contribute, he was only half Drood. And so, like my Molly, he could attend council meetings, but not sit at the table. The two of them had to sit on separate chairs a respectable distance away. Petty, I know, but that’s tradition for you. When a family’s been around as long as the Droods, you acquire a lot of traditions along the way, rather like barnacles on a ship. It’s the long-held traditions like this one that make me wonder whether we’re getting a bit too inbred.
Molly always got her own back by bringing a really massive bag of popcorn to every council meeting and crunching the stuff loudly during the boring bits. Roger sat loosely in his chair, calm and entirely at his ease, and we all did our best not to notice that his half-demonic presence was still potent enough to set fire to the chair he was sitting on. Little grey streams of smoke drifted up into the air, and I hoped someone had reminded Ethel to turn off the sprinklers.
Ethel, as our very own other-dimensional friend insisted we call it, manifested in the Sanctity as a pleasant rose red glow. Bathing in that ruddy glare was enough to calm the spirit and ease the heart. Didn’t stop us all from arguing, though.
I sat down in my assigned place at the far end of the table and immediately launched into my tale of what had gone down at Lightbringer House. Only to be as immediately stopped by the Sarjeant-at-Arms. Meetings have to have agendas, in his world, and that meant my late-arriving news would have to wait until we’d dealt with existing business first. All the others went along, because the Sarjeant was quite capable of outstubborning us all when it came to matters of precedence. So I sank down in my chair and sulked, with my arms folded tightly across my chest, while he worked his way through the business of the day. It wasn’t easy feeling sullen and thoroughly pissed off under Ethel’s soothing red glow, but then, I’ve had a lot of practice. When it comes to trying your patience, my family could make Mother Teresa drink vodka straight from the bottle while drop-kicking a leper.
“We have to decide what to do next, now that our Matriarch is dead,” the Armourer said heavily. “Grandmother’s been gone some time now, and we can’t keep putting this off. I’ve been carrying most of the load, with Harry’s help, staying on top of the day-to-day problems, because I’m most senior. . . . But I have my own work to be getting on with, in the Armoury! I never wanted to be in charge. I’m not good with people. When I’m faced with a problem, my first response has always been to hit it with something heavy. Which works fine with machines, but not so much with people.”
“Exactly,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms. “I’d hate to think you were encroaching on my territory.”
“Someone’s got to be in charge,” Harry said firmly. “We’ve lost direction. The family is undermanned and overextended. There’s no overall strategy, and no long-term policy. Someone’s got to be in a position to make the important decisions.”
“Someone like you, Harry?” I said. “That didn’t work out too well, the last time you tried.”
“I’ve been studying,” Harry said coldly. “Reading up on the family history, and all kinds of useful background knowledge.”
“He has,” said Roger. “I never knew there were so many books on the principles of leadership. I particularly enjoyed the Machiavelli.”
“Not really helping there, Roger,” said Harry.
“The council can continue to oversee the usual day-to-day stuff,” said the Sarjeant. “But only until a new leader is elected.”
“Harry has proved himself very competent in handling such matters,” said the Armourer.
“I always knew you’d make a good housekeeper, Harry,” I said.
“At least he gets involved!” snapped the Sarjeant. “It’s all very well to sneer at paperwork and bureaucracy, but you can’t run a family this size without it! If people like Harry didn’t keep on top of all the little things, our departments would grind to a halt, and you’d be left with no backup at all!”
“Oh, indeed,” I said. “It’s a wonder I get anything done. . . .”
The Armourer cleared his throat meaningfully, and I shut up. Only my uncle Jack could still make me feel like an errant schoolboy.
“If we are to hold another election,” said Harry, “then I must respectfully insist that all candidates be allowed sufficient time to campaign properly.”
“You want to bring politics into the Hall?” said the Armourer, scowling heavily. “Didn’t we have enough problems with the Zero Tolerance faction?”
“How will everyone know how good I’d be for the family unless I’m allowed to explain it to them?” said Harry, in his most reasonable voice.
“I love a good campaign,” said Molly, past a mouthful of popcorn. “I’ve already got a great slogan in mind. How about, ‘Vote for Eddie or I’ll Turn You into a Dung Beetle’?”
“I wish I thought she was joking,” said the Armourer.
“Any attempt by you to interfere with the family’s electoral process will result in your being banned from the Hall,” said the Sarjeant-at-Arms, glaring at Molly.
“Love to see you try, Cedric,” said Molly, glaring right back at him.
“Really not helping, Molly,” I said.
“Whatever the result of the election,” said the Armourer, “should we also decide on a new Matriarch? As a constitutional position, perhaps? The family has always had a Matriarch. . . .”
“Tricky,” said Harry. “Do we appoint the next in line, or should the new Matriarch be elected, too?”
“Who is next in the line of succession?” I said. “I’ve never really kept up with that side of things.”
“Technically,” said the Armourer, “the Matriarchy is supposed to pass from mother to daughter, or granddaughter. Your mother would have been next in line, Eddie, but with her gone, and you her only child . . . the direct line of succession is broken. If James or I had produced a daughter, she would have been next in line. But I had only one son, and while James had many . . . offspring, only one has ever been acknowledged by the family, and that’s Harry. And before you say anything, Harry, yes, I know you have an absolute multitude of half sisters, by various mothers, but none of them can be accepted as legitimate successors.”
“Tradition,” said the Sarjeant, nodding solemnly.
“Daddy Dearest did put it about rather a lot,” murmured Harry. “I haven’t even met all my half brothers and half sisters.”
“He was very romantic,” the Armourer said firmly.
“We can’t simply appoint a Matriarch,” said the Sarjeant. “If we must have one, and I think we must, then tradition demands she be part of the line of descent, no matter how . . . fractured. Traditions are all we have to hold the family together.”
“My aunt Helen was Mother’s sister,” said the Armourer. “And she had a daughter, Margaret. I suppose . . .”
“Don’t recognise the name,” I said. “The family’s getting far too big. . . .”
“I could always organise a cull,” said the Sarjeant.
We all looked at him. He didn’t appear to be joking.
“Moving on,” I said. “Uncle Jack, what does Margaret do in the family?”
“Wait a minute!” said the Sarjeant. “You mean Capability Maggie! She’s in charge of landscaping the Hall grounds, maintaining the lawns and the lake and the woods, and all the creatures that live in them.”
“That’s her,” said the Armourer. “Devoted to her job. Raised a hell of a fuss when I dug up half an acre to bury that massive dragon’s head you sent back from Germany, Eddie. I mean, I covered it over again. . . . I think a new barrow adds personality to the garden. And it is the only part of the garden that can actually have a conversation with you when you walk past it.”
“Does she have Matriarch potential?” said Harry.
“She runs the gardeners with a rod of iron,” said the Sarjeant. “Sometimes literally. And she chased me twice around the Hall with a pitchfork that time I walked across her new seedlings.”
“Now, that I would have loved to see,” I said. “Hell, I’d have sold tickets.”
“I still say she should have put up a sign,” said the Sarjeant. “I’ll have a word with her. From a safe distance. Sound her out, see how she feels.”
“Are we still talking about a constitutional Matriarch?” I said. “Because I’m damned if I’m having some new Matriarch ruling over me with a pitchfork. What exactly would her powers and responsibilities be?”
“To be decided by the family, I suppose,” said the Armourer. “Or whoever the family elects as its new leader.”
