“Thank you.” I replied, and I meant it.
“No?” I peered at another sign all in cursive letters, hard to read, but not the one I was searching for.
“What do you think is going on?”
Voice proclaimed,
“Those vamps were way more than bothersome.” I grumbled. Voice didn’t sound half as annoyed as I felt was appropriate.
I thought about this, and grinned. “That would show him not to mess with us!”
I finally came to a huge stone building with a pillared façade and massive marble steps that seemed designed to intimidate people from even walking in the doors. The whole edifice leaned slightly out over the street, casting a shadow larger than it was even in the dim grey afternoon. We are Gaman and Company, it silently leered at passersby. We are mighty. We will bury you. Do not argue with us, you are unworthy even to enter this temple of Law.
I had to admit it was impressive, but I had seen worse. This entire city block would have been crushed beneath the footprint of a single one of the pyramids of the desert, in which the living did not dare to tread. Maybe I could give Gaman and Co some notes. I thought helpfully, trotting up the steps.
Once inside it took me a while to get a receptionist to take me seriously, until, mindful of Voice’s advice, I finally took the bag of money off my shoulder and dumped it all over the floor. That got things moving, and me (and my money) were soon introduced to a human named Rafael. He had a smattering of dignified grey in his hair, large ears and nose, and sharp black eyes that missed nothing. His desk was immaculately clean and highly polished, the few accoutrements adorning it clearly chosen for their sleek, sinister style... all except for a framed, badly painted piece of parchment that occupied pride of place in the right hand corner and proclaimed in large, blobby letters: “LOve yu DadDy”.
He asked me a bunch of questions, listened carefully, and finally produced a sheet of expenses which all seemed perfectly reasonable but added up to a very big number. I nodded in turn, handed over a large portion of my new-won wealth, and we shook hands.
He gave me a smile that was very pleased with itself and even less gregarious than Fast Eddie’s. “Very good, Samiel.” he said at last. “I will meet your party an hour before the trial at the main courthouse tomorrow morning.”
Chapter Twelve
The day of the trial dawned cold and clear, but there was a thunderhead on the eastern horizon. It loomed, huge and massive, built to the scale of nothing mortal, and grumbled distant lighting in its depths. There was another wishing well by the courthouse, and, thinking of Ramsey, I flicked a coin in. He’d said there were seven of them, scattered throughout Triport. Maybe I should make a trip to each one, and spend seven coins. We sure could use the luck. Isha and I watched as all around the courthouse, people hurried to nail storm shutters to their windows, while older folks passed on the dire warnings of their long healed broken bones and arthritic joints.
“It’s going to be a mean one.” I was assured by a little old grandmother with a large pipe clenched between her teeth, supervising the preparations of her scurrying clan. “First one of the season always is. Heh, I remember the Harvester Hurricane, what, ten years ago now. That was a right mess, and no mistake.”
We hadn’t asked for the lady’s company, but we seemed to have it anyway. I was leery of hanging out on the steps of the courthouse, but as Isha had pointed out, no one was likely to make any moves while he and his guardian angel were watching.
“What I’d like to see is our lawyer.” I grumbled, trying to hide my unease.
“Yes.” Isha frowned. He was looking tall and splendid in a white suit reminiscent of what he wore in the kitchen, only tailored to fit and made of more elegant, less practical materials. He had on his tallest chef’s hat, also in gleaming white, and I figured it was a good thing the doors of the courthouse were built on the same scale and philosophy of Gaman and Co’s architect, or else he’d never fit through them upright. “Are you sure he said he would be here?”
I nodded. We’d both been waiting for about forty five minutes. A quarter of an hour more until the trial began, and no sign of the lawyer.
“I told you they were all scum-sucking rats.” announced a familiar voice behind us. Ishàmae turned, slowly, suspicious, but I gave a glad cry.
“Hel! It’s good to see you! But what are you doing here?”
“I requested permission to leave off my normal duties for the morning. I told the captain what you told me, and he agreed that any change to court procedures is of interest to the Guard, especially if involves the thorny mess of Southwind expats, and, all gods forbid, Southwind property rights. And speaking of Southwinders... you want to introduce me to this tall drink of water here?”
“Oh! Yeah, Hel, this is my friend Ishàmae. He’s a cook. Sorry! I mean a chef!” I turned to Isha. “And this is Hellena, a deputy with the City Guard. She gives me work, sometimes.”
The talkative grandmother had surreptitiously disappeared with the arrival of a ranking City Guard uniform, and was soon replaced with Sarah. Introductions were repeated, and Sarah looked not at all intimidated by Hel.
“So why is the Triport City Guard interested in Southwind property rights?” I asked Hel, and the conversation went uncomfortably quiet while Hel and Isha looked at each other. Finally Isha waved a hand, negligently, as if getting offended by it were beneath his dignity, and Hel shrugged.
“It’s all to do with slaves.” she said. “Slavery is legal in Southwind, but not in Triport, and every now and then some Southwinder takes it into their head that they can still own other people even when one or both parties are here in Triport. We receive orders of extradition for Southerners fairly regularly, who then claim refugee status under the Escaped Slaves and Forced Servitude act, which may or may not be true, and it’s a headache and half to sort out. Triport’s official stance is that we only deport criminals, not slaves, but it’s rough; we don’t have any real way of verifying a person’s caste on another continent. Then there’s the political argument of to what degree should the City Guard enforce the rights of non-citizens... Usually we just arrest them all and let the courts sort it out.”
“That doesn’t sound very fair.” Sarah commented. “People shouldn’t be arrested just because you don’t know what to do with them.”
“I agree.” Hel nodded, as if Sarah had made a very good point. “That’s why I’m here; the more information we can get about the official opinion of the law on these matters, the bette
r we can deal with it on the streets.”
“But Isha’s case has nothing to do with slaves.” I added. “Does it?”
“I cannot imagine it does.” Isha shook his head. “I will not deny that there were, are, slaves on my family’s estate, but I hold that I renounced all claim to such matters when I left Southwind.” He added worriedly, “I hope the courts of Triport do not intend to extend their jurisdiction to situations from another land, that happened long ago.”
Hel grunted. “Traditionally, no. Or we’d have to arrest every Southern expat and ship captain who stepped off their big golden boats. And then Triport would starve.”
Sarah and I shared a look of mutual discomfort as the realization dawned on us that the very food we ate had probably been grown by the forced labor of the unwilling. I don’t want to participate in that!
I was saved from having to answer by a palanquin pulling up on the street in front of us; a sleek, ornate affair with the G&C logo embroidered on the curtains.
“He’s here!” I cried, but the figure that emerged from the covered palanquin bore little resemblance to the man I had met yesterday. “Rafael?” I asked.
He had the same big nose and prominent ears, and even the same suit... exactly the same suit, which now looked as if it had been slept in, but his black eyes were wide and twitching, his skin was pale, and his sinister smile was gone entirely. He approached our party on the steps and handed me an envelope. I noticed a badly painted piece of parchment, no longer framed, sticking out of his right pocket.
“What’s this?” I opened the envelope to find a letter of credit inside to the Great Bank of Triport, issued to me, in the exact amount I had paid Gaman and Co yesterday.
“It’s a refund.” Rafael croaked out. “I am sorry. I will not be taking your case.”
“What?” cried Sarah, outraged. “Why not?”
“I’m sorry!” he repeated, looking away, his hand unconsciously going to the parchment. “I cannot!” And with that he turned to leave, still clutching the blobby painting, but not before I had noticed the beginnings of a bruise on his neck, surrounded by two faint puncture wounds.
Behind us, the clock tower tolled the hour, and the great wooden doors swung open.
We filed in, sans lawyer, passed the soberly dressed functionaries who checked our credentials, and were eventually directed to our side of the courtroom and appropriate seats. Hel peeled off to sit in the spectator stands, but Sarah managed to stick with Isha and me as we were seated to the left of the huge bench not yet occupied by the judge. On our left were the stands where Hel observed. The deck above her was empty, though Sarah whispered to me that was where the jury sat for trials as required such. Next to Hel were several richly dressed people wearing expressions that suggested this had better get interesting soon, because they had more important places to be.
Sarah seemed puzzled to see them.
“Who’re they?” I asked.
“I don’t know them all, but the fat lady on the right is Galinda Herrowforge. She owns shares in several ships based out of Triport. I think some of the others are ship owners, too. I’ve seen them around the restaurant before.”
Across from us was another set of seats, occupied by three or four lawyers talking to a strangely familiar elven lady warmly dressed in layers of flowing silk, though my attention was taken up by what was sitting next to her—the cold face of Keenfang, smug as ever, his red eyes surveying the room in distaste. His wandering gaze met mine, and he lifted one lip in his usual sneer that I longed to wipe off his face.
The silken lady noticed the shifting of attention in the room, and slowly turned and looked at us—and the glare when she and Isha met each other’s eyes was like a couple of cats trying to set the air on fire between them. Before it could actually combust, there was a stirring amongst the crowd, the bailiff announced “Here here! All stand for the honorable and fair Judge Severant the Sighted!” and then opened a serious looking door up on the main dais.
We stood. The judge, dressed in multicolored robes and decked out head to heel in gem encrusted accessories, entered and sat at the high bench. With great ceremony, he produced an iron hammer and rang the gong in front of him. The chest rumbling tone bounced off the stone walls of the courtroom.
“And?” I muttered.
I looked at the robed man. He was a half-elf, as far as I could tell, nice beard, crazy blue hair under the circlet of gems, and certainly as impressive as they get. I pulled down Cynric’s and was immediately hit by a blast of rushing whispers naming a king’s ransom in wearable magic, but I ignored it to concentrate on the purple glow above his head.
The gong rang again, drowning out all my distractions, and the various members of the court stood up to introduce themselves. Keenfang I knew, the woman was indeed Lynamane, and their team of lawyers all had at least four last names that sounded largely interchangeable to me. Come our turn I managed to announce myself without squeaking, Isha also turned out to have like four last names and belong to House Silverthorne, same as Lynamane, and Sarah came out with the unexpected surname of Marisdotter. She held her head high when she announced it, just as if she weren’t ashamed at all of having allegiance to neither a house nor a father.
“And where,” asked Judge Severant dryly, “is your lawyer?”
I didn’t know what to say to this, but Isha stood up and declared, “We shall be proceeding without one at this time, your honor.”
Across the room, Keen smirked at us. I mentally envisioned six different ways I could wipe it off his face, most of them involving edged weapons of varying degrees of sharpness.
“Very well then.” Severant turned to the other side, and in a tone of one going through the pomp and ceremony for the look of the thing, said: “Divine Lynamane of House Silverthorne, you are not a citizen of Triport, and this courtroom is far out of your area of jurisdiction. Have you found a sponsor of good reputation to represent your interests in the City of Storms?”
“Hold on,” I commented, recognising the slender silhouette. “I know her!”
Isha gave me a funny look, but Sarah shushed me. “Not yet, Sam!”
“I have, your honor.” Well coached by her lawyers, she walked forward and handed a piece of paper to the judge. “May I present to the court the esteemed citizen Keenfang, who, as you can see from his credentials, is a man of impeccable reputation throughout the city.”
I snorted at that, but Voice only commented that yes, Keen had probably been around long enough to do all the rep quests in all of Triport, and yes, technically it did involve saving the city a time or two.
The judge reviewed the scroll. “All is in order.” he announced. “Now, as per the request of Keenfang’s most esteemed guild, we have gathered for this trial of which we know so little. Finally, for the love of all that is holy, would you be so kind as to tell us all what you have kept us all in suspense for?”
Lynamane nodded, her eyes alight with something not holy at all.
“Thank you, your honor!” The elf bowed and then rose in sweep of silks. “I do apologize for necessity of secrecy, but my mission was of the utmost importance, and I could not let rumor nor leaks of this magnitude fly ahead of me. As you know, I am Lady Lynamane, the last survivor of House Silverthorne... or so I thought. It is with the most profound regret,” and here she carefully put on a face of wounded innocence, “that I come to reveal to the good people of Triport the complicity of my husband, Ishàmae d’Arangioc of House Silverthorne, in a plot to betray the orders of the Goddess Hazel and bring ruin to the city of Triport.”
“That is a hefty claim, Lady Lynamane.” Judge Severant intoned. “Have you more specific accusations and perhaps some proof to go along with your grand statements?”
“Oh, your honor! I wish I did not!” Here Lynamane swept up one arm in a dramatic fashion, temporarily covering her face with a shroud of silk. “But in my role as executor of the remains of House Silverthorne—" Isha drew in a hiss of breath at that “—I have come across documents, correspondence, between Ishàmae and a political entity known as Family First.”
Isha’s hiss of indignation turned into a snort of absurdity.
“Who’re they?” I whispered.
“A radical fringe cult down in Southwind, who believe that having babies is always a good idea, at any cost.” he whispered back. “I have heard of them, but even if I agreed with their philosophy, they would turn the blessings of the Goddess to support mortal political ends.”
“These documents,” and here she turned to look directly at us, “signed in his own name!”—the arm swept again, this time in our direction—“speak of a plot to steal the very heart of our Goddess, our religion, our way of life! They mean to steal our most holy artifact, the Statuette of Seedlings...”
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