The Sinew of war
Darius Hinks

I watched Macragge City burn, listening to the panicked reports flooding down the Neetum Transitway.
 	'Seven cohorts. Men who were loyal to Libanus, Gallan and Palatinus. They're murdering and burning. Captain Melotus says they were bribed. Bribed, Lord Guilliman. Killing for coin. What have we come to? They tore down the Tomb of Megaricus. They've lit fires all along the Proana Arch. They're fighting outside the Senatorum and Consul House.'
 	Killing for coin. Every time I heard a grotesque, barbaric phrase like that it reminded me how different I was. I did not think like others. I was a breed apart. Where others saw pieces of a puzzle, I saw the whole. Whether it was military strategy, theology or philosophy, my mind seemed to function on a different level to my peers. Sometimes I found the thought reassuring, other times it troubled me. Why should I be so different? To murder, simply for financial gain, was baffling to me. It was the action of someone lost in the dark; blinded by ignorance and base, animal needs.
 	The transitway was crowded with people fleeing the violence, and my cohorts had to move frustratingly slowly to avoid killing anyone. Several times our armoured transports ground to a halt as panicked people struggled to move aside. No one wanted to get in our path, though. We made a fearsome sight still filthy from battle, and those that were able scrambled as far from our tattered banners as they could. I continued giving orders as we approached the city, processing information I knew no one else would register, but the phrase 'killing for coin' had summoned a memory.
 	I was five and my father had taken me hunting. I knew why. Even then I could read people as easily as I read the military treatises in Deucalis Library. My father had seen me watching his generals and magistrates. He saw how I despised them. The greatest statesmen of the greatest city were idiots, blind to the most important resource on the planet - their own, needlessly oppressed people. They were fools and tyrants and, even aged five, I wanted to tear down the whole, hide-bound edifice. My father felt the same, I knew he did. But my place in Macragge was precarious and he was too wise to risk my life on a point of principle. So he took me away, to a place we both loved, to the cold, beautiful foothills of the Crown Mountains where we could breathe clean air and ease our fury by scrambling over rocks and scree. Away from the Senate, my father dropped the pretence that I was a normal child and we hunted together as equals. He laughed, as he always did, at the sight of my unfettered strength, proud of his strange little son. But then, when I saw him fall, grimacing at a gash on his arm, a dreadful truth hit me.
 	We were not equals. We never could be. My father was not like me. The man who taught me about life was not destined to live. The flash of crimson on his tunic stalled my breath. One day, Konor Guilliman would die. He would leave me behind. Leave me with the fools and the tyrants. In that moment I became the child I usually only pretended to be. Tears filled my eyes and I placed my hand over his wound, wishing it away. He laughed, shaking his head - not in mockery, but reassurance. He took out a coin and handed it to me. His face was minted on one side and Consul Gallon's was minted on the other. He closed my hand over it, squeezing it tight.
 	'Feel its strength,' he said. Strong as I was, I could not crush the metal. 'The coin is Macragge,' he said. 'Beautiful and unbreakable. Made to outlive us all. And while there is a Macragge, I will be with you, Roboute. My virtue is the virtue of Macragge. My strength is the strength of Macragge. This is not just my home, Roboute, it is my soul and it is my family. And it is your family, too. Macragge will endure. Macragge must endure. And as long as it does, you will not be alone.'
 	'There's fighting at the Tyrsus Gate!' Captain Melotus sounded almost hysterical as we reached the city, and I gave him a warning glare. We had just crushed a revolt that had threatened the whole of Illyria, but seeing war in their own home was another matter. Again, my mind had leapt ahead, and I saw that the two conflicts were actually part of the same whole. The rebels in Illyria planned to overthrow the senate by throwing Macragge into chaos, and now we returned home to find rioting on the streets of the capital. Whoever was behind the first insurrection would no doubt be behind the second. I deployed my men with barked commands, but my mind was still elsewhere. Consul House had been attacked. Was my father there? He was no longer the man who had hunted with me in the Crown Mountains that day, but he was no less impressive. I pitied anyone who tried to take Consul House from him.
 	I ordered five cohorts to the Proana Arch and five to the Senatorum. The rest I took with me to Consul House. It was dawn. Coral-coloured light flashed over domes and amphitheatres. It looked like the whole city was burning.
 	We entered the ornamental gardens and I hesitated, struggling to hide my outrage. Even then, barely into my teenage years, I had fought several campaigns, justifying my father's trust with every victory, but I had never seen so much as a las-carbine fired in the capital. Now its friezes were splashed with blood and its colonnades were stained by smoke. I brought to mind the training of my seneschal, Tarasha, and recited her litanies, calming my breathing and clearing my head.
 	The house was approached by a web of looping paths, designed to mirror the revolutions of the heavenly bodies: Macragge, Ardium, Laphis, Thulium, Mortendar and Nova Thulium, names of legend, sculpted from marble, set in fountains and circled by walls of yew so tall and meandering that they formed a labyrinth.
 	The crackle of autocarbines rang out through the half-light.
 	I waved a cohort to one side of the maze and a second to the other. Then I signalled for the final cohort to follow me as I sprinted down the central path, tracing the orbit of Nova Thulium.
 	I was halfway to the house when a soldier ran out to confront me. He had torn the insignia from his uniform and he was swaying, clearly drunk, as he staggered towards me, a gun resting loosely in his hands and leaves stuck in his hair. Three more soldiers followed in his wake, equally unkempt and unsteady.
 	The first of them was an ogre of a man, so broad and powerfully built that his gun looked ridiculous in his meaty fists. He laughed as he lurched towards me, raising the autocarbine. Then, when he was close enough to see me clearly, he faltered, his face growing pale
 	'Lord Guilliman,' he muttered, the sneer fading from his face. There were corpses in the distance. My father's guards. The man was a disgrace. He had betrayed his people and his uniform. He was a murderer. And the idiot was so thrown by my arrival that he was trying to salute me.
 	I marched towards him, drew my broadsword and beheaded him.
 	The drunks behind him were too shocked to react at first. Then they lurched into action, fumbling with their guns.
 	I drew my pistol and gunned them down in a single, fluid motion. They dropped to the path with smoke rising from between their eyes.
 	I stood there for a few seconds, pistol raised, waiting for their spasms to subside, waiting for more soldiers to arrive. None came, so I nodded to my men and we marched on past the corpses, making for the front of the house.
 	There was a fierce gunfight taking place at the steps. A group of ragged soldiers, like the four I had just killed, were hunched at the top of the steps, firing wildly at a second group who had hunkered down next to an overturned ground-car. Its doors had been blasted off and there was smoke billowing from its engine, obscuring the figures shooting from the wreckage.
 	Shrapnel kicked from the walls as a third group approached from the maze, guns blazing.
 	I raised a hand, warning my men not to fire until I could make sense of the situation.
 	The men on the steps were howling drunken curses as they defended the doors, so I marked them down as traitors. True sons of Macragge would never behave so poorly. The men by the truck were another matter - they were too shrouded by smoke for me to know if they were traitors or my father's men.
 	The point became moot as a rocket screamed across the gardens, fired from the direction of the maze, turning the ground-car into a blinding column of flames.
 	Shrapnel and sparks rushed towards me. My men ducked but I remained motionless, staring into the blaze. There was very little in the world that could harm me. I had learned that by the time I was ten. I kept much of the truth to myself. Even my father would have been shocked to know the full extent of my strength. On the rare occasion that something broke the surface of my skin, the wound healed itself in seconds, closing before my eyes. I was either a miracle or a curse; only time would tell which.
 	Men reeled from the burning truck, robed in flames. I ignored them and strode towards the steps, raising my pistol.
 	The drunks were so busy jeering at the burning men that it took a moment for them to notice me and, when they did, they were as confused as the men in the maze. Half of Macragge City hated me and half treated me like a saint, but no one in the capital met my gaze with any confidence.
 	The drunks were still deciding how to respond to my presence when I opened holes in their skulls. They sprawled across the top of the steps, their guns clattering across the rockcrete.
 	I waved for my men to tackle the group rushing from the maze. They were about to open fire when a familiar voice boomed through the smoke 'Roboute! Hold your fire!'
 	'Gallan!' I cried, nodding for my men to lower their guns. We embraced, then he held me at arm's length and shook his head, his eyes glinting. 'I'm glad you're back.'
 	Gallan was one of Macragge's two consuls. Alongside my father he was lord tetrarch of the senate and senior magistrate of Macragge's legislative assembly. He was an imposing figure, coming almost up to my chest with a powerful, physical presence that remained undimmed by age. He wore his golden ceremonial cuirass and helmet with the assurance of a man born into leadership. Most of Macragge's citizens would have bowed in his presence and struggled to speak. I just nodded to the carnage, 'Who did this?'
 	He grimaced at the bodies and the smouldering ground-car. 'The very people it will hurt the most. The people your father's reforms were intended to help. The idiots took matters into their own hands.'
 	My men flinched as explosions ripped through Consul House; detonating with such force that the ground juddered.
 	We turned to face a wall of flames, soaring up the columns and windows, scattering masonry across the gardens. I signalled for my men to fan out, keeping their weapons trained on the fire.
 	'Is my father in there?'
 	Gallan nodded. 'He's been holding the mob back for hours, but everything went quiet half an hour ago. I rushed over here as fast as I could.'
 	'I've been trying to vox him since I reached the city,' I said. 'No response.'
 	'Then we should move fast,' he replied, striding towards the steps and readying his weapons.
 	The vox in my collar crackled into life, bringing news from my cohorts. They had encountered resistance on both sides of the building and were currently pinned down by overwhelming firepower.
 	'Hold your positions,' I replied. 'I will deal with this. Make sure no one leaves the grounds.'
 	The entrance hall looked like a slaughterhouse. Statues of former consuls were draped with bodies and the floor was dark with blood. Gallan and I both halted, appalled by the scene.
 	'How could they?' muttered Gallan. 'In here, of all places?'
 	I shook my head, trying to quell my growing furry.
 	We rushed ahead, guns trained on the shadows as we approached a vast, double staircase that led to the staterooms above. Gallan took one flight and I took the other, with my men trailing after us.
 	We were halfway up the stairs when soldiers opened fire from the doorway at the top. They were wearing the uniform of the household guard but, like the men outside, they had torn the insignia from their tunics.
 	The handrail exploded beneath my fingers and I staggered sideways, thudding into the wall as I returned fire, splitting the gloom with a volley of las-blasts.
 	Gallan ran towards the door, taking two steps at a time, firing into the darkness. My men followed suit, creating an inferno of noise and light, filling the air with shards of alabaster.
 	There were screams and thuds, and the attack faltered.
 	I righted myself and charged up the steps, entering the room just after Gallan.
 	It was a long, tapestry-lined gallery and there were bodies everywhere.
 	I sidestepped a shotgun blast that smashed into the doorframe then dropped my attacker with a headshot. Gallan waded into the fumes, firing fast, dropping more of them as I leapt onto a table that ran down the centre of the room, finishing off the few he missed.
 	'Lord Guilliman!' cried one of my men.
 	I looked back to see dozens of insurgents rushing up the steps, guns barking.
 	I dropped from the marble table, shoved it over and kicked it across the room, sending it slamming against the wall and blocking the doorway. Then I waved for my men to take positions behind it.
 	'No one gets through!' I cried, before heading on into the next chamber with Gallan at my side.
 	Behind us there was an eruption of explosions and battle cries as my men leapt to obey.
 	We entered another long gallery, lined with colossal bookcases that soared up to a distant vaulted ceiling where plasterwork cherubs circled a painting of Old Earth. Gallan and I paused at the threshold. The lumen globes were unlit and Gallan squinted into the gloom. To me, darkness was barely different to light. It took me years to understand the obsession with illuminating our streets and palaces.
 	'There!' I said, nodding to one of the four doors that led from the room. Figures dashed through the darkness in the hallway beyond.
 	Gallan nodded and we rushed that way, scouring the shadows for movement.
 	Gunfire screamed towards us and I heard Gallan curse, rolling behind the plinth of a statue.
 	'Gallan?' I called, looking back.
 	'I'm fine!' he cried. 'Keep going.'
 	I marched down the centre of the room, ignoring the shots that howled past me. There is a strange thing about power. The more you have, the less you need. My reputation as unkillable spoiled the aim of even the most skilled marksmen. As I walked calmly to the huddled group at the far end of the room, shots tore through busts and architraves, kicking up a storm of plaster dust.
 	The rebels were gathered beneath an archway that led into the next room. There were dozens of them, all gripping pistols and swords. If they had remained calm, I might have been in trouble. But I knew they would not. I glared at them, allowing my wrath to burn through my eyes, allowing whatever I was to shine through my skin.
 	They panicked, some scrambling for cover, others rushing at me, guns barking. I dodged a few poorly aimed sword thrusts and sidestepped the flurry of las-fire, easily hacking down several of my attackers with casual, lethal sword slashes.
 	The rest backed away, shooting wildly over my shoulder.
 	'In the name of the consuls,' I cried, 'submit!'
 	They froze, confused, thinking I was offering them a chance to surrender.
 	I nodded, acknowledging their obedience, then removed their confused expressions with a barrage of shots. I felt no pity as they thudded to the floor, their faces smouldering and their limbs convulsing. They had turned on the senate. They had betrayed Macragge. There could be no greater justification for summary execution.
 	'Gallan?' I cried, looking back.
 	He walked towards me, gripping the bicep of his gun arm. 'I'm fine,' he said, nodding to the next room.
 	When we approached my father's chambers, the fighting was starting to die down. My men were reporting only minimal resistance now. Gallan and I had dealt with the ringleaders. My father's stateroom was palatial - a work of art rendered in ivory and gold - but the luxurious rugs were all soaked with blood and littered with dead guards, several of whom I had known my whole life. I recited Tarasha's litanies again.
 	There was an eerie quiet as we reached my father's private chambers. There were dozens more corpses and a fire spreading quickly over a tapestry that covered one wall.
 	Gallan rushed to the tapestry and tore it down, cursing as he stamped out the flames and surrounded himself with embers. 'Priceless,' he snarled. 'And ruined by barbarians who wouldn't even be able to read it.'
 	I loved Gallan but he was as strange as all of Macragge's nobles. He had just passed all those dead men, but it took a ruined tapestry to make him angry.
 	I noticed an odd aroma on the air, bitter and chemical. It seemed worryingly familiar and I scoured my memory, trying to recall when I had smelt it before.
 	Then I saw movement on the floor near Gallan, near the burning tapestry.
 	'Watch out!' I snapped.
 	He backed away and we both raised our guns.
 	I gasped as I saw a man, crumpled on the floor like a piece of broken furniture.
 	'Father!' I howled, shaking my head. 'No!'
 	We rushed towards him, but he held up a warning hand and we stopped a few feet away, both whispering curses. His ornamental cuirass was punched full of holes and his robes were drenched in blood. His leg was bent underneath him at a sickening angle and his skin was scorched and blistered. Worst of all, though, was the dark line at his throat. It looked like a second mouth, wide and leering, dribbling crimson threads. He gasped, trying to breathe, colour draining from his face.
 	I dropped to my knees, reaching out to him. Again, he waved me away, desperate warning in his eyes. He tried to speak but only managed a hideous bubbling.
 	For all my strange gifts I could do nothing as he slipped away, choking on his own blood, gripping his throat and trying to sit up. I tore some of my cloak to wrap it around his neck but he pointed a pistol at my face, fury in his eyes.
 	'Who did this?' I gasped, but he did not seem to register my words.
 	When I stopped trying to touch him the anger left his eyes and he tried to reach for something on the floor.
 	I grabbed it. It was a coin. It must have fallen from his robes when he fell. I tried to give it to him but he shook his head, indicating that I should close my fist around it.
 	I gasped as I understood what he was doing. He was reminding me of that day in the mountains. The day when he handed me a coin and promised I would never be alone.
 	'No!' I howled, but he was still pointing his gun at me, refusing to let me approach.
 	Gallan put a hand on my shoulder but I shrugged him off, gripping the coin so hard it buckled.
 	For nearly a minute, my father lay there, gun pointed at my head, warning me not to touch him. Then his stare hardened, focusing on somewhere only the dead could see.
 	As he fell back, so did I, collapsing against the wall, snarling like an animal. Gallan hauled at my shoulders, shouting something, until I realised I had fallen into the shreds of burning tapestry.
 	I stood and stared at Konor's corpse. I was electrified by rage, every inch of me taut. I dared not move for fear of the violence that might spill from me. My father had not left me, he had been taken.
 	'Roboute,' said Gallan, speaking in quiet, careful tones. 'We should go.'
 	'Go?' I glared at him. Even as a teenager I was a giant. I loomed over the consul. 'My father lies murdered and you would have me go? You would have me leave him like this?'
 	'Think, Roboute. The city is tearing itself apart. Would Konor want you to watch over his corpse while his life's work is being ruined? Think of your duty - your duty to Macragge.'
 	The effort required not to hit Gallan was so great that I could not speak for a moment. But then, as the crackle of las-fire echoed in the distance, I saw the truth of what he was saying. I thought of the coin in my fist, crumpled but unbroken, and nodded.
 	'The Senatorum.'
 	He nodded. 'The legislature will have assembled. We must tell them what has been done here. The mob have just robbed themselves of their greatest champion.' He shook his head, looking at Konor's body. 'But they have also risked the stability of the entire planet. There are too many factions vying for power. If there's a consular election now there will be mayhem.' He looked at the bodies scattered around the room. 'This is a dangerous moment.'
 	I trapped my grief in a corner of my mind and tried to think. 'Macragge has lost one of its consuls today,' I said, holding Gallan's gaze. 'I won't let it lose another.'
 	I ordered some of my men to guard my father's corpse and, with the rest of them following in my wake, I marched back out into the city, my pulse hammering in my ears and my father's face staring at me from every corner.
 	As we crossed the city, crowds spilled from every temple and hab-block. I ignored the rioters but not the chainmail-armoured soldiers. Those men saw a fraction of the rage I was holding back. I tried to kill them with the dispassion I was trained to show, but something in me had cracked. I could not stop at simply shooting them. I am ashamed to recall how I vented my rage, smashing walls with their corpses, pummelling skulls with my fists, hurling living men onto fires.
 	By the time we reached the lawns around the Senatorum, Gallan was shaking his head, angered by the messages that were crackling in his vox-bead.
 	He caught me looking his way and grimaced. 'They want me to stand as sole consul until this is over - until we have restored order.'
 	'Sole consul?' I raised an eyebrow. 'A bold idea.'
 	'It goes against every statute.'
 	'Well something has to be done if we're going to ride this out. And fast.' I gave him a pointed look and strode on.
 	There was fighting all around the Senatorum gates. I was about to lead an attack when Gallan held me back.
 	'We need to reach the Hall of Concord quickly. We have to speak to the assembly before they make any decisions.' He waved me around the building to the entrances reserved for servitors and serfs.
 	I hesitated, glaring at the rabble by the gates. They were hurling bricks and trying to set light to the banners. They looked drunk, or deranged. Again, I found it hard to think that I was even the same species as such moronic creatures. How could they turn on the state that had given them so much?
 	'Don't let anger muddy your thinking,' said Gallan. 'We could be stuck here for an hour.'
 	'You're right,' I replied. 'I need to get you to that assembly before it's too late.' I ordered my men into battle but then left them to it. We rushed through the darkness to the rear of the building.
 	The doors were open and, as soon as we entered the lofty halls of the Senatorum, I heard things I knew Gallan would not - as well as the crowds thronging through the streets outside, I could hear the lords gathering in the Hall of Concord. An emergency council had been called. Hundreds of Macragge's patricians had made it through the riots, determined to make their voices heard. Even from here, I could hear how craven some of them were. There was excitement in their voices where there should only have been rage. They saw opportunity in the bloodshed.
 	For several minutes, Gallan had been whispering furiously into his vox, talking to whoever was feeding him information from the hall but as we neared the centre of the building he broke off from his conversation and looked at me 'I want you with me on the podium. It's what your father would have wished.'
 	I nodded, barely registering his words, still thinking of what I had lost that day.
 	'But you can't appear before them like that,' he said.
 	I frowned, confused, then realised he was talking about my battle-gear. I had not changed since returning to the city. I was still clad in chainmail and plate and it was filthy, covered in blood and ash.
 	He shook his head with a faint smile. 'If you enter the Hall of Concord looking that brutal there will be a riot in there too.' He grabbed my hand. 'We need to be the voice of reason, Roboute. There has been enough savagery today.'
 	I nodded. All my life I had struggled not to bring shame on my father's name. Somehow, in the wake of his death, that seemed even more important. I started to unfasten the wargear.
 	'Here,' said Gallan, far better acquainted with the building than I was, nodding to a door. 'Let the serfs dress you.'
 	As I headed for the door, Gallan hesitated.
 	'I will be quick,' I said. 'Go.'
 	He stared at me, pain in his eyes, then nodded and hurried off.
 	The room was lined with the woollen togas and mantles worn by the patricians of the legislative assembly. I began shedding my armour as I approached them, the metal clanging across the cold, tiled floor.
 	I was half undressed when a serf rushed into the room and bowed, closing the door behind him. 'My lord,' he murmured, rushing to help me unfasten the armour.
 	'That one,' I snapped, waving at the most understated garment I could spot - a simple blue and white toga without quite so much of the gold embroidery that covered the others.
 	He hesitated, then seemed to think better of whatever he was going to say and crossed the room to fetch the toga.
 	As I dressed l noticed something odd. I could smell the same chemical aroma I had smelled in my father's stateroom. The same, unspoken warning tugged at my thoughts, willing me to make a connection. This time I pursued the thought to its source and an image flooded my mind. The campaign in Illyria had been brutal but satisfying. For every savage we killed, there were ten who listened to sense and dropped their guns. For the first time in my life, I had seen how diplomacy could outstrip force. But the leader of the revolt, a wiry runt called Zullis, had not been willing to bend the knee. He fought like a rat in a snare, lashing out with the same curved blade I had seen his assassins use. It was covered in neurotoxins, he had said, laughing as he hurled it at my face. I had given Zullis a decisive lesson in manners, but the smell of the poison had stayed with me.
 	The serf came at me with a grin, his long, curved blade flashing in the half-light.
 	I dodged his lunge and grabbed his wrist twisting his arm slowly back until the bone cracked and he howled in rage and shock.
 	'You killed my father,' I said. 'You poisoned him. That's why he warned me away.' My rage had passed beyond the animal fury I felt earlier. It was ice in my veins. I felt less human than ever before. I felt like a weapon.
 	'Yes!' gasped the assassin, his eyes rolling wildly as he tried to wrench his arm free. He snorted and giggled and I recognised the signs of combat-stimms.
 	'Why?'
 	'Money!' he giggled, grinding his teeth, leaning closer. Breath exploded from my lungs as he kicked me, hard, in the stomach.
 	I cursed my stupidity as I staggered across the room. He was distracting me. And I was far slower than I should have been.
 	I had not slept for the duration of the Illyrian campaign and then I had returned home to find the riots. Perhaps there was a limit to even my stamina?
 	He came at me again, wielding the knife in his other hand, but this time I was ready. I sidestepped the blow and landed a brutal punch on the side of his head.
 	He went down hard, making a wet choking sound.
 	'Who paid you?' I cried, grabbing him by the neck.
 	The chemical smell grew stronger and he slumped in my grip, foam forming at his lips.
 	I dropped him to the floor and watched his death throes, feeling no pleasure in his pain. Foam bubbled from his mouth and the smell intensified further. He had bitten a capsule. Probably the same toxin that was on the blade.
 	I rushed to the door. As I did so, I saw something lying next to my armour - the coin my father had bade me take as he died. I snatched it up and then, as I ran out into the corridor,
 	I halted, noticing something odd about it. I stared at it and, under the harsh light of a glowglobe, I saw the truth. 'No,' I gasped, bending the coin back into shape and looking at it again, not wanting to believe. Then I ran on.
 	When I entered the Hall of Concord, Gallan was already on the podium, trying to quell the noise. Macragge's aristocrats had turned on each other with almost as much violence as the mobs outside.
 	I had emerged at the back of the podium and Gallan continued shouting as I approached him from behind.
 	'And I don't just mean Konor, I mean his son too!' he cried, hammering his fist on a lectern. 'They brought this ruin on our heads. They risked everything we hold dear! I watched Konor leading the rabble into Consul House. If it wasn't for the bravery of my men, he would have burned the whole building down. He murdered dozens of loyal soldiers before we could stop him.'
 	The crowd fell quiet, shocked, whispering to each other.
 	'And as for his son, that arrogant interloper Roboute. What more could we have done to welcome him into our homes? And this is how he repays us! I saw him, not ten minutes ago, in this very building, trying to fight his way to this chamber with the very traitors he claimed to have been fighting in Illyria. What was he really doing out there? Plotting to overthrow us! We stopped him, but it was a close thing. I had to kill him myself.'
 	As I stepped closer to Gallan, light washed over me and the crowd gasped, staring at me in confusion as Gallan described my death.
 	'I'm not ashamed of what I did!' cried Gallan, misunderstanding their shocked expressions, still unaware of my presence.
 	'He was a traitor to Macragge and I was not prepared to let him step foot in this hall. I ended his treachery in the only sure way I could.'
 	I finally spoke up. 'I was with my father when he died.'
 	My words rang out into a shocked silence.
 	Gallan paled as he turned to face me.
 	'And I asked him who was responsible,' I continued, placing the assassin's poison blade to Gallan's throat. 'He could not speak, but he gave me the name of his murderer all the same.'
 	Gallan looked panicked and confused as I took out the coin and held it in front of his face.
 	'Very rare I imagine,' I said, turning it around in my fingers. 'Mistakenly minted. Rather than showing both consuls, the same face appears on both sides. Your face, Gallan.'
 	Gallan laughed. 'You're alive! This is wonderful. I heard you were killed.'
 	I glared at him. 'I heard you. I heard everything you just said.'
 	His smile froze and for a moment he seemed at a loss. Then anger flashed in his eyes.
 	'What right do you have to come in here making threats? You do not belong here, boy, you never did. Where did you even come from? Do you even know who your real father is? You're lucky I didn't kill you when…'
 	Gallan's words trailed off as a hum of angry voices swelled through the hall. Some of the patricians began jeering and swearing. For a moment I thought it was directed at me but then I realised their outrage was for Gallan. Of course. Whatever their politics the nobles of Macragge agreed on one thing — to lie in the Hall of Concord was beneath contempt. And my presence had shown them what a fraud the consul was.
 	I pounced on their moment of doubt, speaking to the room with the calm, magisterial tones I had perfected speaking to the Illyrian rebels.
 	'My father never lied to you. Whatever is happening today is nothing to do with him or his reforms. Nothing meant more to him than this senate. And he grasped truths lost on men like Gallan. A tyrant's power is brittle and short-lived. It dies with him. But a state that frees its people grows more powerful every year. Each new generation has more to fight for than the last. More reason to serve. We can arm Macragge with the loyalty and faith of our subjects. We can make it invincible.'
 	Gallan's face was purple with rage. 'Idiots! Yes, I killed Konor. And who do you think I did it for? Who do you think will pay for the freedom Konor promised? Whose lands do the mob want to seize? Yours! It's your power they want. Your money. What do you think you would be if Konor's reforms were passed?' He was almost screaming. 'You would be nothing! No better than the common herd! Centuries of tradition, torn down by one ill-conceived act of charity!'
 	I prepared to end his words, tightening my grip on the knife, recalling the pain in my father's eyes as he died.
 	Then I realised the senate had fallen quiet, watching me closely, fascinated by the lurid scene that was unfolding on the podium. In their expressions I saw the future. If I killed Gallan I would prove him right. I would be the savage rebel he claimed I was. Any other truths would be overlooked in the resultant clamour. There would be a frenzy of recriminations and plots. They would turn on each other. While the city died, its leaders would bicker, letting Macragge burn while they tried to raise one hereditary claimant over another.
 	I thought of the savages in Illyria, dropping their guns for a place in the dream I described to them.
 	I lowered the blade.
 	Gallan looked at me in shock as I stepped away from him.
 	'It is not the job of a single man to pass judgement,' I said, looking out across the crowd. 'It is the job of the senate. Macragge is greater than any of us. Gallan killed my father, but I would rather see him go free than tear this council apart. If you would have this man as your consul then so be it. But you heard him lie to you. He has admitted it without shame. And you must choose your course of action quickly.'
 	Gallan's eyes gleamed. He struggled not to laugh, so sure that no one would listen to me over him.
 	'Traitor!' cried a voice from the back of the hall. I looked through the ranks of patricians and saw that one of them was pointing a trembling finger at me. No, not at me - at Gallan.
 	I recognised the man. Adarin. A man who had always despised me. And a man who had denounced my father's reforms. But Adarin's anger was now directed at Gallan.
 	'Traitor!' cried another voice, then another, until a great wave of denunciation washed through the hall.
 	Gallan reeled like a drunk. 'Idiots!' he screamed, spit flying from his lips. 'These people will rob you of everything. Think of what your fathers built. You will end up—'
 	His words turned into a howl of outrage as soldiers grabbed his arms and began bundling him off the podium. His fury turned to panic. If he were convicted of deceit in the Hall of Concord, he would face a death sentence.
 	I watched until he had been dragged from view, still spitting curses, then I climbed down the steps and started back across the hall to rejoin my men.
 	Adarin pushed his way through the crowd and barred my way, his face grim.
 	The hall fell quiet.
 	He stared at me with such murderous intent that I thought I might have to fight my way out. I had meant everything I said on the podium, but I would not stand by while my men were battling outside. I would not leave them to die.
 	Adarin did something unexpected. He removed the metal wreath from his head and dropped it at my feet
 	There was a hiss of indrawn breath around the hall. Everyone understood the symbolism of the act. He was swearing allegiance to me.
 	I wondered if he was mocking me, but he looked completely earnest.
 	'I don't know where you came from,' he said, 'and I no longer care. I have never heard a truer son of Macragge. Your father lies slain, not a kilometre from here, and you have just spoken calmly and clearly in the face of his murderer. You put the needs of the senate before your own pain. You are an example, Roboute Guilliman.' He looked around the hall. 'To all of us.'
 	I shook my head but, before I could reply, the man next to him removed his wreath and dropped it beside Adarin's. Then another man did the same. One by one, the patricians all pushed forwards to drop wreaths at my feet until I was surrounded by a pile of golden leaves.
 	Pride and shock rooted me to the spot. 'Macragge will endure.' I whispered, thinking again of my father's prophecy, not intending to be heard.
 	The acoustics of the hall snatched my words and cast them across the crowd.
 	'Macragge will endure!' replied five hundred voices, as the council began to kneel.