assembling on the tiered stone benches which encircled the floor everywhere except the entrance, Demansk reminded himself of those medallions. Whatever else could be said of today's Vanbert, there was nothing false or illusory about those victories.
Workmen had already prepared a spot for the next. Quite some time ago, now. Demansk's lip curled further, into a gesture of open derision rather than simple humor. Preble, that medallion would read—whenever Albrecht finally managed to reduce it.
His open sneer, and the source of it, had already been noticed by at least a dozen other Councillors. However dull-witted they might be in many respects, Councillors were hypersensitive to political nuances. A number of them grinned; several scowled; several more looked away, feigning indifference.
Albrecht, as the old saying went, had truly hoisted himself on his own assegai. The year before, he had taken advantage of the stunning defeats which Adrian Gellert had inflicted on the Vanbert besiegers of the rebel island to have Jeschonyk and Demansk removed from command—heaping a mass of contumely on the first and a fair portion on the other. And he had also taken the occasion to get himself appointed the new commander of the besieging forces.
A necessity, that, if Albrecht's ambitions were to go any further. The Confederacy might be corrupt, but the rot still only went so far. No Councillor, even in modern times, could hope to attain the Speakership without a modicum of martial glory to his name. Albrecht had been famous for his political maneuvering, not his skills on the field of war. He'd seized the opportunity to have himself elected the commander of the siege precisely in order to remedy that flaw.
Demansk's sneer was now a thing of pure histrionics. He allowed the assembling Councillors to get a full taste of it, while he himself kept his eyes visibly on the spot long-since prepared for the missing medallion of triumph.
Albrecht had discovered, the hard way, that it was much easier to deride besiegers than to surpass them. A year had gone by, and Preble was still in rebel hands. Even after Adrian Gellert and his brother