heart. Let vision of your mind stay clean and sharp to the swinging arc. And rejoice the assemblage of your freedom.
"Create your God with your love and you will truly love the God of your Creation."
With this the young Beggar was finished. The crowd came forward and all bought the packages. For a 1/10 the price of other gods as was promised.
These they took home and all sat and meditated on the god they would envision and would love. Then they opened the package and looked; it was a mirror.
But few could ponder or reflect all the words the young Beggar had given them. Few understood his message and thereby felt cheated.
Knowing the young Beggars ways of persuasion, most feared to return to him and demand their money. As they feared to be beguiled or trapped again and thereby lose their purpose.
So they gathered before an officer of the law and brought forth their charges. The Law usually stays distant from the workings of the god merchants but in the face of this collective harangue, it was pushed forward.
The young Beggar's son was arrested (much to the delight of the other merchants) and taken before a judge to have charges addressed and verdicts laid.
The Third Day
And so after a night in jail....... ( Where in, the Beggar's young son caused a small riot by lecturing upon the other inmates that a heart and mind should be never imprisoned whether the body is jailed or merely hampered by the chains of normal society and its Laws and Customs. But some prisoners misunderstood and convinced all to rant and rave at the guards for unlawfully holding their bodies; as by default of natural arrangement to contain a body is to contain the heart and mind in it)
....the Beggar's young son was brought before the courts.
Similar to all courts its arrangement was thus: The judicial seat was loftier than anywhere else so that the vision and wisdom of the judge would not be clouded by the dust of the common scoundrel or the stirrings and diggings of the no less common lawyers. At the back on some benches sat most of the wronged party, all who carried their mirrors in case evidence was required or retribution was immediate. And it was odd for each was as like a hungry cat at an empty bowl, they could not keep their faces out of them. As if each one must continually practice his indignant and injured look to sway the eyes of the judge to these victims. Each would glance about as well to his neighbour's mirror. To ensure the face of righteousness was proper and well received from any angle.
With all this glancing aside and adding faces, the small crowd seemed to swell. Grew from a few to hundreds to thousands. So that it seemed to these judges at the lower bench that the Beggar had not cheated a few but robbed a nation, raped an Empire of all that was orderly and holy. In a sense, they had accomplished what the young Beggar had asked them to do. With a staring stone of hate, they had become invisible to their flaws and could now breathe great smudges of examination upon his. So like all who do crimes against the people, especially the folly of promise, he was condemned for far more than his original charges. A leader never stumbles; he plummets.
The Beggars young son was brought and placed in a wooden cage to the right of the judge's elevated chair. From this vantage point, he could see the crowd and it gave him much grieve to see their angry, cheated looks building on their brows. Despite a previous warning from the guards to behave and keep his tongue very much tied, he would have spoken to them but for the announcement of the judge.
All rose up as the judge entered. An archaic tradition left stand from old times when every man gave doubt as to his own acts before the Law. Whether the law of his own time or the Law of the time he would descend into. And who would dare sit before this Descending Horseman of Keen-bladed Retribution? Better to stand one's own deeds now than lay under those Hooves of Eternal Damnation. And so it came to be that only the pure in the judgement of their own destiny would dare site before man's Law. And so also fear came to be called respect; As only a single man can fear and cringe. Where there are many, a new name must be found.
And it was at this point, that all saw that the Judge was a woman, though her better features were near lost clad in a black robe and a large scarlet hood of Mercy. In her left hand she carried a staff of wood with a small golden vulture on top; wings half unfolded. This staff would be thumped on the ground to mark judgement or decree. Or the hawk tilted towards a transgressor in court to warn of her gathering swoop towards any contempt of her gaze.
In her right hand she carried a small leather box. Inside was a small device for balancing two cups. In this box as well was a pile of coin tokens. A black serpent was painted on one side; a white dove on the other side of each token. As a truth or falsehood is spoken by any of the defence or prosecution, the judge will place to the cup a token. The cups will rise and fall in balance to each other throughout the proceedings. And in the end, find that justice is served by the raising of a cup.
For it does not matter whether the token is thrown in for truth or falsehood. Truth weighs as heavy to the guilty as falsehood drags down the innocent. And though truth shall always set the innocent free; any strong falsehood can lever the rock from damnations tomb.
It is all the same; the judge has merely to indicate by her taste of the proceedings whether the contents of the raised cup be pure or bitter.
Only if the cups hover to the same nheight is calamity struck. For here the truth of one is no greater than the falsehoods of another. Everything is at balance. Good vs. Evil. Right vs. Right. As in the world, so in the court, so in the cups. Inertia prevails. As now all things move with all things. None can judge right or left, up or down when the signposts move at random. What was a trial becomes a failed experiment in gravity. A mistrial is called for no one can judge an act unless they be outside the act; but in the balance of good and evil there are no spectators; all hover on the high wire, gently nudging neighbour to neighbour. Only those too good or too evil will topple and fall and be judged by lower eyes.
The judge sat down and arranged her beam of balance and staff as suited her. Then spoke: "Let the court begin and let judgement and if required sentencing be of justice in the eyes and ears of all peoples and their gods."
The High Clerk (the rank of Court Clerks noted by the height of their black pointed caps) stepped to the cage of the Beggar's young son. He looked upon a sheet of parchment in his hand and asked: "Will the prisoner please state to the court his full name."
To which the young man replied "I am known as the Beggar's young son, your Clerkship."
With a look of infinite patience under great oppression, the clerk sighed and looked to the judge. "Your Honour, I have already undertaken the immense burden of speaking to this oddity of obstruction last night. He refuses to speak of any other name but this appendage. It is hoped that you may wish to send him for an interview with a few of the Royal Inquisitions that they may lighten the heavy load of his name from his clownish lips."
Judge: "Tis true, clerk, that Royalty has a habit of sending what's left of its miscreants to us, but I would rather not begin a traffic with them. These are cloudy days of civilization enough without throwing up that dustbowl of enormous herding back and forth. Besides I doubt a fair exchange between what is sent and what is returned. They it seems have larger appetites, as it should be with their different stature. The beak of Justice is most content when empty while the jaws of others would sing praise over heaps upon the ground. So let us hear no more of exchanging racks for beams."
Then turning to the young man, she spoke: "If a sparrow wishes the name of jay it is still nonetheless a sparrow. And must be tried for the crimes of a sparrow with the prejudices against a jay. In Court it is best to be one thing so as not to appear to hide the crimes of all things.
If your name, your true name, is one of hideous crimes in other lands, then speak it! For here in this court we try the man for the crime of the day. For what is retribution, what is compensation if a man must pay again and again if only for shame? We, the court would be of the greater guilt in taking again an
d again what was fully paid. And if thou has not paid for crimes in other lands done in another name, then speak it! For if thee are charged with theft on this day, are you then a thief because you murdered hundreds? No, my son, be reassured. The court must proof a murderer a thief or a saint a thief it is the same task. If you stole a sack of flour, we care not your morals of men's lives, we care only your morals towards sacks of flour. If you stole it to make bread or to use it as a stone to crush a man's head, we care not. We try the act of thievery only for the day of thieving.
And if thou hide thy name to hide a father's sin or generation's of sins, then speak it! For if the court will not heed the stamp of murder before the day of thievery, will it heed a father's stamp? No, a man is on trial for his deed not his conception. Beyond the courts, yes, a man must drag the chains of his family in glory and in infamy. But in the courts, a man has but one chain; the chain of his crime; his deed. To be unfettered or secured based solely on the innocence or guilt of his one deed.
But in the balance of justice, young man, the who is no more essential than the why. To the clerk, thou could have given a thousand names which though false would have rung true to his ears pressed low in his cap. But
The Seven Days of Wander Page 14