Free Bite Back 05 - Angel Stakes by Mark Henwick Page B

shut. “But most of you know it anyway. It molds our society. It dictates our behavior.”
    He stopped and turned to the audience.
    “The Agiagraphos has endured for millennia, and it has done so because we allow it.” He scanned the faces and repeated. “Because we allow it. Yet here we are, Panethus and the Midnight Empire and the Hidden Path, all in one room. Dozens of you have sworn oaths to kill each other. You would, if you met anywhere else.”
    He pointed out over the seats. “House Karamazin, you sit not four paces away from House Argonne. Have you put aside your oath? A Blood oath? One I witnessed, sworn in accordance with the Agiagraphos.”
    Karamazin stirred, but did not reply. Louis, Compte de Fontaines d’Argonne, stared straight ahead, his face expressionless.
    Ibarre returned slowly to the center, his feet soundless on the floor. “And yet, as I say, here we are, enemies sitting together, oath-bound, feuds unforgotten, but peaceful and secure in the laws of the Assembly. Laws that govern because we agree that they to do so. Because we allow it .”
    He was making a good case for Assembly laws, without any reference to me.
    “By Agiagraphos laws, I am accused of being a traitor to Altau, under terms of an oath I did not speak. Under Assembly laws, those same laws which protect all of you in this room today, I am a sovereign House with an undisputed domain and entirely justified in seeking to elect a different leader to the Panethus association.”
    “He’s made his opening case well. He should sit down now,” Elizabetta muttered.
    “I’m here,” a voice called out from behind us, “because Altau offered a Blood oath to protect this conference from Basilikos in exchange for my oath to keep the peace.”
    Another: “Altau keep their oaths. Does Ibarre?”
    I didn’t know the speakers, but clearly they were Skylur’s supporters. Predictably, Hidden Path party voices were raised, most claiming the Basilikos threats were a trick invented by Skylur, or a wild exaggeration.
    “House Ibarre has the floor.” Skylur’s voice carried and the shouting subsided.
    “Though he seems to have reached a conclusion…” Eugenie suggested, raising her eyebrows.
    “Nearly, House Passau.” Ibarre gave her a half bow and waved off the interruptions. “My point was not to do with external threats. Nor am I suggesting an abandonment of laws. Quite the opposite. I support the Agiagraphos, but in the place of the physical confrontation against a claim on my domain that is suggested in the Hidden Path, and which might contravene the most important law of remaining hidden from humanity, I am conducting the fighting using the laws of the Assembly, which we must all agree are still operating in spirit for us to be here. As for external protection, House Altau has merely stepped in to replace the Warders he himself unilaterally disbanded.”
    Then he turned again to the audience, and for the final time, his eyes found me.
    Here it comes.
    “I support the Agiagraphos. I support the laws of the Assembly. I call Convocation on Altau’s leadership of Panethus because he supports neither. His actions are outside the remit of the leader of Panethus, outside the authority of the president of the Assembly, and worse, entirely against the Agiagraphos in his elevation of an unstable hybrid to the position of House.”
    In case anyone misunderstood, his arm snapped out to point at me.
    The shocked silence was broken by a stir all the way in the back. I recognized Correia’s voice. “Seconded. At the last Assembly, Altau contrived to have the evaluation of the hybrid done by an Adept who immediately afterwards became part of his House, and whose assessment is therefore suspect. Now, while our attention is elsewhere, I see on the Tartarus website that Altau has surreptitiously appointed her to be syndesmon between the Assembly and the Were, thus ensuring his own personal control of Athanate-Were relations.”
    She ignored