"I am sorry I had to kill the cinder," he said. "Those poor folk deserve the best care we can give them."
"I'm sorry for it, too," I answered. "But at that moment, you had no choice."
"I know I didn't. He was armed and murderous."
"And you didn't know what he was at the time."
"It makes me - sad - whenever I see one. When I was young..."
A pensive silence surrounded us for a while. I wanted to ask, but waited.
"I was betrothed to a very nice girl when I was young. We liked each other very much, so neither of us minded that ours was a political match. But when she was nineteen, the year we were to be married, she contracted Red Fever. The vaccination didn't work on her, though it did on her brothers. They were immune from the plague."
"It doesn't take in about thirty percent of the population," I said. "But the vaccination usually lessens the plague's effects on those it doesn't completely protect."
"Not her. She had no protection at all, poor thing."
Since dealing with the cinder had roused this memory in him, I guessed, "She did not die, but she did not survive, either."
He nodded. "A cinder. One of the quiet, peaceful ones."
"I am sorry." And I did blame myself, a little, even if the vaccine helped far more than it failed.
"She is well looked after. Her governess claims she responds to the colors and scents of flowers, but I think that is hopeful delusion. She is as still in a garden as she is everywhere else."
"You visit her, then."
"I used to. I also used to hope she'd wake up and be herself one day. We all did - her family, mine, all the doctors and caretakers. At first..." He hesitated, and gave me a hard look. I read in his eyes that he didn't want to say more, but decided I should know. "At first her parents wanted me to marry her anyway. Her mind was gone, but she was a healthy woman otherwise."
I gasped. Why was he confiding something so personally heartbreaking to me? Because in the dark, after a battle, words that need taking out and saying can be safely entrusted to comrades?
"They needed grandchildren, you see," he went on. "It wasn't selfish on their part, not exactly. The family is in danger of dying out. The heads of families do what they must for the generations of the name."
I couldn't hide how appalled I was. I touched his arm. "Yes, but it was cruel. To you as much as to her. You said she has brothers to carry on the name."
"I agree it was cruel. I refused, for her sake as well as mine. Then her elder brother died in the war. Her younger brother's lover died in childbirth. More pressure was put on me to wed my poor cinder girl. Quite a rift developed between my family and hers... the sort of thing that used to lead to clan feuds in the old days. Eventually her mother came to her senses and apologized. She is rather ashamed of herself over the whole affair, because she's not a bad woman. She's still ruthless about her family, but at least she won't let her daughter be raped for the sake of grandchildren. Although, perhaps other people's..."
He said no more, leaving me wondering, then and now, what he meant. Then I noticed Lord Eagle bend down to share words with the seated Dowager, and the truth of the dangerous knowledge North had given me tumbled into place. My whole being twisted in a mutter of exquisite terror. By the All, why had North imparted what must be a state secret to me?
Perhaps because what was dangerous knowledge to me was merely his life to him. People talked about themselves to doctors. He hadn't named names, after all, but...
It was assumed the Imperial Princess had died of the plague. There had never been any official announcement, but...
Who would Lord North be betrothed to - a political match - but someone of the highest rank...?
Everyone knew the Dowager and Lord North did not like each other. Most speculation on why centered around the nobles of the northern islands chaffing for more autonomy, but what if it was more personal...?
I did not want to know this. I should not know this. For a panicked moment I was sure that the Dowager, or Lord Eagle, who was surely the cinder princess's father, were going to look at me and know that I knew their private business. I wanted to run away. What I managed to do was stay still, very, very still. I kept my head down or my gaze anywhere but on the Imperial couple at the top of the stairs. I tried not to think of anything at all. Eventually the ceremony was over and we were able to leave. Even in my bright yellow dress it wasn't hard to blend into the crowd. I made it out the temple's great gaping doors. I made it into the closed privacy of the Cliff carriage. I felt safe, free. There was a celebration waiting back at the rental palace, but I had already declined my place at the feast. I was leaving Loudon, as planned. Everyone knew I was leaving. I wasn't running away.
It was Dwie Kestrel who caught me, Apprehender that he was. He was waiting in the entry hall when I stepped into the house. Bell was standing beside him, with her arms crossed. She looked very, very angry.
Dwie's kind eyes focused on me the moment I entered. They were full of worry, even though he stood there as stiff and strong as steel. "I am sorry," he said, stepping up to take me by the arm. "My orders are to bring you, Dr. Megere Cliff, before High Judge Lord Goshawk to face questioning on a charge of sedition."
Chapter Forty-Two
You cannot refuse an Apprehender. Not even one who is almost a brother-in-law. At least he allowed me to change into more appropriate clothes before taking me to the Temple of Justice. Although Father, Mother, and Uncle Eadum wanted to come with me, they were not allowed to.
"What do you mean sedition?" Father demanded.
"She's a Cliff. Cliffs don't get apprehended," Uncle Eadum protested.
"Send for our solicitors," practical Aunt Edime said.
"I wager it's about that wretched book," Mother said.
I heard all this while Dwie led me to a carriage, escorting me through the crowd of family surrounding me.
Dwie wouldn't tell me anything when I asked, so we traveled across the city in silence. I glared at him the whole way. Not so much because I blamed him for following orders, but because it was easier to concentrate on being furious at this indignity upon my person being performed by almost one of my own family than to let myself be afraid. As hard as I tried this method, I still couldn't keep out the occasional memory of hearing about sedition trials, and Lord Goshawk sending people away to prison islands.
What had I been accused of? Was it something to do with the College of Surgeons? Had Cleric Moor died and was I being blamed for it? I knew the mental speculation that grew wilder and wilder to be an exercise in utter nonsense. I regretted my vivid imagination.
I regretted it even more when I was brought into a large courtroom and the first thing I noticed was copies of my book on the table reserved for the Crown Questioner. Mother had been right. I stood in the doorway, stunned. Really frightened.
Professor Diamond, what have you done?
Come to think of it, what had I done?
This thought floated through my head and helped calm me down. I looked around, taking in the details of a room designed to impress and intimidate, to say Justice is done here with quantities of carved dark wood, marble statues, rows of seats going up the sides of the room like those in a surgery class room. There were no windows, but there was a skylight in the high dome overhead. There were many sconces of moss lights. Justice could not be found in darkness.
The apprehended one was meant to be looked down on, I suppose, like a cadaver being dissected. Various clerks and clerics stood by side doors and sat at small desks. A man and a woman in black robes sat at the prosecution table on the next level up from where they put me. Farther up, two men and a woman sat behind the High Bench, loomed over by a huge carved Seal of Justice on the wall behind them. Of course everyone in the room besides myself was dressed in black. My blue and cream dress spoke out loudly as a sign of not belonging, of wrongness, of presumed guilt. The color focused attention on me. Very effective symbolism.
The man seated in the ce
nter chair was higher than those on the other side of him. Which I supposed made this Lord Goshawk. He certainly had the beaky nose and stern expression of a raptor. So did Lord North, of course, but I'd gotten used to him. Goshawk was bald as an egg, which only made him look even more fierce.
I noticed that there was no one seated at the second table before the High Bench, the place where the apprehended's defenders should be. I took some cheer at the thought of several Cliff cousins in solicitors’ tabards banging on the doors of the chamber for admittance at any time now. My low podium was directly across from the high bench. This was the place where all gazes focused. No chair for me.
The man at the prosecutor's table stood and leveled a stern look at me. "State your name."
My mouth opened, but I managed to stop myself from automatically responding to his commanding tone. "Sir," I said instead. "We have not been introduced."
"You are in a court of justice. Answer what you are asked."
He was very good at being authoritative.
But I had served under the best captain in the navy, who was the All incarnate on the bridge of his ship. I knew how to take a public drubbing, and the hard side of a Copper tongue. If I showed any fear before this, this - civilian - I would disgrace myself , my family, the service, my profession, and probably any talent I had to dissemble as a creator of fiction. And this horrible meeting, for some reason, was about my fiction, after all. About the extension of myself that had spun itself into a book. I would not shame my book.
Not that I wasn't very afraid, and growing more so by the moment.
"Are you Dr. Megere Cliff?" the prosecutor asked, after a considerable silence.
"I am Dr. Megere Cliff."
"I'm glad that's settled," the woman at the table said, and got a hard look from her colleague before he concentrated on me.
He picked up a book, and handed it to a clerk. The clerk brought it to me.
"What is the title of this book?"
"Darnin Clover."
"What is the name of the author printed on the cover?"
"Megere Cliff."
"Are you the author of this book?"
"I am."
I remembered how the author of the book at the reading we had attended had signed his name on copies of his book for people. I curbed any urge to ask the prosecutor if he would like me to autograph it for him. Perhaps I was becoming hysterical. But I wasn't stupid enough to open my mouth.
"Why did you write this book?"
I had to think about this for a bit. There were so many reasons. The simplest was, "I wanted to tell this story."
"Why?"
Wheels turned in my head while I was glared at by the prosecutor. He had dark eyes, and heavy dark brows. He was very good at glaring.
"I mean no disrespect, sir," I finally said. "But my first answer is also the answer to your second question. I wanted to tell a story about a sailor having adventures."
"A common sailor?"
"Yes."
"You are the daughter of a corporate gentry family, one that has recently been elevated beyond the gentry. Why care about a common seaman?"
"I served aboard a naval ship. I became familiar with the lives of able seaman."
I was tempted to continue on about how the hero of my book was smart and ambitious and - words that someone prosecuting me for sedition likely wanted to hear from me so he could use them against me. So I left it with familiar.
"You are a meritocrat."
This was not a question, so I didn't answer. My knees tried to tremble at the accusing way he spoke. I realized I was standing at attention, but didn't try to relax. Didn't dare relax. It was better on my treacherous knees.
"Describe what happens in Darnin Clover."
"Simply put, sir..." I hunted frantically for a safe as well as simple explanation. "...it is about a crewman aboard a naval vessel who survives a pirate attack. He and several of his comrades are picked out of the water by the pirate ship and impressed to serve onboard. When the pirates attack a naval ship, Darnin - the hero - convinces his mates to mutiny. They take over the pirate ship and surrender it to the naval vessel."
He gave the faintest of nods. "I have read the book, and that is the essential story. But what you have hung on that essential story is nothing short of dangerously seditious. You put radical meritocrat ideas in that simple tale. Ideas that you wish to spread to the lower classes. You wish to incite unrest, perhaps even rebellion, do you not?"
I had lost a lover because he thought I was too conservative. Now I was being accused of being a radical. I almost laughed, with bitterness, I assure you.
"Please answer, Dr. Cliff."
"I wrote an adventure story, sir. It was never meant to--"
Be published, I started to say. But I had written Darnin Clover. Whatever was in it was mine. I was not ashamed of my opinions.
"To be seditious," I finished.
The prosecutor raised one of his heavy eyebrows sarcastically. "The hero of your story shirks his duties, does he not? In order to read books that he borrowed without permission of his superior officers."
"Yes," I said. "Something he should not have done, as is pointed out in the book."
"But he did it."
"Darnin is hungry for knowledge, but serves on board a ship without an educational program. Captains do not have to provide schooling for crew members."
"But you believe they should."
"I do. But I did not say so in the book."
"You implied."
We looked at each other. The prosecutor waited. I waited. He wanted arguments and explanations I had no intention of giving. Climb another Cliff, I repeated over and over to myself. Let him climb another Cliff.
"Continue, Mr. Lark," Lord Osprey finally broke the silence.
"The hero of your book has an inappropriate romantic attachment to a female ship's officer who is also a minor noble, does he not?"
"He does. He also never shows these feelings, or makes any statement or moves that would indicate his attachment. He feels what he feels. He cannot help his emotions, but he does control them."
"You advocate sexual relationships between classes."
"There are no sexual relationships in Darnin Clover."
"You advocate sexual relations between officers and crew."
I was outraged. "I most certainly do not. That is an intolerable breach of discipline. In the book, Darnin puts his duty before his feelings, as a proper sailor must and will."
"Your hero is a pirate. You advocate lawlessness."
"I believe all pirates should be executed."
"Your hero was rewarded for his acts of piracy."
"He was rewarded for saving a naval ship from pirates."
"His reward is a chance to enter the Naval Academy. His reward is a chance to improve himself through his own efforts."
Mr. Lark picked up several pieces of paper from the prosecution table. "Have you read these, Dr. Cliff?" He handed them to me.
They were circulars, from subscription libraries in Seyemouth, Cuttle Island, and Chalabee. Each had a description of my book, along with comments and recommendations.
"I have not seen these before," I said.
"Read the underlined parts to the court, Dr. Cliff."
But I read each circular with more eagerness than the situation warranted. The one from Seyemouth said, This novel shows a new side of naval ships by concentrating on the lives of the common man. The subject matter is unusual, yet entertaining.
I liked that one.
Cuttle Island's critic was not so kind. Darnin Clover is utter nonsense. It is also no more than one step away from advocating the overturning of society.
I winced. Gave Mr. Lark a quick glance. He looked pleased.
I went on to the third circular, the one from the far western island of Chalabee. I was amazed a copy of the book had made it so far. The story illustrates the frustrations and almost hopeless yearnings of a common man caught in an inflexible militar
y system. That Clover manages to fulfill some of his dreams at the end is unbelievable, but uplifting.
I was not sure if the critic liked the book or not.
"As you can see, not everyone agrees with you that yours is a simple adventure story, Dr. Cliff."
"Meritocracy is not illegal," I pointed out.
"When it advocates revolution, it is." This, from Lord Goshawk. "Call your witnesses, Mr. Lark."
Chapter Forty-Three
Commander Gate, second in command of the Moonrunner, was shown through a side door. He wore his dress uniform and all his medals. Even his eyepatch looked fresh and new. I was glad to see that he had lost weight, as part of my recommendations on treating his diabetes. I hoped he was also continuing to take the cinnamon and fenugreek pills and blueberry leaf tisane and eating as much garlic as I had prescribed. I also hoped I wasn't dragged off to a prison island before I had a chance to check his fingers and feet for numbness.
He flashed me a quick, apologetic glance then went to the witness box, a podium a level up from the lawyers’ tables and set to my right. He stated his name, rank, and relationship to me.
All of Mr. Lark's questions were about the letter Mr. Waterman had sent to me, which Gage had helped him write and send. Also about what he knew of Mr. Waterman's reading Darnin Clover to the crew. Lark made it all sound very subversive and dangerous. Were he not trying to prove I'd done something illegal, I might have admired his skill at spinning a tale.
Mr. Cage tried to answer as much as possible with “yes, sir” and “no, sir”.
When asked his opinion of the book, he answered, "I have no interest in reading made-up stories, sir."
Which got him dismissed from the witness box.
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