While the common people of Weaver’s Row celebrated the restoration of their hearths and the safety of their homes with cider and music, a very different assembly was gathering in the dark, secret undercroft beneath the High Guildhall. In a circular underground vault twenty feet below the foundations of the Upper Ward, the air was cold, damp, and heavy with the acrid scent of black sulfur wax tapers burning in iron sconces.
The chamber was built of dressed dark rock blocks. It was sealed behind a five-inch iron door and guarded outside by twelve elite crossbowmen wearing unmarked blackened cuirasses. In the center of the vault stood a massive circular table of polished African ebony, around which sat eight men who held the true reins of Crown-Reach’s shadow empire.
These were the lords of the private monopolies: Lord Gerald, Master of the Iron Founders’ Cartel. Baron Kestrel, Governor of the Merchant Adventurers. Sir Evelyn Vance, High Warden of the Sovereign Turnpike Trusts. And four senior ministers of the Royal Privy Council who had grown fabulously wealthy by leasing public revenues to private syndicates. At the head of the ebony table sat Duke Varis, the Grand Justiciar of the Realm and Lord Chancellor of the High Courts.
