by Melanie Rawn
Not that there was much to see. Lenna, wearing the “lecture face” she used in the classroom—for she also taught law at the fledgling Renig College in addition to her lucrative practice—gave them a short course in changes in the legal system since the Rising. Court proceedings on the local level were very different now, reforms allowing a more adversarial approach intended to get at the truth. The Justice at the bench no longer presented the Shir’s case against the accused; that was now the duty of an Advocate in private practice hired for that specific purpose. Most of the Advocates in any given community had a legal specialty—anything from theft and murder to commerce and contracts—and prosecutorial assignments were made on this basis (unless, of course, the lawyer had already been engaged to defend the accused). No Advocate got rich off litigating the Shir’s cases, but few ever turned down the chance if offered; civic responsibility was taken very seriously.
However, the appeals process was just the same as it had been in 951 when Captal Leninor Garvedian had petitioned for reversal of her conviction. The High Judiciary, consisting of five Grand Justices, would hear arguments from the convicted criminal’s Advocate, retire to consider, and render a verdict within a week or so.
“This case is more complex,” Lenna said, “because Mirya Witte’s defense includes a lawsuit against Sarra and Collan.” She paused for a sip of coffee. “We’re looking at four charges. First, interference between a woman and her husband. Nonsensical, of course. Collan, you only knew Ellus Penteon from a few conversations at Wytte’s. Sarra tells me she saw the man on one or two social occasions, and spoke to him maybe three times, all in Mirya’s presence. So much for interference in the marriage.”
Lenna took a pair of spectacles from a pocket of her skirt, set them on her nose, and consulted her notes. “Next, the more serious allegations of coercion and use of public position for personal gain—we’ll get back to that one in a minute. Third, alienation of husbandly and daughterly affections. Same response as in the charge regarding the husband. Neither of you ever even saw the daughters, let alone talked to them. And we have a counter to this as well, in an affidavit—damn, where’d I put it? Oh, here it is. An affidavit provided by Mirya’s own First Daughter, who asserts that her mother’s behavior disgusted the three girls. Let’s see—a pretty much endless succession of different men, all much younger and extremely handsome—” She looked over the top rim of her spectacles at Josselin. “I believe this is where you begin to figure in the proceedings.”
There was no change in his frozen expression.
“Yes. Well.” Lenna cleared her throat. “This leads us to instigating breach of contract. She can’t sue for alienation of Prentice Mikleine’s affections, because he wasn’t her husband and she had no legal right to his affections or anything else. But this item avows that in paying for his residence and, um, training at Wytte’s, a contract between them did in fact exist. Basically, she wants her money back.” She took off her lenses and grinned. “The lovely part about this is that the bill from Wytte’s amounts to about the cost of a middling-good horse.”
“No reflection on you, Joss.” Collan gave a low chuckle as he walked around the table to replenish the coffee cups. “The Wyttes can’t stand the Wittes. The original invoice was comparable to the cost of a whole herd of Maurgen Dapplebacks. Mirya didn’t pay it. When Pierigo Wytte heard about this lawsuit, he made a great show of going over the books to get an accurate estimate—and what d’you know, it seems they’d overcharged!” He poured a triumphant dram of brandy into a glass and raised it to the young Prentice, grinning.
“So even if she wins that part of it,” Lenna said, “she’ll end up with not even enough to pay her Advocate.” Eyeing Josselin, she added with a twinkle, “Personally, I have trouble believing that a big strong young blade like you costs two cutpieces a day to feed, but that’s what the invoice says.”
“A horse,” Josselin muttered to his fists on the table. “I’m worth the price of a horse—and not a very good horse at that.” Then he glanced up, a rueful twist to his lips. “Well, I guess she did consider herself to be purchasing a stud.”
Sarra, pleased to see the Prentice had recovered his sense of humor, smiled her approval. Everyone else chuckled appreciatively—all except Cailet, Sarra noted in puzzlement. She was turning a spoon over and over in her hands, not looking at anybody.
Lenna continued, “Now, to win on this charge she’d have to prove there was a binding contract. As I see it, paying for the, um, time of a young man not licensed either to a bower or in private practice, as it were, is called slavery. Josselin was never so licensed, never applied for a license, and therefore any attempted purchase becomes attempted enslavement. Paying for Wytte’s constitutes a gift, much as one would pay for someone’s tuition, books, and so forth. Whatever Mirya expected in return is moot. End of item.”
“Which leaves us with coercion and that other stuff,” said Collan.
“Right. Especially ‘that other stuff.’” Lenna pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers, then leaned back in her chair and frowned at Collan. “I know all about it, of course. I drew up the deed of sale. You got her to sell Shore Hill at roughly half its real worth by threatening to expose publicly Mirya’s abuse of her husband. That would have been enough, you know. But then you had to threaten her with legal proceedings—which, considering Sarra’s position as a Councillor, implied not just the Sheve legal system but all the weight and resources of the government at Ryka Court! That was stupid, Collan. Really, really stupid.”
“I never said a damned word directly!”
“Who’d believe that? Someone of your rank and influence can start a fashion in sleeved longvests or a run on a particular wine—or the process of changing a law. Everyone’ll believe you threatened Mirya. And from all I’ve heard, you couldn’t have been all that oblique about it or she never would’ve understood what the hell you were talking about.”
Sarra did not come to her husband’s defense. He’d been wrong, and she’d told him so at the time. But she didn’t say I told you so now; instead, she flashed a look at Lenna meant to end the castigation. Collan had been a fool; he knew it, and Sarra knew it, and now they all knew it. Sarra didn’t want him berated in front of everyone any more than strictly necessary. Pointing out his mistakes was Sarra’s prerogative.
“Well,” Lenna said with a sigh, “it’s not fatal, anyway. We can work around it. After all, you have no official position outside of being Sarra’s husband. And to win this point Mirya would have to prove that Sarra knew in advance and planned with you to coerce using her status as a Councillor. Such proof, naturally, is impossible.”
“There’s something else,” Josselin said. “There’s what I planned to do.”
“I was about to get to that.” Leaning forward once again with an elbow on the table, Lenna rested her chin on her fist, brown eyes staring across the candle stumps and wilting flowers at Josselin. “Your foster mother—whichever one it was, and the broadsheets have interviewed at least seven by my count, but that’s not the point—anyway, there was a contract of sorts, between your foster mother and Mirya Witte, legal until you reached your majority in 987. Your plan, as I understand it, was to put Mirya off until the Autumn Equinox freed you from that contract, at which time you’d tell Mirya thanks-but-no-thanks.”
Jored spoke for the first time. “Joss, didn’t you say you were going to try and get work at a jeweler’s?”
Josselin nodded. “I’m no hand at cutting gems, but I’m pretty good with clocks and gears and machinery—I’d’ve paid her back for Wytte’s with the money I earned.”
“Admirable,” Lenna remarked sourly. “Can you prove it? Did you talk to any Roseguard jewelers about a job?”
“No—in case she heard about it.”
“Did anyone else know what you planned to do when you reached eighteen?” When he shook his head, she gave a shrug. “That’s that, then. We can bring it
up in court, but it’ll sound dreamed up well after the fact. And in any event, you arrived at Mage Hall—when?”
“Two days before St. Caitiri’s,” said Cailet.
“Ah, yes,” Lenna smiled. “Your Birthingday. Remember the year Miram and Tevis and Lindren and I sent you on a scavenger hunt for your presents? You were eleven, I think.”
“Nine.” Cailet smiled back. “And I ended up halfway to Longriding because I’d mistaken the clues!”
“I can still see Mother’s face when she couldn’t find you and sent us out on our horses. We yelled our lungs out all afternoon.”
“Oh, I heard you after the first hour—but I figured you needed to be taught a lesson, so I followed along behind you, hiding in the rocks, and let you keep looking.”
“Miserable child! It wasn’t our fault you misread perfectly straightforward clues!”
Sarra felt something she hadn’t felt in a long time: sadness that she and Cailet had been cheated of growing up together. The Ostin women were more like sisters to Cailet than she was. Her gaze strayed to her children, and the sadness became anger at herself for missing so much of their growing up. Then she noticed that Taigan—and Joss next to her, and Mikel and Jored besides—were all trying to hide two kinds of shock: that Lenna teased the Captal so openly, and that the Captal had ever been nine years old.
“But the point is,” Lenna was saying, “that Cailet’s Birthingday is a full week before the Autumn Equinox, which means that Josselin really had no legal right to skip out on Mirya Witte and his foster mother’s contract. I don’t suppose there’s any way to prove that you were born at the Spring Equinox, is there?”
Again he shook his head. “Both my parents were dead before I was six weeks old. Like Jored, I got passed from family to family for a long time.”
Cailet said, “Even if you swore in court that your Birthingday was Spring Moon, there are so many tales of your early years being published in the broadsheets that they completely confuse the issue. Nobody would believe you.”
“I wouldn’t swear to something I don’t know to be true,” he said stiffly.
“Of course,” Cailet replied, pouring herself more coffee.
There’s definitely something going on here, Sarra told herself. Can she really believe Josselin is the traitor?
Lenna sorted more papers. “All these charges are in aid of getting Mirya’s murder conviction overturned—at least that’s what she wants. My feeling, correct me if I’m wrong, is that Vellerin Dombur intends to use this case to reinstate some of the more delightful of our old marriage laws. A woman’s absolute dominion over her husband, his complete lack of rights, her unchallenged privilege of parading as many men as she likes in and out of her bedroom—all those venerable traditions that made Lenfell great during the days of Veller Ganfallin.” Her lip curled and she drank a large swallow of coffee as if to get a bad taste out of her mouth.
“We see it the same way,” Sarra told her. “Apart from the coercion charge, the rest of Mirya’s case is easily dealt with, if I understand you correctly. And yet it’s those other charges that are the most potent with the reactionaries.”
“Who,” said Telomir, “will despair all the more of the perilous state of our society when those charges are thrown out of court as irrelevant.”
“A mess,” remarked Elomar, with his usual succinctness.
“All we can do is let it play out,” Cailet said. “Lenna, you defend Sarra and Collan every way you know how. Let me worry about Vellerin Dombur and Glenin Feiran.”
“Now, that’s the one person we haven’t yet mentioned,” Lenna said. “What’s her stake in all this?”
“Sheer amusement,” Collan growled, sloshing more brandy into his glass.
“I think she wants to be seen as the voice of reason.” When Jored said that, everyone turned to stare at him. He glanced around the table, seeming slightly startled by his own boldness, but continued his thought at Cailet’s nod of encouragement. “Lady Sarra and Lord Collan on one side, seen as radicals by the conservatives—Vellerin Dombur and Mirya Witte on the other, championing laws and customs everybody with sense knows were wrong. If Glenin Feiran takes the middle and says ‘Preserve the best of the old, but treat husbands fairly—’”
“Then she’ll go a long way toward establishing herself as an exemplar of moderation,” Telomir said, “canceling much of the suspicion of her Malerrisi beliefs.”
“No one ever said she was stupid,” Pier said acidly. “Her letter to me was a work of art.”
“Don’t you go anywhere near her,” Cailet warned.
“No fears, Captal—I’ll hold my temper and my tongue. There are more important concerns here than my personal desire to strangle her with that octagon chain.”
Lenna tidied papers and closed the portfolio on them. “I’m ready. I suggest the rest of you go to bed, get some sleep, spend a quiet day tomorrow, and on the seventh let me do all the talking—unless Mirya’s Advocate calls you to the witness box, in which case say only what I told you to say during preparation. All right? All right. Prentice Mikleine, I have a few things about your testimony I’d like to go over again.”
They left, and Sarra’s gaze traveled slowly from face to face around her dinner table. Mikel, thoughtful and subdued; he hadn’t said a word all evening. Next to him, Elomar, who’d said exactly two words that summed up everything: “A mess.” Taigan had toyed with her food, barely glancing at Jored. Though Josselin’s chair was empty, his humiliation lingered. Telomir, seated between Joss and Collan, was conscientiously pleating his napkin. Col himself, sullen and withdrawn, halfway through a third glass of brandy; beside him, Cailet had gone through twice that many cups of strong coffee and would probably be awake all night, doubtless her intention. Then came Lenna’s empty chair, Pier’s proud and defiant face, and Jored—who hadn’t looked at Taigan either, as far as Sarra could tell.
Saints and Wraiths, what a cheery group! Rising, she speared her sister with a stern look. “Cailet, don’t you dare drink more coffee, you’ll be up until dawn. Taigan, Mikel, it’s past your bedtime, and don’t tell me you’re too old for a bedtime. You’re not yet eighteen, I’m still your mother, and when I say go to bed, go to bed. As for the rest of you—you’re all adults with presumably enough sense to follow Lenna’s excellent advice and get some sleep.”
“Yes, Lady,” Telomir murmured with every indication of seemly masculine meekness.
When they were all gone but Collan, turning his brandy glass between his long hands, Sarra sat down again. “Well?”
“It was stupid of me,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“Neither of us ever thought it would come to this.”
“No.” He brought the glass to his lips but didn’t drink. “I’ll have to testify, you know. Lenna says it’s inevitable. And up there in the witness box I’ll offend just about everybody with my immodest, unnatural, unmanly ways. Y’know what I overheard the other day? I don’t know who it was, I didn’t recognize the voice. But she said, ‘Don’t be fooled by those sweet, submissive murmurings in public! Collan Rosvenir is a terrible example to our young men! Why, he seems to think he can pee sitting down!’”
“Col—”
“I haven’t been the sort of husband you need, Sarra. Oh, not you personally, as a woman. I mean you as a Councillor and a Blooded Lady and all that.”
“Don’t make me say that you’re the only husband I ever would have chosen. Don’t make me say that if not for you—”
“If not for me you wouldn’t be in a mess, as the eloquent Elomar rightly termed it.”
“If not for you,” she repeated deliberately, “I wouldn’t be alive. And I don’t just mean that you saved my life during the Rising. I mean that you showed me how to live. With everything Agatine and Orlin taught me, somehow they never got around to that. I suppose they thought I’d just learn it along the way—or find somebody to teach me, the w
ay they taught each other. But you—” She dimpled. “You dragged me into it kicking and screaming.” She saw his wide mouth curl into a hint of a reminiscent grin. “I love you, Collan. I wouldn’t know how to live, without you. Everything I value most, you gave me.” She got to her feet again, circled the table, and arranged herself quite deliberately in his lap. “Minstrel dear, if you want to pee standing up, sitting down, or into Vellerin Dombur’s coffee cup, you go right ahead.”
He gave in and smiled. “Don’t tempt me, First Daughter.”
Sarra traced the curve of his ear with a fingernail. “But that’s what I do best.”
11
ON Cailet’s personal scale of desirable activities, attending Mirya Witte’s appeal hearing before the High Judiciary was roughly equivalent to riding all the way from Ostinhold to Combel during an acid rainstorm. Dressed in her second-best regimentals, she went to the courtroom only because she couldn’t avoid it. Lending the dignity of the Mage Captal’s presence to the proceedings irked her; she must be seen to support Josselin, however, and through him the right of all Mageborns—female or male—to be trained in magic if they chose.
So on the morning of the seventh day of Ascension she chose an aisle seat near the back, arriving after Sarra, Collan, and Josselin, but before the crowd of spectators who crammed into the courtroom—an appropriately somber chamber lined in leather-bound volumes of the Statutes of Lenfell and decorated with a large map of the world to the right of the bench. The Seal of the High Judiciary hung above the bench behind the Justices’ chairs: a spread-winged eagle above a thorn tree within a hollow circle, all of it in solid gold. The rest was oak paneling and benches, brass-railed witness box, and a podium of white marble reminiscent of the Speakers Circle on the other side of Ryka Court. There were no tables or chairs for Advocates and their clients; they were compelled to stand for the entire proceeding, on the theory that sore feet equaled brief speech. Mirya Witte and her Advocate stood on one side, Lenna Ostin alone on the other, their backs to the audience as if no one else existed.