Roam: Chapter 09

Chapter 9

Characters

• Young Sural Pavinny Ops, S.
• Hessal Varagy, C.
• Alandal Rulper, A.
• Derephal Tegol Seragas, B.
• Otibryal Gaegny Moverant, O.
• Coughy Pagnal Juctor, C.
• Ambassador Onem Starling
• General Ife Tusk
• Oba Tusk
• Haital
• Flashy Donimal Juctor Qualens, O.
• Crooked Nusal Candoam, C.
• Vain Varbal Qualens Juctor, C.
• Prellal Juctor-Amussal, M.
• Rash Donimal Sarevir, G.
• Jumpy Pronimal Juctor Candoam, C.
• Uvinal Voriel-Cuinsal Sarevir, M.
• Crooked Otibryal Candoam Voriel, M.
• Vain Prellal Qualens Juctor, C.
• Rambling Parytal Voriel-Cuinsal, B.
• Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal Candoam, O.
• (Squinty Venitsal Voriel-Otibryal Juctor, W.)
• Dense Venitsal Voriel-Otibryal, M.
• (Late Erinvyal Sarevir Voriel, W.)
• (Curly Coltal Candoam Juctor, G.)
• Loud Gibral Oscumy Osty, C.
• Ambyal Voriel Candoam, C.
• Scruval Qualens, C.

Locations

• Lover's Forum
• Senate House

Contents

Young Sural Pavinny Ops

Young Sural was a man of tradition, a connoisseur of where habit crossed into ritual. Life made more sense that way; consistent and structured. There were small traditions like how he took his meals and watered his plants, medium traditions like how he visited his family and friends, keeping in touch at least by letter once a month if he could not host or be hosted, and long traditions like the calendar of Roam with its public holidays and religious festivals as Roam-Beast resolutely circled Scalify, and the seasons, seed to plant to harvest. Traditions were the trellis upon which civilisations grew; the weave against which stray threads could be noticed. Traditions were important, particularly those entrusted from previous generations for him and his fellow citizens to nurture before solemnly handing on to the next. They weren’t truly his to second-guess, but bound by a contract with his ancestors, a river of ghosts whose jumbled names swam through the streets of the city and blood-soaked fields and valleys of the country below, and owed to his descendants. It was a curious irony of life that recognition of the value of tradition was obscured from the young, so full of vinegar, and only unveiled to those who survived their follies and rebellions, but had by the grip of Time been drained of the energy to fight, of the language to explain to those who, like they had, thought they knew before they had lived, and of the opportunity to apologise to those to whom they had not listened. Young Sural had been blessed with that clarity from a younger age than most, but that had brought with it a lifetime of frustrations, as his prophecies, proved right again and again in time, were forever ignored by those who did not have the eyes to see. He acknowledged that others had trod these paths through history, and that the fruits of their successes and setbacks, each of which had returned Roam stronger and more resilient, were the Constitution of Roam and her attendant laws, embodied and protected by the Senate and elected Magistrates of Roam. If he had a purpose in this world, it was to defend those institutions as best he could.

His barber, a Mubin from beyond Meder, stepped into his line of sight, blocking his view of the Senate House atop its hill, the highest point on Roam that had once been an active vent like the other hills before Semural’s tears at the death of his brother Mauchule had shamed it into closing. This was one of Sural’s traditions: he came here to the Lovers’ Forum at first light each day that the Senate was due to sit, no matter the agenda (his attendance record was unparalleled), and had his hair cut and face shaved whilst looking at the Senate House, allowing its magnificent dome and enormous columned exterior to press their import upon him. Roam-Beast had turned eastwards in the night, so the sun was rising almost directly behind Sural, drenching the steps up to the Senate House, which he knew so intimately, with that hard-working light of the morning, their marble tiles reflecting almost painfully. It would be a hot morning, with a hot and irritable Senate. Moody Machyal’s reforms had swollen the ranks of the Senate to the point that slaves had been banned from the chamber to make room; gone were the days of attendants with fans and water; the days of snoozing seat-fillers half Sural’s age were here to stay.

The Mubin was good. His people were usually good barbers, which Sural theorised was largely due to their natural hairiness, the constant taming of which gave them far more practice than less hirsute peoples such as Roamans could hope to have in the same time. History had more than proven a causal effect between grooming and civilisation, despite the occasional trend amongst attention-seeking young Roamans to sport a beard. The Mubin had not been able to resist a tuft of hair at his chin like a half-hearted goat, but he had otherwise had the good sense to shave his cheeks and face clean – if nothing else, it advertised his services to his predominantly Roaman clientele, who wished to comport themselves as men. He had a gangly-limbed, young apprentice, presumably his son, who boiled the water, heating the towels and sweeping away the hair around Young Sural’s feet when necessary, who could not have grown a beard if he tried, but watched his master’s work closely throughout. An industrious boy, after Sural’s own heart.

“Do you ever tire of being so tiresomely predictable?” asked Hessal Varagy, sweeping across the Forum towards him, a foam of slaves, freedmen and citizens of all ranks and aspirations in his wake.

“I believe,” Sural began, wearily. The Mubin seemed unsure whether to persevere, given the onslaught of bureaucrats, so Sural waved him on, unwilling to allow to Consul to disrupt his routine. “that the tiresomeness of my predictability would wear upon you – plural, its observers – and not imply that I – its source – would suffer from it. Furthermore, if I am in fact as predictable as you suggest, could not the continuation of my predictability itself be predicted with reliability, and thus the inference that I do not, and shall not, tire of it?”

“Does the sun cast a shadow?” asked Hessal, looking around his entourage for appreciative chuckles.

“Have you really disturbed my morning to pose schoolboy philosophy questions?” Sural groaned. “If all of your barnacles are hoping to have their beards trimmed, you’ll be very late for your Senate meeting.”

“I beg your pardon, Young Sural, but I believe that it is clams that have beards, not barnacles,” said Hessal, feigning a wince.

“Indeed, you are correct,” conceded Sural, “though clams also sometimes contain something of some worth, ruling your gurning baggage train out of membership of that species.”

“Very good,” Hessal inclined his head. “No, Sural, I wondered whether we might have a conversation pertaining to the aforementioned, imminent Senate meeting.”

“Are you worried that I might do something predictable?” Sural smirked. The Mubin tsked slightly, pulling his razor away to avoid cutting his cheek.

“Always,” said Hessal, quite genuinely. He turned back to his followers, giving them a signal to disperse themselves. The Consul approached, gesturing inquisitively to the chair beside Sural before sitting down. He gave the barber’s curious apprentice a glance, judging him not to be of significance before continuing. “I am under some pressure, my friend.”

“Hessal, the day when a sitting Consul is not under pressure is the day that the Republic is dead. Speak plainly.”

“There are voices, both sympathetic and not so, which have raised concerns about the agenda.”

“Juctor’s Beard, Hessal, I suppose that we should toss the agenda from the Panthan Rock, then. Concerns? Why didn’t you say so?”

“Your tone demeans you,” Hessal said, though he was demeaning himself with this cowardly nonsense. “A not insignificant number of Senators are concerned that you are going to antagonise the Naechisians, and have suggested that your report might be shunted to a less diplomatically sensitive session.”

“My report, Consul, is the very reason that the Naechisians are in attendance at all. How can our honoured guests engage in diplomacy with the Senate if the Senate is ignorant of the state of Naechis and its holdings in Pricia?”

“How can we engage in debate with them if you have single-handedly steered our diplomatic relations onto the rocks?”

“You advocate diplomacy from foundations of ignorance. My mission to Naechis was assigned to me by a consecrated writ of the Senate. It is my sacred duty as a Roaman to deliver my report before a session of that same body.”

“A session, yes,” Hessal said, his temples sliding high up his head, taking their greying curls with them. “Not necessarily this session. Come on, Sural, we both know that this is a delicate matter. The reason you want to speak today is because of the scale of the impact you could cause.”

“Heavens forfend that the Senate has an impact,” Sural rolled his eyes. “No, it would be better that it serve as a glorified welcoming committee for foreign dignitaries.”

“You have no mandate to stir the waters between our peoples.”

“Even had I not express orders from the Senate to explore the economic and military capabilities of Naechis and their potential danger to Roam,” Sural turned to look at his weak-willed friend, the barber manoeuvring impressively to compensate, “even if I did not have a Duty as a Roaman to report all threats to the nearest Magistrate or Senator, I would shame myself to entertain your suggestion. Voices? Concerns? You are the Consul of Roam, for pity’s sake, Hessal. Your deference to the shadow of conflict not only humiliates you, but it dishonours Roam itself.”

“If I were avoiding conflict, Sural, why in the world did I seek you out?” Hessal said with a long sigh. “Remind me again why you don’t just have a slave do this in the comfort of your own home, old friend?”

“I find it useful to be seen,” Sural said. “There is a power in humility.”

“Humility,” Hessal clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I might suggest that intentional humility somewhat abdicates its claim to the title.”

“Suggest what you like,” Sural jutted his chin out for the Mubin to scrape a few stray hairs from an awkward angle. “Any Provincial groundhugger that stumbles onto Roam with two gold coins and half a brain can buy a slave to cut their hair and shave their face – our fathers are testament to that. It is the aspiration of the aspirant – the trappings of the eternal outsider. The man who knows himself, and knows how to be seen to know himself, offers his neck up to a stranger.”

“And this is you being humble, I presume,” smirked Hessal.

“Look at it this way: who is the more powerful man, he who keeps a man prisoner, in fear of his life and robbed of his liberty, to shave him, or the man who knows that he can let a free man hold a blade to his throat, knowing that his reputation alone keeps him from danger?”

“So the more powerful man is now the more humble?” Hessal frowned. “No wonder you were never a good lawyer, Sural: your every word contradicts the one before. Your line of argument is like a ball of snakes, each hissing self-justification to the detriment of the others.”

“I believe, though I may have to check the archives below the Juctor Palace, that I have successfully prosecuted more cases than you, esteemed Consul,” Sural admired his reflection in the polished silver plate that the Mubin held out for him.

“Perhaps we should investigate the contents of those archives one day, Young Sural,” said Hessal, a sterner edge to his voice. “As such an outspoken advocate for the veracity of history –”

“Come now, Hessal,” Sural glanced at the Consul as he levered himself out of the chair, refusing the help of the Mubin barber or his apprentice, who clearly had little understanding of the importance of maintaining a vital public image, “that matter with your play was just a bit of fun – an intellectual stretching of my legs. I meant no offence by it, truly.”

“I assure you, friend, that your criticisms were taken in the manner in which they were intended,” Hessal smiled, so thinly that the edges of his downturned mouth would still have been a frown on another man. “Nevertheless, the court records in the archives would make fascinating reading, would they not?”

“Hessal, even I, who keeps the Constitution of Roam underneath my pillow that I might read it nightly, find the dry recounting of legal proceedings to be a trying read.” Sural fished around for the coins that the Mubin judged his efforts to be worth – no doubt inflated by the intrusion of the Consul, but Sural admired his boldness. Besides, he had no time to quibble some silvers.

“Even your own, numerous victories?” Hessal handed the Mubin a gold coin, waving away his wide eyes and placing a hand on Sural’s back in a show of amity, leading him away from the barber’s and around the perimeter of the Forum, the stalls already set up with jewellery and trinkets. Sural watched the twitchy faces of Hessal’s hangers-on, trying to judge the distance that they should keep whilst not losing ground to their similarly nonchalant peers.

“Perhaps you keep your own speeches under your pillow,” Sural shook his head. He honestly couldn’t believe that Hessal was pursuing this line. “I, however, find reading my own words to be incredibly cringeworthy.”

“Your words,” Hessal asked, “or your positions?”

“I’m not entirely sure what you are insinuating, Consul,” said Sural, though he knew exactly what. Most men had the balls to say if straight to his face. “Are you speaking in an official capacity?”

“Sural, I’m asking you a favour as a friend,” Hessal squeezed Sural’s upper arm as they strolled, their eyes wandering blindly over the merchandise on offer.

“Another tally in the outgoing column, I fear,” Sural sighed. “A friendship out to be a balanced book, Hessal.”

“That is unfair,” said Hessal, genuinely hurt. “Grossly unfair.”

Sural pursed his lips, content to let the Consul stew for a couple of seconds.

“Sometimes I worry that your inability to pick your battles, or your enemies, will doom our common cause,” sighed Hessal.

“Our common cause is the Republic,” said Sural. “And at least I am fighting my battles. Your desire to appease all comers was understandable in a wide-eyed young Bursar, Hessal, but is most unattractive at a Consul’s age.”

“Please,” Hessal turned, looking at Sural’s profile until he relented and turned to face the Consul. “This is one fire more than I need right now. I will repay you, with interest, I promise.”

“You’ve had word from your father-in-law,” Sural surmised.

Hessal nodded slowly.

“Don’t you see, Hessal, that if I stand aside now then the accusations that you are just his puppet will intensify?”

“How? Water can’t become hotter once it reaches the boil.”

“It becomes steam,” replied Sural. Now he had to build on that retort – luckily, his mind was laying down road fast enough for him not to break his stride. “Is there a more useless substance? A more useless man than a Consul made of steam? You can’t afford to fuel the fire, Hessal. You have no idea the depths to which things might descend, not in foresight. No, to assert your power, you have to let me speak today.”

“Let you hold a razor to my neck,” Hessal cocked an eyebrow.

“Exactly!” Sural clapped the younger man on the upper arm, glad that he had found a neater rhetorical bridge than even Sural had. “I’m no fool, Hessal. I know that I am roundly seen as a relic. My water boiled a long time ago. The Senate sent me to Naechis largely to be rid of me for the best part of a year. Most hoped that my hoary old constitution might be tragically ravaged by some exotic Prician disease, no doubt.”

“Don’t stray too far into self-pity now, Young Sural,” Hessal squinted.

“The point is that I am a political irrelevance. Your enemies are trying to trick you into blundering right into their depiction of you as Proud Machyal’s castrated puppy, and waste your time and effort on a powerless old man rather than opposing them directly.”

“But they are correct that I cannot afford to let you provoke the Naechisians,” Hessal insisted, shrugging against his Consular braid uncomfortably.

“You can’t afford to be seen as deferential to them either,” Sural said. “The Senate might have made their peace with the enemy, largely for their own economic interests, but the people of Roam still despise the Prician for robbing them of a generation. It has never been our way to allow our adversaries to rise from the mat; befriending Naechis will be seen by many ordinary, hard-working Roamans as surrendering in a war which they never considered finished.”

“So, I’m fucked,” Hessal worked ideas around his dour mouth. Consuls were always fucked, it just took them a little while to realise. Like women and their children, Young Sural could not fathom why anybody went back for a second time. The ten-year gap between terms seemed necessary to have men forget the pain of it all.

“You’ve let yourself be manoeuvred into unfavourable ground, certainly,” Sural said, resuming his walk. “If you had raised the issue with my earlier, I might have been able to help. We share a common cause, after all.”

“You can help now,” Hessal said.

“Ah, yes,” Sural nodded. “The favour.”

“I’ll heed your advice next time,” Hessal assured him. “I’ll seek it out.”

“I won’t be one of these gulls,” Sural gestured to the white togas of the Consul’s entourage, which had gathered in ever greater numbers as they had reached the end of the Forum with the wide street leading up towards the gleaming steps of the Senate Hill.

“Of course not,” Hessal rolled his eyes.

“And that is not close to the repayment of the favour,” Sural narrowed his eyes.

“Not at all,” Hessal shook his head. “I have allowed the business of my office to blind me to the value of your advice, old friend. I owe near all my success on Roam to you, in truth, and have neglected you.”

“I was absent – indeed absent when you were elected Consul,” Sural reminded him. And in his absence, on Hessal’s watch, the Dissenters had risen to threaten the Constitution. “I shall endeavour to deliver my report with a minimum of provocation.”

“I suppose that is the best that I can hope for,” Hessal nodded. Sural remembered the political bargaining of his youth, with giants of Roaman history like Hyberital Barbar Adesican and Moody Machyal Sarevir-Machyal Voriel, men who would never lose, even when they lost. When they and Vulgar Renyal had first flirted with tyranny, they had called a surprise meeting of the Senate to ratify their deeply unconstitutional power-sharing agreement without giving Sural, as Sentinel, the chance to veto it. Sural had taken to sleeping on the steps of the Senate House for the remainder of his term so that he, and the Republic, might not be circumvented again. Politics had been an exhausting and exhilarating affair, like sex and boxing and gambling all at once. Now he was an old goat, aching before he even awoke from a comfortable bed, and had turned this Consul of Roam around without breaking a sweat.

“Not that I will soften the facts,” he said as Hessal began to step away. “Sacred oaths, and all that.”

“Soften what you can,” Hessal pulled his Consular toga around himself. “I must head up. Die well, Young Sural.”

“Die well, friend,” Sural said, stepping back for the flock of bureaucrats to chase their master up towards the Senate.

Hessal Varagy

Hessal strode up the broad stairs of the Senate Hill, studiously watching his feet. He did this partially to avoid the gaze of the packs of petitioners that swarmed towards him as he approached, knowing full well that he wouldn’t grant any requests in that fashion if he were sympathetic, but mostly because he had seen first-hand the ridicule and superstition visited upon those who tripped on their ascent – not as straightforward a climb as the ridiculers would have it seem, with awkwardly long and uneven steps circling the Senate House, their cracked marble from centuries of climbers and beastquakes not to mention combat between Roam-Beast and its territorial rivals (all now vanquished). So he kept his head down, focussing on not getting out of breath (another political tripping point) and running the agenda over in his head, identifying future stumbling blocks, having dealt with Young Sural, or at least limiting the scope of the damage he might do.

This was a potentially unusual session of the Senate due to the significance of the visiting embassy from Naechis, with both Consuls in attendance and expectations of near-full turnout from the one hundred and fifty or so Senators. When both Consuls were on Roam, their executive authority alternated by the day, which made Hessal president over the Senate today, even if the Familial Consul and Patriarch of Juctor Coughy Pagnal Juctor sat beside him. It would be a challenge to restrain the large numbers of Senators who would want to stick their oar in just for posterity, that their name would be visible in the records of who spoke. Hessal had requested the attendance of all the city’s available Bursars to help police the session, in addition to the usual Senatorial Ushers, freedmen who had earned their manumission through service as civic slaves. He felt that he had fostered a decent diplomatic footing with both the Naechisian ambassador Onem Starling and the General Ife Tusk, and hoped to build on that by impressing upon them the order and magnificence of the heart of the Republic.

A further group of helpers and hinderers had mustered outside the Senate House’s grand colonnade in anticipation of Hessal’s summiting. The faces that Hessal recognised grasped for names from the shadows of his mind: Alandal Rulper, an Administrator from Crylalt who acted more Roaman than Semural himself despite being just about as Provincial as it was possible to be; Derephal Tegol Seragas, the Bursar whose half-father Derephal Zearchis had helped Hessal source a particularly fine sculpture of Analustris, the Sellanic analogue of Candoam who they often rendered with quite sumptuous buttocks, from Chacaeis; Otibryal Gaegny Moverant, an Officer who had ambitiously invited Hessal as a guest of honour at his forthcoming dinner to discuss the underrepresentation of Neluntians in the Senate and the Magistracies, as if Hessal could explain to others how to be more intelligent, beyond the immediate boon from ceasing their endless obsessing over where they came from. The miracle of Roam, and Hessal’s success in it, was not its diversity, as some asserted, but its integration: Hessal was a Neluntian in name only, but a Roaman through and through. To succeed on Roam, one first had to think of oneself as a Roaman. The Inachrians had excelled at this, becoming so successful that Roam had almost become more Inachrian than the other way around, much to the delight of cultured men such as Hessal. He might find Alandal Rulper quite trying – the Crylaltian was trying to draw his attention to some blockage in the Great Sewer, by Candoam’s teats, as if that were the concern of a Consul – but Hessal would defend his ambition to die a Roaman, with Roaman sons, as long as he had breath to ascend these steps, which, in truth, now he very nearly did not.

Hessal rounded the Senate House towards the rear of Roam, his humble home on the slopes of the Companion Hill peeking over the long, sweeping lines of the Stadium. Though the circular building was accessible by eight gates beyond the colonnade, Consuls (or their deputies, if presiding) traditionally entered from the rear exit, forcing them to take the longest path through the Senate Chamber itself to their chair, in full sight of the Senators to whom they defer inside its precincts. The crowd thinned as Hessal persisted in his silence, gathering his breath back surreptitiously in the morning heat. Some of the older Senators left their homes early to climb the steps in time for a session; others shamelessly had their slaves carry them. Roam was no city for an old man, all hills and bustle. Hessal was only five-and-forty, but already his joints creaked at the end of a day like this. A seat in the Senate was for life for any elected Magistrate or Familial over five-and-twenty years, except in egregious cases of treachery, corruption or bankruptcy, but Hessal would already far prefer to die as Governor in some dozy Province, preferably down in the olive tree shade of Inachria. Governorships were, especially in recent decades, the preserve of Familials and only the most esteemed Companions, never Provincials like him. He would be the first. These days he found that ambition to be as much motivation to succeed as Consul as any other more often than he would have expected as a firebrand ten or fifteen years ago, and had to catch himself and remind himself of his previous values and principles, for which the tyrant Moody Machyal had tried to have him assassinated. It was a queer joke of the Gods that living for a cause was often so much harder than dying for it would have been, strangled fully-clothed in his drunken sleep in a rented room in Bursymon by a clumsy and cash-strapped wrestler.

Coughy Pagnal Juctor was stood with their Naechisian guests, Starling and both Tusk brothers, looking every inch a Consul, his dark hair fixed in place with enough wax to give the eternal flames atop Emipotis a run for their money. His natural bearing intermingled with that of Ife Tusk, whose physicality carried more of a menace despite wearing formal Prician attire suitable for the occasion, and the perfumes of Onem Starling, exuding an unshakeable self-assuredness which, due to his unimposing physique and unremarkable features, intrigued Hessal more than the brutishness of the others, not in the least because Hessal had always found the Gymnasium frightfully dull. As if to embody the concepts of physical exercise and frightful dullness, Coughy Pagnal was attended by his son and Scion, Flashy Donimal, who fancied himself the inherent superior of all those present with the brazen stupidity reserved for Officers. The swirling fumes of masculine vanity seemed to choke Oba Tusk, his plain, white, Roaman toga brighter still against his brown skin, but the bulk of its folds rendering his neck and limbs skinnier, like an octopus that had sought refuge in a tortoise shell – or perhaps a sun-bleached skull housing a couple of venomless snakes.

Hessal wasn’t intimidated by any of it, of course. They were all men from civilised nations, where laws and words had long sheathed swords and unclenched fists, allowing men like him, of superior intellect and learning, to contribute to society like they simply could not in the barbarian lands where warlords squabbled and oppressed. Everyone here could posture all they wished, but Hessal knew that he was in no danger. Starling was shadowed by four dark Prician guards, armed only with cudgels of course, but gave no indication that he felt unsafe either. Haital, Hessal’s right-hand, peered around the back of the group – and over the sheets of papyrus he had ferried from the house – fretfully, but Hessal could discern from experience that it was his base level fretfulness, rather than the acute distress of some sort of issue.

“Gods smile, Consul,” saluted Coughy Pagnal.

“Each after, Consul,” replied Hessal. “To you all, of course.”

“Have you any outstanding business, or shall we proceed?”

“I am quite prepared,” Hessal gave Coughy Pagnal a meaningful look. He had been amongst those to voice concerns about Young Sural. “Are our honoured guests ready?”

“Very much so,” nodded Starling. The Tusk brothers nodded too. “Do we get a tour?”

“Of course,” Hessal nodded. “Though I fear there may have been some misapprehension, perhaps the fault of my slave?” Haital’s eyebrows furrowed indignantly. “Your guards are welcome to remain outside, but are not permitted within the Senate Chamber.”

“That is quite alright,” Starling nodded to the squattest of the dark-skinned guards. “Haital allowed us no room to misunderstand that this is a safe and welcoming space.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Hessal gestured towards the arched hallway into the Senate Chamber beyond the two nearest columns. “The Senate House was originally constructed by the founder of Roam, Semural, who was born again through a vent on this hill after Resteral, the wicked king of the Scalifians, threw him into the Roaman Well.”

“Why?” asked Starling as they passed the gates to the candlelit hallway. Hessal suspected that he was asking more to signal interest than to sate it.

“Semural and his twin brother Mauchule were born of the virgin Demiss,” Coughy Pagnal answered. “And the Sun.”

“Did his twin not get a big building?” asked Ife Tusk.

“Mauchule did no, to our knowledge,” said Hessal. “Though he also survived the passage through the vent, and founded Roam here with his brother.”

“His older brother,” Coughy Pagnal emphasised.

“The older of twins born by a virgin and the sun,” Ife’s voice filled the hallway. “You’d think the younger might merit at least an annex.”

“They both grew into men on Roam-Beast, raised by the spirits and creatures that lived here in the forests and streams before it was tamed,” Hessal continued. “The buildings came after they returned to the Scalifians underfoot and united the Familials into defeating the king who had tried to murder them. The Familials then mounted Roam-Beast, each granted a hill and a vent of their own, with their new king Semural granted the greatest hill, upon which this great palace was built.”

They filed out of the dark hallway into the great Senate Chamber, the tiers circling them crowded with white togas sat roughly according to rank. The hubbub of conversation gave way to shuffling as the Chamber became aware of the entrance of the presiding Consul and his guests, sections standing up to honour them in dribs and less perceptive drabs. Light streamed into the room from long slits in the glorious dome high above, and through the large crack right from the centre of the dome to the far right of it. The floor upon which they walked was a single mosaic of unparalleled quality, telling the same story which Hessal was now recounting, with two ripples of discontinuity right underneath the crack in the ceiling, the colours of the mosaic pieces around them faced by centuries of exposure to the elements. In the centre of the chamber was a small round pool, its waters tilted in accordance with the city, in which sat a simple stone throne upon a little dais, the crack extending right through its centre.

“Mauchule was led astray by Resteras, daughter of the defeated king to whom Semural had shown mercy, who seduced him and convinced him to take his brother’s throne and birthright,” said Hessal as he led the party to the centre of the room, the Senate stood in silence as his words echoed around. “He tried to kill Semural here, but the king acted in self-defence, killing his brother Mauchule instead. He was so heartbroken that the vent which once fed this hill closed up in shame, unable to match his tears. The pool here symbolises those tears.”

“And the crack?” asked Ife Tusk.

“There is actually no agreement as to when the cracks occurred,” piped up Haital. “Some say at that time, others during the sack of the Feors, or the fall of the last king Utimal and the founding of the Republic.”

“Or more recently, as Roam-Beast grew during her conquests,” added Coughy Pagnal.

“Or on several occasions,” suggested Ife Tusk. “You can see that the crack is not continuous, nor is there just one ripple.”

“The desire to mythologise things to one momentous event seems irresistible everywhere I have travelled,” nodded Starling.

“Yes,” Ife glanced over his shoulder at the ambassador from where he had been inspecting the jagged fault through the throne. “How dare people mythologise their myths?”

Hessal glanced between the Naechisians, unsure as how to proceed. Ife glanced around the faces of the attendant Senators, seeking Gods knew what.

“Ought we take our seats?” asked his brother Oba, evidently finding the attention unnerving.

“Yes, please,” Coughy Pagnal motioned towards a reserved space on the front row to the right of the chamber. “The tour can resume after the session, I’m sure. My son Flashy Donimal will attend you.”

The Officer, not yet of Senatorial rank, led the Naechisians to their seats. Hessal and Coughy Pagnal proceeded past the broken throne to the two low, stone stools at the end of the room. Young Sural’s research indicated that the Consular chairs were in use by the Scalifians before Roam was founded, possibly misinterpreting the purpose of column capitals that found their way to Scalify from the Sellanic world. The Familial capital, more ancient, bore four beaked heads of Roam-Beast at its upper corners – probably later adornments to the original stone – and its clawed feet beneath them, splayed out diagonally, amongst the frills and swirls that seemed almost Ferotic, or perhaps Treacian, in style. The Companion capital, upon which Provincial Consuls such as Hessal had graciously also been allowed to sit the few times that they had been elected, had a clearer orientation, the sides of its top curved into thick, scroll-like volutes, with the front and back faces embossed with round hoplite shields and spears, giving it a very outmoded, Sellanic flavour since Roam had grown to use tall, rectangular shields and short Crylaltian swords in the past century. Both seats were unrepentantly uncomfortable, without backs or arm rests, which – intentionally or not – tended to nudge presiding Consuls into hurrying matters along, though savvy Senators knew that bills discussed later on a session’s agenda would on occasion be waved through to a vote by a tetchy Consul with a sore arse without as much scrutiny as they perhaps deserved.

Hessal reached his seat, turning before it to face the Senate with a slightly theatrical swish of his toga he had perfected in the Juctor Law Courts. His eyes caught upon the section of the chamber almost diametrically opposite, a little to his right, who had resolutely remained seated as he and the others had entered: the Dissenters. Crooked Nusal Candoam, his husband Jumpy Pronimal Juctor Candoam – the father-in-law of Coughy Pagnal, no less – and Vain Varbal Qualens Juctor, the Scion of Qualens, with his husband Fawning Pampal Sarevir Voriel, all bore Consular gold hems and a grudge against Hessal for one reason or another. Augmenting their numbers were Rash Donimal Sarevir, the incompetent predecessor to Proud Machyal as Governor of Crylalt, bearing the laurel of the Conduit of Sarevir, and the former Marshals Prellal Juctor-Amussal, the Conduit of Juctor, Uvinal Voriel-Cuinsal Sarevir, the second richest man in the Republic, and Crooked Otibryal Candoam Voriel, Crooked Nusal’s similarly amoral son with whom, as Sentinel the previous year, Hessal had continuously clashed while again and again overturning the Marshal’s outrageous judgements on appeal. There were twenty-seven living Consuls in the Republic, including Hessal and Coughy Pagnal, with around twenty of them present here as Senators. That four of them, each from different Familial families, and two Conduits would not stand for the sitting rulers of Roam was really quite outrageous, a slight that smacked more of conspiracy and treason than petulance. Hessal was under no illusions that these men, flanked by staunchly seated lesser ranked relatives and opportunistic client Senators, growing in number with each session of the Senate – no doubt as Uvinal Voriel-Cuinsal’s coin purse shrank – were well-intentioned political reformists. They despised Hessal personally, or his father-in-law Proud Machyal, for various reasons which invariably boiled down to exposing their failings to the world, and they needed to punish him for it, by sabotaging his career, tarring his name, and no doubt with violence if they saw an opening – and with the quite staggering level of blockheadedness in their collective histories, those openings might appear more often than they would to a reasonable man, like a drunk thinking with his fists. Young Sural and Coughy Pagnal didn’t understand quite how venomous and unrelenting was the campaign of the Dissenters against him, and why he had to constantly operate on the defence to compensate, or else considered Hessal quite politically expendable, soaking up the blows that would otherwise be aimed at them. It was exhausting, and the hard, stone block on which Hessal sat down, paying the Dissenters no visible heed, provided very little relief. The Senate sat down on his cue.

“The Senate of the Republic of Roam is assembled here, today, on Roam on the second day of the month of Paryty,” he announced. “The month of Paryty is dominated by Qualens, and as such the sons of Qualens must consecrate this session. Are the Patriarch and Conduit of Qualens in attendance?”

Hessal was already looking at Vain Prellal Qualens Juctor, who had begun levering himself off his (strictly forbidden) cushion in preparation of the question.

“Aye,” came a call from across the Senate. Vain Varbal had stood, and was striding towards the broken throne. Hessal stood up, his ears burning.

“Vain Varbal Qualens Juctor, the Senate has not requested your contribution. Seat yourself.”

“The Dissenters, supported by the Constitution of Roam, do not recognise the right of a single citizen to hold the offices of both Patriarch and Conduit,” retorted Vain Varbal, his long, golden locks – suitable perhaps on a man half his age and half his chins – swishing as he projected around the chamber. “I assert my right.”

“The Senate does not recognise your assertions, Vain Varbal, nor those of your fellows,” Hessal interrupted, glancing at the Naechisian delegation to determine how they were reacting to the session veering off course before it had even begun. Only Oba seemed affected: embarrassed for his adopted home. “It recognises the law, as it is written, and by that law you are the Scion of Qualens, and with no more right to consecrate this session than Flashy Donimal over there, the Scion of Juctor, or I, Hessal Varagy, for that matter.” Hessal stopped himself from listing horses and dogs and rats that had as much right. “Your interjection has been well noted by all present. The Senate again asks that you seat yourself, lest it is forced to take restorative action.”

Hessal noted that the Bursar acting as steward for the section of the Dissenter was Rambling Parytal Voriel-Cuinsal, cousin and son-in-law to Uvinal. That had certainly been an oversight on his part, though he was glad not to be of a mind that would conjure up such underhanded tricks. It would make him look petty to reshuffle the pack now – he could only hope that this stunt was the only attention-seeking behaviour that the Dissenter bastards had in mind. Vain Varbal sat down with satisfaction written across his big, trapezoidal face, content that his interruption had spread the word of Dissent and undermined a democratically elected Consul. Hessal spared a glance across at his co-Consul, whose own glance across at him had just finished according to Hessal’s peripheral vision, his face now betraying nothing, but his neck muscles visibly taut. Vain Prellal was stood, swaying uncertainly.

“Is the Patriarch and Conduit of Qualens in attendance?” Hessal asked urgently.

“Aye,” Vain Prellal proceeded towards the broken throne.

“The floor is yours,” Hessal motioned. From behind him scurried several green-clad priests from the temple of Qualens, several of them bearing wicker cages, which they presented to Vain Prellal, who chose the leftmost after a second of hesitation. The priest lifted the cockerel out of the cage, its feet and beak bound, and another brought forth a knife, its serrated curve quite barbaric. Vain Prellal, aided by the priests to the point of redundancy, pressed the creature down on the broken throne, his toga soaking up the water of the pool of tears surrounding it, and with a sharp movement slashed through its throat, spraying his white, green and gold toga with crimson. He stepped away, a priest wiping his face clean with a towel as he returned to his seat. The other priests closed around the dying cockerel, hacking out its organs and inspecting them for whatever it was that a priest saw in a liver or a gizzard.

“The auguries are good,” announced the oldest priest after a short conference, his green toga dyed black with blood. “Qualens smiles upon this meeting of the Senate of Roam and its people, and will hold holy all that is agreed by those present in this place before sundown on this day.”

Hessal stood, blowing out an internal sigh of relief. Bad auguries did happen, and it would have been a nuisance to delay this agenda, particularly to a day when Coughy Pagnal would preside instead.

“This session of the Senate, blessed by the Gods, is hereby called to order,” he said. “Before the agenda proper, the Senate requests a report on the mood and movements of Roam. Who will speak on this?”

“I shall,” stood a young officer, not yet of Senatorial seniority, clad in his orange, leather armour – minus his sword, of course.

“The Senate recognises Ormanal Juctor-Ormanal Candoam, Officer of the Republic. By what authority do you speak?”

“I serve as the Captain of the Right Lifts, and have consulted the soothsayers and Beast-whisperers atop the Panthan Rock.” The ascetics who lived atop the windy head of Roam-Beast were chosen for their affinity for the wilder parts of Roam, outside the Outer Walls, at an early age, supported by the public purse in a twilight status between citizenship and slavery.

“The Senate recognises your authority to speak on this matter,” Hessal announced. The report was delivered by a variety of military officials on a flexible, rotational basis. “What do you have to report?”

“Roam turned to the east through the night,” Ormanal said loudly, the acoustics carrying his voice around the chamber. Hessal, sitting down, noted that the soothsayers had not predicted that. “The turns of the evening birds indicate that Roam will abandon its preferred coastal route to Theraclon in favour of the inland route via the Crestrellian Well, a path not taken for four years, since the Consulship of Fawning Pampal Sarevir Voriel and Old Sopenal Straecy Ruess. The whisperers predict significant damage to the Gaegny Rib road if Roam, as expected, takes the most direct route. The city’s Administrators should prepare to allocate funds and road-repairing teams for the rebuilding efforts.”

“The Senate acknowledges this warning, and advises a convention of the Administrative Council within three days to coordinate the undertaking,” Hessal proclaimed from his seat, perusing a papyrus of the agenda that Haital had passed him for some reason. There were occasions, particularly during wartime, that these reports were genuine and a cause for debate, but for the most part they were a pantomime performed for the benefit of the Senate at large and the records being scratched in shorthand into wax tablets by the scribes behind Hessal, to be copied up into the archives on vellum at a slower pace later. He wondered whether anyone had gone back through those archives to check how often the soothsayers’ predictions stood up to the facts of the following report. “Please continue, Officer Ormanal.”

“The route is traditionally more unpredictable in terms of weather than the coastal route, and Roam tends to progress at a slower speed through the valleys as the ground underfoot softens. The soothsayers suggest that Roam may slow to just four miles per day, with an estimated arrival time in the vicinity of Crestrelly on the twelfth day of Paryty, the nine-and-thirtieth day of this year. The bestial month of Paryty is anticipated to last four-and-forty days, eight more than by the coastal route to Theraclon.”

“Riders will be sent to Squinty Venitsal Voriel-Otibryal Juctor, Captain of the Crestrellian Well, to prepare for the arrival of Roam by that date,” Hessal nodded, handing Haital back the agenda, which had been amended to account for the absence through illness of the former Administrator Isompal Scrutany. He didn’t imagine that Squinty Venitsal would be expecting such news, given the rarity of Roam’s visits to the mountainous interior of the country since it had defeated Inachiron-Beast and acquired its plentiful Wells in Inachria. Well Captains traditionally provided an honour guard to Roam as it passed through the lands under their purview, with a ceremonial handing over of the protection of Roam as it crossed the arbitrary map line borders, the World-Beast trundling along overhead, oblivious to their oaths and salutes. “What of Roam’s mood?”

“The vents are flowing with good water,” Ormanal replied. “Roam drank deep of the Gaegnian Well, and seems of good humour and even gait. Her core sounds healthy and regular. Though some might be concerned that the diversion to Crestrelly might indicate that Roam is struggling or agitated, the Beast-whisperers are of one voice that the opposite is true: that Roam’s strength and vitality have emboldened it to tackle roads that it might otherwise avoid.”

“Roam always finds a road,” Hessal nodded his appreciation to the young Officer as he stood again.

“Always, Consul,” replied Juctor-Ormanal as he saluted, completing the traditional ending to the report and sitting down. He had performed admirably. The Naechisians could be in no doubt of the power of Roam.

“Are there any urgent matters pertinent to the security of Roam or the Republic to be brought before the Senate before the pursuit of the agenda proper?” asked Hessal, pivoting at the hips to take in the whole assembly.

“Aye,” stood an active Marshal, identifiable from the leather vambraces covering his lower arms, just as Hessal was about to proceed to the first item. In all of the Senate sessions over which Hessal had presided in his time as Consul, he had never had an answer to that question. He scrambled for the name of the Marshal before Haital might prompt him.

“Dense Venitsal Voriel-Otibryal,” he half-guessed, “you have news of a threat to the Republic?” The Senators all sat up a little straighter; a hubbub of muttering. Coughy Pagnal’s hand tightened on the stone head of Roam at the corner of his seat.

“I have news of an army marching on Roam,” said Dense Venitsal evenly. “From my half-brother, Late Erinvyal Sarevir Voriel, serving as Captain of the Adesican Well in Hoam Province.”

“Let the record state that Dense Venitsal refers to the Roaman Province,” said Hessal, buying time as he thought his way around this news, and why it was news to him. The Roaman Province contained the Roaman Well and the first three wells that Roam had conquered (as well as the Vaeran Well later annexed from Scrutany for administrative purposes) and was overseen directly by the Senate rather than a Governor to avoid concentrating too much power in the hands of one man. The soldiery on campaign, ever fond of slang and wordplay in their copious downtime, came to call it Hoam, a name which had crept into common usage over the decades to the point of rivalling its official designation.

“Sorry, Consul,” said Dense Venitsal. Hessal wondered if the Marshal knew why he had been told this news, or was a useful fool. His civic name didn’t inspire confidence, though it surely had more to do with his butcher’s constitution.

“Nonsense,” Hessal swept his apology out of the air. “Speak, Marshal.”

“Late Erinvyal informs me that Curly Coltal Candoam, the Governor of Scrutany, has marched his gubernatorial legions, supplemented by his irregular conscripts, out of Scrutany and into Ho– the Roaman Province. By all reports and rumours, he intends to rejoin Semural’s Spine at the Roaman Well and follow the road south towards Roam.”

The Senate erupted into a mess of noise. There were voices dismissing the report as fearmongering and heresy; howls of outrage at the march of an army on Roam – the first since that of the tyrant Moody Machyal twenty years prior, with all that entailed; calls for order and demands for confirmation or retaliation. The Dissenters were mostly laughing. The Naechisians were regarding the turmoil with unnerving calm, though Oba glanced around fretfully.

“Order!” demanded Hessal, careful not to seem rattled. “The Senate will have order!”

His voice was augmented by that of Coughy Pagnal, who officially had no right to do so, of course, but carried the Sceptre of Juctor and the political weight of his many Familial and affine connections behind his disapproval. The Ushers and their attendants threatened and cajoled in their fearless fashion, and the Bursars and did what they could. The Senate slowly settled, poised like a ruffled goose quite prepared to relaunch a vicious defence of her eggs at the slightest perceived provocation.

“What are his intentions?” boomed a shout against the receding tide.

“The Senate does not recognise the voice of Loud Gibral Oscumy Osty,” Hessal glowered. “I will have order in this chamber, that we might ask such questions in a manner befitting the distinction of the Senate.”

“Sarevir piss on your order, Varagy!” spat Jumpy Pronimal Juctor Candoam from amongst the Dissenters. “Your reckless antagonism of the Scion of Candoam will be the death of the Republic.”

“Silence!” shouted Hessal, wincing as his voice wavered into a screech. “Ushers, have Jumpy Pronimal ejected from the chamber.” He could feel his lips quivering with a thousand furious retorts as the Ushers closed on the former Consul, knowing that none of them would be as powerful as keeping quiet.

“Get your hands off me, you overreaching foot-washers,” Jumpy Pronimal hissed, slapping away the arms of the Consul’s deputies. “I am quite capable of ejecting myself!”

He stumbled down the stairs to the floor, readjusting his toga and pouting back at the Senators hurling abuse at him – whether in defence of Hessal or the Senate, or just disdain of the cantankerous old cunt, Hessal did not care at that moment. The Dissenter had made a blunder here, and Hessal was quite happy to let him suffer the full ignominy of it. Each time Jumpy Pronimal attempted a retort, more Senators stood to shout him down, eager to see to the matter of Curly Coltal and his army rather than endure the former Consul’s tantrum. Humiliated but holding his head high, Jumpy Pronimal strode off down the nearest dark tunnel out of the Senate chamber. Hessal, using an old trick he had picked up on his travels through the cities of Issycria and had used to great effect during his prosecutions, stood in silence until the chamber had settled, then a good bit longer until has authority had leached back to him from the tiered benches around him. Dense Venitsal, to his credit, was stood waiting for permission to continue or sit.

“Marshal, are the intentions of Curly Coltal known?” he asked.

“No, Consul.”

“Has he made any announcement, or brought other Roamans into his confidence?”

“Not to my knowledge, Consul.”

“Do you have any other information pertaining to the situation which might be to the benefit of the Senate in responding to your report?”

“I don’t believe so,” Dense Venitsal said, furrowing his brow. “Consul.”

“You may be seated, Marshal,” said Hessal. He took a breath and looked up to face the rest of the Senate. “This is an urgent debate, and as such only those of Marshal rank and greater may have the right to speak, and I urge brevity. Who would speak on this?”

Even with the urgency, some eighty Senators were entitled to speak. Senators could speak only in order of seniority: first by rank, and then by age, though they could choose to stay silent on a matter or be granted by the Consul a chance to speak again in response to a Senator who contested their point, within reason. By the rules, the First Senator, once a rank which had held additional military prestige in the days of the Kings of Roam and the first century or so afterwards, was Craven Coltal Candoam, the Patriarch and Conduit of Candoam, and the father of Curly Coltal. The Patriarch was absent, of course. He had been a recluse from public life, performing only the most essential religious duties, for nearly thirty years, since he was captured in battle as a commander at Sabas by Inachiron and Osa Tusk, forcing the Senate to pay an exorbitant ransom that had reinvigorated the Naechisian war effort even as the Republic had fractured in the Provincial War. Young Sural still contended that a true Roaman would have killed himself to spare Roam the agony and humiliation of his ransom. For perhaps the first time, Hessal agreed with him: Patriarchs could not hold Governorships, so this whole mess right now would have been avoided.

Ambyal Voriel Candoam was seventy years old, with forlorn wisps of hair around the back of his head (and their effervescent counterparts sprouting from his brows) the only stalwarts left in a quite comprehensive capitulation to baldness, which Hessal feared might next turn its sights on him. The Patriarch stood with quite agonising slowness, his every joint creaking and grating, his toga falling limply around a now almost meatless frame. From ten paces or so away, Hessal could clearly see the Eagle’s Claws of the old man’s hands – a Roaman disease which set on in middle-age amongst the nobility, curling each of the fingers in turn from the smallest to the thumb around towards the palm over the years. Ambyal’s had started turning in his early forties as an admiral, and now he had only his index and thumb even notionally under his jurisdiction, the rest dug quite rigidly into the flesh of his palm, their nails gouging painfully. The man was luckily too old to ride a horse or sail a ship, but Hessal could not imagine the encroaching agony of being unable to write. Dictation simply wasn’t the same, especially with Haital’s tendency to make personal, stylistic edits.

“The Senate recognises Ambyal Voriel Candoam, Patriarch and Conduit of Voriel.”

“Thank you, Consul,” said Ambyal, age slowly supplanting the rich depth of his voice with shallow breath and scratches. “It falls again to me, in the continued absence of the First Senator, to set the tone of the debate, and though I find the cowardice and irresponsibility of the Patriarch of Candoam to bring shame on this body and the Republic as a whole, perhaps today we should be grateful for his truancy. For, though his relationship with his son is rumoured to be difficult – and who could blame either for objecting to the other? – I cannot be the only Senator here to doubt that Craven Coltal could countenance military or judicial responses in response to his eldest son’s actions. And that, I’m afraid, is what we must countenance in the face of this news.”

The Senate murmured, especially the back tiers of younger and lower-ranked Senators who were more enamoured of Curly Coltal and his exaggerated exploits in the North.

“Yes, I hear you say that there is no proof, you –” Ambyal stopped to cough for several seconds, his eyes watering as he persevered, “you, who would press your nose ever closer to the laws as the wolf closes its jaws around your neck. I am not advocating that Roam leap at a shadow, but we have been here before, those of us whose wisdom this glorious dome is tasked to contain. Men of less ambition than Curly Coltal have marched on Roam and shed blood on the steps of this building, beneath the very words of the Constitution. There is no preparation too premature, I would counsel, to defend Roam and the Republic. Whilst a deputation must of course be sent to ascertain the validity of the report from the Marshal, I move that a Consular legion be mustered to defend Roam.”

The Senate boiled again. Hessal shot Ambyal a look, unbelieving at the old man’s lack of political sense. Ambyal was married to Proud Machyal, Hessal’s father-in-law, across the sea in Crylalt. The Patriarch’s needless escalation only played into Curly Coltal’s rebel narrative, and the popular opinion that Hessal was somehow persecuting the man by questioning the legality of his expeditions. Ambyal’s expression in response was a mixture of bewilderment, exasperation and disdain. Seventy years old, and he had never learned that it was not enough to think and say the right things, as the Patriarch patently had, but also to be the right person to say them.

The Patriarch and Conduit of Qualens was already stood opposite the room from the previous speaker, waving down the noise. Ambyal slowly sat, his old features pinched without a hint of regret.

“The Senate recognises Vain Prellal Qualens Juctor,” Hessal shouted. “Order!”

“Thank you, Consul,” said Vain Prellal. “Your father-in-law has certainly set quite a tone for this debate.” The jibe was inaccurate, of course. Ambyal was Hessal’s stepfather-in-law if he was anything, but not even Roaman society, with its quite torturous familial relations, had a term for such a thing, nor afforded it any consideration except for cheap laughs at the expense of a presiding Consul, so it would seem. Hessal knew better than to rise to the bait. “The Patriarch of Candoam is my mother’s brother, and twelve years older still than Ambyal. One look at Voriel’s body, struggling against the gatekeeper of the Underworld, should give all Roamans here with an eye and a mind to sympathy with my uncle and his troubles – even before the admixture of slurs and open disrespect to the embodiment of love and kindness in this world, permitted by a complicit chair.”

“Vain Prellal, the matter for discussion is your cousin’s march on Roam,” Hessal said evenly. “Do you have anything to say on that?”

“Consul, I would suggest that your culpability is also germane, if uncomfortable. I would also appreciate that the records show that, whilst Ambyal now speaks of defending Roam, and blood on the streets, he was elected as Consul alongside the tyrant Moody Machyal Sarevir-Machyal Voriel at the height of his depravity, lending the butcher the fig-leaf of democratic legitimacy that he craved. And then he married his son!”

“Consul!” Ambyal croaked ahead of the roar, attempting again to rise. Hessal waved him down.

“Vain Prellal, I again ask you to speak on the urgent matter at hand, unless your aim is to delay the Senate.”

“If this is an urgent matter, then the Republic cannot afford the time of eighty Senators struggling to their feet,” Vain Prellal shook his head at his Voriel counterpart with contempt. The trouble of a political system that venerated age and continuity, Hessal mused, was that it gave its politicians a lifetime to hate each other for a lifetime of mistakes. “We should vote immediately, on each matter raised: the deputation, and the levy.”

The next three Senators were Dissenters. Prellal Juctor-Amussal, the Conduit of Juctor, waved away his option to speak, and Rash Donimal Sarevir, the Conduit of Sarevir, who was Curly Coltal’s husband, wisely recused himself. Hessal wondered (and doubted) if he had any idea what his husband was up to. Jumpy Pronimal, the oldest former Consul, had of course been ejected. The trend of waiving the right to speak was difficult to break once it had begun, with even Crooked Nusal Candoam choosing discretion, and it seemed that everyone was of a mind to proceed to the votes when Scruval Qualens, the fourteenth Senator, stood.

“I will be brief,” the former Consul promised.

“You have a right to speak for as long as you wish, Scruval Qualens,” Hessal said, “though the Senate appreciates your concision.”

“Thank you, Consul,” said the richest man on Roam, drawing his toga up to augment his presence. “It was I, along with your father-in-law – the true one, Proud Machyal – who recommended as Consul that Curly Coltal be appointed to the Province of Scrutany following his commendable efforts during the Home War against Trucidal. As such, I feel personally responsible for whatever nugget of truth hides in this report. I offer my services to the defence of the Republic: my close connection to the country of Inachria, where I was Governor of both Provinces and my son is Governor now, should allow me to summon and equip a legion, at my own expense, to support those of Roam as it progresses from Nelunty east into those lands.”

The Senate rose in applause. Young Sural’s eyes found Hessal’s, as they so often seemed to. Proud Machyal wasn’t going to like that at all: Roam hostage to Scruval’s private army. How many of those clapping were empty togas, dependent on Scruval’s gold to fund their lifestyles and electoral campaigns? Coughy Pagnal’s face was marble still: Scruval was his son-in-law through his daughter Cortisy and Proud Machyal was his co-father through his son Odd Otibryal’s marriage to Lumosural Sarevir-Machyal Panth, a hedging of bets through marriage alliances which struck Hessal as distinctly un-Roaman.

“Thank you, Scruval,” Hessal nodded to the portly former Consul as he ceded the floor. “Hopefully your generous gesture will be unnecessary.”

The next several Consuls, quite unable to match such a stunt, waived their rights, even Old Machyal Candoam and Nusal Voriel-Lecarol Sarevir, who had often been outspoken in their admiration of Curly Coltal in less trying circumstances. Fawning Pampal Sarevir Voriel, after a hushed conversation amongst the Dissenters, passed as well, but his husband Vain Varbal stood, this time legitimately.

“The Senate recognises Vain Varbal Qualens Juctor, Scion of Qualens,” said Hessal.

“Thank you, Consul,” said Vain Varbal, chewing on his thick lips as if searching for the words he had already prepared. “While I appreciate the wisdom of my father in hurrying this matter through to the vote, I find myself compelled to redress his insolence towards you and the seat upon which you are sat.” Hessal felt his eyebrows attempt to twitch upwards, but restrained them.

“Your knuckle bones have turned up a difficult hand,” Vain Varbal continued, referring to a soldier’s gambling game using knuckle bone dice. “A Consul must ensure that the law is seen to be upheld in the Republic, and laws etched in stone are difficult to contend with, as my fellow Dissenters will attest from our own struggles. When Curly Coltal was reported to have wintered beyond the borders of the Scrutan Province, absent from his post at Gargam for a full year as Roam strides, what choice did you have but to reprimand him here in the Senate? When our longstanding allies in Upper Scrutany sent ambassadors here begging for Roam to share the load of Feors fleeing the wars in the mountains on their borders, what choice did you have but to throw open the North to bearded foreigners?” Hessal pursed his lips slowly. The Senate was silent as the onslaught continued. “When men claiming to be surviving elders of the Hifenemen, a Ferotic tribe which had through decades of careful co-operation and diplomacy earned the recognition of the Friendship of Roam and all its associated protections, miraculously spoke here of the treachery of Curly Coltal within a couple of days of his supposed attack on their World-Beast, what choice did you have, Hessal Varagy, but to summon him here before the Senate to answer for his crimes? And how could you have expected him to honour such a summons? These would be formidable challenges for an accomplished Consul; that you have managed as you have is, at the very least, commendable.”

“Thank you for your support,” Hessal said with cold warmth. “Who else would speak?”

The youngest of the Consuls, Young Gibral Anyly Voriel, declined. Young Sural was the eldest of the Sentinels, and gave Hessal a sympathetic wince as he thankfully waived his right, the other eight Sentinels following his lead, then both former Governors and all something-and-forty former Marshals – even the Dissenters among them – wisely judging the perception of expediency in the face of the threat to be greater than the benefits of any words they might say, most of which and more had been said by their predecessors.

“Very well,” Hessal said. Haital had handed him a papyrus of a historic motion to act as a precedent from which he might improvise, which he glanced at sparingly as he addressed the entire Senate. “The first motion is that a deputation be sent from the Senate, to be led by an available Marshal of appropriate neutrality, to determine the veracity of the claims reported by Dense Venitsal Voriel-Otibryal of Curly Coltal Candoam’s march south towards Roam. All those in favour of sending such a deputation should now stand.”

Nearly every Senator stood. The Ushers and Bursars went through the motions of counting the standing Senators in their sections, reporting the tallies to the scribes behind Hessal, who was taking the opportunity to assess quite how disastrously his Senate session had gone so far. The Naechisians were sat quietly, each watching the proceedings with their own thoughts. Coughy Pagnal was oozing a furious menace despite maintaining a resolutely neutral expression, as if he were guiltless in the ever-greater shambles that was characterising their joint administration. Who knows how events might have unfolded if the Patriarch had stood beside Hessal throughout any one of those crises Vain Varbal had listed, lending his authority to his co-Consul rather than keeping him and the muck of his difficult decisions at arm’s length?

Hessal hadn’t even heard the numbers of the vote, so clear was its victory. “The second motion is that a Consular legion, being two legions of Roamans and two of Provincial allies, each of five thousand fighting men and horse, be raised to escort Roam as a precautionary measure until the potential danger of the situation has passed.”

“Let the motion be amended,” rumbled Coughy Pagnal from beside him, his voice like that of Juctor himself, “to show that I, Coughy Pagnal Juctor, Patriarch of Juctor, will take command of this legion and responsibility for its mustering and training, so as to avoid any suspicion of personal motives which might undermine the authority and strategy of my co-Consul.”

The Senate murmured with approval as Hessal seethed, his cheeks burning like Ctinadon’s forges. He had tutored Coughy Pagnal’s son Otibryal at oratory, and dined as a guest of his family. How could a Patriarch understand what it was to make one’s own name rather than inherit it? How could a man born in a Palace understand a life wherein one’s name was all that they had?

“Very well,” Hessal said, turning to his co-Consul to give a respectful nod. “So amended. All those in favour of the motion should now stand.”

A smaller but still clear majority stood, less those with – or ambition to have – ties to the absent Patriarch or Scion of Candoam. Despite five marriages, Craven Coltal had failed to spread his seed particularly far, but there were still plenty of younger and more impressionable Senators who were wary of being seen to take any actions against an extremely popular public figure – all the more popular for his absence from Roam, no doubt. Perhaps they were gambling on favourable treatment from Candoam once he had made himself King?

The motion passed by four-and-seventy to two-and-fifty, helped by Coughy Pagnal’s indelicate amendment. And so it came into law that the citizens of Roam would be called to arms to protect the Republic for the first time since the slave uprising of Trucidal ten years before, on a day when Hessal was president over the Senate. He felt his throat dry up as he glanced down at the agenda held up for him by Haital, and realised that they had not yet reached the first item, and what that first item was.