The two sisters scurried out of the house, and Selia put her head in her hands, feeling her age as never before.

Selia had barely dressed the next morning before she found Raddock Lawry in her yard with Cobie’s parents, Garric and Nomi, and close to a hundred folk from Fishing Hole, which was just about everyone.

“Are your words so feeble, Raddock Lawry, that you need all your kith and kin to back them?” she asked, coming out on her porch.

There was a murmur of shock through the crowd, and they turned as one to Raddock for their cue. Raddock opened his mouth to reply, but Selia cut him off.

“I will not call the town council to order in front of a mob!” she shouted, her voice making grown men cringe. “You voted yourselves a Speaker for a reason, and apart from those making accusations, you will disperse, or I’ll put the meeting off until you do, even if you have to wait out the winter right on my doorstep!”

A sudden buzz of confusion started in the crowd, drowning out Raddock’s reply. After a moment, they began to trickle away, some heading back up toward the Hole but most heading down the road to the Square and the general store to await the verdict. Selia didn’t like that, but there was little she could do once they left her property.

Raddock scowled at her, but Selia only smiled primly, putting Nomi to work helping serve tea on the porch.

Coline Trigg was the next to arrive, having heard the commotion from her house down the road. Her apprentices, who were also her daughters, took over the tea at once while the three council members awaited the others.

There were ten seats on the council. Each borough of Tibbet’s Brook held a vote each year, electing one of its own to the council, to sit with the Tender and Herb Gatherer. In addition, they cast a general vote for the Town Speaker. Selia held the head seat most years, and spoke for Town Square when she didn’t.

The council seats usually went to the oldest and wisest person in each borough and were rare to change from year to year, unless someone died. Fernan Boggin had held the seat for Boggin’s Hill almost ten years, and it was only natural for it to fall to his widow.

Meada Boggin was next to arrive, escorted by at least fifty from Boggin’s Hill who dispersed into the Square. She came up the walk with Lucik, his arm in a sling, and Beni, her shoulders covered in a black shawl to mark the death of her father. With them came Tender Harral and two of his acolytes.

“Parading your injured young’uns around ent gonna get you sympathy,” Raddock warned Meada as she took tea and sat.

“Parading,” Meada said, amused. “This from the man who’s ridden from one end of town to the other, waving a bloody dress like a flag.”

Raddock scowled, but his response was cut off as Brine Cutter, also known as Brine Broadshoulders, stomped up the walk. “Ay, my friends!” Brine boomed as he ducked to avoid hitting his head on the porch roof. He embraced the women warmly, and squeezed the hands of the men until they ached.

A survivor of the Cluster Massacre, Brine had spent weeks in a fugue state similar to Renna’s, yet now he stood tall as Speaker for the Cluster by the Woods. A widower almost fifteen years, Brine had never remarried, no matter how often pressed, saying it wouldn’t be right to his lost wife and children. Folk said loyalty was rooted in him as the trees he cut were rooted in the ground.

An hour later, Coran Marsh came slowly up the walk, leaning heavily on his cane. At eighty summers, he was one of the oldest people in the Brook, and he was given every courtesy as his son Keven and grandson Fil helped him up the stairs. All of them came barefoot, as Marshes were wont to do. Toothless and shaky as he was, Coran’s dark eyes were still sharp as he nodded to the other speakers.

Next to arrive was Mack Pasture, at the head of quite a few other farmers, including Jeph Bales. Jeph leaned in to Selia as they came onto the porch.

“Mack’s come with no prejudice against Renna,” he whispered, “and promised me to judge fair, no matter what the Fishers shout.” Selia nodded, and Jeph went to stand with Ilain, Beni, and Lucik on the opposite side of the porch from Garric and Nomi Fisher.

As the morning wore on, a general buzz grew in the air, and it became clear that more than just Fishing Hole was out in force. Hundreds of folk walked the streets, trying to seem nonchalant as they glanced toward Selia’s porch on their way to the tailor, or the cobbler, or any of the other shops about the Square.

Last to arrive were the Watches. Southwatch was the farthest borough, practically a town unto itself, with near three hundred inhabitants and their own Herb Gatherer and Holy House.

They came in neat procession, marked by their stark clothing. Watch men were all thickly bearded and wore black pants with black suspenders over a white shirt. A heavy black jacket, hat, and boots finished the outfit, even in the harsh heat of summer. The women all wore black dresses reaching from ankle to chin to wrist, as well as white aprons and bonnets, with white gloves and parasol when not working. Their heads were bowed, and they all drew wards in the air, over and over, to protect them from sin.

At their head was Jeorje Watch. Speaker and Tender both, Jeorje was the oldest man in Tibbet’s Brook by two decades. There were children running around the Brook who hadn’t been born when he celebrated his hundredth birthday. Still, his back was straight as he led the procession, his stride firm and his eyes hard. He stood in stark contrast with Coran Marsh, a quarter century his junior and ravaged by time.

With his years and his solid bloc of votes from the largest borough, Jeorje should have been Town Speaker, but he never got a single vote outside Southwatch, and he never would, not even from Tender Harral. Jeorje Watch was too strict.

Selia rose as tall as she was able, and that was very tall, as she went to greet him.

“Speaker,” Jeorje said, biting back his displeasure at having to give that title to a woman, and an unmarried one at that.

“Tender,” Selia said, refusing to be intimidated. They bowed respectfully to each other.

Jeorje’s wives, some old and proud like him, others younger, including one great with child, flowed around them wordlessly and went into the house. They were heading for the kitchen, Selia knew. Watches always took over the kitchen, to ensure that their special eating needs were attended to. They kept to a strict diet of plain foods with no seasoning or sugar.

Selia signaled Jeph. “Go and pull Rusco from the store,” she told him, and Jeph ran off.

Selia was always elected Speaker for Town Square, but on years when she was also elected Town Speaker, she appointed Rusco Hog to speak for the Square, so that it would keep an independent voice, as prescribed in town law. Few people were pleased by this, but Selia knew the general store was the heart of the Square, and when one prospered, the other most often would, as well.

“Well come in, and let’s have supper,” Selia said when they’d had their ease a bit. “We’ll handle standing council business over coffee, and then on to this last affair when the cups are cleared.”

“If it’s all the same, Speaker,” Raddock Lawry said, “I’d just as soon dispense supper and the rest till the next council meeting and get on to the business of my dead kin.”

“It is not all the same, Raddock Fisher,” Jeorje Watch said, thumping his polished black walking stick. “We can’t just take leave of our customs and civility because someone died. This is the time of Plague, when death comes often. Creator punishes those what sin in his own time. The Tanner girl will have her judgment when the Brook’s standing business is done.”

He spoke with the authority of one who is never questioned, though Selia was Speaker. She accepted the slight—a common one from Jeorje—because he argued to her favor. The later the hour grew, the less likely Renna’s sentence, if death, would take place that very night.