The Two-Piece Crown

Year 0, late winter. The High Hall, Valdris.

The reconstituted council met at the third bell of the morning to formally elect a steward.

The five houses present were Sunward, Hollowgate, Maradel (under new lord, the prior Lord Maradel having been removed in the council's interim purge), the small reconstituted Pennarith (Aleri's mother's-sister, who had, three weeks ago, been formally invited to take the Pennarith seat after Aleri's walk into the Ashwood), and the small Sunspear-trade-coalition house, which had not been a council house in the Pre-Sundering form but had been added under the new charter's expansion clause.

Lord Tavienne held the lectern as steward.

He was, this morning, still without the gavel.

The gavel was on the small white cloth Master Tael had laid for it eleven weeks ago. Borren the Master of Records had, in his own two-week-into-the-position discipline, decided not to move the cloth. The gavel remained where Master Tael had set it down.

Tavienne struck a small wooden block instead.

The strike was the careful strike of the new charter's opening protocol for sessions without the gavel. The small wooden block was, after Tavienne's quiet practice during the past weeks, beginning to be a thing the council was learning to recognize.

He said: This council is in session. Five seats present. Six seats provisional under the new charter's expansion clauses. The session's purpose, under the charter's third article, is the formal nomination of a steward.

He drew breath.

He said: I, Tavienne, of the small house at the eastern Sunspear foothills, by my standing as the council's interim lectern-holder, nominate Kaelith Sunward as the council's first formal elected steward.

The strike of the wooden block.

Lord Hollowgate stood from the second stone of the western ring.

He was, this morning, in a darker coat than he had been in any prior session. He had been, by Captain Moren's careful tracking of his recent travels, at the Sunspear foothills the previous month, at the family seat his own father had been buried at. He had returned, by Brother Aldwen's reading of him, slightly different. He had been, in the four months since the council's collapse, the only senior councilor who had, in those four months, supported the elected stewardship while not being, by any prior decade's measure, expected to.

He said: I, Hollowgate, second the nomination.

The strike of the wooden block.

Tavienne said: The nomination is seconded. The remaining four houses will, by the charter's clause, vote.

Maradel voted aye.

Pennarith did not vote immediately. There was a pause of perhaps three seconds. Then she voted aye.

Sunspear-trade voted aye.

The Sunward seat was, by the new charter, not present at the vote. The Sunward heir was understood, by the charter's protocol, to abstain on his own nomination.

Kaelith stood at the new chamber-edge where the new charter had moved the Sunward stone (the Sunward stone was now adjacent to but not at the council ring; the seat was, in the charter's language, attached to the council's small private observers' bench).

He listened.

The vote was unanimous.

Tavienne said: The vote is unanimous. The chair recognizes Kaelith Sunward and asks him to receive the lectern.

Kaelith walked to the lectern.

He did not, in the walking, look at the gavel.

He stood at the lectern.

He laid his palms flat on the wood of the lectern.

He drew breath.

He said: I receive the lectern. I do not, by the charter's clause, receive the gavel. The gavel will, by my proposal, remain with the speaker as a council-shared instrument. The steward, under the new charter, presides without the gavel. The speaker holds the gavel for sessions in which the speaker, at the council's request, asks it.

He said: The proposal is, by my own reading, a continuation of what Master Tael, by his quiet hand, began eleven weeks ago. He drew, eleven weeks ago, the line through the tenth seat. He did not, in the four weeks after, move the gavel. The gavel has, by the four weeks, become a thing that does not, by its sitting, presume the seat under it. I would like the council to formally adopt this practice.

The council, after a long count, formally adopted it.

The strike of the wooden block.

Tavienne said: The lectern is yours, my lord steward. The first session is at the half-bell of fourth. The session's first matter, under the charter's tenth clause, is the ceremonial laying of the two-piece Broken Crown.

Kaelith nodded.

He said: I will return at the half-bell.

He walked from the lectern. He walked the slow walk back to the Sunward chambers.

At the Sunward chambers, he opened the long table's central cabinet, where the two-piece Broken Crown had sat for nine generations of Sunward heirs.

He lifted the two pieces.

They were, in his hands, the same two pieces he had grown up looking at on the small Sunward shelf. They were silver-and-cobalt. They were the size of his own two hands set together. They had been, by the records he had read with Master Tael in the weeks before the records cellar fire, originally seven pieces. The Cult's slow nine-century editing had, by some careful working, reshaped the records to a three-piece account. The third piece had been retrieved, at Master Tael's quiet direction, from the chamber three levels below the High Hall. The fourth piece had been retrieved from the records cellar's back wall before the fire, at Master Tael's instruction on his last morning. The fifth piece was in the chapel cellar, per Nyra's chapter house records, awaiting the slow logical-connection workings. The sixth and seventh, by Master Tael's last reading, were not in Aerros.

The Crown was incomplete.

The two-piece form, the form the Sunward house had carried for nine generations as if it were the Crown's full shape, was the form that had, until eleven weeks ago, been the only form anyone in Aerros had known.

This morning, Kaelith carried the two pieces, in his coat, back to the High Hall.

The half-bell of fourth came.

The council reconvened. The five houses sat. The chamber-edge observer's bench held Lord Malrien's empty second stone, which would, by the charter's clause, be filled when Halric Vendell's particular testamentary instructions had been read at the spring's first session.

Kaelith stood at the lectern.

He laid the two pieces of the Broken Crown on the steady square of cloth the chapel-keeper had laid on the lectern for the ceremony.

He said: The ceremony of the laying. Under the charter's tenth clause, I, as elected steward, lay the two-piece Broken Crown at the lectern as the symbol of the Sunward house's stewardship-by-treaty over the council. The Crown is incomplete. The Crown will, as the records confirm, remain incomplete until the remaining pieces are recovered. I will, this morning, place the two pieces on my head as they are.

He lifted the two pieces.

He placed them on his head.

The fit was, as it had been every time he had placed them on his head in the private moments at the chambers, uneven.

The two pieces did not align. One side pressed slightly harder than the other. The pressure was, by the small reading of the Crown's seven-piece truth, the pressure of missing five pieces.

He noticed.

He had been noticing since he had been twelve, when his father had first placed the two pieces on his head at the Sunward family ceremony.

The notice was the same.

The Crown was the same.

He stood at the lectern, with the two-piece Crown on his head, for the long moment of the ceremony's full minute.

The council watched.

He removed the Crown.

He placed the two pieces back on the square of cloth.

He said: The ceremony is complete. The Crown will, by my own private decision, be carried back to the Sunward chambers. It will be placed, by my own hand, in a small wooden box at the bedside table beside the small wooden horse the original Lord Malrien gave my father at my father's coronation as Sunward heir, twenty-three years ago. The Crown will, by my own private decision, sit beside the horse for the duration of my stewardship. The two together will be, by my own measure, a careful reminder that the work I am doing is the work my father did, with the addition of the work my father did not have time to do.

The council, in its careful response, accepted the saying.

Tavienne struck the wooden block.

The session's particular opening item was complete.

The session's second item was the formal reading of the new five-house council's first quarter agenda.

Kaelith presided over the agenda's reading.

The reading took, by the cadence of the new charter's first session, perhaps two hours.

Kaelith presided.

He did not, during the two hours, place the two pieces of the Crown on his head again.

The Crown sat on the square of cloth.

At the close of the session, at the second bell of the afternoon, the council adjourned.

Kaelith carried the two pieces back to the Sunward chambers.

He placed them in the wooden box he had had the chamber-keeper bring up the previous evening.

He laid the box on the bedside table.

The small wooden horse was, in the box's adjacent space, the small wooden horse.

The two together were the two together.

He sat at the long table.

He drew, in Master Tael's morning notebook, the new line for the day.

The line was: Year 0, late winter, the ceremonial laying of the two-piece Broken Crown. Aerros's first elected steward. Council unanimous. Crown placed at bedside, with small wooden horse, beside the four pieces in the leather-lined box. Five pieces in the box now (Captain Moren brought F4 from the records cellar; Sister Mara brought F3 from the chapter house chapel; F5 in transit from the Sunspear chapel cellar). The Crown is, by this evening, incomplete by two.

He set the pen down.

He stood at the chamber window.

The Lower Sward, in the late winter afternoon, was beginning the slow quietness of the hour before the bakers' chimneys began their evening work. A dog barked once, two alleys west. Stopped.

Kaelith laid his palm flat on the cold glass.

He turned.

He walked to the box at the bedside.

He laid his palm flat on the small wooden horse for a long pause.

He laid his palm flat on the lid of the wooden box that held the two pieces of the Crown for a still moment.

He did not, this evening, lay his palm on the leather-lined box that held the four other pieces. The four pieces had their own steady weight. The two pieces had theirs. The horse had its own.

He sat, after the long counts, at the long table.

He picked up the note from Master Tael that he had been carrying in his coat pocket since the morning two and a half months ago.

He read it once more.

He folded it.

He placed it back in his coat pocket.

He drew the next morning's record's first line.

He sat with the next morning's first line for the rest of the afternoon.