It was a good speech—not her very best work, but as a speaker Raesinia was no Danton Aurenne. The marvelous acoustics of the Cathedral carried her voice to every corner of the vast room and muted the buzz of conversation in the crowd. She thanked the deputies for their efforts, which brought another round of applause, and thanked the dead and wounded soldiers for their sacrifice, which was met by an appropriately solemn silence. She trotted out the required platitudes about hoping for peace and prosperity—was there ever a ruler who wished for ruin and disaster?—while maintaining a will to resist aggression.

She was following a script, and the audience nodded along, like connoisseurs of the theater at a well-remembered play, following every nuance of this particular performance. She said things because it would be remarked on if she didn’t say them. Her mind ran ahead, to the end of the speech, where the only substance lay. Most of the audience knew what was going to happen, or had guessed, but she had to say the words to make it real. Like I was a magician, she thought, and had to work hard not to giggle.

“The events of the past few months,” she said, working up to the peroration, “have made it clear that the military of Vordan requires a single guiding hand, a single will to forge it into a sword aimed at the hearts of those who threaten our kingdom. There must be no more accusations of treason, no more feuding generals. My father, if he were alive, would have taken on the task himself.”

When he had, Raesinia reflected, it was a disaster. Her father had been a great man, and a brave one, but he’d never had the talent for the battlefield.

“But this is a new age,” she went on. “Vordan has a constitution, and true power is vested in the ultimate sovereign, the people, as represented by their deputies in this assembly. The monarch should not command the nations’ armies, lest she be tempted to ignore the will of the elected representatives. Yet we also must not stray down the path of the Directory and bring the iron fist of military discipline to civilian affairs.

“I have taken the answer from history. The ancient republics of the Old Coast were wise in this, as in so much else. When war or disaster threatened, they would appoint a single leader best able to deal with the problem, men who would step aside when the crisis was past. Today, I ask the Deputies-General to follow their example, and to name Count General Janus bet Vhalnich Mieran the First Consul of the Kingdom of Vordan!”