Chapter Eighteen

"Doone, you were witness to the death of your wife, Liandra and your daughter, Kiya." Asked Starnel as the trial recommenced. Doone gritted his teeth, he'd been psyching himself all night and repeating the rhetoric – I will make them proud. I will make them proud. He steeled himself with those very words right now.

"I was."

"What were you doing prior to the incident?"

"We were sitting down having a family meal at my tavern, the Smokey Brambles."

"What time of the day was this?"

"It was lunchtime."

"Was anyone else in the tavern at the time?"

"No"

"Why, it was lunchtime, an otherwise busy period for the tavern?"

"Aygor had closed the tavern. There was period of several years whereby the tavern was not allowed to open?"

"For the purposes of our guests and context, why was this?"

"Aygor was suspicious folk were banding against him. He was right, we were, but he didn't know how, who or where. He became paranoid and banned all large gatherings and meetings, which included closing places we could congregate."

"So, your family were eating alone, and then what?" Asked Guss, Deanna could sense Doone was steeling himself. She'd asked him to keep his mind open, she could hear him repeating, 'make them proud, make them proud' and 'do this for them'.

"We heard the door smash in. Four masked guards charged in, followed by Lyden. They circled the table and placed swords to all our throats." He quietened.

"What happened then?" Pressed Guss. Doone looked to the back door and didn't remove his gaze as he recanted the story. They last thing he wanted to do was provide Lyden with anymore entertainment.

"I asked him what was going on. He explained they'd found out the Tavern had been used as meeting place to encourage dissent. They believed I had been instrumental in helping the orphaned children escape to the outer villages." He tried to stop his lip quivering.

"What happened then?"

"Lyden gave a nod to one of the guards, and without a second thought he charged his sword and removed Liandra's head." Doone was cold, as though he had found a way to dissociate himself from his emotions. Deanna was impressed and made a mental note to ask him later, though then she noticed he was beginning to waver.

"Please continue," asked Guss. Doone began to scream internally. He noticed Deanna's face contort in pain and she clasped her ears as though that would help. He closed his mind to her.

"Kiya screamed, then couldn't breathe. All she could do was look at me and point at her mummy whilst hyperventilating." Doone began to sob his words. "I yelled - they'd done nothinng! And they hadn't," he pleaded to Starnel whilst still sobbing. The spectators pulled their loved ones closer, and many couldn't contain their own tears. This was not a rare enough story.

"Lyden moved around to Kiya and stroked her face. He began taunting her. I rushed to them to… to... what can I say, I wanted to kill them all, get him away from her." He trailed off and placed his head in his hands.

"What happened?"

"I grabbed Lyden by the throat and…" He took a moment to breathe. "Something happened, I may have nudged her, or pushed him into her, I don't know, but the sword held by the guard when straight through the side of her neck." There was not a sound being made by anyone, save the odd sniffle.

Tarya sat staring out of the window, tears streaming down her face. She'd already figured how Lyden was going to try and get out of this and possibly hers. Sixty thousand years of not having laws had been key to the destruction of their society and now there was nothing they could do about it. They needed help to put a robust system in place with serious consequences. She startled from her thoughts and returned to Doone as he continued. She hadn't even realised Deanna had placed her hands on hers.

"It was my fault. It was an accident, but my rage killed my daughter!" Lyden sat grinning as Doone shouted on. "Lyden took hold of the blade that was in her neck and sliced it out. Her head flopped back... it just hung by a flap of skin." The memory froze him in his agony for a few moments, before he looked up coldly, seemingly having steeled again. "But I am grateful," he somehow managed to add. "She was out of the misery our orb held at the time and didn't have to deal with the loss of her mother... She could be with her instead." He looked Lyden directly in the eye, "it was acts like that, that freed and enabled me and others to finally rise to destroy you. You'd taken away any leverage you had against me, all I really cared about and I was finally free to do as I pleased, and destroy you we did." He refused to take his eyes of Lyden.

"Thank you Doone, that's all." As Starnel finished, Lyden stood up,0 applauding the act.

"Bravo Doone, Bravo. Congratulations on doing half my job for me. Tell me, how did you know your little girl was dead when the blade went thought her neck?"

"I looked directly into her eyes. She was gone."

"By your own admission then, that's one death I never committed. Your wife then, did I directly kill her?"

"No."

Did I give the order?

"Yes."

"Why did I give the order?"

"You never gave a direct explanation. Not what I was guilty off, or what I had done and you certainly presented no evidence of anything."

"Did anything in the law require me to do so?" Doone tried not to look deflated.

"I don't know."

"Captain Picard here was given a copy of Aygor's law. To make it clear to all here, let me confirm. There was no requirement for proof of any crime to be provided when accused of something by the crown. There was also no absolution for any offending persons, who were not the head of state – of course. Any punishment for any crime Aygor deemed to be so, was at his discretion and arrangement. You will also note Doone, that by your own admission, you had committed an act of treason by rebelling against the king and or his policies – also part of the law. I argue that you were the offender and I was acting out the lawful punishment as requested by the king. I admit it was to kill either your wife or daughter, but as you've already pointed out it was you who killed your daughter, not I." By this point Lyden had crept right up to Doone and was towering over him with a half-smile. Before Picard could say anything, he added "No further questions."

Picard swallowed he was going to have to spend that evening carefully examining both the law of Aygor, and federation law to see if there was a way to easily convict him of anything thus far. He couldn't see this next trial going any better. In theory, everything he did, seemed to be lawful at the time and there had been no law prior to Aygor he could use to fight it. What a nightmare he thought again.

"Thank you Doone, Lyden and Guss. It's now getting late and I need to consider what has been said. I suggest we break for today and continue proceedings tomorrow. I'm sure it's nearing tea time and we could all do with a break. Thank you."

With that, Picard rose and encouraged everyone else to do so. Data took Lyden straight back to the gaol cell. He gloated the whole way there. Picard walked over to where the others stood.

"He's going to get away with this isn't he?" Asked Christoph.

"It's not looking good," said Picard, but I will spend the night studying all the laws with Data and see if I can't find anything at all that may help, but ultimately, I have to abide by both world's laws."

"What if this was your law alone, on your planet?" Asked Doone.

"The acts he committed would likely be covered under the umbrella of war crime and his entire portfolio of charges would need to be considered. I've no doubt he has committed war crimes, but you have no such laws, we can't re-invent your history and the federation doesn't acknowledge this particular war, if they could even call it that. It was more a civil uprising."

"You're saying he needs to be convicted of an independent crime. Just him, no orders." Asked Tarya.

"If it's possible to find one yes, but right now he only has your trial left. He is being charged for rape. If you want to file another charge we'd have to set another date. I know that's silly, but that's the way it works and he needs fair warning. If you want to change any details of a crime under the same charge, you will need to share them with him by midnight tonight. We can do either, the former would just take longer, and that goes for anyone else as well, but tomorrow is the conclusion of this particular trial. For this to conclude tomorrow it has to be rape or the charge gets dropped. I am conscious that I don't want to drag this out any longer than necessary." Everyone was lost in thought.

"So it doesn't have to be the rape he outlined if we know of another?" They all looked to Guss, then Tarya.

"There was another involving him?" Asked Doone.

"I can't prove that?" She said looking at Guss as he raised his eyebrow.

"Not even if it meant having him banished to the north forever? Never having to see him again - no one will. If Picard can just say the word guilty it would mean so much to everyone. If not, we fear hearing him being declared not guilty tomorrow… It would be our best shot at not having to see him again, or have him prowling the streets getting more and more tetchy as his exile continues – or worse, inflicting him on new worlds. I'm sure that's not what we want to be known for." Doone grabbed Guss harshly by the wrist and pulled him out of their earshot.

"You can't do this; you can't put all of this on her. You really want her to do this?" The few remaining townsfolk were milling around, trying to hear their conversation, he pulled Guss further away.

"Doone, I don't see what other choice we have." Guss argued.

"How do you know there is another one anyway? You expect her to trudge her memory looking for incidences?"

"I'm pretty sure there's another one she could easily find, and she knows what I'm talking about, but it's not my story to tell. She has to make the decision and she won't be able to recall from her memory, she'd have to ask the walls."

"You can't be serious, that's even worse. Do you not think we've placed enough on her over the years… Let's just kill him?"

"Oh stop it Doone, we don't have many laws, but that's one of them. I'm pretty sure that classes as grave harm."

"Oh who cares, literally no-one will - they'd be grateful!"

"That's not the way this works Doone and this trial is making it painfully clear we need laws now, especially if our world is going to open up." Doone sighed, he knew he was right.

Tarya was watching them talk about her. Two of her closest friends at loggerheads again, these two would die and kill for one another, but their personalities. She had to admit it made caucus meetings more interesting though. She really missed Shoo and Vali right now, they were the calming influence. She'd had enough and walked out.

Beverley caught up to Tarya as she was heading out of town.

"Gosh, you're a fast walker" she said, practically running to keep up.

"What are you doing here Dr?" She said very matter of fact.

"Wherever you are going I'm coming with you."

"Again, why?" She asked, slightly irritated.

"Deanna needs to be with Doone and Christoph this evening. Jean-Luc is doing a lot of reading and Data is babysitting Lyden." She finished just as Guss caught up with them.

"What are you doing here? I don't need babysitters!"

"I put you up to this, and clearly I'm the only one with eyes and a connecting brain, Doone really has no idea?"

"No idea about what?" Asked Beverly. Tarya sighed, they'd find out tomorrow if she could get the evidence anyway.

"My fourth child, Mikos. He clearly wasn't Aygors."

"You think he was Lyden's, why?" Asked Beverly

"Because Lyden wouldn't kill him, he's never reluctant to kill, but he was very reluctant and made what I thought to be very strange and unusual comments about the pregnancy and afterwards. He took a very keen interest in him too and not in a weird way - believe it or not, he actually seemed to care."

"If you can't be sure it's him, how can you find evidence?" Beverley added.

"I don't, but the walls do. I can pull their memories and put together evidence. If it was him of course."

"Would he not be masked? They seem to like those masks."

"I don't know, I was unconscious, but for that same reason he may not have been masked, even if he was, and it was him, I may have another way of identifying him."

"Remember, whatever you find, it needs to be presented to him by midnight. Otherwise he will not have enough time to read through the accusation."

"Then we are going to have to hurry, " said Tarya as she began to jog.

"So where are we going?" Beverley huffed and puffed as she struggled to keep up. They were exceptionally fast at jogging, for Beverly it was closer to a sprint.

"The castle. It's not far."

Thank God Beverly thought.