There Shall Be Order For It

Angelo’s hands keep seeking out the chain of state placed around his neck when he was deputized, and it is with equal parts relief and doubt that he discovers it still there. The metal is so cold it almost burns, but then according to the rumors Angelo himself is so cold and unfeeling that any lightest touch would burn him. The problem is that he’s not at all sure he’s the man for the job.

The law has slumbered until now, and now that it is sensible it looks around hungrily. If it tries to tackle all the problems it faces at once, the licentious rot will swallow it up and make it sick, yet how could it do otherwise? How can Angelo have the self-control to keep a tight rein on everything that might go wrong? As it stands the law is a scarecrow to be mocked, and if he is not careful it will become something far worse: a bogeyman to be resisted. He must be severe, but fair.

He will not be the reason Vienna falls. He will lance the boil swiftly, and they will know he is serious about his office. When he signs the decree to tear down all the bawdy houses, it is the first time he has sat in the duke’s chair and not simply brushed his fingers across its wooden back, the first time he has been a man who can sit in the duke’s chair. But then he sighs and rubs the tension at the back of his neck. It’s not enough. He needs a symbol.

He finds it in an arrest record among the papers he has been unable to examine until now. One Claudio Pellegrini, of very high society, yet not so high that he kept from soiling the virtue of a young woman out of wedlock. It is one thing for a common tradesman to fall, another for a man of a respected and established family. In the eyes of God the sin is the same, and in the eyes of the law the punishment must likewise be the same, but in the eyes of the men watching, it will mean something that even he is given no special treatment. Those who err will face the consequences regardless of status, and for that reason Claudio must die.