Sancia walked over and looked down on her.
“It’s not fair,” whispered Estelle. She was as pale as white sands. “I…I was going to live forever…I was going to do such amazing things…” She blinked and swallowed. “I did everything right. I did everything right.”
“No, you didn’t,” said Sancia. “Look at yourself. How could you think such a thing?”
Estelle’s eyes searched the skies, panicked. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go at all.”
Then she was still.
Sancia looked at her for a moment longer. Then she turned to Gregor.
He lay there, trapped in his lorica, staring at her with blank, sad eyes, and blood pooling at his side. She walked to him and said, “Come on. Let’s get you out of that thing.” She cut away the ties, and saw Estelle had seriously injured his arm. She made a crude wrapping to tie it off and helped him sit up. “There. There we go. Can you talk?”
He didn’t move, or speak.
“We need to get the hell out of here, Gregor. Now. Okay?” She glanced around, and grabbed the imperiat. Then she paused and looked at the box.
Clef was still sticking out of the lock. She slowly walked over to him, hesitated, and reached out and plucked him out.
<Clef?> she asked.
Nothing. Just silence, as she’d expected. The key just sat there in her hand.
“I’ll…I’ll find a way to fix you,” she said, sniffing and rubbing her eyes. “I promise. I…” Beleaguered, she looked out on the city. She could see a lot of the Candiano campo from there, and it looked like Dandolo troops were pouring through the gates.
She walked back over to Gregor. “Come on. Get up. It’s time for us to go.”
“Did it work?” said Berenice. “Is it over?”
Orso peered through the spyglass at the broken dome of the Mountain. “I can’t see shit! How am I supposed to know?”
“Ah — sir? You will want to look behind us.”
Orso lowered the spyglass and looked back into the Commons. Armored soldiers were pouring through the streets, bearing swords and espringals. They were all wearing yellow and white — Dandolo colors.
“Should we feel…good about this?” asked Berenice.
Orso looked at their faces. They looked grim and hard, the expressions of men who have been given permission to do ghastly things. “No,” he said. “No, we should not. You get going, Berenice.”
“What?” she said, startled.
“Sneak off somewhere. Down that road, or that one.” He pointed. “I’ll hold them up. I think they’re here for me, anyways. Get back to the crypt if you can. I’ll try and find you.”
“But sir…”
“Now,” he snapped.
She backed away, watching him for a moment, then turned and ran down a side road into the Commons.
Orso took a breath, puffed himself up, and marched toward the soldiers. “Evening, boys! How are you doing tonight? Uh, I am Orso Ignacio, and I—”
“Orso Ignacio!” shouted one of the soldiers. “Hypatus of Dandolo Chartered! You are hereby ordered to raise your hands and place your body and self upon the ground!”
“Yep,” said Orso. “Yep. Got it.” He lay down on the ground and sighed. “God. What a night.”
IV FOUNDRYSIDE
Any given innovation that empowers the individual will inevitably come to empower the powerful much, much more.
42
“The nature of the case is quite clear,” said Ofelia Dandolo, her harsh, cold voice echoing in the council chambers. Her fellow committee members nodded, their faces reserved yet severe. “Despite all that we have heard about Occidental nonsense…about rituals, and ancient mysteries, and murder, and treachery…Despite all of this unprovable fancy, at the end of the day, we have a man. A man who fabricated an incredibly dangerous, illegal device, which he then activated at his own test lexicon. A man who then used that device to invade and make war upon the Candiano campo. And finally, a man who then helped a second conspirator, still at large, to get to the famous Mountain of the Candianos, and then, using that same device, managed to almost completely destroy it.” Ofelia peered over the edge of the judicial lectern. “People died. Many people. This was an act of war. And thus, it is the decision of the Judiciary Committee of the Tevanni Council of Merchant Houses to respond to it as warfare.”
Orso sat in the tall, narrow cage hanging from the ceiling of the judiciary chambers, his long legs swinging through the gaps at the bottom, his chin in his hand. He yawned loudly.
“As the chair of the judiciary committee, I now ask: Does the defendant have anything to add to their final defense?” asked Ofelia Dandolo.
Orso raised his hand.
Ofelia looked around. “Anything at all?”
“Hey!” said Orso. He waved his hand.
“No?” She sniffed, surprised, and picked up the ceramic gavel to end the trial.
Orso sprang to his feet. “What about all the witnesses? The people who saw what happened in the Mountain? What about all the people who nearly died of mysterious attacks on the goddamn Candiano campo?”
Ofelia raised the gavel, her eyes cold. Her fellow committee members stared into the lecterns before them. “The committee decides what is pertinent to each case, and which witnesses shall give evidence,” she said. “It has made clear its decisions regarding each of those issues of which you speak. Such matters are closed, and are beyond the realm of defense.” She banged the gavel on the lectern. “The trial is concluded. I will now confer with the committee regarding your sentencing.” She leaned back in the chair and whispered with the other men at the lectern. All of them seemed to be nodding seriously.
Ofelia stood up at the lectern. “The judiciary committee,” she pronounced, “sentences you t—”
“Let me guess,” said Orso sourly. “Harpering.”
“To death by harpering,” she said, irritated. “Any final comments from the defendant?”
Orso raised his hand.
Ofelia exhaled softly through her nostrils. “Yes?”
“So, just to make sure here,” said Orso, “the judiciary committee must have unanimous consent from all active Tevanni merchant houses when sentencing someone to death for inter-house conflicts, right?”
Ofelia’s brow creased ever so slightly. “Yes…”
“Well, then. Then you can’t sentence me to death.”
The committee members exchanged an uncomfortable glance. “And why not?” demanded Ofelia.
“Because you need to have representatives from all the active, chartered merchant houses,” said Orso. “And you don’t.”
“What? Yes, we do!” she said. “Without Candiano, that leaves Dandolo, Morsini, and Michiel! It’s perfectly clear!”
“Is it?” said Orso. “When’s the last time you checked the charters?”
She froze. She looked back at her fellow committee members, who just shrugged. “W-why?” she asked.
“Why ask me? Check the charters.”
Ofelia summoned over an aide, gave them an order, and they all sat back to wait. “This,” said Ofelia, “is most assuredly an attempt to simply delay the court…”