Anna Kurtain strolled by his side, Prince Owen’s bodyguard and confidante filling out a long grey overcoat with two series of copper buttons, a worn leather belt with a pistol on one hip and a sheathed sabre on the other. People were flooding in from all over, and not just politicians from the rebel prefectures. Traders and merchants and locals who wanted to witness history being made. There was an almost carnival air to the proceedings quite at odds with the desperate fighting raging along the Spotswood River to hold back the southern armies. There was to be a vote later on in the reformed assembly, demanding the usurper’s head for crimes against the people. Could a sitting monarch, even an usurper like Marcus, really be found guilty of treason as a tyrant, traitor, murderer and public enemy? If he could, it would prove a powerful rallying call to the rebellious north. The world is turning, and what’s my part in it to be? Ferreting out Kerge and Sheplar and bringing that imperial brat back to Midsburg.
