“Thank Heaven I’m not too late!” The habit thrashed around Heloïse’s knees like rough surf as she rushed, the veils across her forehead slipping back to let her red-gold curls trail free. “I’ve just come from the hospital. The draft survived! Seigneur Jehovah wouldn’t let the doctors start their tests until He knew it was safely on its way to you!”

Kosala met the little nun in the center of the house floor, standing close as if hoping her flowing wrap might shield the stranger from Senators who gawked like zoo-goers. “What draft?” she asked.

Heloïse pressed a packet into Kosala’s hands, twelve crumpled pages, dense with ink and dyed red-black with gore. “An interim constitution. Seigneur Jehovah had it in His jacket. He and I spent all last night drafting it. You can use it to transition away from the CFB!”

“An interim constitution?” Kosala’s eyes locked on the pages, though whether on the words or on the crust of blood I cannot say. “For the Cousins?”

“He thought you might need one. It’s ready to implement. It uses strats and interest groups to divide the Cousin population into two hundred and twenty voting groups, which will each elect a representative to a temporary Assembly, which will then draft a new permanent constitution.”

These words hardly reached any ears as the thunder of astonishment churned the House. Perhaps, reader, you would enjoy guessing which Senators are clients of Madame’s and which free. Review the photographs: where confusion washes like Death’s white mask over a Senator, there the nun’s rough figure is as alien as a centaur’s; on the other hand, where shock mingles with blush, or where faces hide behind hands, these perhaps have laid lustful eyes on Sister Heloïse before.

“Order!” The Presiding Speaker rose now, Jin Im-Jin, a tiny, white-haired Korean Brillist old enough to remember four Emperors, and to frown down from the hard-earned Speaker’s seat at whippersnappers like Faust and Papadelias. “Order! Order! Chair Kosala, you will answer for this interruption. Who is this… person?”

“I can answer for myself!” Heloïse faced the Speaker, curtseying a quick apology. “Madam Speaker”—the Speaker grimaced at the title—“my name is Heloïse D’Arouet. I am Tribune Jehovah Mason’s bash’mate and fiancée. Before the doctors put Him under, the Tribune appointed me his Proxy In Extremis.” Gasps rose anew as Heloïse produced from the folds of her scandalous habit the Tribunary sash of gold-edged gray which Tribune Mason wore when filling his Graylaw office here the Senate. “The Tribune is determined not to let this assassination interfere with duties which have been trusted to Him, either in His office as a Tribune, or as an Executive of the Cousins’ Chief Council’s Office.”

The tiny Speaker took a long and thoughtful breath. “There is good precedent for selecting a bash’mate as Proxy In Extremis, but why did the Tribune involve you in drafting the constitution? You say that was last night, before the assassination attempt, yes?”

‘Attempt’ already, reader; how quickly mankind hastens to erase the miracle; the assassination succeeded.