Soarers Choice (51 page)

Not
more than a few moments later, another scout rode back up the road and through
the gates. One of the guard detail apparently told the rider where Mykel was,
because the scout rode directly toward him.

Mykel
stood once more and waited.

“Sir
... Seventeenth Company has established order around the town square. Some of
the men from the ironworks tried to break into the chandlery and the inn. Three
of them ignored the undercaptain’s orders and were shot. They’re dead. The
others scattered. Everything is quiet now.”

“What
about the buildings?”

“One
of the houses caught fire. The locals look like they’ve saved the ones around
it, but that house is going to burn to ashes.”

“Thank
you. You can return to your company. If anything changes, have the undercaptain
let me know immediately.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Once
more, Mykel settled onto the high-backed stool. The dam that served the
ironworks and the mine shouldn’t have burst. Even if it had, there shouldn’t
have been enough water to flood the section of Iron
Ste.
around the works — not unless the stream flowing into the lake created by the
dam had also flooded. But how likely was it that an earthquake and a flood
would occur at once?

Not
at all likely ... unless the soarers were involved. But why would they do
something to Iron Stem? He frowned. It wasn’t Iron Stem; it was the ironworks.

He
looked to the south, where the glow of the fires around the ironworks diffused
through the snow. He couldn’t do any more by riding out, but he would have
liked to. Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a battalion commander. Or ... he hadn’t
gotten used to delegating.

He
shook his head. That wasn’t it at all. He knew he could do a better job than
any of the officers under him — except perhaps Rhystan — and Mykel didn’t like
the
i.e.
of things not being done well.

A
crooked smile twisted across his face. He could imagine what Rhystan would say
about that — that it was Mykel’s job to make sure his officers did learn how to
handle things in the best possible fashion. Rhystan was right about that, too.

Dainyl
had taken the Table back to Elcien early on Sexdi to spend some time going over
the procedures for the petitioners’ hearings. As a senior Myrmidon he was
familiar with the Code and knew where to find most sections, but what he did
not know was how often the hearings changed things and on what basis. After
less than a glass of studying the records of previous hearings, the answer was
clear. Very seldom had the High Alector, or his designee, changed sentences.
The most usual change was a reduction in the penalty. Very occasionally, a
sentence was voided.

Dainyl
snorted to himself as he stood and adjusted his tunic and the purple robe used
by the High Alector at the hearings. It wouldn’t be difficult to show some
mercy, although from what he’d read, he had the feeling few of those who
appealed deserved it.

“Sir?”
Patrylon stood in the study door. He would sit below Dainyl to document the
decisions handed down by the new High Alector and handle the details.

“I’m
ready.” Dainyl picked up the symbolic Mace of Justice. Unlike the one used in
the administration of justice, this one had no power.

As
he left the study and began to walk toward the steps up to the receiving hall,
he felt a distant flash of unseen green. He frowned.

“Sir?”
asked Patrylon.

“Something
... we’ll have to check on it later.”

A
line of petitioners had already filled the hall when Dainyl followed Patrylon
to the dais. On the raised green marble platform were two stone tables, one on
the lower level, with a stool behind it, and a wider one on the next level,
half a yard higher, with a stone chair set behind it. Dainyl was gratified to
see that there was a thick cushion, if in green that matched the marble.

He
stood behind the upper stone table, holding the Mace of Justice, while Patrylon
declaimed. “Petitions will be received. Justice will be done, in the name of
the High Alector and the will of the Duarches.”

Dainyl
sat down in the cushioned stone chair, setting the Mace to his right on the
table.

“Highest
and Most High.” A heavyset man stepped forward and handed his petition to
Patrylon.

In
turn, after reading it, and jotting down some notes, Patrylon handed it to
Dainyl. There were two parts to it. The first was a decision handed down by the
local alector in Ar-wyn, and the second was a single written sheet appealing
the decision. The local alector had fined one Doveilt five golds for
overgrazing his pastures and for allowing the waste products of his sheep to
foul the stream. The decision noted that previous fines of three silvers and a
gold had failed to encourage Doveilt to rectify the situation. Doveilt had
written that he was a poor man, and that five golds was more than he made in a
year.

Dainyl
understood that five golds was the yearly pay for a starting indigen laborer,
but if Doveilt had enough sheep that fouling a stream was a problem, he was
making more than five golds. More than a gold and a half in fines already paid
suggested something else entirely.

Dainyl
looked down from the dais at the beefy man. “You’re Doveilt?”

“Yes,
sir, Your Highest.”

“How
many sheep do you have?”

“Ah
... I have a flock, sir.”

“How
many are in the flock?”

The
man shifted his weight, his eyes not meeting Dainyl’s. “Mayhap fifteen, sir.”

The
man was lying about that.

“How
much do you get for each one when you sell them, a ewe, that is? And for those
you keep, how much wool do you get?”

“I
don’t sell them, sir. Just shear them.” Dainyl waited.

“A
good year I get a quarter stone a head in raw wool.”

“What’s
the price range for that?”

“For
a quarter stone, could be two silvers, three in a good year.” Doveilt was
clearly puzzled at the questions, as was Patrylon.

“That
means that from your flock you’d make between five and ten golds each year, and
you lied about the number of sheep in the flock. How many do you really have,
Doveilt?”

The
herder swallowed. “Sixty-two, when I left, sir.”

“Consider
yourself fortunate that I don’t have you flogged for lying. I will charge you a
gold for wasting my time and that of those who have had to wait. Pay it to my
assistant now.”

The
herder swallowed, but placed five silvers on the stone table before Patrylon.

“Next
petitioner,” Patrylon called out, then handed the petition up to Dainyl.

Dainyl
scanned the papers. Mylesh had been sentenced to five years in the gravel
quarries for adulterating spirits in a tavern he owned. The tavern-keeper had
used hempseed, pepper, soot, and salt, as well as powered acidstone, to
adulterate v, the ale, and powdered lead to sweeten spoiled wine.

“You’re
not Mylesh.” Dainyl studied the round-faced and mid-aged indigen woman.

“No,
Most High. Mylesh is my husband. He is working in the gravel quarries. For what
he did, that is too much. I know he was wrong, but to condemn a man to die
crushing rocks for such a little thing. I beg you for mercy, Most High.”

“Enough
powdered lead in wine will kill a man’s brains,” Dainyl said mildly. “As a
tavern-keeper, your husband knew that. If he did not, he should have. How long
was he a tavern-keeper?”

“All
his life, as was his father before him.”

“I
cannot grant mercy to a man who granted none to his patrons, and should have
known better. Dismissed.” Dainyl only hoped someone in the hall had a petition
worth considering.

“Next
petitioner.”

A
haggard and thin-faced woman stepped up. Behind her,. Dainyl noticed several
men who eased away from the line of those waiting.

Patrylon
glanced over the sheets she handed to him, and then passed them up to Dainyl.

He
read through them quickly. Quiona was a widow whose husband had been a fuller’s
assistant in Tempre. He had been killed when the Alector’s Guard had chased a
thief from the market and the thief had grabbed him from where he had been
washing the front window of the shop and thrown him in front of the horses to
slow pursuit. The thief had been caught and executed for the murder and for his
thefts. But since the thief had no legal property, the widow could not make a
death claim. She had appealed to the regional alector — Fahylt — for a widow’s
pension. Fahylt had denied it because there was no provision for a pension in
such a case, citing the fact that the Guard was only doing its duty.

Dainyl
looked down at the sad-eyed woman. “You are Quiona?”

“Yes,
Highest.” Her voice trembled.

“I
know your husband died under the horses of the Guard, but you are not that old.
Why do you need a pension?”

She
turned slightly and, with her left hand, drew back a scarf to reveal a withered
right arm. “No one will offer me a job that will feed my children.”

“How
many children do you have?”

“Only
two, Highest. They are three and six. Gabraal said that a man should only
father those children he could feed ... but I cannot...”

“Patrylon,”
Dainyl said quietly.

The
assistant looked up.

“I
hereby grant Quiona of Tempre the standard widow’s pension for a woman whose
husband has been wrongfully killed by the acts of those carrying out the will
of the Duarches ...”

Dainyl
could sense the confusion from the assistant.

“The
Regional Alector Fahylt had created the Alector’s Guard in contravention of the
will of the Duarches. Therefore, any death of an innocent man created by their
direct actions is in fact wrongful and requires compensation.”

“Thank
you ... Highest... thank you.” Tears streamed down the woman’s cheeks.

“Next.”

Joronyl
was appealing a finding that had fined his factoring establishment five golds
for false measures on a shipment of cotton. His carefully written petition claimed
that he had not known that the measures were off, and that even so, the
difference was slight, so slight that other factors who had bought from the
same lot had not been cited and fined by the trade inspectors.

Dainyl
looked down at the factor. “How do you compare in size to the other cloth
factors in Elcien?” As he finished the question, Dainyl could sense the
puzzlement from both Joronyl and Patrylon.

“I’d
be one of the smaller ones, Highest.”

“How
did it come that you were fined five golds?”

“That’s
the thing, Highest. I bid on the bales, and you take what you get. Maybe they
were a little short, but sometimes we all get short bales. I don’t see the
inspectors at Falest’s or Caturyk’s warehouses, but every time there’s a lot
that goes to all of us, it’d be my place they come to first. If it’s not short
for them, it oughtn’t to be short for me.”

“If
I understand you, Joronyl, you’re claiming that the cotton shippers often send
short bales, and you don’t know that until you’ve bought them.”

“Not
like often, Highest. Sometimes.” A fine sheen of sweat had begun to appear on
the factor’s forehead.

“And
you resold the cotton, claiming it met measure?”

“It
was only off a bit, Highest, and all the other factors been doing the same.”

That,
unfortunately, rang all too true. Still...

“I
cannot reduce your fine, Joronyl, on the grounds that others have gotten away
with cheating customers and that you got caught. Dismissed.”

Even
so, that petition bothered him, because it suggested the same pattern that he’d
observed in Dramur. The larger factors got away with practices not allowed for
the smaller factors, and yet when alectors attempted to step in and require the
same standards of everyone, the landers and indigens complained — or those with
golds did.

The
first petitions were a rough indication of the way the morning went. Dainyl
found that in only about one in six cases could he even consider changes to the
decisions — and that was being merciful. He did reduce some fines and commute
two sentences to time already served.

By
the time Patrylon announced that the time of petitions was over, Dainyl had
looked at more than twenty of them, and there were still petitioners waiting.
He worried about leaving them unheard, but he had the feeling that if he stayed
beyond noon, word would get out, and every day would bring more petitions.
Also, it had been clear that some of the petitioners had heard of a new High
Alector and were hoping to get a better decision.

Still,
Dainyl took a deep breath once he was headed back to the small study beneath
the Hall of Justice. He was more than glad to take off the heavy purple hearing
robe as soon as he entered the study and did not fully close the study door
behind him.

Outside
in the hallway, he heard voices. He used his Talent to catch their words.

“How
did it go?” murmured Adya.

“The
Highest has a very good grasp of justice,” replied Patrylon, before lowering
his voice and adding, “He’s not patient with fools, either.”

“You
like that...”

“It’s
different...”

Their
voices faded as they walked farther from his door. Zelyert had clearly
presented his warm voice and sympathetic demeanor to the petitioners, even
while denying their petitions, seeming to do so reluctantly. That was something
Dainyl could not do ... and did not intend to. Justice was justice, and at
times it needed to-be tempered with mercy, but false sympathy was a form of
corruption, no matter how politic it might be.

He
was tempted to take the coach to check on Alcyna, but that would only suggest a
lack of faith in her ability. He also pondered the green flash, but did not
know what he could do about it, since he did not know where it had taken place
or even what it meant, except that it involved the ancients — and that could
mean another problem.