Conquest of Avalon

Fernan XI: The Defender of Democracy

Somehow, despite his better judgment, Fernan had hoped that carrying the Montaignard decision-making out of the stuffy council chamber might have made things easier. An end to passionate arguments from ostensible allies stuck together if they wanted their voices heard, to well-intentioned Montaignards trying to force Fernan into a position he didn’t want, to further agitating of the divisions that it was plain to see were already forming.

If Maxime’s most optimistic aspirations came true, it would mean spreading things out, giving everyone free license to present their ideas to the people and try to convince them to elect a representative of those ideas instead of forcing direct confrontations, ensuring that the decision-makers truly had Guerron’s mandate when they convened as elected representatives — all of that was supposed to mean things would be better.

In theory.

With Condorcet as the only real precedent for democracy on this scale, Fernan couldn’t help but be wary. Maxime’s people didn’t want for passion, or even resolve against tyranny of a sort, but it didn’t stop them from executing their people en masse in the futile hope of enforcing order and growing Khali’s power. After the devastation wrought by the White Night, it wasn’t hard to see how a similar hatred could grip the very people the Montaignards were turning the city over to.

But the thought of the merchants who’d glommed onto the movement making decisions for the entire city wasn’t any better, nor was assuming undeserved power that Fernan was woefully unequipped to wield. The Dukes of Guerron had executed people too, after all, as had Guy and Camille and even Annette, whether by their own hand or their order. And Avalon managed to outdo all of them, even without any spiritual benefit from the loss of life.

Kings and Lords have never been swayed from such violence, probably because they’ve never had to endure it being wielded against them. Turning power over to the people affected by it was the only chance to make sure it was used compassionately, however chaotic it made things now.

And if I had to set the table on fire to make some people realize that instead of trying to hand over Guerron to Avalon or seizing its wealth for themselves, so be it. Turning the mercenaries away had bought Fernan considerable goodwill from everyone smart enough to realize how bad an idea a fight with them would have been, but unfortunately that didn’t account for everyone, Citoyen Courbet perhaps chief among them.

I knew she was brutal, but killing on Lamante’s orders is a new low. She’d stalked off into the night the moment the mercenaries left, only to return to Guerron at dawn without another word about it.

“No good ever came from hesitation,” she’d said upon her return, then walked inside as if nothing had happened.

At least Courbet was straightforward about what she wanted, though. Yvain Delion had nearly thrown a fit when he’d heard about Fernan seizing Guy’s riches to pay off the mercenaries, and doctor Sézanne had been right alongside him, along with a few of Michel’s solicitor friends. Even Mom had looked a little annoyed, though she hadn’t made any direct criticisms.

Their arguments had hinged on the importance of economic independence, maintaining Guerron’s trade agreements and expanding further with independence. Make Guerron’s exports essential to both Avalon and the Empire, the thinking went, and neither could interfere without drawing the ire of the other, even without the captive Magnifico as a consideration. And every scrap of wealth that could be seized or salvaged would be vital to growing such trade networks.

And for glass bottles and blocks of ice, fine. I know we’ll need all the money we can get to keep everyone fed. I know the chest of riches I gave away could have made a difference with that.

But… all this talk of trade and economics, property rights… it seemed like several of them cared more about profiting from Guerron than protecting its people. Sézanne had even brought up coal by name before Mara had rightfully roasted him for the presumption. Not enough to hurt him any, of course, but it had finally put that part of the discussion to bed.

For all the good it did.

Fernan feared he’d made enemies in saving the city the way he had, even beyond the animosity from Malin that was, at this point, unavoidable. No one died; it was still the right thing to do. It just meant more work had to be done now.

Fernan landed next to Maxime, who’d volunteered not to run for anything to remain unbiased as the organizer of the Centreville polling location, a massive operation with boxes upon boxes of ballots printed onto as many sheets of paper as Guerron’s few, stolen printing presses could manage before breaking down under the load. Most of the better smiths had followed the army to Malin, and expertise with these advanced machines was thin on the ground to begin with, so when they broke down, it generally meant they were out of the picture as far as this election was concerned. By the end, they’d been printing over old magazine pages and bath tissue, but the risk of running out had been very real.

Maxime, wisely, had started with the more presentable ballots, arranging the other poll volunteers in a half circle of tables facing out to the lines of voters, each completed with a curtain for privacy and a ready receptacle for the completed ballot.

“Any problems?” Fernan asked, prompting Maxime to step back from his table with a startled swing of his head.

“At least in Centreville, nothing occurred which proved unduly troublesome, nor beyond our capability to handle. What about the others?”

The entire city had been divided into nine districts, each roughly corresponding to an existing quartier. Félix had pored over the Bureau of Land’s census figures to try to draw the lines as equitably as possible in terms of population, granting additional representatives for denser neighborhoods like the Centreville, where most of the city’s workers called home, and the harborside Villemalin where Fernan had led so many of the mountain villagers after his agreement with Gézarde.

The geckos, of course, had a representative of their own to ensure that their voice wasn’t left out. On a population basis, it was impossible to justify, but leaving them out of Guerron’s new government would be unconscionable. Charles des Agnettes of all people had helped Fernan sell the decision to the other Montaignards on pragmatic grounds, extolling the benefits of keeping the sun and his children invested in their success and granting them avenues to express their concerns before they escalated. Mara, of course, was a shoe-in for the position, and her siblings had selected her unanimously before the sun had even passed above the mountains.

Mom, running for representative of Villemalin, seemed to be doing nearly as well, drawing on the vast numbers of mining village transplants and the Montaigne name to glide to victory, though unlike Mara it was not a unanimous thing. Before the miners had arrived, before the fires, the harbor neighborhood had been home to the Fox-King’s retainers and servants — everyone who had fled from Malin during the Foxtrap. Most had accompanied Renart back to Malin in the wake of Camille’s Blue Restoration, but those who remained were none too inclined to support mining peasants or Montaignes.

If Emile Leclaire had still been here, if they’d all rallied behind him as he could have surely prompted them to do, that easy victory could have instead been a hard-fought campaign, but fortunately he’d vanished before the revolution, and between a lack of leadership for the Malinoises and coordinated abstentions across their ranks in protest of the election itself, Mother’s victory seemed nearly certain.

Though that doesn’t mean they won’t be a problem in the future. If they changed their mind about sitting out the process, the bloc could be a substantial force in the district politics, perhaps even winning a seat of their own; if they continued to withdraw, they would have no investment in the new government, and little compunction about opposing it in its entirety. As bad as the former might be, the latter could be worse, if they set their mind to subverting the Assembly or aiding Leclaire.

Courbet, unsurprisingly, had advocated summarily arresting and disenfranchising all of them, and a distressing number of Montaignards had stood behind her, from both the professional and peasant sides of the table, but fortunately the values of equality had held a majority in the room. Fernan hadn’t even needed to set any fires to underline his point.

The days were shortening in the final month of the year, cold winds blowing that no one was ready for after the darkened summer, and it was plain to see the dampening effect it was having on the election. For all the effort Michel had put into getting the word out, explaining the benefits of this new independent government and the power that each person in Guerron now held, it was hard not to look at the modestly sized crowds in the streets and think that many people had simply stayed home. Maybe even most people.

From the skies, the empty streets mere blocks away from the district polling centers further reinforced how low the participation was.

Fernan was more mobile than most, able to move between the polling centers and ensure that everything was being run the way the Montaignards had agreed to. He couldn’t deny the power and influence he held anymore. Maxime had told him that refraining from using it was a choice of its own, not neutrality, and after dealing with Camille and the merchant Montaignards, it would only be hypocrisy to stay home himself.

He’d already surveyed the elections in Villemalin and the Spirit Quartier, where Charles seemed poised to win the election with perhaps the lowest turnout of all. That neighborhood had no small amount of protest abstentions either, especially after Augustin Valvert had somehow smuggled out a denouncement from his de-facto prison in the feasting hall.

“The turnout is just as depressing, but otherwise things are running smoothly enough,” Fernan answered. “What exactly did you ‘handle’ though?”

Centreville, the densest area of Guerron, was electing no less than 3 representatives to ensure that their population was fairly represented, but the large field also meant that the race wasn’t very closely contested. Michel was running for one spot, the singer Edith Costeau for another, and the third seemed poised to go to some unknown solicitor named Gilbert Barnave, whom Michel said he knew in passing and guessed fell into the “elected Lord of Guerron” camp in terms of politics, though he hadn’t been in the room when the Montaignards had most fiercely debated it.

Costeau was the real surprise, especially since she was apparently supposed to be getting married soon, though her celebrity as a singer doubtless gave her more than sufficient notability to carry her to victory. And thanks to her production of knock-off copies of the pulsebox Florette had stolen, she had a vested interest in opposing the sort of reconciliation with Avalon that Phillippe Montrouge had proposed.

Fernan had talked with her briefly when all of the candidates had registered, and her commitment to freely spreading the technology and allowing people to innovate their music with it seemed to be sincere, for all that the music itself was an earsplitting catastrophe, and she definitely didn’t seem to be the sort to call for blood. “I just want to keep things sensible, my dear,” she’d said just after playing a spirited melody on her harp, “and I’m better positioned than most to keep an eye on things.” Always good to have more level-headed people in the Assembly.

Maxime’s aura darkened as he answered the question. “I caught one of our volunteers, a Bernard de Marigny, falsely describing the choices laid out before an illiterate member of the electorate who courageously stepped forward to do her civic duty anyway, and banished him from the premises. That malfeasance was over an hour ago, and aside from depressing turnout and frighteningly long lines, we haven’t had any significant issues in the time since.”

Fernan frowned. This is exactly the kind of thing I need to be here to prevent. “Well, good. I wish you’d signaled me like we talked about, but—”

“I maintain my position that holding simultaneous elections across every district on the same day is folly. We could barely scrape together enough Montaignards for even a modest presence across the city, forcing the use of volunteers of dubious ability and loyalty. Even your ability to survey across the whole of Guerron has its limits, and the first ever election for the city is not the time to be experimenting with an operation at this scale. If we’d simply held district level elections sequentially, perhaps a week apart, we—”

“Maxime, I know! You think I wasn’t there when we were negotiating this? Sézanne was worried about people moving between districts and voting multiple times, and even Michel agreed it was a significant risk. This way everyone votes once, today, with no confusion as to which place they ought to do it.” At the cost of pushing us to the breaking point. “I’m sorry, but I had to pick my battles, and removing the property ownership requirement was—”

“I understand, Fernan. I’m simply complaining to you, to whom I can vent such frustrations without fearing it would negatively impact the morale of the other poll workers.” He glanced back at his empty table, an old woman at the head of a long line impatiently tapping her finger against it as she waited. “Will you be staying out here for a little while, or moving on? If there’s anything I can do to help…”

“There is. I’ll try to make it quick.” Fernan pulled the envelope from his breast pocket and held it out to Maxime. “Would you help me fill this out?

“It would be an honor.” Maxime pulled the ballot free and unfurled it, running his finger slowly over the paper as Fernan watched the movement from behind it. “For the role of District Representative, there are six candidates for two positions. Please select the two people you desire to represent you in the Guerron Assembly.”

Pretty much what we’d talked about, then. It was good to hear that things hadn’t deviated from the larger intent they’d established at the meeting.

“Eleanor Montaigne.” Maxime moved his finger down one line, then read the next name. “Renée Bordeaux. Anthiese de Charette. Étienne Lantier. Voici Rognons. l'Être Suprême. When you’re ready, I can indicate the two that you want.” He moved his finger back to the first entry for Mom, anticipating the obvious.

“Obviously Eleanor Montaigne.” Fernan nodded. “As for the other, put Lantier.” Charette and Bordeaux were the aristocrats that the Malinoises had put forward, those few who’d been willing to participate in the process at all, and the final two candidates were obvious jokes, for all that they’d gone through the proper registration process. As much as Mom was practically guaranteed a seat, it was important to make sure that none of those four would get one alongside her.

As Fernan watched Maxime scrawl his choices into the paper with deliberate movements in recognition of the significance of what he’d been trusted with, Fernan was struck with the urge to hunt down Bernard de Marigny and suitably punish him for abusing that trust, even though he knew Maxime had been right to stop at removing him from his post.

People are worried enough about this whole voting thing as it is; the last thing we need is a poll worker getting publicly arrested on election day. Even if they really deserve it.

“Thank you,” Fernan said as Maxime passed the ballot back, warm where he’d touched it. “I’d stay longer, but…”

“No, we both need to get back to work. I expect we’ll sit down for a lengthier discussion once the votes have been counted. There are sensitive matters I hope I can broach with you, at a more opportune time than the present.” Maxime flashed orange as he looked back at the ever-growing line. “I suppose my duty is calling out to me.”

As is mine, even if I can’t see it from here.

Fernan said his goodbyes and blasted into the air, drawing on the power of the sun to propel himself north through the air. He continued South on his tour of the quartiers, stopping in at the Bureau of the Sea, the same plaster building pressed against the seawall where he’d met with the Duchess and the Fox-King on the eve of the White Night, and warned the pollsters as quietly as he could to watch out for any malfeasance.

After a few hours circulating and checking in, all that was left were the farthest flung polling locations, set up outside the city gates where Guerron met the Gold Road to represent the people of the hinterlands, who were mostly farmers. With the smallest populations of any districts, they were voting on only one representative, and the poll workers were fewest in number too.

When Fernan arrived at the southern gate, he was surprised to see two Montaignards with their hands above their heads, cowering behind four armored knights on horseback as they addressed a shockingly large crowd for the area.

Maybe with only one representative, the election is more competitive? Perhaps they’d simply been drawn to the commotion in greater numbers than the election alone could draw. Either way, something was clearly wrong here, so Fernan landed without a moment’s hesitation, keeping far enough away to hear a bit of what the knights were saying before they could spot him.

“...We’re simply entreating you to use your newfound power responsibly. If you make the wrong choice, someone could get hurt. Wouldn’t that be a shame?” The knight brandished his sword, angling it until it caught the dying sunset light just right. “Séverin Marceau is a treacherous transplant, infiltrating your peaceful environs with his big city radicalism and dangerous ideas. Vote for the right man, the esteemed Jean Lemoine, or I assure you, you will regret it.”

Alright, that’s enough of that. Fernan took a flying leap, landing right in front of the knights in a circle of fire. “Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?”

The front knight kept his visor down. “It might be that my name is Jean Bourbeau, of the ancient line. But then, it might not. You don’t have any real way of knowing.” His tone was smug, as if he didn’t even slightly fear being roasted in his armor. Which he has no reason to, but he shouldn’t know that.

“Intimidation is strictly prohibited,” Fernan said calmly, trying to project an assurance that all of this was simply part of the process, rather than elections themselves being a dangerous, chaotic nightmare. “Disperse immediately.”

“Intimidation?” Bourbeau shook his head, helmet glinting in the scarlet light. “We’re simply keeping the proceedings safe, just like you.”

“In armor? Ahorse?”

“For safety. In case things get rowdy.” Bourbeau laughed. “Now then, I’m sure there are other matters demanding your attention, Sire Montaigne. These trifles are beneath you. If you—”

His words were interrupted by the panicked neigh of his horse, rearing up as its tail was singed with fire. Sorry, horse. As Bourbeau struggled to get his mount under control, the other knights took the opportunity to gallop away, their identities still unknown.

Which means they’ll be back once they think they can get away with it. Frowning, Fernan jumped into the air and hovered next to the thrashing horse, picking his moment carefully, then wrapped his fingers around Bourbeau’s helmet and pulled it free of his head.

The face was faintly familiar, probably from the White Night, but Fernan had never spoken with him directly, let alone for long enough to make a memorable impression.

“Jean Bourbeau, your intimidation will not be tolerated. Surrender your arms and armor now and come with me peacefully.” Fernan snapped, leaving a lingering flame burning from his upright thumb like a candle. “If you refuse, I assure you, you will regret it.”

So much for not making a scene, Fernan thought as he led the bewildered knight away, not entirely sure what to do with him beyond getting him away from the situation. I’m honestly surprised more people didn’t try something like this, now that I think about it. Perhaps the mass abstentions had sent the message just as well, though even now that Fernan had removed the direct threat, fear still might impact peoples’ decisions, which could do far more damage.

Fernan deposited Bourbeau in a cell at the Château, relieving him of his sword and armor depositing them with the other combat supplies.

“This is an outrage, I’ll have you know! I’ve committed no crime.”

Fernan sighed. “I understand why you don’t respect this process, but that doesn’t give you license to bully your way through it, or to threaten force to twist things back to the way you want.” He paused, examining the fuming knight. “You should consider how this benefits you, too. You didn’t have any say in where you were sent in the White Night either, no formal rights in the decision-making process. Dom Mesnil lost his foot, and that could just as easily have been you, hung out to dry just the same.”

“His failures are not my problem.” Bourbeau grunted angrily and folded his arms, utterly unrepentant.

It seems like removing him from the polling site isn’t enough. Certainly, he hadn’t learned his lesson. Perhaps the solution was confiscating some of his wealth, fuel for the burgeoning trade network the professional Montaignards were so determined to build. Not enough to make up for Guy’s chest, but something. Once the votes were finished being counted, perhaps they could let him go, but the seizure would at least mean he didn’t get out of it unscathed.

In the meantime, Fernan felt it more important than ever to continue his visits, never more than half an hour away from visiting each district to help protect the polling station. He continued after polls closed as they tallied the votes, long into the night, until finally the representatives could be announced officially.

The count wasn’t finished until late the even the next day, the bleary-eyed workers finally collapsing after checking and double-checking the count, all under Fernan’s vigilant protection. Then the new representatives had to be notified, gathered together, the assembly chamber repaired to the extent it could be in the time they had… Every step of the way, Fernan was there to keep guard, reassuring anyone who would listen that everything was still in good order, that he was overseeing the process.

Oversimplifying, to be sure, but people always seemed so happy to see him, so much more confident in what they were building once they realized how heavily Fernan was involved. It was strange to be looked at that way, almost disturbing, but Fernan shouldered the burden to help keep spirits high.

As expected, Michel and Mom had won their respective elections handily. Easy victories for the people Fernan liked and trusted simplified things, and in principle it seemed like it could only be a good thing, but the drawback—according to Maxime, whom Fernan trusted on this sort of thing—was that it came at the cost of their mandate.

As crowded as the Centreville square had been with people choosing their leaders for the time ever, Michel guessed that almost three-quarters of Guerron’s people had failed to participate, whether in protest or out of ignorance or simply because they didn’t feel like bothering. And for every single non-voter, the new Assembly would be just as unaccountable and disconnected as Valvert had ever been. If Lucien Renart returned and commanded ‘his subjects’ to rise up against the Assembly, how many of them would answer the call?

Hopefully the precedent of peaceful elections and successful governing would set the stage for better turnout next time around when they went through all of this again in three years. Representing a quarter of the city’s direct and stated wishes was still a lot better than before, where only one man’s desires mattered, especially given the man in question.

Finally, after three days, the first official Assembly meeting began, several dozen representatives crowding into the gallery area of the still-damaged trial chamber, an enormous crack from the fight with Valentine splitting the seating area roughly down the middle.

To the right, most of the professionals were clustered together: Sézanne, Montrouge, Delion, Barnave, and Costeau stood out, and most of the others seemed to be more or less aligned with their point of view, though what few aristocrats had managed to win their elections were there too, notably including Jean Lemoine, now Representative for the Southern Hills district.

On the left side sat Lantier and several of the more fervent Montaignards Fernan recalled from the meetings, with Mom and Michel as close to the center as they could sit with the crack dividing the room. Mara, of course, wasn’t sitting down, instead standing to the left of the gallery seats, small trails of smoke curling up from her nostrils as she breathed.

Technically, Fernan didn’t need to be here. He hadn’t run in any of the districts, very deliberately, and so he was not a member of the Assembly, for all that he remained a Montaignard.

But after everything people tried to pull on election day, I’m not just going to sit outside and wait, wondering. This was the only way to be sure everyone would be safe.

“Good, everyone’s here,” Fernan said, standing in front of Lumière’s old magistrate chair. “I now call to order the first meeting of the Guerron Assembly. Every one of you stands here chosen by the people to speak with their voice, to ensure that their concerns are heeded, their needs attended to, all in service of freedom, equality, and prosperity.” Michel had helped with the speech, though he’d insisted that Fernan should deliver it himself. “In many ways, this is an experiment, and every one of us will have to learn as we proceed, to iterate on this first Assembly and all its first decisions, refining and improving until we can finally reach the ideal that all of us strive for, a free and independent Guerron.”

One by one, each representative came forward to swear their allegiance to Guerron’s people, modified from the knight’s oath Fernan himself had taken so many months ago. A lifetime, after everything that’s happened. There was a slight moment of tension when Lemoine hesitated over the words, but the tension deflated when he said the words to swear the oath, a slightly amused tone to his voice. Several auras intensified when Mara made the same oath, though she didn’t do anything usual in the process.

Hopefully not a problem, though at this point I’d do better to prepare in case it is. Not a problem for right this second though. “And so the Assembly is assembled, a unified, representative government for Guerron and all who live here. All of you are making history here today. The Guerron Duchy is no more. From this day forward, the Guerron Commune shall reign.”

For as long as we can keep it from coming apart.