Romrad was the first witness called. He knelt and placed his hands between Melha's to give his oath. But before he testified, samples of his damaged property were brought in and laid on nearby evidence tables. Brindle's mud-stained sleeping cushion was placed at Melha's feet in plain view of all.
Just as Romrad started to speak, Brindle's image materialized on the cushion. The audience gasped. The tree-cat regarded them with alert eyes and lashing tail. Romrad's voice cracked, but he forced himself to continue. The strong brown hands of the seeress restrained him from attempting to touch the shade of his murdered pet. On the evidence table, a casket flew open and spilled its contents. Fragments of a jar reunited briefly, then smashed. Ruined books left and flapped like landed fish.
Lord Nacol warned the buzzing crowd to keep still. Romrad was dismissed and directed to stand beside the tables. Other merchants came forward one by one to testify in the same manner, but none had seen or heard anything suspicious that night because of the thunderstorm.
Finally, Hamper's turn came. I noticed his lips moving in what could have been a spell. As he strode toward the seeress, Brindle bristled and snarled. Hansper shied from the hissing beast, but a bailiff forced him to his knees before Melha for his oath. Evidence stirred on the tables. It thumped and crashed while the cat snarled. Hansper had to shout his denials.
"I know nothing of this crime!"
Bleeding gashes ripped across his hands. The crowd screamed. Romrad wept.
"Your victims accuse you, Master Hansper," said Lord Nacol in a voice that quelled the din. "What say you?"
Hansper rose defiantly. "You speak of victims, my lord? I am the real victim here, victim of the greedy temple. It means to ruin me by conjurer's tricks and confiscate my goods. Surely this court is too wise to be deceived. What did I possibly have to gain by harming Master Romrad? His trade was no rival to mine."
Full-armored in his pride, Hansper did not even try to conceal the damning claw marks or the red stains spreading through his clothing. I was appalled that Romrad offered no challenge. Hansper's cunning talk might raise doubts about the evidence—and our temple. If Romrad would not speak for himself, I would.
I pushed to the front and cried, "Behold the motive!"
After the bailiffs let me pass, I took the book box out of my sleeve, opened it, and gave the manuscript leaves to Melha. "A man might kill more than a cat to steal The Scale of Scales, the book legend calls The Key of Hearts Desire. Somehow Master Hansper learned that Master Romrad had assembled a few priceless fragments of this book and resolved to steal them. He relied on the storm to cloak his crime, but while he was wrecking the book-healer stand, the prize he sought was elsewhere."
Confusion boiled through the crowd.
Lord Nacol signaled for silence. "Are these manuscript pages yours, Master Romrad?"
The old man dutifully identified his property. "Yes, Your Lordship. I had left it with Father Tomazio in hopes my friend could help me unravel the book's secrets."
"What spells does it contain that make it so precious?"
"There is only one spell, Your Lordship, repeated from leaf to leaf. It promises rewards beyond mortal ken according to one's inmost wish."
"Have you tried it?"
"I am no mage, Your Lordship. I simply wanted to study The Scale of Scales, not use it."
"A man would have to be very sure of his merit to risk so rigorous a test. By his own testimony, such a man is Master Hansper."
The accused glowered, unrepentant to the last. "I have always known my own worth even when the world denied it. False charges cannot taint me."
Before the magistrate could reply, Melha raised her voice for the first time. She sang judgment on Hansper in notes as_ keen as flensing knives:
''Since you distain this lawful court, Submit yourself to higher laws. Now let the book that weighs the soul Deal out the doom your deeds deserve.”
Hansper took the verdict in silence, his face as hard as a statue cast from flawed metal.
"So be it," proclaimed Lord Nacol. "Let justice be done through ordeal by magic. We shall see if the power that can punish the guilty will also reward the innocent."
The magistrate commanded both Hansper and Romrad to hold The Scale of Scales while the seeress chanted its spell aloud. Hansper's bloody fist crumpled the edge of the parchment, but Romrad's knobby fingers grasped it lightly as a lover's.
Mingled fear and curiosity froze us all in our places. The only sound in the courtroom was the old book-healer's raspy breathing. He fumbled for his amber talisman and continued to clutch it even after his lungs had cleared. He bowed and closed his eyes against the coming blow.
Melha's voice struck. We moaned and writhed and covered our ears to escape its awful beauty. The written words I had read without effect now cut to the very bone. My sight blurred. The forms of Romrad and Hansper lost their color. They faded to black outlines.
"Save us, Lords, or we perish," I sobbed, and fainted on the floor.
The ministrations of Lenise and Lensay revived me. Bailiffs were assisting other groggy witnesses. Clerks clustered nervously around the blank-faced magistrate, but no one dared touch Melha, who still lay slumped unconscious in her chair. But Romrad and Hansper had vanished along with The Scale of Scales, the ruined goods, and the specter of Brindle.
Everyone gave statements to the court recorder and staggered off to our own quarters.
I slept until evening, mercifully without dreams. When I awoke, I discovered that in my dazed state, I had carried Romrad's book box home. In it lay one last leaf of The Scale of Scales, the one with the purple-dyed recto side. But its verso was no longer blank.
It bore a fresh illumination painted in the best modern style—Orina of Loray could not have done it better. There, within a border of gilded vines and redda leaves, a scholar who might have been a younger Romrad sat reading. Around the base of his book-laden desk curled a guardian tigrigriff with fur like striped amber. But inside the initial letter that opened the text of the spell, a man with taloned hands scrabbled to dig a golden statue out of a cesspit. Both man and idol wore Hansper's face.
So the power that had erased their images in this world had painted them anew . . . elsewhere. Did other lives likewise adorn the other decorated pages?
I breathed the Sky Lords' blessing on my old friend and his tree-cat. Then I slipped the remaining leaf inside an ancient list of temple offerings. There may it rest, deep in our archives, until it is ready to be found again, it and its fellows with pages yet unfilled.
THE DEMON'S GIFT
Kathleen O’Malley
Luca spat the bitter milk onto the ground. The lumpy, yellowed curds that fell from her mouth belied the seemingly sweet liquid sloshing in the cup she still held.
"She witched it!" the merchant Tagus bellowed at the bravo standing beside the woman. "Taste it yourself!" He wrenched the cup from her, throwing half its contents over his own hand. "It's good, mild milk! Taste it, Oskar!"
The fair-ward held up his hands. "It's not for me to judge. I'm only here to see Luca comes to no harm on her rounds."
"Good thing for her, too," Tagus said, "if she spends her time casting spells on the goods of honest traders!"
The short, stocky woman pulled a sweet from her cloth purse and popped it into her mouth. Her graying brown hair blew against her round face, and she impatiently tugged it back into the small bun where it belonged. Her eyes, a soft brown flecked with green, never left Tagus's face. "No one has to bewitch that ewe's milk, Tagus, you ruin it yourself."
She moved confidently to the merchant's sheep, penned in the rear of the stall. A gawky lad of twelve, whose nose and chin proclaimed him unmistakably as Tagus's son, stood in her way, but only for a moment. A little white dog creeping low around the woman's heels suddenly emerged from the curtain of her skirt, lips raised over small, sharp teeth, and darted threateningly at the boy's ankles, forcing him back.
The clean, fluffy sheep clumped together in alarm as
Luca approached, then calmed as she crooned something low, except for one old ram who kept a wary eye on the dog. "Be still, Bear," she warned, "there's work here that's worrying me."
"Boy!" Tagus shouted. "Don't let her in there!"
The youngster flinched visibly at his father's sharp command but dared not challenge the dog.
"It's her right, Tagus," Oskar said, laying a hand on Tagus's shoulder, "granted by the high priests in the name of the Three."
"In the name of the Three, what's Ithkar Fair come to that a trader can't sell his beasts without being magicked!"
By now Luca was in the pen, while Bear sat on his haunches outside, keeping guard. The woman held the head of a full-uddered ewe, looked long in the animal's eyes, then breathed into her nostrils. Finally, Luca touched a stone tied about her own neck, stared into it, then finally marched back to the men.
"You're poisoning your sheep, y'bastard!"
"What?" yelped the merchant. "The witch is mad, Oskar!"
"It's in the milk of that ewe, and in her breath! And the Thorn is dull when I'm near them."
The gem was half a handspan long and of a strange, ruddy hue, tied in wicker netting around Luca's neck. It had gone dim since she'd approached the ewe, but even without its usual brilliance, the sharp-edged shard twinkled with power.
"All Ithkar will hear how the priests have countenanced witchery against the merchants that fill their offering chests!" Tagus threatened. "We're forbidden to use spells on our wares, yet she can bend the rules so easily?" He pointed at
Luca accusingly. "And how did the likes of you come to own a stone that glimmers of the dark and looks like something from the Death Swamp? No one gets out of the swamp with their wits, so whose widow did you steal it from? You couldn't afford to pay for the tiniest chip of a thing like that! That gem should be in the hands of the priests. How is it this woman is allowed to defy the first laws of Ithkar?"
Oskar grabbed hold of Luca's arm, pulling her aside. "Are you so very sure this time?"
"Oskar!" Luca seemed disappointed with her lanky friend. "You're letting this lout's ravings unnerve you. You know very well the Thorn has nothing to do with the dark. He wants to distract us from his animals. His sick animals."
"These sheep, Luca? Their fleeces are the finest I've seen, and the milk seemed fine before you drank. I know you trust your stone, but what am I to do with no other evidence? You must understand, Luca."
She nodded. "I understand Tagus brings gold every year that lines the fat priests' pockets—"
"Luca!"
"—and a lamb or two for the pot. He's poisoning his sheep, and if my word's worth nothing, then I hope the bitterness in those lambs gives the priests the raging—''
"Luca! Enough! You'll get us all cast from the fair!" Oskar walked back to confront Tagus. "Be warned, merchant. Luca has every right to question the health of your stock. If she finds that you're treating them ill, you'll be cast out from Ithkar. We'll be checking again." He latched onto Luca's arm and hustled her off, his sudden action frightening Bear, who set up a terrible barking, until his voice finally turned into one long, howling note as the friends left Tagus grumbling behind.
"Is it just the grossly sick I'm to help? There's more to ill treatment than that!" Luca argued, huddled over her beer. The two sat at a center table in the Joyous Goblet, rubbing elbows and rumps with the tavern's customers. Oskar had finished his duties for the night, content to draw pictures in the sweat of his stein.
"Luca, if you hadn't been so smooth-tongued that day you pounded on the priests' door—and, in truth, if they hadn't been so scared of what they saw in that stone-they'd have snatched your gem and cast you out right then." Oskar drained his mug and signaled the tavern-keep for another round. It was late in the day, and the inn was enjoying good business, filled with customers dressed in all! the different costumes of the varied peoples that came yearly to Ithkar Fair.
"I should know!" Oskar continued. "I was there, as usual, running myself into the ground with their fetches and carries. But I can still remember how they buzzed when you showed that rock." He snickered, remembering. "Scared the lot of them into holiness for a week, and made my days easier . . . till they ordered me to guard you during the fair!"
"As you remind me constantly. Well, the fair's only two weeks from finished, and then you can go back to tending Their Holinesses and I can go back to the fen. But if I can't get the priests to give my stone more credence, there's little point in my returning again." She drained the last of her own beer, regarding the bottom sadly. "Tagus is killin' his sleep . . .eh, sheep, and that chicken farmer's up to something as well. Those birds were wild with terror ..." She clamped one hand over her mouth to stifle a hiccup and the other over her mug as the tavern-keep tried to fill it again. A second hiccup caused Bear to bristle and snarl, fearful as he was of strange digestive sounds, even from his mistress. "Oskar, I'm starved."
"That's no surprise. You found something to complain about at every booth we passed. This one's cheese, that one's milk, eggs that looked clean to me, and beans 'ruined' by a ham bone!"
"That pig died horribly. ..."
"You cannot live on bread and sweets, Luca!"
"Is it my fault most of the traders think so little of the beasts that feed and clothe them, and put coin in their purses, that they cannot give them a fair life, or easy death?"
Oskar leaned near his friend, sharing his beery breath. 4 *Y'should throw away the stone, Luca, and not concern yourself with all this blood and bile of dumb beasts."
Outraged, the woman thumped her fist hard on the heavy table, causing more than one head to turn. "Throw away the Thorn?" Her dog began to howl, and with practiced moves she scooped him up in her arms, clamping one hand around his overactive muzzle. "Live as the rest of you? Stupid and callous and uncaring?" The dog punctuated Luca's argument with muffled woofs while trying to wriggle free.
"Fine thing that!" she spat, contemptuous. "Oskar, when I pulled this Thorn from the paw of the swamp beast, his gratitude filled my heart till I thought it would melt. Every time I help some 'dumb beast' from his hardship, the flood of that relief fills me again. That's worth all the succulent carcasses the world could serve up. I'll keep my Thorn, thank you, and my hungry belly, too, if that's what it takes. ..." She released her dog's mouth, and he subsided with small grumbles and a passing lick at her chin. She glared around at the customers who gaped at her, and they quickly busied themselves.
The exception was a lean, gaudily dressed woman at the next table who boldly met Luca's glare with her shadowy gray eyes. "If you'd like a clean bit of food, you're welcome at my tent," the stranger said. "I promise you'll taste no pain in it."
Oskar and Luca looked meaningfully at each other but said nothing. The woman stood to leave, moving gracefully though she stood nearly as tall as lanky Oskar. Even Bear was quiet as they all rose to follow her.
"I'm Gwynngold of the Irfan," she said as they entered her stall. The long, narrow space was kept private from her neighboring merchants by means of woven blankets, rugs, and fabrics draped over ropes strung along the timbers that outlined her boundaries. It made the small area seem like a festive patchwork tent. Her small, ornamented wagon was parked near the rear, where more blankets sat folded, turning wooden chests into comfortable seats that surrounded a clever clay stove. A pot of the same material sat on ebbing coals and gave off an aroma of something wonderful.
Just then, a brace of attractive, shaggy animals the size of small horses stepped out from behind the wagon, chewing cud and gazing at the visitors with large, black, limpid eyes. Gwynngold smiled and touched them with affection. "This is Daras," she said, "and that Basra."
"You must be from far away," Oskar said in surprise. "I've never seen beasts like these."
"We call them the Kaffa, and we live together in the mountains to the north."
"You shear them?" Luca asked, rubbing her face against the luxurious blankets and bolts of plush cloth Gwynngold had bro
ught to sell. So beautiful was the animals' wool that all the yarns were woven in their natural colors of browns, golds, and purest white. Gwynngold herself went clothed in soft trousers and vest of the same fabric, and Luca realized how the varied hues of the yarns matched the Irfan's hair, streaked as it was with browns and golds and white. She realized, also, that touching these clothes did not cause her to erupt in the hideous, itching splotches that the fabrics of many other weavers did.
"No," Gwynngold answered, "their coats shed the softest parts in spring and fall, and we comb it out. These beasts are stubborn and intelligent and strike out if ill treated, which makes them much like the Irfan. The yarn is their gift to us, as is their milk and honest labor. We are nomads, and the Kaffa help us find good mountain pastures, clean water, tubers and plants for food, and flax for homespun."
"And their young?" Luca asked, suspicious.
"Kaffa breed seldom. A calf is only killed if he is maimed and would die in pain. The death of a Kaffa is the death of a friend."
The Thorn had recovered some of its glow while Luca and Oskar were at the tavern, but as they'd entered Gwynngold's tent, it had started to twinkle. Now it was gleaming so wildly that its rainbow colors danced over tent, beasts, and people. The sparkles reeled and swirled even though Luca stood still. Bear snapped at the colors, trying to catch one.
The Kaffa, untethered, approached the strangers with interested snuffles. Oskar endured Daras, who examined him from toes to nose, while Luca shared breath with Basra. Impulsively, the woman threw her arms about the graceful neck.
Gwynngold brought out bread, cheese, and dried fruits, offering the food first to Basra, Daras, and Bear. This forced the dog to reassess his normally suspicious attitude and give her a tentative tail wag.
As people and animals feasted, the dancing colors of the ruddy gem gave the tent an air of celebration. It was only when Luca was sopping up the last of the thick grain and tuber stew that had been simmering in the stove that Gwynngold finally spoke up. "When you were speaking at the inn—"
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 16