A/N - Hi! I'm back... did you miss me? Sorry about the slow update. It's not that I am busy or that I'm out of ideas, it's just that I'vechanged host families, and I don't have as much computer access as I previously did. But here I am, and here is drumroll chapter 21! Nothing really happens in this chapter, but it explains a lot of what's going on to readers who had become a little confused. It's actually kind of a weird politics/fluff overlap!

Chapter 21

Half an hour later, just as Raif was making the final, victorious move in his and Izmae's twelfth chess game, a thundercloud-faced Illa returned to her rooms, with a cautious-looking Aubrey in tow. Izmae looked up, glad of a distraction from her abysmal performance.

'No joy, then?' she asked with a grin, utterly heedless of the frantic hushing motions Aubrey was making behind Illa's back.

'He wasn't even there,' said Illa sourly, though it seemed as if she were speaking more to Aubrey – or herself – than to Iz. 'He's gone to Naxen, and is expected to be there for at least a month. No one saw fit to tell me that,' she puffed herself up in disgruntled-hen fashion, 'before I went rushing off like a mad thing!'

'I told you, we didn't know he was going,' said her long-suffering friend, in a tone which suggested that he had voiced this particular denial several times already, 'actually, I'm kind of worried that something might be really wrong.'

'Come on, Aubrey,' said Izmae bracingly, 'you know he would have told you if it was anything serious. It's probably just that whichever of your idiot brothers is supposed to be in charge at the moment has accidentally set fire to all the barns destroying a whole years worth of crops and imposing a very hungry winter on the villagers, and your father has been called in to sort out the resulting crisis.' However well-meant this rather tactless platitude was, it didn't seem to offer Aubrey much comfort. He grimaced as Illa began to speak again.

'But the fact remains that he is not here, at a time when his presence would be of somewhat vital importance.'

'So? Write him a letter. There's no need to get into a state.'

'Oh, I most certainly shall write him a letter,' replied Illa in a dangerously sweet voice, which rose several hysterical decibels with each syllable as she continued, 'but he won't arrive at Naxen for another four days, and even if I write my letter and send it off tonight, it won't get there until at least three days after he does, and he'll have to sort out whatever it is that he went there to do in the first place, and then he'll probably send another letter back asking me to explain the first letter, because what I want to tell him is classified information so I can't write it down plainly. That all adds up, thus he probably won't be here for at least a fortnight, and only then if he trusts me and deems the situation serious enough to warrant his return, so if you were in my position, Mr Naxen, I'm pretty sure you would be in a bit of a state too!' As Illa paused to take a much needed breath, Aubrey seized the opportunity to ask,

'If you wouldn't mind condescending to tell me, what exactly is your position?'

'I thought you knew. Isn't that why you followed me in the first place?'

'No, I followed you because I interpreted the look on your face as meaning serious bodily harm for whoever had been unwise enough to upset you this time, and although I wholeheartedly agree with you that there are some people in this place who deserve it, I didn't think your reputation could survive attempted murder. In fact, I'm rather glad my father wasn't there. He may get on my nerves sometimes, but at the end of the day, I like him much better with his head attached to his shoulders!' Illa smiled in spite of herself. In times like this, Aubrey seemed to be the only on who could cheer her up. About to divulge her latest and greatest discovery, she caught sight of her siblings, whom she had almost forgotten were in the room.

'Iz, Raif; out!' she ordered. 'I mean it. And don't pout, Izmae. I've just saved you from your forty-seventh straight defeat!' Raif scampered off without a murmur, but Iz, scowling, stayed put.

'No, it would only be the thirteenth,' she corrected grumpily, 'and that's not fair, Illa. I'm the one who told you about all this in the first place.'

'Yes, I'm very grateful, and I would ask you to let me know if you ever hear the word mentioned again.'

'But in that case, I have a right to know what it means.'

'Be that as it may, I am not telling you, and don't go asking anybody else, either. Just believe me when I say that this could be dangerous knowledge, and the fewer people who are possessed of it, the better. Now, be off with you.' Wearing a mutinous expression, and without so much as a goodnight, Izmae followed Raif out the door.

As soon as she was gone, Aubrey turned to Illa, wearing the crooked, teasing smile that, in recent times, seemed to ignite a confusing babble of emotions in his friend.

'So, the Right Honourable Lady Shadowflax has deemed my humble self worthy of receiving this dangerous knowledge, then?'

'Don't push it. Anyway, if you'd actually listened in some of our lectures, you'd understand anyway.'

'Illa,' said Aubrey indulgently, taking a seat on the sofa 'my dear Illa. You have always been something of an idealist, but I thought you knew how to separate the possible from the impossible.' Illa made a face, and Aubrey patted the empty space beside him invitingly.

'Besides,' he continued as Illa sat down obligingly on the offered patch of sofa, 'if I'd listened then, I would have stolen your thunder. And I'm sure you'll make it a hundred times more interesting and dramatic that those dried up old codfish. Not to mention you make a much better pillow,' he added, looping a friendly arm around her. Illa stiffened. While this might have seemed like typical Aubrey behaviour to the casual observer, Illa could sense something different in the firm tenderness of his hold, despite his light tone of voice. While such differences were not entirely unwelcome, they made her feel rather uneasy, and it took a great deal of self-restraint to prevent her from running away and barricading herself with something, as she had been known to do on at least one previous occasion. If she had chanced to look up at Aubrey's face, however, the expression upon it would probably have been enough to send her flying off the sofa at a rate of knots, self-restraint be damned.

The lines of devotion written all over his countenance would have been as fuel to her flight. It wasn't that Illa was afraid of affection, exactly, only that she rather dreaded losing control; of surrendering to her feelings and abandoning judgement and reason. Though she didn't think she really needed to worry about that now. The most exasperatingly rational part of her brain supposed that it was impossible to surrender to one's feelings in such a manner if one was not entirely certain as to precisely what one's feelings were. Thus could she lean comfortably into her friend's embrace and recline her head on his shoulder, enjoying the safe, protected, carefree feeling his touch gave her, without a further thought regarding the possible consequences or interpretations of her behaviour. Yes. That made complete sense, didn't it? Illa had always felt that logic was one of her strong points.

He rested his cheek on the top of her head, and they sat like that for what could have been quite a long time, though neither party was in a fit state to provide an educated estimate as to the exact amount of sand that had slipped through the hourglass. Then suddenly, Aubrey remembered why he was there in the first place.

'Weren't you going to explain something to me?' His voice came out rather muffled.

'Why are you talking like that?'

'Well, some of your hair seems to have escaped from its pins and found its way into my mouth.' Illa giggled, producing a hairpin from her pocket and proceeding to tame the rogue strands.

'Lucky I washed it this morning, then. Any other day, and you might have come across the sort of creature that you pray not to meet on dark nights! But yes, I was going to tell you about republics.' Aubrey closed his eyes wearily and sighed in a long suffering way.

'More highly educated, political jargon. Why couldn't we, just for once, have a nice, simple conversation about turtles. But he desisted, as the top of Illa's head seemed to be giving him a very disapproving look.

'Just as long as it can pass for a bedtime story,' he added with a yawn.

'Well,' Illa began, settling herself comfortably against him again, 'the strangest thing about trying to explain a republic to you is that such a thing doesn't really exist. It is, as I almost told Iz before, a hypothetical situation, or to be more specific, a hypothetical political system created several hundred years ago by scholars in... oh, I think it was Carthak, but never actually put into practice anywhere in the world, as far as I'm aware.'

'So you mean to say,' said Aubrey slowly, 'that these overly pretentious guild masters wish to change the way Tortall is governed?'

'You think that's bad, wait until you hear exactly what a republic involves,' responded Illa grimly. 'The primary idea is that the country is run by the people, for the people. Thus the head of state is a commoner, elected to his office by the votes of his fellow citizens, in a similar way to that in which village headmen are chosen now. The leader achieves their rank by virtue of their suitability for office rather than their birthright. In fact, it is a rather admirable system, universally much fairer than the one we have now, and if I were a commoner, I would wholeheartedly support its institution.'

'But?' Aubrey prompted.

'But I'm not a commoner.'

'And therefore?' Illa disengaged herself from her friend and held him at arm's length.

'Aubrey, don't you understand? A republic makes no provision for the nobility. They get their way, and we lose everything but our pride, and maybe even that, too.' Aubrey looked very shocked for a moment, but soon recovered to replace that expression with a sly smirk.

'What's that look for?' asked Illa with some trepidation.

'I just don't think I've ever heard Miss 'Equal-Rights-For-All' sound so snobbish before. Is that your only reason for opposing this plot?' Illa cuffed him over the head indignantly.

'Of course not! If I thought that this changeover could be pulled off properly, I wouldn't mind losing my title that much. It's not like it would put much of a dint in my plans of world domination, anyway. But it would face the realm with a lot of difficulties. Everything would have to be changed; from ownership laws, to government positions, to taxation arrangements, to the whole legal system, and it'd be nigh on impossible to change all those things at once. Any transition would be long and messy, and I just have some very pessimistic suspicions about what the eventual outcome of all this would be.

I know the sort of people who become guild masters, and they tend to be the greedy, power-hungry types. I'm almost certain that once they've wrestled power from the monarchy, they'd be far more inclined to quarrel over it amongst themselves than to organise it into a fair democracy. Instead of a republic, we'd end up with an ugly and unstable dictatorship. The fact that they've done all their plotting and planning on the sly and obviously intend to ascend to power by force just proves to me that their motives are on the shady side. If they had been open and honourable about their intentions, and actually sat down and discussed their grievances with the king, instead of sneakily waiting for the opportunity to strike, I might be slightly more sympathetic towards their cause.

On top of that, right now is a ridiculous time to put a new system of government in place. That's the sort of thing you do when your country is losing wars, in the throes of an economical crisis, and with a completely unsuitable ruler at the helm. Of present-day Tortall, the reverse is true. The economy is booming, even with the events on the south coast last year, King Jonathon is arguably the best ruler we've ever had, and our diplomatic forces are doing such a good job that we're not even fighting in any wars at the moment! It's just silly to think about changing things now.' She paused, and Aubrey, finally sensing an opening, cut in.

'The rebels mustn't have thought this through, though, or they'd never have been stupid enough to continue. They can't possibly think that the nobility will take the loss of their lands and titles lying down,' he said incredulously.

'Mmm,' Illa agreed, 'and even if they did get their republic, every few months they'd have a different fief knocking on their door making a claim on the throne. It'd be certain to push Tortall to civil war, and our warmongering neighbours would swoop in like vultures, for no country can fend off an attack on its borders while it's fighting itself internally.'

'Except for Scanra,' Aubrey reminded her.

'Yes, well, Scanra's a special case. I guess because their state of civil unrest is so constant, they've just had to learn to fight real wars at the same time. Mind you,' she added with a grin, 'they mostly lose, though!'

'So you're saying that if these delinquents got their way, we'd end up divided among our greedy conquerors, with our previous might but a mere memory?'

'Exactly. Although,' Illa looked thoughtful, 'I suppose there is one way in which they could be certain to prevent any noble opposition.'

'And what's that?' asked Aubrey nervously. Illa shrugged.

'Mass execution.'

'What!'

'You heard me. It's not as if it would be a completely unexpected course of action, I mean, the royal family and most of their close connections would be almost certain to snuff it anyway, it would just be too risky to keep them alive, though it's probably not the most auspicious start for a system claiming equal rights for all!'

'Er, would you consider my family as having close connections to the crown?'

'Most definitely.' Aubrey blanched.

'I didn't realise it was this serious.'

'Of course it's bloody serious! Why do you think I was in such a state about not being able to see your father today. I don't want to worry anyone else with this until I can tell him what I think is going on!'

'Not even Thayet?'

'Especially not Thayet. I think that despite her calm and diplomatic façade, she might feel slightly too inclined to ride out into the city and start launching arrows at people if she knew that the crown was under threat, and she'd probably take the Lioness with her, which would mean that by nightfall, there would probably no longer be any Tortallan citizens to govern. Even if she didn't feel compelled to act immediately, I wouldn't want to worry her. And she'd certainly tell the king, and I'm not sure that it would be a good idea for him to know just yet.'

'It was just a suggestion, and I'll see what I can do about contacting father, but honestly, my letter won't reach him any faster than yours, Illa.' Illa stood up hastily.

'Speaking of letters, I'd better make a start on mine now, if you wouldn't mind vacating the premises.'

'Don't worry,' Aubrey replied, 'I'm going. I need some time alone to contemplate my imminent demise.' Illa smiled slightly, and reached up to place a comforting arm around his neck.

'Oh, ye of little faith,' she mocked, 'don't you believe that we can fix everything before it all gets out of hand?' Aubrey gave a fairly sceptical grunt in reply.

'Me neither,' agreed Illa, 'but we have to have a shot. These nobles aren't going down without a fight!' Aubrey half expected her to break into an inspirational war-chant, but before she had the opportunity to do so, he bent down and kissed her cheek.

'G'night Illa,' he mumbled, and before she could catch more than a glimpse of his expression, he shook himself free of her hold and strode out the door, leaving the object of his affections alone with her reddening face, all thoughts of the task at hand banished momentarily from her mind.

A/N – oh...fluff...sort of...um, yes... well it was probably very dodgy fluff, but hopefully it will at least partially satisfy all those reviewers (you know who you are) who have been rabidly requesting romance. oooh, alliteration. that was special. review please, and in your reviews, please tell me what aubrey will end up doing (as in a career) because although I think it would be fun to make him a turtle trainer, he has no real experience, and it would be just slightly unrealistic. so any suggestions are most welcome. oh, and anyone who enjoyed this and has not read chapter 1 of 'Eldorne's Atonement' by Group Askew, I wrote that as well! check it out!

l.m xoxo