeated it under his breath, like a mantra. “Damn, damn, damn. .”

The common room of the Gold Sovereign looked as if it belonged in a castle somewhere. The walls were covered with embroidered heraldry, dominated by the Orboan eagle, interspersed with polished swords, axes, and other weapons, each of which presumably boasted a storied history. There was even a suit of armor, complete with halberd, standing sentry by the stairs in the back. A huge fireplace filled one wall, dark and cold now in the summer heat, and high-backed chairs in the old medieval style were arranged in loose circles around polished marble tables. The general impression was that one had stepped into a duke’s sitting room from four hundred years ago, and the only concessions to commerce were the discreet bar in one corner hosting assorted liquor and the coffee-making paraphernalia.

The way the current occupants were carrying on made Raesinia hope that all those weapons were securely bolted down. The “council” looked as though it might dissolve into a brawl at any moment. The various factions seemed to have settled into three rough groups under the pressure of their mutual antipathy, dragging the chairs together to maintain maximum separation from one another.

The largest group, closest to the bar, was easy to identify by their expensive, fashionable costumes. These were the Monarchists and their allies, the guardians of the old order, in their natural habitat here in the Sovereign and plainly resenting the newcomers. Quite a few of them were armed, though mostly with gilt- and gem-encrusted dress swords like Faro’s. They aped the styles that were fashionable at court, but to Raesinia, who had seen the real thing, they looked too young and too uncertain in their finery, like children playing dress-up in their fathers’ wardrobe. There were, she was not surprised to find, no women among them.

Maurisk’s presence at the head of the second group identified them as the Reformers and associated sects, who wanted to tinker with the social order but not smash it entirely to pieces. They were well dressed, too, but in more sober clothing befitting their mostly commercial origins. Maurisk caught Raesinia’s eye, and she tried to smile, but his expression remained grave.

The third group, by process of elimination, was the Radicals, including the Republicans, the Individualists, and any number of other flavors of wild-eyed freethinkers and devotees of Voulenne. They were the most varied collection, by far, looking almost like an artist’s depiction of a cross section of Vordanai society-everything from noble finery to mendicant’s rags seemed to be represented. There were women among them, too, mostly the rare female University students whose dress Raesinia had affected. Unlike the other two groups, the Radicals still wore the badges of their individual cafés, taverns, and gathering places, and their rear ranks seemed to be engaged in a continual low-grade grumble of argument.

The shouting match that had been in progress when the door opened trailed off as Raesinia and Faro came in, and all eyes were suddenly on them. Raesinia searched the faces of the Monarchists, suddenly nervous. It was just possible that one of them had met her in person, at a party or a court function, and she held her breath waiting for a sudden shout of recognition. It didn’t come.

“Another one for the loonies, then?” said the young man sitting at the head of the Monarchist cluster. There was a titter of laughter from behind him.

“She’s with me,” Maurisk said, setting off a storm of chatter in his own faction. “Raesinia, come here.”

“I see,” said the Monarchist. “Will little girls be allowed in the new Deputies-General, then?”

“I’m not here to join anyone,” Raesinia said, a little too loudly. “And I’m not here to argue.”

“Then why are you here?” the Monarchist said. “Not for coffee, I assume?”

She waited for the laughter to die down. “Might I have your name, sir?”

He inclined his head. “I am Alfred Peddoc sur Volmire, at your service.”

Raesinia turned to the Radicals, who seemed to be represented by a young man in slightly shabby linen and a woman all in baggy, shapeless blacks. “And you?”

“Robert Dumorre,” he said, flicking his eyes to the woman. “We all call her Cyte, but-”

“Cytomandiclea,” she said. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and she’d used something to darken her eyes. It made her look more adult, but Raesinia suspected she was actually no older than herself.

“I,” Raesinia said, “am Raesinia Smith. A half hour ago, a Concordat agent tried to kill me. One of my dearest friends was shot, and died in my arms. For all I know, he’s still lying there.” She took a long breath as a chorus of whispers ran through the room. “I would wager that everyone here knows someone who was arrested last night. I am here to ask you what you’re going to do about it.”

“Speak for yourself,” Peddoc snapped. “You have my deepest sympathies for your loss, of course, but if your friends came to the attention of the Ministry of Information I think you’ve been moving in the wrong company.”

“The kind of company that cares about the truth,” Cyte said. “The kind of company that-”

“She has a point,” Maurisk said. “This isn’t just a few madmen disappearing. I don’t know how many have been taken, but it’s got to be hundreds at least. And I’ve heard worse things, Free Church priests-”

“Rumors,” Peddoc snorted. “His Grace does what he must to restore order.”

“He’s taken Danton,” Cyte said.

Raesinia caught the troubled expression on Peddoc’s face. In spite of his haughty pretensions, the fact that he and his friends were here at all said something, and Raesinia suspected he was more disturbed than he let on.

“Danton was. . causing trouble,” Peddoc said, finally. “I’m sure he was taken in for his own safety. In any case, everyone knows it was the Armsmen who arrested him, not His Grace the duke. If you want to blame someone, blame this Count Mieran.”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Cyte. “You think some count fresh from Khandar can take a step at Ohnlei without Orlanko’s approval?”

There were murmurs of approval at this, even from among the Monarchists. Raesinia wasn’t sure she wanted to encourage this notion of the duke as an all-powerful bogeyman, but for the moment she would use what she had. She nodded at Cyte and said, “You must have seen what’s happening outside. Those people are waiting for someone to lead them.”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to do,” said Dumorre. He had the deep, commanding voice of a stage actor. “If our friends here would stop quibbling over every minor point.”

“We wouldn’t need to if you could come up with a declaration of principles that didn’t double as an attack on the very foundations of society,” Peddoc said. He turned to glare at Maurisk. “And if your lot would agree on what they actually wanted.”

“The Deputies-General, to start with,” Maurisk said, but he was almost immediately overwhelmed by cries from behind him. Raesinia heard “Representation by classes!” “Respect for the public purse!” and considerable argument about vetoes and powers before Maurisk managed to reestablish silence with a baleful look.

“We’re not going to get anything by staying here,” Raesinia said. “You all know the king may be dying. If we let this chance slip away, and Orlanko consolidates his control, there’ll be no stopping him. You”-she looked at Maurisk and his fractious backers-“will lose your best chance to change things. And you”-this was to Peddoc-“will end up with a Vordanai queen with Borelgai hands wrapped around her throat!”

She rounded on Cyte and Dumorre. “And you have a choice. You can stay in here and argue about what Voulenne would want, or you can actually try to make something happen. I know what Danton would tell you, even if it wasn’t him they’d locked up.”

It was working; she could feel it. She’d written Danton’s speeches, after all, and everyone here had heard them. While she lacked the orator’s awesome personal magnetism, her words echoed the ones he’d spoken well enough to call him to mind. Peddoc’s eyes were still wary, but the mass of young men behind him were less restrained, and there were even a few attempts at a cheer.

“That’s all well and good,” Dumorre said. “But if we don’t have some kind of declaration of principles, how do we know what we’re fighting for? It’s one thing to say we want to cast down Orlanko-”

“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.”