25 ONE THING the stories never tell you about rebels is that they have family chores to fulfil. In the stories, the heroine does not have to take time out for feeding her children, or, in Ellisandra’s case, look after her elderly father. Jintho had said that Darma would look after him, and often they’d had arguments that she should just trust the staff to do a good job. The thing was, she didn’t. Much as she liked Darma, Ellisandra didn’t think she did a good job of looking after Father. That was not Darma’s fault; he made it hard for anyone to do a good job, and the staff members were too timid to tell him to stop being stupid or keep his hands to himself. So Ellisandra put on her cloak, gloves and scarf. While they waited for the council building to open, many of the protesters caugh

