“It was her child,” Wendra whispered in realization. “The judge is the regent herself. It was her child the man tried to keep dead.” She looked over at Tahn, her eyes wide.
“The particulars are irrelevant,” Penit continued as counselor. “You are privy to the most delicate information in the realm. You admit to speaking in open defiance to our lady. You accept the testimony of witnesses that describe your actions as contrary to the lady’s wishes. And even now you place your ethics above the peaceful traditions of this Court of Judicature.” Penit waved a hand as though to erase the insufferable image of the defendant, and stood up slowly from his slight crouch. “Do you deny any of this?”
Penit rounded deliberately, his face slackening to near tranquility. “Yes.”
Braethen looked on at Penit, marveling at the story.
As the accused he explained. “This chamber hasn’t been house to peaceful traditions since the First Promise. Solath Mahnus is a monument to possibilities, but today many of its chairs sit vacant in the council rooms. Bloodlines run diluted with the cowardice of civility.” Penit widened his stance and looked heavenward, even more defiant. “We are men, women, and children. We are hopeful and able. We are grown in our understanding and have enjoyed peace for generations.” Penit stopped. His eyes seemed to gather the light of stars. His voice softened, deepened. “But we are not gods.”
A chill ran down Tahn’s spine. Penit stood resolute, maintaining his fiction, eyes peering up at a judge no one could see.
A scowl rose on the Sheason’s face.
Penit then whirled violently, his feet throwing rocks and dirt in a shower as he forced himself to a stop. “Such impudence! Such disrespect! How dare you say such things to our lady. You’re a mule. I’ll have you bound—”
Penit leapt, forgoing the turn. “Why do you assume I speak only of your lady? No one should claim the rights and powers of the First Ones. Such arrogance has consequences.”
Penit slid to the spot of his fiction’s regent. “We return to pride so often, it seems.” Consternation slipped from his brow, replaced by pity. “Have you considered that trying to prevent the Sheason from restoring a life (as you did) is the same attempt to control life and death of which you accuse us? You,” Penit shoved a regent’s finger toward the fire, “are the one guilty of claiming godhood. You are a hypocrite.… You are a traitor.”
A brief turn, and Penit raised his head. “To your law, perhaps. But I am not selfish.”
Again Penit paused. Wood crackled and popped in the flames. Embers rose in orange flares against the night and winked out. The boy’s words froze them all, the severity of the indictment casting a pall over the plain.
It’s a simple rhea-fol, Tahn thought.
Penit completed a wide circle as he resumed the role of accuser. “Let us put an end to this,” he said with a note of finality.
The boy gracefully took the place where he spoke in the voice of the regent, and frowned toward the fire with a look of melancholy. “You may make rebuttal if you so choose. I call on you to use discretion. But you mustn’t feel constrained from sharing any information you believe has bearing in this Dissent. No matter the costs to others.” Penit raised his brows, deeply furrowing his forehead. “You may speak freely. Do you understand?” Penit looked into the fire expectantly.
Then, another proud turn, and his head inclined toward the stars low on the southern horizon. He nodded, and adopted the most steadfast demeanor Tahn could imagine. “I tremble at what is about to take place here,” Penit said in low, resigned tones.
“Hour after hour, for years I studied the art and tactics of combat. Became a student of the body: its movement, its capabilities, its purpose. My preparations made me valuable to the men and women who occupy Council seats. I’ve stood in attendance during court sessions and heard the life of a single man blithely dismissed. In higher, grander rooms, it was the lives of scores of men. And not soldiers alone, but the innocent people of a nation. People whose livelihoods turn on the decisions a few make around a banquet table.” Penit swallowed, his throat thick with emotion. “All this I witnessed, but kept my hope in the simple balance of life, believing we yet choose our paths, and that the only real measure of our lives is our response to it.”
Sutter was nodding. Wendra and Braethen, too. Vendanj waited, focused, as if wanting Penit to get the words right.
“But our attempts to define law are miserable,” the accused declared with firm resolve. “They grow out of the mistaken belief that one group of people knows better than another. And we fail when we assume more authority than is rightly ours. It’s inconvenient, this life. But to rob it of its sting is to deprive it of the very reason to live.” Penit took a deep breath and looked about, capturing the eyes of each of his audience in turn, ending with Tahn.
Looking back to where the regent might be, he said, “I don’t acknowledge the authority of this court to pass judgment on me. It’s a body of men and women too steeped in their own traditions to acknowledge a higher law. I hereby grant myself amnesty from its ruling. Its deliberations have no bearing on my life. You do as you will. But I will grant myself freedom and liberty from this mockery.”
Jamis sighed in sympathy for this man Penit played.
Vendanj stroked his beard with thumb and forefinger, a mix of admiration and disagreement in his face.
Penit turned a final time, retaking the first position of his narration. A resolute look stole over him, a look different from those of the other characters he’d portrayed. Staring at the fire, the boy began to speak in the voice of the regent. “I will excuse your blasphemy because I know you face a great challenge in reconciling justice with your own actions.”
Glaring, Penit said, “You’re no different than the host of men and women brought here who try to cover up their crimes or justify them because they fear their sentence.” In an angrier tone, he continued, “I only regret that I took you into my confidence. Would you be so bold had you never been my Emerit? You’ve become the very sanctimonious nobility you despise.”
Penit waved a dismissive hand. “I will abide no removal of the Council for deliberation. By a raise of hands I want a vote now on the dissenter’s guilt.” Penit cast his glance around. The boy’s haunted expression as he looked about the fire circle chilled Tahn to the bone. Without seeing a single juror, he knew the vote.
With pleasure Penit announced, “The record will indicate unanimous conviction. Set the rest down as I now say.” Penit raised his chin so that he might look down his nose at the flames, at the convicted. “For the crime of treason it is hereby declared that Denolan SeFeery is unfit for citizenship in the free city of Recityv. It is further known and witnessed to in this writ that Emerit SeFeery has willfully committed treason against the stewardship entrusted to him and against the right order of progress as held by the Higher Court of Judicature and the League of Civility.
“Denolan SeFeery is thus remanded to permanent exile, and in the interest of justice will be given a sentence in the emptiness known as the Scar.
“Anyone known to abet Denolan SeFeery will be adjudged a traitor like unto him and punished accordingly.
“From this day forward, Denolan SeFeery will no longer be referred to with the Emerit honors of his former office. And return to the free walls of Recityv shall be construed as an act of aggression and punished by immediate execution.
“And so it is,” Penit ended, his final word at once the crack of a gavel and the sound of a closing book. All that was spoken hung in the air, daring contradiction. It came as an epitaph, like words one reads on the gravestone of a dead man. The night swallowed the feeling, absorbed it. Deafening silence remained, broken only by the hiss of wood.
Then with a touch of familiarity Penit leaned forward. He spoke in a sweet, conversational tone. “Death is too good for you, Denolan. In exile you will feel the weight of your crimes, and the barrenness of the Scar will remind you of the barrenness of my womb. There you will live. And wha
t will keep you there? Your honor? A guard? An army?” Penit laughed caustically. “Hardly any of these. No, it will be the establishment of an orphanage for foundlings, castaways, the children of unfit parents. The very thing you hoped to prevent will be the tie that holds you to your heated rock. Derelict guardians will be forced to surrender their offspring to the Council, which will decide where the babes are to be reared. And to you will be sent a share. A tree will be hollowed as a waypoint and cradle at the edge of your domain. On an appointed day a child will be placed there, given into your care.”
Penit went on with severe reproof. “And if you don’t rescue these children from the tree, you will become the murderer you conspired two days ago to be. My officers will be watching; anyone other than you attempting to retrieve the children will be killed. What honor you still possess will fetter the sentence to you. If not,” Penit’s smile faded, his eyes blank in the firelight, “then the deaths of countless innocents will be yours.
“Grant yourself amnesty? Grant yourself freedom and liberty from this mockery? The mockery is yours, Denolan SeFeery. Mockery of life itself. I am done with you.” Penit stopped and stared into the fire.
Glassy eyed, the boy did nothing more than raise his head heavenward, a last character change. “And I am done with you. My name in your mouth and the gossip of your court is like the sting of vipers. I won’t answer to it again. I’m not accountable when your law is corrupt. When you violate the basic Charter of man. My obligation to you is done. I am free. I am clean … I am Grant.”
A long silence stretched when Penit was done playing the rhea-fol. Eventually, it was clear he’d finished.
Tahn shared a look with Sutter, who whispered the questions he was thinking. “Is it true? Or is it a lot of exaggeration? And who’s the child this Grant tried to keep dead?”
Tahn shrugged, and conversation lulled for a time. Eventually, the music started up again, and the somber rhea-fol was replaced by songs that gave a different voice to the same feeling.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Payment in Oaths
You know everything you need to know about a man by the way he treats his wife and child.
—Engraving in the lintel above the door at Hambley’s Inn, the Hollows
Grant walked in the early morning light, a cloak wrapped around his shoulders. He usually had no need of the garment. Not in the Scar. But here in the frost-covered hills at dawn, the chill had its bite. And the child he cradled close to his chest would have gotten cold.
The babe slept. And Grant neither hurried nor lingered, as he moved up the road beneath the overarching branches of sycamore, hemlock, and oak.
He knew his destination, and would arrive soon enough. So he kept a careful eye and a measured pace. When he came to the place, he wanted the infant rested.
He’d stopped to feed the babe several times a day. It made for slow going. But an end to that drew near. The man felt the pangs of relief and loss. As he always did.
He topped a rise and spied the small farm on a gradual slope a league distant. “Almost your time, little one,” he whispered. “We’ll see how you’re received today. I hope you don’t have to come back with me.”
The child woke, as if knowing it was being spoken to. Quiet and thoughtful the way a babe can often be, it stared up into Grant’s sun-worn face.
“But we must talk with them first,” Grant continued. “Let’s pray they have means.”
The child, still less than two weeks from its mother’s womb, stared, content. For the briefest of moments it appeared to understand his words. But her unfocused eyes soon turned in a new direction, and he turned himself to the path ahead. He tried not to let the softness of the child’s skin soften his resolve. This was the best thing for her.
Dew caught the radiance of dawn and shone back in a hundred points of bluish light. Long ago, in another life, he would have at least paused to consider the difference between his own life and that of the family he now approached.
He didn’t stop.
A small road blocked by a meager gate announced the farm he’d been angling toward. Up the path he went, the child tucked close to his chest. Moments later he came to the back steps of the dwelling.
He always rapped at a home’s rear door. Women and men who earned their way by the use of their hands rarely used the front entrance. Life turned on the axis of a home’s back door—closest to the kitchen and fire and stories. And while some didn’t recognize his subdued calling card (rear door and light knuckles), he felt it important that his errand have the appropriate level of solemnity and discretion.
Life: traded at the back doors of the world.
There were bargains to be made.
He rapped at this lintel, turning hard eyes on the yard as he cradled the child who began to stir. No chickens scratched at the packed earth; no cattle lowed in the field nearby. He worried these people didn’t have the resources to meet his demands. But then, there were many forms of payment.
The door drew back and a young wife dried her hands on a towel hanging from her belt before taking his hand in greeting and fingering the token of the hillfolk. Then she glanced down at the child in his arms. The look in her eye told him all he needed to know. This woman would love and teach and protect this child.
This may go well, after all.
She stepped aside, indicating that he should enter.
Inside the house, he sat, resting his legs from his long journey. He surveyed the modest home, noting cleanliness, books, food. Shortly, the woman’s husband stepped in: a large man with large hands. Good.
They bore each other company in silence for a long moment.
The woman spoke first. “Would you like some hot tea?”
Grant shook his head. “No. But the child could use some milk.”
The woman turned to a table behind her and took up a carafe. She crossed the room and waited for him to surrender the little girl. With interest he did so, and watched as the woman took the child in her arms, sat, and removed her towel. She twisted it at one corner and dipped it in the milk, then offered it to the babe in imitation of nursing. The child went right to it.
Grant nodded with satisfaction.
Then her husband spoke. “We can’t offer you much for the child.”
Grant turned to gather the man’s attention. “Payment isn’t always made with coin. What’s she worth to you?” The intimations were many, and Grant let them all hang in the air, ready to judge.
The hill-man stared back, seeming to consider. “She’ll have a hard life here. Many … most don’t live to see their stripling years.”
“So your payment is uncertainty?” Grant looked back at the sure hand of the woman feeding the infant.
“The child won’t go hungry,” the hill-man replied. “I’ll see to it. But beyond that, we’ve few promises here. And anything we give you will mean less for the child.”
Grant stared with eyes that might have looked faded from so long under a heavy sun. His own wages in this affair were hard won. “Your assurances aren’t grand, friend. There are others who have need of a healthy child like this one. A few days more on the road and I could return home with fuller pockets.”
The hill-man didn’t hesitate. “Choose that if you will. I’ve little use for quick hands to make a prize of a child. And at least you know I am no slaver. Some families would take the child and sell it to a highwayman. I can offer the little one my home, and the knowledge of the hills besides. I’ve no delusions. This is meager. And perhaps not the best place for the child after all. We’ll have our own questions to answer about how she came to us and from whom. These won’t be easy to avoid. And the truth brings its own risks to our home, if you take my meaning.”
Association with Grant was a crime. “I do at that. But I’ve my own balances to keep.” He stood. “For payment I’ll have your oath. And trust that I’ll call that marker if it’s broken. The child’s true parents, her origins, even me … we’re all irrelevant now. No questions
will you ask, or answer. And your commitment to the child will be the same as if she was your own.”
The hill-man took three steps and put out his hand. The two clasped, and the hill-man wrapped his finger around Grant’s thumb in the hillfolk token to seal his oath. The woman likewise nodded her assent. Grant went to the woman, whispering low, “She’ll grow to greatness, if treated better than was her start.” He put a hand on the child’s head in farewell.
He then strode from the room without another look at either the new father or mother. Into the first light of dawn he went, his weathered skin warmed by the sun. He set his feet back upon the road.
He had leagues to go.
* * *
The hard light of midday beat down on Grant. But it couldn’t injure his skin any more than his years in the Scar already had. He walked contented through the rolling hills, glad for the moment to be out of the Scar.
His contentment was shattered by angry shouts from the cottage he’d come to visit. He hastened his step, feeling an awful certainty of what he might find. He mounted the front stoop. Three voices—two belonged to adults, the other to a lad.
As he stopped to listen, a loud crack shot from inside the cabin. A fist striking the face of another, followed by the thump of someone falling to the cottage floor. A scream ripped through the windows and cracks in the cottage walls—the wail of a woman. Then another crack … and silence.
Grant pushed open the door.
Angry surprise registered on the face of a husband and father who stood panting at the room’s center. On the floor to the right lay his woman, crying now, her head buried in her hands. On the left sat a boy of ten—a boy Grant had brought to this family long ago. The lad struggled to suppress his anger and fear and helplessness. A heavy welt purpled one side of the boy’s face, the skin there also split. Blood dripped slowly down his cheek.
The lad lifted his gaze to Grant, and the two shared a long look. He knew its message. The boy wanted to be rescued. This moment of anger and abuse wasn’t the first. But any intervention would have to be permanent, because anything less would only bring more beatings after Grant left the cottage.
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