by Carol Berg
“I’m not your judge—”
“I think I’m glad of that.”
“—but I tired long ago of those who take or leave the law at their will.”
“Rest easy, sir. I would not think of challenging your sense of right and wrong while in your charge. Any man who burned the children of Avonar would surely have no mercy on a depraved soul such as my own.”
His features might have been carved from the oaken planks of that cart. He said no more. In fact, we traveled the entire day without twenty more words between us.
We arrived in Montevial after nightfall. Rowan had started fidgeting a league from the walls. As we pressed through the travelers crowding across the Dun bridge, trying to get across the sluggish river and past the city gates before they were closed for the night, his eyes flicked from side to side, and he moved almost imperceptibly toward the center of the wagon seat. The flickering torchlight made the lines about his eyes and the creased scar in his cheek seem deeper. Once he stopped the wagon, jumped down from the seat, and spoke quietly to a constable who was patrolling a street of shuttered shops. When we at last came to a halt in the muddy stableyard of a cheap riverside inn, he kicked the crowding beggars away from us and snapped an epithet at a ragged girl. The sheriff seemed to think she was trying to steal the mule, but she had only come to take the beast into the rickety stable. I don’t know which of us was more relieved that the journey was over.
When Rowan appeared at my door the next morning, he wore his usual sober garb of tan breeches, a country man’s canvas leggings, and a dark blue coat, cuffs frayed and thin at the elbows. We walked through the city in a mournful drizzle, the crowds growing thicker as we neared the palace. Rowan started at the bump and jostle of the passersby and gripped my arm tighter the farther we walked, as if I might be tempted to run away now I was in the bastion of Leiran aristocracy.
I tried to keep my eyes away from the palace towers that dominated the cityscape and the red banners with gold dragons that swelled limp and heavy from the walls, but as Rowan’s firm hand steered me toward the center of the city, my steps slowed.
“What is it?” asked Rowan.
“I cannot… not that way. There are other ways to the Petitioners’ Gate.” Much as I despised myself for revealing anything to a sheriff, I could not hide the wave of trembling sickness that had come over me.
“Isn’t this the quickest route? I should think you’d want to be done with it.”
“Please, Sheriff. I beg you. Another way.” Some places even pride could not carry me.
“As you wish. As long as we get there.”
The Petitioner’s Gate in the south wall of the king’s residence at Montevial was opened twice a year: on the first day of autumn for the Sufferance Rite and on the last day of the year for the Feast of the Beggar’s Penny—the day when legend said that in the days of trial before he was granted dominion over the earth and sky, Annadis the Swordsman had given his last penny to a poor beggar in the depths of winter, only to find out that it was his own father, the First God Arot, in disguise. Soldiers in red livery guarded the gate, and a line of soberly dressed men of all ages and sizes was waiting to pass through. The men in line—there were no other women—were mostly prosperous merchants or officers. The poor could not afford the king’s parole.
Rowan released my arm at the edge of the plaza that fronted the gate.
“Are you not to hand me over?” I asked when he motioned me to go on alone.
“My duty was to assure your attendance. You’ll find me here when your duty is likewise done.”
“But surely your duty does not extend to taking me back?” I was genuinely surprised.
“My duty, madam, is to uphold the law.”
The sheriff’s fiery emblem glared at me from his blue coat. Revolted, I left him and made my way to the line of petitioners, wrapping my shabby cloak tight around me.
The queue moved slowly through a small courtyard littered with leaves blown in over the walls. No one would ever bother to clean them up for such traffic as passed through the Petitioner’s Gate. Beyond the courtyard was a waiting room crowded with wooden benches. I squeezed onto the end of a bench and fixed my gaze on the muddy stone floor. One by one the names were called. I felt lightheaded. Perhaps I should have eaten something.
An hour passed. I could do this. For Anne and Jonah who had saved my life, for my freedom, I could do it. What could they ask me that had not been asked during the weeks of interrogation before Karon’s trial?
“Look deep inside, Seri love,” Karon had told me. “Look at the beauty you’ve stored up there, the life you hold, the spark that is no other. They cannot touch it.”
I would not let them in. Karon had built himself a fortress of peace to protect his own spark of life, and in the end, it had failed him. He had died screaming. But I was a warrior’s daughter, and I knew of fortresses. To withstand the assaults of the world, you could not afford peace or sentiment. You couldn’t afford to care about anyone or anything. I would give these people no satisfaction.
“Seriana Marguerite of Comigor.”
The heavy-jowled man wore red robes and carried a guide-staff with a gold dragon on its head. Neck straight, eyes forward, I rose and followed him down a passageway, through a tall arched door, and into the Great Hall of Leire. Hundreds of people were crowded along each side of the vast room, their gaily colored dress garish beside the somber, ancient stonework. Cold light fell through the high windows.
At the far end of the hall, scarcely visible through the murky light, twenty men sat at a long curved table. Evard slouched in his gilded chair at the center of them. Sitting on either side of him were others I knew: the Chancellor Villarre, the Dukes of Pamphile, Aristide, and Greymonte, the Earl of Jeffi, an old hunting partner of my father’s, his leathery wrinkles sagging in distress. So many who had once been part of my world. On either side of the table were a few rows of observers of high enough rank to jockey for chairs, those like the priests, who had a special interest in those who violated the sorcery laws. Everyone else stood, whispering and murmuring behind fans and jeweled fingers.
About fifteen paces from the table, the heavy-jowled steward stuck his staff out in front of me, barring closer approach. He spoke sideways through his teeth. “Obeisance. Complete. Now.” Surely he was joking. No one of noble family made complete obeisance. The king was the first among equals. And to Evard? Never. I made a deep curtsy as was proper, keeping my head unbowed. My father had sat on the Council of Lords. My mother had been maid of honor to Queen Theodora.
As I rose, I glimpsed Tomas watching stone-faced while a fair, rosy-cheeked young woman clung to his arm, giggling and whispering with other women around her. His wife’s name was Philomena.
The heavy-jowled man whispered from behind me. “Obeisance. Complete. Now.” I stood firm.
Evard’s relaxed posture was belied by the edge in his voice. “It is the custom for those who live by our sufferance to make a respectful approach.”
“Your Majesty, I bear the honor of all who hold the rank I have been privileged to share. Acquiescence to such a custom would draw the structure of society into question. If such were my intent, I would most assuredly begin at a different place.”
The crowd drew breath as one. Evard slammed his hand on the table. “The only rank of those who enter the Petitioner’s Gate is the rank of supplicant. You will follow the custom or you will be forced to follow it.”
It would have been easy, though repugnant, to grant Evard what he wanted, but as with most bullies, it would only leave him with expectations I was not planning to fulfill. I stood quietly while Evard jerked his head to the heavy-jowled man. Three red-liveried guards surrounded me. Two of them grabbed my arms and spread them in the supplicant’s gesture. One forced me to my knees and bent my head forward until it touched the floor. After a moment they released me, and I stood again. Tomas was livid. What did he expect?
The chancellor spoke first. “Seriana Mar
guerite, you have been adjudged guilty of the most serious crimes: consorting with enemies of Leire, conspiring to hide criminals, participating in treasonous activities, plotting to place on the throne of Leire one who knowingly harbored…”I did not even listen until Evard began the questioning.
“Where have you spent your time since you so ungratefully repudiated your family’s concern?”
“A village in the south, Your Majesty.”
“And who has sheltered you?”
“Peasants. No one of importance.”
“Do these peasants know of your crimes?”
“They know of what I have been accused. I acknowledge no crimes. My husband was a healer who shared a blessed gift with all who needed it.”
The observers gabbled in disbelief. The high priest of Jerrat, a tall man with a craggy face, jumped from his chair. “Insupportable!”
Evard pounded on the table for silence. “Stubborn still, are you? We would advise you to restrain your insolent tongue. It would be easy to overreact to your heedless provocation and do that which might give us indigestion tomorrow. Tell us, madam, in these months since your judgment, have you had contact with any person who has at any time or in any wise practiced, studied, or tolerated the repugnant and unnatural rites of sorcery?”
“I have not.”
“Have you, in any other way, broken any law promulgated in our name?”
“I have not.”
Evard then turned the questioning over to those in attendance. It went on for well over an hour. Had I worked charms or spells? Did I know how? Where had we held the god-cursed rites? Was it true the late Earl of Gault was himself a sorcerer? Had I been intimate with a man since I ran away? The women’s questions were the worst.
Tomas looked as if he might burst as the farce played out. His face blazed when one of his friends asked me if a sorcerer could “magic his prick bigger” during the act of love. And when his own wife asked if I pleasured myself, as no man would have a woman befouled by a sorcerer, I thought Tomas might throttle her. Darzid sat just behind him, watching thoughtfully.
I would have gotten through it quite well if a sober Graeme Rowan had not been standing by the door as I was escorted out. But when I thought of him hearing all I had been forced to answer… I was truly humiliated.
The journey back to Dunfarrie that evening was even more awkward than that of the previous day. Rowan never shifted his eyes from the road. I could not look at him without anger and embarrassment, and then I cursed myself for caring what a murdering sheriff had heard. We arrived at the Dun bridge near midnight. Honor required me to acknowledge the escort; he could have left me to walk.
“Thank you for bringing me back, Sheriff.”
“I’m surprised you’d wish to return to peasants of no importance.”
Stupid man. Couldn’t he see it was better not to interest Evard in this place? I turned to go.
As I started up the path, though, he called after me in a very different tone. “Tell me one thing. What was the place in the city where you wouldn’t walk?”
What was one more question on this day? He could have asked it at the rite, and I would have been required to answer. And he had honored my request. “It was the commard, Sheriff. Surely you know of it. The heart of any Leiran city where public rites and performances are held and proclamations posted. In Montevial, the place where sorcerers are burned. For a year, as a warning, they leave it there, the pyre, the stake… whatever is left. It is the law.” Words could not pain me. “I heard that Avonar looked like a burned forest.”
* * *
From that day on, every year on the last day of summer I met Graeme Rowan at the Dunfarrie bridge. Neither his sober expression nor his stiff propriety varied from one year to the next, nor did we speak beyond the minimum necessary. The smudge of the gods always adorned his brow. Each year, he listened as I was questioned, and then we returned to our separate lives, duty and the law satisfied.
CHAPTER 10
“Rowan!”
“You! What in blazes… ?”
Only a few times in my life had I been at a loss for something to say. The only clue to Aeren’s identity was slipping away from me into the night, and standing in my way was one person who absolutely must not know of my mission. Possible explanations raced through my mind and were discarded just as quickly. Graeme Rowan was not stupid.
The sheriff took my arm firmly and propelled me backward into the shadowed alcove between the outer door, the staircase, and the wide entrance to the common room.
“Release me at once. You’ve no cause to hold me,” I said, in a furious whisper.
“I’ve every right to investigate suspicious behavior, and I find your presence here extremely suspicious.” Rowan spoke quietly also, in tones that brooked no dispute.
“You have no jurisdiction here, Sheriff. If I should scream that I’m being, brutalized, you would have no more rights than any other bully.”
His sober expression did not change, though the sun lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled a bit. “I disagree. Barnard, the local sheriff, knows me quite well. He would most likely be interested in the activities of known lawbreakers in his town.”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Test me. Or would you rather tell me what you’re doing here? I know there are few things that pain you more than having a word with me, but I really must know what’s brought you here.”
And this, of course, was where I was out of words. I couldn’t think fast enough. The long day’s journey, the terrible doings in the forest, the odd little man running away… “Can we step outside, Sheriff?”
“As you wish.”
Beggars, carters, and drunkards crowded the torch-lit lane, but the stranger was nowhere in sight. Curse the man! “Have you nothing better to do than bother honest citizens, Sheriff? You should leave me alone and clean up your own district. Take care of the murderous highwaymen that prey on travelers.” To my dismay, my voice faltered a bit as I recalled the brutal scene in During Forest.
If there was any lack of will on Rowan’s part to pursue our confrontation, he dismissed it instantly. The pious mark on his brow glared at me like a third eye. “Madam, what do you know of highwaymen?”
Cursing my loose tongue, I folded my arms and looked away.
“Blessed Annadis, give me patience!” he said. “How do you propose I take care of my district if every person in it is so high and mighty as you?”
“Perhaps your district would be better off without a sheriff’s care.”
His face flamed, but he gritted his teeth and kept his voice down. Once could not mistake his sincerity. “Five men were slain in During Forest today. They were no ordinary highwaymen, but the most ruthless that ever plagued this road. They’ve survived for twenty years and were cut down in an afternoon. It’s something I must understand. If you refuse to speak what you know, then you’ve no right to demand anything of me. I ask you again, madam, what do you know of highwaymen?” I had never heard so many words from him all at once.
My distaste for the upright sheriff and my revulsion at his past did not entirely cloud my perceptions. As Jacopo often reminded me, Rowan was neither excessively brutal nor grasping in his day-to-day duties, as were so many of his ilk. And if his unquestioning adherence to a flawed notion of law set him at odds with the ruthless travelers I had seen in the forest, I would not argue. However uncomfortable it might feel for me, reason was on his side. After all, the priests might have nothing to do with Aeren. Perhaps the almond-eyed man’s fear of the three had its origin, as mine did, in their handiwork of the day.
“You’re right,” I said. What was pride but another garment to be discarded when you had grown past its use? “Not about everything… but about this. Yes. I witnessed what happened in During Forest. Quite by chance.”
“And will you tell me of it?”
I glanced about the dark lane. “Can we walk away from here just a little?” Rowan started to protest, but I interrupted. “
I promise, I’ll tell you why.”
Just down the lane two empty crates sat outside a poulterer’s shop. My feet felt as if someone had taken a hammer to them. Making sure I could still see the door of the inn, I sat on one of the crates and propped my heavy boots on the other, leaving Rowan to decide whether to sit on the filthy ground or remain standing, unable to see my face. He squatted, looking uncomfortable.
“I was on my way to Grenatte on private business,” I began, and without mentioning Paulo, I recounted what I had witnessed that afternoon.
“And these priests are in the Green Lion?”
“That’s why I was leaving in a hurry,” I said. “They unnerved me, though I don’t believe they saw me in the forest, and though one could say they were entirely in the right in the matter. How can I explain it?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “The kill was not cleanly done. Yet, as you say, it’s not against the law to be good at defending oneself. But any who can take such men down easily are worth my attention, for rarely are they less dangerous in their turn.”
“So what will you do?”
“I’ll speak to these priests and see what they’re about.”
“You’ll not tell them who you are?”
“Surely this is no concern for my welfare?” he said.
Graeme Rowan’s welfare was his own concern. “It just occurred to me that a casual encounter might be less risky than telling them you’re a sheriff. In fact”—a scheme began taking shape—“to make things easier, I’d be willing to accompany you while you speak to them. We could say we are cousins.”
“I see no purpose in deception. In this matter, at least, they’ve no reason to fear me.” He straightened to his full height, looking down at me quizzically. “But if, for whatever reason, you’d like to be present when I interview them, I’ll not prevent it. I certainly don’t intend for you to leave Grenatte until we can discuss other matters… such as what you’re doing here.”
