Page 16

On the way to the great hall with Tyelu’s family, Jos turned off yet another security alert. He’d left the notifications on so he could keep up with the Sweeper situation and his dal’s role in it. Magda had been filing regular reports to him. Sweeper activity hadn’t just increased; it had exploded. The dals were being called from one hotspot to another with a barely adequate time to rest in between.

He ground his teeth together as they entered the hall. Nothing he could do about it until after the Choosing. Once it was done, he’d have to make a decision on whether to take the full amount of leave he’d requested or rejoin the fight.

Jos took his place to one side of the great hall next to Tyelu’s family: Ryn, her brother and friend; his gentle wife Ziri; Alna, the matriarch who guided them all; and a few cousins whose names he’d committed to memory. His grandmother had chosen to mingle among the crowd near the main entrance, and he hoped she stayed there, well out of Tyelu’s line of sight. The last thing his bride-to-be needed was the pressure of knowing Zhina was there, silently weighing her every word and deed.

Tyelu had gone straight from her house to the hall, skipping the somber family meal. A steely glint had lit her father’s eyes that morning at first meal, and Jos recognized the resolute duty directing Gared’s actions.

The other man had taken the middle chair on the dais lifted barely thigh high above the gathered crowd. Tyelu’s cousin Kodh sat at Gared’s left, dressed in proper Pruxn? fashion, while Tyelu sat to her father’s right. She’d worn her Queen’s Guard robes, baring her supple arms to the hall’s chill. The stark white of her tunic set her apart from the more muted clothing worn by the townsfolk, and the sheathed sword resting against the chair paid witness to her purpose. She’d bound her hair into an intricate braid fastened at the nape of her neck, leaving two thin braids to dangle from her left temple past the graceful line of her jaw. Her face had set into smooth, dispassionate porcelain, reflecting no emotion onto the people waiting to be heard.

Something stirred deep inside him. Like recognizing like, as one warrior recognizes another on the battlefield.

And something else as well, a niggling concern over the blank mask she wore. Here was the Tyelu of their first meeting, the ice princess Magda had sneered at. The lack of warmth in Tyelu’s expression chilled him as surely as the wind.

She had come prepared for death today. Jos hoped fervently, almost desperately, that she would not be forced to play the Reaper among her people.

She glanced dispassionately across the crowd. Their gazes met, and in hers he saw the same steely resolve reflected in her father’s expression. She faced forward again without acknowledging him, without flickering into the challenging smile he’d come to crave, without showing a hint of the love and trust she’d given him so freely just that morning.

Jos took a half step toward her, drawn by a deep-seated instinct to protect her, to shelter her from the pain that had built the fortress in which she dwelled.

Alna laid a hand on his arm, halting him. “As much as I wish it,” she murmured, “neither you nor I can take this burden from her. She must endure it on her own.”

“I know,” he said. “But I don’t have to like it.”

Alna’s expression softened into a kind smile. “I had my doubts about you, Q’Mhel. You spacers are a hard lot, tethered only to duty and the great reaches between the stars. I wondered if you could ever love my daughter as much as she deserved, if you could see the tender heart she hides behind that icy wall she’s built around herself.”

“I see her heart.” And loved her for it, though he refused to share that with anyone before he’d told Tyelu herself.

Alna patted his arm and let it drop to her side. “You’ll do, Jos. You’ll do very well indeed.”

Gared stood then, and the crowd fell silent. “Bring the first matter forward.”

And there, the long day began.

The crowd bore witness while one matter after another was brought before the kafh. Most of it was harmless enough. Petty boundary disputes, reports of growth and trade, requests for a new road or the widening of an existing one. Taxes were paid and carefully entered into a paper ledger by an elected official. The former jail keeper had been swept away by an avalanche; three citizens were appointed to oversee the election of a new one. The schoolhouse had become crowded with the children of Tersii refugees. Another citizen committee was appointed to expand it, with funding for materials coming out of the province’s reserve funds. Volunteers could choose to defray some of the next quarter’s taxes by lending their labor to the project.

On and on it went, an endless tedium that made Jos thankful he would never rise to taq. Gared presided over it all with a calm demeanor and a firm hand, requesting input from Tyelu and Kodh in an almost idle manner. For her part, Tyelu seemed alert and attentive, her input terse but thoughtful. She sat regally in the simple wooden chair, her spine stiff, her shoulders back, unwilted by the unrelenting stream of matters presented before her father.

When the province’s business and civilian matters were satisfactorily dealt with, the criminal trials began.

It started simply enough, with a young man named Gunthar, a transient who’d been accused of theft. He was brought in wearing wrist manacles by a volunteer, since, as Alna reminded him in a whispered aside, the former jailer had died. The young man’s accusers—an older married couple, Tyorna and Freth, who owned a local bakery—went first, describing the theft of several loaves of bread over three days. The accused was allowed a defense, then witnesses stepped forward until everyone who had a say in the matter had spoken.

To Jos, it sounded very much as if the young man was guilty. He’d been orphaned, lost his home in another province to his father’s debt, and lacked the training to secure even an apprenticeship. He’d been passing through on his way to find work in the capital and been caught by a recent storm. Every word the young man uttered had been mumbled into his shirt.

Gared passed the sentencing to Kodh, who turned cold eyes on the accused.

“The law is clear,” Kodh said, his deep voice ringing through the room. “The punishment for petty thievery is the loss of the non-dominant hand and a fine equal to the value of the property stolen.”

Jos pressed his lips together, holding in a rough exclamation. The gathered crowd didn’t bother. Low murmurs rose among them, some angry, many accompanied by a shaking head.

Gared held up a hand, silencing them. “Tyelu, what say you?”

She turned an equally cold gaze on Gunthar and stared at him until the boy began to fidget, assessing him much longer than Kodh had. Her gaze flicked to Jos, then she said, “My cousin chooses to cite the old laws, yet his own grandfather favored a more just punishment.”

Here, the crowd nodded approvingly, and again, Gared raised a hand for silence.

Tyelu continued. “The loss of a hand could prohibit this young man from finding a suitable occupation, miring him in poverty for the remainder of his life. He would then become a burden to the good people of Hrela, a beggar lacking purpose and the means to care for himself. Is this the outcome my cousin wishes to force upon both the accused and his community?”

Kodh scoffed. “Even Tyrl Sigun has favored such a punishment.”

“For larger crimes,” Tyelu countered, her voice ringing above the crowd. “The theft of a few loaves of bread hardly justifies forfeiting a hand, though the bread in question is surely the best in all of Abyw, save my mother’s.”

That drew chuckles from the crowd and reluctant smiles from the accusers.

Tyelu acknowledged them with a nod. “We must bear in mind Dyendana’s Maxim: let the punishment fit the crime. For this reason, I recommend that the accused be apprenticed to the accusers for the duration of six months or until his debt to them has been repaid. By agreeing to this punishment, they also agree to provide fit room and board. He, in turn, agrees to apply himself industriously to his labors.”

“That’s not a punishment,” Kodh growled. “It’s a reward.”

“I’m not finished!” Tyelu said without looking at him. “Theft harms us all, not only the accused. To atone for his crime, the accused must also donate one day of his week to the community. We’ve already discussed several ways in which idle hands could be useful.”

The crowd murmured among themselves again, weighing the judgment. One man in the back yelled, “Aye, he could be put to good use fixing the hole in the tavern’s roof.”

Several men guffawed at that.

Gared stood, silencing the room, and looked at the accusers. “What say you?”

Tyorna nodded, her mouth firmed resolutely. “Lady Tyelu has the right of it. The boy doesn’t deserve to lose a hand over an empty belly. We’ll take him in.”

Gunthar’s legs wobbled. “Thank you, milady. I’ll serve you well.”

Tyelu leaned forward and beckoned him closer. “See that you do,” she said, her voice low but clear. “No more stealing. If you’ve a problem, bring it to your mistress and she’ll see to it. If your problem lies with your mistress and master, bring it to my father.”

The young man’s gaze fell on Tyelu’s sword, and he nodded furiously. “Yes, milady.”

“That settles it,” Gared said. “Scribe, record the outcome. Bring the next matter forward.”

Kodh’s expression turned sour, but he didn’t protest the verdict.

Alna leaned close to Jos and whispered, “Tyelu did well there. Freth’s joints have become too stiff for the work, and their children have all moved away. Most of the young people living here prefer their own farms over the rigors of a town business. If Gunthar works hard and they like him well enough, Tyorna and Freth could keep him on until he earns enough to buy the bakery outright. Otherwise, they’ll have to close it in a few years. It’s too much work for Tyorna on her own.”

Jos acknowledged the explanation with a thoughtful nod. Tyelu’s judgment did sound less like punishment than a reward, but Kodh’s suggestion had been too harsh, in Jos’s mind. On Q, crime, while rare, was met with a punishment more akin to what Tyelu had suggested. Military service, a forced apprenticeship. Not mercy or compassion, but justice. As she’d said: let the punishment fit the crime.

Myunad Province also had little crime. The handful of cases brought before Gared consisted of little more than the first one. Tyelu’s father alternated asking her or Kodh first which punishment would be fitting. On one the cousins agreed, once Kodh’s more strict judgment was followed, and once more Tyelu’s was accepted.

When the final criminal matter, a murder, was brought forward, the crowd grew hushed on their own, staring at the accused with looks ranging from pity to anger. The accused, a local rancher named Pyol, was a lean man roughly Tyelu’s age with shaggy brown hair and a scruffy beard. A woman and two children pushed through the crowd and stood apart from him to the side, her arms draped across the youngsters’ shoulders. The accuser was another woman of a like age, neatly dressed as many of the other women were in a long, homespun, split-sided tunic over matching trousers tucked into fur-lined boots. She wore a dark blue scarf over her hair and sorrow had carved rough lines into her face. An infant lay cradled in her arms, swathed in a matching blanket.

Gared began the trial by addressing her, asking her to relay her charges against the accused. As before, Pyol was given a chance to defend himself, then witnesses for both sides were brought forward. Between them, the events were laid out: Pyol and his closest friend Thrayn, the accuser’s husband, had just returned from a profitable trip to market in Pr?thum, the capital city. To celebrate, they’d gone to the Dragon’s Tail, Hrelum’s tavern. One pint turned to another, and soon the pair had gotten drunk.

The next bit wasn’t quite clear. No one remembered exactly how it started, but Pyol and Thrayn began arguing, some claimed over how to divide the proceeds from their recent success at the market, others over Pyol’s treatment of his wife, Thrayn’s sister. Specifically, Pyol had visited a brothel while they were away.

At that revelation, shame bloomed across his wife’s stony expression.

Pyol and Thrayn’s argument devolved into a physical fight, ending when Pyol swung a glass pint into his brother-in-law’s temple, killing him on the spot.

Once the testimony was finished, Gared stood and called for opinions from the crowd. A few cried mercy. Most cried guilty. Gared nodded and sat, then asked Kodh what judgment he would render.

Kodh glanced across his uncle at Tyelu. “Would you call for community service here as well, little cousin?”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Having trouble remembering the law?”

Kodh flushed and his forehead furrowed into a glare. “The punishment for murder is death and a Wodegeld.”

Alna whispered, “The forfeiture of all assets to the victim’s family, including the wife’s dowry and any properties inherited from her family.”

Jos whistled softly. It seemed fitting, in a way. Thrayn’s widow now had to replace her husband’s labor and income. On the other hand, Pyol’s wife would lose everything.

Gared turned to Tyelu. “What say you?”

Tyelu stared at him for a long moment, her expression completely unmoving. Finally, she turned her attention to the accused and then to his family. Once again, her gaze flicked to Jos and away before she spoke.

“The punishment for murder is death,” she agreed, “and it’s clear that murder has been committed. However, I beg leniency in the application of the Wodegeld. A just settlement must be made upon the widow from the perpetrator’s holdings. The wife’s assets should be exempt from consideration, for she committed no crime. Surely my cousin, in all his wisdom, can agree that her only guilt is that of association.”

A few in the crowd coughed and shuffled their feet.

Kodh merely nodded stiffly. “The crime belongs only to the accused. His wife and children would be left destitute if their entire fortune were confiscated, and we have but one bakery in Hrelum.”

Alna huffed an impatient sound through her nose. “Idiot children, swiping at each other when there’s work to be done.”

Jos pressed his lips together, hiding a grim smile.

Gared stood and glanced over the crowd. “What say you?”

“Justice,” some called, while others cried, “Death.” One woman yelled, “Wodegeld is Wodegeld, no exceptions.” But she was shouted down by the rest.

“So be it,” Gared said. “Death to the accused. Enough Wodegeld to satisfy the widow and her child. The accused’s family keeps the rest.”

He reached behind his chair for the broadaxe resting against it.

Tyelu stood and caught her father’s hand in hers. “I rendered the chosen judgment. I must carry out the sentence.”

Gared nodded solemnly and sat down while Tyelu drew her sword from its scabbard and descended the dais.

She went first to the widow and spoke quietly with her for a moment. Jos couldn’t hear what was said, but the people gathered behind the widow nodded respectfully as the two women talked. When their conversation was finished, Tyelu touched the widow’s shoulder, then cupped the sleeping infant’s swaddled head.

She dropped her hand and walked across the hall to the accused’s family, accompanied by the silent stares of the townsfolk. To the wife, she said, “The children are too young to watch this. Will you allow my brother’s wife to take them outside for a bit?”

The woman nodded. “Thank you, Lady Tyelu.”

“You would do the same for me.” Tyelu hesitated for a bare moment, then added, “Would you like to say goodbye?”

The raw grief on the woman’s face touched Jos to his core. “We did earlier.”

Tyelu nodded once, sharply, then beckoned Ziri forward and herded the children off. When they were well away, she turned to the accused and knelt before him. Again, she spoke softly. Pyol replied and swiped tears off his cheeks with tightly bound hands. Tyelu rose, taking Pyol’s gaze with her. In a swift, swiftless movement, she stepped back and swung her sword two-handed, severing Pyol’s head from his body with one stroke. She waited until his lifeless body slumped to the floor before facing Jos.

“Justice is mercy,” she said, and resumed her place at her father’s side, blood sliding off the sharp blade of her sword.

Tyelu rejoined her father and cousin on the platform, her nape prickling as every eye in the hall followed her journey. Gared stared down at her with both pride and concern. She retrieved the cloth she’d brought to clean her sword and wiped Pyol’s blood off the blade, only half her attention on the proceedings.

She felt curiously empty now, hollowed out by the long day spent guarding her expression, monitoring every thought and word. More blood spilt by her blade, but better her hands should be sullied than an innocent Hrela’s.

Gared closed the proceedings with a reminder of tomorrow’s events. The final day of this season’s Choosing, followed by a brief funeral for Pyol. Tyelu could nearly feel Jos’s gaze on her. She kept her own gaze on her sword, meticulously cleaning it for later storage.

Wode willing, she wouldn’t need it again for a long, long time to come.

Once the Thing broke up, Gared clapped her and Kodh on their shoulders. “You did well, both of you. A fair hearing to one and all.”

“To the Dragon’s Tail now?” Kodh asked.

Tyelu felt her lip curl into a snarl and ruthlessly smoothed out her expression. What he really wanted to ask was whether her father had decided on his successor. Thank Fryw her cousin had enough tact to leave that question unvoiced.

“Aye, I think it best,” Gared replied. “Best to remind Hrelum that we’re their neighbors and friends.”

“I need a moment to change,” Tyelu said. “If we’re to go as neighbors, I’d like to look the part.”

Kodh stared down his nose at her, a muted smugness marring his otherwise flawless beauty. “Will your candidate be tagging along?”

“If he wants.”

Jos’s hand touched her lower back and he said, “I’m happy to.”

She hadn’t heard him approach over the noise of the lingering crowd, but now noticed her mother standing at her father’s side, just in front of Ryn and Ziri. Even Enel had joined them, and Jos’s grandmother. Tyelu hadn’t realized the taq was in attendance.

“Then it’s settled,” Alna said. “We’ll regroup at the tavern.”

The group broke apart then, most of them following the dwindling crowd for the exit, skirting the two widows scrubbing Pyol’s blood from the wooden floor while others carefully wrapped the body for the funerary rites. Kodh lingered as Tyelu sheathed her sword and picked up her jacket while Jos drew his grandmother into conversation at the dais’s foot.

“Did you think having them here would be in your favor?” her cousin said. “That it would make you more worthy to lead?”

Tyelu swung around to see who he was talking about, then arched an eyebrow, refusing to be bated into losing her temper. “Zhina came on her own. I had no idea she’d be here.”

“And the Q’Mhel?”

“He’s my mate. Did you expect him to stay at home twiddling his thumbs when there’s business to take care of?”

Kodh’s mouth twisted into a sneer. “He’s not your mate yet, little cousin, and I can guarantee you the people don’t want an outsider interfering in our business.”

Tyelu scoffed. “My mother’s an outsider. So is yours. So are nearly half the adults in Hrelum. Don’t be such a blind, blithering idiot, Kodh.”

“Don’t you count on having that Q’Mhel at your back. He has no sway here.”

“I don’t need him to.”

“Don’t you?” Kodh sketched a mock salute at her. “I’ll see you at the Choosing field tomorrow.”

Jos parted from his grandmother and approached thoughtfully, his gaze on Kodh’s departing back. “He’s up to something.”

“Probably.” Tyelu sighed and tucked her hand into Jos’s. “I really do need to change. Care to help?”

Heat lit his eyes, turning them dark green. “Do we have to go to the tavern?”

“Unfortunately, yes. We need to be seen among the people, not above them.”

“Then you’d better change without my help.”

She laughed and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. “Spoilsport.”

“Realist.”

“I won’t be long.”

She stepped away from him and found the satchel she’d stowed behind her chair. She’d made it only a few steps toward the public bathroom when Jos spoke again.

“He’s wrong, you know. Kodh.”

Tyelu turned back to Jos. “Oh?”

“The people here respect what you did today. You don’t need me by your side to rule effectively.”

She did, though. He’d tempered her judgment without saying a word, just by standing there with her family, silently reminding her to set the warrior aside and remain human. Didn’t he see that?

“I—” When words failed her, she shook her head. “Feel free to go ahead, if you’d rather.”

“I’ll wait.”

She nodded and fled, albeit with a measured stride. There, she thought. That’s done. Relief unraveled inside her, filling the void the day’s proceedings had created. She hurried through changing and rejoined Jos, ever aware of the Choosing looming over them both.