The Mirador (71 page)

I blew out the candles.

Felix and Mehitabel helped.

Mehitabel

I’d never seen the Hall of the Chimeras in its role as a judicial court before, and it wasn’t improved. I planted myself where I had a good view of the dais, and waited, surrounded by the chatter of the courtiers and wizards. They were anxious, alarmed, indulging in spectacular gossip. The rituals of the Mirador were disrupted, and it was almost funny how bereft her denizens were.

The Curia came in first, followed by Stephen’s Cabinet. They flanked the dais, grave-faced as owls. Stephen, Shannon, and Victoria entered through the door behind the dais, and the background mutter increased sharply as the court realized Robert wasn’t with them. They were all three as unreadable as stone.

Stephen dealt with the—relatively—simpler matter of Ivo Polydorius and Robert of Hermione first. The rabbity musician, the one who had brought Cardenio to me two years ago—I couldn’t even remember his name when I saw him—gave his testimony in a flood of words, babbling and sobbing. Mostly, it made no sense to me, since he was talking about things that had happened many years ago, and I didn’t recognize most of the names. But Ivo Polydorius kept recurring, like a cork bobbing in a rain-butt, and the deepening grimness of Cabinet and Curia said clearly that the other names were evil company.

Robert of Hermione was brought out next, sweating and sallow. But he was still vilely confident; he’d had Stephen’s protection for a long time, and his narrow self-interest was of the sort that never understands what will make other people snap. He was too frightened to lie, but his words were all weasel words, and it took repeated, hammering questions to get the truth out of him. Robert hadn’t been a member of the first conspiracy, the one which resulted in the death by burning of Gloria Aestia, but he’d been enticed in after his sister’s death, when he could no longer rely on her soft good-nature to get him preferment. He’d been in the thick of the plotting around Cornell Teverius, and although he couldn’t be driven to say so outright, his animosity for Shannon had been a large factor in the decision to involve Cornell. It was appallingly clear that Robert didn’t care who held power in the Mirador, as long as he got his share.

When they were done with Robert, there was a long silence, thick as mud. Everyone was watching Stephen, who was sitting slumped, bearlike, his eyes hooded and lowered. Whatever he was thinking about, he didn’t like it. Finally, he said, “Let’s have Lord Ivo out here.”

At his side, Shannon said, his voice thin and harsh, “May I speak?”

“What do you want to say?”

“I knew nothing of this plotting. I do not want the Protectorship, and if anyone had approached me to offer it, I should neither have accepted nor remained quiet. There is no evidence I can produce, of course, since one cannot prove a negative, but even if you burn me for treason, I will die avowing that this was none of my doing and none of my wish.”

“You are heard,” Stephen said. “Does anyone doubt Lord Shannon?”

People did, of course; human nature alone would have ensured that, even if there hadn’t been, as Shannon said, such a hideous dearth of evidence. But it wasn’t the sort of thing anyone would say out loud.

“Then let it be known,” said Stephen, falling into the formal cadences of a proclamation, “that I place full trust and confidence in my brother, Shannon Teverius. His loyalty to the Protectorate has never been in doubt, and it is not doubted now.” He and Shannon exchanged a glance; Stephen’s face was, as always, uninformative, but I saw relief and a shy, surprised kind of pleasure on Shannon’s. “Bring out Lord Ivo.”

I’d never seen Lord Ivo before. He was a straight-backed man in his early sixties, with a narrow, sardonic face and bright, hooded eyes like a raptor’s. He radiated self-will like the rank smell of a fox, a sense that in all his life he had done only and always what suited him. He wasn’t frightened, although he had to know he was defeated.

His determination was to bring as many people down with him as he could. Unlike Robert, he made no attempt to weasel or to whitewash himself, admitting freely to his league with Vey Coruscant, their plotting which had begun with the death of Lord Ivo’s cousin Dulcinea, to all the intricacies and betrayals of the intervening years. His evidence was clear, cogent, complete— and damning. He named his confederates, both nobles and wizards, and he gave the name of every single person who had ever turned a blind eye to what he did. But he didn’t lie. He exonerated Shannon, when he could have dragged him down with no more than an equivocation. Lord Ivo, too, had his own sense of honor.

When he was finished, that clear, dry voice, like dead twigs snapping, fallen silent at last, Stephen brooded again, while the court shifted uneasily and nobody made eye contact with anybody.

At last, Stephen said, “Lord Ivo Polydorius, Lord Robert of Hermione, you are guilty of treason. The sentence for treason is death.” Of all the people in the Hall of the Chimeras, only Lord Ivo didn’t flinch. “Does anyone speak in defense of these persons? ”

There was a terrible silence. Ritualistically, Stephen asked the question two more times, and the silence just got deeper. I’d been told of trials in the past—Felix and Mildmay had gotten on the subject one night—in which clemency had been granted. The most notable was Felix’s own trial, when the Virtu had been broken. They had left him alive, Felix had said snidely, because they couldn’t solve their jigsaw puzzles without him. Intellectual aggravation, not clemency. But there were other trials: the trial of Lord George Cledentius, at which his wife had cast herself weeping at the feet of Lord Malory Teverius; the trial of Lord Polycarp Aemorius, at which the head of the Curia had stood up and declared his belief that Lord Polycarp’s treason had been justified. It wasn’t uncommon for traitors to be forgiven, or their sentences commuted. But it needed someone to speak for them. And no one spoke.

“Very well,” said Stephen. “For the smaller players in this foul game, Lord Alaric Gardenius, Lord Walter Malanius, Lady Dolores Malania, Lady Parsanthia Ward, Lord Michael Otanius— and the go-between, Hugo Chandler—my judgment is this: they are to be stripped of land, title, and privileges, and to be banished. After Samedy, Dai twenty-fourth, 2283 ab urbe condita, if they are found within the borders of Marathat, they shall suffer the fate of their leaders. Lord Ivo Polydorius, Lord Robert of Hermione, my judgment on you is that at sundown, Jeudy, Dai twenty-second, you shall be taken into the Plaza del’Archimago and there burned, as Gloria Aestia was burned.”

Lord Ivo looked vaguely bored. Robert threw himself forward, grabbing at Stephen’s feet, pleading and crying, invoking Emily Teveria as if she were some patron saint. Stephen sat unmoved, merely waving for the guards to come and pull Robert back.

“One last favor for my dead wife,” said Stephen, when Robert was quiet again. “A merciful death for her brother. Robert of Hermione, you shall die under the sanguette.” The flat finality of his voice silenced Robert at last. Stephen looked away from Robert and said, “The dynastic line of the Polydorii passes to Lord Crowell Polydorius. Lord Crowell, the house of Polydorius is now your problem.” A noble near me, with Lord Ivo’s bones, but without the cruel brightness in his eyes, bowed in acknowledgment, and Stephen sighed. “Take the prisoners away. Grant them every courtesy due their rank.”

Robert and Lord Ivo were taken out. The “courtesy of rank” often extended itself to the means of suicide being left handy, and I hoped someone would manage it this time, too. I had no desire to watch anyone be burned, not even Ivo Polydorius.

Stephen sat up straighter; the day’s business wasn’t done. “Bring in Felix Harrowgate.”

Felix looked even worse than he had the night before. He was unraveling, strand by strand, and I hated that there were so many witnesses to it. From the frown in Mildmay’s face as he followed, he hadn’t been able to help. The guards jerked Felix to a halt before the dais. He seemed almost unaware of his surroundings, but when Stephen said, “Felix Harrowgate,” he said, “Yes, my lord,” his voice as clear and level as ever. Only I thought I detected a hint of the Lower City in it, a trace of Mildmay.

“Did you murder Gideon Thraxios?”

God, Stephen, must you be so tactless? Felix’s flinch was visible, but he said, “No, my lord.”

“Did you destroy the mind of Isaac Garamond?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Because he murdered Gideon Thraxios, whom I loved. Because he was a spy of the Bastion, and a confederate of Malkar Gennadion.”

“Oh my God!” Thaddeus, shouting. “Don’t tell me you’re going to swallow a pack of lies like that!”

“Lord Thaddeus,” said Stephen, “be silent. Felix Harrowgate, what proof do you have?”

Felix hesitated. But then he said, in arid defiance, as one who knows he won’t be believed, “The word of my brother.”

“Mr. Foxe,” said Stephen.

“M’lord,” said Mildmay.

“What evidence do you have for your claim against Isaac Garamond?”

“M’lord,” Mildmay said again. And he told him, the whole thing, repeating himself patiently when Stephen asked. I was disconcerted by how hard Stephen found it to understand Mildmay. I hadn’t realized before how acclimated I’d gotten to Mildmay’s drawling, diphthonged vowels and slurred consonants.

“You say that you ‘remember’ Isaac Garamond. Can you be clearer?”

There was a pause. Everyone but Felix was looking at Mildmay. Felix’s head was down; I couldn’t tell if he even heard the voices around him. Mildmay was struggling for words. Finally he said, “Two indictions ago—as maybe your lordship remembers—I got . . . trapped by Brinvillier Strych. Or Malkar Gennadion, as some call him.”

“Yes,” said Stephen, almost kindly.

“He kept me awhile,” Mildmay said, and I winced at the wealth of things left unsaid. “And I saw Mr. Garamond there with him in the Bastion, helping him.” His head went down for a moment, but he got it back up and said, slow and careful, “Helping him torture me.”

“Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

There was another pause, as long as a hard winter. Mildmay said, “Strych hurt me pretty bad, and I . . . I dunno. I wasn’t letting myself remember what he done, so I couldn’t remember none of the rest of it neither. But it came back at me anyways.”

“My lord!” Thaddeus again. “Clearly this story is an invention. This creature has been coached by his brother to incriminate their victim.”

I saw the spark in Mildmay’s eye and didn’t blame him. There were worse epithets than “creature” Thaddeus could have used, but it was hard to think of one.

“Lord Thaddeus, open your mouth out of turn again, and I’ll have you removed,” Stephen said. “Mr. Foxe, do you stand by your story?”

“Ain’t a story. But, yeah, I’ll swear it’s true.”

“Very well. We have other evidence, taken under Protectorate Seal, which confirms what Mr. Foxe has said. And—Lord Thaddeus, if you would not mind speaking now to tell us how you learned of the location of Gideon Thraxios’s body?”

“An anonymous message under my door,” Thaddeus said sullenly.

“And once you’d found the body, you went to Isaac Garamond’s rooms because . . . ?”

“I knew there were spies in the Mirador. One of my . . . former friends in the Bastion sent me a message with the caefidus. And I knew”—he finished in a burst of defiance—“they were trying to suborn Isaac Garamond!”

“And you did not come to anyone with your evidence,” Stephen said, dismissing Thaddeus de Lalage with one comprehensive glance. “Felix Harrowgate, from this evidence, you are guilty neither of murder nor of treason.”

There was a rustle of whispers among the Curia; they were thinking of the husk of Isaac Garamond. The envoys from Vusantine were in a huddle and seemed to be arguing.

“However, you have committed gross heresy on the person of Isaac Garamond. Do you deny this?”

“No, my lord,” Felix said, not looking up.

“The sentence for gross heresy is death,” Stephen said, and Felix agreed, “By fire.” He didn’t sound as if the idea upset him.

“Does anyone speak in defense of this person?” Stephen said.

Lord Giancarlo said, “Surely we must admit there are extenuating circumstances.”

“Would you say I was mad with grief, my lord?” Felix said with sudden savagery. “Will you send me to St. Crellifer’s with my victim?”

“Felix, hold your tongue,” Stephen said. “Lord Giancarlo, even if we admit extenuating circumstances, it doesn’t change what he did.”

“Not all heretics must be burned,” Lord Giancarlo said stubbornly.

“Yes, and Felix is living proof. However, there are no loop-holes here. What he did is gross heresy, and the sentence is death by burning.”

Lord Giancarlo coughed politely and said, “There is also the matter of what happens to the esclavin when an obligataire is executed under the Mirador’s laws.”

I saw Felix stagger, as if Lord Giancarlo’s words were a blow, and he said with sudden urgency, “There’s no need to enforce that particular law, surely? Given that he couldn’t have . . . that he didn’t . . .”

The principal among the Tibernian envoys stepped forward out of their huddle and said, “Lord Stephen, I propose, on behalf of the Coeurterre, an alternative.”

“You wh—” Stephen caught himself. “I beg your pardon, what did you say?”