It was a quiet night at the Dancing Dove. The Court of the Rogue had gone home, and the clock had just struck one of the morning. Rosto the Piper, the current Rogue king, paced the main room of the inn restlessly, running his hands through his long, blonde hair until it stood up on end.
Aniki and Kora sat on a couch facing him, with their lovers, Phelan and Ersken, standing beside it. Aniki was sharpening her dagger, and Kora was trying—disastrously—to knit gloves. Both were keeping their hands busy, but constantly glanced up at Rosto every few seconds, as though reassuring themselves that he was still there, that he hadn't gone raring off all over Corus to find their missing Dog.
Achoo had come back, and Pounce had come back, but Beka hadn't. It was over two hours after the end of her watch, and she still hadn't come back. Ersken had come home a little early, even, had told them all that the Evening Watch was getting called in and sent home, that something had happened.
That had set Rosto off. He had sent all of his spies out, and told the rest of his Court to get home, that he would see them tomorrow.
That had been nearly three hours ago, and he hadn't stopped pacing since. Scenarios raced through his head, each worse than the last.
Beka, lying broken in the gutters of the Lower City…Beka struggling against a tall man covered in black…Beka with another man, moaning as he kissed down her neck the way Rosto wanted to…
He wasn't sure what scared him more: Beka dying or Beka with another man. He knew what he would say aloud, if anyone asked him what he was thinking.
"Oh, you know, just wondering when my spies will come back, they've been gone a while…no, I'm not worried about Beka. Why should I be? She's a Dog, she can take care of herself."
Wrong.
Rosto was worried beyond belief about her. Beka was punctuality personified. She never was late, not if she could help it.
And so he paced, knowing full well that here was nothing he could do except that, at least until his informants came back, and told him what was going on. Then, and only then, he could do something.
Luckily for all of the Lower City Dogs, Beka chose that moment to walk in, her eyes wide and unseeing. Rosto knew that look. He saw it every day when some child came in, telling him about the father who had killed their mother in front of them. He saw it on Aniki's face when she came out of a room after talking to a woman in her Court who had seen her child killed.
He knew that look. That was the look of someone who had seen death, had seen it come to someone who didn't deserve it. It was the look of a human being who had seen another killed in front of their eyes, despite their best efforts to prevent it. It was the same look that had been on his face after he had watched his mother be killed by his father.
At that moment, Rosto wanted nothing more than to go to Beka and hug her, tell her it would all be okay in the end. He wanted to press his lips to her temple and run his hands through her not-quite-brown-not-quite-blonde hair, and look her in the eyes and say that everything was going to be okay. To see her look back at him, and have her break down, because that was what she needed. It was what he had needed, and he knew that it was what she needed to do. She needed to let go of whatever happened.
But he didn't. Beka's not caring for him like that was one of the reasons (they weren't excuses, of course) that he didn't, but more it was the fact that she was in shock. Beka in shock was a scary thing, because that was when she didn't care anymore, wasn't painfully shy, and had no problem speaking whatever was on her mind. That was when people got hurt.
So, he let her go to the window and look out it, not saying a word. He silenced the other's—Aniki, Kora, and Phelan, that is, because Ersken never listened to him anyway—with a glance, and waited for her to talk.
It wasn't her that spoke first, though. It was Ersken. Good, friendly, Ersken, who had the tact of a thousand diplomats, who looked up to Beka as though she was a god, who had not a clue when to shut-up when it came to her, who didn't listen to Rosto's glares. Stupid Ersken. "Beka, it wasn't your fault."
That caught Rosto's attention, seeing as he still didn't know what exactly had caused Beka to look like someone had killed her cat.
She didn't move, though everyone in the room did. Aniki put down the knife that she had sharpened thin enough to be useless, Kora threw aside the lump that her knitting needles had mangled beyond any recognizable shape, and Phelan stiffened, barely, but enough so that Rosto could see it.
"It wasn't your fault, Beka," Ersken tried again. "There was nothing you could do."
That got her. She turned around, and her eyes were no longer dead. They were very much alive, and very much on fire. "Couldn't do anything?" She demanded, laughing bitterly. Rosto felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Beka shouldn't laugh like that. Her laugh was happy, and joyful, not bitter and unfeeling and mocking. It wasn't Beka's laugh.
Behind him he felt, rather than saw, Aniki exchange a glance with Kora, just as unsettled by the horrible wrongness in Beka's laugh as he was. Phelan's eyes widened, his brain knowing what his ears were telling him. If something didn't change, and soon, Beka would break.
Rosto knew that. He knew that if they couldn't get through to her, couldn't make her see the light, Beka would fall into the darkness that consumed people daily, the darkness that made people do things that in their previous life they wouldn't have ever dreamed of doing, just to try to fill up that emptiness that resided inside of them all the time, just to bring some light into the dark that was their life. He didn't want that for his Beka.
His Beka. When had he stopped thinking of her as her own mot, as someone who could take care of herself and anyone else, and started thinking of her as his? As someone who needed to be protected, needed to know that someone was there for her, always? He had kept his gob shut, hadn't told her what she meant to him. He knew very well that she wouldn't be able to be true to him, that she would always be struggling with herself, with the promise she had made to her Ma, and the unspoken vow she had made to herself to always uphold the law.
He also knew, that one day, she would be able to get past that, and realize that Rosto would do anything for her, and that he truly loved her, would never raise a hand to her. One day, she would realize that he wouldn't put her in a situation where she might need to take him in, where she might need to hobble him. He wouldn't do that to her.
"What happened?" Aniki's soft voice cut through Beka's fog that surrounded her mind and thoughts, causing her to look up sharply.
Rosto suppressed the gasp that came when he saw Beka's face. She had red rimmed eyes, and her nose was swollen, in the way you get when you have cried so hard, you have no more tears left.
"Thr-three children. Murdered by their father. I-I wasn't fast enough to stop the sarden cove! He-he killed them, beat them to death. I held the littlest one as she died…she thought to the last her 'daddy' would stop and would save her. She died calling out for him." Beka broke off, shuddering.
This time, Rosto spoke up. "When was this?"
She looked at him, startled. "Three days ago," she told him, tears silently dripping down her face. "But we held Harlon Franko's trial today at the end of our Watch. We didn't want any people watching." She hesitated, holding something back.
"What happened then?" He asked her. She looked up at him, her eyes pleading, his demanding. Rosto wasn't going to let her keep this bottled up inside her. That was the first thing that happened when someone fell down that slippery path.
"They had no hard evidence. The girls and boy died before I could bring them in, and he had stopped beating them shortly before I arrived. When I got there, he was standing by the wall, looking at the Olurun. They let him go."
Aniki got up, then, and moved to hug Beka, but she moved away. "Don't." She said, her voice strangled. "If I had gotten there, just a little bit sooner…he would have hung on Executioner's Hill. If I had some more evidence, if those children just had hung on a little longer, he would have been tortured for killing his children. And the worst part?" She looked straight at Rosto when she said it. "The worst part was the smile on his face as he walked out, free as a bird." The words were spoken deliberately, as though she wanted Rosto to pick up on something.
"What do you want me to do, Beka?" Rosto asked, looking at her, his dark eyes intent on her face.
"Rogue's Justice." She stated, as though it were as simple as that.
Phelan whistled through his teeth, high and long. "Do you know what you're asking there, Beka?" He asked her seriously. Rosto couldn't move, he was frozen in the same spot as he was before she asked him.
He would do anything for her—anything but that.
Rogue's Justice hadn't been called in years, but that didn't stop everyone from knowing about it. They even had it in Scanra, for Mithros' sake! It was a deadly thing, and couldn't be taken back once it was accepted. The Rogue had the choice—by law, no less, in Corus—to take matters into their own hands. To judge the accused by the Rogue's court, and if they are guilty, it is the King of the Rogue's choice to kill them. No one can prosecute them for doing it, for killing someone, once the agreement has been accepted. Most of the time, it was rejected, because of one little thing.
If the Rogue decided the wrong thing, he was killed instead.
She nodded her head. "Yes," she said firmly, "I do. But I have the evidence. Why did you think it took me so long to get back to the Inn tonight? The trial was at the beginning of the Watch, and I had the rest of it off. I took the opportunity to find the evidence."
Rosto was stunned. "How?" He asked her.
"I found her ghost, the little girls' ghost. She told me the truth." Her eyes dared him to ask her about how he had found the gixie's ghost. Wisely, he let it be.
"So, if I call a Rogue's Justice Court, I can be assured that the god of Law and War won't strike me where I stand? I have your word?"
Beka's eyes looked straight at him. "Rosto, you have my word, and my promise to you that if you do this for me, I will grant you a favor."
His dark eyes widened. She really must hate the guy, to promise him that. He would do anything for Beka, and it seemed that the list of things he wouldn't do was now one less. "I accept the proposal of Rogue Justice to Harlo Franko, tomorrow at High Noon in the Dancing Dove. Aniki, if you would see to it that the necessary people are there?" With that, he turned and walked away, up to his room, where he stood there, thinking.
Ugh. Rosto thinks way too much. This was going to be a one-shot, but it kind of evolved…let me know what you think. Feedback is always appreciated. 2,030 words. A new record for me!
Jayme
PS: Just a funny thought… Harlo, when I spell-checked it, came up with the alternative of 'harlot'. That made me laugh. :D