When night came, Drake hunched up in a corner of his cell and tried to get to sleep. It was almost impossible. The darkness echoed with the crash of great doors, the tramp of iron-shod boots, the garbled intercourse of coarse voices, occasional screams and the racket of hyena-flavoured laughter.
Sitting in darkness, breathing an ineffable jail-stench in which the reek of blocked drains predominated, Drake imagined he heard rats moving in his cell on razor-clawed feet. He thought he heard them sharpening their teeth against the cold tombstone-sized slabs of the floor. At last he fell asleep and dreamed – briefly – of the sword he would make with the help of Gouda Muck.
He woke to find things crawling over his face. He beat at them, knocking them into the dark. Spiders? Cockroaches? Something went whirling round his cell with a staccato clitter-clatter of wings.'Grief,' muttered Drake.
And found himself unable to regain the realms of sleep. When morning came, the gaoler served breakfast, which was a jug of water and a bowl of fish chowder. 'What happens now?' said Drake. 'Now? Why, your trial starts shortly.' 'Good,' said Drake.
He was glad, for a prompt trial meant he would soon be out of here. Excellent! He was in a hurry to return to Hardhammer Forge. He wanted to get down to work, yes, to start on his first sword. Surely King Tor would let him go. What had he done wrong? Nothing serious..
Drake thought Tor might even give him some compensation for false arrest and wrongful imprisonment.Yes.
'Rise and shine,' said the gaoler, interrupting Drake's calculations of probable compensation. 'We're going to the Iron Hall.'
Shortly Drake was shown into the Iron Hall of the Iron Palace. He had never been in a building so large, or so full of noise and people. Once there, sitting on a hard wooden bench, watching King Tor administer justice, Drake swiftly began to change his mind about his prospects.
The ruler of Stokos seemed to take law and life very seriously indeed.Again and again Tor cried:'Off with his head!'It seemed to be the king's favourite punishment.
Pleas for mercy did no good. Neither did grovelling. One particularly abject petitioner crawled to the throne and started licking the king's clawed feet. The snivelling fool was promptly kicked to death for his cowardice.'Be bold,' muttered Drake to Drake.'What did you say?' demanded a guard.
'I said, funny how there's so much iron in this place,' said Drake.
'Oh,' said the guard. 'That's easy enough explained. Things human-built tend to break when an ogre gets hold of them. The king's always complaining about how fragile everything is.''Oh,' said Drake, eyeing the king.
Who sat on a throne of black iron. Wearing leather trousers and a leather jacket, both studded with iron. Refreshments on an iron table beside him: live frogs in a huge bowl of cast iron. Blood in a chalice of wrought iron. A heap of mules' eyes on a plate of pig iron. At his feet, a gryphon.'What,' said Drake, 'am I charged with?'
'You expect a bill of particulars?' said the guard, with a laugh. 'We're not so stupid. If you knew what you were charged with, you'd be inventing lies and fantasizing alibis right now. Wouldn't you?'
'I'd be doing no such thing,' said Drake, indignantly. 'I'm a humble, law-abiding apprentice. And very religious into the bargain.'
'We'll see about that,' said the guard. 'Your case is next.'
Upon which King Tor pronounced sentence on his latest victim:
'Cut off the top of his head then feed him his own brains.' Drake shivered. And an orderly shouted:
'Dreldragon Drakedon Douay! Be upstanding! Advance to receive justice!'
Drake got to his feet and strode forward with as much of a swagger as he could manage. His body was alive with frantic pulses. His heart was asking for out. His arsehole was quivering. His knees trembled.
He halted, ten paces in front of the king. Set his feet shoulder-width apart. And tensed the muscles in his legs, to keep them from shaking. He eyed the king's gryphon uneasily. The brute appeared to be asleep, its purple wings folded against its tawny lionskin body. On its great hooked eagle's beak was what looked suspiciously like dried blood.
'What have you been doing wrong?' said Tor, in a buffalo-built voice.
'Man,' said Drake, in a loud voice which rang against stone and against iron, 'you're real hot on wrong. How about some right for a change? If it pleases your majesty – and even if it doesn't – I've done a good bit right in my time. Yes. Good work at the forge. Good work with steel. Good work at sword, too.'King Tor snorted.
'Don't snort so quick!' said Drake. 'It's logic, isn't it? Right should mean as much as wrong. But here you only talk of wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. All about error. Well, I say this. Maybe I killed a couple of watermelons. Maybe I took a little twig off a tree – sorry about that, your ugliness, but it'll live. Anyway, those are only little wrongs. The great rights of my life should cancel them out altogether.''You're talking nonsense,' said King Tor.
'Not so!' exclaimed Drake. 'Man, you should set up a court of rights as well as a court of wrongs. I volunteer for trial in such a court. I guarantee I'd walk away with reward rather than punishment. Stands to reason, doesn't it? If wrongs deserve punishment, rights deserve rewards. And in my case, rights outweigh wrongs by nine thousand to one.'
Tor laughed. Even at ten paces, Drake was assailed by royal halitosis. Tor's breath stank like a heap of guts which has sat for twenty-four days in a midden pit. Drake did his best not to flinch.
'Let's see, little mannikin,' said King Tor. 'Let's see exactly what you're charged with. Bring in the witnesses!'
While Drake was still suppressing his indignation about being called a mannikin, the witnesses trouped in. And a long line they made. They began to give evidence.There was the watermelon seller.
There was the Protector of the Royal Trees.There was the owner of a certain coal cart.
There was the owner of a certain house which had been wrecked by a certain coal cart.
There was the father of agirl of fourteen whom Drake had deflowered on his birthday.
There was the owner of a certain boat which was somewhat the worse for wear as a consequence of Drake's birthday celebrations.
There was-
But why go on? It is a long list, and the recital of such a list would not increase the world's wisdom, and might well give the unwise certain ideas they would be better of f not having.
Once the witnesses had finished, King Tor said:'What have you got to say for yourself?'
'What have I got to say for myself?' said Drake. 'Why, that I'd like to marry your daughter. For I'm just the man, as the witnesses have proved. Yea. For I am strong, brave, determined, resolute in decision, ruthless in action, swift, cunning, subtle as a serpent, fit, healthy, and the boldest cocksman who ever stalked the streets of Cam.'
'Do your talents excuse you from obedience to the law?' said King Tor, in something which sounded fearfully like anger.
'Man,' said Drake. 'There's no excuse needed. Those petty little quibbling pranks hardly rate a slap on the hand, far less the greater punishments. Why, they're all but boyish larks of one kind or another.
'And I'll have you know this. That girl wasn't much of a virgin, she'd had her father and brother before me.
'As for the other things, why, most of them weren't my fault either. They were the fault of the way the world' s built. It's a right flimsy place, your majesty, not built to take the strain of hard-living men like you and me. Why, if that cart had been built proper, it would never have ruptured when it hit that wall. That wall wasn't built well, either, or it would have stopped the cart. And that boat wasn't up to much, either.
'All in all, if you must talk punishment, I think you could let me get away with all this for no more than a slap on the hand.'King Tor sat in thought.
He drank a draught of blood. Good stuff! He burped, and wiped his lips. He plucked a frog from the snack- bowl and munched it down. Ah! Great eating!'Well,' said King Tor. 'We were all young once.'Drake waited.The king
