Marielle reached out her hand, palm facing up, then waited. A person in a white robe was still looking through his things and when he found it, placed it in her hand. It was a wooden tube, painted red, with a cap on each end. It easily fit in her hand.

She removed a cap and looked at the contents. A piece of parchment with her name on it. Marielle DeCastellian. Her new mother, Julianna, had made sure she could be included, despite Giovannus’ protest. She had heard about the controversy from her husband, that Giovannus argued that since they were not wed by Aurelia that she should not be considered a true member of the family yet, and thus not included in the convocation. Augustus argued that didn’t matter, and the wedding by Aurelia was merely for appearances in front of the other great houses, and nothing more. Julianna agreed, and as the executor of the family, she had full authority there.

That wasn’t the only thing she received, after the weighing was demonstrated in front of her, she was handed a small pouch of coins.

She looked around at the people around her. On its surface, it seemed like the casual socializing that happened before a dinner party. People laughed in small groups around the room, drinking from their wine glasses. Every so often, a member of her new family would remove themselves from their conversation and move over to the desk that was set up to retrieve their right to vote. There were a few members of the family as well as an official scholar of the business at the desk. They would verify the identity of the person, find the appropriate document and place it in their voting wand, as it was called.

Marielle moved back to where she had come from, to stand with Revenica and Quintus and two others, people closely related to Pascal, her uncle. Augustus was absent. He was in some room somewhere with Giovannus, Julianna, Cladius and Pascal. Although everyone was preparing for a vote, the true nature of the convocation was still being decided. Everything was happening quickly, but in a crisis, the executor had the power to call a vote. However, because of the suddenness, a vote of action could only pass by a majority share of the votes, regardless of those present. That meant those not present would be assumed to have voted against the action. An action was any departure from the status quo, such as the disposing of the current head of the family in favour of a new one.

The rules, as one should expect, put Augustus at a disadvantage. Not everyone was able to attend, and of those able to attend it was much easier to simply stay home to cast your vote passively than to actively attend and show your face to Giovannus as you declared your allegiance against him. Luckily, according to Augustus, most of his family was in the city and their attendance would be simply accommodated.

Marielle looked around, trying to judge the number of attendees, the room was busy, the chairs were occupied and the servers were scurrying about to attend to the guests. All a good sign. However, a high attendance didn’t ensure Augustus’ victory.

Revenica must have noticed the worried look on Marielle’s face because she tugged on her sleeve. “Don’t worry, things will turn out in our favour.”

Revenica had a bright and energetic smile. Quintus, however, appeared solemn. Despite this, he said, “Even if you don’t believe it, you must still believe it.”

Marielle took his words to heart, attempting to fix her expression into one of confidence. “Yes, it appears the attendance is good. This is my first convocation though, how does it compare to the regularly scheduled convocations?”

“I’d say it’s less. But not by some great margin. I would say, anyone who could attend on such short notice, did so. If you will excuse me though, I have some people I need to talk to.” Quintus walked off and headed towards another small group of people, injecting himself abruptly into their conversation.

Marielle attempted to eavesdrop on what the discussion was, but it was too faint for her to hear.

“Once this is all over we will be in such a position,” said Revenica, “We will have access to all the best events in the city.”

Marielle nodded her head.

“You’ll see when we go to the theatre room,” continued Revenica. “We will be able to invite troupes to perform for us and we will invite all the people from our faction.”

Marielle welcomed Revenica’s change of heart from the lunch meeting. There it seemed as if she was against her husband so openly opposing Giovannus, but Quintus must have explained himself to her in a way that had her excited rather than afraid. Or maybe she just had a tendency of getting ahead of herself. But, at the moment, Marielle felt she was being too enthusiastic. She didn’t want other people to overhear them discussing how they would be able to lord their influence over other members of the family, excluding those that didn’t bend the knee.

“I would prefer to think of those matters once the matters of greater weight are resolved,” said Marielle. The two relatives of Pascal nodded their agreement.

“Things are moving nicely in your favour but as any merchant knows, winds often change. You can never expect people to just accept the prices you set, you must always expect them to haggle,” said Hapernius, Pascal’s third son. He took a sip from his cup and looked away, acting like an aloof poet.

“Giovannus is done for,” said Revenica, rolling her eyes at Hapernius.

“Giovannus has already acted. He has released payment to the family. Quite a generous amount, not enough to make up for that which he deprived us, but enough to make many people happy. With enough gold, all can be forgiven.”

Her hand instinctively moved to her pouch of coins, the ones she had just received. Eight gildens, a fortune. The word that it had been awarded was received the previous day and Augustus had already picked up his allotment when he went to set up the convocation. He said that he saw members of the family lined up in carriages outside the manse, there solely to pick up their coins. They were ravenous vultures there to get their chunk of flesh.

One moment they were destitute, the next they were wealthy. Augustus had his loan and a considerable payout from the family. Augustus laughed, saying it was quite the coincidence that Giovannus would allow a payout as soon as Augustus didn’t desperately need it.

As he was a brother of the head of the family, he had sixteen shares of payout, and his wife, Marielle, received eight shares of payout. It was her personal wealth, to do with as she pleased. If Augustus chose to divorce her and pay back the fifteen gilden dowry, she would be allowed to keep those eight gilden too, making her wealthy enough to live out the rest of her days in comfort back in Jorland. Similarly, that was how many votes they each had. Augustus had sixteen votes, and Marielle had eight. Those were the rules of their family. It was only now that she truly grasped how much wealth she would be afforded as a member of the Castellian family. Everyone here was getting some amount of gold, with the smallest amount being a single gilden, but that wasn’t even the yearly payout. Still, she could hear murmurs of complaints that it was a meagre sum considering how long they had all gone without receiving pay.

On top of that, they were all afforded ample opportunity to earn additional wealth via preferential positions in the business and exclusive investment opportunities.

“He only gave out the coin to try to earn votes, they will all see that,” said Marielle. She held her head up high with confidence in her words. She spoke loudly enough for the groups near her to overhear. “It is almost an insult, to think he can bribe the members of the Castellian family with such a trite sum. It reeks of desperation.”

“I hope that you are right,” said Hapernius, “I hope that my family is as smart as you say.”

“Augustus and Quintus have already laid the groundwork,” said Revenica. “They have been aided in seeing reason.”

A bell rang out, signalling that it was time to start moving to the theatre room, where the presentations would be taking place. As Marielle’s ground started at their slow pace in that direction, she glanced over at the desk where she got her voting wand and saw the crowd there suddenly grow considerably.

“They waited so long to get their things in order,” murmured Marielle as she continued to walk.

“Some people have no sense of time or urgency,” said Hapernius. “Some think to be dressed in those worries is to be dressed like a commoner. Or maybe they are just absent-minded.”

They entered the theatre room. A room with a large stage and plenty of chairs lined up in rows. They weren’t particularly comfy chairs. Instead, they were designed to be compact, to allow for people to sit shoulder to shoulder in the space. The group of four made their way to a set of chairs with a good view of the stage and they sat watching the others enter the room and take their place.

Marielle felt nervous at the sight of the empty rows. But people were still slowly making their way into their seats. The atmosphere was still that of leisure, people walked slowly and stopped to chitchat when they approached someone new. Marielle looked up to see the empty stage. There were empty chairs and nothing else. Those at the center of the family were still nowhere to be seen.