Dana Stabenow - Powers of Detection

But if the Judge knew that, really knew it, then there was hope for them. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Of course I do! But I know that just men, obedient men, can defeat it!”

There was a murmur of admiration around the room, like a swell of the tide. Faces turned to the accused, tight with hatred and fear.

“Had you ever thought before that the barn roof would collapse?” the Prosecutor asked.

“Of course not!” Stroban was angry. “It rests on a great post, thick as a tree trunk!”

“Was anyone in the barn when this happened, apart from your son?”

“No, just Bertil, and one of the oxen.”

“I see. Thank you. The Defender may wish to ask you something.”

Stroban turned to face the young man who now rose to his feet. He was a complete contrast to the Prosecutor. Far from being arrogant, he looked full of doubt, even confused, as if he had no idea what he was going to say or do.

And indeed he did not. The whole proceeding was out of his control. When he had spoken with Anaya earlier he had believed her when she had said she was innocent. Now he did not know what to think, nor did he have any faith in himself to achieve a just trial for her. Perhaps the Judge would help him? But when he looked at the Judge, his long, pale face seemed as utterly confused as he was himself.

The Defender turned to Stroban, cleared his throat and began. “We are deeply sorry for your grief.” He hesitated. He must say something to the point, but what? “Where was the accused when this tragedy happened?”

Stroban’s face was a mask of anger, his voice high-pitched. “You say ‘tragedy’ as if it were a natural happening! It was witchcraft! She made the roof fall in, exactly as she told him she would, if he did not submit to her lust. But he was a righteous man, and he refused, so she killed him!”

There was a shiver of horror around the room. People reached for amulets.

The Defender turned to the Judge for help, but the Judge did nothing. He seemed just as lost and overwhelmed. The Defender turned back to Stroban. “I asked you where was she?”

“I don’t know,” Stroban said sullenly. “Out in the fields somewhere, she told us.”

“Not in the barn?”

“Of course not! She didn’t need to be there to make it happen. Don’t you know anything about sorcery?”

“No, I don’t. Perhaps you would be good enough to instruct me?”

Stroban’s cheeks flamed. “I know nothing either! What do you think I am? But it is powerful and wicked, and all good people who love truth and the law must fight against it with every strength they have. We must see that justice is done. It is our only protection.”

There were nods of agreement, a mixture of fear and an attempt at assurance.

The Defender knew he would accomplish nothing with Stroban. It would be better to wait for his wife.

But when the Prosecutor called Enella she echoed exactly what her husband had said, almost in the same words. The Prosecutor sat down again, wholly satisfied.

The Defender rose. “You agreed that the accused was very fond of your son,” he began, not quite sure where he intended the question to lead. He glanced at Anaya, and saw a strange kind of peace in her eyes. He turned back to Enella. “In what ways did she show this?”

Enella was confused. “Why… the usual ways, I suppose.”

“And what are they?” he pressed.

“She… she talked with him easily, comfortably. She made him laugh, without telling the rest of us what it was about.”

“You felt excluded?”

“No! Of course not!” Now she was confused as well. She had been tricked into saying something she had not meant to.

“Why not?” he asked. “It sounds as if you were excluded.”

She looked at Stroban, then away again. “It was exactly as my husband said, she wanted him for herself, in spite of the fact that he was married to her dead husband’s sister, whom she should have loved and honoured. It was because of Korah that Bertil took Anaya in in the first place. Only a wicked woman would be so ungrateful!” Enella was afraid of uncertainty. She liked order. It was the only way to be safe.

“It sounds from what you say as if Bertil also liked her,” the Defender pointed out. “Are you certain that she was not merely responding to him? After all, he was her host, so to speak. The head of her household.”

Enella was afraid. Stroban was not helping her. She looked at the Judge.

The Judge leaned forward over the bench, his face tense and unhappy. He stared at the Defender. “I cannot see where you are leading. Stay on the known path, if you please.”

Enella relaxed again. The Judge was a decent man, a fair man. There was no need to be afraid after all.

“I’m sorry, my lord,” the Defender apologised. He was confused again. He looked at Anaya where she stood perfectly still. Her face was white, as if exhausted by plunging from hope to despair, and back again. Her shoulders drooped, as if the courage of a few moments ago had slipped from her. He had promised her that he would do his best, and so far he had been pathetic. He must do better.

He took a step towards her, waving his hand. “We have heard that Anaya,” he used her name self-consciously, “liked to make Bertil laugh. She helped him in his work, because she was clever, and inventive. Is that true?” He knew that Enella would agree that it was, her husband had already said so, and she would never contradict him.

“Yes,” she said unhappily.

“She made new suggestions for efficiency and skill, things that had not been done before?” he pressed, beginning to see a tiny light of hope.

There was only one possible answer, to have denied it would have been ridiculous. “Yes.”

“So she was cleverer than Korah, or than any of you?”

“Well…”

“Or you would have thought of them for yourselves, before she came?”

“Well… yes, I suppose so.”

The Defender was beginning to feel better. He looked at the Judge and saw a spark of hope in his eyes also, a slight straightening of his shoulders and easing of the muscles of his jaw. It gave him courage to go on. He felt less alone. “Surely it must be true?”

Enella said nothing.

The Defender was sorry for her, but he could not let her deny it.

The Judge looked at her, his face gentle. “You must answer,” he told her.

“Yes,” she said very quietly, her face filled with unhappiness.

“Thank you,” the Defender acknowledged. “So Korah had to have seen it also?”

“I don’t know!” It was a lie, and the scarlet guilt flooded up her face. She must have felt its heat. “I imagine she did.”

“Perhaps she was angry? Could that be what the quarrel was about?”

“I don’t know!” That was the literal truth, the letter of the law if not the spirit. She hid in the safety of that, looking to the Judge for protection, and from the easing of the rigidity of her body, believing she received it.

The Defender thanked her and gave her leave to go.

The Prosecutor called Korah, handsome, angry, thin-lipped. She walked into the Square knowing exactly what she was going to say. It had been sitting in her heart like a black weight since the first time she had seen Bertil laughing with Anaya and realised that while loyalty would hold him to Korah, but, if not yet, then soon, it would be Anaya he loved, Anaya who touched the man within and awoke his heart and his dreams. In that day her hatred was born.

The Prosecutor faced her, arrogant and angry. She faced him squarely, meeting his eyes. He would not treat her as he had cowardly, obedient Enella. Korah was not funny or imaginative, or beautiful, but she understood people. She could see right through the façade, the pretences, to the weakness within. And the Judge would help. She had been watching him, the high, thin face, the tight mouth. He was just like her. He understood what it was like to be mocked, to be left out, even in your own home. He could see the need for justice. It was not revenge, it was what Anaya deserved, not for witchcraft-there was no such thing-but for theft.