The Trial: Journey's End
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
Chapter 42: Verdicts
...Crescent Lake...
Lovien entered with the brash confidence and charming smile that made him the center of attention in every room he'd entered since childhood. The guards behind him were laughing and joking, a 'prisoner' he did not seem to be. The throne room of the Queen was lined with courtiers, and both nobility and the merchant class, but as he looked out over the sea of wealth and opulence of the renewed Elven Province over which his new queen ruled, he noticed something else that he had not considered.
At Queen Zesshi's feet, down on their knees, surrounded by absolute power, were peasant women. Some, like Bertra, had enough to their names to be decently dressed, like a low to mid level merchant. But the array of women on their knees was mostly made up of those wearing poorer cut, the premade functional clothing not tailored to the wearer. They were the picture of vulnerability.
She heard the sound of Lovien's entry, the laugh of those near him as he told a joke, the way he shook hands with his friends, friends Zesshi knew were powerful figures of their own, some with interests in various fields. Her mind raced as she watched through sharp eyes. 'That one controls food imports to the capital... a word from Lovien, and a woman who wanted to sell fruits or vegetables might find her contracts in jeopardy.' She thought as she watched him being approached by another friendly face, 'That one is famous for his entertainment, his brother runs the performers guilds, while he sets all the venues... a word with either, and an actress of the stage might have no future in her work, even a street performer might lose their right to practice their arts in the streets.' A picture began to form as Zesshi looked down at the women who knelt in front of her. One of them... other than Bertra, she recognized as an actress, a talented one from a recent play put on 'in the Queen's honor'... by Lovien.
Her eyes went up from the nervous, anxious, frightened accusers, to the casual Lovien who made his way up the long red carpet as if he were just taking a stroll, as if he had nothing to worry about.
"Your Majesty." Lovien said in his captivating voice as he knelt before the throne of the half elven Queen.
"Do you know why you're here, Lovien?" She asked him patiently, folding her hands together in her lap.
"Majesty, I have been alerted to the ravings of a few whores in the marketplace, and of course I'm aware of the libelous graffiti on the walls of the buildings of our capital, this stain on my reputation is an affront beneath my contempt. While I do not question the wisdom of Your Highness inquiring, I must also say that to allow these sluts to demean my name in public in the throne room is... well it is uncomfortable."
"So was your hand groping my crotch after I told you 'NO' you ASSHOLE!" Bertra snarled at him.
Lovien wore a stunned bunny look for a moment, he could scarcely believe what she'd dared to say to him. He shot to his feet and pointed over at her, "You started this, didn't you, whore?! I should have known it was you!"
"Get DOWN Lovien, or I will 'put' you down myself. I did not tell you that you could rise. And control your tongue, if the daughter of His Majesty can be gagged for open court, don't believe you can't be." Queen Zesshi said sharply, and he slowly went back down to his knees, but he kept his glare to the right of him where the accusers waited.
That had the desired effect, the nobility and wealthy merchants paled a bit, it was well known that Lovien and house Alu were important to the wellbeing of the Elven Province, and had been central to reconstruction efforts after the war had ended, too, though Queen Zesshi's battle prowess was beyond doubt, she had not raised her voice to any of them before. The edge she put to it was new.
Zesshi pointed to the actress, a shapely elven woman by any measure, poised almost as a noble, her shoulders squared off as she stood, her ample bosom heaved as she took deep breaths, her hands folded in front of her, her eyes downcast, to stand before absolute power, was worse than stage fright.
"State your name, and tell your story." Zesshi said in a more gentle voice than she normally did.
"I... When I was starting out in this city, I performed on the street, and he was watching me as I did a soliloquy. I was doing a rendition of 'Savior and the Demon'. And... after I was done, and got my applause and some coins were cast my way, he approached me while I was picking up the stray ones. He knelt and helped me pick them up, he smiled at me. I thought he was handsome..."
Lovien looked rather smug as she said that, and she looked at him in disgust when she saw his expression, the twist to her face was obvious, and went from smug to shocked again, she started to shake as she went on. "He said he could get me in with the guild, if I put on a private performance at his manor for his guests, he said I could showcase my talent. He offered me two gold pieces. A street performer is lucky to make five silver for a full day's work. I was good so I usually made about eight, but two gold... how could I turn it down? I went, there was a party just as he said, I did my favorite piece. 'Savior on the Wall' and I performed 'Birth of Wrath'. In 'Birth of Wrath, I always call for an audience member or two to participate, they play one of the monsters, the other gets to play Neia, while I play Illyana. He... he volunteered to play as the savior. Since there were no women guests, this wasn't strange to me at the time." She bit her lip and froze.
"Go on." Zesshi ordered her calmly.
"This is madness! It was a play! I..." Lovien spoke up sharply.
"One more outburst Lovien, and I will have you gagged." Zesshi snarled sharply, and he shut up.
The actress went on, "When he held me as I lay 'dying' he groped my breast, I played it off, I was embarrassed, but... went with it, and ended the scene to applause. When the scene was over, I was asked to stay to meet the Performer's Guild head. Eventually everybody left, and Lovien approached to say that the one I was to meet had to go... he gave me a glass of wine, he got close to me, I backed away, until I hit a wall. Nothing happened at first, we just drank more, but on the fourth cup, he began to get aggressive, he began to make promises... that he could get me starring roles, that I could be famous, I kept pushing him off...… verbally at first, then...… he got physical. He tugged at my dress, pulling it down, he... forced his lips on mine so I couldn't speak, I tried to scratch, but he said..."
"Yes?" Zesshi prompted.
"Then he said that there were a lot of actresses in the city who would love the opportunity, that the waiting lists were long, competition fierce, that without him I couldn't hope for a chance... he said that with his fingers... pPushed inside. That was when I understood what he meant. , I stopped fighting him, and when he stripped me the rest of the way, I just tried to pretend I was somewhere else till he was done. I gathered my clothes, and he paid me for the night... the two gold, and... 'a bonus' a one gold bonus... that's what I was 'worth' to him."
She broke down then, weeping into her hands, she choked it back long enough to reach into a pocket and pull out the gold coin. "I could never bring myself to use it... I'm not a prostitute, I worked all my life to walk the stage and stir feelings of passion, despair, love, hope, and rage, to entertain and be a shining light... and he reduced me to a quick rut and an extra coin, and threatened to ruin my dreams..."
"A few days later, a message arrived from the performers guild saying that they had a high recommendation for my skills, and wanted me to come in, and then eventually, well, I got my first truly big role." She clenched the gold coin in her right hand.
"You're welcome." Lovien said with a charming smile on his face, and the actress screamed.
"Fuck you!" She howled and whirled, and hurled the coin violently at him, it hit him in the lip, splitting it open, he winced and grabbed the injured spot.
"You bitch! I got you your role, so what if you traded a few minutes for it! That makes you a whore, not a victim!" He snarled out, and Zesshi slammed her fist down on the throne.
"Silence!" Zesshi yelled.
"You'll get your chance to speak, Lovien, but for now... someone shove a rag in his mouth. And if that rag comes out before I tell you to speak, your tongue comes out with it!" Zesshi said with finality.
Thirg approached, removing a handkerchief from his pocket, he approached, pinched Lovien's nose almost hard enough to break it, and when he opened his mouth, in the cloth went, blocking any further outbursts.
Thirg lumbered back to his spot just behind and to the right of the throne, and Zesshi pointed to the next woman.
So it went, one after another, the women stood up, and the stories came out. For the cobbler's wife, it was a business license and rent on the shop space. For the fruit vendor it was purchasing rights from distributors. For another it was dock rights for a fisherman's wife. On and on, until it came to Bertra.
"I... think I was his last victim, I thought he was my friend, I trusted him..." She went on and relayed the story, the threat to her business, the threat to Soren, the promises of 'help' that were also thinly veiled threats of what would happen to her if she didn't give in and let him do what he wanted. All she skipped was the arrival of Zesshi to her home, and the pursuit where she'd used her skills from her time in the Holocaust Scripture. Until finally she said, "...and that brings us to now, Your Highness."
Lovien was shaking with rage, and Zesshi looked over to Thirg and gestured to the nobleman. "OK, take the gag out, let him speak in his own defense.
The mountain of an elven vampire approached, grabbed a corner of the cloth, and yanked it out of the flustered nobles mouth.
He stood up, cleared his throat several times, and struck a noble posture. "I am Lovien of House Alu, and I raped no one. Did I have sex with these women? Yes. I have a weakness for whores, I suppose. They gave up their bodies for certain... assistance, and did I not follow through? Didn't I give them what they wanted?" He pointed to the actress, "She got her spot in the guild and a starring role." He pointed to a cobbler, "She got their expenses deeply cut for her husband, though now that he knows his wife will be a whore for him, who knows, she might make him more money than the business did." He laughed at his ribald humor, but if anyone else felt like laughing, Zesshi's stone face told them it was a very bad idea, and none echoed him.
"That one," he pointed to Bertra, "whored herself for a friend of hers and for herself, in her own bed she asked for my help, how could I say no to that?" He asked with a frown.
"I admit I can be... pushy, after a little wine, but if they were really violated, why did for example, Bertra, invite me back into her home? Why did she not fight me, why did she let me carry her to her bed... why say a word to me? Why not fight back? Do these sound like the actions of a victim?" Lovien demanded coldly as he glared at the women arrayed beside him.
"Bertra, what do you say to that?" Zesshi asked with quiet calm.
Bertra stood again, "I know it is hard... for us to be here like this, I won't ask that the rest of you repeat me, only stand with me, if your reasons align with mine."
She then looked at Lovien like he was a bug beneath her shoe to be scraped off, "Because... the first time, I thought you were my friend, I blamed the wine, I blamed myself... I was interested in you, at first, but was... conflicted, for reasons of my own, so I didn't want to, not till I was sure... but you didn't care if I was sure or not, you wanted what you wanted. But still, it seemed so at odds with who you were, who I thought you were, that it was easy to feel like the wine was at fault, or that I might have let things go too far."
She swallowed hard and glared daggers at him, "So I let you come back, I just wanted to forget what happened, and then... the things you said... your 'help' wasn't an offer of help, it was a threat of ruin. How could I say no... you are a powerful noble, rich, influential... what am I? I am a peasant of no account, not even from this city, all I have was this little life I'd built for myself with my own two hands, and you descended from on high and threatened to destroy it if I didn't spread my legs for you."
She spat at him, her saliva sailed through the air and landed squarely on his cheek, "I scrubbed myself raw to erase your touch, didn't want anything to do with you... but you knew my friends, neighbors, you were part of my... project. Everyone likes you, admires you, respects you... I was afraid of saying anything because then I could lose everything. I made that 'offer' to you so I could feel like I had 'some' control over things, like I had a say... but you know I didn't. That unless I let you defile my body and my bed and my house and my little life that was all I have... you'd have taken it away from me so that there wasn't anything left at all, defiled or not! WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO YOU BASTARD?!" Bertra screamed out loud, "You tore the dress I bought with my first coins, you left me lying on the floor and left boasting of your ties to our Queen. Who would speak up at all, knowing that nobody would believe them, knowing you could destroy them from behind a desk, when all we want is for things to be normal again! To not remember being sullied by undesired touch and to forget being violated... to speak is to remember... do you remember what we talked about when we met?!"
Lovien frowned as he tried to recall the conversation.
"The words we wrote about all our experiences in the North, kept those memories alive, so that nobody could forget or deny what happened... we didn't want those things forgotten..." Bertra's voice broke and cracked, but she carried on as best she could, "But what you did to me, to all of us... we wanted to forget, that meant pretending it never happened, and pasting a smile on our faces when we saw you... but go to hell, it happened! It happened and you did it! And I'll be damned if you're going to walk away from that!" Bertra's accusing finger was leveled at him, and one by one the women around her began to stand, and imitated her, until over a dozen women stood with leveled fingers.
"He did it... he did it... he did it... he did it." They said, over and over again like some hellish nightmare chant, Lovien felt their icy, hateful stares on him, and it was as if the floor beneath his feet was opening up to swallow him, he looked around, desperate to find a friendly face, his eyes wild as he felt the room turn against him.
"I didn't do anything wrong! I did you favors! I..." Zesshi slammed her fist down on her throne's armrest, and silence fell.
"Verdict?" She asked her advisors.
"Guilty." Thirg and Tefl said without hesitation.
Zesshi however, was not done, having noted his final statement. "Well, if nothing you did was wrong, if that isn't rape, then... Lovien, you're on the verge of losing everything, but... there's a great big orc who did me a favor once, he prefers males, so I'm sure if you offer up your ass, he'll use his influence to let you keep your noble title and he'll even give you a few gold coins to help you start rebuilding the fortune you're going to lose, with his influence, I might be talked into keeping you out of a good seven hundred year prison sentence. Should I have you dropped off at his home for the night?"
Lovien's face paled.
"You'd be getting something out of it, wouldn't you? That makes it OK, doesn't it? He'll be saving your life even, aren't you grateful to him already, aren't you eager to go see him?" Zesshi asked in a casual sort of way, but Lovien's entire body was tense, terrified. "It might hurt a little bit, but I'm sure he'll use some oil to make it easier, you might even be good friends after that, right?" She asked pointedly. "Surely you'll tell the watch if he's too rough with you, after all, you don't mind what people know of the intimate details of your time bent over a table...… do you?"
Lovien began to stammer.
Zesshi's smile became cold, cruel, but her voice was dismissive and casual as she rapped her fingers on the armrest of her throne. "Of course you can refuse, I won't force you to do that, instead I'll strip you of your noble title, wealth, and you can spend the next few hundred years swinging a pickaxe into rock trying to make your cell a little larger. After all, don't you have a 'choice'?" She asked archly.
"Wait!" he shouted as Zesshi turned to face her guards, clearly about to order him taken away. "I'll... send me to the orc..."
"Why aren't you eager, after all, he's going to offer you so much more than you ever did to them, shouldn't you be overjoyed for the chance... or are you feeling... trapped? Hopeless, on the verge of losing everything, like your world is on the brink of collapse and the only hope you've got is to endure the unthinkable to save the life you've got for yourself?" Zesshi asked coldly.
He couldn't even nod.
But the glassy eyes were a sufficient answer. "Is... that what I did...?" He asked with a trembling, small voice.
"You'll have a lot of time to think about whether that is what you did or not, because the good news is, there is no such orc. The bad news is, you are hereby stripped of your nobility, your wealth is to be confiscated and distributed to all of your victims we can identify, any who are not present, if you name them and they accept it, will also get a share, also if you admit their names to me on paper, I will remove some years from your sentence. But your wealth is gone, your title is gone, what contracts you had, will be taken over by a representative of the crown. You will spend the next seven hundred years working in the mines of our southern mountains. You will be paid three coppers per day, less expenses, held by the crown until your release or your death. If you die there, then that will be heritable by any heirs you name. Do you have anything to say for yourself before you're taken away?" Zesshi asked evenly as he held his eyes down, and the nobles of the court looked on in absolute disbelief as one of their own was destroyed before their eyes.
Lovien looked up, and over at the women arrayed against him, and whispered, "I'm... I'm sorry."
"That's a start." Bertra uttered with a glare.
"Take him away." The Queen ordered, and a pair of guards approached, removing a set of chains kept handy for 'offensive' visitors, they chained him at the wrists and ankles, and led the former nobleman out of the royal court under the watchful eyes of the elites, the sounds broken only by the rattle of chains, which sounded like thunder in the minds of every noble in the hall.
When he was gone, Zesshi turned to the accusers, "You were brave to come forward. If it had only happened sooner, this might have been stopped early but... it is good that it was stopped at all, and I am proud of you, my people, for coming forward as you did. Lovien is still young, had he remained free, he could have done that to many, many others. By bringing him down, you have done a great service... and also pointed out one more terrible problem."
She looked away from the peasants and out over the sea of wealth, "Our peasant class is underrepresented, none of them can bring me their grievances with ease, even here, at trial before the crown, they knelt under the stares of those with the power to destroy them and take what little they have away. No wonder they said nothing, no wonder they did not fight, no wonder they tried to forget and pretend and just carry on with their lives... this can't stand as it is."
"To rectify this, I will appoint a small council of peasants to represent themselves before the throne, a common house, who can bring their grievances to me directly through their own representatives, and if someone... like Lovien, is preying on their fellows again, it won't take graffiti to bring it to my ears. And let this also be a warning to you, my nobles. I rule through you, and am grateful for your efforts..." Zesshi stood up, held her palm open in front of her, and went on, "but if you echo even faintly the character of my late father, I will crush you." Her open hand became a suddenly clenched fist. "If I hear even a 'whisper' of someone targeting these for retribution, or any other, then you can go and live with Lovien, there are easier ways to destroy yourselves, but not many."
"Now... if there is nothing more... then I would like you all to go... yes, to Bertra's Brighter Days Bookshop, that is where your writers meet, there is room enough, go there, I would address you all on ground more 'comfortable' to you." Zesshi said, "And once more, thank you for your services to the crown, it will not be forgotten." Zesshi stood, and gave a formal bow, to the shock of the nobles, and the peasant women stood, bowed in turn, and made their way out of the great hall of the Half Elven Queen.
