Dawn of Swords Page 6

  But this is my life now, as it has been for a long while, she thought. It had been Karak’s will for her to sit in judgment of the crimes of the populace, and Soleh Mori never questioned the will of her god.

  The afternoon crowd steadily thickened as more and more laborers—bricklayers, smiths, gardeners, tailors, caterers, and house servants—exited their places of employ and joined the torrent of human flesh in Veldaren’s southern district. She knew she had to stay wary, for within the midst of the honest men and women were the liars and beggars and thieves. It was the price of a free economy. Though every man could readily earn himself a silver coin for a day’s labor, there were just as many for whom the concept of earning was a five-fingered proposition. That was why the men of the City Watch were stationed on every street corner, standing rigid in their dull, mailed armor. Their spears held high and their shortswords sheathed at their waists, they held a constant vigil. It was because of them that Soleh declined protection on her journey to the castle each day. There was plenty of protection around already.

  The City Watch had once been her son’s responsibility. Thinking of Vulfram caused her heart to patter. She missed him terribly, missed his assuredness and sense of honor. Soleh fell into dreary bouts of loneliness far more often since her eldest boy had been granted the title of Lord Commander by King Vaelor five years ago and put in charge of the newly created military. She loved Vulfram entirely; none of her other four children came close, not even Rachida, her youngest, the legendary beauty who had fled Neldar at the age of eighteen. His visits were almost as rare as her journeys back to Erznia. And so Soleh’s dreariness grew, and only by gazing upon the many statues of her beloved god could she hold her depression at bay.

  She passed by one of those statues, a nine-foot-tall likeness of Karak wearing his plate armor, the sigil of a lion emblazoned on his chest, a great flaming sword held skyward in his hand. Her hands reached out, her fingers caressing the smooth marble foot perched atop the base. A fluttering filled her belly, flushing her cheeks. Her husband Ibis had carved this statue and many others situated around the city proper. His workmanship was exquisite; he was a man with gifted hands. She would do well to return to his workshop in the Tower Keep when her workday was finished, so he could prove once more just how gifted those hands were.

  The crowd parted slightly and the presence of the City Watch became more pronounced as the gates to the Castle of the Lion came into view. It was a majestic creation, built by the hands of Karak in the year before he disappeared. The wall of the castle stood thirty feet high, and the three towers behind it stood higher than that. The first was Tower Honor, the residence of King Eldrich Vaelor I. Tower Servitude housed the large royal staff, and Tower Justice was where the High Court was held. The dungeons were tucked away beneath it. The wall itself was constructed from giant hunks of stone wrestled down from the Crestwell Mountains, polished to a crystalline sheen at the top and engraved with drawings by the greatest artists of the nation. The sight of it took Soleh’s breath away, just as it did every time her eyes fell on it. The images of the unwashed masses fled her mind. Seeing the Castle of the Lion in all its glory only confirmed the heights humanity could reach when its passion for righteousness was strong. They had already accomplished so much in a scant ninety-three years, and for nearly half that time Karak, their guiding light in the darkness, had left them on their own. It only made their achievements all the more impressive.

  Our achievements, Soleh corrected herself. You may be timeless, but do not forget you are one of them.

  The portcullis was open, framed on either side by a pair of leaping lions carved from onyx. Their claws stretched out, their mouths frozen open in a primal roar. Civilians drifted in and out of the gate, some carrying goods for the king, some bringing food for the granaries. A few entered with heads held high, while others did so with the downcast gaze of the timorous. Still others exited the portcullis with tears streaming down their faces. Guards bordered either side of the entrance, ushering them all to move along.

  Soleh approached the wide aperture, stroking the nose of the soaring lion on her left. The Palace Guard recognized her immediately, and the sound of plated boots clomping together rang out as they came to attention. She called out their names one by one, causing smiles to stretch across their faces. “Hoster, Jericho, Luddard, Smithson, Bardot, Crillson.” The men appreciated it when members of the First Families remembered their names, though Soleh knew she was one of the few who did.

  She crossed the courtyard, passing through the crowd of jugglers, poets, puppeteers, and salesmen who made every day a bazaar on the castle lawn. She greeted as many as she could, whether she knew them or not, offering them broad smiles and good tidings. For a moment she reconsidered her longing to be back in Erzia, but then she came on the ominous oak door of Tower Justice, where she would be spending the rest of her day, and realized that the smiles and good tidings ended there.

  Pushing open the door—it was tall, quite heavy, and creaked on its iron hinges—she strode into the vestibule. The tower was immensely wide, and the lower chamber was round, with a short ceiling. A staircase wound up the northern curve of the wall leading to the main courthouse above. Guards stood at attention, safeguarding the sixteen doors that lined the interior. Each of those sixteen doors led to holding cells that held up to thirty prisoners. Those prisoners would be her responsibility for the day.

  “Minister,” said Malcolm Gregorian, Captain of the Palace Guard. He was a solidly built man dressed in a dyed black leather overcoat over a vest of chainmail. The golden half helm he wore was adorned with catlike ears at the top, whereas the rest of the guards’ helms were plain silver and without decoration. His face was marred by four ugly scars that ran diagonally from his milky left eye, over his nose, and down to the lower right corner of his jaw. He stepped forward and handed Soleh a folded piece of parchment.

  She unfolded it and read it line by line. It was the day’s docket, and from the looks of it, the day would be a long one.

  “My cloak please, Captain,” she said.

  Malcolm snapped his heels together, marched to the alcove on the far side of the circular room, and brought out a black woolen cloak emblazoned with a red lion. He draped it over her shoulders, fastening the silver buckles around her neck, taking care not to brush her breasts. It was considered sacrilege to touch the most sensitive areas of the Minister, even by accident—though Soleh never let anyone know that should it happen, she would not create a fuss. She grabbed the corners of the cloak, pulled the hood over her head, and wrapped the heavy material around herself.

  With the cloak all but covering her extravagant green dress, she climbed the stairs. It was late summer, and the heat outside the castle walls was intense, but inside the tower was a permanent chill. She placed one foot over the other and ascended into the Hall of Judgment.

  Two women were waiting for her in the antechamber The first was Thessaly Crestwell, possessed of gently flowing hair that tread the line between white and chrome. She looked regal in an elegantly woven suit of crushed velvet leggings and leather chemise. Beside her was Soleh’s daughter, Adeline. Deep, gouge-like wrinkles surrounded her eyes, her hair was gray and thinning, and an ill-fitting dress wrapped around her slender frame. Each day Soleh witnessed the two of them standing side by side, and each day the sight caused her mood to plummet. Thessaly looked the same as she had in her youth, stately and smooth, whereas Adeline, born eight months before her, showed every day of her sixty-three years. Adeline had married the love of her life at twenty, whereas Thessaly, like all the Crestwells, had remained single. Soleh’s sorrow grew, for she herself had not aged a day in ninety-three years, and each of her children was slowly withering away before her. In accordance with the law of the First Families, the first generation brought forth by the original four remained timeless until the day someone other than their god took primacy in their hearts, until they felt a love so completely that they might crumble without their beloved. E
ach of her children had fallen in love and started families, sealing their fates, and Soleh was plagued by the knowledge that they would perish while she would go on. It gave her no solace that their memories would be kept alive through her grandchildren and beyond, and she had no desire to continue bringing forth children.

  An unbalanced grin stretched across Adeline’s face, and she dropped to one knee.

  “Mother,” she said, her voice reedy and wavering. “Welcome, welcome! I’ve been told there will be many beheadings this fine day!”

  Soleh sighed, placed a gentle hand on her daughter’s forehead, and said, “Get up, child.” Adeline did as she was told, a stifled cackle leaking from between her tightly clenched teeth. Adeline’s husband had died of the Wasting eleven years prior. Every day since, her sanity had diminished, an agonizingly slow devolution that had left a crowing madwoman in place of a once beautiful and competent girl. Adeline had taken to wandering the streets, shouting at peasants and attacking the City Watch in fits of madness. Soleh had named her Mistress of Punishment, if for no other reason than to give the girl something to focus on, but in the end her appointment had been fruitless. Adeline suggested beheading for every offense, even for something as minor as stealing a loaf of bread. She only kept her title because of Soleh’s insistence.

  Thessaly bowed and stepped forward. She was Mistress of the Treasury, a necessary advisor when it came to crimes in gold and trade. “The court is ready for you, Minister,” she said. “Shall we begin?”

  “We shall,” replied Soleh. She breezed past the two women and through the arched portal. The courthouse was immense, every bit as wide as the foyer below, but there was no ceiling. The area above rose up and up, the tip of the tower spire a mere pie plate from the vantage point of those standing in the Place of Judgment. The room was lit by hundreds of candelabras, coupled with the sunlight that streamed in through the slatted windows. It was a barren, depressing place, bereft of any furniture other than the three massive chairs sitting atop a rostrum opposite the antechamber. Soleh strode across the empty courthouse floor, climbed the short staircase on the raised platform, and sat in the Seat of the Minister. It was a tall-backed, white marble throne just as large as King Vaelor’s throne in Tower Honor, though much less extravagant. Above the throne hung a tapestry. Written in elegant calligraphy on it were the Laws of Karak.

  Do not kill without reason. Do not murder the unborn. Do not take what is not yours. Do not defile the temple of worship. Do not turn away from Karak.

  Adeline sat below her to the left and Thessaly, to the right. Moments later, the sound of marching footfalls sheathed in steel echoed through the room, and Captain Gregorian appeared. He saluted his Minister with a fist over his heart and clomped into the center of the circular common floor.

  “Court is in session,” he bellowed.

  One by one, guards led prisoners up the winding staircase to stand in judgment before the Minister. They were brought in order of the severity of their crimes, beginning with those accused of minor theft or uttering offensive language in a public place. For every accusation Captain Gregorian read off, Adeline would yell, “Take off their head!”—a proclamation Soleh politely ignored. Thessaly proved much more useful, doling out the charges and collecting fines from the convicted to be placed in the coffers and used for the betterment of the realm. The charges grew steeper as the day went on, each prisoner groveling at Soleh’s feet, begging clemency. Sometimes she granted it; often she did not. The City Watch did not tend to detain the innocent, and their evidence was often ironclad.

  It was past the high point of the day, after an hour break for lunch, when the most severe crimes were heard. Arsonists, rapists, murderers, organized thieves, and blasphemers all stood before her. This was when Adeline’s constant calls for death might be acted upon. No man or woman guilty of such offenses was set free, in accordance to the Law of the Divinity. The guilty could either accept the sentence handed down—death or a lifetime of servitude in the Sisters of the Cloth for women of birthing age—or attempt to prove their repentance to Karak by standing before the Final Judges.

  Soleh’s head pounded as she sent yet another man to his grave. The day couldn’t end soon enough. The final and most egregious of the offenders was hauled before the Seat of the Minister. He was a thick, brutish thug with a black beard filled with lice and a head of long, unkempt hair. Blood covered his face and clothes, and he panted out streams of red spittle while staring up at Soleh. His arms and legs were shackled, like those of all major offenders. Two members of the Palace Guard forced him to his knees with heavy knocks from hollow rods. Joining the accused in the room were Romeo and Cleo Connington, a pair of fat, bald brothers, dressed in elegant silk shifts, whose fingers were adorned with expensive jewels. Soleh couldn’t have been less happy to see them. The Conningtons were high merchants specializing in luxurious textiles, but more recently they had branched out to supply armor and weapons to the City Watch. The family was close to King Vaelor and had been granted special amnesty by Clovis Crestwell himself. The brothers stood off to the side, smirks on their waxed and powdered faces. Their house guard surrounded them.

  “Why are you here?” asked Soleh.

  Romeo, the older, stepped forward. “This man, Gronk Hordan of Thettletown, stands accused of raping and murdering my brother’s daughter, Pricilla. Her body now lies in the crypt below our holdfast in Riverrun. She had been defiled so grievously that we had to hide her from her mother.”

  “The man is scum,” said Cleo. “We’ve come to ensure that retribution is swift and brutal, and that those who paid him to do it are equally punished.”

  Soleh was disgusted by the lack of emotion on Cleo Connington’s rotund face and the amused expression on Romeo’s, but she kept her feelings to herself.

  “Paid? What do you mean by that?”

  “If it would please the Minister,” said Captain Gregorian, bowing low. “It is claimed by some that Matthew Brennan ordered the attack.”

  “And have you investigated the matter, Captain?”

  “I have.”

  “What are your findings?”

  “Inconsequential, as of the moment.”

  Soleh had suspected as much. The Brennans, who had built a shipping empire out of Port Lancaster, had long been at odds with the Conningtons. Matthew Brennan often violated palace trade regulations and willingly paid his fines on the rare occasions when the local magistrate came calling. Soleh knew that the Conningtons would do anything to dishonor their rivals. This was not the first time they had tried to connect Matthew with a heinous crime. The possibility of his involvement seemed remote at best. He was a good man, despite his penchant for bending the rules in his favor.

  “And you,” said Soleh, turning her attention to the prisoner. “What do you have to say on the matter?”

  Gronk Hordan fixed her with a brutal stare.

  “I weren’t paid by no man,” he growled. “And I didn’t attack no girl, either. Lies, all of it.”

  The denial meant nothing to Soleh. The accused always proclaimed their innocence, no matter how heavy the proof against them.

  “Is that so?” she said.

  “It is, Minister.”

  Soleh looked to Captain Gregorian. The soldier straightened up and said in his gravelly voice, “Milady, the bite marks on her abdomen match the dentition of the accused.”

  “Castration!” shouted Adeline, spittle flying from her lips. It was the only other punishment she ever demanded. “Cut off his cock and make him choke on it!”

  “Shush, dear,” Soleh whispered out the corner of her mouth. She regarded the men standing before her. “Masters Connington, Karak appreciates your concerns, and they are duly noted. Please exit the court at once.”

  “And what of my retribution?” asked Cleo, finally showing some emotion. “You’re going to let that Matthew bastard get away with this forever?”

  Soleh shuddered at the sight of the sickening man.

  “Escort
these men from the court,” she told her guards, who immediately laid their hands on the brothers and pushed them into the antechamber. Their house guard followed, mindful not to oppose those in authority.

  “Karak’s justice is Karak’s justice,” Soleh called after them as they disappeared into the porthole. “It is not for you to demand retribution, but him.”

  “The prisoner awaits sentencing,” announced Captain Gregorian once they were gone, his grip tight around Gronk’s chains.

  “Very well,” replied Soleh. “By the power of this court, handed down by Karak, the Divinity of the East and father to us all, I hereby sentence you to death by beheading. Do you accept this judgment with an open heart, knowing that Afram awaits if you are repentant, or do you wish to prove your faithfulness before the Final Judges?”

  “I done no wrong,” muttered Gronk Hordan. “I’ll prove my faithfulness.”

  “So be it,” sighed Soleh. She wasn’t surprised, as at least one prisoner a day thought himself or herself worthy of Karak’s forgiveness. The existence of the Final Judges was no secret, but none seemed to understand what it meant to face them and how few lived to tell the tale. “Captain, escort the prisoner to the arena.”

  Adeline opened her mouth again, but Soleh silenced her daughter with a glare. She glanced down at Thessaly, who stood from her minor seat and curtsied before taking her leave. The silver-haired Crestwell grabbed Adeline’s wrist, yanking the aged woman to a standing position before dragging her along the wall to the antechamber. As Mistresses, the two were not allowed to observe the decision of the Final Judges. Her daughter struggled and swayed on failing old knees, and Soleh was again pummeled with shame and guilt. It wasn’t until both women were out of sight that she rose from her throne, lifted the corners of her cloak, and descended the staircase. She strode past the prisoner, who was snatched by two guards, and crossed the courthouse floor, stopping to rinse her dry face at the washbasin, before taking the winding stairwell down. Captain Gregorian followed behind her, the prisoner with his rough escorts after him.