"The votes have been tallied. The new Dukes have been drawn by the voices of all landowners," I said.
Had Sarevok heard a speech like this on his Shieldmeet coronation? In a sensational novel I should have seen the shade of his tall armoured form standing here across from me, a gauntleted hand outstretched impatiently to receive his letter patent. But the floor was empty, and repaired as if he had never ordered it damaged.
The outcomes were as predictable as they had been for him, if better protected against tampering. The Dukes' hall was repaired enough for this, and this time the ceremonies were watched by truesight.
"Sauriram Belt."
The greatest number of votes; I remembered Sarevok's grip on her neck the last time she had stood in this hall, and her changing of the battle. She walked quietly with that walking stick tipped by Helm's symbol; and wore the Guardian's emblem on her chest as a necklace, the same holy symbol I had seen on her husband a thousand times.
"When my husband came to serve you as Duke thirty years ago, he promised to guard this city under the auspices of the Vigilant One. I watched him serve this city until his death. I can do nothing else but stand in his seat. Against the young ones who go to make up your new Dukes, three who shed blood for the city—I have a long memory of the past and the old standards of honour. These must be united as we seek to repair what has been done.
"I bear some of the guilt for failing to notice the Pretender's rapacious ambition before he seized his place in blood. The city shares the guilt, as it must also share what we have to step forward. Regardless of what I myself live to see, I hope for a future that guards from its past," Sauriram said.
For a moment her symbol of Helm flared a brilliant white, as if the Watcher himself chose her as the clerical voice of Baldur's Gate. She sat calmly as if she had taken no notice of it through the cheers for her, her cane firmly planted to the ground.
"Fylla Vai."
Another easy choice; the commander of the Flaming Fist always has a seat on the Grand Dukes. She didn't have Eltan's stiff walk, and her armour was more battle-ready than his formal polish; but she shone in her own way, her red hair bare and bright.
"I'm a plain fighter," she said, "a plain speaker; and I was a plain Captain before this, and if my commander were still alive I'd be cheering him for Duke. But I'm here because the men and women in my command turned down Dosan's brute murdering squad, and I went to lead them to something like the Fist as it was meant to be. We fight for pay, but we fight with honour. We don't wage war against those who can't fight back. We don't shove citizens away behind curfews. We don't lock people up for saying a few words against the Dukes or the temples or anything you like. We won't even lock people up for words against me. You speak up to us when there's something wrong, and we'll earn your trust by our actions responding to it." She joined Sauriram, standing, squaring her shoulders to face her people.
"And the third largest tally of votes was to Claudia Besancon."
That was what being a mage and accustomed to Baldur's Gate gave you. Claudia's win was narrow above Fierran Jhasso; among the four Dukes should be at least one mage. Patient, hardworking, and clever as Imoen. She blushed fiercely to mount the dais.
"Good...afternoon," she began, softly at first; and then Imoen moved her hands from behind the dais and winked at me. Claudia's quiet voice magnified itself. "I thank you for putting your faith in me. I will repay that trust with all that I am able to do. I began the fight with a host of others who believed and showed me that Sarevok...was a murderer. His might could not make such a thing right. There are those worthier who cannot b-be here—" she hesitated on that—"because they are dead. I am a mage, and I have served by untangling enchantments connected to Sarevok's monsters, and by building new enchantments. I want to encourage other mages to take part in the city. To use arcane power in the service of right, instead of to fall into the trap that power justifies any atrocity one can think of.
"And, we four...I also think it worth celebrating that there have been thirty-two past Councils where only men sat. This is the first of four women. I am a mage and I am a Baldurian and I am a person as well, as the other Duchesses are many other things. It is not that we must not encourage men, but we want...our daughters to have the same ambitions as sons, for whatever they may choose to become. I want my seat on the Council to be seen as in the interests of your daughters."
The inevitable heckling that women must have voted for her was muttered; but mixed with that a fair share of cheers. That was—interesting, I thought; and I saw Imoen whoop in impressed jubilation.
For three days the full celebration, as improvised as we could make it: a carnival of glittering fish scales instead of flung sweetmeats, parades and dances across the reconstructions of the docks, balancing on long beams above lapping waves, and one skyship flown briefly for the sake of fireworks invoked by Dynaheir and the fourth Grand Duchess. A busy time; an easier time before what would shortly begin under a quorum of four. I searched for an unconnected man to find something else I cared to know.
—
We swore trials of the crimes of war to the Amnians. They gave us the expense and took the oversight; they wished any killer of civilians to pay the price. We'd pleaded for the lives of the common recruits, who would be sentenced to labour if they had not the brutality of others. As for the higher of rank who had ordered or committed burnings of Nashkel innocents, Crimmor, other raids—in Helm's justice there was no escape for murderers, said a suddenly iron-faced Sauriram, and I looked to the ground.
Four travellers from Nashkel had come, protected by an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a straight military stance. His face seemed familiar, though the forceful glance in his stern dark eyes was surely not; and then he seemed to recognise me.
"Girl in the temple," he said. "By the one who answered death. Pardon me, young woman. I was not myself then."
Captain Brage; the one who'd killed his family and gone mad into the woods before Dynaheir had brought him back. He'd been in Nalin's temple, a broken man consumed by remorse of his madness. But now he looked like the military man he must have once been, clean and armoured and disciplined. It had been said that he and Nalin and others hid in the woods and fought the invaders of Nashkel.
"I have no right to plead my own case, but I escort these witnesses," Brage said simply. "Nalin sends his regards." And in keeping with his statement he stood in the back of the court and said not a word, though the Nashkel four seemed to gain comfort from his presence. A young girl, a woman, and two men; their faces were vaguely familiar, but in our times in Nashkel we had never spoken to them. When they told their tales of what Sarevok had ordered to be done—
"Anthonias Saavis, your former men Jarvik and Thanillan accuse you of giving the order on the sixteenth of Eleasias to fire the store of an innocent shoemaker, while containing his son and daughter of age twelve and seventeen respectively. Taylan and Domilla of Nashkel, Amnian citizens, accuse of..."
"Havemercy Fullveig, you stand accused of firing crossbow bolts into the purge of Crimmor by the survivor Rafe Fenwick and recruit Catrin Smithson."
"Ghoan Arravan, as lieutenant under Angelo Dosan you stand accused of illicit imprisonment and torture of the political prisoners Calviran Jannath, Vaela Faldrian, Eagus Coopmaker."
"Edwin Odesseiron, citizen of Thay, Fallis of Nashkel is direct witness for your murder of Elma Shireal, Jom Ironmonger, and Lalvan Olasson by fireball. And in addition of partaking in the massacre of Crimmor by your magic; that maliciously you committed what you knew to be crime even in the context of war..."
I'd expected Edwin; Sarevok had briefly described him in his own journals, and Imoen and I had found records that he was among the prisoners she'd taken on the march to Zaragois. On paper they had made him officer, a mage. He was scarcely recognisable: unkempt, wild-eyed, his beard grown and his hair greasy, almost hysterical while the guards sought to fasten him to a chair in case of his use of magic.
"Simians! You have no right to judge me, peasants, slaves. You know not who I am!" Red-faced, he strained against the iron bonds; and fell back as if in an apoplexy, silenced.
"I would ask to have no voice in this matter," I said. "I have met this man in the past and it would be wrong to bias the trial." The Council of Four were not the formal judges, rather a Fist-appointed man of the law; but had power to directly oversee and to adjust sentences.
"Duly noted, Duchess Silvershield. A fair trial before we hang the foreign scum."
"—And that kind of language is also not acceptable."
A mutter of: wouldn't think so if she'd read what he'd done. Witnesses; records; of course he was entitled to a hearing.
"Prisoner, to the charges against you, do you claim any defence?"
Again Edwin's wild look searched the court; he would have read no sympathy in the eyes of the watchers, nor judge nor witnesses. He saw my face.
"—Wretched weeping brat! All your fault! Crying all night! Not even sewing a simple seam correctly! I—" His voice hoarsened, and his stare changed to something of his past sharp look through his dark eyes. "I have vital information to you, child. I know the truth of what you are! I know truths of your lover you will pay to hear! You must release me, you have no choice!"
"You speak as a madman. My lover is the city of Baldur's Gate, and there is nothing I care to hear from your mouth about it. Certainly not to turn aside the course of fair trial."
And the truth was that the city needed him fairly judged, and that was far more important than anything that he could tell about Eldoth. Imoen, in the audience of nobles, gave a quick approving gesture to the speech-making.
The girl from Nashkel gave her evidence slowly. "That he cast the fire that killed them. His head was turned toward Elma, I saw him take up materials in his hands and make his gestures, and the moment later it all—it all burst into flames. He knew she was there and she'd never harmed nobody. She—burned—"
"If foolish peasants cannot think to get out of the way of a simple fireball spell then it is not the wizard's fault!"
Imoen made the universal thumbs-down gesture, though her face was anything but to jest of it, cold and drawn. It was as if the Edwin we knew had been driven mad. He seemed to have done everything accused of. Sometimes he sat in silence at the testimonies; sometimes he raged and gibbered of a geas Sarevok had supposedly held him under, but at the same time he would blame the fools for not escaping his path and boast about his power as a wizard. Had he chosen Sarevok? I knew he'd left of his own will.
"Edwin Odesseiron, by the evidence before me it is now my duty to pass upon you the sentence of the law of Baldur's Gate, which is that you be taken from here to the place from which you came, and then to be carried to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead. May Helm have mercy upon your soul. Bring the next!"
They dragged him from the courtroom, his dirty robes falling loose behind him. "A farce of a trial!" Edwin shouted. I remained carefully still while he wrenched a cuffed hand to point at me; I could see flecks of spit sprayed to the air in front of his face. "Don't you fools know that she was the one? The son of Bhaal, the daughter of Bhaal—the same! You fools to take her in his place—"
"You mistake me for Lady Imoen, I'm afraid. Your master Sarevok did the same," I said.
"—Gah! Take your paws off me, simians, pawns, lying chimps all—" His rantings followed him while he was taken back to the cells, echoing loud against the walls. The next of Sarevok's men was escorted to trial—
"Diyab Faaris, you are accused as one of the so-called acolytes and priests of the Pretender and were discovered in his company in the palace of the Grand Dukes. The crimes you are hereby tried for are..."
—
"You're not really going to have Edwin executed, are you?" Imoen said. "He's—someone we knew, and you looked so calm when they sentenced him to be hanged— But I know he did those things, admitted to it. Back when he betrayed you I knew he betrayed you even though I didn't want him dead for leaving and you'd have forgiven him, but then he went out with Sarevok and he helped with murdering people... It's someone you know, so's then it's kind of horrible to think of sitting here waiting for a few days and then a cart dragging you out to the gallows, then the rope and the drop and the death out of the snapping vertebrae—damn it, I don't care to know. That's god of death stuff."
"Don't be silly, Imoen," I said. "Of course we won't execute him. He's the nephew of the Tharchion of Surthay. We legitimately sentenced him to death, and we're selling him back to the Tharchion because foreign citizens ought to have their punishments carried out by their homelands. So far, they've offered five hundred gold."
And they don't execute nephews of Tharchions. Imoen saw the point and nodded.
We walked through the prison's corridors, guarded. Men's hands reached for us past the bars of overcrowded cells.
"The court did the justice the city needs in giving a fair sentence, but it's also the truth that the ransom serves the city slightly better," I said, in case of gossip from our escorts. "And we need to maintain relations with Thay in case of Halruaa."
Edwin sat in a narrow cell to himself; sigils scratched on its walls and ceiling shielded it from magic, and his hands were manacled together. He threw himself toward the bars to see us, half-hunched with his staring face pressed against the metal.
"Weeping brat—apprenticing brat! You come... You come to free me at last? How many times over do you owe me your lives? I demand you release me immediately and I will be merciful!"
"We cannot intervene in the city's course of justice, Edwin," I said. "Only to talk—briefly, because I don't have a lot of time to spare. Speaking or not will neither cost nor gain you anything. Stand away and leave us for the moment," I ordered the Fists. "The Lady Imoen can more than take care of him."
His hands gripped the bars tightly enough that his knuckles stood out on his fists like walnuts; his eyes held a glittering, feverish madness, and the skin of his face seemed to slackly droop.
"Oh, there are so many things I could tell you, little girl," he said in a harsh whisper. "Come closer to Uncle Edwin! Retrieve those lockpicks from wherever you have them in that dress of yours...not in the embroidery of the bosom, are they? Not that you ever had much in the way of that—" He leered like a dockyard sailor.
"You owe me three days of your time, Edwin," I said. "Do you remember that promise? Not as the Grand Duchess; as Skie. And for that I'll only ask some questions."
"Bindings..." Edwin said, and laughed low and long. "The older that I laid on myself, like a fool. I'd forgotten; for a few days it slightly diminished my magic but afterward I recovered; I forgot you, crying child. You are very forgettable. But ask if you must. Debts are paid in Thay, in my home where I was the master I deserved to be. Yet do not send me there—they will punish—"
And I'd not have him owing me anything any more than he would owe me. "What happened to Eldoth?" I said, though asking itself was a risk. Men could have as many lovers and rumoured lovers as they wished, but Eldoth had to remain scurrilous gossip of the Duchess. The maddened gleam in his eyes seemed to subside; Edwin drew himself up slightly to answer, his hands still thick across the bars. I saw his nails had been bitten or torn to the quick; before he had kept himself manicured and clean. His greasy hair was in his face and his beard crude and untrimmed.
"Your lover, of course, was a foul and repulsive traitor that not even a slime mould should wish to be related to in the same conversation," Edwin said, articulating his words almost as he had done in the old days. "Eldoth Kron wished to betray you to Sarevok for coin, and should have done so in an instant had I not prevented him. And boasted of your very poor tastes to my hearing. Then promptly decamped with my coin and yours at the moment we reached the city. There! He was far more of a traitor to you than I ever was, you surely must reward me for the gratis knowledge now. Take heed of the betrayer that Kron was and—"
"But Eldoth didn't betray me to Sarevok. You did," I said slowly.
"A minor detail!" Edwin shook against the bars. "You...knew me, Skie. (How it hurts the pride to beg before the brat!) Mended the seam of my robes—these very robes!" He shook his dark red skirts; but he lied. It wasn't the same colour or fabric. "Cried in my arms all night. (Most concubines only cry in ecstasy.) Get me out of here and I'll—"
"And you don't know what happened to Eldoth after that?"
"(Does the empty-headed twit have ears to listen with? There, I answer my own question. In one, out the other betwixt that vacant airy maze.)" Edwin sounded slightly more like the self he'd shown to travel with us. "Nothing. He was of no concern to anyone and I heard none of hide or hair of him. Given that he called himself a bard, as an attention-seeking pest that they are—departed the city; performing not, escaping for his own sordid reasons—though I am sure he was a fool with no knowledge of what he spared himself from. Your pathetic pretend romance is done with—E commedia é finitas, if we must be theatrical!" he said, ungrammatically; but you couldn't expect his Chondathan to match his Common. He'd answered what I had wanted to know.
"Did Sarevok really geas you?" Imoen said. "I couldn't see it on the Weave, but of course since he's dead that would've made it vanish."
"More—solidly and substantially than what gave me to you," Edwin said. "You see, he was far more powerful; stronger; anyone would have predicted his Bhaalspawn victory! (As a god, as one subverted to join Thay...my plan should have worked. Only cruel fates—) And subvert him I did, in my way." His mouth twisted and he cackled. "Supplanted him without his knowledge. I bedded his mistress; Cythandria told me herself that I was the mightier man, if you know what I mean... (Not necessarily in so many words.) For I am a powerful wizard..." He slumped against the cell's bars.
"Hey," Imoen said slowly, "did you really? With Cythandria? Not lying about that? Perfect!" She turned to me and giggled. "Sarevok always did wear those big curly horns on his helmet. So's now we know why—because he wore the other sorts of horns the whole time! Sarevok the cuckold! Too good. Big brother Sarevok wears the horns, girlfriend cheating on him the whole time. I bet we can make the whole city laugh at that." She put a hand on the prison wall to steady herself, bending over with laughter. "He'd got piles of spikes and big swords and ravagers to make up for a tiny— Cuckolded! Cythie and Eddie bouncing on a tree! Horns! Poor little wannabe Lord of Murder! Hang up the helmet by his front doorposts! Teeheehee! Let me think up some really good puns!"
Imoen was right, making the enemy ridiculous; I grinned back at her.
"It's not as if I have any power to make you respect my dignity." Edwin took his hands down from the cell bars; folded his arms across his chest; and turned away.
"That's all, Edwin," I said.
—
Domestic disputes welcomed us back at the estate, cleaned and refurbished. Tiax had moved in along with the others, at least until its rightful owner arrived for his inheritance; he'd no doubt be able to drive away the Cyricist gnome, I thought spitefully; but of course he had helped us—and there was guilt waiting of what I had claimed in the Cloakwood.
"Lady Imoen!" Tevanie's eyes brimmed with tears as she stumbled down the steps. She wore a dark blue overdress in heavy, warm merino, tailored to her. Imoen had managed to become her friend; had the time to do so, and to gain her trust. "I'm sorry. I can't sit and talk to my grandfather's murderer and the drow—"
"Come here, kid. It'll be all right. Viccy's not that bad—well, she and Shar-Teel sort of are—but she doesn't hate you. And your mum doesn't either." Imoen took her to one of the plump blue sofas that had come from Brilla's taste.
"She boasts she killed Grandfather!"
"Your mother threatened to kill us for endangering you," I said. "She, er, meant it. When she thought you were in danger we couldn't have stopped her."'
"She meant it," Tevanie said, "against Grandfather. He never harmed me. And she murdered him!" In the short time she'd spent with Angelo her accents had changed from the girl in the docks to something closer to the granddaughter of the Fist's commander, despite Angelo's brief tenure. Tears came to her eyes and Imoen patted her back.
"It was a fair fight," I volunteered awkwardly. Imoen glared and Shar-Teel's daughter burst into stronger tears.
"And he...I lived with him and we had cake when I wanted, and he was going to teach me riding and magic, and treated me like a real family—" Tevanie said.
"All right. You'll be sent to a tutor and then to a good school," I said. Her grandfather had offered her a chance to learn magic; we ought to do the same.
"For the Abyss' sake, brat—" Shar-Teel strode down the stairs; her nailed boots left marks on the varnished wood. Viconia came behind her. "He's dead. Time you learned some sense. Bastard."
Her daughter cringed back from her and cried.
Imoen sighed. "Look, Shar-Teel, you're obviously not what Tevanie needs right now, so why don't you and Vic go out for some fresh air. Or upstairs for getting on with typical unnatural tribadistic practices. Not that I mean to be prejudiced about it. Happy for you two, really, if not for the terrified general populace."
Viconia smiled at me, stretching. "You made me a hero of the war, Duchess," she said, "and all I was granted was the right to walk streets unmolested? When I have done nothing in this city? At least a shrine to Shar would be...fitting. Sacrifices could be scheduled every ten days. It would be a just reward."
"I don't think it'd be good for the city," I said.
"Then I may think of private candidates." She posed again. "The stench of the clogged surfacers and their disgusting ways troubles me. Perhaps I shall discover other plans." She shook the hood of her cloak to her neck, preparing to walk openly in the day. "Or our ilharess, ussta mrimmd'ssinss? A mere pardon for her deeds?" She ran a possessive hand over Shar-Teel's shoulders.
"...Because I know how many bodies she buried to leave the Fist?" Behind me, Tevanie gave a cry; I'd forgotten how much she ought to know.
"Was one of them my father?" Tevanie said.
"—Your father's dead, girl," Shar-Teel said. "I've never lied to you."
"So did you kill him?" Imoen burst out, and then backed down in her seat, having spoken too quickly. Anyone would have asked the same thing, knowing Shar-Teel—
"Never got the chance," she said stonily. "He was nobody's loss."
Tevanie looked up at her with her eyes still brimming wet, and then down again. "Fine! Murderer. I wish you hadn't won!"
"Then the city would still be at war and Sarevok might have become a god of murder...and I guess your granddad would've been alive," Imoen said, perhaps unhelpfully. Tevanie's response was inaudible.
"I'll spar with you," I offered Shar-Teel. "Down by the oaks, ten minutes?"
"This city is a waste of time." She scowled at the house's furnishings. "Try for some bloodshed."
—
A/N: Not that you don't already know, but horns and a man being cheated upon is traditional symbolism. :)