The office didn’t look particularly different from the cell. It had the same high, thin window for light, the same sink in the corner—if Teer was guessing correctly, the sinks were all along one internal wall. One pipe fed all of the sinks in the building.
It was better furnished than the cell, of course. Komo had a big handmade desk in the middle of the room, a set of shelves filled with books and mementos, and several crystal lamps to add to the natural light from the window.
The crystal lamps were rare in the wardtowns, a luxury only someone like the Wardkeeper would have. The lamps could be made in the factories in the west, but the crystals had to be charged by an actual Spehari. That wasn’t something many of the Unity’s overlords did, which made them expensive.
Komo’s might be getting recharged by the local magistrate as a personal favor. Anyone else’s would die out after a few seasons and need to be replaced. The light from the lamps had always bothered Teer, which meant he preferred the cheaper oil lanterns and candles anyway.
His focus on the lamps meant it took him a moment to realize that Komo hadn’t said anything, the big Rolin standing behind him silently.
“This is a fine mess you’ve created for us all, Teer,” he finally said. “I’d ask what you were thinking, but from the smell, I can guess.”
Teer winced. He couldn’t smell himself, but he could take a guess at just how bad it was. He’d helped sober up a few of the hands who’d overindulged over the turnings, after all.
“I was drunk, I was angry, I was dumb,” Teer admitted. “I should have left my cursed gun on my horse.”
“Yes,” Komo agreed flatly. “And it’s worse than you think.”
The Wardkeeper walked around the desk to settle down in his chair, gazing levelly at Teer across the wooden surface and the manacles sitting in the middle of it.
“Once Lord Karn used magic to defend himself, his attempt to conceal himself was rendered quite pointless. While he is now openly among us, he has still declined to demand his Right of Retribution in this case,” the Wardkeeper told him. “He is, as a Spehari, entitled to claim the life of a non-Spehari who strikes at him. Did you even think of that?”
Teer looked down at his hands and shook his head. He hadn’t even known that was the case. He’d been so far gone, it wouldn’t have made any difference, but he hadn’t known.
“With Lord Karn declining his Right of Retribution, your fate falls to the hands of law and magistrate,” Komo told him. “The law of the Unity requires that you be judged by a Spehari in this case, which means Magistrate Lysus. He’s on the circuit and will return to Alvid in about five tendays. Until then, you will remain in the cells here.”
Teer simply nodded. What else could he do?
Komo studied him for a long moment, then sighed.
“Do you want to know?” he asked. “How deep you’ve dug?”
“Tell me,” Teer said. He was numb right now. Better to get it over with while he was numb.
“There have been a number of ugly incidents back west and a handful in the Eastern Territories against the Spehari,” Komo told him. “The direction coming from the King in Winter is that there is no mercy, no leniency for those who attack Spehari.
“Magistrate Lysus is not a generous man in the best of times and with direction from his King, he will show no weakness. What happened is beyond question and he will not care about your reasons,” the Wardkeeper said. “You have five tendays, Teer. Then Magistrate Lysus will order me to hang you over the wardstone.”
A wardstone could be charged two ways: by a Spehari expending a portion of their own power into it—which was exhausting for the Spehari but was part of why the magistrates were Spehari—or with death.
A wardtown’s gallows were built above its wardstone for a reason. A single execution could fuel the usual weather-mitigating use of a wardstone for over a turning.
Teer had been wrong. He wasn’t numb after all, and he found himself staring at Komo in terror. He had managed to avoid accepting that that was a risk. But now it was laid out clearly.
“I see,” he finally whispered.
“You asked,” Komo told him. “It’s not what I would do. It’s not what even Lysus would have ordered a turning ago. But it’s what’s going to happen, boy, and I can’t change it. Take what peace you can find in that cell.
“It’s all I can give you.”
4
Over the next few candlemarks, Teer began to appreciate just how small the building the Wardkeeper worked out of was. It basically consisted of a single corridor with six identical rooms on each side. One of the rooms presumably held the stairs to the watchtower, and one was the Keeper’s office. The other ten were mostly cells like the one Teer was locked in.
The entire structure was maybe thirty paces long. Even with the cell door closed and barred, Teer could hear almost everything going on in the building. If he focused a bit, he could make out entire conversations.
There were three Wardwatches who worked in the building: Niles and Gon—the two who’d dropped off his food when he woke up—and Atara, a woman Teer knew by name at least.
After several candlemarks awake in his cell, he now knew that Atara was the Wardkeeper’s lover, that Gon was married to the bartender, Lis, and that Niles had two boyfriends who both worked on the stockyard’s limited permanent staff.
Stone walls were no better for privacy than wooden planks, it seemed. Not when the building was this small, anyway.
Teer was grateful for the distraction. He’d been a cursed fool. He’d never been a heavy drinker and he’d let his anger and confusion lead him into making a
