otherwise.
The High Council had spent the morning on cloth, ribbons, beads, and dyes—simple enough matters all, but each was new to the City, and each must be carefully weighed and judged for its possible impact on the well-being of the populace before being released into the marketplace. Changes in fashion should be subtle things; it was difficult for most men to imagine what difference something like a change of sleeve or ornament might make— frankly, most men wouldn't even notice—but women were profoundly influenced by such things. If one woman snatched up a new ornament to set a radical new fashion, it wouldn't be long before the desire to replicate or better her effort would spread through the City like a fever, begetting an orgy of spending, a frenzy of stitching and cutting, and then—well, then the rot would set in, the wish for change, just for the sake of change, which would spread at last from the women to their men. All from a new bead, a new color, a new ribbon, something that the ordinary man would think was insignificant.
So the Council was careful, very careful, even with something as tiny as a bead or a button. Beginning with dyes, they had moved on to perfumes and spices. Most of the perfumes had been rejected out of hand for being simply too foreign, and of all of the senses, the most subtle and most open to unconscious seduction was that of smell—but the spices were a more difficult matter.
Lycaelon touched his finger to his tongue, and took up a small amount of the brownish powder on the twist of paper before him. He held it beneath his nose for a moment, then touched it to his tongue. It had a sweet, nutlike flavor, elusively familiar, tasting of anise and cinnamon. It was enough like both that its introduction into City marketplaces would cause no disturbances in the even tenor of City life; earlier this morning, before it had even reached the Council, an Undermage had inspected it by magick for narcotic properties and other dangerous side effects, and found none. Had Lycaelon not known this, he might have suspected some tranquilizing property in the stuff, for his reaction to it was to find the taste curiously comforting. Well, a feeling of comfort was something to be cultivated among the populace. Comfort bred contentment, and a disinclination to change.
'Interesting. What do they call this?' he asked, leaning toward his nearest colleague.
'Rendis,' Mage Volpiril said. The Magister-Regnant very much wished to succeed Lycaelon as Arch-Mage of Armethalieh, and regarded his superior with an interest that Lycaelon found simple to interpret, even without High Magick's aid: Should Volpiril express approval? Disapproval? Which would best further his own interests?
'I call the vote,' Lycaelon said formally, ending the period of inquiry by raising his right hand, palm out, to signal approval of the new spice. Palm down would indicate disapproval.
Unsurprisingly, Volpiril raised his own hand in the same fashion, and the rest of the Council unanimously followed suit. A public vote was a matter of show for their trader-audience, really; if a matter really required a discussion to reach a consensus, it would hardly be dealt with in front of foreigners.
But, as with so many things the Mage Council did, it was good to preserve an illusion of open discussion before the foreigners. If any of the Council had serious reservations about something brought before them, something that could not be projected into the Judgment Spell, he would use his Art for a moment of Silent Speech with Lycaelon, who would simply defer the 'vote' if the matter truly seemed to warrant it. Before foreigners, the Council would always present a united front. That was the path of Power.
An Undermage came to clear away the small packets of spices and to serve the Council small cups of strong kaffeyah to clear away the lingering scents. The next class of items was usually a difficult one—whole manufactured items of foreign origin—so to keep the Council from becoming overtired in its deliberations, it was interspersed with something quite simple: book approvals, both new works by current City authors, and reprintings of old tales. While naturally books by foreign authors, containing as they did foreign and dangerous notions, could never be allowed into the City, often the trade ships brought foreign editions of books by approved City authors, frequently authors who had been so long out of print in the City that their works were a novelty again. These exotics sold very well, but it was the Council's job to be certain that there had been no disturbing additions made to them in their foreign manufacture.
But before the books, some difficult decisions needed to be made.
'What is the first item?' the Arch-Mage asked his page, who was standing just behind his chair of state with the long list of items that needed to be approved in today's Council session.
'A… 'cittern,' Lord Arch-Mage,' Auronwy said, stumbling over the foreign word. 'It is a stringed instrument for making music, I have been told. The captain has asked to be allowed to demonstrate the item to you.'
Lycaelon suppressed a faint spark of irritation. Really, the presumption of these Selkens was truly amazing. No matter how much liberty the Council granted them, they always demanded more. Still, a show of mercy and fair-dealing was one of the City's greatest strengths, and each time the Selkens overstepped the bounds of civility and good taste, they only harmed themselves and strengthened Lycaelon's own position.
'Very well. Have him approach.' And watching barbarians caper should do a little something to relieve the tedium, at least.
Auronwy descended the steps behind the judicial bench and approached the waiting captains. He spoke briefly with one of them, who came forward and retrieved a peculiar instrument from the pile of trade goods that waited beneath the watchful eyes of the motionless guard golems.
The cittern appeared to Lycaelon's eyes like some sort of giant, misshapen lute—flat on both sides, its sound box pulled into a sort of peculiar sand-glass shape. The neck was grotesquely elongated, and it seemed to have only half the proper number of strings. No fretwork covered the hole in the soundbox, either; if you stood close enough, you could probably see all the way down into the body of the instrument. How crude it looked, and how unfinished! Lycaelon steeled himself; surely this instrument's sound would be as unpolished as its appearance.
