![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
the senate floor
( ooc: The following video network transmission can be seen and answered by everyone in Ephes, including all characters in the party, politically oriented or otherwise. Key notes:
■ Everyone can tag in, threadjack or pose questions. Don't forget to introduce yourselves and your patron, if you want!
■ NPCs (politicians or rabble) can witness your characters' comments and also speak up, ask questions, cheer or boo as needed.
■ There is no private messaging available in this post.
■ Various Senators may be swayed to give you their vote, based on the speeches of fellow politicians and supporters of Messalina. Everyone else can assist and/or sabotage as needed!
■ This is dated to the Tenth Day of Chaining, before Maximus Faustus' banquet on the Twelfth. Consider the post OOCly available for tagging with NPCs until 4 October, but permanently available for threadjacking between characters! )
 | SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS: Good people of Ephes, good women, good men. I come to bring you the wisdom of the Honourable Caius Justus, who, but for a greater calling, would walk today these sacred halls among us — |
 | A senator, muffled: Where is he? Where is Justus? Another, farther back: ...hasn’t been seen for days, for weeks, they say, what wisdom is this? With his whore, Valeria... A third, closer: He is alive, we know it sure? We know it certain? |
 | CAELIUS SILVANUS: Forgive our impunity, Speaker, but it is only fear and care that keep us grounded in our great uncertainty over the fate of beloved Caius Justus! Who, we do not wish to contend has abandoned his duties and obligations, before this honoured assembly and men of good standing, whom he has not conceded to see in — |
 | RHEA SABINIA: What care, Silvanus? You nip at his heels like a dog on a bone, you have no rest! |
| CAELIUS SILVANUS: I have a right. As do all men and women here, fine men and fine women, full not of whim and verve but of reason and inquiry, and we wish to know where. Is. Caius? What is to become of us? What of Mistress Messalina, whose plea remains unheard for months? |
| RHEA SABINIA: Father and mercy, these are the days of our Chained Father, you want to speak of war now? Repent and think better of your — |
 | MARIANUS VALERIUS: Though it pains me to agree, for we all know our past discontent, but Silvanus speaks with reason. A day of no qualms will never come. We have dead things at our gates, living in our villas, drinking our wine, and making demands of us! We must turn. Her. Away. |
 | MAXIMUS FAUSTUS: And why? |
| A senator, muffled: ...why? Another, farther back: He asks why! Maximus Faustus asks why! A third, closer: Well, isn't it obvious? Isn't it plain? |
| MAXIMUS FAUSTUS: Is it? Months past, we sent Captain Narula to task, we told him, raise us armies, and by the Chained God, he has done. The best, the finest of the realm, absent only the skilled command to win us victory. |
| MARIANUS VALERIUS: If he is so honoured and so accomplished, that feral wolf, Narula, why do you not entrust him? |
| SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS: As we know, Caius Justus holds Captain Narula in great esteem, but has had his reasons to... |
| MAXIMUS FAUSTUS: Caius Justus is not here. But one thing is certain, in my heart, as should be in yours: he is a beloved son of Ephes, who in turn loves the mother citadel above all. He wishes her splendour and her growth, and Messalina would give it. |
| RHEA SABINIA: How magnanimous she is! She would give us our war spoils, won with our armies! |
| MAXIMUS FAUSTUS: Would you have us only gain reward, taking no risk? Have you won a single coin piece in your sour life? One must pay and compromise in any alliance! |
| MARIANUS VALERIUS: If she is so accomplished, why does she not conquer her citadels alone? Why does she not repel evil, and free her people? Why is she at our gate, begging? Are these not her people? Should she not speak to them, as we speak, brother to brother, in this assembly? Perhaps it is simply that the dead are not civilised. They cannot be trusted. They must be repelled. Why take chances against us? Against Ephes? |
| MAXIMUS FAUSTUS: Valerius, your father’s father owned ships for fishmongering, but by the Chained, have no fear, the stink has finally washed off you. You reek instead of cowardice! |
| MARIANUS VALERIUS: You dare? |
| SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS: Sileeeeeeeeeeence! Silence! This assembly asks silence! It is shamed into rumination and overcome by the illustrious rhetoric of such esteemed speakers. The Senate will hear... from our youngest tribunes, good citizens and representatives, on such matters as Mistress Messalina and the dead. Our scribe will write down the opinions for the study of Caius Justus himself, and have no fear, Silvanus, he will soon be with us. Now, whoever has a learned opinion: speak. |
no subject
But will adding an unknown element like Lady Messalina make that better or worse my lord? We have the phrase back home: "better the devil you know". Does that apply here, sir?
no subject
CAELIUS SILVANUS
What devil? This is an assembly of good and honoured men! Don't you agree? Haven't you heard?
MAXIMUS FAUSTUS
He hasn't heard.
MARIANUS VALERIUS
He should have heard!
no subject
[ Jacob frowns at the communicator and the men who are broadcast on it.]
no subject
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
That this Senate numbers good and honourable men!
no subject
These lot could tie themselves into knots with their talking and never get anywhere. Maybe that's why they can't ever decide anything. ]
That is a fact undisputed. But what I mean to say is- would you rather have the unknown foreigner Messalina, or Narula, a man from Ephes? That is what this boils down to. Who do you trust more with the safety of your city?
no subject
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
Well... as it is known, the honourable Caius Justus, in his wisdom, did esteem Narula, but found him... in many ways unsuitable to lead, for his temper and peculiarities -
CAELIUS SILVANUS
He isn't here!
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
I beg your pardon?
CAELIUS SILVANUS
Caius Justus isn't here. Why do we speak of a man who isn't here? What matter his opinions about Narula?
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
The young man asked! Better he knows! I only told him because he asked.
no subject
My lord Magnus, thank you. I do better understand.
But your learned friend has a point. We can't speak for people who aren't here. What do you both say? As good and honourable men of Ephes? Would you side with a fellow Ephian, or make your bed with the foreigner?
no subject
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
Caius Justus leads this Senate. And he would not want it.
CAELIUS SILVANUS
If Caius Justus is so aggrieved, he may come himself and tell us. I side with the foreigner. Lady Messalina might be in some ways lacking, but at least she is here. I would trust in her.
no subject
But rather than say that, Jacob simply accepts the statement. And then pauses, looking at the little communicator as if puzzled. ]
Of course... although, I don't see her at the Senate either. Perhaps she is also consulting with the Chained God?
no subject
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
She is a petitioner, not allowed in these glorious halls until her plea is answered.
no subject
I must ask, simply for my own understanding.
no subject
CAELIUS SILVANUS
Now, wait. It is my understanding she would gladly be here, but it is the will of the Senate to intervene and protect our judgement from any potential coercion. So she cannot come. Whereas Justus, we have begged, we have pleaded, we have demanded his presence. And where is he? Not here.
no subject
She has nothing to lose, by taking your army from your city. Noble Caius Justus, who prays to the Chained One on your behalf, he knows how much Ephes risks if they give the fate of the city away.
no subject
CAELIUS SILVANUS
It seems to me this honoured gentleman is taking the coin of Caius Justus, for how quickly he runs to blindly defend the man's name, when it is not even threatened.
no subject
I won't lie, I am not a rich man used to luxury. I'd take a job from any of the good and honourable people of Ephes, Caius Justus amongst them, if they trusted me with a task.
But I am not paid to point out the bloody obvious: that you are insinuating something when you repeatedly state that one member of the Senate is not here. We are aware of where he is. But his absence is simply not enough of a reason to send the army off with Lady Messalina.
So, learned Silvanus, tell us. Why do you favour Messalina so much? Is it that she is simply prettier than lord Justus?
no subject
CAELIUS SILVANUS
It is because Justus keeps his silence and avoids us, that I must question what is happening! If he has such great hesitations, let him share them! If he approves, let him share that. I ask again, and no man has answered? Where is Caius Justus in all this? Are we so certain he is in a temple we cannot enter? That he has not struck his own strange deal and design with others? Perhaps Messalina or her enemies have killed him. We know nothing! We only trust in the lady Valeria that our leader, intended to rule us, is fine and well. Unseen. Unwitnessed. But fine.
no subject
[ And maybe one that Jacob will try and answer, if he can approach a local he trusts. Where is Justus? Is he really where they are told he is? Jacob can't reply yet. ]
But as we can't answer that, why don't you answer my question? Why are you so enamoured with lady Messalina?
no subject
SPEAKER HORTENSIUS MAGNUS
Because she at least has a proposition. To stand and sit idle, hoping expectantly that something will come of nothing, is not one! Give me an option to Messalina, when Narula is apparently once more someone Justus distrusts — for reasons only the disappeared Justus knows! But by the Chained, have another general ready for us, we will entertain the notion!
SPEAKERS
True, true! We will!