The Justice of Kings, page 18
“I do not know what it is you expect me to do,” Vonvalt said eventually. “The law is the law. As an order we are apolitical. In theory at least.”
August waved her pipe animatedly. “Unless we intervene, the Order will be destroyed, subsumed by the Church and our powers with it. We have become complacent over time, assuming that all simply accept the primacy of the common law. Justices have become soft. We are a collection of philosophers and jurists, more interested in writing and selling books than practising the law. Some of these towns I have been through have not seen a Justice for years.”
Vonvalt drew himself up. “I have business to attend to in the Vale. I will not leave here now. Not until it is concluded.”
It was clear that Vonvalt did not fully buy August’s tale of impending doom, and he would confess as much to me a long time later. He had his reasons, which only sound flimsy with the benefit of hindsight. The man was a Reichskrieg veteran, after all. He had seen first-hand what the Legions were capable of. He knew, as we all did, that Westenholtz and Claver were dangerous men who were clearly involved in political manoeuvrings of one sort or another. But he never seriously considered that anyone in their right mind would move against the Emperor and succeed. Kzosic IV was a ruthless man and a brilliant strategist. One needed to look no further than the table we were sat at to see the evidence of his success: a Jägelander, a Grozodan and a Toll, all of us Imperial subjects – more than that, officials – our kings dead and our countries mere provinces, all in the last fifty years. Only August was a native Sovan.
“Irrespective of all of this,” Vonvalt said, gesturing rudely to August’s face as though all the words she had spoken hung in a cloud in front of her, “all the Patricians and Templars and churchmen in the world cannot take the Order’s powers forcibly. It takes years of patient study to become proficient. I am not concerned that a few people have learned to withstand the Emperor’s Voice. It is the weakest of our powers and the easiest to learn to resist. Anyone with a decent education and a good presence of mind can all but frustrate it without any training at all. The power to converse with the dead, with animals, to read minds… these are things that must be instilled in someone through careful tutelage over many months. All Master Kadlec needs to do is refuse. If the masters are killed, the knowledge dies with them.”
“It only takes years because it is couched in lengthy terms of academia. Strip away all the jurisprudence, and a focused individual could make a good go of many of our powers in not much time at all.” She pressed on before Vonvalt could offer a rejoinder. “And anyway, the threat of torture might change the master’s minds. Or perhaps the lures of fabulous wealth and a harem of docile adolescents? Come, Konrad; they are lawmen, certainly, but not all share our zeal for it. They are not above bribery when the stakes are so high. Master Kadlec himself has already started breathing our secrets to the Nemans, yet one word in the Emperor’s ear would have put a stop to the Patricians’ overtures in an instant. These are not warriors, Konrad. Their days of ranging the fringes of the Empire are long past. They will not defend the common law at all costs.”
There was a long silence, the longest yet. Vonvalt’s eyes were closed. He chewed absently on the end of his pipe. Then, he took a deep breath. “After my business here is done I will return to Sova with all haste. You have my word on that. And to the extent I can do anything to reassert the supremacy of the common law and the position of Master Kadlec and the Order, I will do that too.”
“You would do better to turf Kadlec out on his ear and take up the position yourself,” August muttered, but after Vonvalt pursed his lips, she inclined her head. “Thank you, Konrad. I pray, then, that you conclude your business here soon.”
“It’s all but done. A few more moves and I shall have the culprits.”
“And then you ride south?”
“After I have tried the men.”
August’s hand clenched into a fist. “That could take weeks!”
Vonvalt shrugged. “It is not within my gift to take any other course. You know as well as I do that the Order requires it now, wherever there is a courthouse to be found within a day’s ride. It is expected that one day trials will supplant our work altogether, when the rest of the Empire has been tamed and civilised. And it will not take ‘weeks’; you are being ridiculous.”
August fixed Vonvalt in the eye. “Konrad, every day you dally here is a day our enemies can use to plot.”
“Resi, you discredit yourself with this raving,” Vonvalt said sharply. “I have heard what you have said and I have told you what I will do. Let that be the end of the matter!”
I could tell that he had wounded August, not only professionally, but personally too. She took a long draw of wine, then extinguished her pipe and stood.
“You know you are being intransigent, Konrad,” she said. “I pray that it is only you who has to suffer the consequences of it.” And with no further ceremony, she left the tavern.
Vonvalt rolled his eyes and finished off the last of his ale. “She speaks as if the sky were falling down on our heads,” he muttered.
“She is no fool,” Bressinger said. “You do not think that perhaps your history with her is clouding your judgement?”
“The Empire suffers a half-dozen rebellions a year,” Vonvalt snapped. “This one will wither on the vine like the rest of them. It only seems to be more important because we have become personally embroiled. We have important work to finish here. Only then will I indulge this. It is more likely than not that in half a month, Westenholtz and Claver’s heads will be on spikes outside the Imperial palace and the Templars’ corpses will be drying in the wildflower meadows outside Keraq.”
Bressinger grunted. “I hope you’re right,” was all he said.
But Vonvalt wasn’t right. He was as wrong as it was possible to be.
XIV
One Last Evening of Peace
“No man was an effective Justice who did not have a heart of stone.”
FROM CATERHAUSER’S THE SOVAN CRIMINAL CODE: ADVICE TO PRACTITIONERS
The horses hadn’t another hard ride in them, and it took most of the afternoon to get back to the Vale. We spent the journey in miserable silence. By the time we passed under the Veldelin Gate, darkness was falling and the drizzle was turning into sleet.
Vonvalt turned to Bressinger, his black beard looking unkempt and glistening with rainwater.
“You come with me,” he said. “There is a matter I want to attend to tonight. Graves will have to keep another day now,” he added, irritated. “Helena, you may do what you will. I will see you at dawn.”
I did not question it. I was pleased to be out of Vonvalt’s company. The man might have been in denial about events happening around him, but I was frightened. An evening’s distraction was most welcome – and I knew exactly where I was going to go for it.
I stabled the horse back at the watch house block, then hurried through the cold streets in the fading light as the wardmen lit the lanterns and tried to round up the beggars. Matas and his father lived in the western closure, according to the watch house serjeant, where a large portion of the town’s population of middling wealth lived. The houses here were not like those slumped shacks in the eastern closure, where Lady Bauer’s body had been fished out of the Gale, but they were also a far cry from those of the town’s wealthy merchants and ruling classes which I had quickly grown used to. Instead they were tall, simple constructions, timber-framed and daub-walled, crammed in so tightly that little light seemed to make it through the gaps between the roofs above.
Matas lived in an apartment at the top of one of the blocks, and I surmounted the rickety stairs and knocked on the door.
“Helena?” Matas said, looking confused as he opened the door. It seemed strange to see him in simple, homespun clothes. “How… why are you here?”
I laughed at his confusion and pulled him into an embrace. It was improperly familiar, but after the day’s sorry events I was in sore need of comfort. I think even he was slightly taken aback by such an inappropriate display of affection, but his arms closed around me and pulled me tight nevertheless.
“Kasivar’s tail, where have you been?” he asked. “I was afraid you and the Justice had moved on. I saw your taskman rattling about the place, but he was not interested in speaking with me.”
“Oh, never mind, Dubine,” I said off-handedly, actually quite annoyed that Bressinger had not told Matas where I’d gone. “I have been to Seaguard up the Imperial Relay.”
Matas’s eyes widened. “The Relay! By the God Mother! I would kill to use the Relay. Is it as exciting as they say? Thundering up the Hauner road at the speed of an eagle. I’ve heard one can reach the coast in a week in good weather.”
“It is exactly as you describe,” I said. “Though I must say, my rear did not thank me by the end of it.”
Matas was about to say something vulgar, then stopped himself, a prisoner of social convention. He blushed, and my mouth fell open in surprise once I realised what was going on.
“You beast!” I said, shoving him, though I wore a smile. “You… are in the presence of a lady.” I put on false airs and he laughed.
“I would be happy to give it a rub down?” he said, taking the plunge. By Sovan standards it was exceptionally improper – though I had heard much worse in Muldau. In any event, it was nice to have a break from the stuffy comportment I was used to and just be bawdy with a lad I was attracted to.
I shoved him again. “You will do no such thing, sir,” I said. “An Imperial agent such as myself cannot allow her… rear… to be—” I couldn’t finish. I burst out laughing, and he laughed too, and then we were kissing. Oh, how my heart aches as I recall these stolen moments. It drives me mad to think of the choices I made. How things could have been so different.
“Here, come in,” Matas said, leading me inside. “My father will be delighted to meet you.”
“And I him,” I said with warmth.
Inside was a small living space that contained a table and chairs, and a cooking area with an iron kettle and spit. There was a fire burning in a small hearth which was mercifully not filling the space with smoke, though the effect was a stifling heat which was compounded by the fact that there were two more apartments below us with their own fires burning. Other than those things, there was little to ornament the place.
“Matas? Who is it?” a voice called from the room next door.
“Someone with me I’d like you to meet.”
“If it’s that bloody Tivec boy again—”
“Father!” Matas hastily interjected with an apologetic smile. “’Tis a girl. Mind your tongue. I’d like you to meet her, and she is keen to meet you, though I cannot think why.”
“Kasivar,” I heard the man grunt. There was the sound of more grunting, heaving and straining, then some clattering, and finally a man appeared in the doorway in a rough-looking wheeled chair.
“My, you’re a pretty one,” he said gruffly. “Forgive me, miss, for not standing. As you have probably guessed, I cannot.”
I admit I was a little taken aback by the man. He had the look of Matas about him, naturally, and though far from elderly, his injury had clearly sucked the youth out of him. He was dressed in many layers and it was clear that he felt the cold keenly – certainly it explained the near unbearable heat of the apartment. His legs were covered in blankets and he wore simple but otherwise good-quality clothing. A close-cropped white beard covered the lower half of his face, and his hair, shoulder-length, was shot through with grey. He wore herbs about his person and this was to cover up what was quite a powerful odour, but I could forgive him that given that he was probably only able to leave the place a couple of times a week.
I bowed to him in the Imperial fashion. “I’m pleased to meet you,” I said. “Helena Sedanka.”
“Hm,” the man replied. “You have the voice and mannerisms of an Imperial, but the surname of a Toll.” He made the remark not unkindly, but it did not set me at my ease either. I remembered that Matas had told me his father had sustained his injury fighting in the Marches, so, like Sir Radomir, he probably harboured a deep dislike for everyone from Tolsburg.
“Helena had nothing to do with the Reichskrieg,” Matas said quickly. “I’ll not brook any unpleasantness.”
“Bah,” the old man said, dismissing his son with a wave. When he looked back at me, there was a slight twinkle in his eye. “I don’t care for any of that any more,” he grumbled, though I did not entirely believe him. “My name is Vartan. I am pleased to meet you too, Miss Sedanka. You’ll join us for supper?”
“I’d be glad to,” I said.
“Matas, Doroteja is supposed to be bringing us something tonight. Tell her we have a guest; she may have a little kenna in her.”
Kenna was the unofficial national dish of Sova, and consisted of pork in a spiced cheese sauce. Looking about the place, it seemed like an extravagance the Akers could ill-afford.
“There is no need to go to such lengths on my account,” I said hastily. “Really, I’ll have anything. In my work I am used to eating whatever is left at the end of the night. ’Tis the hazard of the trade.”
“Don’t you mind us, miss,” Vartan said, as Matas left. “Doroteja is happy to look after us. What is your work, anyway? ’Tis odd to see a girl of your age and looks being put to work.”
“I am a law clerk,” I said. “I work for Sir Konrad. He is an Imperial Justice.”
Vartan looked visibly taken aback. “You are a Sovan official? You work for a Justice?” The change in his mood was pronounced. He went from being haughty and gruff to suddenly respectful and, it appeared to me, ever-so-slightly alarmed. “Is it true what they say about a Justice’s powers? Do you have them as well?”
I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way. “Sir Konrad certainly does have powers – and I certainly don’t.”
Vartan’s reaction to me and my profession was one which I had always encountered but was becoming increasingly cognisant of. Until the Bauer case and our time in Galen’s Vale, I had been naïve. Now I was finally realising: the commonfolk, even my elders and betters, were frightened of us. They were scared not just because of Vonvalt’s powers; they were scared simply by virtue of our being Imperial agents. For most the Sovans remained conquerors, even if they were now ubiquitous. And although I always considered myself a Toll first and a Sovan second – indeed, I’ve never considered myself an Imperial, not really – that was certainly not how others saw me. I might as well have been wearing the Imperial colours and device. We were the embodiment of the Emperor’s authority itself, as though he were hovering a few feet above us and commanding our limbs with lengths of string. And although we frequently heard mutterings of the Emperor’s reputation for cruelty, it took me a lot longer to piece together that the commonfolk thought we might be as cruel and wanton as he. If only I could have explained to them the zeal with which Vonvalt beheld and applied the common law. He cherished it above all else.
“I’ve heard it told they can speak with the dead,” Vartan said uneasily. He fussed about with his blankets, suddenly unable to meet my eye. “It seems mightily unnatural to me,” he grumbled.
It seemed mightily unnatural to me. I did not want to think about Sir Otmar again.
“Much of what people hear is rumour,” I said, glad that, at that moment, we were interrupted by Matas returning.
“She did have a little kenna,” he said as the distinctive scent of spiced cheese filled the small room. “It’ll want warming though.”
Vartan’s face brightened. He looked to me for my approval, and I smiled encouragingly. His general demeanour was strange, a mixture of gruff and obsequious, and it dawned on me that his injury, and his being confined to a wheeled chair, had robbed him of much of his former character. I imagined he had once been rough and unsavoury; now he was completely at the mercy of his son and this Doroteja woman.
We chatted idly while Matas moved about the kitchen area preparing the kenna and the other bits and pieces that Doroteja had prepared. They were simple, staple foods plentiful in the local area: root vegetables, potatoes, bread and cheese.
“He must be such a help,” I said quietly, though Matas was sure to have heard.
“The boy is a saint,” Vartan said. “I would have died long ago without his care. However,” he added, more loudly now, “I am fitter than I have been in a long time. And I have Doroteja to care for me. I keep trying to kick the boy out. He needs to make his own way in the world, not stay cooped up with me. Don’t I lad? Eh? Keep trying to kick you out?”
“Aye, that you do,” Matas said, grinning as he ladled the kenna into wooden bowls.
“If you don’t mind my asking—”
“A Toll a head taller than me,” Vartan said, cutting me off. Matas sat down with a loud sigh and a roll of his eyes.
“The man gets bigger every time.”
“A bloody great Toll,” Vartan continued, warming to his theme. “Big black beard he had, and long black hair down to the base of his back.”
“And fingers like sausages and arms like boughs of oak,” Matas said.
“Do you want to tell the story?” Vartan demanded, brandishing his knife at Matas. “I can put you in a wheeled chair of your own, eh? Think of the pair we’d make then! Wheeling around the Vale!”
“I’d outpace you,” Matas said. They were both laughing now, and me with them.
“Aye, but I’ve had a lot more practice.” He slapped the wooden wheels. “I’d attach a couple of blades here, spin ’em right through your spokes.”
