David Dalglish - Dawn of Swords

Pushing open the door-it was tall, quite heavy, and creaked on its iron hinges-she strode into the vestibule. The tower was immensely wide, and the lower chamber was round, with a short ceiling. A staircase wound up the northern curve of the wall leading to the main courthouse above. Guards stood at attention, safeguarding the sixteen doors that lined the interior. Each of those sixteen doors led to holding cells that held up to thirty prisoners. Those prisoners would be her responsibility for the day.

“Minister,” said Malcolm Gregorian, Captain of the Palace Guard. He was a solidly built man dressed in a dyed black leather overcoat over a vest of chainmail. The golden half helm he wore was adorned with catlike ears at the top, whereas the rest of the guards’ helms were plain silver and without decoration. His face was marred by four ugly scars that ran diagonally from his milky left eye, over his nose, and down to the lower right corner of his jaw. He stepped forward and handed Soleh a folded piece of parchment.

She unfolded it and read it line by line. It was the day’s docket, and from the looks of it, the day would be a long one.

“My cloak please, Captain,” she said.

Malcolm snapped his heels together, marched to the alcove on the far side of the circular room, and brought out a black woolen cloak emblazoned with a red lion. He draped it over her shoulders, fastening the silver buckles around her neck, taking care not to brush her breasts. It was considered sacrilege to touch the most sensitive areas of the Minister, even by accident-though Soleh never let anyone know that should it happen, she would not create a fuss. She grabbed the corners of the cloak, pulled the hood over her head, and wrapped the heavy material around herself.

With the cloak all but covering her extravagant green dress, she climbed the stairs. It was late summer, and the heat outside the castle walls was intense, but inside the tower was a permanent chill. She placed one foot over the other and ascended into the Hall of Judgment.

Two women were waiting for her in the antechamber The first was Thessaly Crestwell, possessed of gently flowing hair that tread the line between white and chrome. She looked regal in an elegantly woven suit of crushed velvet leggings and leather chemise. Beside her was Soleh’s daughter, Adeline. Deep, gouge-like wrinkles surrounded her eyes, her hair was gray and thinning, and an ill-fitting dress wrapped around her slender frame. Each day Soleh witnessed the two of them standing side by side, and each day the sight caused her mood to plummet. Thessaly looked the same as she had in her youth, stately and smooth, whereas Adeline, born eight months before her, showed every day of her sixty-three years. Adeline had married the love of her life at twenty, whereas Thessaly, like all the Crestwells, had remained single. Soleh’s sorrow grew, for she herself had not aged a day in ninety-three years, and each of her children was slowly withering away before her. In accordance with the law of the First Families, the first generation brought forth by the original four remained timeless until the day someone other than their god took primacy in their hearts, until they felt a love so completely that they might crumble without their beloved. Each of her children had fallen in love and started families, sealing their fates, and Soleh was plagued by the knowledge that they would perish while she would go on. It gave her no solace that their memories would be kept alive through her grandchildren and beyond, and she had no desire to continue bringing forth children.

An unbalanced grin stretched across Adeline’s face, and she dropped to one knee.

“Mother,” she said, her voice reedy and wavering. “Welcome, welcome! I’ve been told there will be many beheadings this fine day!”

Soleh sighed, placed a gentle hand on her daughter’s forehead, and said, “Get up, child.” Adeline did as she was told, a stifled cackle leaking from between her tightly clenched teeth. Adeline’s husband had died of the Wasting eleven years prior. Every day since, her sanity had diminished, an agonizingly slow devolution that had left a crowing madwoman in place of a once beautiful and competent girl. Adeline had taken to wandering the streets, shouting at peasants and attacking the City Watch in fits of madness. Soleh had named her Mistress of Punishment, if for no other reason than to give the girl something to focus on, but in the end her appointment had been fruitless. Adeline suggested beheading for every offense, even for something as minor as stealing a loaf of bread. She only kept her title because of Soleh’s insistence.

Thessaly bowed and stepped forward. She was Mistress of the Treasury, a necessary advisor when it came to crimes in gold and trade. “The court is ready for you, Minister,” she said. “Shall we begin?”

“We shall,” replied Soleh. She breezed past the two women and through the arched portal. The courthouse was immense, every bit as wide as the foyer below, but there was no ceiling. The area above rose up and up, the tip of the tower spire a mere pie plate from the vantage point of those standing in the Place of Judgment. The room was lit by hundreds of candelabras, coupled with the sunlight that streamed in through the slatted windows. It was a barren, depressing place, bereft of any furniture other than the three massive chairs sitting atop a rostrum opposite the antechamber. Soleh strode across the empty courthouse floor, climbed the short staircase on the raised platform, and sat in the Seat of the Minister. It was a tall-backed, white marble throne just as large as King Vaelor’s throne in Tower Honor, though much less extravagant. Above the throne hung a tapestry. Written in elegant calligraphy on it were the Laws of Karak.

Do not kill without reason. Do not murder the unborn. Do not take what is not yours. Do not defile the temple of worship. Do not turn away from Karak.

Adeline sat below her to the left and Thessaly, to the right. Moments later, the sound of marching footfalls sheathed in steel echoed through the room, and Captain Gregorian appeared. He saluted his Minister with a fist over his heart and clomped into the center of the circular common floor.

“Court is in session,” he bellowed.

One by one, guards led prisoners up the winding staircase to stand in judgment before the Minister. They were brought in order of the severity of their crimes, beginning with those accused of minor theft or uttering offensive language in a public place. For every accusation Captain Gregorian read off, Adeline would yell, “Take off their head!”-a proclamation Soleh politely ignored. Thessaly proved much more useful, doling out the charges and collecting fines from the convicted to be placed in the coffers and used for the betterment of the realm. The charges grew steeper as the day went on, each prisoner groveling at Soleh’s feet, begging clemency. Sometimes she granted it; often she did not. The City Watch did not tend to detain the innocent, and their evidence was often ironclad.

It was past the high point of the day, after an hour break for lunch, when the most severe crimes were heard. Arsonists, rapists, murderers, organized thieves, and blasphemers all stood before her. This was when Adeline’s constant calls for death might be acted upon. No man or woman guilty of such offenses was set free, in accordance to the Law of the Divinity. The guilty could either accept the sentence handed down-death or a lifetime of servitude in the Sisters of the Cloth for women of birthing age-or attempt to prove their repentance to Karak by standing before the Final Judges.

Soleh’s head pounded as she sent yet another man to his grave. The day couldn’t end soon enough. The final and most egregious of the offenders was hauled before the Seat of the Minister. He was a thick, brutish thug with a black beard filled with lice and a head of long, unkempt hair. Blood covered his face and clothes, and he panted out streams of red spittle while staring up at Soleh. His arms and legs were shackled, like those of all major offenders. Two members of the Palace Guard forced him to his knees with heavy knocks from hollow rods. Joining the accused in the room were Romeo and Cleo Connington, a pair of fat, bald brothers, dressed in elegant silk shifts, whose fingers were adorned with expensive jewels. Soleh couldn’t have been less happy to see them. The Conningtons were high merchants specializing in luxurious textiles, but more recently they had branched out to supply armor and weapons to the City Watch. The family was close to King Vaelor and had been granted special amnesty by Clovis Crestwell himself. The brothers stood off to the side, smirks on their waxed and powdered faces. Their house guard surrounded them.