Ascension to the Lost Throne novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Count
The Council votes Jude and Marina out of the Cairn Sect; at the gate Marina lets go of his hand.
The black banner lay on the Council table with Jude Ardmore's own sword across it.
He had buried that sword at the North Pass six years ago, in the mud where he killed Corwin Quillon.
Now it was clean, oiled, and laid out for thirteen men and women to look at.
Jude stood at the foot of the long table in his plain black coat.
He was thirty-three years old, and he had led the Cairn Sect's fighters since he was twenty-seven.
Nobody in the hall spoke.
Elder Wendell Fisk tapped his silver-headed cane on the stone floor twice.
"A rider found these on the east road this morning," Fisk said.
"The banner is Black Banner cloth, and the blade is yours."
"Corwin Quillon is dead," Jude said.
"I put him in the river myself."
"No body was ever found," said his brother.
Tobin Ardmore sat at the Council's second seat with his fingers laced and his fair head tilted.
He was thirty, and he smiled at Jude.
"You told us the war was over, Jude."
"You took the Warden's Ring for it."
"Now the war has sent a letter."
A murmur ran down the table.
Jude looked at the faces he had fed, armed, and brought home alive from the passes.
Half of them looked at the table instead.
"Someone dug that sword up," he said.
"Someone who knew where I buried it."
"Someone who sits in this room."
"That sounds like a man who wants to change the subject," Tobin said gently.
Fisk cleared his throat.
"The Council will vote," he said.
"The question is whether the Cairn Sect can keep a war leader whose war has come back to its gate."
"The sect's safety comes first."
"Expel him," a woman at the far end said, and then she looked at her lap.
Jude did not argue.
He had seen men argue in front of a firing squad, and it had never saved one of them.
"Say it aloud," he said instead.
"Each of you."
"Say aye or no to my face."
Fisk blinked.
"That is not our custom."
"It is the custom of any room that wants to throw a man out," Jude said.
"I am asking for a count."
A silence followed.
Then Fisk nodded, and the clerk began down the table.
"Aye."
"Aye."
"No," said the old quartermaster's sister, and her voice shook.
"Aye."
"Aye."
"No."
"Aye."
Jude counted along with the clerk and watched each mouth as it said the word.
He remembered every one of the eight.
He remembered the man who had begged him for a place on the Pass roster last spring.
He remembered the woman whose son he had carried down the mountain with a broken leg.
Tobin voted last.
"Aye," he said, and he did not look away.
"Eight to five," said Fisk.
"Jude Ardmore, you are put out of the Cairn Sect, and your wife with you, until the Black Banner is answered."
Jude reached up and drew the Warden's Ring off his right hand.
It was heavy gold with a plain grey stone, and it had never come off his finger in four years.
He set it on the table beside the black banner.
The click of it on the wood was the loudest sound in the hall.
"Tobin holds the Compact now," Fisk said.
"The ring will wait for the Council to choose a keeper."
"Then let him keep it," Jude said.
He crossed to the sword rack by the door and took down the plain war blade that had hung there since he was twenty-seven.
Nobody stopped him.
He turned back and looked at his brother.
"Count your votes again when he comes through the north gate," Jude said.
"You'll want to know who stays."
Then he walked out.
His wife was waiting in the courtyard under the cold sky, a small canvas bag already at her feet.
Marina Ardmore was thirty-one, with dark red hair pinned up for her shift at the infirmary.
She had heard the verdict from the doorway, and her face was white.
He took her hand, and her fingers were icy.
They walked together across the flagstones to the iron gate, past the riders who would not meet his eyes.
At the gate, a voice rang out behind them.
"Marina!"
It was Tobin, standing on the hall steps, the black banner folded over his arm.
"Come back inside, Marina," he called.
"There's no reason for you to suffer for him."
Jude felt his wife's hand tighten on his.
Then it loosened.
She slid her fingers out of his, one by one, and stood with her face turned toward the hall.
She did not look at Jude at all.
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