L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

When Kharl woke on fourday, he was still worrying, but he had some ideas. He washed and shaved, and dressed quickly, before making his way down to the smaller breakfast room, where a mass of egg toast and ham and breads awaited him, with both cider and ale-more of everything than either he or Erdyl or Demyst would ever be able to finish.

Erdyl was already eating, heartily, with all the zest of a growing young man. He looked up with a contented smile. “Good morning, Lord Kharl.”

“Good morning.” Kharl seated himself. After he had several bites, and some cider, he looked across the breakfast table at Erdyl. “We will need to offer entertainment to the other envoys.”

“It is summer, Lord Kharl.” The secretary looked puzzled. “One does not entertain before late harvest.”

“Harvest will be here before that long, and it will take time to plan out such an event. I would like you to contact other secretaries once more and work with Fundal and Khelaya. We need to host a party or reception, or whatever they are called, as soon as it is acceptable to do so.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You will contact the other secretaries. Explain that you have never done this, and that is why you are talking to them so soon again. Pretend to be what they think you are, a younger son of a lord who knows little.”

“You want me to find out everything I can?”

“Yes. But make sure that you keep talking about our reception.”

Erdyl nodded brightly. “I can only be stupid for a while before I should have learned something.”

“That is true. Also, if you seem not to know much …″

“They won′t expect as much of me.”

“Or of me.” Kharl hoped that was so. “I’m going to watch Lord Justicer Reynol this morning, and then, this afternoon after we eat, the undercaptainand I are going to take a walk. That will leave the carriage for you to use this afternoon, if you need it.”

“Yes, ser.”

“A walk?” asked Demyst. “Not even a ride, ser?”

“We won’t be learning much about Brysta if we don’t look at it. We’ll walk down Crafters’ Lane. We can go into shops and talk to people. A ride may come later.”

“Ser,” began Erdyl, “envoys don’t usually-”

Kharl just looked at Erdyl. Doing what other envoys did would only make matters worse. They had spies and retainers and knew how to use them. Kharl didn’t.

“Yes, ser.”

“You put it that way, ser, sounds like a good idea,” added Demyst.

Kharl thought so, but that depended on what they learned.

“I was looking through the armory, and I found something that might be useful, ser.”

“You know I’m useless with a blade, and carrying a staff would mark me.” He snorted. “Envoys don’t carry cudgels, either.”

“Ah … ser … I found a long truncheon. Must be years old, but it’s sound, and it’s got a scabbard. Looks like a shortsword, but it’s heavy. Lorken or black oak, I’d say.”

That brought Kharl up short, but only for a moment. If it looked like a blade, at least from a distance, the truncheon might serve several purposes. It certainly couldn’t hurt. “That’s a good thought. I’ll wear it this afternoon.”

“Not this morning?”

“I’m going into the Hall of Justice itself. They won′t allow weapons inside. They don’t care if I am a lord and envoy. You can leave your blade behind, or you can wait outside for me.”

“Outside, ser.”

Kharl finished eating quickly, then went upstairs to finish getting dressed while Demyst and Mantar readied the horses and carriage.

In his large bedchamber, Kharl pulled on the black jacket, then fingered his chin as he looked into the floor-length mirror. He still had trouble recognizing himself without the beard. He hoped others in Brysta did as well. Then he descended to the library, where he picked up the leather case he had been using for his studies.

Mantar had the carriage drawn up beside the residence by the timeKharl stepped outside, into what promised to be another hazy, sultry day. He’d forgotten how steamy Brysta could be before the late-summer rains finally arrived.

“Let’s go.” Kharl climbed up into the carriage.

Demyst followed.

The streets of Brysta looked no different on fourday than they had on any other day. There were still fewer people than Kharl remembered, and neither beggars nor unaccompanied young women. He could still recall Charee running through the streets before they had been consorted, and Tyrbel’s daughters coming and going-until the time Egen had attacked Sanyle. Had things changed that much in little more than a year?

Just before Mantar brought the carriage to a stop outside the Hall of Justice, Kharl realized something else. Not only were there Watch patrollers on almost every block, but he had not seen a single regular armsman or lancer since he had returned to Brysta. There had never been many, but there had been some.

“Have you seen any armsmen or lancers?” Kharl turned to Demyst.

The undercaptain frowned, tilting his head slightly. “Just the Watch patrollers.”

“I haven’t either.”

“You wouldn’t see many in Valmurl.”

“But you’d see some.”

Once he left the carriage, Kharl walked swiftly to the outer double doors of the Hall of Justice, then through them and into the foyer. He could sense the eyes of the two guards turning toward them.

“I’ll wait here, ser,” said Demyst, halting just inside the foyer and stepping back against the stone wall, taking a position from which he could watch both the doors out of the building, the staircase, and the doors to the main hall.

“I’ll likely be a while.”

“Yes, ser.”

Kharl made his way toward the double doors at the end of the foyer, doors he had only been through once before-as a prisoner accused of a murder he had not committed. He swallowed, then smiled as he neared the two patrollers.

“Please be quiet, ser … The hearing has already started,” said the patroller on the left.

“What is the case?”

“Some fellow disturbing the peace now. Murder after that.”

Kharl slipped inside the doors and took a seat on one of the benches in the fourth row back. He repressed a smile. Had he been dressed as a cooper, he doubted that entry would have been so easy.

The hall chamber was larger than the one in Valmurl, with a width of thirty cubits, a length of fifty, and a ceiling height of ten. At the end of the chamber away from Kharl were two daises, one behind the other, each holding a podium desk of age-darkened deep brownish gold oak. At the seat behind the lower dais sat a round-faced, blocky, and gray-haired man-Reynol. The square-bearded justicer wore a blue velvet gown, trimmed in black.

The single seat on the upper dais, its high carved back gilded and upholstered in blue velvet, was vacant. In the single seat before the benches on the right side of the chamber sat a dark-haired figure. Once more, on each side was a Watch patroller, and not the regular armsmen Kharl recalled from his own trial.

At the long narrow table on the left side between the benches and the dais sat Fasyn, along with a younger man. Both Lord Justicer Reynol and Fasyn glanced at Kharl, but their eyes returned quickly to the patroller who stood before the dais, speaking slowly.

“ … picked up a stool and tried to break it over Hunsal’s head … had too much ale, I wager,’cause it just banged his arm, not all that hard-”

“He attacked one of the Watch, then?” asked Reynol.

“I wouldn’t say that, your lordship. He’d drunk so much that he didn’t much know who was even around. He just went down without any of us touching him. Had to put him on a cart to get him to the gaol.”

“If he had not attacked anyone, why did you put him in gaol?”