held up his shortrifle. 'Specific orders.'
When I stopped walking, the crows bunched up behind me. They began to flap their wings in frustration. Started clamoring up my legs, fluttering onto my shoulders. Their hard talons cut into my coat. I tried not to move.
'Listen,' I said, doing my best not to shout. 'I'm a little freaked out right now, and I'm sure you are, too. What I want, more than anything, is to get these godsdamn birds off of me and get inside. So just open the door, okay?'
'Gods, yes, please open the door,' Wilson gasped.
It was the other guard who broke. Dropped his shortrifle and jumped for the small sally-gate cut into the larger door. He threw it open and dived through. Since he didn't bar it behind him, I took that as invitation enough.
'Yaaaa!' I yelled, throwing my arms over my heads and startling the crows away. Wilson's spider-arms sprung out, clearing his shoulders and the cobbles around us. We both leaped for the door. The second guard watched us go, the weapon in his hands forgotten.
'I have orders…' he started, then realized that he was about to be left alone with all those crows. He was right behind us in a breath. He threw the door shut and slammed the lock home. We lay there on the floor staring at each other. Waiting.
Outside, there was the sound of a thousand crows taking off at once, a sound like a tornado of shuffling velvet. They did a pass around the square, cawing and brushing against the gates, terrible and loud. And then they were gone. It was quiet, inside and out.
'Now,' I said, standing up and brushing the fear from my lapels. I addressed myself to the guard who had sensibly run inside. 'I have business with the Council. If you'll just escort us there.'
'You'll need to leave your weapons with us,' he said.
'Nonsense. This is not the kind of day I feel like being unarmed. Wilson?'
Wilson stood up and produced knives and talons. They took the hint and, gathering as much dignity and authority as they could manage, led us into the Chamber Massif.
The fifteen seats. It was originally eight, or possibly nine. Certain early accounts mention the nine heads of Veridon, but at some point there were only eight. I wondered if those early accounts were mentions of the purged family of the Makers that had missed the historian's blotter. In time, eight became ten, then eleven. Finally fifteen. The additional seats were purchased or declared into existence by Council writ, as the two factions in the Council wrestled for power, waned and waxed. Old families that had lost their seats were brought back into the Council by majority vote, some of those votes purchased or extorted. And new families came into the fold from the ranks of the freshly rich, the appropriate votes again purchased or threatened into existence. I know that my father had voted to raise up some rich rabble, all to pay the mortgage on the estate, or keep the Furnace running for another year or three.
So now there were fifteen. The Founders held six of those seats, with two more families who were so old that they thought of themselves as Founders, no matter what their peers said behind their backs. The rest were held by industrialists. Alliances wavered, votes were sold, but those two factions were the status quo.
As was arguing. Always arguing. As they were when we walked in, prodigal and monster, escorted by two terrified guards who didn't know what their role in this fiasco should be.
The Chamber itself was designed to hold eight (or possibly nine) grand seats, each on its own dais. As the Council had grown, so too had the number of seats. But not the room. For all of its vaulted height, leading up to a glass dome that had been commissioned to give the room a sense of majesty that was lacking in the original martial fittings, the floor of the Chamber was crowded. And there had to be room for pontificating, so the fifteen daises of the Council members were clustered around the walls of the circular room, allowing plenty of room for the current speaker to strut around the center and berate all of his fellow Councilors equally. And while only one speaker was supposed to hold the floor at a time, there were currently three people down there. Two men and a woman. If that's the word for Angela Tomb. Two men and a nightmare.
I don't know what they were arguing about. Whatever it was, they were serious enough about it to not notice a couple of armed thugs who in the past had threatened more than one person in this room. The guards paused at the edge of the ring indicating the beginning of the Chamber, blubbering as if to announce our entrance. I clapped them on the shoulders and walked past, keeping to the side of the floor, circling around to my family's traditional seat. Each of the daises had an emblem carved into the front, proclaiming the family who held it. The empty seat I was heading toward showed a long, narrow pyramid with the top chopped off, and a curl of fire at the base. The symbol of the Deep Furnace, and the traditional logo of the family Burn. Made me smile to see it.
No matter how engaged the three on the floor were in their argument, and how much conversation was passing between the still seated Councilors all around, it didn't take long for people to see me. First one fell silent, then another. Someone yelled, either in alarm or disgust. Eventually all the voices were silent. They watched me climb the narrow stairs to my seat, set the shotgun across the podium, and settle into the cushion that my father held for so long. I could smell him in the chair, well-oiled leather and alcohol, smoke that hung in the bar hours after the rest of the family was asleep. The sting of gunpowder on my cheek as he took the shot that kept me alive, then helping me to my feet. I shook myself out of my reverie and looked around the room. Everyone was looking at me, with a mixture of surprise, horror and amused calculation.
'Carry on,' I said.
'What is the meaning of this?' demanded one fat bastard whom I didn't recognize. Plammer, maybe? I could never keep all the names straight, especially of the new families.
'I heard there was a meeting. I thought I should be involved.'
'This… this is… it's preposterous!' Plammer yelled, his jowls flobbering.
'I would have been supremely disappointed if you had said anything less… typical, Mr. Plammer,' I answered.
'Plumer!' he shrieked. 'The boy doesn't even know the names of his royal Councilors, and he's sitting in Alexander's chair!' He stumbled down his dais to join the three who had abandoned their argument for the new interruption. 'I ask you, my brethren, are we going to stand for this?'
'Can you stand for this?' I asked, 'I mean, for terribly long. You don't seem to have the necessary constitution.'
'Jacob, we appreciate the fact that you're a complete smartass,' Angela said, facing me with her hands on her metal hips. 'But really. The adults are talking.'
'Oh, right. I guess this requires some kind of formal declaration.' I stood, cradling the shotgun in my arms. 'I understand. So let's see. How should this go?'
'I don't want to say that I told you so,' Wilson whispered to me from his position just behind the seat, where the Councilor's servants and advisors were to stand. 'But this would be an ideal time to have that letter of reinstatement.'
I ignored him and cleared my throat.
'I am Jacob Burn, son of Alexander, son of Tiberus, many times son of Constance Burn, Founder of Veridon. I have come to claim my right of name, and hold the seat of Council in this chamber. As did my father before me, so I claim this right, by my blood, by my birth. Such is the law.'
'Such is the right,' they all murmured in automatic response. I smiled. At least they hadn't shot me yet. They recovered their sense of indignation quickly enough.
'Again, I say, are we going to stand for this?' Plumer said, walking toward me. 'This Council does not recognize you, Jacob. Your name has been purged from the rolls of this chamber. Your father had you expunged from the record.'
'As is his right. Just as it is his right to reinstate me.'
That was met with a round of whispers. Only Plumer, Tomb and, surprisingly, Bright did not take their gaze from me. I nodded to Veronica. She frowned.
'Jacob,' Angela said smoothly, 'the Manor Burn is… poetically… burning as we speak. Your father is nowhere to be found. Do you have any proof of your right to stand here?'
You damn well know I do, bitch. You've been engineering this moment from the start, hoping either
