Out of the Darkness

Nineteen

When the door to Lurcanio’s cell opened at a time when he wasn’t scheduled to be fed or exercised, he bit down on the inside of his lower lip. A break in routine meant trouble. He hadn’t taken long to learn that. How many captives in Algarvian gaols learned the same lesson? he wondered. More than a few: of that he had no doubt. It didn’t matter. Now it was happening to him. That mattered more than anything else in the world.

One of the Valmieran guards who came in pointed a stick at his face. “Get moving,” he snapped.

Lurcanio got moving. He moved slowly and carefully, always keeping his hands in plain sight. The guards had made it very clear that they wanted him dead. He didn’t care to give them any excuse to get what they wanted. “May I ask where we are going?” he inquired.

He got a nasty grin from that guard. Another one replied, “The judges have your verdict.”

“Very well.” Lurcanio did his best not to show the fear he felt. The judges could do whatever they pleased with him, and he had no chance of stopping them. He’d sung like a nightingale for his interrogators. Maybe that would count enough to keep him breathing. Of course, maybe it wouldn’t, too.

Bright sunlight outside the gaol made him blink. His eyes watered. Not much light leaked into his cell. The guards hustled him into a carriage that carried more iron than a behemoth. A four-horse team had to draw it. Locks clicked and snapped on the doors after he got in.

In the passenger compartment, an iron grill separated him from the guard who rode with him. As the Valmieran locked it, Lurcanio asked, “What if I were a wizard? Could I conjure my way out of here?”

“Go ahead and try,” the blond answered. “This here carriage is warded against anything a first-rank mage can do.”

Lurcanio didn’t believe him. Sorcerers were often more inventive than those who tried to stop them gave them credit for being. So were other people, come to that. Gaolers would have had an easier time were that not so. But Lurcanio himself was no wizard. He remained a captive. They hadn’t even let him clean up before hauling him off to court. He didn’t take that for a good sign.

He went into the courtroom through a hallway reserved for the accused- and even more lined with guards than usual today. When he entered, he found the place packed. Excitement filled the air. It was almost as palpable as sorcerous energy just before a major spell. The three judges, two in civilian costume, the third in uniform, strode in and took their places at the head of the courtroom. Everyone rose respectfully. Lurcanio bowed to them, as he would have done in an Algarvian lawcourt.

“Be seated,” the bailiff intoned.

The chief judge, the soldier, sat in the center. He rapped loudly for order. “We have reached a verdict in the case of the Kingdom of Valmiera against Colonel Lurcanio of Algarve,” he declared. “Is the accused present?”

“No, your Excellency. I am not here,” Lurcanio declared. The scribe recording his words gave him a reproachful look. A few people giggled. Lurcanio thought he heard Krasta’s voice. He looked around. Aye, there she was. She wants to see me pay, Lurcanio thought. She would likely get what she wanted, too.

Bang! The gavel stifled the giggles. “By speaking, the accused admits his presence,” the senior judge said. “His display of levity is out of order, and will not be tolerated again.”

“Will you do worse to me for making a bad joke than for any of the other things you claim I did while I served my kingdom?” Lurcanio asked.

“By no means, Colonel,” the judge replied. “But we will bind and gag you. If that is what you want, you have but to say the word.” He waited. Lurcanio said nothing. The judge nodded. “All right, then. Are you ready to hear the verdict of this court?”

Ready? Lurcanio thought. Powers above, no! But his dignity kept him from saying that out loud. He was sure they would bind and gag him. He was sure they would enjoy doing it, too. Refusing to give them the satisfaction, he nodded curtly. “I am ready, your Excellency, though I still insist this court has no legal jurisdiction over a soldier engaged in prosecuting a war.”

“We have rejected that argument for others, and we reject it for you as well.” The chief judge shuffled papers, then looked up at Lurcanio. “This court, Colonel, finds you guilty of facilitating the transportation of Kaunians through the Kingdom of Valmiera for the purpose of sacrifice. It also finds you guilty of facilitating the program known as Night and Fog, which seized Valmierans for the purpose of sacrifice. This court further finds that these programs constitute murder, not warfare. Accordingly, you are hereby sentenced to be blazed to death.”

Lurcanio had been braced for it. It still came like a punch in the belly. So did the baying applause from the crowd in the courtroom. “I appeal this false verdict,” he said, as steadily as he could.

“No.” The chief judge shook his head. “This court was set up to deal with cases of this kind. There is no court to which to appeal our verdict.”

“Very neat,” Lurcanio said. The sarcasm got through; the judge flushed. Lurcanio went on, “No court to which to appeal, you say? May I not appeal to King Gainibu himself? I got to know him well during the occupation.” He turned out not to be quite so sottish and worthless as I thought he was, too. You never can tell.

That request seemed to catch the panel by surprise. The judges put their heads together and argued in low voices. At last, the senior judge looked up. “Very well, Colonel. You will be furnished pen and ink for this purpose.” He turned to the guards. “Take him back to his cell. Let him write what he will. Take the appeal to the king and let his will be done.”

“Aye, your Excellency,” the guards chorused. They hauled Lurcanio from his seat. He blew Krasta a kiss as they led him away. Her scowl made him smile.

He wondered whether they would bother following the judge’s orders, but they did. Lurcanio put his case as best he could. He wished he were writing Algarvian; being persuasive in a language not his own was hard. But then, how much difference would it make? Not much, he feared.

When he’d finished, he gave the appeal to the guards and asked for another leaf of paper. “What’s this one for?” one of them asked suspiciously.

Lurcanio looked at him. “I am going to fold it into a ladder, stick it out the window, climb down it, and escape,” he answered, deadpan. For a moment, the guards took him seriously; alarm flared on their faces. When they realized he hadn’t meant it, they started to get angry. He wondered if he’d earned himself a beating.

But then, to his relief, one of them laughed. “Funny boy, aren’t you?” the fellow said. “You aren’t going anywhere, not till-” He drew the edge of his hand across his throat. “Enough jokes now. Tell me what you want it for.”

“I want to write another letter,” Lurcanio said. “Your censors will read it. You will probably read it yourself. By all the signs, I will not have many more chances to write letters.”

“You’ve got that straight.” The guard thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, why the blazes not? If we don’t like what you write, the letter’ll never get out of gaol.”

“Exactly so.” Lurcanio bowed. “I thank you.”

He gnawed at the end of the pen when they gave him the new leaf of paper. He’d known exactly what he wanted to say to King Gainibu, even if he’d sometimes had trouble writing it in Valmieran. Here. . How do I even begin? he. wondered. But that solved itself. By the time you read this, I expect I shall be dead, he wrote. Coming out and saying that, even on paper, felt oddly liberating. He had an easier time going on from there than he’d thought he would.

The guards took away not only the letter but also the pen and the bottle of ink. “We don’t want you turning this into a stick, now,” one of them said, and laughed at his own joke.

Lurcanio dutifully chuckled, too. “If I could, I would,” he said. “But a man would have to be more than a first- rank mage to bring that off, I fear. He would have to be what the Ice People call a god.”

“Those stinking, hairy savages,” the guard said, nothing but scorn in his voice. He took the letter out of the cell. The door slammed shut. The bar thudded into place to keep it shut.

Two afternoons later, the answer from the King of Valmiera to Lurcanio’s appeal arrived. Lurcanio broke the seal and unfolded the leaf of paper. He recognized Gainibu’s script, though the writing looked less shaky than it had when the king drank himself into a stupor almost every night.