At some point, no matter how repressive the regime, the citizenry will come to comprehend the vast power in their hands. The destitute, the Indebted, the beleaguered middle classes; in short, the myriad victims. Control was sleight of hand trickery, and against a hundred thousand defiant citizens, it stood no real chance. All at once, the game was up.
The threshold, this time, was precisely as Rautos Hivanar had feared. The pressure of a crumbling, overburdened economy. Shortage of coin, the crushing weight of huge and ever-growing debts, the sudden inability to pay for anything. The Patriotists could draw knives, swords, could wield their knotted clubs, but against desperate hunger and a sense of impending calamity, they might as well have been swinging reeds at the wind.
In the face of all this, the Tiste Edur were helpless. Bemused, uncomprehending, and wholly unprepared. Unless, that is, their answer will be to begin killing. Everyone.
Another of Karos Invictad’s blind spots. The Invigilator’s contempt for the Tiste Edur could well prove suicidal. Their Emperor could not be killed. Their K’risnan could unleash sorcery that could devour every Letherii in the empire. And the fool thought to target them in a campaign of arrests?
No, the Patriotists had been useful; indeed, for a time, quite necessary. But-
‘Venitt Sathad, welcome to Drene.’
Without looking up, Venitt gestured with one hand as he reached for the wine bottle. ‘Find yourself a chair, Orbyn Truthfinder.’ A glance upward. ‘I was just thinking about you.’
The huge, odious man smiled. ‘I am honoured. If, that is, your thoughts were of me specifically. If,, however, they were of the Patriotists, well, I suspect that “honour” would be the wrong word indeed.’
The proprietor was struggling to drag another chair out to the table, but it was clear that whatever had caused the limp was proving most painful. Venitt Sathad set the bottle back down, rose, and walked over to help him.
‘Humble apologies, kind sir,’ the old man gasped, his face white and beads of sweat spotting his upper lip. ‘Had a fall yestereve, sir-’
‘Must have been a bad one. Here, leave the chair to me, and find us another unbroken bottle of wine-if you can.’
‘Most obliged, sir…’
Wondering where the old man had found this solid oak dining chair-one large enough to take Orbyn’s mass-Venitt Sathad pulled it across the cobbles and positioned it opposite his own chair with the table in between, then he sat down once more.