Keeping the Fire: Votes and Appointments

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Voting is something to behold in Fortress Edgar. While it is clearly accepted and believed that king rules by divine mandate he, none the less, can be rendered powerless by his own ministers. It is an old tradition of the Fortress, dating back almost a thousand years, and it is the failsafe against the mad, the possessed, or the truly stupid. Polena was used to voting, but not like this kind, steeped in formality. In the Alliance one voted on every matter of public concern from the name of a street to the amount of “contributions” given to the state. Alliance citizens were apt to vote on anything, even in casual situations and even on a matter in which they all agreed. The senators and many unelected nobles or Council members who made all the greatest of decisions for the Alliance would likewise vote by a call of aye or nay. It was simple, succinct, and second nature to her. But in the Fortress the process took hours, and Polena soon saw why people had loathed it. Each Minister, from the lowest to the highest, was to be presented to the king by full name and title, gave brief remarks on the situation, and then gave their vote. Some, like all of the thirty ministers to the West, required certain rites or ceremonies be delivered before they could be presented, and others, particularly the High Adjudicator, were given to long winded or incendiary speeches in support of their vote. Through it all, Polena stood, stood and waited. She could see the Djaught Mehethe did the same. She had no more luck reading his face now than she had this morning.

She had promised the Djaught, on the first day she met with him in the Halls of the Pureblooded, that she would hear his bargain and give her response. She had put it off until this very morning, just before the vote, wishing to keep him off balance. He was a soldier however, and if he felt pressure he did not show it. He met with her in a little chamber outside of the Cleansing Shrine, where the believers in the Hinqwokha Ness of Fiedjan smudged themserlves before the grand assembly. He had even waited for her to bring up the matter before making his position known.

“As you remember, I am sure, I will expect your support at the vote today.”

“I do remember, and I much be willing if I was in the People's best interest.”

“I have come to offer security, protection for you and yours from the spies and assassins in this Fortress. I have also already allowed you into the Archives, and that access might be made permanent, so long as your Alliance is a friend to the Proper.” these were things she had expected, and he gave them both with out emotion, as if reading from a list. That dispassion made his last offer all the more surprising to her. “Finally, the fearsome and glory-clad armies of Fiedjan will march no further than Ruddywood Village, and will cede all the lands surrounding the village, up to the east mouth of the Dehali valley, to the People's Alliance of Creace without need of battle between us.”

“That would be most unexpected,” replied Polena, trying to keep her voice from cracking. Here, at last, was the war. The Dehali valley was almost sixty miles long and it the free towns within always considered themselves vassals of the Fortress, paying it tax in trade for the protection of the king's knights. Over the long centuries the Fortress had been forced to abandon much of the land it once claimed to one nation or another, but Dehali was on it very doorstep. Indeed, it was the main source of the Fortress's crops, the start of it's trade routes, and even held the only road that that ran down the spire the Fortress had been built upon. At the far east of that valley, the Alliance had an outpost. At the Far west, Fiedjan. This would be the war. Fiedjan, meant to take Dehali. Polena felt her heart sank to the lowest place in her being.

Looking back on it, Polena was not certain of the words she had used in her reply. Clearly, she had not said yes to the Djaught's terms, but she had not denied them either. When at last the vote had come and she stood upon the speaking platform and delivered her remarks with the care of intense memorization. These, she could remember, but they had been strong and flowery, full of idiom and metaphor familiar to the Fortress. In them she spoke of honor and friendship between the Fortress and went on at length about the deaths the Alliance had suffered at the hands of barbarians and bandits in Free Westa. Yet she had recited every damning blow against Djasho that she could muster. At the end of her speech, she had summed them up simply.

“Faith requires no proof. Identity demands it. Show us the tomb Djaught.” Mehethe's rage was a silent and burning storm. She had given him a chance to win his vote, yet, in the same stroke she had taken away whatever he would earn from it.

At last, the votes were formally tallied, but by then the careful watchers already knew the score. Alembic was nowhere to be seen, perhaps reacting already to what he assumed the result would be. Minister Tavya was at Polena's side as soon as the last speaker had stepped down. She was more angry than Polena had ever seen her, and the fact that she would wear her rage openly made it all the more frightening.

“Polena what was that? What was your plan?” she said, in a loud hissing whisper.

“I have done it already.

“You have done us in! The vote was in favor not against. The Fortress will have to send armies to aid the Proper.”

“If there is a tomb.”

“Of course there is a tomb!”

“How do you know? What proof do we have?”

“Because he says there is! Because he will take a scholar to that rotten den in the Dehali valley that his spies and soldiers have long coveted and that scholar will say it is here tomb.”

“Do you not think the king will send his own scholar?”

“Of course, but how many scholars of the Westin poems are there that did not come from the Proper?”

“None. But there is an absence. The Poet of the Hin-Hani Writings decided to leave his post yestereve. Certainly that word has reached you.” Her eyes found Delhay among the crowd, who was watching them both, clearly quite pleased with himself. “And as Minister of the Keepings,” Polena continued, taking Tavya's arm and leading her towards the speaking dias, “perhaps you could elect another, someone with knowledge of Westin Poetry, but who spoke the Eddinite tongue with fluency?”

Tavya's breathing was heavy. Polena watched her face go from wrath, to fear, to feigned satisfaction. Realizing that there was no time to be lost, she called out in her high and perfect diction for recognition by the Steward at the Foot, and made her request for an announcement. Polena watched the Steward at the Foot nod and walk to the Knight of the Nine Hours Watch, who sent a page to the king's ear. As he whispered his message to the king, Polena watched a short, sharp smile break across the king's face, then disappear again, like a fish leaping from the water. He called order before the votes and made his announcement of the new appointment with only a short preamble.

“It is most unusual for a Speaker to hold two posts, but not unheard of, especially since the post Poet of the Hin-Hani is of minor political importance.”

Polena watched carefully. As his ministers realized what was about to happen and whispered it into Mehethe's ear, his face was stone, but where he held his rod of office in hand, his knuckles were as white as the frozen snow.

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