"That's a perilous shot out of
an
elder-gun, that a poor and
private displeasure can
do against a monarch!"
--Henry V; IV.i
That Sarralyn wanted to go was the first problem. "Absolutely not," said Veralidaine Sarrasri-Salmalìn. A trial was no place for children, after all. Sarralyn had begun to cry. In vain, her mother had tried to remonstrate with her. "Mummy and Da don't want go, Sarra, dear. You wouldn't like it at all; it will be crowded, and scary, and very long. You'll be much happier at home with Rikash and Ander." Ander Carpenter, one of Numair's students, was usually a favorite for his stories, but not so today.
"But I want to go with you!" Sarralyn had insisted, stamping her foot.
"You cannot go, Sarralyn," Veralidaine had said at last, her patience worn thin. "The king has forbidden it." This was not strictly true, of course, though she was fairly sure that a restless and uncomprehending child would be less than welcome. And she and Numair had to give the best appearance possible, for it might easily become his turn to stand in the prisoner's dock. It was necessary that they seem as law-abiding and Gods-fearing as the most unassuming and unnoticeable subjects, and to this end she herself wore a properly long skirt and indisputably modest and woman's-styled bodice. Not, of course, that she could explain any of this to her daughter.
But Sarra had continued to pout and cry, and in the end, she and her husband had barely been able to crowd into a space in a niche along the back wall before the appointed hour of the trial. Harailt and his lady Marina had places on the front benches, Daine couldn't help but notice, and Gautier of Jesslaw and Lindhall Reed had also managed to find sitting space. Galina Fletcher was even later than they, however; she wormed her way into a place beside Numair.
" 'Morning," she said, nervously smoothing her dress. She was nearly white and seemed rather unsteady.
Daine put her hand on the younger woman's arm. Galina had been Numair's student; had become his colleague only a year ago. She and Thom had worked together on and off; everyone knew that they had been sharing research up until the end. "You look terrible," Daine whispered to her. "Have you been sleeping, Galina? Have you been to a healer?"
Galina waved her concern away. "I'll manage -- I think. Just a little tired. I still haven't recovered from that working of yours," she explained to Numair, her tone half in mocking accusation. "And they questioned me hours and hours yesterday. Up 'til midnight answering questions; defending myself and my research." No need to ask who 'they' were. "It was worse than my Mastery Tribunal," she joked lamely. "I wouldn't have minded a seat now, though," she said, scanning the room critically, "but it seems you've got to be quite important to get one of those." Veralidaine wasn't sure how she could take it all so lightly, but that was Galina: she made gallows humor mask her real concerns as long as she knew she could get away with it.
"Surely they didn't keep you standing all that time," Numair said out of the side of his mouth.
"Oh, they gave me a chair after I nearly collapsed onto the clerk's table," Galina said.
"And you've been to see a Healer?"
Galina swayed slightly, and clutched Numair's arm. "Ah… no, actually. I went straight to my workroom to put my things in order -- you know, all the 'dangerous' notes on top so it's obvious I'm not trying to hide them, the papers about applications to Defense and Healing prominently displayed… Took off my more… esoteric… wards, too."
"That bad, eh?" Numair might have been talking about the weather, but Daine knew that he, too, had spent quite a bit of time preparing his research for the Palace's inevitable investigation.
"I'm quite sure they'll be coming to confiscate it all," Galina said with a tenuous nonchalance. "Even as we speak, maybe. And I'll have the Black God himself on me if they find trouble, or think they've found it. Her voice dropped even further. "I tried to write up a few précis for myself, too, just so's to have a record. For I doubt I'll be seeing any of it again." Daine could hear a catch in her voice, barely audible as it was.
Daine squeezed their friend's free hand. "It will be all right, Galina, truly," she said, but the words were at least half-empty.
"I didn't want to come," Galina muttered, brushing something from her eye. "I don't want to see this; I saw enough when I warded him after… well, you know."
Daine shuddered. She didn't want to think about those few hours when Numair had been unconscious, completely drained from taking the largest burden of the power-sharing spell he had set up. In spite of all Nealan of Queenscove had done, her husband, too, was not completely back to us usual strength, either magically or physically. Daine privately wondered if the heir of Queenscove hadn't purposely skimped on the healing. Once she would never have believed it, but every day -- no, every hour, it seemed -- brought more evidence of a grudge against the University and its mages. She wouldn't put it past a court mage to self-righteously withhold full treatment in order to 'punish' someone he held partially responsible for regicide. It would be unlike Sir Nealan, she admitted, but even so…
"It kills me," Numair was saying quietly. "He's so young -- he doesn't deserve this." He shook his head. "He was a fool, yes; but all this for a mistake?"
A dour-looking man -- Daine thought he might be from the Law College -- was looking at their group with distaste, even with fear. He turned to the woman beside him, drawing her closer to his body and further from them. "Shush," Daine warned, "some things are better left unsaid."
"True enough," Galina said. She sighed. "Particularly when we're here for our own damn benefit anyway. Not one of them cares what testimony we could give."
"They've already heard our testimony," said Numair, "no use for them to hear it again." Perhaps, Daine thought, he was hoping to make up for anything his earlier words might have stirred.
"They got the testimony they wanted," Galina said darkly. Daine wondered if the lack of sleep, overwork, and general stress were making Galina slightly unbalanced, or if she had perhaps turned to drink to ease their effects. "They asked the questions. But they didn't get the testimony I could give." But her breath didn't smell of alcohol, and even when drunk (as Daine had seen her on occasion) she usually knew when she was approaching the line where mocking and complaining became sedition -- or worse. By any stretch, she was quickly crossing it, now. In spite of herself, Daine looked around. Nearly everyone else was gossiping too, many in voices far louder than theirs. And even if anyone had heard, well, it couldn't be a secret that many of the University mages were less than pleased with the turns events were taking.
"But I didn't dare stay away," Galina said to Numair.
"I don't think anyone did, not after the Speller incident. What an idiot." Bohemund Speller had proposed at the previous day's faculty meeting that all the University Masters boycott the trial in protest of the Crown's dampening of their freedom. "Harailt gave him an official reprimand, of course. You can't tolerate that sort of rebellion." Daine thought her husband might not be opposed to Speller's opinion in principle -- Galina certainly wasn't -- but neither -- indeed, no one -- could afford to support something so radical now. They were in enough jeopardy as it was.
"So what did they say about your research," Numair asked quietly.
"They didn't much care about mine," Galina said, "only about his. I tried to explain it in terms a non-specialist could understand, but I hope I didn't make it worse, what they were thinking."
"Of course." Numair nodded slowly. "It hadn't even occurred to me. The Marinn Codex sounds much more dangerous than it is."
"Particularly when you explain what all that gnomic Old Thak actually means. Raising the dead, controlling the dead -- but that wasn't what Thom was using it for at all!"
Veralidaine didn't bother to follow the technical discussion that followed. Instead she examined the courtroom. It did seem that Galina had called it rightly: the benches were almost entirely occupied by nobles, greater and lesser. Mostly lesser, she noted: the greater were probably waiting to enter with the monarchs. In spite of the weight that the knowledge had been, it was a moment before she realized that she didn't mean Jonathan and Thayet, but Roald and his Yamani-born Princess. But there was Nealan of Queenscove, who had once chased her with an adolescent lust, but who now sat contented with his Lady Yukimi. There was Adhemar of Nond, Burchard of Stone Mountain, Padraig haMinch. And there was Myles of Olau, who with his Lady Eleni had visited her with gifts for the children not a week before the King's death. How furiously she had silently fumed through their kind words and small talk that day! Then, as always, she had resented swallowing pride to take and give thanks for what gently-born benefactors -- for even among such friends she and her family were dependants and not true equals -- bestowed. Now, she had to hope that the claims of friendship that had prompted a new jerkin for Rikash and two cast-off gowns to be done up smaller for Sarralyn would extend to support for Numair, should he find himself, in spite of vague royal assurances to the contrary, in the front of a courtroom instead of along its back wall. Today, however, Sir Myles sat alone. Neither his wife nor adoptive daughter the Lioness was with him -- she supposed that the Champion would come with the court. His ward -- what was her name? Svanni? Svetlana? Maggur's daughter, at any rate -- was absent as well. Veralidaine had tried speaking to her once, asking her about the rumored Scanran shape shifters. The girl hadn't replied, and Veralidaine had mentally dismissed her as a proud, haughty little thing, one whom she didn't have time to worry about.
"Don't you think so, dear?"
"Yes, of course." Veralidaine answered her husband absently, still watching Sir Myles. Could Lady Eleni not bear to see her grandson brought to trial? How was it that she had that easy excuse of pain where Numair, Thom's advisor and teacher, or Galina, his sometime fellow, did not?
"You aren't really listening, are you, Daine." No one would think to accuse Lady Eleni of treason. She could have sympathy, and openly, too, for Thom. She could mourn him, cry for him him, wear her black not only for the king, and no one would dream of censuring her. But they had to guard their words against too much regret and comfort for Thom of Pirate's Swoop.
"Of course I'm listening. Heads up." Without the usual flourish in this time of deep mourning, which would barely have been audible over the roar of voices, in any case, the arrival of the king was heralded only by the preceding entrance of the other court notables.
Numair reached to clench her hand in his as they watched the informal procession of nobles file down towards the raised benches at the front of the court room. As when she had scanned the hall, some of their faces were instantly familiar, while others were only recognizable pictures of distant power, and a few, almost unknown. Gareth of Naxen. Baird of Queenscove. Turomot of Wellam. Gareth the Younger. Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie's Peak. Vanget haMinch. Imrah of Legann. Alanna of Trebond and Olau. The Dowager Queen Thayet. How much softer and more deeply black their heavy satins and velvets seemed! Even among the varying dark colors and blacks of the standers and sitters, these nobles were a thousand times more solemn. And finally, when the great lords had taken their places, Roald, king in certain actuality if not quite yet in name. Veralidaine dropped into her deep curtsy as he approached; she saw his boots, and the furred edge of Princess Shinkokami's gown as the royal passed. It seemed to be an age before Roald had guided his wife to the handsome chair placed on the top step but one of the dais and had seated himself in the King Throne.
As she rose, and as those fortunate enough to have seats settled into them, she noticed that Numair had his eyes closed and his head slightly bowed. "You aren't on trial," she reminded him ever so quietly when he opened them.
"It isn't for myself that I'm afraid."
