For three days, the elites conferred among themselves—though "conference" was perhaps too generous a word for what unfolded. It was, in truth, a prolonged hesitation.
Rebellion was not a term they treated lightly.
For men accustomed to comfort and security, it carried a weight far greater than for those with nothing to lose. A common man might gamble his life and, in failing, lose only that. But for them… the cost was immeasurably higher.
If they rebelled and failed, it would not end with their own deaths. Their families would follow. Their estates would be seized, their names erased. Generations of wealth and influence would vanish in a single stroke.
And should any survive, survival itself would be a humiliation—reduced to the life of an ordinary laborer, working long hours for little reward.
Yet remaining was no simple choice either.
