Ison of the Isles

by Ives Gilman, Carolyn

  *

  The guards that came to fetch him were dressed in red and black uniforms Harg had never seen. Two of them trooped heavily into the room a little after sunrise, rousing Harg and Spaeth from a doze. The younger one laughed hilariously to find the prisoner naked in bed with a woman; the older one was angry at the lapse in security. He ordered Spaeth out of the bed, and when she moved sluggishly he yanked her by the arm and thrust the dressing-gown at her. “Have a care!” Harg said angrily. “She’s ill, you dolt.” With a glare at him, the guard pushed Spaeth out into the corridor half dressed.

  “He’s just jealous,” the younger guard said with a wink. “They say the grey ones are insatiable.” It took all Harg’s control not to flatten his face.

  They had brought him a new set of clothes, of a nasty dried blood colour, and a basin to wash in. There was a short argument among the guards whether to let in a barber who had come to shave him, apparently at Bartelso’s request. After that another argument ensued, this one between Harg and the barber, as to whether he ought to go into court well groomed by Inning standards or Adaina ones. Harg won. The Innings had already made up their minds, he said, and one beard more or less was not going to sway them.

  When he looked at himself newly trimmed in the barber’s mirror, he saw that the scar on his face was already healing; the pale, dead skin was flushed, and even the eye socket looked pink where the new eye would soon begin to grow in. He put his old patch on nonetheless; it had become something of a symbol by now.

  The bells outside were ringing when he left his cell accompanied by the two court guards. He felt an unaccountable optimism about the new day, a desire to take it on and live it out. He hadn’t felt so full of life in months.

  When they brought him into the courtroom, the tall, vaulted hall was filled with the hum of voices. His entry by a door at the front end caused a stir. The guards, suddenly grave and formal, led him up two steps to a platform bordered by a railing, and stood flanking him. He scanned the scene.

  The room seemed designed for a performance. It was long and narrow, the west end filled with benches where well-dressed Tornas and a smattering of Innings sat watching. Some of them were snacking from bags; others had brought their children, who squirmed in formal clothes. On the front bench, a middle-aged Inning with a sketchpad was gazing at him intently and drawing with a pencil. At the back of the room was a space without seats, and here a horde of Adainas were packed in elbow to elbow, jostling for a better view.

  At the front of the room Harg’s eye stopped on a round window leaded in the shape of a spider’s web. Under it stood a tall wooden lectern like an altar, unoccupied at the moment, with two other lecterns flanking it. The dais where Harg stood was below the lecterns and to one side; on the other side, facing him, sat three Innings dressed in red. One was Bartelso. He was speaking urgently to a guard, glancing at Harg. Directly below the tallest lectern, in the centre of the room, was the block.

  Harg scarcely had time to get his bearings before the performance began. A bailiff gestured the audience to rise. As silence fell, an usher came down the central aisle, ceremoniously carrying a grey cat at arm’s length, its hind legs swinging. He was followed by another usher with what looked like a wooden carving of a sprouting potato. When the cat and the potato had left the room, silence fell. The head usher stood before the block and recited something in a language Harg had never heard, made up of repetitive syllables like ba-ba and mook-mook. People in the audience began to titter, and were glared at by neighbours attempting to look respectful of ancient Inning customs.

  When the recital ended, a side door opened and three judges entered. The first two, who took their seats at the lower lecterns, were dressed in robes and bulbous hats like onions. The last judge, who mounted to the tallest seat, was Corbin Talley, in his dress uniform.

  In a solemn voice, Talley opened the trial. “Has the cat come in?” he asked. “Sir, it has,” the head usher replied. Everyone was then allowed to sit. Since they had provided him no chair, Harg remained standing.

  Talley began with a homily on justice. He expounded in a statesmanlike tone on how the law was the greatest gift Inning had to give the Forsaken Islands. All of Inning’s great achievements, he said, were based on the impartiality of the courts. “This trial,” he said, “will demonstrate how the law operates to preserve peace and an orderly society, despite those who seek to disrupt it.”

  Across the room, Bartelso was slumped in his chair, head back in an attitude that indicated either deep sleep or intent study of the ceiling. As the sermon ended he started upright and blew his nose loudly with a handkerchief. Talley turned to the lawyers’ bench. “Advocates, you may approach me.”

  In a ceremonious line they each went up to the lectern, bowed, and handed him a roll of paper. He glanced at the first two and set them aside, but scrutinized Bartelso’s. “Mr. Bartelso,” he said, “your papers are not in order. I can find no verification that the prisoner has in fact appointed you his advocate.”

  Bowing, Bartelso said, “Your honour, if your diligent guards would allow me to walk across the room and give him that paper, you would have your verification.”

  “The court already allowed you time to consult with the prisoner. Since you neglected to make use of it, your request is denied. The court will appoint a disinterested advocate to act on the prisoner’s behalf.” He gestured to one of the other two lawyers, who gathered his papers and crossed the room to stand on Harg’s side.

  So Bartelso was on his side, Harg thought; Talley’s measures to thwart him proved it.

  “Sir, I must protest,” Bartelso said. “This procedure is highly prejudicial.”

  Talley leaned over and consulted in a whisper with the judge on his left—his legal advisor, Harg guessed. Soon he announced, “Our procedures are within judicial guidelines, Mr. Bartelso. Please be seated.” He turned to look at Harg for the first time then. “Prisoner, are you Harg Ismol of Yora?”

  Bartelso had told him not to say a word; but whatever legal advantage there was in it was gone with Bartelso. Harg glanced at his appointed advocate, but the man was inert; he then glanced across the room, where Bartelso had retreated, fuming, to the advocates’ dais. He was shaking his head in a warning “no.” Harg stared in front of him, silent.

  Talley repeated the question, then asked impatiently, “Is there anyone who can identify the prisoner?”

  “I have a witness who can, sir,” the prosecuting advocate said. He was a lean, dour man whose long face looked like a drooping dishrag.

  “Please oblige us, Mr. Gaveril,” Talley said.

  They brought in Minicleer then, who pointed Harg out. For a moment their eyes met, and Harg saw a cruel triumph in Minicleer’s face.

  “Chain him to the block,” Talley ordered dispassionately. The guards moved to lead Harg forward. Bartelso was signalling him to submit, apparently thinking it was better to endure the block than to give up the advantage of silence. Harg only hesitated a second. He then said loudly, “Sir, I wish to renounce my right to testify on my own behalf.”

  His words brought the proceedings to a confused halt. Talley leaned over to talk with his legal advisor, a consultation that turned into a whispered argument. The guards stood waiting. The audience hummed with speculation. Bartelso bowed his head on his knuckles, shaking it as if all were lost.

  At last Talley turned back to him. “Prisoner, are you aware that giving up your right of testimony could be detrimental to your case?”

  Wary of being trapped by answering either yes or no, Harg simply said, “Sir, I wish to repeat my statement.”

  Looking vexed, Talley said, “Very well. We shall proceed.” The guards backed away.

  One of the judges read an elaborately worded set of charges, then the prosecutor gave a speech expounding on the malicious and savage nature of Harg’s crimes against civil order. When they
gave Harg’s advocate a chance to speak he said only, “My client maintains his innocence.” He never even glanced at Harg.

  Harg watched the audience. Were they seeing what a travesty this was, or were they fooled by the ceremony and rhetoric? He wondered if Bartelso had been right, and he should have let them humiliate him as well, just to make the point clearer. The thought made his stomach knot.

  They began bringing out witnesses to testify to the first charge, which was the murder of Proctor Fullabeau at Harbourdown. The first witness, an Inning lieutenant, gave a convincing account of how, during the natives’ treacherous attack on the Redoubt, the heroic commander had fled to the tower to signal the warships; but Harg had followed and, in a cowardly attack, pushed him to his death.

  They seemed about to let the man leave. Harg, unable to contain himself any longer, said, “Sir, may I question the witness?”

  The judges’ bench was again thrown into a whispered consultation. At last Talley turned back to him and said, “Prisoner, you have an advocate to speak for you. It would be to your advantage to allow him to do so.”

  The advocate assigned to Harg rose and said, “I have no questions, your honour.”

  There had been something about this in the Inning law book Nathaway had read to him back in Harbourdown. Harg glanced at Bartelso. He was giving a half-hidden thumbs-up sign. “Sir,” Harg said, “I believe the law guarantees the right of any man to confront his accusers. I wish to exercise that right.”

  Up to now, Talley had maintained a calm, detached air. Now his eyes on Harg were icy. “Very well,” he said, “this court will grant you every advantage that is your right under law. But remember that you have renounced your right to testify. Questions only.”

  “Thank you, Admiral Talley,” Harg said. “I am grateful that even humble Adainas like myself have rights under Inning law.” He sensed a stir in the audience. Perhaps they had imagined a tiny bit of sarcasm in his tone.

  He turned to the witness, who was trying to hide his nervousness under a stoic, military air. “Where were you at the time Proctor Fullabeau was killed, Lieutenant?” he said.

  With a slight hesitation, the man said, “I was imprisoned in the armoury. The fort had been overrun—”

  “Did you actually see his death?” Harg cut him off.

  “No.”

  “Then how do you know how it happened?”

  “It was common knowledge.”

  “Hearsay, you mean?”

  Talley interrupted coldly, “That is not a question, prisoner. That is a prompt.”

  “Your pardon, Admiral,” Harg said. “I am just getting the hang of this ‘law’ business.”

  There was a titter from the audience. “Silence!” Talley ordered.

  “Did you ever hear me describe how Proctor Fullabeau’s death occurred?” Harg asked the witness.

  “No.”

  “Did you ever hear a single eyewitness describe how it occurred?” There had been no eyewitness but a man named Gibbon; and the gods alone knew where he was.

  The Inning shifted in his chair, and Harg thought, He is going to lie. But to his surprise, the officer said, “No.”

  They tell the truth in court, Harg thought. The damned cat and potato are like their Emerald Tablets—the things they respect even at their own cost.

  “Are you done?” Talley said.

  “Yes, thank you, Admiral,” Harg said.

  “You may go,” Talley said to the witness. There was a rustling from the audience, and Talley had to speak sharply to them again. Harg looked over to Bartelso. The lawyer was nodding with the look of a man who delights in mischief.

  There were two other witnesses to the murder charge, both with similarly third-hand accounts full of conflicting details. With every question Harg expected Talley to stop him, but apparently he had hit upon some sacred quirk in Inning law that not even Talley could override.

  The court then turned to consideration of Harg’s role in the assault on Harbourdown Redoubt. The lieutenant came back in to describe the deceitful attack that allowed the natives to overrun the fort. Listening, Harg considered his strategy. It was no use denying that he had led the attack; hundreds of people knew it, and he had no desire to deny it anyway. Somehow, he had to change the focus. When the time came for him to question the witness, he said, “Lieutenant, why had the Inning Navy occupied the Redoubt at Harbourdown?”

  The Inning looked to Talley. “Do I have to answer that, sir?”

  Talley said, “Please do. We have nothing to hide.”

  With the air of someone reciting orders, the lieutenant said, “We had come to take possession of the island and establish order in preparation for introducing law and a civil government.”

  “At the time you arrived, how was Thimish ruled?”

  “It wasn’t ruled at all. It was in the hands of a type of criminal brotherhood.”

  “Were there any courts?”

  “No.”

  “It was completely lawless?”

  Annoyed, the man said, “That is correct.”

  “If there was no law in Harbourdown, how could I have broken it?”

  Talley interrupted, “That’s a specious question, and it has no bearing on this case.”

  Harg turned to him. “Sir, it seems to me I am being tried for breaking the laws of a country that had no sovereignty at the time and place I acted. You might as well try me for breaking Rothur law.”

  There was a hum of comment from the audience. Talley’s voice cut through the noise like an axe. “Prisoner, if you wish to testify you will do so from the block.”

  “Your pardon, sir,” Harg said. “I have no testimony. I was merely seeking clarification.”

  Talley looked out at the audience, which sounded unsettled as a cloud of gnats. He said, “This court will take an hour’s recess.” Without another word, he left the room. The other two judges followed.

  As the guards were leading Harg back along the corridor to his prison cell, Bartelso popped out of a side hall and started walking along beside them. Across one of the guards he said, “I had you pegged for a sullen chap without many cards to play. You’re a different person in front of a crowd, do you know that? You ought to think of taking up law someday, when you give up insurrection.”

  “Am I doing all right, then?” Harg said.

  “Terrible!” Bartelso exclaimed. “It’s a disaster. I never gave anyone better advice than when I told you to keep your mouth shut. Every time you open it, you dig yourself in deeper.”

  Harg scowled, uncertain how to take that. “I’m landing some hits, though,” he said.

  “From the crowd’s point of view. But they’re not going to decide your fate.”

  Harg retorted, “If I’d taken your advice, then this would all be over, and I’d be condemned.”

  “But we would have had grounds for appeal.”

  “What’s appeal?” Harg said.

  Bartelso groaned. “Dear boy, this is why you ought to let professionals handle your affairs.”

  One of the guards finally said to Bartelso, “Sir, are you authorized to talk to the prisoner?”

  “Of course I am,” Bartelso said. “Don’t be absurd.”

  “If I’m doing so badly,” Harg said, “why are you sitting across from me looking like the cat that got the bird?”

  “There are always two courts to consider: the legal one, and the court of public opinion. You’re condemning yourself in the first, but you’re doing all right in the second. I couldn’t have played to the crowd so well, because I would have had a small professional obligation to save your life.”

  They were nearing the guardroom door, and he knew they wouldn’t let Bartelso in. He said, “Can Talley shut me up?”

  “Certainly, if you cross the line. You w
ere risking it, there at the end. He’s leaning over to obey the forms, because of the Innings in the audience. He’s facing a lot of criticism.”

  They were at the door then, and the other ninety-nine questions he had for Bartelso stayed unasked. When they shoved him back into his cell, there was no sign of Spaeth anywhere in the cell block. He spent the time alone eating the sparse lunch they brought him and thinking feverishly about strategy.

  When the court reconvened, word had apparently spread that the trial was not the tedious, perfunctory ritual everyone had assumed. The room was packed now. Some people had even climbed up to the struts supporting the rafters. It was noisier than before. In the stir that met his entrance, Harg even heard a muffled shout of “Ison!” When Talley entered, he stood for a long time regarding them coldly. When he took his seat he gestured for a bailiff, and gave some whispered instructions.

  The prosecutor’s star witness was the first one called into the court. When Harg saw him enter in a spotless Inning uniform, he thought that this was how Joffrey should have looked all along. When he identified himself as Governor Joffrey, Harg realized that he had taken Tiarch’s place as the Innings’ puppet ruler in the Forsakens.

  Joffrey’s testimony was lengthy, detailed, and scrupulously accurate. It was also exquisitely damning. He could cite dates and specifics. From time to time he referred to a little notebook to give the exact words Harg had spoken. The courtroom had fallen totally silent, listening to his meticulous story. When he finished, there was something like a collective sigh as people turned to look at Harg, wondering how he could hope to refute this.

  “Vice-Admiral Joffrey,” Harg started.

  “Governor,” Joffrey corrected. His black eyes gleamed with the old animosity, but only Harg could see it.

  “Congratulations,” Harg said.

  “Thank you,” Joffrey replied.

  “Tell me, who were you working for at the time you made all these observations?”

  With a slight hesitation, Joffrey said, “For Admiral Talley.”

  I knew it, Harg thought. “Was Governor Tiarch aware of that fact?”