by Jackson Lear
“I am,” said Alysia. “Alysia Kasera Lavarta. Councilor of Torne – a position that requires a degree in law.”
I added: “And I am a contractor of the Syuss Magistrate.” I held out a small sheet of parchment to prove it.
“A bounty hunter.”
“One who operates within the legal system of the Syuss Magistrate.”
“So you’re not a lawyer?”
“I’m a legal aide.”
Orin looked to Zara and Delen. “I suppose you two have some false paperwork as well.”
Delen puffed his chest out. “Actually, I was appointed to investigate Artavian’s death by Commander Lavarta.”
“And dismissed as well.”
“Not by the commander.”
“You were by the military police.”
“So you’ve determined that Artavian was, in fact, murdered?”
Orin chewed on the inside of his cheeks. “We had a good samaritan come by the other day who saw an intruder break into Artavian’s room with a jug. His testimony has been most useful.”
“Perhaps it was,” said Lucien, “but your prisoner is still a civilian. He’s being held in a military prison in a city that he was not arrested in. No effort was made on your part to contact a lawyer on his behalf, and as Mr Beriss’ lawyer, if you deny me access to him again my next port of call will be to a judge who will have Mr Beriss moved to a more suitable location within the hour, and then not only will you and Lieutenant Kace have lost any advantage in holding Mr Beriss here, you will have to wait in line to interrogate him as you do not have the same authority with the city watch as you do here.” Lucien topped it off with a wry smile. “Son, I know the law better than you do. The best you can do now is stall. You know it. I know it. You don’t have the legal authority to deny Mr Beriss a meeting with his lawyer and if you try it his testimony will be thrown out by every judge in the land and you will have to start over, this time with a lawyer of his choosing present and a prosecuting lawyer chosen by an impartial judge. You either let us in now or we get him out of here within the hour. Perhaps you should wake up Lieutenant Kace. I have a feeling you’re going to need to explain yourself to him very soon.”
Orin stared back at us, so pissed off that he wanted to scream, yet years of military dedication had taught him to swallow every ounce of anguish running through him. “You can see him. You other four cannot.”
“Zara and Delen can wait for us upstairs, but Miss Kasera and Mr Raike will be joining me. Or do you want to risk Mr Raike questioning Lieutenant Kace instead and losing track of him completely?”
Beriss was not as happy to see Lucien, Alysia, and myself as you’d expect. He rose from the corner of his dark cell, itself empty of everything except a stool and bowl of water. He blinked at us through the dim light of our lantern, confused, then reeled back when he recognized me.
“Hello again,” I said.
“You? You’re here?”
“Yep.”
“You asshole! What have you done to me?”
Lucien raised his hands. “Calm down, please, calm down. I am your lawyer.”
Beriss glanced at Lucien, now even more baffled than before. “What’s going on?”
“Some introductions are in order. I am Lucien, Defender from the Hall of Courts and Professor of Law at Torne University. Not to toot my own horn too much but you are in good hands. This is Miss Alysia Kasera Lavarta.”
“Hello.”
Whatever color was in Beriss’ face drained in an instant. “… Kasera?”
“And you already know Mr Raike. We have some questions about your capture. Please, in your own time, feel free to tell us what’s going on.”
Beriss stammered, gulping like a goldfish as his mind slowly got up to speed. “I don’t know what’s going on. And my ribs still hurt!”
“Did someone mistreat you?”
“He mistreated me!”
“He kept trying to escape a lawful arrest,” I said.
Lucien raised his hands again to try and settle the tension between us. “Can you tell us why you have been brought to Torne?”
Beriss sneered back at me. “The army guy said he and I were in this together.”
“The army guy is Lieutenant Kace?”
“Yeah.”
“And ‘he and I were in this together’ is you and Mr Raike?”
“That’s right.”
“Hmm. He asked if you were in this together?”
“No. He said it.”
Lucien looked my way, gauging my reaction.
I said, “We’re not. I surrendered Beriss to the magistrate’s office and got my reward.”
Back to Beriss. “Did Lieutenant Kace take anything with him from Verseii?”
“I don’t know. I was in the back of a cart.”
“And you rode all through the night?”
“Pretty much.”
“What does that mean, ‘pretty much’?”
“We stopped after a couple of hours to find a tree. He gave me some water.”
“Did he say anything?”
“Nothing of substance, no. Just ‘here’ when he gave me a skin or ‘right, back up you go.’ That sort of thing. He did rummage around his pack for a bit. Quite a bit, actually.”
“A pack full of clothes? Food?”
“Papers.”
“Like he was looking for something in particular?”
“I suppose.”
“Your life is on the line here, I’m afraid. You’re going to have to do better than ‘I suppose.’”
Beriss shook his head at us, the bags under his eyes engorged after a week of misery, days and nights in a cell, with nothing but a bleak future ahead of him. “I wasn’t sitting right next to him. It seemed like he was giving me more space than I should’ve had.”
“Like he hoped you would run away?”
“I don’t know what he was thinking. I did hear something that sounded like paper being ripped up.”
I lingered on that. “Did he light a fire?”
“No.”
“Did he dig a hole?”
“Not that I saw.”
“When you got back onto the cart, did you see him throw anything into the air?”
Beriss had a stock answer at the ready, yet something stopped him. “I didn’t see him throw anything but I did see something the size of a feather landing on the road behind us a few times.”
“Like ripped up pieces of paper?”
“Could’ve been, but it was night time.”
Alysia leaned forward. “When you got to Torne and were handed over to someone, did the lieutenant say anything to them about you?”
“‘We got him.’”
“Did they enter your details into a ledger?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your name? Where you’re from? Your job?”
“They didn’t ask me for my job.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Did they ask why you were arrested?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Nothing about seduction?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing at all about where you’ve been for the last few days or why?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Not even why you were in Verseii?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Did you ask why you were being taken to Torne?”
“Of course I asked! The army guy said someone saw me at the inn where the steward died.” Beriss glared back at me. “He even knew your name. Asked all sorts of questions about you.”
“Such as?”
“How I knew you, how long I knew you, and why we were in the inn in the first place.”
Lucien interrupted us. “Someone saw you there?”
“Yeah. The army guy said that Raike shouldn’t have impersonated a friend and then robbed him.”
Alysia leaned over. “Does that mean anything to you?”
I nodded. “One of the other stewards. I m
et him the night I got to Torne. He gave me Artavian’s letter to give to his parents.”
Beriss added: “The army guy said one of the stewards described me.”
Lucien looked to me. “Is that possible?”
“Possible but unlikely. One of them followed us onto the street from the inn as I walked Beriss away. He would’ve seen more of our backs than our faces. But we weren’t all that discreet the following morning when we had to get through the crowd of soldiers.”
Lucien returned to Beriss. “I don’t suppose they’ve given you a story to follow? Or some kind of plea deal?”
“Well, I was working on a deal with the magistrate in Verseii, but they said I was something of a flight risk, whatever that means.”
“But no one from the army was offering a deal?”
“They didn’t mention anything about my arrest.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Why would they? I was already arrested. They knew I was from Erast and they knew that I knew this asshole here. I mean …” He trailed off, his mind foggy from a lack of sleep and being bounced around from one crisis to another.
“You mean what?”
Beriss peered back at Lucien. Began mumbling. “You’re sure you’re my lawyer?”
“Very much so.”
“Then get me out of here. No prison, no hard labor, no bullshit.”
I shrugged at Alysia and Lucien. “I’ve already been paid. It doesn’t bother me.”
“And the woman he seduced?” asked Alysia.
Beriss said, “I feel terrible about that.”
“Because you got caught?”
“Hey, her father ruined my life. I didn’t ruin his and I didn’t ruin hers. Where’s the justice in that?”
Lucien tried to get us back on point. “I can get you out of here if Lieutenant Kace has mishandled your arrest or brought you in on bogus charges, but you’re going to have to give me something to use against him. There’s no point waiting until we’re in front of a judge and a crowd of jurors. By then it’ll be too late.”
Beriss fell to a murmur. “You’re just going to forget about me.”
“I won’t,” said Alysia.
“Then you’re just going to screw me over like all rich people do to people like me.”
“If I was going to screw you over I wouldn’t have come here. Who did you seduce?”
Beriss slumped backward. “There’s a chance you know her.”
“Who?”
Through a distant mumble, Beriss confessed. “Margarite Oleta.”
Alysia closed her eyes and shook her head. “Were you working for her father?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I interjected. “What did Lieutenant Kace say to you?”
Beriss drifted away in defeat. “He said, ‘If you behave, you’ll have a chance at getting out of this a free man.’”
“Did he elaborate?” I asked.
“A little. He showed me a battered sheet of paper with a signature on it. He asked what it was. I honestly hadn’t seen it before. He told me I was lying, hit me on the side of my head, and said it was in the stuff they confiscated off me.”
“What was it?”
“I didn’t have much time to read it. It looked a little like the piece of paper you gave the clerk in the magistrate’s office.”
“An arrest warrant?”
“Only it was handwritten. No stamps.”
My stomach started to tighten. “Did you see a price on it?”
“Yeah. Two hundred marks.”
Lucien uttered a surprised, “Huh,” beside me.
“Was there a symbol instead of a stamp?” I asked.
“Three dots inside a circle.”
My stomach really did tighten. “I don’t suppose there was a name on it? Or a description?”
“I didn’t recognize the name. ‘Commander L …’ something.”
Alysia looked my way. “What is it?”
“A hit.”
Beriss stepped away from the bars, his features dropping immediately. “What?”
“By who?” asked Alysia.
“I don’t know their name, but there are a lot of mercenary groups with simple symbols. It could be made-up. It could be real.” I stared back at Beriss. “Looks like you’re supposed to take the fall for killing Commander Lavarta.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
‘If you behave, you’ll have a chance at getting out of this a free man.’ It wasn’t much of a stretch to think that Kace wanted someone else’s version of events to come out of Beriss’ mouth instead of the truth. He had me identified by a couple of the stewards in Verseii with Beriss, probably more soldiers would remember me pushing Beriss along while bellowing “Seducer coming through!”, he had me in the inn that Artavian died in, and now Kace had Beriss so afraid that a little massaging of the truth would point to me being Artavian’s killer.
Delen was busy making his presence known to the private by the front door. “We don’t have long. Orin hurried out of here the moment you headed into the dungeons. Zara followed him.”
“We need to see the entry of arrest before they change that too,” said Alysia.
After some to-and-fro of “I can’t do that,” and “I need to know what he’s been arrested for,” and even a moment where the steward read the entry aloud without showing us the details, Alysia finally stepped to the side of the steward and jammed her finger onto the entry. “There.”
“Ma’am, you really can’t–”
“Shut up, Private,” snapped Delen.
Alysia tapped the entry again. “Bounty hunter.”
I said, “They think Beriss is a bounty hunter?”
Alysia raised her eyes back towards me, her voice cracking. “There’s another name in here.”
“Artavian’s?”
“Beriss’ partner. Someone called ‘Raike.’”
“Ma’am, please. You’re not authorized …”
“You’ve arrested a civilian. A civilian’s entry falls within the magistrate’s jurisdiction.” Alysia yanked the book from the private’s hands. “It says here this is his first offence. Nothing at all about seduction or being previously arrested. They’re scrubbing his history and giving him a new one.”
Lucien stepped to the other side of her. “Well, I’ll be. She’s right. ‘Wanted with another in connection to Artavian, son of Franco’s, death, Verseii.’”
Alysia’s eyes cracked as well. “We don’t have much time left.”
I walked with Alysia, Lucien, and Delen back to the university to figure out what to do about my little predicament.
Alysia asked: “Is there really a hit on my husband?”
“There might be. Groups will out-source to freelance individuals quite often.”
“Freelancers like you?”
“Exactly like me, but I don’t think it’s real. Not yet, at least. Whoever gave Kace the hit sheet is trying to tie up all the loose ends by saying that a couple of mercenaries were hired to kill Artavian and your husband. They’ll pin the blame on Beriss and myself, execute us, and spin the story so that the Gustalis are completely innocent in all of this.”
“Great,” mumbled Alysia. “So what do we do?”
“You and Lucien should get Beriss released as soon as you can.”
“While you …?”
“Talk to Martius.”
“Steward Martius?”
“Yeah. I’m guessing he’s the one Beriss was talking about, the one who turned against me.”
“And not Gabriella?”
“Nah. Martius’ wife was giving me the evil eye the whole night. And I did tell Orin that I had spent that evening dining with Artavian and the stewards, so it isn’t too much of a surprise to see that he and Kace went to see if I was telling the truth.”
“I don’t suppose you lied to Martius to get some information out of him, did you?”
“I massaged the truth a little. Would he be with the cohort right now?”
Alysia peered bac
k at me. “Why?”
“Because if Kace has managed to turn him I’d like to turn him back. At the very least it should cast some doubt in Martius’ mind.”
“You’re not going to beat him up, are you?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“I don’t really care if he slanders my reputation, but if he pulls a sword on me I can’t make any guarantees.”
Alysia shook her head and groaned. “Please don’t make him pull a sword on you.”
“Do you know him?”
“My husband knows him. And he might soon be Auron’s aide-de-camp now that the position is vacant. And if you and I are going to see each other again when this is all said and done then there’s an excellent chance that you will also see Auron’s aide-de-camp on a somewhat regular basis.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I’m still not going to accept any job you offer me.”
Alysia settled into a sigh. “You won’t get into the camp. Not looking like that.”
“I thought looking like a lawyer would get me into any room in the city.”
“You’ll need a uniform. And if Martius has turned against you then you’re going to need someone else to question him. Go find Zara.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said.
“You need an ally. Like it or not, you and Zara are now working together.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Grimaced.
Alysia caught me. “Something the matter?”
“No. Will you be okay looking into how to get Beriss off whatever charge he’s up against?”
Alysia searched the road behind us. “Wow, you are not remotely convincing when you say something like that.”
Even Delen looked over. Thankfully he recognized the problem before Alysia did.
Lucien searched the road. “Something wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” I said. “Who can you speak to to poke holes in Kace’s arrest of Beriss?”
Alysia whispered to me. “I don’t see any soldiers.”
“Neither do I, but I still have something I need to take care of.”
Three assholes were approaching. Two adults. One kid. All from Erast. All ready to claim my head as a bounty.
Alysia latched herself onto my arm. “Not like this. Whatever trouble you’re in, you don’t need to make it worse. Just come in and wait until Zara catches up to us.”