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  For Krim was the Venerable and Honoured Cushion Bearer to the Striker of the Moot, the oldest and most dignified of the clutch of ancient offices that served the will and the needs of Arvenstaat’s Great Moot and which, tradition had it, were essential to its continuance. His formal title was actually Venerable and Honoured Cushion Bearer and Assassin to the Striker of the Moot, though the word Assassin, being a reminder of the distant bloody origins of the Moot, had long since been dropped from routine usage. Indeed, in this more enlightened age, moves were afoot to have all reference to it removed even from the written records of the Moot.

  Krim’s attitude to such proposals, however softly worded, could best be described as venomous. The Moot was tradition. That was the very foundation of his life and work, as it had been for his father before him and his father, and all his forebears back through many generations. Change was anathema. To change was to destroy. The Moot was the pulsing heart of Arvenstaat and to deviate from its ancient ways was thus to threaten the stability of the entire state and all its peoples. Indeed, such troubles as Arvenstaat now suffered from, and, insofar as he understood any of them, could all, in Krim’s estimation, be directly attributed to the embracing of needless change. With dark silence, Krim quietly smothered all fledgling hints of ingenuity and originality whenever he could. His very presence at the councils of the Moot Officers dulled the bright eye and crushed the eager green shoot.

  But while such matters underscored his life, it was a more pressing call that now occupied him. Moving only his head, he scanned the objects of his responsibility, seeking out those that were being touched by, or in the probable path of, the intrusive sunlight. Not that, to an outside observer, a great deal of sunlight survived passage through the fly-blown window. What might have been direct and brilliant outside was diffuse and hesitant inside. But to Krim’s eyes – eyes that rarely ventured beyond the Moot Palace, and had not been outside its gloomy courtyards in decades – the light glared and, in glaring, menaced his domain: the Striker’s cushions. The Moot’s cushions.His cushions. Cushions designed for and used by all the Strikers that had ever been, each housed in its individual alcove in shelves which towered in serried ranks around the circular tiered floor and rose up the curved and irregularly recessed walls from floor to ceiling. Access to these upper shelves was gained from balconies which, in their turn, were linked by an intricate arrangement of ramping walkways and stairways – straight stairways, spiralled stairways and strangely dog-legged stairways, all with uneven steps twisted by age and use and neglect. The whole formed a rambling vertical and horizontal maze. The parts swayed unsteadily when trodden upon and often creaked for no apparent reason.

  The cushions were laid out meticulously in accordance with the dictates of Akharim the Great – the first Cushion Bearer and Founding Striker. The original Assassin, it was he who had dispatched the last Dictator, Koron Marab, and he whom Krim had been discreetly named after, in an uncharacteristic spasm of boldness by his father. However, as Krim had foreseen many years before, this Session of the Moot was proving particularly trying, for the strict ordering of the cushions brought those that were now in current use directly into the path of light from the offending window. It left him with a profound dilemma. The cushions belonged where they belonged, as decreed by Akharim. They could not, for example, arbitrarily be moved to those empty and more shaded alcoves intended for the cushions of Strikers yet to come. Even to think of such a thing disturbed Krim deeply. It was not for Moot Officers – or anyone – to question Akharim’s wisdom. Yet to leave the cushions where they were was to see their ornate and colourful embroidery washed and drained by the sunlight with all that that meant to the tenor of the conduct of the Moot’s debates.

  Krim, however, knew the history of his office and that it had been peopled from time to time by men of resolution and determination in the face of such difficulties. Secretly, he fancied himself one such and, donning this heroic garb, he had finally acted – an almost unheard-of occurrence in a Moot Officer. With great trepidation and in great secrecy, he had acquired materials and after edging and embroidering them – with an undeniable skill – he had carefully draped them over the assaulted cushions. But the daring had taken its toll and left him ever nervous of discovery – constantly alert to the sound of approaching feet. His spindly frame shuddered throughout its entire length at the thought of some wretched Moot Page barging in on him inopportunely, seeing his subterfuge and recklessly proclaiming it through the corridors of the Palace.

  With this in mind he had prepared a written report to the Striker and the Under Striker, expressing his deep regrets at what he had been obliged to do, and pleading the desperate exigencies of the time and the continued negligence of the Palace’s Most Noble Artisan who ‘has been told repeatedly, both verbally and in writing, of the nature and urgency of the problem, and who has consistently declined to effect the necessary repairs’. Accompanying this immaculately written report was a carefully annotated and cross-referenced list of all his pleas to Ector. When not actually tending to his charges, Krim spent much of his time weighing this report and making subtle changes here and there, to ensure that all the nuances of his distress and justification would be properly appreciated.

  Occasionally, in his less troubled moments, Krim wove other fantasies – fantasies as elaborate as his embroidery. One of these had him being honoured by the Moot for his devotion to duty and culminated in his impromptu covers becoming part of the Moot’s revered traditions, their use perhaps even being enshrined in an addendum to Akharim’s Treatise.

  Today, however, was not such a moment. Today the Striker himself was coming to the Cushion Hall. And coming at Krim’s own request, after he noticed that the cushion beneath the Striker’s feet had become worn and flattened. Krim was twitching. He had left his guilty coverlets on the cushions as long as he dared, but the Striker would be here at any moment and he had no choice but to remove them now, leaving the precious fabrics exposed to the ruthless glare of the sun.

  His mouth stiffened into a thin line as he steeled himself to this grim task. It occurred to him in a desperate moment that perhaps he might raise the matter with the Striker directly, but the very thought chilled him. The Striker had no authority to intervene arbitrarily in such matters. He too, was bound by the Moot’s ancient traditions and the Treatise. He would have to judge the Striker’s mood and act accordingly.

  A familiar tapping reached him through the muffled air of the hall. Arms and legs flapping he made his way down a stepped aisle and up a narrow stair to the scene of his treachery where, with practised speed, he deftly removed the covers and thrust them into the Bag of his Office which hung by his side.

  Scarcely had he finished than three solemn knocks announced the Striker.

  Nervously, Krim straightened his Bag of Office, barked out a loud cough, then stretched himself to his full height and moved to open the door.

  Striker Bowlott rolled in. A loud rap on the floor with his long cane and an airy gesture sent the two Moot Pages who attended him scuttling forward to lay out their burden of cushions by the Fitting Chair. A further tap dismissed them to wait outside.

  Small and stout, Bowlott was typical of the line of Moot Strikers. Pompous and self-opinionated, he fondly mistook his considerable low cunning and nit-picking knowledge of the Moot’s arcane procedures for wisdom.

  ‘Venerable and Honoured Cushion Bearer,’ he said, acknowledging Krim’s low and disconcertingly unsteady bow with a mannered nod.

  ‘Striker Bowlott,’ replied Krim. ‘My apologies for disturbing your busy day with such a matter, but your comfort is the comfort of the Moot and the ease of the State.’

  It was a traditional greeting which the Striker acknowledged this time with a limp-handed gesture.

  Krim’s lanky arm stretched out, motioning him to the Fitting Chair. This was an exact replica of the Throne of Marab, the ancient chair which stood in the Moot Hall and which had accommodated successive Strikers since its
original owner’s demise. Undecorated by so much as even a chamfer or a rounded edge, it was stoutly built and profoundly uncomfortable. Ostensibly this was because Marab was a battle-hardened warrior unaffected by such niceties, but the reality was that he hardly ever sat on it. In his time, the assembly which was to become the Moot was a token representation of the people which Marab, nothing if not shrewd and perceptive, had invented so that he would have plenty of scapegoats ready to blame whenever anything went wrong. On the rare occasions when he actually summoned the assembly, he would drape an arm over the back of the chair and, with his other hand on his sword hilt, tell the people’s representatives what was needed of them. Then he would leave. Once, when he had actually sat in it, Akharim, young, ambitious, and looking to ingratiate himself, had obsequiously offered him his own cushion; Marab had sneered and caustically blessed him with the title of Venerable and Honoured Cushion Bearer. In so doing, and untypically, he completely underestimated both Akharim’s dark and vengeful nature, and his almost inhuman patience. As did several other members of the assembly who chose subsequently to make Akharim the butt of their humour because of this humiliation.

  After Marab’s death – an event much appreciated by the people – Akharim had retained the throne and most of the power that went with it, while ostentatiously rejecting the actual title of Dictator. Subsequently he had taken delight in enshrining the post of Cushion Bearer in his elaborate and obsessive Treatise on the Procedures for the Proper Ordering of the Moot.

  Striker Bowlott heaved himself into the chair and Krim immediately began the ritual of positioning and adjusting the cushions which the Pages had brought. During this, Bowlott let out a noisy sigh. Krim noted the sound. It was good. The Striker was in a confiding mood. He must stay alert, ready to seize any opportunity that might present itself to bring his problem to the Striker’s notice. Like most of the Moot Senators, Bowlott’s dominant concern was with his own dignity or, more correctly, with the appearance of dignity, and thus almost his entire life was spent hiding behind a screen of empty words and gestures. Unaware that he was exactly the same, it was one of Krim’s secret conceits that he could see through such, to the real man lurking within, and thereby manipulate him. As a result, he despised most of the Moot Senators, and Striker Bowlott in particular, as vain self-seekers and unworthy of the offices that they held. In this, he was at one with most of the population of Arvenstaat, even those who bothered to participate in the four-yearly Acclamations – fewer and fewer with each session of the Moot and now only about one out of every three eligible electors.

  However, illogical though it was that the people should willingly accept such folly in high places, the Moot Senators did exercise power over the land, albeit not as much as they imagined, and the Striker, in his privileged position as an ostensibly independent arbiter, exercised power over the Senators. And Krim in his turn, saw himself as exercising influence, if not power, over the Striker. Not that he involved himself in the squabbling of the innumerable and shifting factions that comprised the Moot. Like Striker Bowlott, he understood that while the Senators indulged in this, they would be less likely to turn their attention to anything else. Krim used his perceived power exclusively to enhance the esteem in which the office of Cushion Bearer should be held and, by the same token, to undermine the positions of his fellow officers, particularly the Most Noble Artisan.

  As was his habit, he stood back and cast a professional eye over the seated Striker. Bowlott’s mean little eyes were as peevish as ever and his down-turned mouth had a particularly self-pitying look. While in genuine awe of the office, Krim really couldn’t stand the man. Perhaps it was because he was already agitated by concern about the destruction of his cushions by the intruding sunlight, but Krim felt something else stirring within him. His gaze drifted away from the sour spectacle in the chair to a cushion that lay on a shelf beneath the chair. This was a special cushion, the Blue Cushion. As with all the other cushions, one such was made for each new Striker. It was fashioned after the one with which Akharim had smothered Marab and was used ceremonially to menace each new Striker on his selection by the Shout of the Moot.

  Assassin!

  The increasingly unspoken portion of his title came to Krim so unexpectedly and with such force that it made him start. He disguised the movement by returning to his inspection of the Striker with a vague wave of his hands. However, this did not prevent a small flood of other thoughts bubbling out in the wake of the word.

  What an odious little wretch Bowlott was. What a pity the title of Assassin was purely formal. Right now, he could just…

  To his horror, Krim found his fingers curling as if to grip the edges of an imaginary Blue Cushion. Other resources rallied to rescue him from this bizarre interior onslaught and two violent high-pitched coughs shook him free.

  They shook Striker Bowlott too. His eyes became almost round and he winced conspicuously at having someone else’s affliction so thoughtlessly imposed on his own deep and profound concerns. He sighed again.

  Krim, unsteady, but now well away from the edge of the abyss which had so abruptly opened at his feet, clasped his hands and cocked his long thin head on one side to denote that he was in reality deep in concentration.

  ‘Ah, I see the problem,’ he said, the sound of his own voice further helping him back to normality. ‘I suspected as much when I saw you in the Hall.’

  He knelt down and began to move the padded footstool which ensured that the Striker would not suffer the indignity of having his legs swinging freely. Though furniture rather than a cushion, and thus technically falling within the remit of the Moot’s Most Noble Assistant Artisan (Furniture), this stool had been deemed to be the responsibility of the Venerable and Honoured Cushion Bearer by a ruling of the twenty-third Striker, now enshrined in the Addendum to the Treatise.

  ‘I did not feel particularly uncomfortable,’ Bowlott said, venturing a little sternness to offset the fact that he quite enjoyed Krim’s fussy ministrations.

  Krim became knowing. He straightened up so that, though still kneeling, he was almost face to face with the seated Striker.

  ‘It is because the conscientiousness of Strikers can lead to such neglect of their personal needs, that my office exists. It is my duty – my honour – to anticipate such matters. Should you actually feel uncomfortable, then I would indeed have failed.’

  Bowlott nodded understandingly. Krim tapped the footstool, then drawing out a brass measuring rod from his Bag of Office, he lowered his face so that one cheek almost touched the floor. In this position, he began crawling around the footstool, placing the measuring rod at strategic points and mouthing measurements to himself. With his long limbs protruding, he looked like a great spider.

  ‘The burdens of office manifest themselves in many ways,’ he said. ‘In this instance, the repeated need for you to stand to gain order in the Hall has reduced the height of the stool, causing subtle signs of strain in your seated posture.’ He pursed his lips and nodded to himself as though approving this diagnosis, though his true assessment was that the damage was due to the fat little oaf paddling his feet in tantrums as he shrieked to make himself heard. Krim had seen it coming for weeks and it was concern for his workmanship rather than the Striker’s comfort that had prompted him to act.

  ‘I’ll have the stool re-upholstered before the next meeting. Now, if I may…’

  There followed a routine but thorough check of all the cushions that supported the Striker. This was the pampering that Bowlott enjoyed.

  Krim clucked and hummed to himself as he continued his inspection, gently moving the Striker’s head from side to side, and positioning his hands and arms.

  ‘Good, good, good,’ he concluded eventually.

  He stepped back to admire his work, then, satisfied, and noting the Striker’s relaxed, if not drowsy condition, he saw the opening he had been waiting for.

  ‘But it occurs to me that there’s much to be said for such examinations being made regula
rly. Say perhaps, every twenty meetings, so that these little faults can be noted and corrected before they manifest themselves.’

  Making the inspections a regular event in the calendar of the Moot would bring them within the purview of one of the several Outer Moot Sub-committees dealing with the activities of the Most Noble Artisan and his various assistants, and was, of course, like most matters involving change, out of the question. Krim knew this well enough, but he had made the suggestion purely so that he could drag the Most Noble Artisan into the ensuing conversation and thence discreetly complain about his neglected curtains and the depredations that would be wrought on his charges by the sun if they were not repaired. There were other, more formal ways of doing this but they were time-consuming, spectacularly ineffective even by Moot standards, and liable to bring him into direct conflict with the Most Noble Artisan, all of which enabled him to justify his disregard of them on the grounds of the desperate seriousness of what was going to happen. His action also chimed with another of the more raffish images of himself that he entertained from time to time. This portrayed him as the last great protector of the Moot, striking boldly with an unspecified, but revolutionary action of some kind which would rescue the Moot from an encroaching but equally unspecified danger and bring it back to its time-honoured way of acting in strict accordance with the Treatise.

  Not that he was allowing himself such indulgence at the moment. Indeed, he began to feel uneasy about his impetuosity almost as soon as he had spoken. He braced himself for a reproachful diatribe on the subject.

  But the remark seemingly went ignored.

  ‘Fretful times, Krim. Fretful times.’

  Krim blinked. Bowlott had called him by name – he must be in a particularly relaxed mood today. This was the moment. He was searching for a suitable response when Bowlott continued. ‘This affair of Vashnar proclaiming the Death Cry against Hyrald and the others is causing great problems. The corridors are ringing with it. It’s going to interfere with the business of the Moot if it continues.’