Aline and I were hidden amongst the crowds, listening to the Duke. His speech was well written, and long on the themes of duty and honour – although he had an interesting way of conflating the two so that by the end of the speech duty and honour appeared to mean basically the same thing. They boiled down to: follow the laws and obey those of more noble blood.
The Duke stood on a broad dais, flanked by Shiballe on his right and his son, the boy I’d seen helping Bal Armidor, on his left. Dozens of guardsmen stood around the dais, keeping watch on the crowd. We stayed at the far end, as far away from the Ducal party as possible.
‘And now, my good citizens of Rijou,’ the Duke intoned, ‘the City Sage will speak the names of the noble families, that you might better know your duty to those of high blood.’
The City Sage was an old man who looked half-blind and more than half-senile to me. It was his job to recite the name of each noble house in turn; the more noble your blood in the eyes of the Gods, the further up the roster your name came and the later your name would be spoken.
‘Speak the names,’ the Duke instructed the Sage. ‘Speak the names, and let all here know that the City Sage speaks for the Gods and his word is beyond question.’
‘Calabrian,’ the Sage said in a wheezy voice, barely waiting for the Duke to finish.
A man in blue robes held up his fist. ‘Irobel Calabrian stands in Rijou!’ he called out.
There was a smattering of applause.
‘Oldeth,’ the Sage said.
Now a woman standing with her children raised her fist. ‘Mallia Oldeth stands in Rijou!’ she shouted.
More applause.
It went on like this for some time as they proceeded from minor nobility to higher stock. I asked myself how accurate the City Sage’s spell could be; did the Gods really recognise one man’s blood over another? Did they have a preference – and if so, what was it based on? I had no idea; in my experience they liked to see all kinds of it, and shed in quantity more than quality.
‘Humber,’ the Sage said.
Richel Humber: another noble, another declaration, another cheer.
I wondered how entertaining this was for the lower classes of the city – but these nobles were their landlords, their patrons, their customers, so it probably helped to keep track of who was alive and who was dead, which house had risen in prominence and which had fallen on hard times.
‘Barret,’ the Sage called.
‘Yerren.’
‘Quistellios.’
‘Zierry.’
And on it went, every noble house being listed, but still the name Tiarren had not been called.
‘We had better go,’ I said, taking Aline’s arm. ‘This isn’t going to work.’
She pulled away from me. ‘He hasn’t finished yet!’
‘Look,’ I said, pointing to the dais, where the Duke was preparing himself to speak. ‘The Sage has said all the names he’s going to. The Duke’s obviously last, since – just as obviously – he’s got the most noble blood.’
‘Jillard,’ the Sage called out, his voice no different than when he had called any other name before it.
‘Andreas Jillard stands in Rijou!’ the Duke shouted with practised ease. He held his fist up high to the cheering from the crowd. As it began to die down he kept it there and pumped his fist again until the cheering resumed. He did this three more times before stopping.
‘And now,’ he said, ‘I call the—’
‘Aline,’ said a wheezy voice.
Everyone looked to see who had spoken, but it was the City Sage, his eyes focused on nothing in particular, looking for all the world as if he’d said nothing important, unaware that every eye was upon him.
‘What?’ demanded the Duke.
Shiballe went over and shook the City Sage’s arm, saying something that looked unpleasant into his ear, but the old man ignored him.
‘Aline,’ he said again, as if nothing had happened.
There was dead silence as the Duke scanned the crowd. Even I was confused. The City Sage was calling her by her first name – why?
‘Aline, daughter of Lady Tiarren, stands in Rijou!’ Aline shouted.
Confused noises erupted from the crowd, and the Duke motioned for silence.
‘Aline, daughter of Lady Tiarren, stands in Rijou.’ She said it again, and it sounded as if she’d been practising this one sentence her whole life.
For my part, I still didn’t understand what was going on. Why had the Sage called her – and why call her last? And why call her by her first name, not her house name?
‘Silence!’ the Duke screamed when the noise grew again. ‘Who dares violate the sacred ritual of Ganath Kalila?’ he demanded, looking around, trying to spot Aline, who was still hidden by the crowds. ‘Who brings shame upon the Morning of Mercy?’
‘Seems like t’was your own Sage!’ someone in the crowd shouted.
As laughter rippled through the people, the Duke cried, ‘Who said that? Who spoke?’ and turned to Shiballe. ‘Find the man who talks back to his Duke. Find him and kill him.’
The crowd was silent again. So, time for me to speak up then. I sighed, then shouted, ‘Pardon me, your Lordship, but my understanding is that no one is ever killed on the Morning of Mercy – hence the name.’
‘Take that man,’ Shiballe shouted to the guards. ‘He is a criminal – an escaped convict, guilty of treason!’
The guards looked helpless as they tried to figure out how to get through the entire crowd to us.
‘The girl is false,’ the Duke cried. ‘She is – the Sage has made an error—’
‘The Sage cannot make an error,’ I shouted back. ‘He is speaking on behalf of the Gods, remember?’
‘The girl is false,’ he repeated. ‘Her blood is false. Her house does not exist. Even if it did, the Tiarrens were petty nobles, barely worthy of notice – so how could her name be called after that of – after that of more noble houses?’
Some of the other ‘petty nobles’ in the audience looked offended, but everyone kept silent.
‘“Let all here know that the City Sage speaks for the Gods and his word is beyond question”,’ I repeated. ‘Those are your very words, your Lordship.’
‘I—’
Shiballe whispered into his ear, and I heard him mutter, ‘Yes – yes, you’re right. I can.’
The Duke looked around his people and cried, ‘Men and women of Rijou!’ He had a warm smile on his face. ‘Rejoice! Rejoice, for as Ganath Kalila has made our city strong in the past, now shall it make us stronger in the future. I hereby declare, as is my right as Duke and Lord Ruler of the City of Rijou, that Ganath Kalila is extended. Today is the final day of the Blood Week. Let it stand as a reminder that we must always be vigilant, we must always be strong against our enemies. And tomorrow we shall come together again for a … for a festival. A feast! The Feast of Mercy! There will be food for all and—’
‘A high price,’ I shouted. ‘A high price for a nice meal.’
The Duke looked down at me from his dais all the way across the promenade. ‘And what does the Trattari have to say?’ he said, the scorn dripping from his voice. ‘A tatter-cloaked traitor, even to the tyrant he served: a traitor to the entire land. What wisdom do you have to say to the people of Rijou? Shall you tell us about your murderous King’s false laws?’
‘I have no wisdom,’ I said. ‘None at all. And certainly Rijou is the last place I would come to recite the King’s Laws.’