Rebellion was the war, the new series is the resurrection and the restoration.
At the end of Foundation (Rebellion VI), about a third of Cimenarum had burned, Rien had been crowned Razia, she was pregnant, and the government was starting to come back. But Rien could never be the new boss, same as the old one.
This scene happens a few tendays after the Coronation, in the transition. The scene is from Vaish sune Saren’s perspective — the one-eyed thought sniffing former spy who first appeared in Wisdom’s Fire (Book IV). Vaish and Rien are in her working office.
My Galantier needed a reformation, and I get to give it one. I hope their vision of a better citizen peace-keeping system may inspire others in this world to think what could be possible.
Used to be, the Metropolita declared when a crime was committed, but that meant the Metros, who were supposed to be law enforcement, were actually interpreting the law. That was most properly the Royal Prosecutors’ sphere, since courts exist to argue the law and reach a just interpretation.
The new Metropolita’s job was to protect the people and property of the city, in that order, and administer the law as created by the Pravae and interpreted by the Judicatura.
When I accepted Her Solemnity’s appointment as Captain of the new Metropolita, the first thing we did was agree on definitions. That day, she was getting big, and had reached the stage of pregnancy where nothing seemed comfortable for more than about five minutes. She paced in her office, and if rain hadn’t started bucketing down that morning, we probably would have been out in the circle or the park. Instead, she circled her desk, like a cat impatient to prowl. I kept myself in her guest chair, drawn back to give her restlessness room to move.
“Police, politia, polis, politics, policy. All the same ancient Porsirian root. A city, fortified and self-contained. Which never described Cimenarum, even before we broke the walls. A city cannot be self-contained. We’re a pump to keep goods and ideas and money circulating. A heart.” She pulled a ring bound sheaf of pages two inches thick from her desk and dropped it into my hands. Four pounds, easily. It was badly printed, clearly a draft, not a completed document.
“That will be the basis of Galantieran law. It will be ratified as a piece, by all three Pravae, and we’ll be working under an approved draft by spring. Over the next two years, we should expect some minor changes versus the draft you’re holding, but that is essentially what you will enforce. And the primary law is on page two, column one, section one.”
I flipped the first page over, and read the law that Rien fought to put into our code. Perhaps it was the law she fought the entire war to achieve. “All persons resident in Galantier are subject to the jurisdiction of the nation and are entitled to all rights of self-determination. No law nor person nor entity may abridge nor restrict another person’s right to life, conscience, property, liberty, health, or movement without due process of law. All persons resident in Galantier who have reached the age of majority and are not under just criminal penalty have the unabridged right to govern their own bodies, faith, decisions, affairs, and property, except when proscribed by due process of law as defined within this document.” I let the top sheet fall closed. “That what’s going to get you assassinated, you know.”
She grinned. “Yes, probably. And I’ll die happily with that as law. Every law in the new Lex descends from that single paragraph. And it will govern the new Metropolita. Because the power you will exercise is not granted by me. It’s permitted by all of us, together. We entrust a body of officers with the duty to enforce the laws and administer the public order. As members of the body politic, for the body politic, on behalf of the body politic. And as such, subject to the law. There shall be neither immunity nor special privilege for Metro officers.” She slapped the backs of her fingers into her other palm on every syllable of special privilege, making the words pop with anger, like a cat in a temper. “No more I know a fellowdeals. I will never again watch out my window while Metro officers beat my citizens with clubs. No crime will be ignored because the person accused is wealthy and the accuser is poor or female or young or doesn’t yet speak Galantieran well. And if the corruption blooms again, I will dismiss and prosecute you all and start over, as many times as it takes. That is our right as Monarch and we will exercise it. Agreed?”
“Yes, Magisteria,” I said, using her now long obsolete Justiciar’s honorific. I first worked with Rien just after she was promoted to the High Judicatura, from being a Royal Advocate at the Ministry of Women and Children. In that moment, I realized she’d spent her entire professional life trying to stop the corruption of the law, and she was trusting me with the implementation of her will.
“Good! Next, then,” she said. “The metro in Metropolita comes from the root word for mother. The matriarchal city, the first. But also let us use the concept of a good mother’s gentle instruction to guide the Metropolita. Where the old Metro would have beaten and arrested and let the Judicatura sort it out? I want this Metro to instruct and guide. I want you to be calming presences who cool tempers instead of extending the fight. Punishment is not, and never will be, your responsibility.”
That’s what we tried to do, though each night we usually collared a few and put them in a quiet room alone to cool themselves. But mothers did that, too.
The old Metro building burned with the rest of the Financial District and Dockside. It had been in the largest circle just west of the Judicatura. The wind the night of Savrin’s fire blew everything toward the river. Nothing in the building survived; we couldn’t even tell what, or who, was in there at the time.
The easiest way to rebuild the Metro would have been to just hire back the ones who were still alive, and fill out their ranks with Rebellion army vets and Militiae and retirees from the Galantieran Army. That would have brought us a lot of the institution’s memory, and people who knew what was happening in the city three years ago.
But I worked with and against a lot of the old Metro. Institutional memory was a fancy way of saying old boys’ club, and drinking buddies, and uncle got me the job. When the Metro’s loyalty was first to each other and their friends, corruption came easy. We sacrificed that memory for the type of training we did in the Foreti and on the war road.
…
The rule I gave early on was simple. Punishment belonged to the Judicatura and the workfarm. Everyone we detained was innocent under law, and we treated them with dignity and respect while keeping them from hurting each other. Our job was, at most, to restrain someone bent on harm. We kept the peace, first. Second, we cooled tempers, stopped harm, heard our fellow citizens out. And that maintained the law for all of us.
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