Sword Fight

by Nathan Van Coops

  “None of the bystanders read the contract prior to the duel. They didn’t know the terms. Only the other signees on the contract can be witnesses, and everyone that Jasper had sign it backs up his version of the story. He has three witness signatures to your one, and even yours backs up his statement.”

  “You’re not looking at the right contract then. I swear it shows what we signed. It doesn’t matter what anyone says.”

  Berkley Livingston knitted her fingers together. “This will be difficult. You’ll have a chance to face the magistrate and give your side of the story, but I’m afraid there’s more bad news.”

  “How can anything be worse?”

  “Lord Sterling has put forth that you’ve proven yourself a violent threat by unlawfully attacking your liege lord’s family and has therefore requested custody of you. They want to declare you unfit for society.”

  Valerie could only stare at the lawyer. “The Sterlings want custody of me?”

  “You’re in an extremely unique circumstance. After your stepmother was informed of the incident, she declined responsibility for you. With no other legal adults alive in your immediate family, there is no one to vouch for your honor. Typically, in these cases, the lack of an immediate family member means the right to your guardianship falls on your liege lord. They would be the ones to vouch for you no matter your age. But, in this case, your liege lord is the family you’ve attacked.” Livingston leaned back in her chair. “You’ve managed to make a bad situation much worse.”

  “I’ll be eighteen soon. I’m almost a legal adult. No one should have to vouch for me.”

  “Unfortunately, that may be too late. They can have you committed to an asylum well before you turn eighteen. Once inside, your birthday won’t matter. Your legal rights as an adult will no longer apply.”

  Valerie opened her mouth to object but could no longer contain her tears. She began to cry, her body giving in to the overwhelming sadness that was poised to crush her. Her body shook, and she sobbed into her arms on the table.

  A hand rested on the back of her head.

  “I know this is something you never would have imagined possible,” Livingston said. “And I believe you, Valerie. I really do.”

  Valerie lifted her face from her arm. “Then why can’t you help me?”

  “I’m trying,” Livingston replied. “But you’ve picked a fight with the most powerful family in the western colonies.”

  “What about outside the colonies then? The queen! Could I appeal to the queen?”

  “The Court of Pendragon won’t hear a case that hasn’t even made it out of district court. And they’re a continent away. As of now, you don’t have the money for an appeal in lower court, let alone an appeal to the Pendragons. Without your stepmother taking responsibility for you, you don’t have the money for anything.”

  Valerie’s shoulders slumped; her body defeated. But her mind refused to accept the reality of the situation. Finally, she asked the question she’d been avoiding thinking about. “Where’s Henry?”

  Livingston pressed her lips together, then spoke. “His body is in the city morgue. Someone will need to decide where he’ll be laid to rest.”

  “Home. It has to be there. Next to mother. Can you take him? I don’t want him to be alone.”

  “I can at least do that much,” Livingston replied. “I wish there was more I could do.”

  “He didn’t deserve this,” Valerie said, her voice softening. “He was the one who—”

  “I know,” Livingston replied. She rested her hand on Valerie’s. After a moment, she slid her chair back from the table. “The magistrate will summon you soon. If there is any justice in the world, he’ll hear you. Stay strong.” Livingston rose. She rapped on the door and the guards returned.

  “I won’t let them win,” Valerie said. “I don’t care what I have to do. They won’t get away with this.”

  Livingston turned to face her. “I pray you get your justice.”

  Valerie watched the lawyer go, then the guards returned and escorted her back to her cell.

  It was hours before someone else showed their face. Her cellmate was released in the early afternoon, but it was evening by the time someone collected her for the magistrate. Valerie had managed a few fitful hours of rest, but her eyes were puffy from crying and she still had Henry’s blood on her hands.

  The courtroom was a narrow place with few amenities, just barely enough space for the plaintiffs and accused and a smattering of seats for family or friends. Valerie had neither. The magistrate was seated at a high bench and wore a wig that looked like it hadn’t been properly powdered in a decade. He was frowning before Valerie was even in position.

  A door at the right side of the room opened, and a person Valerie recognized entered. It was Blaise Cavendish, Jasper Sterling’s lawyer.

  “You!” Valerie said. “How dare you show your face here!”

  “Order!” The magistrate banged his gavel. “Silence in my courtroom.” He glared at Valerie and Blaise as if daring one of them to speak again. “The court will now hear the city’s case against Valerie of the House of . . . Terravecchia. You are accused of assaulting a member of your liege lord’s family with deadly intent and attempting to duel underage. How do you plead, young lady?”

  “Innocent!”

  The magistrate sighed. “The bill of grievances for this case is lengthy. You are prepared to defend yourself?”

  “Jasper Sterling is the criminal, your honor. He should be the one in court. This man was a witness.” She pointed to Blaise.

  Blaise chimed in. “Your honor, the Sterling family insists that the contract signed by Henry Terravecchia was dutifully witnessed and provides ample proof that Lord Sterling was within his rights to terminate the duel in question by any means he saw fit. I did witness the contract myself.”

  “You refer to this contract?” The judge held up a document and looked it over. He turned to Valerie. “Miss, this contract is marked as a duel to satisfaction and is in fact signed by several witnesses.”

  “It can’t be, your honor. My brother signed a duel to first blood. I swear it.”

  “Despite the fact that your own signature says otherwise? This is your signature, is it not?”

  Valerie approached the bench to view the document. She had to admit that it did appear to be her signature. “I don’t know how to explain it, but that isn’t the contract we signed.”

  Blaise approached the bench as well. “Your honor, the House of Sterling insists that Valerie Terravecchia acted outside the law, letting her passions reign and endangering law-abiding citizens of the city. You will find their full statement in the documents provided. It is their position that, due to her precarious mental state, she is a danger to any and all, and they wish to see her removed from society immediately.”

  The magistrate reviewed the document, then addressed Valerie. “Miss Terravecchia, do you know that the House of Sterling is your legal guardian at this moment? Without another member of your family present to vouch for you, you are entirely at their mercy. According to these documents, even if I accept your plea of innocence and forgo any sentencing, they intend to have you admitted to St. Anselm’s Institute for the Mentally Unstable. However, if you plead guilty to this crime, it’s possible that they may be more lenient. Are you certain you wish to continue with this claim of innocence?”

  “Your honor, they’re lying. He’s lying.” She pointed to Blaise. “I know the truth. I swear it on my life.”

  The magistrate rubbed his chin and considered her. “I don’t feel you adequately understand the circumstances. If I don’t pass a sentence of my own involving jail time, as an underage vassal of the Sterling family, they would be within their rights to do anything they like with you. Once you leave this courtroom, you will have no further protection from the law.”

  “They’re trying to claim my family’s lands. They defrauded my stepmother, and now they’ve murdered my brother in cold blood. All of this is
their doing! I promise you I am not a criminal or insane. Please. You have to believe me.”

  The judge turned to the city prosecutor. “Will Lord Jasper Sterling be in attendance today?”

  “No, your honor,” Blaise replied. “Lord Sterling was occupied with other matters.”

  “Too busy to attend a hearing that might decide the fate of an entire house and send a young woman to a lifetime at St. Anselm’s? I find that hard to believe.”

  Blaise shrugged. “I’m sure that the business of the House of Sterling is their own. I’m merely the messenger.”

  “Indeed,” the magistrate replied. He shuffled through the papers a bit more, reading the various statements, then he addressed Valerie again. “You said you would swear on your life that your statement is the truth. You believe that Lord Jasper Sterling, your liege lord, deliberately murdered your brother as a way to secure the ownership of your family lands. Am I getting that right?”

  “Yes, sir. I swear it.”

  “Oaths are a solemn thing, young lady. I take them quite seriously.”

  “Your honor, I swear to God, to you, on the honor of my family and anything else good in the world, I’m telling the truth.”

  The magistrate studied her face. “Young woman, there is a preponderance of evidence against you, but despite all that, I do feel you at least believe you are telling the truth. Unfortunately, as an underage noble, I am obliged to deliver you to your guardians. The law forbids me from doing otherwise. It is very specific when it comes to the guardianship of heirs and vassals. Do you understand the predicament you are in?”

  “Please, your honor, Jasper Sterling nearly killed me once already today. Don’t turn me over to them. They’re the ones who should be prosecuted.”

  The magistrate reached for his pen and began writing on a document she couldn’t see.

  “I feel there is only one avenue left to you, Miss Terravecchia. It’s possible you are telling the truth. You have small chance of resolving anything, however, if you are a resident of St. Anselm’s. I also feel it highly distasteful to turn over guardianship of a young woman to the same family that has caused her such harm. Therefore, I have only one alternative that may give you an opportunity to prove your case. Though I fear you won’t like it.”

  “I’ll take any opportunity,” Valerie replied.

  “Then I hope you find a way to prove that,” the magistrate said. “Hand me your signet ring.”

  Valerie balked at the request, but when he held his hand out again, she wriggled her ring loose and handed it to him.

  He finished signing the documents, stamping them each with his own seal and with Valerie’s signet ring, then handed a completed document across the desk. “You are still underage. If you can return to this court as an adult with some proof of what you say, I will listen to you again. But that is the best I can do.”

  “Your honor, this is highly irregular,” Blaise objected. “What have you—”

  The magistrate held up a hand to silence him.

  Valerie took the document and read it. “But, sir, this is a revocation of title.”

  “That’s correct,” the magistrate replied, making a point of dropping her signet ring into a drawer of his desk. “As your sentence for the crime of attacking your liege lord, I hereby decree that you have dishonored your family name. I therefore rescind any and all noble titles that you hold and declare you to be a commoner from this day forward. You are therefore free to go.”

  Valerie’s mouth dropped open. “My family name. You can’t—”

  “I really must object,” Blaise said. “The House of Sterling wants her to be put away, not left free to roam the streets.”

  “That may be true,” the magistrate replied. “But as of several seconds ago, this young woman is no longer the legal responsibility of the Sterling family. She is declared nameless and therefore no longer bound to the obligations of the ruling class.”

  The prosecutor merely stared at him, gobsmacked.

  “You took . . . you took away my name?” Valerie said.

  “And in so doing, gave you back your freedom,” the magistrate replied. “Use it well, young lady. Otherwise, I feel you may soon run out of second chances.”

  “But nameless are commoners,” Valerie objected. “I’m not a commoner.”

  The magistrate waved his hand. “Bailiff, please escort this young woman to the door.”

  A burly man with a full metal breastplate and a mace lumbered over to Valerie. He shoved a bag into her arms that she realized contained her personal belongings, then he took her by the arm, hauling her toward the exit.

  “Wait. You can’t do this!” Valerie objected. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. You were supposed to help me!” She attempted to hold on to the doorframe as the bailiff pushed her through the door.

  “I gave you freedom, young lady,” the magistrate called out. “I pray you use it well.”

  Then, with a final heave from the bailiff, Valerie was ejected from the courtroom. She lost her footing on the damp steps and tumbled to the muddy street outside. She looked up to find the immense height of the city wall looming above her. She was back on her feet in an instant and racing toward the flickering light of the courtroom, but the bailiff slammed the door in her face. The heavy lock rammed home with a decisive thud.

  Valerie pounded on the metal door for several minutes but to no avail.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  She continued hammering until her fist could no longer take the abuse.

  Finally, she descended the steps and cautiously took in her surroundings.

  She nearly fell again on the slippery walking path. The ground sloped away from the city wall at a steep angle, and the perimeter road, if it could even be called that, was pitched so severely that any misstep threatened to send her tumbling downhill.

  Fog had descended on the bay for the night, shrouding the water from view, but Valerie could glimpse the rusted tin roofs of fishing shanties far below in the mist. Boat bells and the shouts of sailors drifted up from the fog.

  She had been tossed into an area midway between two of the city’s elevated connecting bridges. The highways loomed overhead to either side, but this middle space simply sloped away into the fog. The door she had just exited was the only one in sight along this stretch of the city wall. Someone had graffitied the stones above the door with the moniker “Satan’s Arsehole.”

  Valerie shivered.

  Bits of trash littered the footpath that ran along the perimeter of the wall. She slipped and slid her way downward until it met a serpentine road coming up from the bay. A few precarious-looking shacks lined the sides of the road, clinging in the shadow of the heavy wall stones, but they were little more than rundown wrecks. The people coming and going from the shanties weren’t much better. A toothless man who smelled of urine staggered past her on his way up the hill, muttering to himself.

  The setting sun was lost beyond the fog, and its light was dimming rapidly as it neared the invisible horizon. As bad as her day had been, Valerie had the sinking realization that it was about to get worse.

  7

  Impound

  If there was ever a time to curse the powers that be, Valerie had found it. A torrent of profanity escaped her as she made her way along the darkening road outside the city wall, searching for a way back inside. To her frustration, the ramshackle assemblage of housing clinging to the slopes forced her to detour farther downhill.

  She pulled her jacket from the bag she had been given and wrapped it tightly around herself, regretting her choice in clothing with every step. She did appreciate the boots she had purchased, as the ruts and potholes in the streets hid a multitude of puddles, but the cut-off shorts made her an object of scrutiny from passersby. She was humiliated and dirty, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to be looked at.

  Her journey along the serpentine hillside route only led to confusion. After several involuntary return trips to the same street cor
ner, she finally approached a prostitute and asked for directions.

  The woman sized her up from beneath colorful false lashes. “What are you out here for? Don’t be thinking you can work my block.”

  “I need to get to a city gate,” Valerie said.

  The prostitute rolled her eyes, then casually pointed skyward. “Like that one?” When Valerie followed her gesture, she could just make out the span of the bridge passing high overhead. It was almost lost in the fog. She hadn’t realized how far down the hill she had already come.

  “I’ve been trying to get back up there. Seems like this road never connects. Is there another way up for pedestrians?”

  “Unless you got wings you ain’t showing, you can take the stairs like everybody else.” The woman gestured to a rusted metal staircase attached to one of the bridge’s stone supports.

  Valerie immediately began walking that way.

  “You’re welcome,” the prostitute said.

  Valerie kept her head down and walked as quickly as she could, ignoring the muttering from darkened stoops and windows as she passed. She could only imagine the conversations, but they couldn’t match the reproach she had for herself.

  A million scenarios kept running through her mind, mostly ways this day could have been avoided. If she had made any one of a thousand different choices, Henry might still be alive. If she had bothered to find out what her stepmother was doing with their estate while she was away at school—if she had convinced Henry not to come to the city . . . the litany of poor decisions went on forever. It was only matched by her innumerable thoughts of hatred toward Jasper Sterling.

  With every step she took, she saw Jasper’s leering smile—his coy greeting at the manor, all the while knowing he was destroying her life. Her mind replayed the seconds when she had him in front of her, the sword in her hand ready to strike him down.

  If she could get to the car, get another sword. . . But it was no use. He had been a step ahead of them at every turn. He clearly knew Henry would seek retribution with a duel. Jasper had left them no other options and had the Red Reaper waiting and a crew of liars to validate his actions.