the Lady was not done with him. She was not content that he should quietly disappear in the confusion of all this upheaval and panic.
It was to be a trial. Signed confession. Public disapprobation. The courts divine would legitimize themselves by discrediting the courts civil. Very well. The good opinion of the public had never been his obsession. Quite the opposite, in fact.
A long table ran along one wall, and behind it sat three tall chairs. My judges. A single, much poorer chair faced the table from the other side. Bakune sat in this, crossed one leg over the other and carefully folded and smoothed his robes. He pulled off his gloves, clasped his hands on his lap. And waited.
Shortly thereafter many men came marching up the passage. The door clattered open. In walked another priest, this one much fatter and older, wearing the starburst symbol of Our Lady. He was vaguely familiar. The priest’s brows rose upon seeing Bakune. ‘My dear Assessor! Not there!’ Bakune placed him: Arten, Chief Divine of the Order of the Guardians of the Faith. Abbot Starvann’s second. This court was to have a seal of the highest authority. Chuckling, Arten invited Bakune to move to the other side of the table. ‘Here, if you would. On my right.’
Bakune could only stare up at the man. The other side of the table?
Arten repeated his invitation. Guardians now stood waiting at the door, someone in chains between them: a short, extremely stocky figure. Bakune rose shakily to his feet. Arten shepherded him round the table. ‘There you are. Very good.’ He nodded to the Guardians, who entered.
Bakune sat, blinking, quite shocked, while the prisoner was seated opposite, armed Guardians flanking him. Bakune took the time to study him. He was well past middle age yet still quite powerful, with burly shoulders and chest. But the man’s most striking feature was the faded blue facial tattooing of some sort of animal. A boar — so the man was, or had been, sworn to that foreign god… the boar… Fener! Lady, no. Could this be he? That foreign priest Karien’el had mentioned?
The priest who had first escorted Bakune now sat on Arten’s left. ‘Brother Kureh,’ Arten addressed him, ‘would you read the charges?’
Kureh drew a sheaf of parchments from within his robes, sorted through them, and then cleared his throat. ‘Defendant… would you state your given name?’
The man smiled, revealing surprisingly large canines. ‘As of now,’ he ground out in a rough voice, ‘I take the name Prophet.’
‘Prophet,’ Kureh repeated. ‘Prophet of what?’
‘A new faith.’
‘And does this new faith have a name?’ Arten asked.
The man regarded Arten through low heavy lids. ‘Not yet.’
‘And which degenerate foreign god does it serve?’
‘None… and all.’
Kureh threw down the parchments. ‘Come, come. You make no sense.’
The man lifted and let fall his shoulders, his chains clattering. ‘Not to your blinkered minds.’
Kureh glared his rage. Arten raised a hand for a pause. ‘Pray, please educate us.’
The man sighed heavily. ‘All paths that arise from within partake of the divine.’
Arten nodded, smiling. ‘True. And Our Lady is that divine source.’
Here the man revealed his first burst of emotion as his mouth drew down in disgust. ‘She is not.’
It seemed to Bakune that the man could not be trying harder to commit suicide.
Kureh slammed his hands to the table. ‘I for one have heard enough!’
Arten sadly shook his head. ‘Yes, brother. A disturbing case. There is almost nothing we can do for such delusion. We can only pray the Lady grant him peace.’ He regarded the man for a time, drew a breath as if reluctant to continue. ‘You give me no choice but to broach the distasteful subject of your implication in the murder of a young girl last week. Possessions of yours were found with the body-’
‘Convenient,’ the man sneered.
‘And witnesses…’ Arten gestured to Kureh, who raised papers, ‘have attested under oath to seeing you with the girl that evening. How do you plead?’
‘Disgusted.’
‘You remain defiant? Very well. The papers, Kureh.’ Brother Kureh slid a few sheets and a quill and inkpot to Arten, who signed the papers then slid them along to Bakune. ‘Assessor, if you would please
…’
Bakune examined the sheets. As he suspected: a death sentence calling for public execution. The charge, murder. He set them back on the table. ‘I cannot sign these.’
Arten slowly swung his head to look at him. ‘Assessor Bakune… I urge you to give due consideration to your position. And sign.’
Knowing full well what he was about to do to his own future, Bakune drew a weak breath and managed, ‘I see no compelling evidence of guilt.’
‘No evidence!’ Kureh exploded. ‘Have you not been sitting here? Have you not heard him self-confessed from his own mouth? His utter lack of seemly repentance?’
‘Sign, Assessor,’ the Prophet urged. ‘Do not sacrifice yourself on my account.’
‘The accused is dismissed!’ Arten roared, and pointed to the door.
The Guardians marched the man out. Arten rose to stand over Bakune. ‘I am disappointed, Assessor. Surely it must be clear to you that what we require is merely your cooperation in these few small matters. Give us this and you may return to your insignificant civil affairs of stolen apples and wandering cows.’
Bakune blinked up at the man. He clasped his hands to stop their shaking. ‘I do not consider the life of a man a small matter.’
‘Then I suggest, Assessor, that you spend your remaining time considering your own.’ He snapped his fingers and a Guardian entered. ‘Escort this man to his cell.’
‘Yes, Divine.’ The Guardian grasped hold of Bakune’s robes and pulled him to his feet, then marched him out. In the hall he glanced back to see the strange man, this Prophet, peering back at him as he was dragged off. And it was odd, but the man appeared completely unruffled. Bakune could not shake the impression that the fellow was allowing himself to be taken away.
‘That smoke in the distance there,’ Ivanr asked, gesturing to the northern horizon. ‘That all part of your big plan for deliverance?’
Lieutenant Carr had also been watching the north as they walked amid the dust of the main column, his expression troubled. Beneth’s rag-tag Army of Reform had reached the plains, which fell away, rolling gently to northern farmlands and the coast. To the east, they had passed the River White where it charged down out of the foothills bearing its meltwater to the bay. Burned cottages, the rotting carcasses of dead animals, and the blackened stubble of scorched fields was all that had greeted them so far. It seemed to Ivanr that the Jourilans would rather destroy their own country than see it given over to any other creed or rule.
They also met corpses. Impaled, crucified, eviscerated. Some hung from scorched trees. Many bore signs or had carved into their flesh the condemnation Heretic.
Ivanr knew that the advance scouts had passed these grim markers days ago, but Martal must have ordered them to remain untouched. At first the sight of the bodies and the vicious torture their torn flesh betrayed had horrified the untested volunteers of the army; many of the younger had actually fainted. As the days passed and the endless count of blackened, hacked bodies mounted, Ivanr saw that fear burn away, leaving behind a seething anger and outrage. His respect for this female general’s ruthlessness grew. It seemed odd to him that he’d never heard of her before. Where had Beneth found her? Katakan? He couldn’t think of any mercenary or military leader hailing from that backwater there in the shadow of Korel.
Carr waved the dust from his face. ‘There must be fighting in Blight.’
‘You think so?’
More Reform cavalry charged past, heading for the front of the straggling column. A small detail, only some forty horses. The sight reminded Ivanr of the Jourilan nobleman, Hegil, supposed commander of the army. So far all the man commanded was the cavalry. He seemed to share the Jourilan nobility’s contempt for infantry, judging the peasantry beneath his notice. But the vast majority of the Army of Reform was just those peasants — farmers and
