Lawyers in Hell

by Morris, Janet

  “I see,” Dick said, looking down at his own jack, and perhaps hoping that one of those dead could be taken away – a death laid not at his hand but to a wretched general.

  “So are you up for it?” Willie asked.

  “Do you have witnesses?”

  “Aye. Tam and I, my men, we have prowled the plains of hell seeking them out. If you serve subpoenas backed by the court, they will be compelled to appear.”

  “And has the court agreed to take on your case?”

  “Aye,” Willie said, turning toward a man coming toward them. “The Ombudsman himself has agreed.”

  A thin, stooped middle-aged man came toward them, a robe turned pale gray after many washings hanging on his body. He’d pushed the hood of his robe back, showing his dark eyes, dark hair speckled with gray, his gray beard. Small white scars pocked his darker skin, but his face was otherwise unblemished.

  “A Moor?” Willie asked.

  “Nay, a Jew,” Dick said. He pointed at a gold Star of David on a necklace around the man’s neck.

  Willie looked at the Ombudsman’s clean features, his washed robe, his body burdened by age but apparently not by sin. “He is not tormented? Not evil?”

  “I am human,” the Ombudsman said, coming up to their table and sitting across from Willie, his back to the rest of the bar. “A human soul, anyway,” he said, waving his hands at the wretched in the Oasis. “My name is Job.”

  “Job? As in the Bible?” Willie asked.

  “That Job, yes,” the Ombudsman said. “But I am not tormented … not tormented as you are, anyway.”

  “The Ombudsman has chosen to serve in hell,” Tam said.

  “You could be in Paradise but choose to be here?” Willie asked.

  Job shrugged. “It’s complicated.” The bar-maid set down a glass before him, pure and clean, little drops of condensation dripping off it. “Now as to your case.…”

  “You got my petition?” Willie asked.

  “Yes. It has passed the usual … review,” Job said.

  Willie nodded at Job’s implication, motioned at Tam. Tam slid a bag of diablos at Job.

  “Then your case is scheduled. I inquired at the Hall of Injustice. There happened to be a cancellation in Lord Scrope’s schedule. He will see you in court on the morrow,” Job said.

  “Lord Scrope?” Willie asked, amazed at the coincidence, but also knowing in hell nothing was coincidental. Scrope, the man who had unjustly imprisoned him at Carlisle Castle, the man embarrassed by the Bold Buccleuch’s raid that had freed him.

  “Scrope,” Job said. “It’s just a coincidence, but it seemed fitting, don’t you think?”

  “Aye,” Willie said. “But who are we to question the mach-inations of Satan?”

  Job stood, and Willie, Tam, and Dick stood with him. As Job left, Dick remained standing.

  “I’ll take my leave then, too,” Dick said, holding out his hand. “I have an opening argument to prepare.”

  Willie nodded, and Tam put another bag of diablos in his hand. If this kept up, Willie would have to sell his horse to pay for his trial, he thought.

  “There’s just one thing,” Willie said to Nixon. “This trial might lead to … to Borders justice. Are you prepared to defend me in that manner, too?”

  Dick glared at Willie, put a hand on the hilt of his dirk. “I may have been born far away from the Liddesdale, but I am of Borders blood, true and proud,” he said. “If it comes to Borders justice, then aye, I am there for you, too.”

  *

  Willie and Tam came early to court. Money almost gone, they’d slept in the stable with Jamey, curled up on the damp straw next to the horse. They’d risen early, went to court not so much to be on time as to find someplace warmer. In hell, Willie thought, in hell you were always too damn hot or too damn cold. The closer you got to true evil, the colder it got. The Hall of Injustice had been built on evil – literally, its walls writhing with those imprisoned within. Walk too close to the walls and grimy hands would grab at your coat.

  Benches lined the hallways outside the courtroom, benches running between every door, only in one of those cruel jokes Willie had never gotten used to, the interior designers had cemented broken bottles and sharp rocks into the benches. Why build something to sit down on if you didn’t want someone to sit down on it? Willie wondered. It was the least of hell’s paradoxes, and yet as good an example as any.

  Tam kicked at a section of bench, breaking away the bottles and rocks, and sat down. Willie joined him, the sharp points digging into his butt anyway. Another theory had it that like a penitent saint if you took on pain not necessary to your hellish existence, somehow that would take away meaner torments. This didn’t make a lick of sense to Willie, though. Wasn’t every torment in hell, intentional or not, part of Satan’s grand misdesign?

  The minutes ticked by as Willie and Tam sat in silence, staring down at the cracked floors. Willie kept shifting his foot as a face in the floor moved beneath his boot, teeth trying to bite the leather.

  “Willie me lad!” a voice boomed from down the hallway. “Focking Kinmont Willie! Cain’t escape judgment here!”

  Willie looked up, saw Salkeld himself, the English deputy who had betrayed the truce there at Kershopefoot in the spring of ’96. He rose, Ringan’s Tam at his side and Nixon mere seconds later, all of them ready to draw their swords.

  “I escaped your justice,” Willie said. “Your injustice.”

  “Peace, Willie,” Salkeld said, holding out his hands. “I did not come here to fight ye – not with swords, anyway.” Salkeld held out a tattered scroll, its edges smoking. “I’m here to prosecute you, called forth by Scrope himself as to the crimes you should answer to.”

  “Ah, there’s a conspiracy of injustice,” Willie said, spitting, his phlegm steaming on the pocked floor.

  “What else did you expect, Strang?” Salkeld said, calling him by his family name. He strode by them, pushing forth the thick ironwood doors of the courtroom.

  Willie, Tam, and Nixon followed. Thick candles made of rancid fat burned in sconces along the wall, their wretched scent almost perfume compared to the reek of hell. A large dais occupied one wall of the room, more ironwood and steel plates protecting the judge behind it. Rough made benches, but smooth unlike those in the hallway, spread out before the judge’s throne, an aisle between them. The defense sat on the left, the prosecution on the right, and no wall between them and the gallery. A clean circle of marble – cleaner than the gray stone, anyway – was on the far corner of the room.

  Salkeld sat on his side; Willie, Nixon, and Tam on the other. A grizzled old man in rusty armor entered the room, stamped his pike and, in a voice barely audible, the bailiff said, rasping, “All rise for his Lord Scrope.”

  Willie and Nixon stood, and when Tam stayed seated, Willie nudged him.

  “Go along with it, cousin,” he said, and Tam rose reluctantly.

  Scrope strode in, robes swishing, but as they twirled Willie heard the clank of chains. Boils pocked Scrope’s face, and blood oozed from his shirt. Weights burdened Scrope’s robe, and barbed wire poked through the hems of the robe. The chains pulled the wire into Scrope’s flesh, the weight of all the men and women he’d unjustly tried. We all have our pentagrams to bear, thought Willie.

  Scrope settled in his grand chair, settling his robe around him with more clanks of chain. Both sides sat.

  “In the case of the Damned versus Kinmont Willie, William of Morton Rig, also known as –” The bailiff said.

  At Willie’s name, a great light descended into the courtroom. Willie turned toward it, looking at it as close as he dared, one hand shielding his eyes and peeking through faint cracks between his fingers.

  The Rapture Elevator, the Divine, a manifestation of the Lord G’d Himself. Behind its glow Willie thought he saw a great winged figure, a patch of white in the golden beam. The angel did not have to announce its presence or why it had come. They all knew. It had come to bear witness and if a he
llion through justice, mercy, and good deeds had redeemed himself, herself, the damned might, just might, be lifted up into Paradise.

  Or so that grace suggested.

  Scrope turned away from the grace, stared down at Willie and his supporters.

  “Kinmont Willie, you have petitioned this court to relieve your torment, to judge again a crime already charged to you. How do you plead?”

  “Innocent,” Willie said, “at least of said crime against the Widow Bell.”

  “We shall see.” Scrope banged his gavel.

  In filing his petition with the Ombudsman, Willie had been warned that injustice would be swift. It had seemed peculiar that petition would even be possible. How could an all knowing, all merciful, all powerful G’d have been wrong? How could a mistake have been made? How could the damned be wrongly convicted of a crime already known? That challenged the very nature of hell and of The One True Justice.

  And yet, Job had said so himself days ago when Willie had approached him.

  “And yet here am I, a just and worthy man, a good man, punished unfairly for my sins,” Job had said. “Punished for no other reason than a bet between Satan and G’d, if only to prove man’s faith. Y’h’w’h himself cannot see, does not see his own darkness, his own shadow. If he cannot see that, what else does he not know?”

  Willie did not understand such subtle theology. All he understood was that his torment could be lessened, and in the process, he might escape.

  The trial went quickly. No tedious selection of jury, no long orations, no opening and closing statements. Nixon presented their petition, Salkeld countered with his own. They laid forth their summonses, their evidence, scrolls and documents slapped down on the floor. Hellions came forth in a burst of light, their testimony presented as a blast of screeching sound, and faster than it took Scrope to shuffle from his office to the bench, the trial was done.

  “Shall I pronounce judgment?” Scrope asked.

  Willie looked up at Scrope, over at Salkeld. If Scrope judged him unfairly, it would be another chain added to his robes. So deeply had Willie offended Scrope, though, he did not dare risk Scrope judging him wrongly. What would be another spot on a leopard, another pound on an already unbearable weight?

  “I demand Borders justice,” Willie said.

  “Borders justice?” Scrope said, sneering. “You have already gotten that.”

  “Not yet,” Willie said, and he drew his sword.

  Tam sprang to his left, Nixon to his right, faster than before, Willie was glad to see. They flanked him, swords ready, as Scrope leapt down, his own sword drawn. Salkeld drew his own sword then, the two prosecutors against their three.

  But then the bailiff joined in, his pike sweeping before them. Out of the walls Englishmen came forth, dozens of them. Willie, Tam, and Nixon had their backs to the angel, to the Rapture Elevator.

  The Sassenach circled, closer and closer. Nixon parried their crude thrusts, meeting blade to blade. Scrope pushed down the center, massive in his robe, the armor of his robe fending off sword cuts. He winced at the weight of his judgments, but pressed on nonetheless.

  “I would have acquitted you!” Scrope shouted, but Willie knew it was a lie.

  “As you acquitted me before!” Willie yelled back.

  Tam took out two fighters with one blow, and Nixon a third. For every one they killed, two emerged from the wall. Soon a mob pushed them back to the elevator. Willie jumped up on a bench, knocking another down in front of him, and Salkeld stumbled. Willie swung his sword down, blade slashing Salkeld’s throat.

  “That’s for Kershopefoot!” Willie yelled as Salkeld’s body shimmered and went toward the Undertaker.

  Scrope pushed the three of them up against the Rapture Elevator. They could not enter it, but the grace cooled them, supported them like soft summer moss. Willie looked to Ringan’s Tam, to Nixon, and nodded.

  “Take your leave, my friends,” he whispered.

  Tam, then Nixon, reached for tabs sewn into their jacks, yanking the ripcords and disappearing off into the mist. An easy death on the Undertaker’s slab, an easy resurrection, perhaps. He hoped.

  Scrope stepped back at the explosion of air rushing in to where their bodies had been, and then he smiled at Willie standing there alone. Willie slashed down at Scrope’s shoulder, the force sundering the barbed wire, his cut slicing through Scrope’s chest. For a moment Scrope grinned in ecstasy as his burden was relieved, and then he, too, went to the Undertaker.

  The bailiff stood stunned, pike at his side, then raised it, glancing at the wraith army to push their advantage. Willie whirled, spun, and came around to the bailiff’s left side, his open side, and cut his head off. The head spun away squirting dark green mud. Willie laid down his sword, and the wraiths fell back into the wall.

  “Innocent,” the angel said, its voice booming, blowing out the candles and shaking loose dust from the stone walls.

  A door opened in the elevator, a bare crack as the angel spoke. Willie rolled backwards, through the door into the elevator and at the angel’s feet.

  The bones in his jack rolled back under the leather, their sharp points no longer piercing him. His skin felt light, his joints like honey, and all the pain he had endured rolled away. Willie felt pure, blessed, out of his hellish body. The angel rose up in the elevator and Willie with it. Willie watched Hell race away below him, its smoke, its filth, its damned fading to a small dot.

  And he smiled. He had done it, had grabbed a ride out of hell. It took but another moment to rise up to Paradise. The angel held Willie’s body, its soft hands cradling him like a mother. The elevator slowed, a golden trumpet blared, one pure note singing through Willie’s skin. The angel held a cup to Willie’s lips, and he had taken but a sip of smooth whiskey before the angel shoved Willie down.

  “But not innocent enough, my child,” the angel said, its voice sweet with sorrow. “Not innocent enough.”

  Willie fell back down through that golden column, the motes of hell already filling it up, and he hit the ground so fast he did not even feel his bones shatter.

  When he woke up, he stared into the bloodshot eyes of the Undertaker, smelled his foul breath.

  And smiled.

  Out of Court Settlement

  by

  C.J. Cherryh

  Snip. Snip-snip. Snip.

  Partly overcast in hell, a few spots of rain – but the job had to be done, and when jobs of a less elevated nature had to be done in Augustus’ villa, there was a question of rank involved. Augustus wasn’t going to do it. Neither was Caesar or Cleopatra, nor Sargon of Akkad; nor was Hatshepsut. The villa had Roman rulers and Egyptian pharaohs, but no gardener, and that elected the two Renaissance refugees who’d found the villa a comfortable berth in hell.

  Dante was dithering around in the basement about some research project.

  That left one Niccolo Machiavelli to be dragooned into the job, when Augustus came out of his office in a dither – not about the flood downtown, not about the Audit of Injustice proceeding in the Law Court, but about two young fools, both Julius’ sons, who’d decided to burgle Tiberius’ villa, over across the greenspace and a good hike beyond.

  The lecherous old goat, the Emperor Tiberius, had them dead to rights. And was suing Augustus for instigating the permanently young fools in the invasion of his premises.

  It was not a good time to have a lawsuit questioning the peculiar status of any Roman in hell, not that one could explain that to the syphilitic old fool, Tiberius, who’d died insane and who’d not improved in the process.

  That was why Machiavelli was out there trimming roses into shape … in a light rain. With an extensive flood spreading over the greenspace. Cardinal Richelieu’s place had half the lawn underwater. Tiberius had a regular canal behind his mansion. It was a lawn-rimmed grey sheet beyond the gate and the hedge, and it might get beyond the gate tomorrow, but for now, the garden had to look its best, old roses, Roman roses, cuttings from Paestum, Augustus swore, a
little bit of earthly paradise, around the beautiful statue of weeping Niobe, mourning her lost children, symbolic of the rain, and more than appropriate today.

  Bailing the boys out was the mission.

  Getting that old sybarite, Tiberius to settle.

  And with every high-level Roman being, in essence, a lawyer, representing his house, his clients, his sympathizers, voters, and connections, in whatever court – there was still a time to call in the experts.

  Tiberius had, on his side, the law firm of Stalenus, Dolabella Crassus, the most unprincipled law firm in hell.

  That was a bit of a problem.

  So … up against scoundrels, potentially pleading in front of antiquity, go for the headliner. The Dershowitz of his day, Marcus Tullius Cicero.

  And getting Cicero to come in, was a dicey sort of request to have to make. Julius and Cicero had history. Augustus and Cicero had history. Oh, did they have history.

  Snip. Snip-snip.

  Cicero had died rather messily, head and hands tacked up in the Forum (shocking beyond belief, and a clear indication of the barbarity of Antony’s revenge).

  But then, Marcus Antonius had always lacked class. Even Cleo said so.

  “What choice did I have?” was Cleo’s statement on the situation – quietly not mentioning the other choice, Augustus. But marrying your father’s wife was beyond déclassé … a little fact the historians since had neglected to add to their reasons why Cleo had taken the liaison she had.

  “Good in bed,” she’d remarked of Antonius, “when he was sober.”

  The drinking problem hadn’t improved, so the rumor was. Antonius hung out sometimes at Tiberius’ villa, sometimes at Claudius’, in close company with Caracalla and Caligula, and Antonius was one of their current most serious problems – a loud mouth, a loose habit, and a rarely sober judgment.

  Bad judgment in the two teens, who’d ended up in Tiberius’ basement.

  And the biggest inducement to Cicero to take their side might, amazingly enough, be the fact that Antonius was over on Tiberius’ side, currently resident with the old goat.