“Baldwin next,” repeated Helmec.
“And tell him to make sure the punishment fits the crime.”
“And he’ll know what all this means, lord?”
“He will.” Helmec bowed and was gone.
Stimulus and reaction.
Just two days later, the Hindrunn was set abuzz. Word was travelling from household to household and scattering between tables at the officers’ mess that the Legion Tribune, Baldwin Dufgurson, had been placed under house-arrest amid allegations of deliberate military sabotage. Farriers and fletchers both reported that he had deliberately withheld vital supplies from the Black Lord’s army as it had set out on campaign, seeking to bolster the chances of his friend Uvoren maintaining his grip over the Hindrunn.
Those charges proved to be baseless. Baldwin fought hard and could bring enough witnesses of his own to make it clear that the lack of horseshoes and arrows had not been his fault. But a closer look at the meticulous tally-systems that he supplied in evidence revealed that they did not match up with those of the Hindrunn armourers. For years he claimed to have been sending iron and steel to the armourers that had never arrived, instead siphoning it off for his own household.
“I suspected embezzlement,” Vigtyr had reported to Roper, late one evening. “But it’s hard to prove without close access to his records. So I found men to accuse him of sabotage so we could get the evidence we needed. He’ll pay for what happened to your wife.”
“What’s the punishment for embezzlement?” asked Roper.
“That will be up to the Ephors, lord. But it will be exceedingly harsh.”
This latest move shocked the Hindrunn more than what had happened to Uvoren’s sons. Baldwin was a powerful and influential figure, and had been Legion Tribune for many years: it was a scandal right at the heart of the Black Kingdom. It was also the first time people who were not affiliated with Uvoren began to suspect Roper’s involvement. The rapid disintegration of Uvoren’s power block no longer looked like a coincidence. There must be a powerful hand guiding the demise of Uvoren’s allies and he had no more powerful enemy than Roper.
Baldwin did not do well. His crime had been going on for decades and had deprived the Black Kingdom of resources desperately needed for defence. Two days after his trial, he was led to one of the “honeypots” situated around the Central Keep: enclosed courtyards with intentionally fragile doors, designed to attract the interest of invading armies who would then flood the space. The walls were mounted with fire-throwers and Baldwin was locked in the centre of the courtyard.
Roper watched from atop one of the walls in his wolfskin cloak, the Ephor who had sentenced him nearby with his mighty eagle’s wings enfolding him. Keturah, making her first foray outside since having been carried into her father’s house on a litter, stood at Roper’s side, bundled in a long cloak with a cowl up over her head, covering her baldness. Legionaries were pedalling on the fire-throwers to pressurise their tanks. They exhaled clouds of mist into the freezing air, blurring the view of the watchful score that lined the walls. The bubbling noise elicited by the pedalling caused Baldwin to drop to his knees in the snow that dusted the courtyard and hold up his hands towards the Ephor.
“Lord, please …” His voice came at first as a tiny cheep. He glanced at the silent watchers surrounding him and then back at the Ephor, eyes two enormous white jewels. “Please, my lord. Please!” Suddenly he was wailing. “I will do anything! Don’t, my lord! My family can repay all costs to the fortress double! If you spare me, I will dedicate my life to duty! Anything, Lord Ephor, anything!” The Ephor looked on, expressionless.
The pedalling stopped.
“Please! Please! Please!” The tanks gurgled themselves quiet and everything fell still. Even Baldwin seemed to be breathing too hard to beg any more. He threw a glance at Roper and then his gaze flicked left, resting on Keturah. He shook his head a fraction.
Then one of the legionaries seized a lever, hauled it back with a clunk and, almost simultaneously, boiling sticky-fire spewed from the bronze-mouthed fire-throwers. Baldwin was engulfed at once; Roper could not even see him beneath the molten waves being sprayed over the courtyard. It seemed to him that the very snow was burning and black smoke billowed into the sky. The hurlers operated, grinding and shrieking, for just a few heartbeats, and then they dribbled themselves quiet. Down in the courtyard, Baldwin’s flesh had almost fallen apart. What was left protruding from the blazing ocean, just a stump, was not easily recognisable as a man.
Roper turned away before the remains had stopped moving.
Three gone from the table. Five remain.
He and Keturah moved away from the swirling courtyard and Roper was rather surprised when the elderly Ephor fell into step beside them. “Not a good sight, Lord Ephor,” said Roper. “He’d have done better not to have begged.”
“Indeed, Lord Roper,” said the Ephor before seizing Roper’s arm with a bony talon. “The speed with which Uvoren’s closest supporters are falling may be a coincidence, Lord Roper,” he hissed vehemently. “I do not know: I shall judge each case by its merits. But if I discover that your people are fabricating evidence against these men, I will bring down vengeance upon you.”
“Baldwin’s own records condemned him,” said Roper, unflustered. “I hardly think I can be blamed for that.”
“But the claims of sabotage were baseless. They only served to make him present his tally in evidence, which, conveniently, condemned him of a further crime. I will be keeping a very close eye on you.”
“As are the Kryptea. Who do you think I fear more?”
“That depends on whether you have any sense,” fired the Ephor.
“These are guilty men, my lord,” said Roper stubbornly. “You have found that yourself.”
“The question, Lord Roper,” said the Ephor in a voice like grinding metal, “is whether they are guilty
