Chapter 16: What the Assembly Votes On and What It Decides

The assembly met in the repaired great hall at the second hour past midday, when the autumn light came through the gaps in the patched roof at an angle that made the room feel larger than it was.

Mara had counted the seats twice before anyone arrived. Forty-one had been arranged in the arc configuration Aldric preferred — the deliberate absence of a dais, the rejection of the raised-and-lowered geometry that made clear who addressed whom. She approved of the principle. She had noted, three assemblies ago, that the arc's geometry still placed Aldric's chair at its natural center, and that natural centers were not abolished by refusing to call them thrones.

She took her customary position at the small writing desk to the left and behind, where she could see every face without commanding any line of sight. Her ink vials were uncorked. The two sheets of vellum containing the draft taxation ordinance she had folded into her outer satchel that morning were now arranged flat before her, weighted at their corners with the small knife and an empty horn cup.