“They rang the bell early?” asked Marielle.

“They always do,” responded Revenica. “Look it’s Quintus!”

Quintus entered the theatre and gave a wave, he walked with men Marielle didn’t recognize and continued his conversation. Likely attempting to convince some people who still sat on their fence.

“Who is he talking with?” whispered Marielle.

“Just some old friends in the family, childhood playmates.”

“Are they on our side yet?”

“I’m not sure. Either way, they aren’t of much consequence. I believe they only have one or two votes each.”

“What do you mean it’s of little consequence? If he can’t even convince his childhood friends, that’s a sign of much greater problems.”

“Don’t worry so much.”

“Yes, the fire shouldn’t worry about the meat being cooked,” said Hapernius with a smirk.

Marielle didn’t understand the relevance of that statement and just decided it had to have been something he read somewhere that he thought sounded nice. “Thank you for that sentiment,” said Marielle to him with a wide smile, “it was just what I needed to hear.” Hapernius, being Pascal’s son, had four votes that Marielle knew Augustus needed.

The seats began filling quickly, then people came out on stage. The central members of the family, Juliana, Pascal, Giovannus, Cladius, and her husband, Augustus. Everyone on the stage except Julianna sat down. Marielle watched her husband walk to his seat facing the audience. Augustus looked confident, gazing over those in the audience as if he were a hawk scanning for a rabbit. Cladius sat next to him with a smile, his lips were moving but she couldn’t hear his voice over the ambient noise. That jovialness was a good sign, Augustus said that Cladius would go with the wind, and the wind was at Augustus’ back. It looked like Cladius had decided to side with Augustus. It was a powerful signal to the members of the family of which way things were going. It would cascade in the votes, as they would want to vote for the winner.

Julianna stood at the front first, “Welcome everyone and thank you all for coming on such short notice. This convocation was called by Augustus who believes the family business is in crisis. First Giovannus will speak, then Augustus will speak, then Giovannus will again have a chance to defend against Augustus’ accusation. Once the speaking is done, questions will be allowed. We, the central figures in the family, have concluded that a vote will be held at the end. The matter at hand will be whether to remove Giovannus from his place as head of the family and if that matter passes, it will trigger a vote in three days to decide the new head of the family.”

Whispers spread through the audience. Most of them should have known the nature of what would be taking place but were still acting surprised for appearance’s sake. What concerned Marielle was the order of speakers clearly gave Giovannus an advantage. He got to speak both first and last.

“But first, my dear brother Pascal has asked to say something.” Julianna sat down and Pascal stood up.

“This is an unusual day and an unusual meeting,” said Pascal. He kept his face down, staring at the podium in front of him. “How many times in our family’s history has a vote been held to depose a head of the family? I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s not many. It is no small event. The transition from one head to another is always a shaky process–We all know this. But still, as we also all know, we must always look to the future. The future is vast. Vast enough that you can ignore the small bumps in the road as you travel to get there. I ask you all to ask yourself today, what is best for the Castellian family? What is best for your children and grandchildren, those even not yet born? And what is best for Venocia? A strong family and a strong business are what’s best.” Pascal went to his seat, giving Augustus a nod as he did.

Giovannus stood up and went to the podium. “Greetings my beloved family,” he said with a strong voice. He looked back at Augustus, letting the disdain on his face show as he did so, then looked again back out at the audience. “It is quite shameful…” He seemed to allow an intentional pause as he scanned the room. “To be accused like this. I have worked tirelessly for this family, I have expanded our businesses, investing in growth, and in so doing I suppose I have left myself open to such greedy actions. It is no secret that I hadn’t paid out the family what was expected. Instead, I invested it in expanding our ports and building new ships. I know that has caused some of you problems, those of you who didn’t have much put aside, and for that reason, I worked to offer you affordable loans so that our family as a whole could benefit from increased growth investment.

“I made a hard choice. I chose the future, like my kind uncle Pascal said.” Giovannus was trying to act as if Pascal was his ally. Pascal placed his face in his hand, an exaggerated attempt to display to the audience that he wasn’t on Giovannus’ side. “I chose the future over myself. It would have been easy for me to simply dole out coin, keeping everyone happy, and securing my precarious place. But I wanted the family to ascend. Those lean times are over now. The investments have been made and now I can continue to resume payments. In fact, they will be more plentiful than in the past now that we are in a stronger position. Yes, feel that gold in your hand. It should continue… It should. Except maybe if our trade partners were to abandon us.”

Giovannus put his hand over his heart and looked away from the audience in a show of sorrow. “There is a scenario that I could imagine that happening. What is that scenario? I hear you ask. If someone with no experience going on trade missions were to be put in charge and had to deal with them directly! I see some of you out in the audience nodding,” said Giovannus while nodding his head. “So many of you have gone up there yourself, you know how strange their customs, how temperamental their leaders can be. Our primary envoy with them is already dead, dead because of one man–because of Augustus! I, luckily, have had experience with them and trained under Marcus directly, learning from him how to deal with them. Augustus has never even gone there, doesn’t know them in the least. The great explorer Augustus, the discoverer of the Maysian isles, has never been up north, to Iku-nok, to meet with our most profitable trading partners.” Giovannus spit on the ground as if the saying Augustus was a great explorer left a disgusting taste in his mouth. “If that trade is gone from our family, I shudder to think of the state our businesses and our payments would be in. It would truly be lean times.”

The audience was silent. Giovannus smiled at the effect he had on the crowd and went to sit down. His first speech was over.

“How do you think he did?” Marielle whispered to Revenica.

“It was quite good. Was that true? Has Augustus never been to Iku-nok?”

“I believe so. I believe he’s only ever been on the one expedition.” Marielle looked over and saw the worried look on Revenica’s face.

“That’s not good. I’ve heard they are strange people, difficult to work with.”

“It’s true,” whispered Hapernius, “Marcus was good at dealing with them. Everyone was shocked when uncle Giovanni sent Marcus on the expedition since he was so valuable. But, Giovannus stepped up, he took the lead when dealing with them in Marcus’ absence.”

“It sounds almost as if you were convinced,” said Marielle.

“I am not so easily swayed. Things can be learned if you have the ability. I think Augustus is bright. Maybe there will be some bump in the road, but I doubt they would just halt all trade just because Augustus said the wrong thing.”

Augustus stood up and walked up to the podium. His turn to speak. It was his only chance to make an argument, so he would have to make a strong one.