Lady Eilean

Chapter 57

The clock struck two in the morning as I sat, my face in my hands, trying to focus on the words humming around the room. Men talked and grunted, each word and each sound a vote in support or dissent of what the previous man had said. Being included in the Delegation meant gaining entrée into a strictly male world. Though I was at ease after my lifetime of existing on such planes, I found being stuck in a room with them for hours on end trying my patience. They were noisy and fidgety and messy and inefficient. It seemed to me they cared more about ensuring everyone else knew they were thinking deeply and strategically without doing so.

Politics did not suit me. The endless back and forth bored me, and the personalities were a nightmare. After hours of chatter, an issue seemingly resolved, someone would pop up out of their seat and claim their specific point of view had not been examined. It would be an outrage to let it go undiscussed. On and on it went.

On the first day of my admittance to the Delegation, I spent eight hours listening to the variety of anxieties the group felt in my late-stage involvement. Would I derail the singing of the Charter — imminent at last! Would I have a list of demands that would need to be debated? What if they had already had the discussions I would like to raise? Could I, a woman of little understanding in the ways of the world, bring anything of value to the conversation?

I protested early and clearly that I had no intention of delaying anything. I was pleased just to be in the room. Still, the dispute went on for hours.

There was a hierarchy to the Delegation, I learned. As the islands numbered in the hundreds, they had elected ten Lairds to speak in the interest of various factions. The alliances were loose and fluid, concerned with resourcing, culture, or economic needs. Calum was one of the governing ten and he spoke for the interests of Ellesmure.

If they had solicited my opinion on the matter, I would have told them it was foolish to allow the second-largest island to speak for the largest if they worried about future hostilities. If I had the mind to, or if Father had a particularly long stretch of delusions, could we not ally with Istimere and take over the smaller islands?

Conversations moved so slowly that often I could leave to manage work around Stormway and return, hours later, to the same point still in open debate. It was mind-numbing.

Ellesmure's needs were vastly different from the smaller islands' concerns. None of the other Lairds relied on regional management as I did. They did not have to delegate as much of their work and governance to others as their territories were so small. Nor did they have the population or geographic expanse I had. Ellesmure was large, I had known that, but I had not been quite so aware that the other islands existed more like family-run homesteads.

It was another point of confusion for me that they would alienate Ellesmure when our connection to the Mainland was so strong. Did I not have the heir to The Fist, the largest territory on the continent, in my bed each night? It looked to me that the Confederation and Ellesmure would do better without each other, but I kept mum.

Scrubbing my face, I yawned as a droning Laird from far out in the Eastern ocean decided "that will be all for today, gentlemen."

Spearing my glance across the room at Calum, I rolled my eyes at that. He grimaced in apology.

Sitting back in my chair I watched as the men filed out of the room, content to leave behind their messes of paper, pens, empty cups, and half-eaten refreshments. Some unseen, unheard woman would clean it up for them. They didn't even have to think about it.

The presumption rankled my nerves, and I made a note to check in on the staff assigned to this room. It was an old ballroom that had been in disuse before I was born, but it was large enough and tucked away in an oft-forgotten wing of the castle so the Delegation could go about their work without notice.