It wasn't until late May that the Council found out about Charlie and called us all Home to answer charges that, while phrased differently, amounted to an accusation of treason. In that the Council was a tad over eager I have always thought. By that time, though, Stephen's plans were in place and Charlie had recovered as completely as he ever would.

The Council of Elders, comprised of fifteen men and women, is not a wholly elected body. Two thirds are. The rest are permanent members, functioning in a manner similar to the Security Council of the United Nations. To over rule a decision of the permanent members required two thirds of the total body and then it went to the Awakened as a whole in the form of a referendum. It was a cumbersome and slow process that had been originally designed, at a time when we were fewer in number to provide time for mature reflection when making major decisions. What it amounted to now was a stranglehold on the decision-making process.

Stephen for many reasons but mainly as the person answerable for the Listeners is a permanent member. The others are Bella, whose bond mate Bertram was perennially re-elected to a non-permanent seat, Margaret Ward, who always seemed to be particularly hostile to the whole idea of the Refuge and the Listeners, and Maya Hernandez who wasn't as vocal but was a pretty reliable vote against anything Stephen wanted. Another permanent member, Marc Rogatien, wasn't nearly as easy to read as those others. Marc was not accessible much of the time; he wasn't one to politic or do the whole social networking that most Council members thrived on. But he'd been around so long no one dared to object to his aloofness or disinclination to argue a point or even to listen to arguments. He held his own counsel and seemed pretty much independent in thought and action.

Council meetings were open to anyone who wanted to attend, though few ever did. Over time it had become customary that day-to-day matters be left to the elected members as the most democratic way. Charlie Palmer and the babies were a major breach of the Covenant and not a day-to-day matter. As well, leveling what amounted to an accusation of high treason against Stephen was not a matter that could be kept dealt with by the permanent members alone, or in private, though I am certain they would have preferred to do so after Stephen got done with Bella.

Stephen received the summons to appear before the full body and answer for his actions from her personally. She sat across from him in his office, not liking at all the fact that he didn't appear moved by the thought he was being called before the Council on charges of this nature.

She watched him closely, knowing that he had never forgiven her for her part in the events that cost Doni her life just as he had never forgiven any of the others. The decision to meddle with Lily's children had been made without his knowledge, a decision taken by the permanent members in what amounted to secret. So far as he knew the whole Council had never been told exactly what had happened. It is probable that they would not have objected, having for a long time acceded to the permanent members judgment.

Regardless it was a measure of Bella's sometimes disconcerting obtuseness that she didn't understand that Stephen would never use their ignorance to blackmail the other permanent members into doing what he wanted or that, regardless of his personal feelings, he had put them aside as being unproductive. He was not above, however, leading her to conclude that he might do just that if he was pushed to it. Usually, though, she did her own thinking and did it reasonably well.

Stephen, aren't you the least bit concerned about this?" He certainly didn't appear to be was her thought.

"Of course.I can assure that I am taking this very seriously."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"Appear this afternoon and answer the charges. Don't you think I’ve expected this?"

Bella shook her head. "Stephen there is no answer. You knowingly and deliberately violated the Covenant and allowed this situation to persist. You withheld vital information from the Council by not informing us immediately that the situations existed." She paused there, recalling. Stephen said nothing. So she tried again. "You have continually assured us that the Listeners would adhere to the Covenant in all things. Now you demonstrate that the opposite is true."

Stephen steepled his fingers in front of his mouth, pondering her and then said, "Bella, have you ever considered that the Covenant is, in effect, a contract between a person and what for lack of a better term I will call a nation-state? And, that being so, there follows that there are obligations on both sides to which each has committed themselves?"

"What does that have to do with anything? This isn't the time for a discussion of abstract political philosophy."

"On the contrary, it is exactly the time. I am accused of breaching the Covenant. In effect that means I am accused of breaking a contract that heretofore existed between me and the nation-state. Hasn't it occurred to you that it is possible that the contract was rendered null and void a long time ago?" He asked the question in the tone of a man speculating about merely hypothetical things. "And, if that were the case, then I violated nothing because there was nothing to violate."

"You can not seriously mean that you believe what happened to Doni, tragic as it was, can excuse this?"

His face hardened. "Bella, I would suggest that it doesn't matter a damn what I think in that regard but if I were you I wouldn't bring Doni into this."

He paused, watching her closely. Then resumed, "I am, in fact, pondering something else entirely that pertains to the nature of what a state may rightfully and reasonably do and what it may rightfully and reasonably require of what, for lack of a better word, I will call its citizens particularly when said citizenship is not voluntary but rather assumed to exist by virtue of an event that itself occurred in the absence of free and fully informed consent. An act that could reasonably be described, in fact, as an act of God and not of said citizen. Thus, the question naturally arises whether said citizenship does in fact exist and to what it obliges one. The other question that arises is that if the requirement being levied upon the citizen is an unjust one, can it in fact rightfully be enforced. The example that springs to mind in considering such a question is, naturally…"

She gave him no chance to finish. "You're serious! You can't be!"

"Can't I? Do I appear to you to be a man who is playing games with you? Do I strike you as the type of person who would be anything less than serious about the future of a man and his infant children?"

"You're threatening me!"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Am I? I thought I was thinking aloud about a hypothetical question of abstract political philosophy."

"Stephen, this hearing will be attended by every member of the council and every Awakened able to be there. You can not, absolutely can not, do this! You'd create a political crisis that we wouldn't be able to withstand. You'd destroy everything we've built, that you helped build, possibly even the Covenant itself."

He was bland. "Now how would I do that Bella? By speculating to the Council this afternoon? It is my right," he laid a subtle emphasis on the last, "my right to say anything I wish to the Council. Are you suggesting that it isn't? Or are you suggesting that you are prepared to stop me?"

"Of course not!" she snapped. "But you can not be allowed to proffer that defense in front of the entire population!"

"I repeat, how do you propose to stop me when it is my absolute right to do so? And, I remind you, that it is also my absolute right to answer any charges brought against me in public, before `the entire population' as you put it."

She just stared at him, like she'd never seen him before.

"Now, is there anything else? Because if not I have to let Charlie and Baylee know what's going on. I assume," he said, glancing at the papers she'd given him, that you have similar documents for them. If so I will deliver them for you." He waited until she handed them to him.

"Good then, Tommy will see you off."

"Well that's just fine! Bella practically spat it at him.