“The session will recess,” said the kronzlar Escholl. He rose and swept
the courtroom with his curious lacklustre eye, that never seemed to be
settled on anything. “I will go over the evidence with you, Bergelin.”
The legist on his right, the Zigraner, frowned; he on the left leaned
his chin on his hand and his elbow on the table. The accused, a man with
a coronet badge, iron-grey hair and heavy dewlaps, looked disconcerted.
Rodvard gathered his papers and followed the president of the court to
the little room in rear.
When they were there; “What have you found?” asked the legist.
“I think he tells the truth,” said Rodvard, “when he says he has given
no help to the Queen’s party or Pavinius. When you asked him that,
however, there was something like fear—perhaps for his brother. It was
not clear.”
“Ah.” The legist placed his fingers together and studied them.
“Bergelin,” he said, after a moment, “you are to remember that this is a
special court of inquiry. We are empowered to handle not only direct
treasons, but matters which the ordinary law holds criminal. Such acts
dissipate the resources that of right belong to the nation. You tend to
be narrow. Let us return.”
As they came in, one of the guards nudged the prisoner forward again.
The jurist president frowned on him portentously. “Kettersel,” he said,
“a brief examination of the record shows no evidence of your giving aid
to either of the two destituted persons who claim to rule the realm of
Dossola. Unless my fellow-jurists disagree, of that you are acquitted.”
He glanced at one and the other; the Zigraner gave a somewhat unwilling
nod, the third legist had only an absent expression. “But in pleading
innocence of giving such aid, you are answering a charge that has never
been brought. If you say you are not guilty of garroting people by night
in King Crotinianus’ Square, we will find you innocent of that also, and
so through a list of possible crimes, did it not waste this court’s time
to agree with you that you have committed none of them. But you are
charged with treason to the nation, which in its essence consists not of
any specific act, but of a point of view, which may be proved by a
number of actions, in themselves bearing an innocent appearance until
they are assembled with each other. I take it my fellow-jurists agree.”
He looked again, and again those in the lower seats nodded.
“Kettersel,” he said, “answer me. You have a brother with the court?”
The man cleared his throat. “I have answered that. He is a capellan in
the Eagle Shar of Her Majesty’s lancers.” (The shadow of worry was
behind the man’s eye; now deepened, and very surprising in such a
person, whom one would have expected to be concerned about gold scudi or
the fidelity of his mistress.)
“The nation’s lancers,” corrected Escholl. “Kettersel, are both you and
your brother married?”
“Only him; the Baron.”
“Has he daughters?”
“No. Only a son.”
“If your brother should fall in the fighting, where would the
inheritance lie?” (Now the fear was at the front and perfectly sharp; it
was a fear of being left penniless.) Kettersel said slowly (and lying);
“I am not sure; would have to consult the Office of Pedigree. There is a
cousin, I think, to whom the income would fall. The title and the estate
would pass to the son, of course.”
“How old is the son.”
“Twenty-four.”
“I see.” The jurist president moved his lips (and Rodvard observed that
the man before him was perspiring with the effort to keep some thought
down; a thought which came to the watcher dark as sin and midnight). “Is
your nephew married?”
“To one of the Blenau family.”
Rodvard signed; without appearing to see him the jurist president said;
“Kettersel, you are engaged in concealments. It is useless. What is the
trouble between you and your nephew?”
The man’s self-control split apart suddenly. He flung at Rodvard a
glance of purest venom and burst out; “The damned young puppy is trying
to have his own father killed so he may have the title for his whore of
a wife. There is no reason, none at all, why he should take a command in
the Eagle Shar. He is an old man, taking the task of that young bastard
in the lancers, where all the fighting is.”
There was a little murmur in the courtroom. The jurist president said;
“Why did he accept the charge?”
(It was the wrong line; Kettersel’s eyes were perfectly clear.) “To
spare his son, I suppose. My nephew was appointed earlier.”
Rodvard coughed. Kronzlar Escholl said; “Where are your nephew and his
wife now?”
The man paused (and in that pause the thing came through; it took
Rodvard a minute or two to realize what it was). “I heard of them last
at Landensenza.”
Rodvard stepped up to the jurist’s seat, with one finger on the paper to
maintain the fiction, and whispered; “His true concern is not his
brother, but because he wishes to lie with his nephew’s wife. I think
she may have refused him, but he still believes it may be done somehow
if the nephew can be killed before his brother.”
Escholl put a finger beside Rodvard’s. “That is correct, after all,” and
turned to the prisoner. “Kettersel, your concern for your brother does
you the greatest credit. It is evident that you have been in
correspondence with him, but I think my brother jurists will agree when
I pronounce you guiltless of true treason and order your release.”
The two jurists wagged their heads silently and in unison, like those
toys with flexible necks which children play with during the winter
festival.
“We will hear the next case.”
27
WINTER LIGHT
As Rodvard left the courtroom, Demadé Slair fell into step beside him.
(The man was determinedly, if coldly, friendly; how to shake him off?
instead of leading him home to Lalette and another of those
conversations in three, where Rodvard felt himself so much hearing a
language he did not understand that he always ultimately fled them for a
book or the outer air.)
“Escholl is one of our best,” said the swordsman, kicking at the skin of
a fruit, “but there’s a judgment I failed to understand.”
“Which one? The merchant who was confiscated for bringing wool-carts
past the Mayern camp?”
“Ah, bah, no. He had money, the nation needs it; that’s crime enough. I
spoke of the Baron’s brother, the noble Kettersel.”
“No more did I understand it,” said Rodvard. “As dirty a character as I
ever saw, but the kronzlar let him go and praised him.”
“Oho!” said Slair. “It begins to come clear. What’s the tale?”
“Why, he was after his nephew’s wife—whether for her money or her body
the most, I am not sure, but he wants both.” (He could not resist
adding); “And it’s a poor task to break up a couple at any time, for it
destroys two people’s chance of happiness for the temporary pleasure of
one.”
“Not always,” said Slair, avoiding his eyes. “But I am interrupting. Is
there more?”
“His only fear is that the Baron will die before the son, and so the
right of remarrying the girl will pass to another family. I did not tell
the kronzlar because it was not clear enough, but I think he was
planning murder. Yet Escholl let him go.”
Slair laughed. “Bergelin,” he said, “do not lose your innocence; it may
save your life some day, for no one will ever believe you are subtle
enough to be dangerous. I said Escholl was one of our best; depend upon
it, he thought more deeply than you, and without any witch-stone to help
him. Why, it is precisely because Kettersel has murder and rape at the
back of his mind that he was let go. For exactly the opposite reason,
the court will condemn Palm as soon as there’s a pretext for a trial.
Mathurin has arranged it so.”
“I am innocent again and do not quite understand the reason.”
“Yet you will dabble in high politic! Hark, now: are not all of the
noble order enemies to the New Day by constitution, by existence? Are
not all their private virtues overwhelmed by this public fault? The true
villains among them will sooner or later dig their own graves and save
us the trouble, bringing discredit on the whole in the process. But when
you have one like Palm or the late Baron Brunivar, he’s dangerous; sets
people to loving the institution because they cannot hate the man, and
so must be pulled down by force. . . . For that matter, we need
something to stir the people, make them fight for their liberty.”
“This seems a hard way,” said Rodvard, (trying to resolve the torsion in
his mind).
“It is a hard life, and hardest for those who avoid battle,” said Demadé
Slair; and Rodvard not replying, they walked in silence. (Would this new
system somehow produce men of better heart and purpose? For he did not
see how the hardness could be justified else. And now his mind fell to
wagging between man-system, system-man, and he decided that the
justification of the system would be that it produced better men
generally, and not merely a few of the best. No, not that either, for
that was to confuse politic with ethic, and each was itself a system;
for the one would make men good without regard to their happiness, and
the other make them happy without regard to their good. . . . Or what
was good? Where was the standard? By the system of Mancherei—)
“Will you go on to the quays?” said Slair’s voice, suddenly, and Rodvard
found himself three steps beyond the entrance to the Palace Ulutz.
“I am weary tonight,” said Rodvard. “Perhaps because I am so innocent
that this affair of spying upon the minds of my fellows is somewhat
unpleasant.”
He extended his hand to bid goodnight.
“Oh, I am going with you,” said the swordsman, and as he caught
Rodvard’s glance of aversion. “I cannot bear to be without your
company.” His face went sober as he quick-stepped beside Rodvard’s
dragging feet up the entrance-walk. “This is Mathurin’s arrangement,
also, in case it troubles you. Did you not notice those two men who
followed us from the court at half a square’s distance? There will be
another outside tonight. People’s guards.”
(A tremor of peril.) “But I have—”
“Done nothing but your duty to the nation. True; and for that reason
precisely it is needful to guard you like an egg sought after by
weasels. Do you think that the fact you bear a Blue Star is a secret?
There are not a few persons who may be brought before the court that
would rather conceal an assassination than what they have in their
minds. You and I may have a fight on our hands.” His face lighted with
pleasure at the prospect.