The Serpent

by David Drake

  I nodded. Lord Morseth was punctilious about his duties but he cared as little as any man alive about how his actions looked. It’s one of the reasons we’re friends, though I’d absorbed more of my mom’s attitudes toward what was right than he’d gotten from his upbringing.

  Jon turned his head from left to right, scanning all the spectators, before he said, “In the matter of the will of Count Luther of Laferriere, I have given the affair my full attention and have consulted with clerks and trusted advisors. On this matter my Chancellor, Lord Clain, has asked to say a few words before I deliver my verdict. I therefore cede to him.”

  He gestured to Clain seated facing the audience a step below him to his right.

  Lord Clain rose to his feet. “As the Commonwealth’s Chancellor,” he said, “I wouldn’t normally take a position on a legal matter. I am saying that this time I will swear to defend the Commonwealth’s legal system itself with all my strength and ability. I do not know what Jon’s decision will be, but regardless I will defend it against any challenge.”

  He sat back down. Morseth looked at me in question. I just shrugged, because I had no more idea about what was going on than he did.

  In a fight I used my dog’s brain to predict the course of an opponent’s blows. Clain did something else. He actually seemed to know what his opponents were thinking.

  I’d fought Clain once with weapons on reduced power. He’d been incognito, checking on how good I actually was. He’d knocked me silly.

  Clain turned and bowed to the Leader, then sat down.

  Jon resumed, saying, “I have viewed the documents and see no option better than to reinstate the decision of the Council of Five. I therefore do so herewith. The estate of the Count of Laferriere will be divided therefore equally among his daughters as determined by commissioners appointed by the Council of Five. Are there any comments by anyone present?”

  He looked straight at Lady Joy as he finished. Joy’s law clerks were whispering to her. She shrugged free of them and stood up. Instead of speaking to Jon, she turned around and faced the ranks of spectators on seats above her. “Are there any men present who are willing to defend the rights of a woman alone in Dun Add?”

  She was a lovely full-figured woman and probably would have gotten a taker if Lord Clain had not made it clear that going against the verdict was suicide. That was fine with me, though I’d have had no reservations about defending Lady Hope’s rights against any stranger.

  “So?” said Joy in a challenging voice. “If that’s what passes for justice and manhood in Dun Add, I’ll take myself home to Laferriere.”

  She started up the central aisle. The Leader called after her, “The commissioners will be along in about two weeks, Mistress Noonen tells me. I will not send a Champion to enforce their requests unless I have to.”

  I would have felt sorry for Joy if she hadn’t been, as Reaves had said when we first discussed her, “a poisonous bitch.” She’d gotten justice, but that isn’t what she’d really wanted. She’d wanted her will to be carried out.

  If Joy had been willing to compromise instead of forcing him to fight a friend, Lord Morseth would have been willing to defend her claims again. He wasn’t afraid of Clain—though I thought and he probably did too—that Clain would beat him.

  I thought again about how fortunate I was to have May. Her existence protected me from the likes of Lady Joy.

  When she passed out of the courtroom it began to buzz. Morseth said, “I guess that’s all we’ll hear of her.”

  “Unless you’re tapped to back up the commissioners again,” I said. I clasped hands with Lady Hope. “Guess it worked out all right after all, ma’am,” I said. “I’m going over to chat with May, who came in a minute ago with all her court ladies.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Later

  The Consort had a small garden outside her suite. Plants and even some small trees grew there in pots. I took May out there when the Consort’s entourage and I left the courtroom together. May hugged me and said, “Good result.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I became a Champion to bring justice. I didn’t realize that might mean fighting as good a friend as Lord Morseth.”

  May felt me stiffen and stepped back. “You beat him,” she said.

  “Not really,” I said. “We yielded to each other. That might not have happened.”

  “Dear,” May said firmly, “you achieved justice. It was dangerous and could have ended badly, but without you, there would have been injustice.”

  “Love, you don’t like the things I do as a Champion,” I said. “You’ve said that!”

  “I like the result,” she said. “I was biting my knuckles the whole time, but it was the right thing to do even against Morseth.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders. “Look, I’d like you to spend more time in Dun Add and I’d like us to give more parties. But I want to live in civilization, and because of men like you, I do. Quit and stay home if you like—but never think that what you do isn’t as important as you thought when you were a kid!”

  I kissed her. “Thank you, love,” I said. “But sometimes it’s very hard.”

  “I didn’t fall in love with a soft man,” she said, and kissed me back.