Wax pulled out the stack of papers in his left pocket. He tucked the dog and cat pictures at the back, then held the rest up to the room. “I have sixty letters from politicians in the Outer Cities here. They represent a large faction who don’t want conflict. These are reasonable people. They are willing — eager — to work with Elendel. But they are also frightened about what their people will do if we continue to impose tyrannical, imperial policies on them.
“I propose that we vote down this bill and work on something better. Something that actually promotes peace and unity. A national assembly, with representation for each Outer City — and an elected supreme official elevated by that body.”
He’d expected boos, and he got a few. But most of the chamber fell silent, watching him hold those letters aloft. They were afraid of letting power leave the capital. Afraid that Outer Cities politics would change their culture. They were cowards.
Maybe he was too, because the idea of the Set pulling strings terrified him. Who among those looking at him now were secretly their agents? Rusts, he didn’t even understand their motives. They wanted war — as a way to gain power, certainly. But there was more.
They followed orders from something known as Trell.
Wax turned around slowly, still holding the letters, and felt a little spike of alarm as he turned his back on Melstrom. He’s going to shoot, Wax thought.
“With all due respect, Lord Ladrian,” Melstrom said. “You are a new parent, and obviously don’t understand how to raise a child. You don’t give in to their demands; you hold firm, knowing that your decisions are best for them. They will eventually see reason. As a father is to a son, Elendel is to the Outer Cities.”
Right in the back, Wax thought, turning around.
He didn’t respond immediately. You wanted to aim return fire carefully. He’d made these arguments before — mostly in private — to many of the senators in this room. He was making headway, but he needed more time. With these letters, he could return to each senator, the ones on the fence, and share the words. The ideas. Persuade.
His gut said that if the vote happened today, the bill would pass. So, he hadn’t come here to repeat his arguments. He’d come with a bullet loaded in the chamber, ready to fire.
He folded up the letters and tucked them snugly into his pocket. Then he took the smaller stack — two sheets — from his other pocket. The ones that Steris had brought spares of in case he forgot. She’d probably made copies of the other stack too. And seven other things she knew he wouldn’t need — but it made her feel better to have them in her bag just in case. Rusts, that woman was delightful.
Wax held up the sheets and made a show of getting just the right light to read. “‘Dear Melstrom,’” he read out loud, “‘we are pleased by your willingness to see reason and continue to enforce Elendel trade superiority in the Basin. This is a wise choice. We will deliver half a percent of our shipping revenues for the next three years in exchange for your personal support of this bill. From Houses Hasting and Erikell.’”
The room erupted into chaos. Wax settled in, hooking his finger into his gunbelt, waiting for the cries of outrage to run their course. He met Melstrom’s eyes as the man sank back into his seat. The rusting idiot had just learned an important lesson: Don’t leave a paper trail detailing your corruption when your political opponent is a trained detective. Idiot.
As the shouts finally died down, Wax spoke again, louder this time. “I demand we hold impropriety hearings to investigate Senator Melstrom’s apparent sale of his vote in blatant violation of anti-corruption laws.”
“And by so doing,” the governor said, “delay the Elendel Supremacy Bill vote?”
“How could we vote on it,” Wax said, “if we aren’t sure the votes are being cast in good faith?”
More outrage. Wax weathered it as the governor consulted with his vice governor. She was a smart one. Anything Varlance accomplished that didn’t involve cutting a ribbon or kissing a baby was probably her doing.
As the chamber calmed, the governor looked to Wax. “I trust you have proof of this letter’s authenticity, Ladrian.”
“I have affidavits from three separate handwriting experts to prove it’s not a forgery,” Wax said. “And you’ll find my wife’s detailed account of the letter’s acquisition exhaustive and unimpugnable.”
“Then I suggest impropriety hearings follow,” the governor said. “After the vote on the Supremacy Bill.”
“But—” Wax said.
“We will,” the governor interrupted, “require Melstrom, Hasting, and Erikell to sit out the vote. Assuring that the vote is not corrupted.”
Damn.
Damn, damn, damn.
Before he could counter that, the vice governor slammed her gavel. “Votes in favor of continuing?”
Most of the hands on the Senate floor went up. For a simple vote like this, a more straw poll method would do — unless the vote turned out to be very close. It wasn’t.
The real vote, on the bill, would proceed.
“Have you any more explosions to detonate, Ladrian?” the governor said. “Or can we get on with this?”
“No more explosions, Your Honor,” Wax said with a sigh. “They were my old partner’s specialty anyway. Instead, I have a final plea to the chamber.” His maneuver had failed. Now he had one last card to play. A request not from Waxillium Ladrian.
But one from Dawnshot, the lawman.
“You all know me,” he said, turning around in a circle, meeting their eyes. “I’m a simple man from the Roughs. I don’t do politics right, but I do understand angry people and the hard lives of working women and men.
“If we’re going to take the role of parent, we should treat our children well. Give them a chance to speak for themselves. If we keep pretending they’re toddlers, they’re merely going to start ignoring us — at best. You want to send a message? Send the message that we care and are willing to listen.”
He took his seat finally, next to Yancey Yaceczko, a good-natured and patient fellow — and one of the senators who’d actually listened to Wax.
“Good show, Wax,” the man whispered, leaning in. “Good show indeed. It’s always a pleasure.”
Yancey would vote with him. In fact, a decent number of the nobles empathized with Wax. While a lot of the things Marasi had been saying recently made Wax uncomfortable about his hereditary position, in this instance the lords might turn out to be slightly less corrupt than their counterparts. The elected senators had to retain their seats, and voting for this bill was likely to improve the lives of their constituents.
That was the problem. According to the latest census, more people now lived outside the city than inside it. Most of the laws dated back to when there had been one city and a bunch of farming villages. Now that those villages had grown up into cities, their people wanted a stronger voice in Basin politics.
Elendel was no longer a scrappy settlement rebuilding after an apocalypse. They were a nation; even the Roughs were changing, growing, being modernized. Rusts, with all the land in the Roughs, he could imagine a time when more people lived there than in the Basin proper.
They needed to enfranchise those people, not ignore them. He still had hope. He and Steris and their allies had worked for months to erode support for the bill. Innumerable dinners, parties, and even — as he’d started doing for some of the city’s elite — some training on the shooting range.