The Wicked and the Witless Read online

  Yes,' said Sarazin proudly, pleased with the obvious impact his new status was making on his brother. Then Celadon said:

  You're mad! Mad, yes, and shortly dead, unless you flee. 'Tis well I rode first. With no witness to this warning I can let you escape. I thought you ready for some lunacy — but never something so witless as this!'

  'Have a care how you speak,' said Sarazin, a warning in his voice, 'for you are talking to a king.'

  'Tarkal is king, fool!' said Celadon. 'He rides in our ranks.'

  And Celadon explained.

  Celadon had of course been sent to Selzirk with news that King Lyra wished Sarazin to remain in Shin for Lod's trial. Unbeknownst to Sarazin, King Lyra had also given Celadon secret dispatches complaining of the activities of outlaws, brigands and anarchists, and asking Selzirk to send Celadon back to Shin in due course with a force sufficient to restore law to the countryside.

  Celadon had left Selzirk on Midwinter's Day, which was, in Shin, the first day of the Phoenix Festival.

  When King Lyra died on the second day of the Phoenix Festival there had been fighting between men loyal to Tarkal and those loyal to Lod, as Sarazin knew well. The fighting had been inconclusive, and, while Tarkal had won temporary control of Shin, he had been uncertain of his ability to hold the city.

  Therefore Tarkal had evacuated Shin and had set off for the Harvest Plains, ferrying every man, woman, child and servant within his power to cross the Velvet River to the North Road then marching them westward. Lod had pursued all the way, and many of the evacuees had died on the slow and bitter retreat.

  Then the sore-pressed Tarkal had met Celadon's men, who had been advancing eastward along the North Road at a leisurely pace. Celadon, with gusto, treated Sarazin to a sanguinary account of the action which had followed.

  Tod may well be dead,' concluded Celadon, 'though we have not seen his corpse. But Tarkal is definitely alive, and my duty is clear. As he is King Lyra's oldest son I must see him seated on Chenameg's throne.'

  You have no authority to do so,' said Sarazin savagely.

  'On the contrary, I have every authority,' said Celadon. Tvly warrant for this foray into Chenameg commands me to obey King Lyra, or, in the event of his death, his son Tarkal.'

  'But I am king!'

  'Then Selzirk will kill you on that account if you allow yourself to be captured,' said Celadon, 'for Selzirk sees fit to order the succession in Shin.'

  What cause has Selzirk to meddle in the affairs of Chenameg?' demanded Sarazin.

  That is for our rulers to say,' said Celadon. 'I am but a simple soldier and do what I am told. So far, brother mine, I do not know you have made yourself king. We did not meet here, neither did we speak. But soon enough I will know all, then it will be my duty plain to hunt you down and drag you back to Selzirk in chains, there to meet the justice which will doubtless be your death.'

  There was no time left for further argument, for Celadon's troops were not that far behind him. Sarazin therefore fled to Shin with his patrol. Once he was back on the southern bank of the Velvet River his first thought was to destroy all water transport. But the ferrymen refused to do the burning and sinking he ordered and his men refused to execute those ferrymen for disobedience.

  Sarazin, realising what authority remained tb him was rapidly vanishing, ran to Amantha and broke the news to her.

  'Therefore,' concluded Sarazin, 'we must flee. I think right on my side but cannot argue the point with Celadon and four hundred swords.'

  You flee,' said Amantha. 'I stay.'

  'Come!' said Sarazin, imperiously.

  'Don't be ridiculous,' said Amantha. Tm in the middle of breakfast, as you can see for yourself.'

  'But,' said Sarazin, 'our lives will be forfeit if we stay.'

  Your life, perhaps,' said Amantha, 'not mine.'

  'But — darling! We're married!'

  "What's that got to do with the price of fish?' said Amantha. Tarkal is my brother and I await him here. Take your hands off that! That's my egg!'

  A pretty plight was Sean Sarazin's.

  Jarl was still incapable, Glambrax was still missing, Amantha refused to be reasonable — so what was he to do? Run, obviously! But, as news of Tarkal's impending return had already spread through Shin, there was not one man — not one! — ready to ride with Sean Sarazin.

  So Sarazin saddled the best horse left in Shin and rode forth alone, making for the east. And, since luck was with him, it was a full ten days before he was caught and marched back to Shin. From where he was sent onward to Selzirk to face justice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Let Wisdom flee and Justice hide its face For we have entered into a Court of Law.

  (Proverbial)

  Several days later, Sarazin found himself in a dark dank cell in a dungeon in Selzirk. The cell was made for one, but must perforce hold two when Sarazin was closeted with his lawyer, Childermass Imbleprig. Once again Farfalla had chosen Imbleprig as Sarazin's lawyer and was paying the bills.

  This is bad,' said Imbelprig, shaking his head. "Very bad.'

  'You call it bad?' said Sarazin. 'I call it ludicrous. A charge of high treason? How can that be justified.'

  'In several ways,' said Imbleprig.

  'How so?' said Sarazin. 'I put down a revolution. I saved Shin from being burnt to the ground by a mob of peasants. I preserved the life of the lady Amantha. Then married her, that the rule of law might be restored to the kingdom.'

  You set yourself up as king,' said Imbleprig. 'That was unlawful, not least because Tarkal still lived.'

  'How was I to know he lived?' said Sarazin. 'I didn't think him such a coward as to run so quick.'

  Whether his action was cowardice or caution is not for us to say,' said Imbleprig. 'He was King Lyra's oldest child. Furthermore, he was the man Selzirk wanted to see succeed King Lyra. Clearly, by making yourself king, or trying to, you opposed the wishes of Selzirk. That is high treason.'

  'What I have done I have done in Chenameg, which exists outside the jurisdiction of the Harvest Plains,' said Sarazin. Thus I cannot be called to account for my actions in any court of Selzirk.'

  You are wrong,' said Imbleprig, 'for the Harvest Plains have long claimed jurisdiction over Chenameg. While Selzirk finds it expedient to rule through Chena- meg's royal family, our law holds Chenameg to be as much a part of our own nation as Kelebes or Androl- marphos.'

  'This is news to me,' said Sarazin.

  'No!' said Imbleprig. 'It is not news to you at all, that is the worst part of it. The Rovac warrior Thodric Jarl was at pains to tell you as much in front of witnesses. Or so he says. Do you say otherwise?'

  'I . . . well . . .'

  'It matters not what you say, anyway,' said Imbleprig, 'for many will witness against you.' 'Who?' said Sarazin. 'Name them!' Thodric Jarl himself, for one. Some men of the Watch whom he commanded in Shin. There is also a dwarf, Glambrax. And there are others.'

  There were indeed others, and Sarazin heard them all at length during his trial, which lasted for months. It took place in front of Judge Qolidian and seven professional jurors. It went on for so long that Sarazin could scarcely remember any other way of life. It seemed he had spent a lifetime standing in the dock listening to self-justifying witnesses and prating lawyers.

  Sarazin's dark despair was only increased by the behaviour of the jurors who paid not the slightest attention to the proceedings. They appeared to think the outcome of the trial a foregone conclusion, for they spent their days gambling with dice, cards and knucklebones.

  Meanwhile, lawyers enriched themselves by arguing the finer points of the Constitution interminably.

  Was Chenameg part of the Harvest Plains? If it was, then Sarazin, by seizing power in Shin, had committed an act of High Treason. If it was not, then, since Sarazin's actions had taken place beyond Selzirk's jurisdiction, he should rightly walk free.

  Farfalla herself was one of those who gave evidence.

  Yes,' she said, in answer
to a question from the prose- cution, 'Chenameg has always acknowledged the authority of the See of the Sun.'

  And she looked on Sarazin coldly, as if he were a stranger. That night, alone in his cell, Sarazin wept. In his dreams he crawled back to the womb and found it cold, stony, haunted by bats and studded with iron.

  As the days went by he had other occasions for weep- ing, for it became clearer and clearer that he was guilty and doomed to death. He no longer doubted that Chena- meg was indeed a part of the Harvest Plains. The Consti- tution held that Selzirk's law ruled all the territory of the ancient empire once commanded by the evil wizard Ebonair. Historians proved to the court that Chenameg had indeed been a part of that empire.

  Sean Sarazin, as a son of the kingmaker, was forbidden by the Constitution to hold power in the Harvest Plains. Yet he had tried to seize power in Chenameg. Therefore, since Chenameg was part of the Harvest Plains, he was guilty of high treason.

  Late in the spring, evidence and argument were at last concluded, and the jury withdrew to consider its verdict. Sarazin, thinking the jurors an idle pack of derelict fools, expected a prompt decision. However, he had badly midjudged these upright citizens.

  This jury was not a random-picked panel of seven plucked from the streets. No, these jurors were profes- sionals, and highly conscious of their responsibilities, for in Selzirk juries were only used in the judgment of the most heinous of crimes.

  Here, with so much complex data to consider, the jury had a real job on its hands. Day after day the jurymen deliberated, often sending out for a little something to keep themselves going. Roast dinners, for instance, and skins of wine. Sometimes, to prop up their ebbing morale, they collaborated in a jolly song. The stress they laboured under was evidenced by the sounds of drunken singing which often wafted from the jury room long after midnight.

  At last, after the jury had been out for twenty days, the foreman appeared in court. The shadows beneath his eyes testified to the strain under which he had been working, as did his unsteady gait and the tremor in his hands.

  What have you decided?' said Judge Qolidian.

  'Guilty,' said the foreman. 'Guilty. He's a nasty piece of work and as guilty as hell. Throw the book at him.'

  Then the foreman burped, swayed on his feet, and collapsed insensible in full view of the court, thus exciting considerable sympathy from all members of the legal profession who were present and who alone were properly qualified to sympathise with the hardships of such pro- fessional jurors.

  Once the foreman had recovered, Judge Qolidian thanked the jury for their sterling efforts, and expressed a touching concern for the obviously heavy toll which this trial had taken upon even such hardened professionals. Then Qolidian turned his attention to Sean Sarazin.

  'Sean Kelebes Sarazin,' said Judge Qolidian. The jury has found you guilty of high treason. Have you anything to say before I pass sentence?'

  'My client has nothing to say,' said Imbleprig.

  'But—' said Sarazin.

  Then said no more, for he was suppressed. Judge Qolidian smiled grimly as the suppression proceeded. Then, seeing things were getting out of hand, he said:

  'All right, all right, that's enough! You can take your boot off his throat.'

  Sarazin, somewhat the worse for wear, was restored to his proper place in the dock. Then Judge Qolidian smiled again. Then laughed with manic glee. Then coughed, and brought himself under control. Then said:

  'Sean Kelebes Sarazin, I sentence you to be taken to a place of imprisonment and there to be held until Mid- summer's Day.'

  Sarazin looked up, startled. Was that all? Imprisonment till Midsummer's Day? That was nothing! However, the judge was not finished yet . . .

  'On Midsummer's Day you are to be taken to the westernmost part of Unkrana. There you are to be hung from the neck until near dead. Then you are to be dragged through the streets to Libernek Square, there to have your intestines torn from your body, after which your body itself is to be cleaved into quarters.'

  Sarazin smiled, faintly.

  He did not believe it.

  He did not believe it until the following night, when he woke from nightmare. Screaming.

  Long he lay in the darkness, sweating, shivering, near dead from dread. Then, towards dawn, he remembered. Of course! The kingmaker could exercise the prerogative of mercy. That, like the power to appoint city and regional governors, was one of the kingmaker's inalienable powers.

  'My mother will save me,' said Sarazin. 'She will. She must!

  Seeking Farfalla's mercy, Sarazin drafted an appeal himself at dawn and had it sent to her. After thirty days a reply came from Farfalla's personal secretary:

  The kingmaker Farfalla, mother of all the peoples, ruler of the See of the Sun, instructs me to advise you that your petition for clemency has been rejected.'

  And Sarazin reacted first with anger, then hate, then grief.

  The days dragged by until, in due course, Sarazin learnt that the judge who had sentenced him had been appointed governor of Androlmarphos. Judge Qolidian had con- demned Sarazin to suffer a dreadful death. And Farfalla had shown her gratitude by making him a king.

  Sarazin screamed in rage, screamed and screamed and battered the door of his cell with his fists. Which did him no good, of course. Shortly his lawyer, Childermas Imbleprig, came to say they would be appealing against his sentence. But Sarazin, no longer believing anything could help him, lapsed into a deep depression.

  Even when he was brought into court on the occasion of his appeal — which was heard before the eminent Judge Syrphus — he was still too depressed to take much cognisance of the proceedings. After outlining the course of Sarazin's trial and detailing the sentence, Childermass Imbleprig (having thus earnt sufficient sanarands to temporarily quell his loquacity) finally got to the meat of the matter.

  The defence, my lord,' said he, 'asks the court to lay aside the sentence on the grounds that it was improper.'

  'Wherefore is it improper?' said Judge Syrphus. To hang, draw and quarter a man is a perfectly respectable procedure.'

  With all respect, my lord,' said Imbleprig, 'the proper form of the sentence requires that the prisoner's intestines be burnt in his sight while he is still living. This was omitted from the sentence. I have notarised transcripts of the trial with me if you wish to see them.'

  His lordship scrutinised the relevant documents.

  TDear me,' he said. 'Dear dear! Dear dear dear me! You're quite right! The judge of the case entirely failed to make mention of the burning of intestines.'

  Days of legal argument followed.

  The prosecution claimed the sentence must stand, since it was 'contrary to reason for a prisoner still to be alive while his intestines are burnt'.

  But Imbleprig cited the notorious case of Brute Dargzon, who, 'after his intestines were torn out, had strength enough to rise from the ground, pick up a piece of his own lower bowel then hit the executioner in the face with it.'

  Furthermore, continued Imbleprig, it was well known that the Orfus pirates would often nail a section of a man's bowels to a mast then chase that victim with red-hot irons, causing him to unravel his own intestines.

  'A disembowelled man, then,' said Imbleprig, 'is not a dead man, so the prescribed form of execution for high treason is not, despite the prosecution's claims, absurd. Besides, even if it were absurd, that would be beside the point. The rule of law requires the letter of the law to be followed in all things, and, as the wise have often re- marked, if the law were cleansed of patent absurdities there would be little of it left at all, and precious little work for lawyers.

  The defence, then, has an unassailable argument. The law allows only one form of punishment for the crime of High Treason and that form prescribes the burning of the prisoner's bowels in the prisoner's presence as a compulsory part of the ritual.

  'If the defective sentence handed down by Judge Qolidian were to be carried out then a miscarriage of justice would have taken place. For, if
Sean Kelebes Sarazin were executed without seeing his own guts thrown on a bonfire, then he would be the victim of an entirely unlawful and unprecedented sentence.

  Therefore, since the sentence was improper, the defence asks the court to lay aside that sentence.'

  Judge Syrphus reserved his decision, and three days of tension followed. Then the learned judge presented his judgment, which took half a day to deliver. Sarazin understood none of it for Syrphus spoke in Legal Churl, which is more difficult than Field Churl, City Churl and High Churl all rolled into one.

  Finally, his business done, the judge took his leave and all those in the court began to disperse.

  'Come on,' said Imbleprig, taking Sarazin by the arm. 'Let's take you home.'

  We ... we won?' said Sarazin, scarcely daring to believe.

  'Of course we won! You heard the judgment yourself.'

  Indeed, they had won. The judge had ruled that the sentence imposed on Sean Sarazin by Judge Qolidian was defective, hence was illegal. The law allowed only one way for such situations to be rectified: the prisoner must be allowed to walk free.

  However, in practice it did not prove that simple.

  While Judge Syrphus had been delivering his verdict a mob had been gathering outside his courtroom. A hundred men of the Watch, commanded by Thodric Jarl, were on hand to help convey Sean Sarazin to his mother's palace. But they had a struggle for the mob shouted, roared and threw things.

  It was terrifying!

  Sarazin was almost crushed to death in the press. It was as bad as his first day in Selzirk, when he had almost died in a mob-trample in the confines of Kesh.

  At last, Jarl and his stalwarts brought Sarazin safe into Farfalla's palace, and the gates were closed against the mob. Which promptly began to storm the palace.