This Fortress World (25 page)

"No." I said it quietly, but it floated to his ears.

He scowled and sat back. The old judge leaned forward.

"Then why are you here to disturb the proceedings of the court?"

"It is the duty of the secular authority to apprehend the criminous clerk," I quoted firmly, "and bring him before the secular court to plead to the charge. I am here."

The hawk eyes leaned back toward me, quickly. "How do you plead?"

"Not guilty!"

The room boiled with voices. At a gesture from the judge, the mercenaries took one step forward, all around the room. The voices stilled.

"If you are here to make a mockery of the Emperor's justice, you shall be dealt with accordingly, in spite of your clergy," he said. "If you come in good faith, you shall receive what is meted out in this court, justice according to the law. You have pleaded not guilty to a crime already confessed. On what ground do you plead?"

"I killed in self defense and for freedom."

"The only legal defense for killing is the Emperor's authority."

"Then I plead my clergy."

The judge glared furiously. "Is the Bishop's Ordinary in the court?" No one responded. "Very well," he said, turning back to me. "You are held over for formal hearing tomorrow."

He turned to the young, bored judge, who no longer seemed so bored, and whispered, glancing at me. He sat upright again. "Take the prisoner away!"

And as the mercenaries came forward, I saw the young judge get up and slip through the tall door behind the great chair.

The small black door opened as I was led toward it.

I had become quite experienced in cells. I found the Emperor's accommodations quite comfortable, more so, in fact, than my old cell in the monastery. This was clean, dry, and well-lighted. There was a cot, and I lay on it, thinking, until I went to sleep. The dreams were not so bad. I almost welcomed them.

They came for me early, two mercenaries, colorfully anonymous. They led me back up the many flights of stairs to the courtroom. They stood me in front of the high desk again, but this time it was different. Now I was inside the box, and behind me the benches were gone. Instead there were comfortable chairs, and the chairs were filled with barons and lesser nobles, powerful, sleek, and laughing; they talked gaily with their women. They had come to see a spectacle.

The three judges were in front of me. They sat behind the desk, relaxed now, leaning back in their chairs, whispering to each other. They glanced at me, and their smiles were secret and wise. I shifted uneasily.

There was an air of expectancy in the room. The murmur of many voices and the easy laughter only emphasized my feeling that a sharp sword hung over the room. It was wielded by a mighty, unseen arm, and it was poised above me. What the audience didn't know was that this sword had a double edge.

I waited, thankful that my face was concealed in the shadow of the hood. The tension grew keen. Everyone sprang to their feet, the nobles behind me, the judges in front, looking toward the tall door behind the great chair. It opened. Guards entered, quick, watchful men, and behind them walked a middle-aged man who rolled with fat and panted from the effort necessary to keep his bulk in motion. He had a pig's face with a pig's shrewd little eyes. He waddled to the big chair, and he slowly eased his body into it, and he overflowed. He was grossness overlaid with a surface sheen of rich purple cloth and glittering jewels.

This was the Emperor, absolute ruler of Brancusi. His presence magnified the occasion into something even more important than I had anticipated. A shiver of excitement ran through me.

The Emperor sighed and nodded, almost imperceptibly. The judges took their seats and after them the nobles. The craggy, hawk-eyed judge turned inquiringly to the Emperor and received the negligent wave of a puffy hand that sparkled diamond points of light around the room.

The judge turned back to me, stern-faced and important. "The hearing will begin in the case of the confessed murderer, William Dane," he said coldly. "How do you plead?"

I shivered again and blessed the concealing robe and hood again. They knew my name. They had worked swiftly. My position would be desperate if I was wrong. But I couldn't be wrong.

"Not guilty," I said clearly, "on grounds of self defense."

"That plea is not acceptable by law," the judge said. "How do you plead?"

"I plead my clergy," I said.

The judge looked up, shrugging. "Is the Bishop's Ordinary in the court?"

One of the two mercenaries in front of the desk returned. "The Bishop's Ordinary is here."

"Let him come forward and claim the prisoner for the Church, if the prisoner's claim is just." The voice was coldly judicial, but there was something else in it that made me frown. It was all too smooth, too well-planned.

There was a stir in the back of the hall. Someone was coming forward, but I didn't turn to look. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a white robe pass by. The cowl was thrown back, as if to demonstrate that there was no reason for concealment. I recognized the white hair and powerful face of the Abbot.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he stopped in front of me, peering benignly under my cowl.

"Let the prisoner's cowl be removed, so that I may see his face," he said gently.

One of the mercenaries stepped forward and threw back my cowl. I stared into the Abbot's eyes. They looked at me steadily, unwinking, and sadly, and neither of us looked away. For this moment there was no one else in the room; it was between us.

"This is William Dane, your Justice."

A murmur rose slowly behind me and slowly died away.

"What is his condition?"

"He was an acolyte in my monastery," the Abbot said, and then, shaking his head slowly, "but he broke the monastic rules and fled."

"Do you claim him for the Church?"

The silence was hushed and expectant.

And he said, sadly, wistfully, "I cannot." The room relaxed, sighing. "When he fled from the monastery, he removed himself from our jurisdiction."

That chance was gone then, I thought. That was all right; I hadn't been counting on it. I smiled at him. "Thank you, Father," I said, so softly that only he could hear.

He shook his head unhappily. "Ah, my son."

"Tell the court the circumstances of the prisoner's flight," the judge said.

The Abbot turned. He was so close that I could have reached out and taken his throat in my two hands and squeezed. But that was over. It was all done between us. My hands were relaxed on the rail of the cage.

"A small, crystal pebble came into his possession. It had been stolen from the Emperor. He hid it in the Cathedral before he fled. Later he returned to carry it away."

The Abbot bowed low before the Emperor and his judges, but not as low as he had once bowed before a gun and a pebble. He walked away, and I forgot him as I looked up at the judge. He looked down sternly from his eminence.

"Has the prisoner anything to add before judgment is passed?"

I looked down for a moment and then back up to stare into his cold, fierce eyes. "With the court's permission, I will tell a short story."

"Proceed."

"Not so many days ago," I said softly, "the Emperor of Brancusi had a pebble. It was only a pebble and nobody knew what it was but many people wanted it." I paused and looked at the Emperor. His eyes were narrowed; he licked his lips with a nervous tongue. "Close to the Emperor, trusted by him, was a girl named Frieda. She stole the pebble. An organization known as the Citizens had directed her to take it to a man named Siller, but she never intended to obey. She was going to take it to someone else, but she was followed by a man named Sabatini, once ruler of the largest of the United Worlds, who wanted the pebble for himself. In desperation Frieda dropped the pebble in the Cathedral's offering plate. She gave it to me. And eventually I discovered what the pebble was."

Behind me the room gasped. The judges sat up straight, even the young one. The Emperor leaned forward and whispered in the ear of one of the judges. The judge turned to me.

"Where is the girl Frieda?"

"She is dead."

The room sighed.

"Where is the man Siller?"

"Dead."

"Where is Sabatini?"

"Dead, too."

The judge sat back, silent. Whispers began behind me. The judges consulted among themselves. The crag-faced one turned back to me. "Are these the murders to which you are confessing?"

"Siller tried to kill me and was killed in the attempt. Frieda was killed by Sabatini. Sabatini took his own life. Besides these I killed four others, who would have killed me if I hadn't been luckier than they. All men hired by Sabatini, known commonly as Free Agents."

"It has been told you before that self defense is not acceptable as a plea. You have not been claimed by the Church. How do you plead?"

"I plead my clergy," I said again,

The judge frowned. "You have been refused by the Bishop's Ordinary. You must make an acceptable plea or receive summary justice."

"There are other tests. I ask that they be invoked."

The judges whispered. The middle one turned back to me. "In a case of this nature, the literacy test is unacceptable."

"There is a final test, an ultimate test beyond challenge," I said slowly. "It has come down to us from the days of the Founder, Jude the Prophet. It is accepted throughout the galaxy."

The judge gasped. "You claim the right to work a miracle?"

They talked it over behind the high desk while the noble audience hummed with interest and excitement. I stood in the box, watching them quietly. Finally the judges turned to the Emperor. He got up slowly, ponderously, his little eyes fixed on me, and stepped forward. I knew, suddenly that it wouldn't be wise to underestimate this mass of flesh. He held absolute control over Brancusi, and no matter what the justice of my claim, he could refuse it if he wished, if he thought it important enough to risk a breach with the Church. He had seized control of the situation, and I, like the rest of the hall, waited for him to speak.

"The prisoner's audacity should be rewarded," he said in a soft, colorless voice. "He will have his chance to prove his clergy by working a miracle for us. On one condition."

The hall waited. I waited, gazing up at him. He looked down at me with a slow smile playing around his thick lips.

"The condition being that if he fails, he will plead guilty and having so pleaded will reveal all that he knows about the pebble."

The Emperor waited now, his eyes narrow and watchful. My face was still, but I smiled inwardly. The fat fish had grabbed the bait. Now all that remained was to see if there was an unseen hand on the other end of the line.

I bowed my head. "It is agreed, Your Majesty."

The Emperor smiled. "Search him."

The mercenaries moved from in front of the desk. They went over me from head to foot. When they finished and stepped back, frowning bewilderedly and empty-handed, the Emperor's smile was gone. He studied me curiously and then waved a pudgy hand.

"Commence. Perform."

I bowed my head again and looked up and spread my arms wide. "If I cannot here perform a miracle," I said clearly, "and prove my clergy, it is only just that I consign myself and all I know to the man who has been given worldly power over Brancusi and over all the people thereon. If there is justice in the universe, let it show itself now. If there is a power for good that wants freedom for the people of the galaxy, let it act or see freedom perish. Let it prove now that I am not guilty, just as no one is guilty for acts performed without malice, no matter what the law. The decision does not rest with me, Your Majesty, nor with you, but with the One who is above." I raised my arms toward the high ceiling. "I await Your decision."

I waited, hopefully, expectantly, and as the seconds ticked away, doubt grew, and I knew that I had been wrong, and that I would never see Laurie again, never know happiness again, and soon I would be dead.

And the room wavered, and I saw the Emperor's staring eyes and putty face, and I would have liked to have seen the Abbot's face, too, but there wasn't time, because the room had vanished, swallowed up in the night.

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I had felt the sensation once before—the blackness and the long falling, only this time it was longer and the deeper blackness of unconsciousness didn't wait at the end of it.

"Hello, Laurie," I said, blinking into the light.

She pulled her hands out of the gauntlets and lifted the cap from her head and turned to look at me. The breath caught in my throat.

"Thanks for providing the miracle," I said. "You seem to make a habit of rescuing me."

She smiled wryly. "This time you didn't leave us much choice."

She was dressed modestly in a blue tunic and skirt that fit loosely and concealingly, but I remembered too well. My hands hung awkwardly at my sides, remembering, too—remembering how they had held her. If I had owned pockets I would have pushed my hands into them, but there aren't any pockets in a robe.

My eyes twisted away. "That was my intention. Where is the Archbishop?"

"You can't see him today. He's resting. He hasn't been well. Maybe tomorrow or the day after."

"It doesn't matter." I looked around the room curiously. It was a small room. The floor was rubbery under my feet, and the walls were metal, and the low ceiling overhead was metal. There were other machines in the room; I recognized about half of them.

"It's the Archbishop's ship, of course," Laurie said. "He's on one of his periodic inspection trips. That's his excuse. We're in an orbit too high to threaten Brancusi and too high to be in any danger from orbital rockets. That also made it very difficult to get a fix on the courtroom. We almost didn't get you, you know. Even when I pulled, I wasn't certain I had you or that you would reach here alive."

"You didn't have to," I said. "You could have left me there."

"And let you reveal the secret of the pebble? We couldn't do that." Her smile was crooked.