Chapter 190: Assembly’s Open, God Help Us
James nodded toward Whitlock, who was already planted beside his tally boards, quill tucked behind one ear, and then let the silence there for one heartbeat longer than necessary.
Whitlock looked as though he’d been born waiting beside tally boards, and had accepted some years ago that the world would insist on giving him more numbers than any sensible man ought to have to count.
When James started, his voice came high and plain. "I’ve heard every one of you, some more than once and considerably louder than I’d have liked."
He swept an arm toward the bay and the open water beyond. The reefs lay bright behind the buildings, carrying on with its usual business while several hundred people stood about pretending theirs was the more important business by far.
"So here’s what I want every single soul here thinking before we begin!"
James voice climbed higher. "Beyond that horizon, there’s a fat, putrid fellow on a throne in some warm, dry room, wrapped in more velvet than guts, with a wig bigger than his own head and that still needs help from his butler to clean his arse. Never got his regal feet wet in his whole life, dug a ditch, raised a wharf, sweated over a forge."
The crowd’s attention stopped completely on him.
"And however claim or divine right he may proclaim, this land does not belong to him."
His grin turned sharper.
"Concordia, and its people, answer only to themselves!"
The plaza broke apart at that, cheers crashing through the hall and out into the square, thunderous enough to send gulls flapping from the nearby buildings. A few men shouted words he couldn’t make out, which was probably just as well, while somewhere near the rear a woman gave a whistle sharp enough to make three men turn around looking for a dog.
James cheered with them and let it run until it had spent itself, then raised a hand for silence. "In this square, be a farmer, fisherman, merchant, or even me, every soul is worth exactly the same."
He gestured toward the packed hall and the crowd spilling through its doors into the plaza. "And whatever decision we agree on today, it was made through the wishes of every citizen, with none vote above another. Value that, my friends."
He spread his hands. "Even if, knowing this town, this usually means some bastards wins ugly and the rest will spend their week complaining about it over rum and more degenerate activities. Still, the decision’s ours all the same, every last inch of it."
The cheer that came back no longer felt like five separate factions. The English shouted beside the French, and even the Spaniards and the freed men and women made the same wordless racket. For a moment, nobody seemed particularly interested in remembering which side of the square they had spent the last few hours standing on.
Boots hammered the new-sawn boards hard enough that he felt the noise come up through his soles.
James enjoyed the noise, and saw no reason to waste it by pretending otherwise.
He waited until it had mostly worn itself out, then carried on, his voice turning brisker.
"Right then. Here’s the actual business, since apparently I’m the one who’s got to get us to it."
Another smaller ripple of laughter answered him. "The Code says new ground opens where the assembly says it opens, and nowhere else. That’s all we’re doing today, to decide where."
He raised one finger.
"Drain the marsh and expand the farmland."
A second finger.
"Reform the harbor, the docks and the market."
A third.
"Or raise a workshop quarter with enough to produce new tools and masonry."
He lowered his hand.
"Anybody who wants the floor to make his case, you’ve got it. Then we vote."
Then, nobody moved.
Men who had charged against broadside after broadside without blinking suddenly discovered that their own boots were fascinating. Fenwick’s people observed the rafters with sudden attention, and Adrienne’s frenchies became absurdly interested in their fellow shoes.
It was a remarkable transformation, how sailors who had faced cannon smoke without so much as ducking now appeared liable to lose a leg if required to take three steps toward a speaking place.
Even Jim, who could talk a dead man’s ear off if given half a chance, stood there with his lips shut for once in his miserable life. That alone ought to have told the whole town something was wrong with the world.
James let the silence run on until even he had enough of it. "Christ, I’ve seen bastards line up faster to get shot at! Speak up, or I’ll start calling on you by name, and none of you’ll enjoy that half as much as you think you will!"
That threat had rather more weight than the joke suggested. He had spent enough days listening to their bloody points to know precisely how many names he could call before half the crowd began wishing they’d stayed home.
Then one fool actually moved.
James nearly missed it. He’d been expecting Fenwick or Adrienne, or some idiot with more rum in him than courage.
Instead, Sawyer stepped out from the crowd near the end of the plaza, wiping his broad hands down the front of a shirt already gone pale with sawdust, though none of it had come from any farm.
Sawyer would have been the one most folks would guess last among all the souls packed into that square. The man talked to timber easier than he talked to people, and James had never heard him string together more than a dozen words that weren’t about a hull or a beam.
That made James considerably more curious about what the old carpenter had walked all that way to say.
A few heads turned after him, then a few more. By the time Sawyer had crossed the first few paces, the attention of nearly the whole assembly had followed, which was perhaps the worst possible encouragement for a man who preferred timber to audiences.
"Sawyer." James nodded him forward. "Floor’s yours."