He found the Commander with Fantillin, greeted both with the shaking-hands-with-himself gesture. He had barely taken a seat when the Prince’s personal Healer, Dona Seraphina, entered. For a moment Chisaad almost fled. He hadn’t intended to risk the presence of any powerful priestess until he had a chance to refine the golem’s spells based on today’s test. But walking out now would draw unwelcome attention. She greeted him normally, clearly not perceiving his deception, so he relaxed and listened.
The Palace Guard’s three captains stood spear-straight and stared at their Commander as one of their number delivered an abbreviated report on the results of the battlemage’s mess in the Gray Fort. Chisaad added his staff’s verification and noted, “The Druid Boerga clearly instigated the conflict, my lord.”
“In other words, we need to get the Gwythlo troops out of the Gray Fort and on their way home,” the Commander acknowledged heavily. “Especially their damn Druid. I will talk to the Prince about it.”
The Commander, his captains, and Fantillin departed. Chisaad moved to do the same when his left leg twinged and made him limp again. He had to pause and barely kept his balance.
“Hold still, Wizard,” Dona Seraphina ordered. “Let me fix that.” Before he could stop her, she sent her aura into his hip.
This time he froze in petrified fear. She could sink his hopes and cost him his position simply by telling the Prince! Then her healing aura penetrated his real body where he reclined in his office chair, a tenth of a mile away.
“Will you please relax your protection spells a bit, Wizard? You mages always make it so difficult for us to heal you,” she grumbled. “There, that should help your leg for a while. If it still bothers you in two days, come see me.”
He managed a half-strangled thank you and got out of there, hurrying back to his office and sealing the door behind him.
Only when he had the golem safely standing on the hidden decagram did he relax his control and open the eyes of his real body. He stretched and gave vent to a happy sigh.
It worked. Even the priestesses can’t tell my golem from the real me. I can replace the Prince, and no one will be able to tell, save possibly Sir DiLione and his damnable sword. I shall have to wait until he leaves before I try anything else.
He got home to find even better news. Darnaud’s efforts had succeeded and Kirin’s father had been arrested for murder.
Now to make sure the man is condemned, and Kirin blames the Prince.
CHAPTER 26: TERRELL AND KIRIN
“Third fall,” the referee declared. “Baron Penghar wins, two out of three.”
“I should be on to your tricks by now,” Terrell chuckled.
“Second time I’ve used that one on you.” Pen nodded as he helped him up off the wrestling mat. They were both stripped to loincloths and dripping sweat after more than a dozen rounds of wrestling, several with the Palace Guard trainers and the last six with each other.
Terrell heard the implied ‘so you should have been ready for it’ in Pen’s voice and nodded ruefully. There were advantages to knowing each other for as long as they had. If being scolded in a way that nobody else can hear counts as an advantage! Aloud he said only, “Let’s wash up.”
The suns were still more than three hours short of noon. Their light already baked this walled courtyard of pale yellow stone and white marble pilasters. Pen passed Terrell a bucket of water from the corner fountain before dunking his own head under the flow and splashing like a big brown tiger. Terrell slowly poured cool water over his own head, enjoying the feel of it sluicing sweat and dust away, scooped up more and did it again. Servants brought big sponges for the two of them to use, followed by towels to dry themselves off, and fresh clothes. Terrell idly watched spilled water evaporate off the sunbaked flagstones as his valet dressed him. “Have you thought about my offer, Pen? Are you willing to become my Hand?”
His bodyguard’s face creased in thought while his own batman helped him into a loose silk shirt that would not interfere with drawing his sword. “I’m honored by your trust, Terrell, and I can’t say it isn’t tempting to be offered that kind of power and responsibility. But I’m supposed to be by your side to protect you. Serving as your Hand will take me away from you, sometimes for days at a time.”
“Nobody’s tried to kill me yet,” Terrell pointed out, holding out one arm so the sleeve could be laced up. “Even that Druid I banished yesterday, Boerga. And I do have a brigade and a half of soldiers in the Gray Fort, plus more than two hundred men in the Palace Guard. Dear as you are to me and much as I will miss your company every time I send you on a mission, I suspect that four of them at a time will be adequate substitutes for you and Irreneetha. Especially if I take a mage along as well whenever I step outside the Palace.”
“Take two,” Pen advised. “I’ll worry every time I’m away from your side. But I do understand the importance of having someone you trust to be your eyes and ears elsewhere in the kingdom. Yes, if something comes up where you need me to go out and act for you, I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” He clapped Pen lightly on the shoulder, letting the touch speak to the depth of his gratitude. A temple bell rang the ninth hour. “Let’s get going. I promised to look in on the Law Courts today.”
Pen buckled on his sword belt and drew Irreneetha’s point from the rock where he’d placed her while they wrestled. “You may want a bath after that, too.” He clicked the soulsword into her sheath.
* * *
The Law Court was high-ceilinged, completely made of marble, and brightly lit by fancy chandeliers and high windows of real glass. Kirin had never seen a more intimidating place. The family, except for Grandfather, Uncle Ger, and Sevan the Elder, were required to stand behind a marble railing that separated the back half from the main part of the room. Pieter’s case would be the third of ten. The family members of other men already jammed the observers’ space so the DiUmbras had to stand at the back. Kirin peered between the heads of the crowd and did his best to catch glimpses. Not for the first time, he wished he were taller.
The Judge, a stern-looking gray-haired Silbari man of corpulent girth, sat enthroned behind a tall desk while various people sat quietly or stood and talked in the open space below him. One case finished as the family filed in. The cold-eyed Judge asked the accused, “Have you anything else to say before I pronounce sentence?”
“The bastard deserved it,” growled the pugnacious young man who rattled his chains. “He tried to rape my sister!”
“And he desisted when you intervened. Had you challenged him openly, he accepted, and you wounded or killed him during a duel, you would not now be sitting where you are,” the judge answered ominously. “It has been proven in open court to my satisfaction that you instead chose to sneak into his house at night and stab him in his sleep. You offered nothing of substance to dispute that proof. Such an act is not protecting your sister’s honor, it is cold-blooded murder, as well as violation of the sanctity of a home. For these crimes I sentence you to servitude in the sulfur mines for ten years from this day, or as long as you shall live, whichever comes first.”
The Judge rapped a brass gong and the sound reverberated through the room. Bailiffs hauled the protesting man away while the sister and mother of the condemned wept. Kirin shivered. Law had always been to him a mysterious and terrifying force that wise denizens of the Old City kept at a distance. Now Pieter was caught in it.
A door opened behind the Judge and Prince Terrell came through, closely followed by his bodyguard. The Judge gave him a deferential gesture and whispered something. The Prince shook his head and said, loud enough to be heard across the room, “I’ll simply observe, Riccon.” He took a seat beside the Judge. The crowd murmured.
Kirin stared between the people in front of him. He could barely see the Prince through the crowd. Will he intervene to save Pieter? Please, Father Haroun, let it be so! But he uneasily remembered the Wizard’s words.
He will never really be a Silbari the way
we are . . .
“The Law versus Pieter Ille DiUmbra,” intoned a clerk. Guards brought Pieter into the room still wearing yesterday’s clothes, and still in chains. Kirin balled his fists and squeezed his Shadow down under his heart, praying. Please, Father Haroun. Please.
What followed bewildered his inexperienced mind. Witnesses were called, testimony given about an argument between Pieter and the man later found dead, who had been one of Duke Darnaud’s recently-hired Gwythlo retainers.
Grandfather spoke, and Uncle Sevan, pointing out that the dead man had started the argument, which Pieter affirmed. They protested that Pieter had never been a violent man and reminded everybody that there was no witness to the actual murder. Pieter had not been wearing his belt knife during the exhibition, anyone could have stolen it out of the room where the acrobats had left their personal items while performing. Pieter had only discovered it missing afterwards. When he went looking for it he found his knife stuck in the dead man. Uncle Ger testified to his cousin’s honesty.
Kirin’s hopes soared. Surely the Judge must see that his father couldn’t have done this.
The steward of Duke Darnaud’s townhouse reported that Pieter had been found by another retainer leaning over the fresh-killed body. Both steward and retainer swore to that, while admitting that they hadn’t seen the actual killing. The discovering one stoutly declared that there’d been nobody else in the house close enough to the bleeding body to have done the deed. One of the Duke’s other retainers, a lawyer, reminded the Judge that Pieter had fought against Gwythlos during the Conquest, and been tortured by them. He insinuated that such a painful memory led Pieter to harbor secret resentment against all Gwythlos, one expressed by this killing.
Kirin scowled at this slander. He looked to the Prince between the blocking heads of the other onlookers. Surely, he must see how wrong that was? But the glimpses he got of the Prince’s face revealed nothing.
Grandfather and Sevan conferred, tried to call Kirin up as a witness to show how untrue the insinuation had to be. Duke Darnaud’s lawyer objected. The Judge limited the DiUmbras to only the witnesses who had been there at Duke Darnaud’s house. Kirin slumped in worry.
The Duke made an aggrieved speech while he pointed an angry finger at Pieter. “I welcomed this man into my home, paid him—in advance!—to entertain my guests. I did not expect him to murder one of my men in a fit of rage. Now I have been deprived of my man’s services. I only ask for justice to be done.”
The dead man’s widow, a Gwythlo like her husband, cried for vengeance against the slayer of the father of her children, and wept. The Judge looked moved by her words.
Kirin clenched his hands together and bit a knuckle. But Pieter couldn’t have been the murderer!
Grandfather made an impassioned plea for his son’s freedom, repeating all his arguments in one long rush. Duke Darnaud’s lawyer countered with a learned spiel that lost Kirin in moments, talking about circumstances and extrapolation and other big words. But it seemed to affect the Judge, who nodded slightly three times.
Kirin began to fear.
Everybody stopped talking and waited. The Judge tapped his gong once and turned to confer with the Prince.
* * *
“What’s your assessment?” Terrell quietly asked Judge Riccon.
The judge made a small open-hand gesture. “It’s all circumstantial, but collectively quite damming. The acrobat had means and opportunity, and seems to have had motive, though that’s the weakest leg of this stool. Murder—and a knife in the back is clearly murder—in a fit of anger must be dealt with firmly, lest it spread. The lower classes are appallingly violent as it is. I’m minded to convict.”
Terrell frowned. Something about the case didn’t feel right. Is it simply that Darnaud is involved, and I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him? But he found it hard to see how this could be a scheme, and even a Duke had to deal with ugly surprises. “Those circumstances disturb me. I’ll reserve my right to review the case personally.”
“Of course, Your Highness.” Riccon hesitated, bowed his head slightly and turned back to the court.
* * *
Kirin could barely see the Judge and the Prince talking, there were too many heads in the way. If it had been less crowded he would have tried to push his way through to the railing, but several men had already given him unfriendly looks and he’d heard a muttered ‘half breed’ only a moment ago. He struggled to stand still as dread rose in his heart.
The Judge tapped his gong again and Kirin’s attention fixed on him.
Judge Riccon cleared his throat and declared, “Pieter Ille DiUmbra, it has been proven to my satisfaction that you had motive, opportunity, and means to commit this murder. The lack of corroborating witness to the deed itself is troubling, but the circumstances are so damming that I come down on the side of the accusers. I hold you guilty—”
The rest of his words were lost as Kirin’s heart thudded in his chest and a great roaring filled his ears. His Shadow churned inside him and he barely held it in check. No! Oh no no no!
Aunt Silla tugged on his arm and pulled him out of the room. In the hallway she hugged him, crying unashamedly. “Oh Kirin, this is so awful! How could they? Two years in the sulfur mines! Even Pieter, strong as he is, might not survive that. We must pray that the Prince commutes this horrible sentence.”
Kirin’s mind seized on her last words. The Prince can free Pieter. Please, please, please oh Father-Seraph Haroun, let it be so!
* * *
“That acrobat case bothers me,” Terrell confided to Pen as they walked back through the Palace labyrinth.
“How so?” Pen asked curiously. “The Judge’s reasoning seemed as sound as it could be, since there isn’t a handy witness to the actual murder. Somebody certainly did it.”
“Is that what Irreneetha thinks?”
Pen shook his head. “She’s not a Truthteller or a Seer. She doesn’t peek inside people’s heads unless they push their intentions on her by thinking about directly hurting you or me. And if they are close enough for her to sense their thoughts, because her reach isn’t very long. That’s why I take her out of her sheath when she’s not in contact with me. Ordinarily she senses the world through me, but she can perceive some things directly if she’s exposed to the air. I received no sensations from her while we were in that room.”
“Perhaps it’s Darnaud’s involvement that troubles me.” Terrell scowled.
“Hmm. Well, I can tell that Darnaud doesn’t much like you and is afraid of what you might do to him, but so were the Dukes of Fiori and Anagni and a dozen lesser lords we met on the way here. DiSolera wanted to strangle you with his bare hands when you ruled against him, but he’s calmed down.” Pen shrugged. “When everybody’s scheming about something, it’s hard to sort out the ones who’ll go too far, until they have.”
Terrell grunted. “That’s unfortunately much too true.”
* * *
Kirin fumbled through the pathetically small hoard of treasures that he and Maia kept under their bed. He found the creased bit of parchment and took it out as Maia came into their bedroom with a lit tallow dip in one hand and baby Grigor on her hip. Kirin told her. “I’m going to go to the Mother Temple and make sacrifice for Pieter’s release.”
“Good.” Maia set the tallow-dip down, reached past him and plucked out the gold-threaded hair ribbon that her parents had given her when she became a woman. “Take this with you and sacrifice it for me. I love Uncle Pieter too.”
Kirin took it reverently and folded it inside the parchment, carefully tucked both inside his belt pouch. “I love you,” he told her before kissing her thoroughly.
“I know.” She kissed him back, her belly no longer interfering but with the baby perched on one hip. “Hurry back and be careful out there in the night streets.”
“Always.”
He did hurry, up Sulfur Street to the Bazaar, across it and across the wide Processional into the Sacred Precinct.
The last service had ended, and the Priestesses, acolytes, attendants and others had dispersed to rest or other duties. He scurried up the thirty-two broad marble steps to the Mother Temple’s wide portico, slipped through the middle door and into the holy building. The yawning scribe on night-duty barely glanced up as Kirin bowed to him and went inside.
The cavernous interior of the Mother Temple’s dome arched overhead. Alabaster walls and chalcedony pillars ringed the circular travertine floor, frescoes receded into dim heights. Eight giant statues of the Seraphs upheld the dome, Mother Umana with her ewer, Father Haroun with his twenty-foot sword grounded in the temple floor, and others of the heavenly pantheon. The huge room lay still and quiet with only the sacrificial fire and one large night candle burning.
Kirin had no problem with the dimness; he’d always been able to see in the dark. He prostrated himself once at the entrance and twice more as he approached the altar and its four-foot-wide bronze dish holding the ever-burning fire. He made the proper ceremonial gestures and prayers as he set his treasure on the edge; his original slave-manumission certificate that Pieter had bought for him after Gerlach’s death. He wrapped it in Maia’s hair-ribbon and used the waiting bronze tongs to drop them both into the blue heart of the fire. There among the ashes and cinders of other sacrifices, the parchment and ribbon caught at once and burned fiercely. A gray tendril of smoke spiraled up. His eyes followed its ascent toward the ocular, the round opening at the top of the dome. Outside stars twinkled in the night sky.
Father Haroun and Mother Umana, he prayed. It’s me, Kirin. I beg you to help save Pieter from the sulfur mines. He’s not a murderer, he’s being blamed for someone else’s evil. Please, Seraphs, please intercede with The One on his behalf. Soften the heart of Prince Terrell, persuade him to pardon Pieter and set him free of this terrible punishment. In the name of That Which Cannot Be Named, I beg this.
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