Novel Full Chapter 1255: Politics(3)
Chapter 1255: Politics(3)
Barbut’s smile stretched even wider, regarding Haldon with the insufferable, patronizing indulgence a father might offer an amusing but deeply foolish child.
Yet, Haldon’s explosive entrance and the loud storming of the gates had at least served one glorious purpose: the distraction had bought precious time. High up on the shadowed staircases, a heavy clatter of iron demeanor and wool announced the arrival of the cavalry. More and more members of the Iron Anchor Faction were finally spilling into the natural amphitheater.
They flooded down the slick stone steps, storming toward their designated benches while directing their strongest, most hateful gazes entirely at the bald politician in the center of the floor.
"PERFIDY!" Haldon roared, his voice cutting through the rising tide of murmurs like a clean-cutting axe.Taking head of the arrived army.
He took three aggressive strides forward, thrusting his hand toward the floor. "Lies and slander! Barbut, your tongue is a nest of vipers! You stand before the ancient dead and spit poison at the man who gave this Confederation its teeth!PERFIDY I SAY!"
"COWARDICE!" shouted an old captain from the upper tiers, slamming a scarred fist onto the stone. "BARBUT, YOU ARE A SWIVEL-EYED SNAKE!"
The half-carved mountain erupted. Each had their own ware to shout, as they violently took their seats, raging against the treachery Barbut had pulled off beneath their feet while they went on their day.
One of them even went as far as to spit in the general direction of the snake.
It pained Harold to see with own eyes how quickly what had once been a proper place of office and honor turning into a rowdy tavern filled with man-made ruckus.
His eyes darted across the rising tiers, his mind working through the cold mathematics of the hall. He had meticulously counted the numbers the very moment he arrived. With the frantic arrival of his allies combined with the shifting, silent cluster of the neutrals, there were just enough bodies present to force a proper legal vote. Haldon only had to drag only half of the neutrals in the assembly to his side to crush this farce.
So why did Barbut look so calm?
A cold dread began to pool beneath his anger. Did Barbut already buy the neutrals? Would a creature as cunning and risk-averse as Barbut ever risk launching a bloodless coup like this if he didn’t already possess the hard numbers to guaranteed a total victory?
The old politician didn’t even seem to break a sweat. He stood amidst the howling storm of insults, entirely unbothered as more and more of the opposing faction slammed into their seats. His serene confidence was terrifying.
A generation, Haldon thought bitterly, a phantom ache in his chest as he looked around the packed, shouting cavern. A single generation of wealth is all it took to turn our warriors into squabbling merchants.
But the true poison of Barbut’s accusation pressed back against his mind, refusing to be ignored. He declared himself king, the old man had shouted. What in the name of the deep seas did he actually mean by that? His brother friend was a creature of the waves, a reever born and bred. He knew the ancient hatred the islands held for crowns. There was no way Blake would dare to that.
Suddenly, a heavy thud cut through the chaos.
BOOM.
The Watcher’s grand wooden rod, capped with a thick, heavy base of plundered metal, thudded violently against the stone floor of the high dais. The drum-like sound boomed across the semi-spherical rock formations, the natural acoustics multiplying the impact until it reverberated in the ribcage of every man present, forcing the shouting to a grinding halt.
Slowly, the echoes died away, settling the voices down into a tense, suffocating quiet. But that could be regarded as a peace,as much as calling a roach, a giant among bugs.
"Watcher!" Haldon called out, as he felt the stone walls of the cavern closing in on him.
More numbers were arriving, trickling down the slick staircases, but it wasn’t enough. It was still a fraction too few to tip the scales. The ancient man on the high dais turned toward him, his trembling hands clutching his moldering sealskins, his rheumy eyes wandering.
"I demand an immediate motion of pause!" Haldon bellowed, anchoring his boots to the floor. "This session was illegally held! It was convened without proper convention, without notification, and with an absolute mockery of our sacred traditions!"
Barbut was fast to strike back, his grating voice slicing through Haldon’s protest before the echo could even fade. "Everything has been executed in perfect conformity with our ancestral law. The Watcher gave his divine consent, and he explicitly recognized the absolute emergency of this session."
"An emergency birthed by a lie no honest man can swallow!" shouted a voice from the lower tiers.
Haldon turned his head slightly to see Karlin leaping onto the stone bench to take the lead. The lad was younger than most of the scarred reevers in the hall, but he possessed an iron spine and an honorable name. Karlin thrust an accusatory hand straight at the center of the floor. "You stand there and claim Lord Blake made himself a king, Barbut? I call that a foul lie! Proof! We demand the hard proof!"
The packed benches of the Shoreline Faction erupted at the challenge, raging and booing against the very idea that their faction leader would speak without evidence.
"Monarchists!" a voice screamed from the deep, dark roars of the upper rows. "Traitors to the sea!"
"Traitors of the Isles sit in your own seats!" a veteran from the Iron Anchor countered, his booming voice cracking like a timber under strain.
Boos, insults, and wild shouts of approval mingled against each other, bouncing off the semi-spherical rock formations until the noise was a deafening, chaotic soup. Haldon watched the display, a bitter taste in his mouth, disgusted to his absolute core by what his people’s parliament had become.
Barbut witnessed the entire uproar with the tranquil, unbothered calm of an old shepherd watching a prize ram impregnate a sheep. He let the noise crest, and just as it began to break, he stepped forward into the weak torchlight.
"Proof you ask for, and proof I shall gladly give," Barbut suddenly declared, his voice carrying an eerie, quiet certainty that instantly sucked the air out of the room. He turned his bald head slowly, his small, glittering eyes locking onto Haldon. "Haldon! While you and your blind crones cheer and celebrate the systematic destruction of our ancient ways, it is I and my fellows who must bear the heavy burden of defending this Confederation from the treacherous enemy within!"
The Shoreliners rose to their feet as one, clapping wildly and slamming their boots against the stone. The neutrals in the center sat perfectly still, looking at the unfolding drama with a growing, cold uncertainty in their eyes.
"For months, I have stood in this very hall and called for the Call to regulate the absolute rot taking place across our islands!" Barbut shouted, his patronizing tone hardening into something grand and theatrical. "Too massive is the power concentrated in the hands of Blake! He holds absolute command over the Free Fleet completely illegally, without a single scrap of legal mandate from this sacred assembly!"
Shouts of "Traitor!" and "Criminal!" echoed violently from the Shoreline rows.
"Every single day that man passes in the golden sands of Azania, taking unlawful command of our ships and our boys, is a spitting insult to our code and undeniable proof of his boundless, royal ambitions!" Barbut yelled, his voice rising to a crescendo as the Iron Anchors booed him with a wall of furious sound. ’’Will we do nothing as that cur try to make himself salt king?’’
Barbut’s thin lips stretched into a razor-sharp, triumphant smile as he let the minor wave of boos wash over him. He held up his short hands, waiting for the silence to return just enough so he could drive the iron spike into the heart of the Aiuscii family.
"And do you want to know what your legendary hero does with the lands we bought with the blood of our sons?" Barbut hissed, leaning forward, his posture twisting into something predatory. "Word has reached the Watcher’s desk from the eastern ports. Lord Blake now believes himself possessed of the divine right to carve up the territories won in Azania! He is actively dividing the conquered lands, a right held by the Call since the day we casted our salt kings on the waves, he divides them between himself and his treacherous, inner circle of followers!He is making himself king with his lords !This cannot stand!"
A collective gasp rippled through the neutral benches, and even a few of the Iron Anchors faltered, looking toward Haldon for a denial.
Harodl tried his best to appear calm, though inside he was anything but.
He did not know of any such thing.
"He does not grant the spoils to the islands!" Barbut roared, his bald head turning crimson under the flickering torches as he lashed out with his words. "He grants them as fiefs! He creates lords in the sand! He struts through the palaces of Khairo as if the waves beneath him were made of solid gold, completely forgetting that he is nothing but a servant of the oar! He thinks himself a king! He plays the monarch while our traditional laws are dragged through the mud of his ambition!"
"Lies!" Haldon shouted, his voice cracking with a fierce, desperate urgency as he realized how dangerously Barbut’s speech was rolling through the chamber. He could see the shifting tide; several of the neutrals were leaning forward, their faces tightening as they drank in the old snake’s venom.
"The lands conquered in the east are not part of the Call’s jurisdiction!" Haldon thundered, stepping directly into the open space between the benches, his white toga swirling around his ankles. "Those sands are spoils of war, rightfully won by the ancient right of the sword! When Harmway was retaken, it was part of this parliament’s rightful jurisdiction, and it was promptly handed back to the Confederation exactly as the law demanded!"
He turned his back on Barbut, addressing the neutral benches with wide, pleading hands. "Did we now lay claim to the whole of Azania? To those boundless, empty deserts? No, we did not! As such, those territories belong exclusively to the men who shed their blood to take them, to the brave sons of the islands who pioneered the new way across the deep seas! Is the Call going to establish a new tyranny today? Are we going to demand a tax on every captain’s private booty now?"
A sharp, murmuring ripple passed through the Iron Anchors, and even a few Shoreliners shifted uncomfortably. Every man in the cavern was a reever at heart, and the idea of the government dipping its fingers into a captain’s rightful plunder was a sacrilege older than the ancient dead in the caves.
After all they casted the salt kings away for that reason alone.They could claim of their freedom as much as they like, but the truth was that greed’s was the fuel of that revolt.
"Did a single one of the captains who fought in the greatest raid of our lifetime complain about Blake’s leadership?" Haldon challenged, his eyes flashing in the dim torchlight. "Did they call him greedy? Did they name him a traitor when they split the chests of silver? From every account brought back by the scouts, the exact opposite is true! He is sharing his own share of the spoils, not stealing yours!
The only solitary truth to spill out of that snake’s mouth today is that he has made his temporary home in the Palace of the Emperor!"
Haldon pointed a dramatic finger straight at Barbut’s nose. "A right he earned after smashing through the Sultan’s immortal guard and cutting down the Sand-Emperor with his own hand! The whole of Khairo fell beneath his boots, and yet he laid claim only to the palace to house his command! Are we truly going to follow the path of ancient tyrants and demand what is not ours? Are we going to turn our backs on our ancestors’ ways and adopt theft as our new law?Are we going to struck down our greatest hero?For what?The ambition and envy of few?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Haldon saw the rigid jaws of several key neutrals clench in thought. The balance was shifting.It was working.He only need to get the neutrals that was all that mattered.
Without them, Barbut would never have the votes.
The man in question however, merely let out a soft, dry cough that cut through the mounting tension. He did not look like a man whose trap had failed. He looked like a spider watching a fly exhaust itself in the webbing.
"A magnificent speech, Haldon. Truly, your brother chose the right mouth to speak for his treason," Barbut murmured, his voice deadly calm as he stepped back toward the center of the floor, directly beneath the high dais of the trembling Watcher. "But we are not here to debate the poetry of plunder. We are here to decide the fate of our laws."
The old politician turned his gaze up toward the ancient, senile Watcher, then back to the packed, rowdy rows of the assembly.
"The Speaker for the Aiuscii family claims the law allows an admiral to build kingdoms in our name. I claim it is the death of the Confederation," Barbut said, his small eyes glittering as if he had already won.
He raised his hand, his voice suddenly booming through the semi-spherical stone vaults. "Let us put this beautiful notion to the ultimate test. Watcher! I call for an immediate vote on the emergency motion! Let the sea-blessed decide who stands for the Isles, and who stands for a tyrant’s crown!"