Rogate nodded. 'We have fought alongside Lord Toede and can vouch for his noble deeds!'
Judith drew her sword back, and Toede felt his heart resume beating.
'Proceed,' she said.
'Well, ah…' said Rogate. He was reduced to stammering, apparently having fired all his brain cells to get this far. Then he seemed to be thunderstruck by an idea. 'I am of the Toedaic Knights!' he proclaimed. 'And one cannot be knighted unless by a lord, so therefore Toede is noble!'
'Fallacious argument,' said Judith. 'If Toede is not noble, then you are not a knight. And I see more merit in arguing for his nobility than your knighthood. Appeal denied. Anyone else?'
'Wait!' puffed Rogate, reaching inside his vest. 'I have this, as evidence.' He pulled Groag's disk from its chain and approached the evil minion. He dropped to one knee, presenting it.
She took the disk from his hand, turning it over in her palm. 'He died nobly,' she read. 'This is a trinket anyone can make.' The disk warped and melted in her hands, dripping to the floor in thick globules. 'Did you inscribe this?' she asked Rogate.
'No, sir! Uh, ma'am,' said Rogate, bowing and moving backward.
'I… uh… did,' said Groag meekly, from his position by the throne. 'Toede lured Gildentongue off just as he was about to kill me. When it seemed Toede had perished, I had the medal inscribed in his memory.'
'Did you believe him truly noble?' asked the Castellan nervously, for he had dared to interrupt his superior.
'I… I think I did,' said Groag, emerging slightly from his shadow position.
'And do you now?' pressed the Abbot, more assured in his voice than his comrade.
A moment's thought. 'I… I don't know.' said the hobgoblin. 'I don't know what would have happened this time if you had not arrived.'
'So your argument therefore states that Toede is only noble in repose,' said Judith. 'Dead, he was noble. Alive, he is a wild card.'
'I… I guess,' said Groag, not looking in Toede's direction. 'We do have our falling outs now and again, you know.'
Toede felt the room closing in on him.
Kronin, shaking off Taywin's hold, stepped forward. 'Nobility is wisdom,' he began, 'and Toede's parables and sayings demonstrate his wisdom, even if his actions always do not.'
Bunniswot stepped in. 'You cannot rely on the words that may… uh… have deeper sources.' He shot a wary look toward Judith, but when she neither interrupted nor corrected, he continued. 'However, Toede showed kindness to me on a number of occasions, including directing the juggernaut elsewhere when I might have been killed.
'Last night I was supposed to kill him for Groag. Yet, Toede warned me of the necromancer's treachery. I was supposed to strike him with a poisoned needle, hidden within some false plans. And Toede realized this, for he knew Groag's true plans, and kept me from drawing my false ones and attacking him. Then he insisted on me remaining safely in camp, when he could have let me ride to my doom. Kindness and forgiveness in the face of adversity. That is nobility.'
'Bravery!' bellowed Charka, getting into the swing of the discussion. 'Toede is smart, but many cheats and fools are smart. Toede is brave, because he spurred battle-charge, leaped forward on his horse, and led by example.'
'Ah, he had no choice,' put in Renders softly, 'for the necromancer contacted me and promised me great scholarly knowledge in exchange for Toede's death.' Renders looked at his feet. 'I'm afraid I missed and struck his horse instead.'
Toede shook his head. The little spirit (who he now strongly suspected had been one of the abishai) had been correct about all the closet traitors. 'It's all right,' Toede muttered. 'It hardly matters now.'
Bunniswot pointed. 'See! Kindness and forgiveness!'
'I know naught of that,' Renders put in, 'but I can say that the Toede I have encountered is very different from the one I told of in the tales. He is smarter and cannier, and perhaps a little wiser.'
'He is different,' interrupted Taywin. 'Had I known it was Toede we captured a year ago, I would have had him slain, for he once endangered my father with foolish and cruel games. But this Toede risked his life for others. True, his life seems easily lost and easily restored, but it was risk all the same.'
'Risk is not nobility,' said the Abbot.
'Wisdom,' put in Kronin, 'true wisdom.'
'Kindness and forgiveness,' said Bunniswot.
'Honor!' shouted Rogate.
'Bravery!' bellowed Charka.
'Silence!' shrieked Judith, and the walls bulged outward at her fury. 'This is a testimony of fools. You cannot agree among yourselves what nobility is, yet you prattle on about how Toede is one way or another. I render my judgment against all of you…'
'Please,' said Toede quietly.
The words lacked the unctuous, haughty tone that had been heard so often inside these walls. Even Judith was silenced by the sudden hush in Toede's voice.
'A testimony of fools is still a testimony,' said Toede, feeling the blood drain from his face as he spoke, 'and I thank them for their kind words, even if they are sometimes misguided. However, their crimes and follies ought to be punished in their own times. They should not be judged for appealing on my behalf.'
Toede felt his knees give way and the hard impact of them striking the floor. He continued, 'I have been sent
on a fool's errand, and that errand is done. If I am more noble dead than I was alive, so be it-few get a chance to rewrite their own eulogy. I am ready to return to my eternal rest.'
Behind him, he heard Groag say softly, 'Toede, I…'
Toede shook his head. 'Sort out for yourself, everyone, who's running the show after me. Groag, if you apologize, and quit trying to imitate me as I was, you might just get good at the job. The rest of you, clear out. Her ladyship might not agree with me, and you'll be the next to go.'
Toede closed his eyes. 'Lef s get on with our lives. And our deaths.'
Judith looked at Toede for a long moment, as Toede swayed, waiting for the blow to fall.
Then she held her sword out, touching Toede's shoulders lightly with the ebony tip. 'By what powers, I grant you your nobility. Arise, Lord Toede of Flotsam.'
But Toede did not arise. Instead, he pitched forward in a dead faint, and would have tumbled into the crocodile pit if not for Groag.
Epilogue
Flotsam was alive with celebration. The Lower City danced with pixie lights and congratulatory fires. Most of the buildings wrecked in the battle were now the sites of large bonfires, and smaller flames rose up from torchlight parades. Every now and
again, a magical illusion would stride across the sky, or a gnomish smoke-rocket would spiral up over the city and burst in half a hundred streamers.
Mobs milled in the streets as the survivors partied and compared war stories. Were the tales to be truly believed, Toede had wrestled bare-handed with the undead minions, while the rest of the population cowered in their hiding places. In the main courtyard before Toede's (formerly Groag's) manor, gnoll and kender and human mingled and bragged and drank. The defeat of the necromancer seemed to have unified the races and dimmed more recent memory. The gnolls and kender were now seen as rescuers, not invaders.
Bunniswot was highly visible, encamped next to the fountain, reading Toede's volume on government to three very interested young ladies. Kronin wandered through the crowd, smiling, and if a piece of jewelry or a coin pouch
