“Someone like you, Harry?” I said. “That didn’t work out too well, the last time you tried.”
“I’ve been studying,” Harry said coldly. “Reading up on the family history, and all kinds of useful background knowledge.”
“He has,” said Roger. “I never knew there were so many books on the principles of leadership. I particularly enjoyed the Machiavelli.”
“Not really helping there, Roger,” said Harry.
“The council can continue to oversee the usual day-to-day stuff,” said the Sarjeant. “But only until a new leader is elected.”
“Harry has proved himself very competent in handling such matters,” said the Armourer.
“I always knew you’d make a good housekeeper, Harry,” I said.
“At least he gets involved!” snapped the Sarjeant. “It’s all very well to sneer at paperwork and bureaucracy, but you can’t run a family this size without it! If people like Harry didn’t keep on top of all the little things, our departments would grind to a halt, and you’d be left with no backup at all!”
“Oh, indeed,” I said. “It’s a wonder I get anything done. . . .”
The Armourer cleared his throat meaningfully, and I shut up. Only my uncle Jack could still make me feel like an errant schoolboy.
“If we are to hold another election,” said Harry, “then I must respectfully insist that all candidates be allowed sufficient time to campaign properly.”
“You want to bring politics into the Hall?” said the Armourer, scowling heavily. “Didn’t we have enough problems with the Zero Tolerance faction?”
“How will everyone know how good I’d be for the family unless I’m allowed to explain it to them?” said Harry, in his most reasonable voice.
“I love a good campaign,” said Molly, past a mouthful of popcorn. “I’ve already got a great slogan in mind. How about, ‘Vote for Eddie or I’ll Turn You into a Dung Beetle’?”
“I wish I thought she was joking,” said the Armourer.
“Any attempt by you to interfere with the family’s electoral process will result in your being banned from the Hall,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms, glaring at Molly.
“Love to see you try, Cedric,” said Molly, glaring right back at him.
“Really not helping, Molly,” I said.
“Whatever the result of the election,” said the Armourer, “should we also decide on a new Matriarch? As a constitutional position, perhaps? The family has always had a Matriarch. . . .”
“Tricky,” said Harry. “Do we appoint the next in line, or should the new Matriarch be elected, too?”
“Who is next in the line of succession?” I said. “I’ve never really kept up with that side of things.”
“Technically,” said the Armourer, “the Matriarchy is supposed to pass from mother to daughter, or granddaughter. Your mother would have been next in line, Eddie, but with her gone, and you her only child . . . the direct line of succession is broken. If James or I had produced a daughter, she would have been next in line. But I had only one son, and while James had many . . . offspring, only one has ever been acknowledged by the family, and that’s Harry. And before you say anything, Harry, yes, I know you have an absolute multitude of half sisters, by various mothers, but none of them can be accepted as legitimate successors.”
“Tradition,” said the Sarjeant, nodding solemnly.
“Daddy Dearest did put it about rather a lot,” murmured Harry. “I haven’t even met all my half brothers and half sisters.”
“He was very romantic,” the Armourer said firmly.
“We can’t simply appoint a Matriarch,” said the Sarjeant. “If we must have one, and I think we must, then tradition demands she be part of the line of descent, no matter how . . . fractured. Traditions are all we have to hold the family together.”
“My aunt Helen was Mother’s sister,” said the Armourer. “And she had a daughter, Margaret. I suppose . . .”
“Don’t recognise the name,” I said. “The family’s getting far too big. . . .”
“I could always organise a cull,” said the Sarjeant.
We all looked at him. He didn’t appear to be joking.
“Moving on,” I said. “Uncle Jack, what does Margaret do in the family?”
“Wait a minute!” said the Sarjeant. “You mean Capability Maggie! She’s in charge of landscaping the Hall grounds, maintaining the lawns and the lake and the woods, and all the creatures that live in them.”
“That’s her,” said the Armourer. “Devoted to her job. Raised a hell of a fuss when I dug up half an acre to bury that massive dragon’s head you sent back from Germany, Eddie. I mean, I covered it over again. . . . I think a new barrow adds personality to the garden. And it is the only part of the garden that can actually have a conversation with you when you walk past it.”
“Does she have Matriarch potential?” said Harry.
“She runs the gardeners with a rod of iron,” said the Sarjeant. “Sometimes literally. And she chased me twice around the Hall with a pitchfork that time I walked across her new seedlings.”
“Now, that I would have loved to see,” I said. “Hell, I’d have sold tickets.”
“I still say she should have put up a sign,” said the Sarjeant. “I’ll have a word with her. From a safe distance. Sound her out, see how she feels.”
“Are we still talking about a constitutional Matriarch?” I said. “Because I’m damned if I’m having some new Matriarch ruling over me with a pitchfork. What exactly would her powers and responsibilities be?”
“To be decided by the family, I suppose,” said the Armourer. “Or whoever the family elects as its new leader.”
“What’s she like, this Margaret?” I said, trying to hold the Armourer’s gaze, even as he seemed not to want to.
“Downright vicious, if you tread on her seedlings,” said the Sarjeant.
“Very . . . forceful,” said the Armourer. “Doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all, really.”
“Exactly the right sort,” said Harry.
I looked at him thoughtfully. “Will you be standing for leader in this new election, Harry?”
“Of course. I live to serve the family. How about you, Eddie?”
“The only reason I’d stand would be to prevent your taking command again, Harry.”
“How very unkind,” said Harry.
“The next item on the agenda,” said the Sarjeant quickly, “is the continuing problem of the Librarian.”
Everyone looked at William, still sitting quietly at his end of the table, lost in his own little world, as always. Even allowing for the dressing gown and bunny slippers, he looked fairly presentable. His hair and beard were neatly trimmed these days, because his new assistant Librarian, Ioreth, did it for him. But he still looked like he wasn’t eating nearly enough. William had a first-class mind some of the time, but he couldn’t always remember where he put it. He worked best when left alone with his beloved books in the Old Library, but here and now . . . He raised his great grey head suddenly and looked at me . . . and he had the cold thousand-yard stare of a soldier from some terrible forgotten war.
He hadn’t contributed a single word to the council meeting so far.
“How are you feeling, William?” I said, a bit loudly.
“Who can say?” William said sadly. “I’m here, because the Sarjeant said I was supposed to be here. Settle for that.”
I looked up into the rose red glow that marked Ethel’s presence. “I had hoped springing him from that asylum and bringing him home to the family might help him.”
“Sorry, Eddie,” said Ethel, her calm and kind voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. “I’m doing all I can to soothe his troubled brow, but someone has done a real number on this man’s mind. I can barely see into his head, and I can see into dimensions you don’t even have names for yet. Trying to sort through his thoughts is like drowning in a bucket of boiling cats. There’s a lot going on inside his mind, but it’s all going on at the same time. It’s a wonder to me he can even see the real world. He is fighting it, Eddie; but I think he’s losing. And . . .”