The Seat of Honor
Once the round of greetings had wrapped up, the head of House Shanel—the family entrusted with Ehrenberg's distribution business—spoke up. "Once a guardian is appointed, I suppose we'll finally see the subsidies we've been owed all this time?"
Ermas, who ran a comparatively meager territory, put the next question. "We'll be due to hold the send-off ceremony for the monster subjugation force soon enough, too. Once the guardian is named, we'll all be run off our feet just getting the work done."
Frida, who handled Ehrenberg's construction enterprises, weighed in as well.
Listening to the talk drifting from every corner, not a soul in the room seemed to doubt that a guardian would be chosen today.
Count Junas had believed it too. He was the one who had led this gathering for the very purpose of appointing a guardian.
So why did his heart feel so uneasy?
"By the way, why isn't Count Kolkos here yet?"
"He'll come. He wouldn't dream of missing a day as important as this."
Shanel and Ermas batted the exchange back and forth. Then Carlo, who had been brooding in silence, cut in. "Word is the Noanda serving Count Kolkos has quit. Did anyone hear why? They say the man was afraid of being betrayed."
"Shh."
At Carlo's tactless remark, lips were covered all around the table at once.
The vassals who had been planning to go into business with Count Kolkos had spent these past days fretting over the rumor now circulating among them.
"Lord Junas, you meet with Count Kolkos often. Surely you know something?"
"I'm afraid I don't know much myself."
Junas was every bit as curious about the rumor as the rest of them.
"This is a fine bind, truly. The unease of it... at this rate, I fear we won't even see the second-half subsidy."
At Ermas's sigh, the other faces around the table stiffened as well.
Shanel, who had been hoping to carve out a new distribution route, fiddled with the report he had brought. It was to have been a golden road, a trade channel to pour money into his hands, but without the family head's sanction he could not so much as begin. The vassals prayed with clasped hands that Ehrenberg would be made whole again—and soon.
And in the same breath, the same thought crossed each of their minds.
Count Kolkos will keep his promises... won't he?
"Whatever else may come, the guardian's appointment can't be put off any longer. One way or another, we must set House Ehrenberg right again."
Murmurs of agreement rose from every side at Ermas's words.
Just then the door opened, and Count Kolkos entered. The vassals rose from their seats as one to receive him.
Count Kolkos met each man's eyes in turn, pressing hands and dispensing warm, familiar greetings. Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, he moved to claim the seat of honor at the head of the table.
Instead, he found himself stranded half-risen, forced to shuffle awkwardly aside.
Because—
"That seat is mine, Uncle."
Diana had arrived.
"Ah, Diana! Of course this seat is yours. I was only meaning to sit here beside it. Come in, come in."
Count Kolkos turned his coat without a flicker of shame and beamed.
Diana lifted one corner of her mouth into a frosty smirk—a look steeped in scorn.
"Good day to you, my lady."
Only then did the others begin offering their belated greetings.
Diana wiped her expression clean and stared hard at the men who had bowed so punctiliously toward Count Kolkos. Her cold, unreadable face made the vassals flinch. It was not a gaze a child of thirteen had any right to produce.
Those who had quietly looked down on her—thinking of her as a thirteen-year-old girl, still at an age to be chasing sweet desserts and pretty dolls—would have to think again. Perhaps because she carried Ehrenberg blood undiluted, Diana was wrapped tight in the pride of her house, and that bearing alone bowed the vassals' heads for them.
She passed with unhurried grace between the standing men and settled into the seat of honor. Then she lifted one hand.
At that single gesture, the vassals all took their seats at once.
"The reason I've gathered you all here today is..."
Tension threaded the air. Every eye fixed on Diana.
"The matter of appointing my guardian, I believe. I hear that since my father's passing, it has taken great effort on your part to hold Ehrenberg up. I can well imagine how difficult it has been, and it grieves me."
At Diana's words, the vassals' expressions softened. They had each been agonizing over how to raise the guardian question themselves, and with Diana broaching it first, the room eased considerably.
"Ehrenberg has come this far because of all of you. If my father were seated here now, I am certain he would say this to each of you: thank you—for keeping Ehrenberg safe."
For an instant, the vassals glimpsed the late Duke of Ehrenberg in Diana. The energy that surged from her with those last words was the very image of his.
"It is a joy past words, my lady, to have our toil understood and our efforts praised. Then—shall we proceed to the appointment of your guardian?"
As befitted the leading voice of the vassalry, Junas volunteered the question everyone was burning to ask.
Diana held his gaze for a long moment before she spoke.
"Is a guardian truly necessary to protect Ehrenberg?"
At her question, Shanel quietly raised his hand.
"Speak, Sir Shanel."
"I suspect Your Ladyship, born and raised in the capital, may simply not know. The provinces are not like the capital—they carry any number of troubles on their backs. To untangle those troubles requires the wisdom of a seasoned elder to lead the family."
Shanel had wrapped it in handsome paper, but stripped of its gloss it amounted to a single demand: name a guardian, hurry, and hand over the money.
If he'd only come out and said it plainly, it would have been easier for me to answer.
"I agree that wisdom matters more than age. Very well—let us say I accept your wishes and appoint a guardian. Whom do you intend to recommend?"
Beside me, Count Kolkos's grin stretched high. The men glanced at one another, and a few of them looked at Count Kolkos quite openly.
"The matter of a guardian demands caution, and then caution again. I have seven years left before I come of age. Whoever is chosen will be deciding the next seven years of Ehrenberg."
Seven years. Short, if you called it short; long, if you called it long. Amusingly enough, it was ample time for an entire house to rot to ruin.
"If the guardian is appointed by the decision of those seated here, then whatever fruit Ehrenberg bears in the years ahead, I shall share with all of you. And the blame, of course, as well."
In other words, all of you busy eyeing Count Kolkos—think very carefully.
"You're quite right, Diana. We exist for Ehrenberg's sake, do we not? If trouble befalls this house, then naturally we share the burden together—wouldn't you say?"
Count Kolkos waved his hands at the assembled men as though anxious to hurry the decision along. Having broken the mood that had gone briefly rigid at the word blame, he shot Shanel a pointed look.
"Sir Shanel. The vassals will have discussed the guardian question among themselves in advance, I imagine. Out with it, man."
Shanel looked to Junas.
I looked back and forth between the two of them, reading the shape of their arrangement. So it was Count Junas who introduced Shanel to Count Kolkos, I see.
Most likely the pair had divided the labor between them—Shanel to set the mood at the vassals' meetings, Junas to make the actual demands. Why else would Shanel keep glancing toward Junas at the decisive moment?
But Junas did not readily step forward, and Shanel's smile began to crack, bewilderment seeping through the fissures.
"A guardian is necessary, Lady Diana."
Junas opened a mouth he had kept shut like a clam. As the pivot around which Ehrenberg's vassal council turned, he carried a gravity that quelled the whole room.
"But rather than rushing the appointment, what is needed is a thorough vetting of the guardian."
The hand Count Kolkos had resting on the table slowly clenched. When I stared at it openly, he caught my gaze and tucked the hand out of sight.
"Ha, ha, ha. Lord Junas, you do only ever speak sense. Quite right, quite right—a thorough vetting it shall be. Of course, of course."
Count Kolkos babbled on with no grasp of what he was actually saying. Small wonder the man was rattled: he had just heard something dangerously close to betrayal from Count Junas, the very ally who had promised to push him forward.
"And so—do you have a candidate in mind, my lord?"
At my question, Junas shut his eyes tight. I could see with perfect clarity that he was wrestling over whether to grant Count Kolkos one last chance.
I needed something to drive the wedge home in that wavering heart. If a man was already swaying, he might as well sway all the way down.
"Oh my!"
As though by accident, I knocked over my water glass. Water ran racing across the table and soaked into my clothes.
"My lady, are you all right?"
Everyone fussed over me. I smiled, the picture of composure.
"It was only water, not hot—no harm done. But my clothes are soaked through, and it is rather uncomfortable. Might I ask whether a change of dress could be brought quickly?"
Naturally, not one vassal refused. If anything, they seemed quietly relieved at the chance to pause the meeting and trade words among themselves.
"I won't drag this out—a moment, please."
The instant I rang the bell, the door swung open as though it had been waiting for precisely that. Mackerie stepped into the chamber.
"You're... Mackerie?"
Kolkos picked the man out at a glance, and his voice jumped before he could stop it.
"You know Mackerie, Uncle?"
Count Kolkos said nothing, so I asked again, turning to face him and letting the name ring out across the room. Suspicion began to frost the eyes of everyone watching him.
Looks like he used to serve in Count Kolkos's household?
I've seen that face before. One of Count Kolkos's personal attendants, I'd swear to it.
A low murmur spread among the men. Count Kolkos's face darkened into a scowl.
"He's a dear friend of mine, you see. Before he came to Ehrenberg, he had the misfortune to serve a cruel master, and suffer for it. He made a single mistake, and they cast him out without paying him a coin of severance. So I took him in. If a person has real ability, I can overlook a mistake or two. Not that what Mackerie gave was a mistake at all—it was perfectly sound advice. What do you make of this friend of mine, Uncle?"
Count Kolkos was flustered, Junas's shoulders jumped, and Shanel's eyes rolled every which way.
I made certain that everyone bound to Count Kolkos saw it, plain and undeniable: the difference between that man and me.
And I sent them a message.
One mistake, and I would forgive it.
"Mackerie, is my change of clothes ready?"
"Yes, my lady. I've laid them out in the room just next door."
I praised Mackerie's foresight and hopped down from my chair.
"I'll go and change, and be right back. Since the meeting will run long, this is a fine chance for everyone to rest a moment."
And I couldn't help wondering what they would say to one another the moment I was out the door.