Fourteen
Minrathous 9:32
Flavius drummed his fingers nervously across the tabletop, watching intently as the other magisters descended to the floor to cast their votes.
"You don't have the votes," said a man that Cassius didn't recognize as he stopped in front of Magister Arrentius' bench. He was learning the names and faces and many of the magisters as quickly as he could, but there were hundreds, too many of them old men with gray hair to easily and quickly distinguish one from the other.
"We'll see," Flavius said as he continued to drum his fingers, without glancing up at the man as he passed.
Cassius watched the other man snort and shake his head as he turned away to wander back to his own seat. Time was running out as the last few magisters floated down from the ring of seats to the floor, registering their votes with the clerk.
Magister Arrentius had signed on as a vocal co-author of Magister Alexius' bill to establish a new university in Asariel. Although Alexius spent most of his time in the Circle at Minrathous, his actual home was located in the city proper and most of his land holdings were to the north toward the capital. House Arrentius, meanwhile, was House Alexius' neighbor, representing Asariel "on the water," the coastal land and rural areas to the south of the city without any of the city proper.
Still, a new university complex in Asariel would greatly benefit him, especially since House Arrentius controlled the water and therefore any and all ships, their goods and their travelers coming into the port. Such an institution would be a great boon, not only for his business interests, but also for the futures of his Valerie and Andria, neither of whom had manifested the gift and therefore would never be admitted in the halls of the Circle.
There was no disagreement in the chamber that Tevinter should establish a new campus somewhere – the institutions of higher learning for the soporati were all overcrowded and there was plenty of griping from the Magisterium of about the number of young students unleashed into Minrathous each year, many of them from wealthy merchant families who walked around with an undeserved air of superiority despite their common lineage – but argument over where it should be had drawn deep divisions.
Proponents of the Asariel plan approved of its closeness to the capital as well as other major population centers in Val Dorma and Marnus Pell. Opponents, however, preferred Vyrantium as the site of choice, arguing its superior mercantile and financial assets and also due to their distaste over Magister Alexius supporting the location of the new center in his own home territory. Those opponents appeared to, however, disregard, that although the bill offering Vyrantium was authored by the Magister Superiores, it had garnered support of all the local lords around the central city. Apparently bias only operated in one direction.
"Come on…" Magister Arrentius said to himself under his breath as he watched the last votes come in and the staff begin to tally. "We need this."
Along with his fingers drumming on the tabletop, his knee was now bouncing under the desk as he stared down at the floor. Flavius had lobbied his fellow magisters hard for their votes, including pledging his support for a variety of other miscellany they were sponsoring in exchange for their support on his. He had entertained many colleagues over lengthy, expensive dinners and engaged in numerous arguments, some of which had nearly come to blows over the issue after several glasses of wine.
Flavius had worn down carpets in the halls going back and forth for two months leading up to this point and given impassioned speeches to committees and caucuses and fraternities in his best effort to sway opinion.
He had made ground, but would it be enough?
The sergeant at arms pounded his staff against the ground to call for silence in the chamber with its echoing boom. The clerks handed the tally to Magister Superiores Valerius Titan, who set it upon the podium and scanned it with his finger, checking the votes.
"In the matter of Senate Bill 9:32 401, 'A bill to establish a new Imperial university within the City of Asariel,' on second reading, the vote fails by a margin of forty-four percent to fifty-five, with one percent not voting," Titan announced. There was a quiet smattering of applause from the chamber, but not from Magister Arrentius, who slumped in his chair and pounded his fist against his bench, suffering yet another defeat. "The floor will now open for voting on second reading on the related matter, Senate Bill 9:32 402, 'A bill to establish a new Imperial university within the City of Vyrantium.'"
"Maker damn it all," Flavius cursed to himself.
As magisters got up to walk down to record their votes on the next bill, several stopped at his bench to offer their condolences, a few to gloat. One of the men noted that it wasn't over, that if the chamber also voted down the Vyrantium proposal, the matter would likely get reverted back to committee for further discussion.
Flavius slouched in his chair, watching his colleagues pass by one after another, making no sign of getting up. As the lines began to thin, the magister still made no effort to get up.
"Magister Arrentius," Cassius piped up from his position standing behind his lord. "Excuse me, my lord, but the vote will be closing soon."
"Yes, I know," he said, motioning with his hand. "Go for me. A nay vote, Cassius. Go on, hurry."
"Yes, my lord," his said dutifully, bounding down the steps to the floor and falling into line with the few other magisters who were straggling. They paid him, a page and first-year at that, no mind as they registered their votes.
"Name?" the clerk said curtly as he approached the bench. The old woman had graying hair and wrinkled knuckles on the bony hand that worked the pen with haste across the pages.
"Page Cassius Terro, casting vote by proxy for Magister Flavius Arrentius," he said, presenting his badge as proof of his identity to the clerk.
"Arrentius, F., how do you vote?" she asked without looking up.
"Nay," Cassius said.
"Arrentius, F. Nay," she repeated without looking up, marking the page. Cassius stepped out of the way and returned to the stairs, where he quickly ascended back to his position behind his lord, folding his arms behind him and melting into the background once again.
Magister Arrentius sat in his chair motionless, his fingers no longer drumming, his knee and foot no longer bouncing. He stared blankly forward, not even watching anything specifically any more, his unfocused eyes gazing into nothing as he retreated inside his own head.
After a time, the sergeant at arms pounded his staff once again and silence fell over the chamber. The Magister Superiores once again approached the podium, glanced over the vote list and began to speak.
"In the matter of Senate Bill 9:32 402, 'A bill to establish a new Imperial university within the City of Vyrantium,' on second reading, the vote passes by a margin of sixty percent to thirty-nine, with one percent not voting. Being so duly approved, this bill will move to third reading set for…"
"A dagger," Magister Arrentius said over the procedural reading happening from the floor. "Right into my spine."
Magister Arrentius slouched lower in his chair as the floor called the next bill.
Minrathous 9:42
"Me?"
Valerie glanced back and forth between the two men joining her at the dinner table. The servers had just brought the plates bedded with seasoned rice, a blackened fish filet and sauteed winter vegetables as Cassius finished explaining.
"Yes," Cassius said.
"But why me? I'm not even a magister. I'm just filling in for my father," Valerie protested.
"Which is precisely why they want it to be you," Lysander Vespasian said as he picked up his knife and fork.
"You're an outsider. If one of the Venatori magisters did it, they would simply be accused of protecting their own interests," Cassius explained.
"And you're a woman," Lysander added. "They'll throw whatever accusation they can to try to smear us Venatori, but they'll have a hard time making 'chauvinist' stick if we have Magister Arrentius' daughter on the defense."
Cassius would have preferred that that aspect of their earlier conversation been left unsaid, but Lysander apparently did not see the same value in discretion as Cassius.
When conversation about their plans for Nevarra had ended, the business had turned to the legislative session, and specifically a resolution that had been filed by Magister Tilani.
The resolution was broad and venomous, a gross overreach of legislative power and curtailment of political and economic freedoms. At first glance, it gave the impression that it could never pass, but if it did, it would fatally hamstring the Venatori at this critical juncture. Magister Porenni had been quite blunt that no matter what it must not pass, with his voice so low and grim and filled with malice that he spoke like the reaper itself.
Magister Porenni had focused all of his attention on Cassius at the back of the table at that point, laying down the demand that Magister Arrentius' daughter lead the opposition against it. The other magisters had quickly agreed, not daring to cross Porenni. Flavius was already a well-known sympathizer of the Venatori, having been so close to Magister Alexius, while several other houses provided their support in secret from the shadows. Placing her front and center would expose nothing more and give them several advantages to win over moderate support against Maevaris and the burgeoning resistance caucus she was trying to build out of bleeding hearts and naive dreamers.
"Who is this Magister Tilani, anyway?" Valerie asked as she began to cut her food, looking to Cassius for the answer.
Who was she, indeed? He pondered the question to himself for a moment as he wondered what game she was playing at now. First her ally in Albi Danarius offers the Venatori its hospitality with no apparent ill intent or subterfuge that Cassius could uncover, but while at the same time she introduces a resolution condemning the Venatori that would seek to effectively slice the head off the snake and leave their allies impotent to act.
She had met with him privately during his last visit but made no demands or threats toward him. But then she had left him with a parcel of documents to take with him, dangled in front of him as a temptation. To his knowledge, she had no way of knowing whether he had read them or burned them, so what did she gain from giving them to him in the first place?
His time in the back halls of the Magisterium had made him more adept than most low-born at understanding the gears and machinations of those who plied politics in its chambers, but he was left with a feeling like wandering through thick fog as he tried to puzzle out exactly what Maevaris was after and how she was planning to get it. Her actions were so unconnected, so disjointed, so contradictory even that Cassius was struggling to find any pattern or reason to any of them.
Clearly she was an enemy of the Venatori, she made no secret of that, but how exactly was she planning to attack? By introducing a broad resolution in front of the entire chamber? That strategy seemed to be so full-charge ahead that either it was a tactic to try to win something Cassius couldn't comprehend or the first shot of a political paranoia growing within him, a skepticism, cynicism, nihilism even that eventually seemed to afflict most senior magisters at one point or another.
"She's a he," Vespasian interjected before Cassius had a chance to answer Valerie. "Sick in the head."
"She's not to be taken lightly," Cassius said, corralling the narrative back from her personal life to the professional considerations at hand. "House Tilani is extremely wealthy due to its connections to dwarven trading and Maevaris is not afraid to spill the blood of her political enemies, which is why I objected to this plan from the start."
"Wait, I could be killed?" Valerie said as she lowered her utensils with a sudden wide-eyed sense of shock.
"Stop scaring her, Cassius," Lysander said as he scooped rice into his mouth. "No, my dear, you have nothing to worry about."
"I'm not trying to scare her," Cassius bit back, unwilling to be dismissed. "But I also want to make clear that the Venatori are putting a target, literal or not, on her if she does this."
Lysander dabbed the corner of his mouth as he swallowed. "All she has to do is whip support and give one speech when the resolution comes to the floor. Did you read this thing? It has no chance. Zero."
He had read it and his assessment was much the same. Even those old-house magisters who also publicly opposed the Venatori might pause before throwing their support behind Mae's effort, for fear of what kind of box that might open for the future when the political winds inevitably shifted in a different direction. But still, Cassius couldn't shake the sense of doom he felt around the entire situation.
Valerie kept her utensils down as she looked back and forth across the table, still looking unsettled by the perhaps sudden realization of the actual danger that could lurk within the halls of the Magisterium. A full-blooded magister, no, few would be so foolish to make a move like that. But Valerie was not a magister and that made her significantly more vulnerable.
"They can find someone else," Cassius said.
"Like who? Cressida? That will be a good look as she stands up to the podium covered in crumbs and wine stains," Lysander said. "Or maybe they can get that loud-mouthed idiot to do it. The second he gets up to speak he'll drive everyone straight into the arms of our enemies simply out of a desire to be on whatever side he's not on."
"What about your father?" Cassius suggested.
"I'm flattered, Cassius, really, but I am no one. My father is no one. House Vespasian is Laetan and young Laetan at that. They want an Altus voice to carry this message and Valerie is perfect," Lysander argued. "Look at her, Cassius. She's young and beautiful. She's very much not her father. She's innocent, uncorrupted by this place. If she speaks with conviction, people might actually believe her precisely because she's not a legacy like Flavius."
Lysander placed his fork down so he could reach over and place his palm atop Valerie's hand reassuringly. "If even she can see and speak to the gross violations this resolution represents, so will everyone else in the chamber."
Lysander flashed her a smile and gave her hand a squeeze, and she returned a small smile to him. Cassius wondered if she remembered that he was still attempting to court her? That she should place as much value and trust in his words as that of any of the jaded politicians he spoke against?
"They're going to throw her to the wolves," Cassius disagreed.
"What wolves?" Lysander countered. "Tilani holds some clout but who else does she have? Starry-eyed radicals from the leftist fringe. There's nothing there."
"Dorian Pavus," Cassius noted. It was Dorian, after all, who had connected Maevaris to him. They were allies, and House Pavus was of considerable stature.
"Dorian Pavus is in the south, not a magister, and basically disowned from his family," Lysander answered. "Halward is Altus too. He's not Venatori but he'll be suspicious of anything he perceives might even remotely impact his influence. Zero percent chance he supports this."
Cassius still hadn't touched his food, his knife and fork held in his hands over the table like sword and shield as he went to battle, as he found himself being overwhelmed. Lysander was right, even he had to admit. The odds that something, anything would go grossly awry were small. Negligible even. But negligible was not zero, and while Lysander might be able to disappear back into obscurity, what would Cassius say to Flavius if something were to happen to his daughter? The thought of having to face his patron, his mentor, his adoptive father, in such a situation was already giving him anxiety that threatened to gnaw straight through his stomach, emerge on the floor and then begin eating him like vermin from the feet up until there was nothing left.
" I still don't like it," Cassius said, defeated, pouting even, as he finally lowered his utensils to his place and began to eat.
"The only threat is to her waistline, from all the wining and dining with the other magisters to gather support," Lysander added as he glanced back across the table at Valerie with another teasing smirk. "It would be a crime against the Imperium were they to damage her perfect figure."
Valerie rolled her eyes at that, but then gave a small shrug. "They did do that to my father, after all."
"And I can see how," Lysander said as he sawed off another bite of his fish and held it up on his fork, examining it as he rotated the fork slightly. "This is delicious. I wonder what spices they used."
Lysander popped it in his mouth and went back to his plate, while Valerie motioned toward Cassius to attend to his own plate. She was obviously feeling more comfortable, her fear assuaged. "Go ahead, eat. I'll be fine."
Cassius didn't know that he necessarily agreed with that, but he obeyed, and began to eat.
The entire bed was covered in papers as Valerie moved around it, shuffling them, picking one up, glancing at it, putting it back down, and moving on to the next.
The beginning of the session was always the craziest time, as the staff made its deliveries of copies of all the bills and resolutions that had been entered for consideration. Cassius felt sorry for the army of scribes who toiled away in the underbelly of the Magisterium, copying the same piece of legislation hundreds of times so that every magister had their own copy. That happened regardless of how long the document was or how little chance it had of passing.
It was work fit for slaves, except that slaves couldn't typically read or write so the job fell to lower-class men and women who had enough schooling to be literate, but fewer prospects better than sitting in a musty basement copying page after page after page by lantern light until their hands were sore to the point of breaking.
Cassius' mage blood and Magister Arrentius' patronage ensured that he would never be condemned to such crippling work, although there were hundreds of functionary, bureaucratic jobs in Minrathous filled with Praeteri and unlucky Laetans who could claim a consistent and fair wage for their labor without any hope of advancement, satisfaction or glory. But work had to be done and someone had to do it. Should Flavius ever release him from service, who could say whether he might not be left reviewing applications for wagon permits for the rest of his days?
Cassius' pile of papers was much smaller and much neater, confined to the small corner table of Valerie's room she had offered him. His stack contained updates from the Venatori in Minrathous to Magister Arrentius and status reports from Magister Arrentius to the Venatori in the capital. All of it was mostly good news as things were progressing with only a few minor interruptions and complications here and there.
Cassius did take note of a few short notes that Flavius had made about lost goods and men. A wagon here, a shipment there. Flavius' update was upbeat, stating that losses were inevitable and that replacements could be had. There were no discernible patterns – to which Cassius agreed after reviewing the reports himself and finding them scattered and unconnected – but banditry, piracy and the occasional loss were to be expected, especially considering some of the less-than-savory channels Flavius was tapping to move them without catching the attention of Imperial authorities or anyone else who might be looking.
"Where is it?" Valerie said frustrated as she glanced over the bed again, searching for something but not finding it. Her page, Alex, was looking too, squinting his eyes as he tried to discern the titles on the pages in the low light of the room. It wasn't helped by the fact that every scribe had a slightly different hand, so no two pages looked exactly the same despite the efforts to maintain one standardized font.
"Is this it?" Alex asked as he lifted one page and handed it to Valerie.
She grabbed it and stopped to reach, one hand perched on her hip and her lips pursed, one foot tapping impatiently as she scanned it over. "No, this is something about fishing. We're looking for import duties."
As they continued looking through the mess of papers, Cassius set aside his own stack and got up to check the bed. He stepped up toward the head of the bed, looking at the pages there. There was Senate Bill 12, "Increased penalties for lyrium smuggling, amounts greater than four ounces," Senate Bill 201, "Various education matters" and Senate Bill 30, "Legalization of Qunari throwing stars." Cassius laughed at that last one, as it had been proposed every year since he was a page and, for whatever reason, it was never taken up despite how inconsequential the issue seemed.
Cassius began picking up and rearranging the pages without asking as he continued to scan the titles and started building piles.
"What are you doing?" Valerie asked after she finally looked up long enough to see him at work.
"Organizing," Cassius answered. "Your father always likes these in stacks of ten by bill number. These come in whenever the scribes are done with them, so, as you can see here, you'll get number six right next to number fifty-six, then something in the two hundreds. If you build some piles and crosshatch them, it makes it easier to digest."
Cassius picked up a stack he was working on, already having found bills twelve, fifteen, sixteen and nineteen and put them together, before placing them back down and continuing with the remaining sheets.
"I wish they would implement some sort of standardized system for these things, where they'd number them based on their primary content. You know, like public policy in the zero to one hundred, defense in the one hundreds, education in the two hundreds, and so on. But they're content to just file whatever comes in first so it's impossible to quickly find anything," Cassius said, continuing to build his stacks. "That's how they do it in the Circle libraries, you know. The books are coded by number, based on their content, so you don't waste all your time wandering the stacks looking for a tome that could be literally anywhere."
When Cassius stopped talking and glanced up, he realized that Valerie and Alex were now just standing and listening, watching him as his hands moved without thought from page to page, stack to stack, organizing the documents. He had already cleared out more than a third of the bed and was making progress toward the halfway mark. And yet, he hadn't even realized he was doing it.
He considered the piles for a moment and thought back to those first days when he had arrived in Minrathous without the slightest clue of the world he was entering. For a child of farmers, the Circle in Carastes had seemed like as big and wonderful as the world could get. Then he had entered the capital, the ancient city steeped in magic and mystery, some parts literally only held together by the spells woven to bind bricks together and keep towers from tilting, and even Carastes had seen provincial in comparison.
He spent four years here in direct service to Magister Arrentius as his page and now longer than that as his retainer and now son by marriage. Now he was here, yes, still as a servant to Flavius but as his own man, sitting the table with the senior members of the Venatori, working to wrest the very future of the Imperium from devolution and back into prosperity.
He hadn't been home to the farm in years now. Would his parents even recognize him when he strode up in his Venatori whites, with his staff hanging across his back, a high-born wife at his side and a brand-new granddaughter that they would never truly know? Maybe he should take time to talk to Flavius, to see about relocating them to the household in Asariel on the water. Or at least, to some good, fertile land in need of care, not the mud and sticks they scratched in the semi-arid Carastian flats.
"I assume this is the one you're looking for?" Cassius said as he lifted Senate Bill 304, "Adjustment of import duties at ports along the Nocen Sea." Magister Arrentius was listed as the author. He passed it to Valerie as he continued to pick up pages and stack them in their appropriate piles.
"Yes!" she exclaimed with some relief as she read over. "Father's bill. I need to re-read the final language on it so I can meet with the list of 'friendly' members on the fiscal committee."
"What's in it?" Cassius asked. Flavius had briefed him only on the Venatori matters that he needed to attend to, while leaving all of the legislative priorities to his daughter. Just from the title, however, Cassius could tell whatever the finer details were, if passed, it would likely be a financial boon to House Arrentius considering the amount of goods coming in and out of Asariel.
"It's an 'inflationary adjustment,'" Valerie said, no doubt reciting from memory the political euphemism for "increase" her father had taught her as she scanned the two-page document. "Father was working on it with the other magisters with ports, but I need to see what they finally settled on as the amount. Ah, here it is, looks like… nine percent?"
Cassius smirked. The number ten always seemed to strike fear into the hearts of politicians because it sounded large, so magisters frequently would pin percentage hikes in the high single digits to make them seem more palatable. Ten percent was too high, but drop down just a bit to nine percent and its odds of acceptance increased dramatically. It might be a good topic for a treatise for a political scholar, Cassius thought, as he scooped up the last of the pages on the bed and stacked them, completing his sort.
Nine percent would be notable, however, as port duties were split equally three ways between the local lord, the central Imperial government and defense including both physical armies and the Circle. A three percent boost to port revenue would bring in substantial new dollars, Cassius knew, especially considering long-running efforts Magister Arrentius had made to keep his port as busy as possible.
"Father stressed that of everything to consider, this bill was absolutely the top priority, so I need to know it inside and outside," Valerie said.
"Tell them when the last adjustment was made and what the inflation rate has been since. That will be your best selling point," Cassius advised. "Stress the recent flareup in Qunari activity and note the increased revenue it will bring toward our military endeavors and don't be afraid to bring up the instability in the south and in Nevarra making maritime transport increasingly attractive over land-based trade."
Valerie glanced over the top of the pages at Cassius, who offered a small shrug at her gaze. "Are you sure you don't want to just do this for me?"
"Can't," he said, flicking a finger against the arteries in his wrist. "Praeteri blood."
Valerie lowered the page and flicked the fingers out on her left hand toward Cassius like she was tossing a spell. Nothing came out, which was the point. "No magic," she countered.
"No-magic Altus beats Praeteri any day of the week," Cassius teased with a smile. "Now, up against a Laetan mage, well, that turns into a more complicated calculation, I think."
Valerie stuck her tongue out and retreated to the armchair in the corner with her document. The page, Alex, still stood by the side of the bed with his arms behind his back, quietly observing.
"These can be moved," Cassius said to him, motioning over the now-neatly stacked papers on the bed. "I'd suggest keeping the stacks of ten together in piles by hundred, but you're free to do whatever makes sense to you, so long as you know where things are if Valerie needs them."
Alex went to scooping up the papers to move them, but not before Cassius reached down and scooped up one of them that he had set aside for himself. Joint Resolution No. 4 was the identification assigned to Magister Tilani's effort and he wanted to glance over it again. As he scanned the text, he had to agree with Lysander's estimation that it stood no chance of passage in the chamber.
If they knew that, surely Mae knew that too, so as he scanned the text again, he squinted in an attempt to read between the lines to see what she was really after. What did she hope to accomplish? Who was she hoping to curry favor with or to pull off the back benches and force to take a stand one way or another? Who did she expect might rise to support or oppose it and what did she gain by knowing that?
As he read it again, he was becoming more convinced no Altus house would willingly vote in favor of this. Although the word "Venatori" didn't appear in the text once, it was clearly and squarely targeted at the movement, but yet written so imprecisely that any family that held its bulk in power from its generational name could potentially be at risk of sanction. Even the more liberal Altus houses, of which there were only enough to count on one hand, might be wary.
He glanced off the sheet back to Valerie, who was gnawing on her fingernails on one hand re-reading her father's bill, studying it with all of her concentration that she didn't even notice he was looking her way. Perhaps there was little danger in her standing for the Venatori interest in speaking against this bill. Magister Porenni had offered her up so quickly and so adamantly that the table didn't even think to entertain other options.
Another pang of anxiety punched Cassius in the gut as he remembered that and then wondered to himself, what if Mae anticipated that they'd appoint her to lead the resolution's opposition? Maevaris was a schemer, that was apparent, so wouldn't it follow that she would be forecasting their moves one, two, three steps before they even made them? That notion filled him with a new sense of dread, that perhaps Valerie was being played as a pawn in whatever larger strategy Magister Tilani had at hand.
But what? Cassius calmed himself by turning the idea over in his head, coming to the same conclusion that he had when trying to consider what exactly Mae wanted with him, and that conclusion was that he could come to no logical output to the question. And why would she want Valerie, anyway? Perhaps Mae's true target was elsewhere, someone like Porenni, someone more influential and connected into the higher workings of the Venatori.
That made more sense, at least, although it did little to quell the growing indigestion he was having about the situation.
"What is it, Caz?" Valerie asked as she glanced up, finally noticing that he was staring across the room at her.
As he looked at her, sitting there in the corner armchair with a piece of legislation in her hand and a seriousness and contemplativeness written across her brow, Cassius reconsidered how cruel it was that she was born without the gift. She could have, should have been the next magister to rise out of House Arrentius. With the guidance, intelligence and acumen of both her father and mother, he was convinced that she would be able to rise to be one of the best in her family's long lineage.
And yet, it would never be, all because the fickle floes of magic had decided to skip her and all of her siblings.
"Nothing," he said, but then added, "Just that, this suits you."