"Yes, my lord."
"You ordered him to leave Liam alone?"
"Yes, my lord."
So much for Duncan serving as barrister for the defense. Direct conflict of interest. Time to talk to the solicitor about engaging new counsel.
The one he'd guessed was Amanda stirred and turned to Llewes at the center of the horseshoe. Rumor had it that she wanted his chair. Badly enough to not mind bloodstains on it. "Is the prisoner prepared to give up his lover to stay with us?"
Llewes turned back to Brian and raised his hand, palm up, to pass the question on.
Maureen.
Time played strange games in the Summer Country. Between worlds, it was even worse. He'd been here for a few hours, a day at most. He wondered how many hours or days or weeks had passed for Maureen. Or if he'd been gone any time at all.
Most likely, though, she'd know that he had left. Left without any parting, with harsh words between them. What would she think and do?
She'd think he'd said to hell with her, packed up and left.
But she was Maureen. She'd wound herself around his heart so tightly, he couldn't cut her out and live without her. In spite of all her flaws. Funny that he should realize that now, when it was too late.
Llewes still waited.
Brian slowly shook his head, dazed by his thoughts and the hours just past. "No. Maureen is more important to me than the Pendragons."
Those words were probably his death-warrant. But he'd sensed that this hearing wasn't about Liam, or leading Fiona to the safe-house, or even about Maureen. This was about him knowing things he wasn't supposed to know. And that was beyond all help.
Dierdre's hand tightened on Brian's shoulder, silencing him and forcing him back into his chair. He accepted because he couldn't think of any way to save his ass. And he wasn't sure he wanted to defend himself. He might be slow, but they'd lined up enough ducks that he could finally see them make a line. Mulvaney had been Liam's price of admission, his way to prove to the Old Ones which side he was on. Duncan had known about it. Brian's stomach surged, and he swallowed bile.
Duncan and this whole bloody inner Circle. Bastards probably ordered it. Mulvaney was old, old enough he'd known Kipling out in India. He was retiring. Get one last mission out of the old soldier and save a few quid on the pension fund, all at one go.
And this Circle kept slaves. He'd seen them, in the castle fields and the halls when Dierdre first hauled him through that labyrinth into whatever world this was. Human slaves. No mistaking that body language. They crept around the edges of life, cringing whenever one of the Old Ones glanced their way.
Corrupt. Deep down at its heart, its hidden ruling Circle, the Pendragon order was corrupt. Brian mourned.
Amanda was speaking. ". . . Mac, you see conspiracies under every rock. Do you have any proof our boy wasn't acting on his own?"
The signet ring shrugged and waved in Brian's direction. "Do ye think he's smart enough? Fifty years in the British army and nobody's ever put him in for major? Albion has his faults, but being brainy isn't one of them. He had to have help to have even found this place."
Prosecutor-hood pushed himself to his feet, bowed to the Llewes-hood again, Queen's Counsel in purple instead of black silk. "Prisoner at the bar, do you have anything to say in your defense?" He was cutting the debate short, probably on a cue from Llewes.
Brian stood, and Dierdre let him. She kept the nerve hold, though. "I came here by accident, just the way I said. No one helped me. I killed Liam because he was a murderer. I don't think love means betrayal, and if you think that it does, then you've betrayed your own souls." He slumped back into his chair, drained and shaking, pleased that he'd managed to string four coherent sentences together. Even if those sentences should mean his death.
QC-hood nodded to Dierdre, waiting like the unsheathed sword of justice behind Brian. "Questioner, do you think you can get him to tell us more?"
Silence behind Brian. He couldn't see her face and didn't really want to.
He felt her shake her head, through that lover's-touch on his shoulder. "I doubt that he'll change his story. You've seen his records. He beat the training test."
QC-hood nodded. He bowed to Llewes-hood and sat down. Brian had finally tied a face to the prosecutor's voice, a thin-faced weasel named Rupert. Seemed to be somebody in the paymaster's office. Always chasing expense accounts and harassing field operatives.
"Vote." That was Llewes, barely moving the hood's fabric with his voice.
This kangaroo court rolled along on well-greased wheels as if everyone except Brian had been through it a hundred times before. That thought sickened him almost as much as Mulvaney and Liam and the slaves.
"Death." Lower right corner hood.
"Further interrogation, then death." Signet ring.
"Exile. He knows how to keep his mouth shut, and I agree with him about Liam. As you know." Third hood on the right, first time it had spoken, a voice Brian didn't recognize.
Across the head table. "Death."
Nothing from Llewes.
"Death." Amanda.
Down the left side. "Death." "Exile." "Death."
The words didn't matter to Brian. His past was dead already. He didn't want any part of this present. He couldn't see a future. He just wished he'd said goodbye to Maureen.
The hoods all turned toward Llewes, where he sat centered at the head of the horseshoe. Group dynamics told Brian that they were just advisors, and the only vote that counted was the Captain-General's. And that this proceeding was marching a pre-determined route.
"Death. Firing squad, in the courtyard, at dawn. Cremation with full military honors." He spread his hand flat, about six inches above the table, a king dismissing his Star Chamber court. Dismissing any further interrogation.
And that was that.
