The door to Courtroom 27 opened. A young man wearing a smart green cap and an eager expression poked his head around it.
“Kathleen Jones!” he said. “Is she here? She’s next up.”
“That’s me.” Kitty’s heart was pounding; her wrists tingled with fear.
“Right. Julius Tallow. Is he here? We need him, too.”
Silence in the corridor. Mr. Tallow had not arrived.
The young man made a face. “Well, we can’t hang around. If he isn’t here, he isn’t. Miss Jones, if you would be so kind …”
He ushered Kitty ahead of him through the door and closed it softly behind them.
“That’s your seat over there, Miss Jones. The court’s ready to begin.”
The courtroom was of intimate size, square, and filled with a stained, melancholy light that filtered in through two giant arched windows of colored glass. The pictures in the windows both depicted heroic knight-magicians. One, encased in armor, was in the process of running a sword through the belly of a great demonic beast, all claws and knobbly teeth. The other, wearing a helmet and what looked like a long white shift, was exorcising a hideous goblin, which was falling through a square black hole that had opened in the ground. The other walls in the room were lined with dark wooden panels. The ceiling was wood, too, carved to resemble the stone vaults of a church. The room was fearsomely old-fashioned. As was perhaps the intention, Kitty felt awed and terribly out of place.
Against one wall ran a high platform, upon which was a huge wooden throne resting behind a long table. At one end of the table was a small desk, where three black-suited clerks sat, busily tapping at computers and leafing through piles of paper. Kitty passed in front of this platform, following the direction of the young man’s outstretched arm, toward a solitary high-backed chair silhouetted in front of the windows. Here, she sat. Another similar chair faced her from the opposite wall.
Across from the platform, a couple of public benches were separated from the court by a brass railing. To Kitty’s surprise, a few spectators were already gathering there.
The young man consulted his watch, took a deep breath, then yelled so loudly that Kitty jumped where she sat. “All rise!” he roared. “All rise for Ms. Fitzwilliam, Magician Fourth Level and Judge of this Court! All rise!”
A grinding of chairs, a scuffling of shoes. Kitty, clerks, and spectators got to their feet. As they did so, a door opened in the paneling behind the throne and a woman entered, black-robed and hooded. She sat herself on the throne and threw back her hood, revealing herself to be young, with brown bobbed hair and too much lipstick.
“Thangyoo, ladies and gennlemen, thangyoo! All sit, please!” The young man saluted toward the throne and marched off to sit in a discreet corner.
The judge presented a small cold smile to the assembled court. “Good morning, everyone. We start, I believe, with the case of Julius Tallow, Magician Third Level, and Kathleen Jones, a commoner from Balham. Miss Jones has chosen to attend, I see; where is Mr. Tallow?”
The young man leaped to his feet like a jack-in-the-box. “He’s not here, ma’am!” He saluted smartly and sat down.
“I can see that. Where is he?”
The young man leaped to his feet. “Haven’t the foggiest idea, ma’am!”
“Well, too bad. Clerks, put Mr. Tallow down for contempt of court, pending. We shall begin …” The judge put on a pair of spectacles and studied her papers for a few moments. Kitty sat straight-backed, rigid with nerves.
The judge removed her spectacles and looked across at her. “Kathleen Jones?”
Kitty leaped up. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Sit down, sit down. We like to keep it as informal as we can. Now, being young—how old are you, Miss Jones?”
“Thirteen, ma’am.”
“I see. Being young, and of common stock as you undoubtedly are—I see here your father is a sales assistant and your mother a cleaner”—she spoke these words with slight distaste—“you might very well be overawed by these august surroundings.” The judge gestured at the court. “But I must tell you not to fear. This is a house of justice, where even the less equal among us are welcome, provided they speak truthfully. Do you understand?”
Kitty had a frog in her throat; she found it hard to answer clearly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Very well. Then we shall hear your side of the case. Please proceed.”
For the next few minutes, in a rather raspy voice, Kitty outlined her side of events. She began awkwardly, but warmed to her theme, going into as much detail as she could. The court listened in silence, including the judge, who stared at her impassively over her spectacles. The clerks tapped away at their keyboards.
She concluded with an impassioned description of Jakob’s condition under the spell of the Black Tumbler. As she finished, a heavy silence filled the courtroom. Someone somewhere coughed. During the speech, it had begun to rain outside. Drops tapped gently at the windows; the light in the room was watery and smudged.
The judge sat back in her chair. “Clerks of the Court, do you have all that down?”
One of the three men in black raised his head. “We do, ma’am.”
“Very well.” The judge frowned, as if dissatisfied. “In the absence of Mr. Tallow, I must reluctantly accept this version of events. The verdict of the court—”
A sudden ferocious knocking sounded on the courtroom door. Kitty’s heart, which had leaped sky-high at the judge’s words, descended to her boots in a heap of foreboding. The young man in the green cap sprang across to open the door; as he did so, he was almost bowled off his feet by the muscular entrance of Julius Tallow. Dressed in a gray suit with thin pink pinstripes and with his chin thrust forward, he strode across to the vacant chair and sat decisively upon it.
Kitty gazed at him with loathing. He returned the look with a veiled smirk and turned to face the judge.
“Mr. Tallow, I assume,” she said.
“Indeed, ma’am.” His eyes were downcast. “I humbly—”
“You’re late, Mr. Tallow.”
“Yes ma’am. I humbly extend my apologies to the Court. I was kept busy at the Ministry of Internal Affairs this morning, ma’am. Emergency situation—small matter of three bull-headed foliots loose in Wapping. Possible terrorist action. I had to help brief the Night Police on the best methods for dealing with ’em, ma’am.” He adopted an expansive posture, winked at the crowd. “A pile of fruit, lathered with honey—that’s what does the trick. The sweetness draws them near, you see, then—”
The judge banged her gavel down upon the bench. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Tallow, that is quite beside the point! Punctuality is vital for the smooth running of justice. I find you guilty of contempt of court and hereby fine you five hundred pounds.”
He hung his head, the picture of bulky contrition. “Yes, ma’am.”
“However …”The judge’s voice lightened somewhat. “You have arrived just in time to state your side of the matter. We have heard Miss Jones’s version already. You know the charges. How do you respond?”
“Not guilty, ma’am!” He was suddenly bolt upright again, swelling with aggressive confidence. The pinstripes on his chest expanded like plucked harp strings. “I’m sorry to say, ma’am, that I have to recount an incident of almost incredible savagery, in which two thugs—including, I am sorry to say, that prim young madam sitting yonder—waylaid my car with intent to rob and injure. It was only pure chance that, with the power I am fortunate enough to wield, I was able to fend them off and make good my escape.”
He continued to develop his lie for almost twenty minutes, providing harrowing accounts of the chilling threats made by his two assailants. Frequently he digressed into little anecdotes that reminded the court of his important role in government. Kitty sat white-faced with fury throughout, clenching her fingernails into her palms. Once or twice she noticed the judge shake her head at some unpleasant detail; two of the clerks were heard to gasp in outrage when Mr. Tallow describ
ed the cricket ball hitting his windscreen, and the spectators in the gallery oohed and aahed with increasing regularity. She could tell which way the case was going.
At last, when with sickening self-effacement Mr. Tallow described how he had ordered the Black Tumbler to be fired only at the ringleader—Jakob—through his desire to keep casualties to a minimum, Kitty could no longer restrain herself.
“That’s another lie!” she cried. “It came straight at me, too!”
The judge rapped the bench with her gavel. “Order in the Court!”
“But it’s so obviously untrue!” Kitty said. “We were standing together. The monkey-thing fired at us both, as Tallow ordered. I was knocked out by it. The ambulance took me to hospital.”
“Silence, Miss Jones!”
Kitty subsided. “I’m … sorry, ma’am.”
“Mr. Tallow, if you would be so good as to continue?”
The magician wound it up soon afterward, leaving the spectators whispering excitedly among themselves. Ms. Fitzwilliam brooded a while on her throne, occasionally bending down to exchange whispered asides with the Clerks of the Court. Finally, she tapped the table. The room fell silent.
“This is a difficult and distressing case,” the judge began, “and we are hampered in it by the lack of witnesses. We have only one person’s word against the other. Yes, Miss Jones, what is it?”
Kitty had put up her hand politely “There is another witness, ma’am. Jakob.”
“If so, why isn’t he here?”
“He’s not well, ma’am.”
“His family could have made a submission on his behalf. They have chosen not to do so. Perhaps they feel their case is weak?”
“No, ma’am,” Kitty said. “They’re scared.”
“Scared?” The judge’s eyebrows arched. “Ridiculous! Of what?”
Kitty hesitated, but there was no help for it now. “Reprisals, ma’am. If they speak out against a magician in court.”
At this, the room erupted with a barrage of noise from the spectators’ benches. The three clerks ceased typing in amazement. The young man in the green cap was gawping in his corner. Ms. Fitzwilliam’s eyes narrowed. She had to bang the table repeatedly to quiet things down.
“Miss Jones,” she said, “if you dare utter such nonsense I shall have you up on a charge myself! Do not speak out of turn again.” Kitty saw Julius Tallow grinning openly. She fought to hold back the tears.
The judge stared at Kitty sternly. “Your wild accusation only increases the weight of evidence that has already built up so heavily against you. Do not speak!” Overcome with shock, Kitty had automatically opened her mouth again.
“Each time you speak you further damn your case,” the judge went on. “Quite patently, if your friend was confident with your story, he would be here in person. Equally patently, you were not hit by the Black Tumbler as you have just claimed, otherwise you could hardly—how shall I put it?—be so well turned out today.”
The judge paused to take a sip of water.
“I almost admire your audacity in taking your claim to the court,” she said, “together with your temerity in challenging such a prominent citizen as Mr. Tallow.” She gestured across at the magician, who wore the complacent expression of a stroked cat. “However, such considerations cannot carry the day in a court of law. Mr. Tallow’s case rests on his good reputation and the expensive garage bill required to pay for the damage that you caused. Your case rests on nothing except wild accusations, which I believe to be fabricated.” (Gasps from the crowd.) “Why? Simply because if you are mendacious with regard to the Tumbler—which you say hit you, when clearly it did not—there is no reason for the court to accept the rest of your story. Moreover, you can produce no witnesses, not even your friend, the other ‘injured party.’As your outbursts have proved, you are clearly of a passionate and turbulent nature, liable to erupt in a rage at the slightest opportunity. When I consider these points, it can only lead me to a glaring fact that I have done my best to ignore. It is this: when all is said and done, you are both a minor and a commoner, whose word can hardly stand against that of a trusted servant of the State.”
The judge at this point took a deep breath and a subdued cry of “Hear, hear,” rose from the public benches. One of the clerks looked up, muttered, “Well said, ma’am,” and buried his nose in his computer again. Kitty slumped in her chair, weighed down by leaden despair. She could not look at the judge, the clerks or, least of all, the odious Mr. Tallow. She stared instead at the shadows of the raindrops trickling across the floor. All she wished for now was to escape.
“In conclusion”—the judge assumed an expression of the utmost dignity—“the court finds against you, Miss Jones, and rejects your charge. If you were older, you would certainly not escape a custodial sentence. As it is, and since Mr. Tallow has already applied his own appropriate punishment to your gangland group, I will restrict myself to fining you for wasting the court’s time.”
Kitty swallowed. Please let it not be much, please let it not be—
“You are hereby fined one hundred pounds.”
Not too bad. She could cope with that. She had almost seventy-five pounds in her bank account.
“In addition, it is customary to transfer the winner’s costs across to the losing side. Mr. Tallow owes five hundred pounds for his late arrival. You must pay this, too. The total due to the court is therefore six hundred pounds.”
Kitty reeled in shock, feeling the tears coming strongly now. Furiously she fought them back. She would not cry. She would not. Not here.
She managed to turn the first sob into a loud, rumbling cough. At that moment the judge banged the gavel twice.
“Court dismissed.”
Kitty ran from the room.
14
Kitty had her cry in one of the little cobbled side roads running off the Strand. Then she wiped her face, bought a reviving bun from a Persian café on the corner opposite the Judicial Courts, and tried to work out what to do. She certainly could not pay the fine and doubted her parents could either. That meant she had a month in which to find six hundred pounds, or she—and perhaps her parents, too—would be bound for the debtors’ prison. She knew this, because before she had managed to exit the echoing courtrooms, one of the black-suited clerks had appeared, tugged respectfully at her elbow, and thrust an order for payment, with the ink still wet upon it, into her trembling fingers. It spelled out exactly what the penalties were.
The thought of informing her parents gave Kitty sharp pains in her chest. She couldn’t face going home; she would walk beside the river first.
The cobbled lane ran down from the Strand to the Embankment, a pleasant pedestrianized walkway following the bank of the Thames. It had stopped raining, but the cobbles were dark and flecked with water. On either side the usual shops stretched: Middle Eastern fast-food joints, tourist boutiques stuffed with kitsch memorabilia, herbalists whose cut-price baskets of dogwood and rosemary bulged halfway out into the street.
Kitty had nearly reached the Embankment when a rapid tapping behind her heralded the sudden appearance of a stick, followed by an ancient man, half hobbling, half stumbling out of control down the cobbled slope. She jumped back out of his way. To her surprise, instead of careering onward and ending up in the river, the man halted, with much scuffling and gasping, directly beside her.
“Ms. Jones?” The words wheezed out between each gasp of breath.
She spoke heavily. “Yes.” Some other clerk with a new demand.
“Good, good. Let—let me get my voice back.”
This took a few seconds, during which time Kitty observed him closely. He was a thin, bony, and aged gentleman, bald on top, with a semicircle of dirty-white hair acting as a ruff to the back of his skull. His face was painfully thin, but his eyes were bright. He wore a neat suit and a pair of green leather gloves; his hands wobbled as he leaned upon his stick.
At last: “Sorry about that. Afraid I’d lost you. Started along the
Strand first. Turned back. Intuition.”
“What do you want?” Kitty had no time for intuitive old men.
“Yes. Getting to the point. Good. Well. I was in the gallery just now. Courtroom twenty-seven. Saw you in action.” He regarded her closely.
“So?”
“Wanted to ask. One question. Simple one. If you don’t mind.”
“I don’t want to talk about it, thank you.” Kitty made to move off, but the stick shot out with surprising speed and gently barred the way. Her anger fizzed inside her; in the mood she was in, kicking an old man down the street did not seem beyond possibility. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’ve got nothing to say.”
“Understand that. Really. Might be to your advantage, though. Listen, then decide. The Black Tumbler. Sitting at the back of the court. Bit deaf. Thought you said the Tumbler hit you.”
“I did. It did.”
“Ah. Knocked you out, you said.”
“Yes.”
“Flames and smoke all around you. Searing heat?”
“Yes. Now I—”
“But, Court didn’t accept it.”
“No. Now I really must go.” Kitty sidestepped the outstretched stick and trotted the last few yards down to the Embankment. But to her surprise and fury the old man kept up with her, continually jabbing his stick out at an angle so that it became entangled with her legs, or tripped her feet, or forced her to take outsize steps to avoid it. At last she could take it no longer; seizing the end of the stick, she yanked hard, jerking the gentleman off balance so that he collapsed against the river wall. Then she set off at a brisk pace, but once more heard the frantic tapping close behind her.
She wheeled around. “Now, look—”
He was hard on her heels, whey-faced, gasping. “Ms. Jones, please. I understand your anger. Truly. But I am on your side. What if I said—? What if I said that I could pay the fine? That the Court has levied? All six hundred pounds. Would that help?”
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