The Magic Council (The Herezoth Trilogy) (47 page)

“Have Grombach devote more manpower to
the
Letter
. Shutting it down’s a
first priority. I won’t suffer those malcontents to have a newsletter to help
them organize.

“I’ll have to go after hours to the
Yangerton library’s magic history collection and see if no book there mentions
the Lifestone. A shame Podrar’s proved worthless.

“Crescenton must know he’s watched. A
week’s surveillance and he’s done nothing subversive. I need solid proof he’s
working against me—he is, even if his son has the sense to keep his
distance from the man. Damn Neslan! If he’d return home, just once, I’d have
him and his father.

“At least I can trust Carson. He was all
too willing to prove his loyalty slicing out that traitor to magic’s tongue.
Sweated, but he complied, and now I have that act to hold over his head if he
proves bold.”

Vane’s eyes grew wide, while August let
out a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand. Their eyes met and they spoke
in unison, though August’s voice was not quite clear.

“Cat got your tongue,” they murmured.

Rexson asked, “So it does mean
something?”

“Val, when you said that by the theater,
Amison thought….”

“He thought I’d figured out…. But how
could I?”

August said, “You’re a sorcerer, aren’t
you, and you were threatening him with magic. He assumed you’d discovered his
secret through magic, that you’d use his crime against him and he’d be ruined,
probably arrested. He cut out a man’s tongue. The only crimes prosecuted from
those years are blood crimes, and well, that qualifies.”

Zacry looked confusedly from the couch to
the king. He grabbed the record book, to see the entry for himself. “Cutting
out tongues? What traitor to magic lost a tongue? The Petroc Kora talks about,
that sorcerer from the Hall, is this his brother? The one Zalski killed early
on for opposing him?”

“Amison was the man who did it,” said
Rexson. “On Zalski’s orders.”

Vane said, “That’s the secret he referred
to, it has to be.”

August ran a hand down her face. “I don’t
believe this. I can’t believe Bennie’s dead because of a phrase you pulled out
of the air.”

The king pulled up a chair. “You two will
have to testify to this, to the run-in in Yangerton. With the threats and the
idiom and the record book to support you, Amison’s motive is clear. That he was
striking out of desperation, it’s indisputable.”

Zacry protested, “They can’t testify.”

Rexson said, “The trial will take place
behind closed doors. As long as transcripts are made public after the fact, by
law the proceedings are public and valid. There’ll be one or two scribes,
that’s required, but they’re prohibited from disrupting the court. If they
speak a word, any judge throws them out. As for Vane and August, they can
transport directly to City Hall, can’t they? You’ve been there, Vane?”

“Of course I have.”

The king told him, “You’ll testify last
of anyone, and no one will know you’re planning to do so beyond the judge and
us here now. August, are you all right with this? Will it cause you too much
strain?”

“If the courtroom’s clear and the public
doesn’t even know we’ll be there, I…. It doesn’t seem too difficult, or
dangerous. And if it could clear Val’s name…. But those crowds, Your Majesty,
by Oakdowns….”

Rexson turned blunt: “August, I’d never
ask you to do this if there were any risk involved to you or your child.”

She said, “I’ll be fine to go, but the
trial starts tomorrow, doesn’t it? Will Val be strong enough? He’s not even
walking yet. We were going to try that this afternoon.”

Vane told them all, “I can make it to
that courtroom. It’s not an issue.”

At that moment, Ilana walked in from the
kitchen with Foden in her arms, following a toddling Viola who stumbled with
cries of delight up to her father. “Are these your children?” the king asked
Zacry. The sorcerer nodded with a smile. “And your mother?” Rexson shook
Ilana’s hand with gusto. “I’m honored, ma’am, truly. You raised two beautiful
children.”

“That I did,” Ilana agreed.

“You saved my boy’s life, my Neslan.”

“I suppose I did that too, though August
carried him here.”

The king hugged Ilana as tightly as he
dared with an infant in her arms, as though she were the mother he had not seen
in twenty years instead of Zacry and Kora’s. He then told Joslyn, who rose to
accept his extended hand, “It’s lovely to meet you as well. You’ve given me and
my kingdom, and what matters more to me, my family no small support. Forgive me
barging into your home like this.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Joslyn told
him. Then her husband and Rexson transported out, and Joslyn sank back down
next to August.

“The king. The king was just in my living
room. Everything’s a wreck!”

Vane told her, “The man lived in a barn
for at least two months. I’m sure he thought your home is charming.” He tried
to smile at her, but could not quite manage with the shock of Amison’s old
crimes so fresh. Teena came in the front door soon after, with a burlap sack of
goods from the general store. Seeing Joslyn, Vane, and August’s somber
expressions, she assumed the worst.

“What’s going on? Has someone died?”

Vane said, “Some sorcerer named Petroc’s
brother, apparently. Seventeen or eighteen years ago.”

Later that day, Vane supported himself on
Zacry’s arm, and together they walked three times around the house before he
found himself too fatigued to continue. Most pain had long since dissipated,
and even his vertigo had all but disappeared. Fatigue was the only real problem
now, and everyone knew it would persist until Vane’s body replaced the blood he
had lost. Joslyn served him lots of nuts and spinach, saying that was the
traditional Traiglandian diet after doctors performed bleedings on a patient. The
following day Vane and Zacry walked six times, and Vane leaned with less force
on his mentor’s shoulder, though he never could make more than three or four
circuits around the house at once.

The morning after that, the
Bugle
released its first reports of the
trial. As proceedings were closed to the public, they printed the entire
transcript in an edition twice as long as usual for double the price, ignoring
other news completely.

Amison’s servant, after facing a barrage
of mixed cheers and insults as he entered City Hall, confessed as completely as
he had before Zacry and the king. The judge accepted his confession but decided
that, given the questions that still remained and the controversy of the case,
proceedings would continue in order to prove the defendant’s claims. He seemed
doubtful a man like Carson Amison would throw everything he had away just to
destroy someone thirty years less experienced with politics, sorcerer or not.

Over the next two days, Thad Greller
testified that Amison had openly threatened Ingleton with the intent to
dissuade him from joining the Magic Council, and Hayden Grissner confirmed his
account. The facts proved malice on Yangerton’s part but could not exculpate
Vane, whom they showed had good reason to loathe the man. More in Vane’s favor
was the testimony of his fellow council members about the crystal he wore and
his response to its glowing: the obvious fear it caused, his hurried exit. Part
of the transcript ran thus:

JUDGE: His shock and concern were
genuine?

F. RAFE: What do you mean, Judge?

JUDGE: There’s no proof anyone but
Ingleton made that crystal glow. He could have used it to paint a premeditated
murder as defensive, couldn’t he?

F. RAFE: I imagine he could have. If his
concern was feigned the man’s in the wrong profession, that’s all I can say. He
should be on the stage, not in politics. No actor I’ve seen can shake that
convincingly, or look that overwhelmed and antsy all at once. He tapped the
crystal to make it stop glowing and almost hit air. And his hand slid off Zacry
Porteg’s arm when he pulled him to the door.

JUDGE: You’re perceptive, Miss Rafe. I’m
curious, why would you say Ingleton took Porteg with him?

F. RAFE: I may have magic, but I don’t
read minds, Your Honor.

JUDGE: If you had to guess?

F. RAFE: I’d guess he was thinking his
wife was in God only knew what kind of trouble. That he didn’t know Porteg
well, but Porteg’s a sorcerer and comes from a family that knows what it’s like
to feel threatened because of magic. That it might be nice to have someone who
could back him up against some kind of mob, if he found himself facing that.
You know what crowds there were at Oakdowns…. Like I said, I don’t read minds.

Vane looked up from the paper to tell
August, “She perjured herself. For us. The judge is right, Francie’s
perceptive. She picked up at her interview I’d studied with Zac and spent some
years in Traigland. She’s got to realize that’s where we are now, that if she
spoke before reporters….”

“We owe her one, Val.”

“Much more than she knows.”

Zacry and Gratton testified the following
day about their roles in ending the attack, more or less keeping to the truth.
The only lie was one required to prevent Vane’s connection to Zacry from
getting out, a falsehood composed by Rexson when he first brought news of the
deaths to the papers: that an unharmed Ingleton had magically taken his wife
from the scene to some location no one knew, barring perhaps His Majesty. The
king himself claimed Ingleton had contacted him as soon as possible, to alert
him to the unfortunate events and explain how Yangerton’s death had come to
pass.

Public opinion, as referenced in the
Bugle
and other papers throughout the
region, began to turn in Ingleton’s favor with Rexson’s testimony. Had Ingleton
gone to the king, the king of all people, after killing Carson Amison? He must
have. Why would the king lie for him, after what sorcery in general and the
boy’s uncle in particular had done to the royal family in years past? Was
Ingleton controlling the monarch, using him as a mouthpiece? That theory seemed
improbable. Why should Ingleton go to such trouble? If he had wanted to murder
Amison, why risk so much to kill the man openly and with magic, when he could
have found some way to arrange the man’s death that implicated him in no manner
whatsoever? Ingleton was a bloody sorcerer, after all.

August and Vane testified two days later,
he with the aid of an energy spell to maintain appearances of perfect health.
Excepting the judge and journalists, the room was empty but for Gratton, the king
and queen, and Amison’s sisters, two innocuous women in their thirties with
silk shawls and tawny hair whom Rexson would not deny the opportunity to hear
the testimony. According to what Zacry told August, word had broken that
morning that Ingleton would come to court, and the throngs outside were
incredible in size, but calm. Since Zacry transported her and her husband
directly into City Hall, she spared the public little thought.

The king explained how his sons had
recovered Zalski’s record books. He presented the page that revealed Amison’s
involvement in torture and execution, a specialist in handwriting authenticated
the document through comparison with other of Zalski’s papers, and then August
took the stand. She confirmed her pregnancy and spoke of her husband’s fateful
use of a cliché that held greater implications for Amison than the younger duke
ever could have realized. She told the judge how Amison had thrown the phrase
back at her during the assault, how Vane had shown up just in time to remove
her from harm’s way and kill Amison before Amison killed him. Throughout the
ordeal, Amison’s sisters stared at her with horrified expressions she could
only try to ignore.

“Why were you at that house in the first
place?”

“To visit Bendelof. A simple visit.”

“How did you know her?”

“Through my husband. She knew his mother,
no? When he came to Podrar she offered him her best, and they kept in touch.”
August paused. “I didn’t know her long, but we grew close. I saw her the day
after she married, and I can assure you, she was having no affair with Carson
Amison, not under any name. The man had me followed to her house. He had no
other business there, none at all.”

Then came Vane’s turn. He confirmed
everything August had said. When the judge asked him why he struck to kill
instead of to incapacitate, he said, “You wouldn’t ask that had it been your
wife.”

“Well, it wasn’t my wife, so explain.”

“I pulled August away from him, and he
came quite near to stabbing me before I cast that spell. I didn’t know he wouldn’t,
and I wanted to ensure he couldn’t threaten her again. Ever.”

“And you just happened to have that spell
in your pocket, hmm?”

“I receive death threats in the dozens,
Your Honor. Per day. The way I look at it, I’d have been a fool not to.”

“You had no weapon on hand?”

“I admit I didn’t think to ask him to
hold off slaughtering August for a jiffy while I ran to the kitchen for a
carving knife.”