The great hall of the cathedral was not really very well suited to be used for an assembly like this one. It was long and rectangular, arranged so that a single priest could stand at the altar at one end and look out over the rows of worshippers. At first the deputies had planned to put their speaker’s rostrum in front of the altar, but some of the radicals had objected to the way this separated the speaker from the rest of the body-and thus, symbolically, from the body politic, beginning the process that could only end in the exaltation of an individual over the community-
And so on. In the end, in a pattern Winter was beginning to recognize, a compromise was reached that was clearly inefficient and pleased no one. Wooden bleachers were erected along one long edge of the rectangle, displacing various Sworn Church paraphernalia. The benches curved around when they reached the far end of the room, thus cutting off the altar from sight. The speaker was placed against the other long wall, a curiously lopsided arrangement that left him only a short distance from some of his audience and a long way from others. But he was very definitely below them, and in any case by the time the seats had actually been built it was too late to go back and redo everything.
In front of the altar, on the far right of the speaker’s rostrum, the curved section of seats called the Bend was occupied by the Monarchists. They consisted of Peddoc and his ilk, offspring of powerful noble families, backed up by representatives of the larger merchants, Vordanai bankers, and other wealthy men. Opposite them, on the extreme left-hand side of the benches, were the Radicals, now a haphazard coalition of student revolutionaries, lowborn advocates of violent reform, and a few noble sons who had come under the seductive spell of Voulenne. Directly in front of the speaker was a large group variously called the Conservatives (by the Radicals), the Republicans (by the Monarchists), or simply the Center. This was not a cohesive group, but merely a collection of those who for whatever reason felt uncomfortable joining one extreme or the other, and was itself separated into subgroups based on class, shared interest, or simple association or friendship. Winter’s own spot was with Cyte, Cora, and a few of Cyte’s student friends who hadn’t joined the Radicals.
Why she should be a deputy at all was something Winter had often wondered. The grounds for membership were poorly defined. Everyone who had been present on the day of Danton’s assassination was invited, and a few more representatives had forced their way in by virtue of money or influence. Winter was theoretically there to represent Jane and the Leatherbacks, but Jane had given her no advice about what she was supposed to be doing.
In fact, she’d had only the briefest conversation with Jane since the assassination. They’d both attended the first meeting of the deputies after the queen’s surrender, but a few hours of discussion, punctuated by shouting and the occasional hurled inkwell, had been enough for Jane. She’d retreated to the safety of her headquarters on the other side of the river. Winter spent those few hours sitting beside her in silence, with Abby hanging between them like a curtain. When Jane left, Winter had mumbled something about needing to keep a watch on things here. The uncomprehending pain in Jane’s eyes made Winter want to vomit.
Since then, she’d felt duty-bound to attend these meetings, though increasingly that was because she had nothing else to do. Winter felt like she was drifting, alone and rudderless. Every day that passed was making matters worse with Jane, but she couldn’t face the pain of ripping open the wound so that it might begin to heal. Her only other attachment was to Janus and Marcus, and they were languishing in the Vendre with other officers of the Armsmen and the Royal Grenadiers, while the deputies tried to figure out what to do with them. All that Winter had left was her tenuous friendship with Cyte, and a vague sense of guilt that forced her to sit through these noisy, tedious sessions.
Cyte mouthed a greeting when she caught Winter’s eye, her actual words lost in the clamor of the deputies’ debate. Winter awkwardly crab-walked along the rows of benches until she reached her friend’s side and sat down between her and Cora.
“What’s going on?” she said, into Cyte’s ear.
“Same as yesterday,” Cyte said. “They’re trying to formalize the procedures for the final Deputies-General. Right now they’re stuck on the veto. The Monarchists want the queen to have the right to veto legislation. The Radicals know they don’t want a veto, but they can’t seem to decide what they want the queen’s role to be.”
“What do you think?”
Cyte shrugged. “Gareth proposed a veto, overridable by a two-thirds vote in the Deputies. It seemed like a good compromise, but neither side was listening. I just wish they would get on with it.” She sighed as there was a rustle in the Monarchist ranks. “And here’s Peddoc to make his daily petition.”
“Again?”
A shout of “Quiet!” came from the rostrum, and heavy thuds echoed through the chambers as the Patriot Guards on either side slammed the butts of their muskets against the floor. This eventually got the noise down to a level where a man could make himself heard, and Johann Maurisk, president of the assembly, laid his hands flat on his podium and cleared his throat.
How Maurisk had gotten himself elected president was another thing that was not clear to Winter. It had been in the first couple of days, when the heady mood of victory was still strong-if not for that, the deputies would still be arguing about whether they even needed a president. Maurisk’s background was with the student radicals, but his well-known association with the martyr Danton gave him enough cachet with the Center to get his nomination through.
It certainly wasn’t a job she would have signed up for, at any price. Maurisk seemed at home with the debates, though, which often ended up with president and deputy standing inches apart, shouting at full volume, spittle flying into each other’s faces. While the Patriot Guards were nominally charged with defending the assembly, keeping the deputies from coming to blows had become an important secondary duty.
“The floor recognizes Deputy Peddoc,” Maurisk said, in the resigned tones of someone who knows what is coming next.
Peddoc, dressed more colorfully and expensively than ever, got to his feet from his seat in the front row of the Monarchists. He raised his chin and extended one hand in the declamatory posture taught to rhetoric students at the University, in spite of the snickers and catcalls this provoked from the less educated members of the other parties.
“Brothers of the Deputies-General,” he said, “we have won the city. But we cannot simply rest easy on our victory!”
“‘Our’ victory?” Cyte said under her breath. “I don’t recall that he had much part in it.”
Winter snickered. Peddoc continued.
“The villain Orlanko waits, only a few days’ march to the north! Our scouts tell us the troops at Midvale are preparing to march. If we hope to retain what we have won, we must strike first! I propose that this assembly set aside all other business and call for volunteers for the Patriot Guard, for the purpose of moving immediately on the Last Duke’s camp!”
The Monarchists were clapping and cheering before Peddoc had finished, and there was a little bit of applause from the Center, but the Radicals listened in stony silence. Their leader, a young man named Dumorre, got to his feet and heaved an exaggerated sigh.
“We’ve heard this story before, Deputy Peddoc,” he said. “If Orlanko was going to march on Vordan City, don’t you think he would have done it by now?”
That was a fair enough point, Winter thought. The deputies had sent scouts to Midvale, and while their amateur reporting was a bit garbled, the general picture was of a great deal of activity but no actual marching. Peddoc had been demanding action for four days now, and it was quickly descending to the level of farce. Like a lot of other things around here.