Blade of the Avatar/Blade of Midras/Chapter 13

=Councils=

Excerpt
Baroness Gianna Baden-Fox closed her eyes in frustration. This effectively blocked the sight of the arguing factions but, unfortunately, did nothing to alleviate the assault on her ears from the increasingly vitriolic arguments that were being flung in attack and counterattack from all sides of the Hall. The Baroness opened her eyes once more and tried to take in the turmoil at the center of her keep.

It was too much, and her anger, that beast within her over which she always held tight control, could be restrained no longer. The Baroness stood suddenly from her chair at the end of the audience hall, raised her ornate staff of office and jabbed its metallic tip violently against the stones at her feet.

The sound shot through the rhetoric, cutting a brief silence in the space of which her words could be heard.

“There will be order in my hall!” The words of the Baroness were a statement of fact whose very tone dared anyone to challenge its absolute reality. “The sovereigns and ambassadors who have come to counsel will conduct themselves with courtesy within my hall. Those who cannot will find their accommodations moved to my stockade. There you may shout at each other all you like; I will not hear you and will sleep all the sounder for it. So, my most honored and esteemed guests, you will all sit down, or by the Storm Gods, I will have you removed from my hall.”

Trivia

 * In the original, prior to the additional chapters added for The Sword of Midras, this was Chapter 10.