The noise of the crowd was enormous-a sea of talk, a thunderstorm of murmurs. More than that, though, was the overwhelming emotion of those present. None of it was particularly sharp, but there were so many people there that the accumulated weight of all their low-intensity anxiety, curiosity, impatience, irritation, amusement, and too many others to name hit her like a sack of grain.
Isana felt it when Lady Placida called upon her metalcrafting to shield her mind against the storm of emotions, and briefly wished that she could have done something similar-but she couldn't. She simply ground her teeth for a moment, fighting back the surge of outside emotion, and found Araris's hand beneath her arm, holding her steady, his calm concern a bedrock and a shelter against the tide that threatened her. She gave him a swift, grateful smile and, working from that solid point, methodically pushed away the other emotions to let them back in gradually, bit by bit, to give herself a chance to acclimate to them. Araris and Lady Placida stood on either side of her, patiently waiting for her to adjust to the environment.
"All right," she said, a moment later, as other Citizens continued to file in. "I'm better, Araris."
"Best we take our seats," Lady Placida murmured. "The Crown Guard is beginning to arrive. The First Lord will be here any moment."
They descended to the rows of box seats just above the Senate floor. While not specifically, legally granted to the High Lords, it was well understood who would be occupying those seats, and tradition had long since established which High Lord would occupy which box in the Senatorium at the infrequent assemblies of both the Senate and lords.
The seats for Lord and Lady Placida were situated above the places of the Senators from the areas governed by Citizens beholden to them. Lady Placida took a few moments to descend to the Senate floor, exchanging greetings with several people, while Isana and Araris sat down in the box.
"Lady Veradis?" Isana asked, recognizing the young woman in the box beside theirs.
The serious, pale-haired young healer, daughter of the High Lord of Ceres, turned to them at once, and offered Isana a grave nod. She was notably alone in her father's section, and seemed all the more slender and frail for the open space around her. "Good evening, Your Highness."
"Please, call me Isana. We know one another better than that."
The young woman gave her a fleeting smile. "Of course," she said. "Isana. I am glad to see you well. Good evening, Sir Araris."
"Lady," Araris said quietly, bowing his head. He glanced around the empty box, and said, with perfectly bland understatement, "You seem less well attended than I would expect you to be."
"With excellent reason, sir," Veradis said, returning her attention to the Senate floor. "As I trust will be made clear shortly."
Isana settled back, frowning, and studied the seating behind the High Lord's boxes in general, where the visiting Lords and Counts as a rule settled in behind their own patrons. Behind Lord Aquitaine's box, for example, was a sizeable contingent of finely dressed Citizenry, mostly sporting the scarlet and black of the House of Aquitaine, while the gold and black of Rhodes made for an only slightly smaller contingent in the seats behind that High Lord's box.
By contrast, the sections behind Lord Cereus's box, and for that matter, behind the box of Lord and Lady Placidus, were rather sparsely populated. And the section behind the empty box where the High Lord of Kalarus would have been seated was entirely empty of any citizen bearing the green and grey of the House of Kalare. That wasn't a surprise, given that the House was hardly in favor after Kalarus Brencis's open rebellion against the Crown had failed so miserably and spectacularly.
Even so, the Citizens seated in that section were at its fringes, and wearing the colors of one of the other greater Houses. Surely someone should have been wearing Kalarus's colors, if for no other reason than out of tradition and force of habit. Some of those families had been wearing those colors for centuries. Regardless of the actions of the most recent Lord Kalarus, they would not have abandoned their own traditional garb-indeed, many of the poorer Citizens of that region simply could not have afforded a new court wardrobe, given the devastation the rebellion had wreaked upon their economy.
Where were the Citizens from Kalare, from Ceres, and from Placida? What has Lady Placida not told us?
She felt a similar sense of concerned curiosity from Araris, and turned to him, expecting him to have noticed the same absences she had-only to find him staring intently across the Senate floor.
"Araris?" she murmured.
"Look at Aquitaine's box," he murmured quietly. "Where is Lady Aquitaine?"
Isana blinked and looked more closely. Sure enough, High Lord Aquitainus Attis sat in his box without the familiar, stately figure of his wife Invidia at his side.
"Where could she be?" Isana murmured. "She would never miss something like this."
"Perhaps now that an heir has appeared, they finally decided to kill one another," murmured a wry, familiar voice. "Though if so, I lost money in the pool the Cursors had going as to the victor."
Isana turned to find a short, slight man with sandy hair smiling at them from the row above the Placidan box, his elbows casually resting on the railing.
"Ehren," Isana said, smiling. "What are you doing here? I thought you were going to Canea with my son."
The young man's expression grew sober, and Isana felt him close down, concealing his emotions-but not before she felt his flash of weary frustration, anger, and fear. "Duty called," he replied, mustering up the effort for another smile as Aria returned to the box. "Ah, Lady Placida. I wonder if I could impose upon you for a seat during the First Lord's address?"
Lady Placida glanced at Isana, lifting an eyebrow. "By all means, Sir Ehren. Please join us."
Ehren inclined his head in thanks and swung his legs calmly over the railing, slipping down into the box with a rather cavalier disregard for the solemnity of the Senatorium. Isana had to make an effort to keep from smiling.
Ehren had barely been seated when a single trumpeter blew the fanfare of a Legion captain-and not the notes of the First Lord's Processional. Murmurs rose through the Senatorium at once as those seated all rose to their feet together-the First Lord only employed that protocol in time of war.
Gaius Sextus, First Lord of Alera, entered as the last notes of the fanfare rang out, flanked by half a dozen Knights Ferrous in the crimson cloaks of the Crown Guard. A tall, powerfully built man, Gaius looked more like a man in his late prime than an octogenarian-except for his silver-white hair, which was, if Isana was not imagining it, even thinner and wispier than it had been the last time she had seen him, several months before.