The silence was total. Then Leo shrugged. “I’ve always been more of a doer than a worrier.”

Mocking laughter from the noblemen’s benches.

“But, Lord Brock, Orso is the anointed High King of the Union. He wore the crown! He cannot be simply dismissed—”

“Oh, I find he can,” said Leo, “like that.” He snapped his fingers with an echoing crack. “He’s put right out of my mind.” Some of the lords crowed. Others mockingly snapped their fingers in the old man’s face. Others sneered their contempt for the entire commoner’s side of the chamber, their scorn reflected in the mirrors over and over, into the far distance. Unity and respect, it seemed, were only for those who did as they were told.

For once, everything was going just the way Leo hoped.

“I’d like a show of hands!” he told the Hall of Mirrors. “Nothing hidden. Nothing suspect. Each man makes his loyalty clear. Now. An open vote for our new king.” A vote observed by him, who had all the armed men in the city, not to mention at least a hundred in this room, firmly under his command. Only a fool calls for a vote when he hasn’t made sure of the outcome, after all.

Isher stood, precisely on cue. “I propose that the new monarch picks up the bloodline of the old! I propose that our new king should be the natural grandson of our much-missed King Jezal.” A man he’d showered with scorn when it suited him. “I propose, as our next ruler, the infant Harod dan Brock!”

Leo watched the Representatives. Reading their expressions. Guessing their intentions. Many weren’t happy. But none had the stomach for a fight. They’d have voted for a cart of dung if it meant things went back to some kind of normal, and business could be done, and jokes made, and strolls taken in the sun, without the nagging fear of the long drop from the Tower of Chains.

Leo gave Glaward the nod. “All those Representatives who wish to vote for the infant Harod dan Brock as the next High King of the Union,” he roared, “raise your hands!”

On the noblemen’s side of the hall, arms shot up so fast it was a wonder they didn’t fly off. On the commoners’ side they were slower. But they soon saw which way the wind was blowing. With varying expressions of worry, dismay and disgust they raised their hands. Only a few stubborn holdouts sat glaring at the prospective monarch, arms folded, and Leo took careful note of their names. They could be tastefully weeded out later.

He didn’t look much like a king, as Leo glanced around. He looked like a white bundle in the arms of his mother, who with her unerring instinct for the centre of attention appeared to have swapped babies while the voting was underway. But King Harod the Second was raised to the throne, as his grandfather King Jezal the First had been, by near-unanimous accord.