Green (17 page)

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the main thing now. If we're lucky enough to take you home, we can worry about the rest then. I'll get to the bottom o' it, Lil. I promise you."

"What do you mean,
if
you take me home?" The word stabbed like an icicle through my heart.

He pointed sadly to my right hand. "Red-handed, Lil. That's a pretty hard spot to get out of. I left Ludlow parleying with their council but--"

"Ludlow!" I exclaimed. "Shouldn't
you
be doing that?"

"I'm not our ambassador, Lil. They won't talk to me."

"You're
my
ambassador--I'm appointing you right now. Go get in there and do something!"

Balthazar stood up and squared his shoulders. He still looked kind of damp, but some pride had returned to his green eyes. I straightened his pilgrim hat for him and brushed the lint off his coat. With a rueful half-smile, he bowed over his boots.

"At your service, Lilybet." he ceiling of my cell was too low for pacing. Giving up, I crouched on the floor, gazing desperately through the barred cat flap in the direction Balthazar had gone.

There has to be someone on their council who'll listen to reason
, I thought.
This whole thing was just a stupid test. A prank, practically. Besides, how can they not know what a two-faced snake Kylie is?

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Not that I'd figured that out myself. I'd been so pathetically eager to believe someone might actually like me that I'd never seen the real Kylie at all. It made me sick to realize how short I'd sold myself.

A commotion of boots on the hall's wooden floor sent me scrambling to my feet. I barely had time to brush off my sweater before Balthazar reappeared at the bars, red-faced and out of breath.

"I did the best I could," he called. "There's to be a tribunal, Lil. I'm to serve as your lawyer."

"A tribunal?" The human-sized door to my cell opened, and I was swarmed by guards.

"Now," Balthazar added, wringing his beard.

A horde of serious-looking Scarlets pushed me out the door and down a corridor. We emerged into the dining hall, where I was greeted by boos and hisses. It seemed the entire Hollow had turned out to see my trial. Leprechauns packed the hall so tightly that the tables had been removed to accommodate the crowd.

On the stage at the room's far end, three women in red judge's robes sat behind tall lecterns. Cain and Ludlow stood off to one side, flanked by Scarlet guards. And lurking in a back corner, his face in the shadows, was Kylie.

I felt him watching me as I passed, but I didn't look his way. Instead I forced my head higher, putting what steel

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I could find into my spine as I was heckled from all sides by the spiteful crowd. The roar of their insults rose to the rafters.
We set off fireworks for you!
their accusing eyes said.
We broke out the clover ale, you ungrateful Green loser!

I desperately wanted to shout explanations to the whole room, but my clover swear wouldn't let me. My only hope now was Balthazar's lawyering abilities.

He hustled up in front of me wearing a seasick look. The judge at the center raised one hand, stopping us in our tracks as twin trumpets blew from both sides of the hall. Silence descended over the crowd.

"Who brings the charges?" the chief judge asked. I recognized her from the Scarlet council, but the other two were strangers.

"I do!" Beryl strutted forward, a ridiculous white wig stuffed down over his orange hair, and read from a scroll in his hands: "Lilybet Green, you are charged with slyful entry to the Scarlet keep and stealing Scarlet gold. How do you answer?"

"Slyful?"
I replied. "That's not even a word."

"She pleads not guilty," Balthazar answered for me.

"The prosecution calls Tully Scarlet," Beryl announced.

The guard who had blown the whistle at the keep stepped in front of the judges and shot me a dirty look.

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"Tully Scarlet," Beryl said, "can you testify that Lilybet Green was in our keep?"

"Aye! That I can." Tully nodded violently. "Saw her with my own peepers."

"And did she have permission to enter?"

"I'd say not!" Tully exclaimed. "We'd have shut off the alarm, wouldn't we? Not that we
would
have given permission. A Green in the Scarlet keep? Shameful! She took advantage o' our condition owing to the party, that's what. But she didn't count on our Kylie being there to catch her."

Beryl bowed to the judges with a smarmy smile. "First count proven," he said.

"Proven?" I protested as the room erupted in applause. I appealed to Balthazar. "What did he just prove?"

"Your Honors!" Balthazar objected. "With respect, I have questions for the witness."

The judges exchanged looks, then nodded. "You may proceed," their leader said.

Balthazar walked closer to Tully. "You say you saw Lilybet Green in the keep?"

"That's right."

"Did anyone else see her?"

"Half the clan saw her!" Tully replied, outraged by Balthazar's suggestion. "If you don't believe me, ask Comyn, or Duncan, or Kale. Ask Kylie. Ask anyone!"

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"You will testify, then, that Lilybet Green was plainly seen in your keep by a large number of folk?"

"Aye!" Tully exclaimed.

I fidgeted nervously, not sure how this was helping me.

Balthazar turned to the judges. "I petition the court: in what way is being openly seen slyful?"

I rocked back on my heels, caught off guard by the circle of Balthazar's logic. The gallery was just as stunned, shouting in angry confusion. The head judge beat her gavel to quiet everyone down.

"Your Honors," Beryl objected. "Clearly, Lilybet Green entered the keep without permission.
That
is slyful."

I wanted to shout that I
did
have permission--from Kylie--but all that came out was a grassy burp.

Balthazar turned to me. "Lilybet Green, did you know you needed to ask Tully Scarlet or one of his men for permission to enter their keep?"

"No!" I bellowed. I'd been so sure the word wouldn't come out that I'd put my whole strength into it. But, I suddenly realized, I
hadn't
known I was supposed to ask those specific leprechauns for permission--and nothing about that question was covered by my clover swear.

Balthazar's an evil genius!
I thought, feeling my first glimmer of hope since walking into the hall.

He bowed to the judges.
"Not
slyful, Your Honors. First count
dis
proven."

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The gallery went crazy again, making so much noise that bailiffs in black vests had to go up and down the aisles shutting everyone up. The judges leaned their heads together and whispered among themselves. I held my breath.

"The first point will attach to the second count," the chief justice finally announced. "On with your case, Prosecutor."

Beryl shot Balthazar a triumphant look.

"What? What does that mean?" I whispered.

"Double or nothing," Balthazar said grimly. "Winner o' the second count takes both."

"Is that even
legal?"

"The prosecution calls Lilybet Green," Beryl announced loudly.

"What? You can't call me!" I protested. "A person has the right not to testify against herself."

Beryl appealed to the judges. "Your Honors, will the court please instruct my witness to stop talking nonsense?"

"The witness will answer the questions," the chief justice ruled without pausing to blink.

"But--"

"Lilybet Green," Beryl interrupted me. "Will you raise your right hand above your head?"

"No. I won't," I said, shoving both hands deeper into my sweater pockets.

All three judges glared at me. Balthazar poked my calf. "You've no choice, Lil. Go ahead and show them."

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Slowly, with, extreme reluctance, I slid my right hand out of my pocket and raised it into the air. A collective gasp went up at the sight of my scarlet skin.

"Red-handed!" Beryl crowed. "Second count proven!"

Cheers for him and hisses for me filled the dining hall. The chief justice banged away with her gavel. Stuffing my hands back into my pockets, I begged Balthazar with my eyes to come to my rescue again.

He met my desperate gaze with one of his own. Then he raised his pilgrim hat and waved it wildly, shouting over the crowd. "Point of factual accuracy!" he cried. "If it please the court, F.A.!"

The chief justice looked skeptical. "State your basis."

Balthazar shot me a now-or-never look. "We will concede that Lilybet Green was caught red-handed
trying
to steal Scarlet gold."

The gallery cheered thunderously.

"But!" Balthazar shouted over the din.
"But
she was not successful. There was no stolen gold in her possession. Factual accuracy has not been met. Lilybet Green has been mischarged!"

The galley gasped. Beryl turned pale. Balthazar had obviously scored somehow.

"What? Tell me!" I begged. "What did you just do?"

"Got him on a technicality," Balthazar whispered back.

The judges conferred again. The center one banged her

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gavel. "Is the stolen gold in court?" she asked Beryl. "You
did
recover the stolen gold?"

He was totally panicking now. Sweat streamed from under his wig. "Well, um ..." He looked desperately from Tully to each of his men as if searching for an answer. My heart swelled with hope. There
was
no stolen gold--Balthazar totally had him!

Then Beryl's eyes landed on Kylie. "Yes!" he cried. "Yes, Your Honors! The prosecution calls Kylie Scarlet!"

Hope shriveled as Kylie shuffled forward and stopped a few feet away. I didn't know what he and Beryl were up to, but I knew it wouldn't be good.

"Kylie Scarlet," Beryl said, recovering some of his arrogance, "will you show the court your keeper key?"

Kylie pulled his key over his head and held it up for the whole room to see. The chain had been repaired so perfectly I couldn't tell it had ever been broken.

"When Lilybet Green was caught, she was in possession of this key. What is it made of, Kylie?"

Kylie smiled slightly. "Gold."

"And how did Lilybet get it?"

This ought to be good
, I thought, knowing he wouldn't be able to tell them because of the clover swear.

But once again Kylie proved too smart for me.

"I really can't say," he answered. His words were one

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hundred percent true, but his tone distinctly implied he didn't
know
how I'd gotten it.

"Did you
give
it to her?" Beryl persisted.

Beryl had to have been in on the plan since before the clover swear to ask such perfect questions, I realized. He'd probably wanted this chance to look the hero as much as Kylie.

"No," Kylie answered innocently.

"Your Honors!" Beryl said triumphantly. "Lilybet Green was caught in possession of the Scarlets' keeper key. The key in question is gold. And it was taken without Kylie's permission, which is to say, stolen. Second count
proven!"

The resulting applause rocked the hall. The judges began conferring. I turned to Balthazar, praying he had another rabbit to pull out of his pilgrim hat. "Say something!" I begged.

He shook his head apologetically. "Can't see where to go with this one, Lil. You
did
have the key."

"Yes, but it wasn't ... wasn't ..." Chewed clover rose into my mouth. Frustrated, I tried to swipe some out to show him, but I couldn't get anything on my fingers, just spit stained a nearly invisible shade of green.

"It was me and ... and ... and ..." I strained to say Kylie's name, to give Balthazar
anything
he could work with. The word wouldn't come out, but Balthazar finally clued in.

"Oh, Lil! You never made a clover swear?"

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I tried to nod, but my head wouldn't move. That swear was bulletproof.

The chief justice pounded her podium. Trumpets blared. The bailiffs ran up and down, calling out for order.

"I am ready to rule," the judge announced. "Lilybet Green, you are found guilty of slyful entering and petty theft. I hereby sentence you to five years' confinement."

The gavel that slammed the podium might as well have hit my skull. My body went numb from the neck down. "Five
years?"

"What a relief!" Balthazar exclaimed triumphantly. "Five years! I've
slept
longer than that!"

The disgruntled crowd obviously agreed with him. They began filing out, muttering about the good old days when thieves were turned loose in the forest and hunted down like deer. The judges climbed off their stools.

"You can't do this!" I screamed, bringing the crowd surging back. "Five years ... I'll be eighteen! I didn't
do
anything!"

"Lilybet! Lil, calm yourself," Balthazar begged. "Don't make them reconsider. It's a light sentence, the lightest! Five years will pass in--"

"I'll be
eighteen!
Can't you people add? You can't do this! You can't!"

Guards rushed in to tie my legs with binding gold. They