“I am made censor, milady, since we last met.”
“And I am to be made a master,” she retorted.
“Then it seems we have both achieved what we deserved.”
“You got far more.” She almost spat the words.
“I need to make a brief enquiry of you.” She glared at him in silence. “We know – I mean the Brotherhood knows – about your visit to Gahst. The book you took from him. It has become a matter of record.”
“I went to him because I suspected him of treason. I needed proof. The moment I had it, I went to Gleame. The grandmaster will attest to this.”
She spoke to him now as if he were a functionary, as if he had never known her. That was unnecessary.
“So I have been told. Come here, and stand close to me.”
“Not on your life.”
“Miranda,” he barked, “you must understand your position.” The shock of his words had the desired effect, and so he calmed his tone. “You may be unhappy with my methods, but at this moment I represent the law. We can close this matter gracefully. Or would you prefer that I take you into custody?”
Slowly, grudgingly, Miranda came towards him, head bowed, arms folded across her chest.
“Closer.” She stood next to him now. He could feel the aura of her body. “Now look me in the eyes. I want to know something.” She looked up at him then, and he saw a chaos of emotion in her eyes. Hatred, hope, pride and fear. A curious smile hid in the corners of her mouth. “Were you involved in Brother Adelmus’s death?” She stared at him for a second, uncomprehending, then her eyes turned to sadness, and she shook her head. It was never possible to be certain, but she seemed to be telling the truth.
Daniel pulled his book of observations from his belt. “I believe you. Tell me what happened.” Miranda shivered as she returned to her desk. She arranged her artefacts as she spoke, looked out of her window, out to sea, anywhere but at him.
“After I found the hand I had an inkling of what it might be. I realised that the information it contained might be Gahst’s work. I tricked Gahst into lending me his book by telling him that I believed his theories. When I had my proof, I took it to Gleame. That is all.”
“You should have taken the hand to Corbin in the first instance,” Daniel said. “But the error is understandable. I see no call for a reprimand.” He smiled.
“Is that all?”
“What did the hand contain?”
“An inventory. A catalogue of the workings of the Convergence.” Miranda sounded sadder than ever. That made him wonder.
“Not a warning?”
Miranda’s head whipped around. “How did you come by such an idea?”
“I cannot discuss the particulars of the case.”
Miranda considered Daniel sharply. He imagined her inscrutable mind calculating with fearful intensity. She spoke hesitantly and chose her words with care.
“I know that Bolb crafted the hand. I imagine that he was tricked into doing so. It is possible that Gahst told him it contained a warning of some kind. Of what, I cannot imagine.”
“That is conjecture.”
“Bolb is innocent, Edmund…” Miranda bit her lip in shame at the mistake. “Brother Miller. Daniel. He must be afforded clemency.”
“That’s not up to me.” Daniel could tell that Miranda imagined she had some power over him – hoped he might bend a rule to help her, return a favour for her favour. You don’t understand, Daniel thought sadly. Bolb is guilty. I’ve seen it myself. He studied her for a while, the beautiful, otherworldly, bookish girl, unsure of what he felt. Then his mind turned suspicious, and he wondered why she sought to protect Bolb.
“Is there anything else I should know? Anything you want to tell me?” he asked.
“What will happen to you now?”
“I will return to Turbulence. I have unfinished business there. A family.” Her face flared in anger again, and he stepped back smartly, held up his hands in innocence. “A brother and a niece. No other. I swear it.”
“I let you be with me,” she said accusingly.
“Yes – in the course of my investigation. That will not be mentioned at the trial. There is no need.”
“Is that all you have to say about it?”
“I like you, Miranda. Really I do.” He remembered Lang’s words. “I did only what was necessary. For justice.”
“I am a ward of the duchess!”
“And I am honoured to have known you.” It was true, and he hoped that she could hear the truth in his words.
“Honoured?” Miranda let the word hang heavy between them, and stared at him, through hooded eyes. For once, he had no idea what she was thinking. Then she seemed to come to a decision, and smiled curiously. “Do you imagine that I have finished with you, Daniel Miller?” she said, and sashayed over to her library.
“What do you mean?”
“When you are in Turbulence, I may desire to speak with you.”
“How could I possibly deny it?”
“Such things can be arranged. My mother could speak to Lang.”
“Your mother speaks to Lang?”
She looked at him as she had so many times before, as if he lived in a simple world, where things had to be explained slowly. “I need some of your blood. Just a little. For a hekamaphone. I plan to make one of my own.”
Why not? He held out his arm and removed his glove. His left hand had taken so much punishment over the last few weeks he couldn’t see the harm in a little more. Miranda walked towards him, as if in slow motion, her pillow knife in one hand, an earthenware bowl in the other. He studied the blade in fascination. It was a beautiful thing, much like her, not a weapon of war but delicate and deadly. A blade that long, up and under the ribcage, would end you rightly. Out of instinct, he prepared himself for a sudden movement. Miranda stared at the stump of his little finger in shock.
“What happened to you?”
“It’s a long story.”
She hesitated, then laid the blade across his palm and pulled it sharply.
“By the gods, Miranda! You nearly took off another one.” Daniel clenched his fist to stop the flow of blood. “Bring me a bandage.”
She watched, fascinated, as his essence streamed into the container.
“I took more than I needed,” she said, and leaned up close, searching his eyes for something. He noticed the colour of her irises then, a dazzling green he had somehow not paid proper attention to before. His heart fluttered, and despite the pain in his hand, he felt no anger, only a kind of warm contentedness. He squeezed his hand tight.
“If you need that much blood you must mean to speak to me often. Pardon my Omek, but it stings like fuck.”
She leaned forward and kissed him full on the lips; let the tip of her tongue touch his.
“Maybe,” she said. His mind fizzed like a firework. By the time he had thought to embrace her, she had gently pushed him away. “Hadn’t you better get on with your work?” she winked. He left her with a soaring heart, grinning like a dog.
***
It was no longer proper for Daniel to work amongst the demi-masters. He prepared for the trial in the same guest room that Miranda had been allocated when she first arrived at the Verge, a detail he thought somehow ironic.
He wrote his final testimony falteringly into The Book of Inspection. Every few minutes he stopped, and replayed his conversation with Miranda in his head. Even his throbbing palm reminded him of her. He signed his name and his position as a censor below his testimony. He imagined Miranda sitting in the same seat, working on some arcane theory that he could barely hope to understand, except in the vaguest terms. She had said that she wanted to speak to him again. Did that mean that he had to wait for her to do so, or was it an invitation to write to her? He was not much of an artist with words. Maybe that was a bad idea.
He had laid out the physical evidence for the trial neatly on her bed. There was the hand, in all of its complicated glory, and a pile of parts taken from Bolb’s room. Gahst’s codex, which was an incomprehensible jumble of alchemical symbols, magical numbers and formulae, and finally Adelmus’s few possessions: a miniature portrait of a battle, a few crystal goblets and a decanter that did not match, his spare clothes, and a blood locket, identical to the one from Lang that Daniel wore around his own neck. He swept them aside and buried his nose in the bedsheets, searching for a trace of Miranda’s scent. He smelled nothing but soap and the faint odour of the sea salt that got into everything at the Convergence.
He sighed. What had come over him? He had always needled his Turbulence friends who were daft enough to become besotted by some goose-kneed wench, watched in disbelief as cowards assaulted men twice their size in defence of a whore’s honour. In the receiving chambers, he had listened to men and women explain how passion had led them to kill. He had always thought love to be lunacy. Until now.
The trial
The entrance to the lecture theatre was barricaded by a wall of jostling bodies. A scrum of craftsmen and servants, men, women and children, pressed and craned for a better view. Corbin had ordered the trial to be held open to the public. He must have known that the ordinary folk of the Convergence would find the humiliation of one of their betters an irresistible entertainment.
Miranda had debated at university, but never before common people and the sounds and even the smell of the rowdy crowd made her feel small and insecure. She told herself that such insecurity was unworthy of a master, took a deep breath and prepared to fight her way through an assault course of gropes and pinches.
Adrian Lavety stumbled from the swirl and pointed a bejewelled, accusing finger at her. In the entire universe, at that moment, she could think of no person she wanted to see less.
“I know exactly what you’ve done,” he said.
Miranda wasn’t sure to which of her recent wrongdoings he was referring.
“Not now, Adrian, the trial is about to begin.” He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders as she tried to step around him. It was only then that Miranda noticed his eyes were bloodshot and bulging with fury. He was shaking.
“The meeting of the Convocation. You’ve made some kind of deal with Gleame, haven’t you? What did you promise him?”
“Let go of me this instant.” Adrian seemed frantic, out of control.
“Why didn’t you talk to me about it first?”
“Because it has nothing to do with you.”
“What about our discussion? My plans?”
“Unhand me.” She looked around for a guard, or anyone else who might be of help. “I don’t care about you or your stupid plans!”
“Miranda, you must learn to obey me better.”
Miranda slapped him across the face as hard as she could. Her blow landed perfectly; the sound alone was painful. It turned more heads than just his. Adrian stepped back and clutched at his reddening cheek. He looked as if he might cry.
“Her Grace said you would wait,” he said. “There was talk of marriage. Everything was being arranged.”
Miranda’s teeth locked in fury. Her tongue took on a life of its own.
“You think you can scare me with your stupid tricks and lies? Well, it didn’t work last time and it won’t work this time either. Now get out of my way, you talentless prick!”
The words shocked her as much as him. Miranda had never spoken to a gentleman so crudely before, certainly not in public. She felt her face flush and stepped back, expecting him to strike her.
“What are you talking about?” Adrian looked genuinely confused. The crowd had turned to face them. They seemed to be enjoying the sideshow.
Realistically, there were two choices now: apologise, or run away. Miranda straightened herself, righted her face and dived into the crowd.
“Miranda, wait!”
The air between the bodies, slippery with sweat and breath, caught in her throat. Her mind pulled in two directions, worrying about what she had just done, and imagining the trial ahead.
She emerged from the mob between aisles packed with demi-masters, scribes and alchemists. Only the masters and those who might be called as witnesses had seats reserved for them. She hurried down an aisle and took her place in the front row.
The cold white light of the immense candelabra had been set to painfully bright. It drained the stage of colour. A podium affixed with a justice bell waited ominously at its centre, and beside that, a walnut table. Her spine stiffened as the presence of a man filled the seat next to her. She saw it was Somney and relaxed, glad of his company. He looked at the arrangement on the stage with open disgust.
“An open trial is not a requirement of the law. Corbin is making a show of this.”
“The staff seem pleased.”
Somney grunted. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“I might be called as a witness.”
Somney stared at her. Miranda turned her attention to the congregation behind, and tried to feel the mood of the room. Excitement, anger, alarm. She guessed at the audience’s sympathies. For some, the trial would be a vicarious entertainment, for others a reminder of past oppression. As she waited, the glow-stones flickered wildly overhead and a shower of magic fell from the lights like a mist of golden dust. Nobody else seemed to notice.
There was a bustle around a side door, some shouts and catcalls. Heads turned. Corbin strode into the room in his freshly pressed uniform, either oblivious to the attention or deliberately ignoring it. Daniel, also in his blues, trailed behind the prosecutor. A cloth sack bulged uncomfortably over his shoulder, and a vermilion book was clutched in his free hand.
Gleame’s guards sealed the doors.
Daniel’s eyes searched the crowd. When he spied Miranda, he smiled and frowned in rapid succession, then stared at his feet, blushing. An icy pulse of satisfaction ran through her. The pillow knife cut true, she thought. The fool is love-struck. She observed Daniel closely as he followed Corbin to the stage. He glanced furtively at her, twice more before he reached it, and once again as he took up his position at the walnut table. He can’t help himself. The thought pleased her more than she liked to admit. She pursed her lips and presented him with her most kittenish face.
Corbin rang the justice bell almost carelessly, like a lord summoning supper. The trapdoor in the stage opened and Bolb was elevated slowly into view.
Bolb’s shoulders were hunched, but he did not appear frightened, more distracted, as if he imagined himself dreaming. His belly bulged under the grey gown of an accused man. Miranda knew of the special methods her mother’s agents used in interrogations, the bending of limbs and sinews, but she could see no subtle signs of injury upon his body. A heavy chain weighed down the iron shackles that bound his wrists. There were murmurs of opprobrium from the crowd. Miranda could not discern if they were directed at the master or his imprisonment.
“That is unnecessary,” Somney said angrily.
He was half right, Miranda thought. The idea that the chubby master would attempt to flee was absurd, but this was the first time Miranda had seen Bolb out of his chiming finery. By dressing the master in the trappings of guilt, Corbin had diminished his authority. The prosecutor added to the effect by ignoring the appearance of the master as studiously as he did the crowd, which now waited expectantly upon on his word. His attention remained fixed on his papers, which he shuffled with a look of intense concentration on his face.
Once he had arranged them to his satisfaction, he turned to the items on the evidence table and examined each in turn. Some caused him to nod thoughtfully, as though reminded of their significance. Others he inspected closely, as if to confirm some tiny yet important detail. He triumphantly held Bolb’s metal hand above his head, so that all could marvel at its intricacy an
d wonder at its meaning.
It was all a ritual, as precise and calculated as an act of cunning, designed to demonstrate, even before the trial had begun, that the evidence Corbin had assembled was complete and incontrovertible.
“He’s enjoying this,” Somney muttered.
Corbin looked up and scanned the audience. He seemed to notice everyone. Miranda shifted uncomfortably in her seat as his piercing grey eyes paused momentarily on her.
With a few practised words, Corbin introduced himself and established the legitimacy of his jurisdiction. Finally, he allowed his passionless gaze to descend upon the shackled master.
“Master Pendolous Bolb, born Martin Stead of Thurlowe, you stand before me accused of crimes against property, crimes against person and crimes against the state.” He displayed a sheet of velum to the crowd, and then picked words from the page as if they were mere examples from a vast compendium of villainy. “Theft. Conspiracy. Attempted murder. Murder.”
The chatter of the crowd grew louder as each charge was read. Corbin waited for the hubbub to subside. Then quietly, as if the word itself were shameful, he made his final accusation.
“Treason.”
There was uproar. Corbin shouted over the pandemonium, “How will your confession be entered into The Book of Inspection?”
Miranda’s gaze alighted involuntarily on Daniel. He was writing as quickly as his hand could bear, used the brief pause to flick cramp from his fingers.
“With a clean conscience.” Bolb spoke loudly enough, but his voice could barely be heard above the crowd. He turned to face the throng and practically yelled, “I am innocent of all charges.”
“You seek to deny every facet of this investigation?” Corbin’s expression was incredulous. The crowd quietened to listen.
Bolb spoke boldly. “Facts are facts. My argument is with the prosecutor’s interpretation of them.”
“Your power and wealth make you arrogant. Perhaps you think that you can hide your guilt through some trick of the tongue, or intellect?”
The Censor's Hand: Book One of the Thrice~Crossed Swords Trilogy Page 40
