Free The Way of the Blade by Stuart Jaffe Page B

Shual’s side. “Relax, Father. Everything’s going fine. There’s no need for you to do anything but enjoy the day.”
    “It’s comments like that which show me how unprepared you are for any serious political work. Did you know your brother, Canto, started working on his speech over a month ago? Is yours ready? Did you even start it?”
    “Of course, it’s ready. And Canto isn’t my brother, yet.”
    They inspected the ceremonial area — a large square with seating on one half, tables floating with food and drinks on a side, musicians tuning their instruments on the other side, and a clear circle in the other half for the event. Shual counted the rows of chairs that had been laid out and frowned. “We need at least five more rows. Can I trust you to handle that?”
    “I’ll see it gets done.”
    “Canto I can trust. He understands how to work hard and study hard. You go off with your big dreams, but what comes of it? Is that Waypoint contraption running yet? Will it ever?”
    “If I had the support and backing of the town, it would be.”
    “You’re going to blame us, now? You can’t be this foolish. You can’t wait around for me to rescue you from the mess you created.”
    “The Waypoint system is not a mess.”
    “That’s not what it looks like from here.” Guests had started to arrive — they would be coming in all day — and Shual abruptly turned back toward the house. “Tell me you’ve at least secured the god for our fight?”
    “I’ll be accepting her agreement later today.”
    “You know this for certain?”
    “I expect that she’ll —”
    “You expect? That sounds tenuous.” Shual flashed his hand in front of Javery’s face. “No more. I understand exactly how things stand.” He rubbed his nose and pulled at the corner of his eye. “I want you to promise me that you’ll openly welcome Canto into our family. It is vital that we present a united front to the public. Privately, you can hate him all you want, but before the people, we have to be as one. Had you succeeded with the god, this might have been different. I suppose I can only blame myself for that. I should have listened to Canto and stuck with our original plan. Now we’ll have lost respect from other town leaders, and we still have a god to get rid of.”
    “You don’t have to worry about Malja. I know she’ll come around. All I have to do —”
    “Then do it.” Shual whipped his body away, and the floating bells of his train smacked Javery’s legs and jingled.
    As Shual walked off to examine the circle where the ceremony would take place, four autoflys passed overhead. More guests. Javery hunted down a Wrenley boy to make sure five more rows of seats were laid out.
    With that task completed, he found a corner of the kitchen in which no food had been stored, no dirty pots had been stacked, no steam or fire raised the temperature ten degrees, no animal carcasses waited butchering, and no people had been appointed. He sat on a small stool and leaned the back of his head against the cold stone walls. At least another three hours before he could have a drink.
    “Mr. Javery! I haven’t seen you since you were a little boy.” A large lady with dark brown skin and gray hair waddled towards him. “You probably don’t even remember me.”
    Javery forced a bright smile and got to his feet. “I could never forget you, Mrs. Colthworer. You were more than a neighbor. In fact, just hearing your voice brings back the smell of your fresh baked cookies.”
    “You do remember.”
    “Every day after working in the fields, you had a batch waiting. That’s something a man won’t ever let go of.”
    Mrs. Colthworer covered her mouth with both hands. “I wanted to tell you that I saw you speak at the Assembly Hall, and I completely support you. We live in dangerous times, and if you think that we can make good use of this Malja person, then we should do it.”
    Javery clasped her hand between his. “I’ll certainly