the change seemed to be that the free peasants currently dwelling on those lands were henceforth bound to remain there as serfs, they and their descendants forever. The tablets were approved.
Horold's seal was much like Benard's, a stone cylinder about the size of a finger joint with a hole bored through the length of it for a thong and a picture carved on the outside. Rolled over wet clay, seals recorded their distinctive images. Benard's was made of agate and showed a hawk in flight, a symbol of his goddess; the satrap's would be of more valuable stone—onyx or chalcedony—with images of a wild boar. Horold's carried a lot more power.
Next came a footpad, a youth who had bludgeoned a traveler to death for the sake of his purse. He denied the charge; the Witness testified that he was guilty. Horold did not even call for the appropriate law to be read, because everyone knew the penalty was impalement. When the deadly little cylinder had sealed his fate, the boy was led away weeping.
So it went. The satrap never demanded to hear the relevant decrees of holy Demern, probably in case the scribes would not be able to read the appropriate panel, or even find it. More often he asked for precedents, and then they would consult the tablets in their baskets and mutter among themselves before advising him what penalty his predecessors had imposed in similar cases. Benard, when not struggling to stay awake, was impressed. The bloody-handed tyrant was doing a fair job of maintaining law without divine guidance. Ominously, evidence that a brawl had been begun by a gang of Werists was ruled irrelevant, but any man would favor his cult brothers over extrinsics. Apart from that bias, the satrap accepted the seer's evidence, listened to the accused's excuses or explanations, then decreed no more than the legal penalty, sometimes less: once when he sentenced a debtor to slavery, he let the man's wife and children return to her family instead of being sold, too.
At times he even displayed the cruel humor Benard so well remembered. A young cobbler was convicted of rape, for which the standard penalty was castration. His wife and parents entered a plea for clemency on the grounds that he was an only child and still lacked an heir to carry on the family. The victim had suffered no permanent harm or pregnancy and her husband had accepted her back to his bed. Horold inquired about precedents. Tablets were clattered and a scribe reported that State Consort Nars had never reduced or postponed sentence in rape cases.
'But were any of them cobblers?' the satrap inquired. 'Cobblers work sitting down. Cut off his feet instead. He won't catch any more victims then. May holy Eriander bless his marriage. Next.'
¦
Flankleader Guthlag said 'Come!' and peeled Benard off his pillar. 'I had a word with the chancellor. You're next!' He pushed Benard's shoulder with a gnarled hand.
'But ...' But he didn't want ... But, but, but ... Clutching his sketch, Benard went downstairs with Guthlag.
Satrap Horold cut off the current defendant in mid-whine. 'Forty lashes. Next?'
'A petition, lord,' the herald said uneasily. 'The hostage Benard Celebre.'
'Hostage?' the satrap repeated in disbelief. He scowled with bestial little eyes at the supplicant creeping forward on hands and knees. 'Little Bena! You may rise.' That meant Benard could sit back on his heels instead of keeping his face on the floor.
'My lord is kind.'
'You have grown.'
So had he. He had always been big, but now he was as gross as an ox, spread out in all directions, although what he had added seemed to be more bone and brawn than fat. His purple pall concealed most of his torso, but all visible parts of him bristled with coarse yellow hair, like ripe barley, and this shrubbery almost covered his Werist brass collar and the numerous bands of gold wrapped around his bulging limbs. Even his eyebrows had spread up his forehead. His boots obviously did not contain human feet; the proudly curved nose Benard had sketched had vanished into a snout, the lower half of his face protruding between two jutting tusks.
The monster sighed. 'The years pass! Master artist? Sworn to Anziel? This was well done.'
'My lord is kind.' Amazingly so.
'All Florengians are artists, not fighters. That was what we were told. You suppose my brother still believes that?' The piggy eyes glinted dangerously.
'My lord, I am ignorant of such matters.' The Florengian war was far away and what Bloodlord Stralg believed was of no interest to Benard.
'A hostage should keep himself better informed. Well, what do you want?'
That was what a sixty of much worthier petitioners were wondering.
'My lord is aware,' Benard said, this being the formula for
'I know the priests talked me out of a wagonload of gold for some useless project.' The satrap clicked claws impatiently on the arm of his throne. 'What of it?'
'Holy Weru, lord. As my lord is the light of Weru on Kosord, I had hoped he would give his slave direction on how the majestic Weru should be portrayed. I presumed to bring a sketch... lord...'
He gestured to the herald who had taken his board from him. The man approached and knelt to show it to the beast on the throne. Satrap Horold, with his snout and tusks and evil little piggy eyes, looked down at the godlike face he had possessed fifteen years ago.
He grunted. Then he beckoned Benard to rise and approach the throne. This was a signal honor, but it involved no small danger. As Guthlag had hinted, Horold might decide he was being mocked and disembowel Benard with one slash of his paw.
'When did you do this?' he asked, in a low, slurred growl. He had trouble speaking below a bellow.
'This morning, lord.'
The ancient throne of Kosord was not an especially high seat, yet Benard had to look up to see the giant's tusks, and it was an effort not to pull faces at his rank animal stench.
'From memory?'
