Outside the Truffidian Cathedral, Martin Lake dourly limped about on his polished cane, stopping to mutter grim Lakeisms to friends such as Merrimount and Raffe, all of whom avoided me as if I embodied a disease they might one day become. That’s how far I had fallen. I limped like Lake by then. I had a cane like him. But I was not enough like him, especially now that he had passed from “successful” to that ethereal realm where one’s fame will always outlive the fading mortal body.

The Morrow ambassador to the House of Hoegbotton—newly renamed to reflect the aftermath of war—presented a dapper sight in slick black tuxedo and tails, at least until he managed to slide in a patch of mud created by overzealous gravediggers and groundskeepers. A general from the Kalif’s army, a supposed friend of Bonmot’s in his youth, looked out of place in turban and gold-and-red glittery uniform, his presence barely tolerated by a city that so frequently had been bombarded by his masters.

Dozens of priests arrived from the Religious Quarter, from orders as diverse as the Cult of the Seven-Edged Star and Manziism. They all wore variations of black-on-white and somber stares. They all had guards with them. Ever since the War of the Houses, no one trusted anyone else. Hoegbotton’s men were out in force as well, armed with guns and with knives. Some of them stood in motored vehicles, in well-heeled clumps, staring.

Business leaders also arrived to pay their bemused respects. The newly ascendant Andrew Hoegbotton, a weaselly stick figure of a man with large, liquid eyes, shared uneasy space with Lionel Frankwrithe, a smug middle-aged man who kept snapping out his pocket watch in sudden motions that kept wretched Andrew flinching. Truces between House F&L and House H&S rarely lasted very long anymore.

At the edges, surrounding these dim luminaries, stood beggars, prostitutes, and the working poor, all of whom Bonmot had helped at some period in his life, whether as Antechamber or as the Royal of Blythe Academy. As The Ambergris Daily Broadsheet noted:

Every element of Ambergrisian society turned out yesterday to grieve the death of a man most had abandoned in his exile and which, happy coincidence, they now remembered as the hour of heartfelt high-profile memorial speeches grew near. (Janice, you know I wrote this.)

The procession from the Cathedral to Bonmot’s final resting place was silent. The flags of the Religious Quarter lay limp against the breezeless sky. As we walked, our procession grew larger and more diverse. More and more people left their homes or temples to join us. I remember thinking that this wasn’t just a funeral for Bonmot—it was a funeral for the city. So much uncertainty faced us now. We’d been shaken out of our preconceptions by the war and its aftermath. We’d been roused from our blindness—or so we hoped.