The President's face settled as if he had just watched one wing of the building crumble away. Eunice Delcorio swore like a transportation sergeant.
"Wait out here, boys," said a huge man—soft-looking but not far short of two meters in height—in white priestly vestments. "You won't be needed."
He was speaking, Tyl saw through the open door, to a quartet of "hospital orderlies." They looked even more like shock troops than they had in the street, though these weren't carrying their staffs.
Eunice Delcorio swore again. The skin over her broad cheekbones had gone sallow with rage.
Father Laughlin appeared to be at ease and in perfect control of himself, but Tyl noticed that the priest ducked instinctively when he entered the room—though he would have had to be a full meter taller to bump his head on any of the lintels in the Palace of Government.
"Where's Trimer?" Delcorio demanded in a voice that climbed a note despite an evident attempt to control it.
"Bishop Trimer, you—" Laughlin began smoothly.
"Where's Trimer?"
"Holding a Service of Prayer for Harmony in the cathedral,"the priest said,no longer trying to hide the ragged edges of emotion behind an unctuous wall.
"He was told to be here!"said Berne, the City Prefect, breaking into the conversation because he was too overwhelmed by his own concerns to leave the matter to the President. He stepped toward the priest, his green jacket fluttering—a rangy mongrel snarling at a fat mastiff, which will certainly make a meal of it should the mastiff deign to try.
"Bishop Trimer appreciated the President's invitation," Laughlin said, turning and nodding courteously toward Delcorio. "He sent me in response to it. He was gracious enough to tell me that he had full confidence in my ability to report your concerns to him. But his first duty is to the Church—and to all members of his flock, rather than to the secular authorities who have their own duties."
The Chastain brothers were typical of those in the Consistory Room, men of good family gathered around the President not so much for their technical abilities but because they controlled large blocks of wealth and personnel on their estates. They watched from the edges of the room with the fascination of spectators at a bloody accident, saying nothing and looking away whenever the eyes of one of the principals glanced across them.
"All right," said Eunice Delcorio to her husband. Her eyes were as calm as the crust on a pool of lava. "Now you've got to recall troops. Tell him."
She pointed toward Marshal Dowell, scorning to look at the military commander directly.
"Your will, madam—" Dowell began with evident dislike.
"My will is that you station two regiments in the city at once, Marshal Dowell," Eunice Delcorio said with a voice that crackled like liquid oxygen flowing through a field of glass needles. "Or that you wait in the cells across the river until some successor of my husband chooses to release you."
"With your leave, sir," Dowell huffed in the direction of the President.
The Marshal was angry now, and it wasn't the earlier flashing of someone playing dangerous political games with his peers. He was lapsing into the normal frustration of a professional faced with laymen who didn't understand why he couldn't do something they thought was reasonable.
"Madam," Dowell continued with a bow to Eunice Delcorio, "your will impresses me, but it doesn't magically make transport for three thousand men and their equipment available on Two.It doesn't provide rations and accommodations for them here. And if executed with no more consideration than I've been able to give it in this room, away from my staff, it will almost certainly precipitate the very disasters that concern you."
"You—" Dowell went on.
"You—" Eunice Delcorio snapped.
"You—" the City Prefect shouted.
"You—" Father Laughlin interrupted weightily.
"You will all be silent!" said John Delcorio, and though the President did not appear to raise his voice to an exceptional level, none of the angry people squabbling in front of him continued to speak.
The two mercenary officers exchanged glances. It had occurred to both of them that any situation was salvageable if the man in charge retained the poise that President Delcorio was showing now.
"Gentlemen, Eunice," Delcorio said, articulating the thought the mercenaries had formed. "We are the government, not a mob of street brawlers. So long as we conduct ourselves calmly but firmly, this minor storm will be weathered and we will return to ordinary business."
He nodded to the priest."And to the business of God,to the Crusade on Two. Father Laughlin, I trust that Bishop Trimer will take all necessary precautions to prevent his name from being used by those who wish to stir up trouble?"
Delcorio's voice was calm, but nobody in the room doubted how intense the reaction might be if the priest did not respond properly.
"Of course, President Delcorio," Laughlin said, bowing low.
There was a slight motion on the western edge of the room as a door opened to pass a big woman floating in a gown of white chiffon. She wasn't announced by a greeter, and she made very little stir at this juncture in the proceedings as she slipped through the room to stand near Eunice Delcorio.
"Lord Berne," Delcorio continued to his tall prefect, "I expect your police to take prompt, firm action wherever trouble erupts." His eyes were piercing.
"Yes sir," Berne said, his willing enthusiasm pinned by his master's fierce gaze. Alone of the civilians in the room, he owed everything he had to his position in the government. The richness of his garments showed just how much he had acquired in that time.
"I've already done that,"he explained. "I've canceled leaves and my men have orders that all brawling is to be met with overwhelming force and the prisoners jailed. I've suspended normal release procedures for the duration of the emergency also."
Berne hesitated as the implications of what he had just announced struck him anew. "Ah,in accordance with your previous directions, sir. And your assurance that additional support would be available from the army as required."
Nobody spoke. The President nodded as he turned slowly to his military commander and said, "Marshal, I expect you to prepare for the transfer of two regular regiments back to the vicinity of the capital."
Dowell did not protest, but his lips pursed.
"Prepare, Marshal," Delcorio repeated harshly. "Or do you intend to inform me that you're no longer fit to perform your duties?"
"Sir," Dowell said. "As you order, of course."
"And you will further coordinate with the City Prefect so that the Executive Guard is ready to support the police if and when I order it?"
Not a command but a question, and a fierce promise of what would happen if the wrong answer were given.
"Yes sir,"Marshal Dowell repeated."As you order."Berne was nodding and rubbing his hands together as if trying to return life to them after a severe chill.
"Then, gentlemen . . ." Delcorio said, with warmth and a smile as engaging as his visage moments before had threatened. "I believe we can dismiss this gathering. Father Laughlin, convey my regrets to the Bishop that he couldn't be present, but that I trust implicitly his judgment as to how best to return civil life to its normal calm."