Judgment at the Verdant Court

by M. C. Planck

  Neither did Christopher. That might be a bit of a sticking point.

  “Indeed,” Lalania said, guessing his concern. “But the druids are still Bright. They respect the Bright Lady, even if they do not revere her. To these people she is like a kindly aunt, obsessed with tea cozies and sweets, far removed from the gritty realities of life both wicked and good. They will not kill you out of hand, but neither can you expect them to accord your arguments very much weight.”

  He’d spent his entire career as an engineer making fun of the pointy-headed academics in their ivory towers, and now he was one of them.

  “I do not know what words you can use to sway their course of justice, Christopher. I can get you into the court, and a chance to speak, but that is all.”

  “Nor can we shoot our way out.” Gregor happily piled on the bad news. “Of all the foes your regiment would be ill-disposed to fight, they are the worst. They will snipe at your unarmored men from hiding places in the trees, and their high-ranks will use guile and stealth instead of overwhelming force. They’ll not batter their faces against a stone wall until they die.”

  Why couldn’t he have more allies like this? “What are my chances of recruiting them?” Although, given the disdain that D’Kan and D’Arcy had shown his guns, he could guess the answer was not good.

  “Recruiting them for what?” Lalania asked him archly.

  He could hardly say, for a republican revolution, and she knew that. That was why she’d asked him the question. To remind him that if he talked like that, other people might ask the same question.

  “For scouts?” he asked, hoping it was an answer that would pass.

  “Good enough,” she said. “They’ll only be disgusted by that. Although you already have a Ranger as a scout. It would be a grave insult to him to even suggest you need another.”

  “I’m not sure I have D’Kan,” he said, although what he was thinking was, I’m not sure I care about insulting D’Kan.

  “You do. You did not release him from your service. He is still yours to command, until you feel your bargain is done. Those were the original terms, and his own father will compel him to honor them. Indeed, if you release D’Kan for insubordination or incompetence, you may provoke a duel.”

  “And if I release him for stealing from me?”

  “They won’t—”

  “I know,” Christopher sighed. “They won’t see it like that.”

  Farmark Keep was a disappointment, even in the dark. Christopher’s rough fort out in the middle of the swamp, built in ten days by a wizard and pack of young men, was more imposing. The keep lay in so much darkness Christopher at first thought it was abandoned. He had become used to the flickering of light-stones bathing every significant building in importance, like the glow of neon back home.

  The village that nestled in the woods around the keep was no better. The side streets were clean and neat, but gloomy, the windows of the houses shuttered against leaking light. The only sounds were the clomping of his horse’s hooves and the short, sharp bark of a dog from every other house they passed. The dogs only barked once, though. Like the rest of the town, they were disciplined to obscurity.

  The gates of the keep were shut, but a man was waiting to greet them. When Christopher pulled his horse to a stop, the man unhooded a lantern and raised it high.

  “Greetings, Vicar. The keep is closed for the night, but with your permission, I will show you to a pasturage for your company.”

  “Your inn doesn’t have a barn?” Not many of the establishments they had stayed in during this trip had a barn big enough for his troop, but for the clink of gold coins they had made arrangements for him with the locals.

  “I’m sorry, Vicar.”

  “Okay. Whatever. But take us past the inn first, so we can unpack.” No point in carrying the saddlebags back from the pasture.

  The man froze, a statue of politeness. “I’m sorry, Vicar.”

  Christopher stared down at the man, perplexed. Royal sensed his mood and flattened his ears.

  “You don’t have an inn?” Lalania’s tone was half in jest.

  “I’m sorry, Minstrel. There are no inns in the Near Wild.”

  “Then where are we supposed to sleep?” She wasn’t jesting now.

  “With your permission, I will show you to a pasturage for your company,” the man repeated like a clockwork doll.

  Gregor laughed softly in the darkness. “Remind me not to visit in winter.”

  Lalania was not so easily put off. “Surely you do not expect the Vicar to sleep in a field?”

  “Lord Einar and Lady Sigurane extend their regrets, but the keep is unable to accept guests at this time.”

  It was Christopher’s turn to smile. He wouldn’t let a high-rank of unknown disposition and a squadron of soldiers inside his house in the middle of the night, either. The rules of hospitality only extended so far, and then they became absurd.

  “Lead on, Goodman.”

  “Ser, Vicar, though I assure you I take no offense.”

  Damn it, how were you supposed to know? Knights wore huge swords and clanking armor. They advertised their status with every swaggering step. This polite, middle-aged factotum did not match Christopher’s preconceived notions, and he found it difficult to adapt.

  While following the man and his lantern through the town, Christopher felt the sharp prod of irony. It was not comfortable.

  The ranger left them in a pasture, which was to say, a round, flat plain devoid of anything but grass. After wishing them a good night, he hooded his lantern and disappeared into the dark.

  “Enough of this nonsense,” Christopher said, and pulled out his own light-stone. His company followed suit, and soon the field was glowing brightly.

  Karl sent half the men into the bordering forest to collect firewood. Lalania objected, but Christopher overruled her, and then laughed at her frown.

  “Make up your mind, woman. You’re not happy telling me what to do, and you’re not happy being told what to do.”

  Gregor laughed too, perhaps a little longer than was seemly.

  “What I want,” the minstrel said archly, “is for you not to be a jackass.”

  “Then you’re doomed to disappointment.” Christopher relaxed in the banter, missing for so many days. First his mental condition, and then the oppressive air of the Gold counties, had made everything unpleasant and creepy.

  “He’s coming here to force his ways on their Court, Lala,” Gregor defended him. “He can hardly balk to enforce himself on a pasture.”

  “He’s coming here to ask them to overturn one of their laws. The least he can do is respect the rest of them.”

  “I don’t even know the rest of them. They put me in a field, with no more than a by-your-leave. What else can they expect me to do?” Niona’s words came back to him then, how the druids had tried to control instead of influence, and how it had rendered them irrelevant in the long run. “If they want my cooperation, they have to at least ask.”

  “You would make a virtue of your ignorance?” Lalania shook her head in dismay.

  “I’d rather call it innocence,” he said. She had called it that, not too long ago. When she didn’t reply right away, Gregor started laughing again.

  “He’s not a big, dumb warrior who thinks with his sword, Lala. He’s a priest. Apparently they need to cover that distinction back at your College.”

  “Apparently,” she said, and went to use her magic on their poor stores of dried meat and cold, hard bread. After heaping the rations for all the men onto a blanket, she dramatically passed her hand over the pile while speaking in that strange, lyrical tongue she had used to exterminate bedbugs when they had shared a filthy room, on the road to her College. When Christopher got his share, he was pleasantly surprised to find the bread warm and soft, and the meat hot and juicy. The woman was better than a microwave oven.

  The company bedded down next to a crackling fire, tucking their light-stones under the saddles they were
using for pillows. Wrapped in his greatcoat, crushed grass cushioning the ground underneath him, Christopher was as comfortable as he had been in many days.

  Morning came too soon. Unfiltered by shutters, or windows, or a roof, the bright sun climbed over the treetops and poked Christopher in the face. Tired, cranky, and grungy, he sat by the embers of the fireplace as Lalania tried to make something out of breakfast without magic.

  She was saving her magic for the day. Just in case. Christopher had been doing the same, reserving his spells in case of emergency since the moment he had gotten them back. It struck him as a colossal waste of power. Each night he went to sleep with spells still in his head that could have healed two people of terminal illness. He tried to imagine a system that would maximize the use of magic while not leaving him unprepared.

  Then he could not help but remember a little girl, crying in her mother’s arms until he touched her with his magic. He had not been prepared—could never have been prepared—for the price of that benevolence. The memory turned his mood black and sour, until Lalania chided him for being too used to soft beds.

  He did not correct her. This was his burden to bear. There was plenty enough evil in this world to go around. Lalania had her own memories to suffer.

  “When does this thing start?” he asked her.

  “Technically, at sunrise. However, they cannot deny you your sacred hour.”

  He didn’t need one, since he hadn’t exhausted any of the spells he’d memorized days ago.

  “Is there any chance of getting a bath?”

  Gregor answered for her. “It’s one thing to force your ways on them, Christopher. It’s another thing to be weird. Your obsession with soap and water is not healthy for a man.”

  Lalania nodded in agreement. “I can take the dust off your clothes and out of your hair, but asking for a bath will just confuse them.”

  “Can’t I pretend it’s part of my priestly ritual?” That was something to bring up with Torme, when the man was able to talk again. If he was going to start a church, then he was going to include a rule that cleanliness was next to godliness.

  Lalania frowned at him. “Praying is one thing. Performing sacred rites on the Mother’s soil is—”

  “Something different. I know.” This final annoyance put him over the limit. Fully fed up with the arbitrary, insufferable, picayune details of religion, he stood up and adjusted his sword belt to hang comfortably. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  Lalania picked up her lyre, and Gregor slung his shield over his back. Christopher looked across the dying fire to where Karl was brushing a horse.

  Lalania spoke in a whisper. “As egalitarian as they are, he has no place there.”

  “Then they’re idiots.” This insult threatened to be too much.

  “That’s not—” She stopped herself and tried a different tack. “Christopher, they will blame you for not promoting him, when he is so obviously worthy.”

  “It’s true,” Gregor agreed. “As I did, at first.”

  “But—” Christopher started to object, but Lalania laid a finger across his lips.

  “We know. We understand. But others will need time to see. And this is not the time.”

  He didn’t want them to see. These druid lords were not allies in his revolution; the less they knew, the better, until it was too late. He understood this intellectually, but the unfairness of it dug into his shoulders like talons.

  Something Lalania had said to him before rang in his mind. They are Bright, but they are not your friends. A good thing to be reminded of now.

  8

  A SURPRISING VERDICT

  The gate of the keep was open, but they did not enter. Two guardsmen bade them wait, while a third went inside. After only moments he returned with their guide from the night before.

  “Good morning to you, Vicar.”

  “Good morning, Ser.” Christopher was prepared to argue his way through the gate, portcullis and all, but Lalania stilled him with a touch. The Ranger was leading them outside, not in.

  “The court is held in the forest, not the keep,” she explained as they followed the Ranger.

  “Of course,” the Ranger said, looking at Christopher with a little surprise. “Where the Mother wills it.”

  Christopher had gained in strength and power since he came to this world, but he still couldn’t master his curiosity.

  “How, exactly, does the Mother indicate her will in this matter?”

  Lalania frowned, but the Ranger grinned and winked.

  “She whispers it in the High Druid’s ear the day before. Or close enough; perhaps a bird whistles, or a chipmunk chatters; and then the High Druid suddenly knows which patch of forest it must be. Since it’s always a different patch, only those invited can find it before the affair is over and done.”

  Christopher nodded approvingly. If you were going to have ludicrous religious rituals, they should at least provide security. The whole point of secret knowledge was to confound outsiders.

  They walked through pathless forest for an hour, their guide leading as confidently as a taxicab driver in downtown London. Christopher was sure the Ranger had taken them on the shortest, easiest route, and equally sure he had no idea where they were or even which way town was. He was surprised when they turned into a fallow field and found it occupied by dozens of green-clad men.

  And one bound in iron. Cannan knelt in the middle of the field, an iron collar around his neck chained to a spike in the ground.

  Christopher walked toward him, magnetically drawn to this spectacle of humiliation. Though Cannan was stripped half naked and trapped like a wild beast in the middle of his enemies, the knight did not seem to care. But when he saw Christopher, he was the first to speak.

  “Get on, then. We’re done, you and I.”

  Another man stepped into Christopher’s path, blocking his way. “The court is for public justice, Ser, not private revenge. State your harm, but stay your sword.”

  Cannan laughed, a strange and hollow sound in the grave field of quiet. “He’s not here to punish me, Lord Egil. He’s here to save me.”

  An older man, standing behind Cannan, drew himself up in outrage. “Is this true, Ser? Do you think to redeem this beast after it has savaged my child?”

  That was far too difficult a question to answer, so Christopher searched the crowd until he saw D’Kan’s blushing face.

  “Ser. I find you far from your assigned post.”

  D’Kan stiffened his shoulders manfully, but not convincingly.

  “I crave your pardon, my lord, but family called. No man can hold his sworn word over blood and justice.”

  “Family?” Christopher barked. “Isn’t that your brother-in-law chained to the ground?”

  D’Kan opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His shoulders collapsed again, and Christopher, out of pity, was forced to turn his ire elsewhere.

  There were plenty of targets. The crowd stared at him in distaste, and Lord Beric—for surely that must be whom the older man was—spat out a rebuttal.

  “He is not kin to us. He never stood beneath the Mother’s tree and made the vows. He took what I would not have given and fled like a thief.”

  “That’s not true,” Christopher said, and the field instantly sank into deadly silence.

  “You name me false?” Beric challenged him in a voice strong, bitter, scratched with grief, and Christopher knew the wrong answer would end in violence. Perhaps any answer would.

  “I say you are mistaken,” Christopher said. “I know this, because I spoke to your daughter more recently than you.”

  With a piercing hiss a woman stalked forward from the sidelines, throwing off the green shawl that had helped her blend into the crowd of leather-clad men. Lady Io stared at him, and he fancied he knew what the mouse felt when the eagle gazed down from on high. “Dare you throw that in our face? Here and now, dare you?”

  “I’m just saying,” Christopher answered her, “that I know the truth. An
d I assume the truth matters here.”

  Excellent, he thought to himself. You’ve gone from potentially insulting Lord Beric and his wife to potentially insulting the entire Court.

  “Forgive me,” he said, before anyone else could recover enough to speak, “if my speech is indelicate. I am a soldier”—he’d almost said engineer, since that had been such a useful excuse back on Earth—“and I do not know your ways. But I knew your daughter. I knew her when she was with Cannan. I knew she went with him, of her own accord, and she came back with him, seeking your approval. I know she stood with him under a tree and exchanged her own vows, and they were every bit as real because she was in love.”

  “Shut up!” Cannan howled in fury. “Shut your dark damned foul mouth!” Rage-blind and maddened, he grabbed the chain that bound him, ripped it from the ground in a single pull, and charged Christopher, whirling the spike at the end of the chain over his head where it whistled like death. The sacrificial lamb had become a lion, and the Rangers were momentarily stunned. Apparently they had thought Cannan safely restrained.

  Christopher raised his hand and spoke in Celestial, hoping to forestall this before it got undignified. Cannan froze, paralyzed by magic, the chain dying in its arc and wrapping around him with a dull clatter. Only the man’s eyes were free, and in them one could see embers of fire drowning in sorrow.

  A bit of luck, Christopher thought. The spell was by no means certain to work against Cannan’s rank. A dramatic moment, courtesy of his god. Now he would have to make the most of it. He settled for the simple truth.

  “You know as well as I that it was the ring. Yes, he was prideful; yes, he was foolish. But he is not a criminal. He is a victim, as much as any of us. More than any of us.”

  “More than Niona?” Of all the possible voices, D’Kan’s was the last he had expected to hear, cracking with grief but still challenging.

  “No.” Christopher paused, searching for words. “But Cannan loved her more than you did, D’Kan. She was your sister, but she was his wife.” He thought about wives, and the losing thereof to incomprehensible magic, brought on by foolish acts as simple as putting on a ring or stepping through an invisible doorway. “Maybe you don’t understand, but I know there are men here who do. I know your father does.”