Chapter 145: Quorum for the Damned
Word spread with the morning sun. Five voices had been called, and anybody else who fancied hearing what they had to say was welcome besides. By noon the heat hung over the bay like a wet blanket, and Concordia’s tavern had traded its crowd of drinkers for a gathering that looked more like a town trying to invent itself.
Briggs cleared the room without ever raising his voice above what it took to point at the door.
The regulars took that about as well as you’d expect.
"Bring us summat to carry it in, then, if ye mean to rob us of the table!"
Doyle hugged a half-full bottle of his own homemade liquor against his chest the way a father might shield a babe from the rain.
Ezra Hollis planted his feet and refused to budge from his stool.
"I paid good coin for this seat, and I’ll not be moved for the sake of some paper business!"
"Ye didn’t pay a shillin’ for it, Ezra. Ye won it off Twice at cards not an hour past!"
"That’s still payin’, in a manner o’ speakin’!"
Briggs simply stood by the door with his arms folded and watched them wear themselves out. Somehow that did the trick quicker than any shouting, and in a few minutes the room was empty. Doyle’s bottle went with him, and the tavern’s common room looked more respectable than it ever had before.
A long table had been dragged into the middle of the room, with five chairs waiting around it.
Whitlock had claimed a smaller desk off to one side. His record book lay open, and his quill rested where his hand could find it without so much as a glance.
Around the walls, and spilling into the doorway, stood everybody else.
Bonnet somehow still wore a coat that looked freshly pressed despite the heat, while nearby Thatch and Sam watched with their arms folded, curious more than impatient.
Anne stood near the front with Mary beside her.
Elena kept a little apart, her eyes on the empty chair that would soon belong to the man she’d been sharing this burden with for weeks.
Behind them waited faces from every corner of Concordia, each little knot of people gathered behind the chair they figured spoke for them.
James took the seat at the head of the table.
Whitlock wasted no time nodding toward the first empty chair.
"For the record."
Mateo went first.
"Mateo Salazar."
He tipped his head toward Whitlock. "Since the captain already knows me, for the paper, then. I speak for the fields, and for the Spaniards besides, since nobody else here claims that voice."
The woman beside him rose next.
She looked not yet thirty, with dark hair pinned up against the heat, though a few loose strands had long since escaped. One small beauty mark beneath her left eye drew the gaze, while her body was lean rather than delicate, dressed in a dark French riding coat fitted close through the waist over a plain waistcoat and linen shirt.
She let her eyes travel across the room once, calm as you please, and apparently found nothing there worth troubling herself over. "Adrienne Lavigne. The Spanish Armada buried my husband and burned my settlement one month ago, monsieur. After that, a room full of armed men stopped being much worth worrying over. I speak for what’s left of the French."
Mateo cleared his throat into a closed fist, just sharp enough to betray his surprise.
Across from her, a broad-shouldered fellow got to his feet, slow and steady, with more of the plow than the quarterdeck about him.
"Fenwick."
He seemed perfectly content to let one name do all the work. "Farmed tenant land in Yorkshire till me landlord decided he wanted it back without payin’ what he owed for the years I’d worked it. I speak for folk that came here wantin’ dirt of their own, not adventure."
The last man stood more slowly. There wasn’t any hesitation in it, he simply looked like he preferred thinking before speaking.
"I am called Isaiah."
He offered no other name. His English came with caution, each word placed where he wanted it, like he learned the language one piece at a time and meant to keep adding to it.
"I speak for those who came here in chains, and mean never to wear them again."
James let the introductions sit for a moment before leaning forward.
"Right then."
He rested both forearms on the table. "Here’s the plain trouble as I see it. Yesterday mornin’, four men knelt before that stone, and the whole thing worked because I happened to be standin’ there when it needed doing. If I’d been out on the water, dead, or simply too far off to hear about it, that business would’ve sat there till somebody dealt with it, right way or not."
"We know this trouble, Captain."
Mateo voice dripped with exhaustion, "Doña Elena and I made many decisions alone these past weeks. Small things, mostly. We feared the large ones."
"Then let’s build somethin’ that doesn’t leave the next pair of hands fearin’ ’em too."
Fenwick grunted.
"Buildin’ it’s the easy part, Captain. Keepin’ folk comin’ back to it, that’s the hard bit."
"Aye."
James looked around the table. "So we’ll keep it simple. One assembly at the Code every month where folk bring what’s needin’ settled, and we settle it."
Fenwick slowly shook his head. "Beggin’ yer pardon, Captain, but me fields don’t plant and harvest by the moon. Tell me I’ve got to march over every full moon whether there’s business or not, and yer farmers’ll quit botherin’ before the season’s out."
"He’s right."
Adrienne folded her arms. "And what about the matters that can’t wait? A quarrel today won’t politely hold itself till next month."
"Then no fixed day."
James scratched at his jaw. "We hold an assembly whenever there’s business worth holdin’ one for, and whoever comes decides it."
"How does a man know when to come?"
Isaiah asked. "Without a day already known, he may miss the call through no fault but his work."
"A bell. I reckon one in a chapel would do."
Whitlock kept writing. "Call an assembly, set the day, then ring the bell. Folk’ll know to gather when the time comes."
"Alors."
Adrienne nodded. "One at a time, then. Let every soul who wants the floor have it, and once there’s nothing left to be said..."
She looked to Whitlock. "How do you decide it without another shouting match?"
Whitlock replied without missing a beat, "Citizens vote by marks, tokens dropped into a cask. Green for aye, red for nay. Count ’em afterward and there’s your answer, plain enough."
Fenwick gave a slow nod.
"That I can work with."
Whitlock’s quill had already begun scratching it into the book when Isaiah spoke again.
"Captain. May I ask a question that troubles me?"
"Aye."
"The four men judged yesterday."
Isaiah chose each word with care. "If that same matter came before this new order, while half the settlement was at sea or in the fields beyond hearing the bell, would the judgment still stand? A man’s life decided because another man’s work kept him from arriving in time."
The table fell quiet.
"That’s the heart of it."
Fenwick muttered, almost to himself. "A man ought to have a say before another man hangs. Can’t leave that to whoever happened to be close enough to hear a bell."
"For a hangin’, or a banishment."
James continued as the thought appeared into place, "It ought to take more than an ordinary vote, grave matters only."
"How much more?" Adrienne asked.
"Near everybody. Say four in five of the whole before anybody loses life or liberty."
Fenwick let out a breath that plainly wasn’t impressed. "Four in five? Captain, ye’ll never gather that many unless ye burn the fields and sink every ship in harbor first."
"He’s right."
Adrienne gave a small shake of her head. "Set it that high and nothing serious ever gets done. These men will rot in whatever passes for a gaol here while everybody waits for a quorum that’ll never happen."
"Three in five, then."
"Still too many."
Mateo looked across the table. "My people work from before sunrise till after dark. They’ll miss the vote, depending when it is held."
Isaiah frowned.
"What word did you use, Adrienne? Quorum?"
"Means the number that has to be present before any vote counts."
He repeated it once, turning the unfamiliar word over in his mind like a man weighing a new coin. After a moment he seemed satisfied enough to leave it there.
The talk rolled on. Fenwick kept pushing the number down while James argued for one number that the ship crews could actually manage and Mateo spoke for the hands in the fields. Bit by bit they worked toward a figure nobody much liked, which is often the nearest thing a meeting ever gets to success.
"Two in three."
Whitlock was already writing before anybody bothered making it official. "Call it sixty-five in every hundred, for them that like their mathematics exact."
Nobody found enough fault with the number to keep arguing.
James looked around the table. Every face wore some different tired sort of acceptance.
Nobody was pleased, but everybody could live with it.
"Right then."
The discussion wandered through the finer points after that.
They agreed anybody in Concordia could petition for an assembly, though it would take three of the five voices to call one. Whitlock would chair the proceedings and keep the peace, and if ever he couldn’t, he’d see another hand trained to do the same.
Once a matter had been heard, the assembly itself would decide whether it was worth putting to a vote. Ordinary business would pass by a simple majority, ties meant more talk until somebody’s mind changed, and every decision found its way into Whitlock’s records before the assembly was done.
By the time the arguments had worn themselves thin, there wasn’t much left but the coarse edges.
Whitlock finally set his quill aside. "That’s the result. Assembly called by bell, one person speak at time, marks cast by the voters. Grave matters require sixty-five in the hundred before they carry."
"Aye, it’s very rough," James admitted, "but it’s better than what we had yesterday."
Not a soul argued with that.
James let the silence sit for a moment before leaning forward again.
"Right. Next matter, who’s watchin’ this place while the rest of us sleep."