Free The Second Empire by Paul Kearney Page B

smiles, shone down the great table at his fellow blue-bloods.
    A crowd had gathered outside the abbey to await the outcome of the council. Jemilla’s steward had bribed several hundred of the city dregs to stand there and cheer when the news was announced, and they had, in the manner of things, been joined by a motley throng of some several thousand who sensed the excitement in the air. Jemilla had also thoughtfully arranged for fifty tuns of wine to be set up at various places about the city so that the regent’s health might be drunk when the criers went forth to spread the tidings about the change of government. The wine ought to assuage any pangs of uneasiness or lingering royalist feeling left in the capital. Nothing had been left to chance. This thing was here, now, in her hand. What would she do first? Ah, that Astaran bitch Isolla. She’d be sent packing, for a start.
    As the hubbub within the abbey died down and the nobles took their places it was possible to hear the clamour of the crowds outside. It had risen sharply. They sounded as though they were cheering. Mindless fools, Jemilla thought. Their country is in ruins about their ears but splash them a measure of cheap wine and they’ll make a holiday.
    The nobles were finally assembled, and seated according to all the rivallries and nuances of rank. Duke Urbino rose in his space at the right hand of the King’s empty chair. He looked as though he was trying not to grin, a phenomenon which sat oddly on his long, mournful face. The horsetrading which had occupied them day and night for the last several days was over. The outcome of the vote was already known to all, but the legal niceties had to be observed. In a few minutes he would be the
de facto
ruler of Hebrion, one of the great princes of the world.
    “My dear cousins,” Urbino began—and stopped.
    The din of the crowds had risen to a roaring pitch of jubilation, but now they in turn were being drowned out by the booming thunder of artillery firing in sequence.
    “What in the world?” Urbino demanded. He looked questioningly at Jemilla, but she could only frown and shake her head. No doing of hers.
    The assembly listened in absolute silence. It sounded like a regular bombardment.
    “My God, it’s the Knights Militant—they’ve come back,” some idiot gushed.
    “Shut up!” another snapped.
    They listened on. Urbino stood as still as a statue, his head cocked to the sound of the guns. They were very close by—they must have been firing from the battlements of the palace. But why? And then Jemilla realised, with a sickening plunge of spirit. It was a salute.
    “Count the guns!” she cried, heedless of the shrill crack in her voice.
    “That’s nineteen now,” one of the older nobles asserted. Hardio of Pontifidad, she remembered. A royalist. His face was torn between hope and dismay.
    The echoing rumble of the explosions at last died away, but the crowds were still cheering manically. Twenty-eight guns. The salute for a reigning king. What in the world was going on?
    “Maybe it’s for the new regent,” someone said, but Hardio shook his head.
    “That’d be twenty-two guns.”
    “Perhaps he’s dead,” one of the dullards suggested. “They always fire a salute on the death of a king.”
    “God forbid,” Hardio rasped, but most of the men present looked relieved. It was Jemilla who spoke, her voice a lash of scorn.
    “Don’t be a fool. You hear the crowds? You think they’d be cheering the death of the King?” It was slipping away—she could feel it. Somehow Golophin and Isolla had stymied her. But how?
    The question was soon answered. There was a deafening blare of horns outside and the clatter of many horses. A Royal fanfare was blown over and over. Beyond the great double doors of the refectory they could hear the tramp of feet marching in step. Then a sonorous boom as someone struck the doors from the outside.
    “Open in the name of the King!”
    A group of timorous