Aliana was an undersecretary of the Great Isarius. Had been. She understood three languages to fluency, had pieces of two others, and her hand writing was immaculate. She had worked hard to win her position and had hoped, in the fullness of time, to become a secretary. Many shied away from the thought. To be an undersecretary was enough, to interact with those who had directly spoken with God more of an honor than could be described. To speak with God himself, to take things directly from his hand and be trusted with his confidence was too much. Too overwhelming. Too frightening. Others, of course, sought the position. The power was appealing. And people thronged for days to merely be one in a crowd that was blessed by the Great Isarius' visage. To be granted that radiance every day... for some it was a tantalizing lure.
That was over now. The Great Isarius' secretaries had accompanied him to meet the barbarians and so been slaughtered alongside him. Now, out of a pool of fifty undersecretaries, only Aliana and three others remained. She didn't know where the others had gone, and she didn't care to. She might have gone as well, if only she had somewhere to go to. Instead, she paced the Secretaries' Hall, given charge simply by dint of being the one least likely to break down in tears at inopportune moments.
In her hands were the most urgent requests filtering up to the Temple. It was too thick a stack, and it consisted entirely of small, mundane things it would not have taken five minutes to take care of before, if she had seen the requests at all. But now she had no idea who remained at their posts, that what she asked would be done if she merely sent a missive. These past four days, she had seen parts of the Temple she had not known existed.
Aliana sighed and set her stack down, pressing her fingers to her eyes in an effort to think. She would have to open the granary stores. The farmlands had remained unmolested after Isarius' death, as far as she knew, but the supply lines had broken down and the people of the Sacred City were panicking and the poorest were beginning to go hungry. The stores could be replenished with the harvest.
That meant she would have to track down where the granary was, who was supposed have charge of it and whether or not they still did. Then she would have to find a way to distribute the stores to those who were actually in need of them without causing another riot. Aliana was almost sure the Temple no longer had the resources to do so.
She was fairly certain the City's water had not been poisoned. The barbarians had been remarkably polite after Isarius' death and were reportedly days yet away from the city. Still, she would have to see if she could track down someone with the knowledge to check. They could not afford for that sort of paranoia to spread if it were at all possible to stop it.
Aliana blinked open her eyes and looked over to Cosmas, who was watching her. "What am I forgetting?"
"The throne room."
Aliana slumped. "Of course. And the women's quarters."
A surprising number of servants and attendants had stayed, but so far they had refused to touch the bodies of the priests or Isarius' women where they lay. The throne room still ran red with pools of tacky, drying blood and the women's quarters were rank with death and decayed food. If this went on too much longer they ran the risk of disease.
"Would you ask the servants again?" Cosmas was slender and handsome. Even pale with fatigue and dark circles under his eyes, he was still charming. Aliana was afraid she'd used all of her charm with the Temple workers raking together a skin and bones kitchen staff and convincing them to put out two large meals a day. But at least everyone ate.
Cosmas nodded and rose, leaving the Secretaries' Hall. Aliana turned to Mirissa and Ormato. "Can either of you tell me where the granary is?"
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