flowed to delight lazy afternoons. The charred triangles of harps still stood in the corners, and the twisted remnants of many of the exotic musical instruments of Kregen had been hastily swept away into an alcove under the windows. I sat at a long table, with the dignitaries flanking me, and the condemned men were led in under guard. I knew Renko the Murais. It was the same Renko who had fought with us as a Freedom Fighter in Valka.
I treated him as I treated the other miserable wights, showing no special favor.
“Have the charges and the findings read out.”
This was done with due solemnity.
The contrast between the genuine solemnity of these proceedings, despite the deliberate air of informality I had introduced, and the fascial solemnity of the twin embassies from our foes, amused and depressed me. Nath had seen Strom Luthien off, treating him, as he reported hard-faced to me, with all due civility. The Racters, too, had been seen off with a zorca hoof up the rump.
The charges having been read out — a dismal catalogue of rapine and plunder and murder — the findings were studied. Here I welcomed the presence of Nath Nazabhan. His meticulous eye, his keen nose, his habitual and natural aptitude for turning over stones to discover the truth, were wonderfully displayed. The judges had judged fairly, we decided, in all but three cases of the thirteen. And all three had been dealt with in the court of Tyr Jando ti Faleravensmot.
I frowned.
“Is Tyr Jando here?” I spoke very mildly.
Enevon Ob-Eye shook his head. “He has been called away to his estates in Faleravensmot, majister. Some business of a cracked cistern and ruined flour.”
“Important enough to warrant his absence, then, in a time of shortage.” I pondered. Two of the wights standing in their gray breechclouts, chained, hang-dog before us, had been accused of raping two little Fristle fifis, and their story was that they had been over on the Walls of Opaz the Deliverer, hoisting stones, for they were powerful, hairy apims, with faces that would normally have been frank and open, and were now shattered and frightened and destroyed.
“Majister,” said one, Tom the Stones. “False witness was borne against us by Tabshur the Talens-”
Nath, Barty and I listened and weighed the stories. A matter of a debt to this Tabshur the Talens, an inheritance, a squabble between siblings, and a charge of rape to remove Tom the Stones. The inheritance would then by default fall to Tabshur through the sibling. Tabshur the Talens was a moneylender. Well, men must live in the world however they can shift. The unfortunate comrade of Tom the Stones, Nath the Ears — they were, indeed, remarkable — had been caught up in the plot because he was a comrade and could have borne counter-witness. Now we heard it all out and sent a guard of Pachaks to find this Tabshur the Talens and the sibling and hear their stories.
“Stand aside, Tom the Stones and Nath the Ears. Rest easy that justice will be done.” How easy to say that! And how damned hard, by Vox, to make sure!
Then it was the turn of Renko the Murais.
He had been so dragged down by his ordeal that he kept his face lowered and his gaze on the floor, and so had not looked up once, being prodded into position by the guards. He wore a gray breechclout and was chained, and although the laws had seen to it that he was clean and deloused, he looked defeated and tattered.
Because he was an old blade comrade I must allow no favor to overbear my judgment. The Relt that the stylor Renko had been found guilty of murdering had been discovered in the cellar of a ruined pothouse down on the Canal of the Cockroaches. The Relts with their bird-like faces are the more gentle cousins of the warlike Rapas, and are very often employed as clerks and accountants. This particular Relt appeared to be a stranger in Vondium. His satchel was missing and the leather straps had been slashed through. He had been searched, for his tunic had been ripped to shreds exposing the linings and the hems.
“Was the satchel discovered in the possession of Renko?”
Nath’s words were pleasantly mild.
Enevon Ob-Eye said, “The records state the satchel was not recovered.”
“And no one thought to search, or inquire?”
“The records state that Renko the Murais was discovered crouching over the body, as you have heard. There was a knife in his hand, and there was blood on the blade. The Relt had been stabbed six times in the small of the back. It does seem the proof was plain.”
“Plain enough for me, by Opaz,” declared Barty.
I said, “Was there blood on the cut straps?”
Renko the Murais jumped.
His shaggy head lifted with a snap. He looked up. He looked at me. An expression — a sunrise, dawn, the flowering of a bloom — shocked across his face. His eyes widened. His mouth abruptly trembled -
trembled and then firmed.
“Strom Drak!”
“Aye, Renko, Strom Drak. And a pretty pickle you have got yourself into.”
“I did not slay the Relt, strom! I swear it by Opaz the All-Glorious! I found the body and was set on, and so fought for my life, and was knocked on the head and left for dead. And when I woke-”
“You were taken up.” I looked at Nath and then at Barty and the others at the table. “The law of Vallia
— the new laws of Vallia that the new emperor will see maintained — demand absolute proof of guilt. No one saw this man slay the Relt. You must prove beyond all doubt he did the deed before you pronounce him guilty.”
“But he was standing over the body with a bloody knife in his hand!” Barty spluttered, his face perplexed and yet clearly showing the way he struggled with preconceived notions.
“The chavnik knocks over the bowl of cream and the slave girl comes in to set it right and the mistress sees her and has her whipped for stealing and spilling the cream.”
“Yes, majister, but-”
“Enevon. Read out the description of the wounds.”
Enevon rustled his papers and then read: “Six stab wounds in the small of the back, close together, deep.”
I looked at Renko. “You were an axeman, as I recall.”
“That I was, strom.” Renko, still disoriented, took a grip on remembered pride. I nodded. “Are the clothes of the dead Relt available?”
They were not. They had been burned.
“Tell me of the men who attacked you.”
Renko screwed his leathery face up. He wanted to rub his nose, I could see; but the chains stopped that.
“I saw three of them, strom. But there must have been another one at my back who hit me after I stuck the bastard in front. By Vox, but the whiptail was quick, and I’d have had him, too, but for that crack on my noodle.”
I said, sharply: “A Kataki?”
“That’s what I said, strom.”
He’d said whiptail; but that was the slang term for a Kataki, a nasty member of a nasty race of diffs, slavers, with fierce brow-beating faces, and intemperate dispositions and with long sinuous tails to which they strapped six inches of bladed steel. There were Katakis on Kregen who had no other aim in life but to degut me. The ambition was reciprocated.
“Anything else? Clothes, faces, weapons-?”
“Rapiers, strom, but they kept them scabbarded. They hit me with what felt like the Lenk of Vox. The whiptail had a favor of black and green feathers clipped by a golden grascent — I think, strom, for I was taken by surprise.”
For a space a silence fell. Then, to give Barty the due he deserved, he was the one to burst out: “By Vox! Under the Gate of Voxyri — when I came running up — this Renko the Murais speaks the truth. I’ll swear it!”
“Aye,” said Nath. “The devil’s work spreads itself.”
After that we prosecuted further inquiries and a garbled story came out that made me itch with worry and with frustration. It seemed clear that the Relt stylor was bringing in a message and had been waylaid and slain and
