Coup.

[channe]

And so -- this is how Altias Bromn is placed upon the Governor's chair once more: with the riotous cries of the populace, with a crowd of men and women screaming his name outside the tailor's shop, with the extended blade of Aeryn Karolinger, with Janeiro firing iron arrows into the bodies of young Constables, and a dragon rising high above it all.

By the morning, the rumors are running rampant, but one thing is certain, from the squad of Brotherhood guards placed at Helstone's residence at Baker Street: violence -- and the will of the People -- has topped the once-barrister, and Altias Bromn's name is exalted.

[Cinnabar]

The Constabulary, for their part, suddenly find themselves in an ambiguous position. Appointed at the order of a Governor now overthrown, apparently supplanted by the Brotherhood of Janeiro (whose forces they were originally intended to relieve in the patrolling of Myrkentown), and with a High Constable currently incapacitated by injury (and who some rumours hold to be dying, or already dead, or imprisoned by the Brotherhood for resisting the coup).

Are they to be disbanded? Abolished? Arrested? Kept on? Who can say? Such uncertainty breeds fear, and anxiety, and resentment. But what can they do? They are sworn to the Governor of Myrken Wood. Should they serve Altias Bromn? Is he now the lawful governor or not? Discussion goes back and forth over this point, and quite heatedly so. What are their duties now?

[channe]

The lawful Governor of Myrken Wood? The lawful Governor?

Perhaps, under some consideration: with the forced, illegal abdication of Helstone, the Interim Governorship should, legally, go to the next most experienced man on the Judiciary Council -- being one Aloisius Treadwell, naturally, but he's recovering from a dagger wound at the Rememdium.

But Altias Bromn, through the person of Janeiro, has declared himself Governor, taking up a position from which he was thrown when he was kidnapped and declared dead by the cultists -- and he certainly has the support of a good portion of the people on this, who demonstrate in the streets for him.

And there is now the question of Roschen, who spoke beside him as a brother: where does he stand, this former Councilor? And what of Aldred, Goldenhair, and studious Rondeau Spier, elected legally -- even if Helstone had to take the position because there was nobody else left to do such things?

What of the future of Myrken Wood itself, if violence can wrest temporal power in such an efficacious fashion?

One might almost need a lawyer to puzzle through these intricacies.