Steven Savile - The Black Chalice

It was Gwen who suggested he should preside over the Assizes.

Despite his misgivings, she convinced him that the people needed to see that they hadn't been abandoned. In his uncle's absence it was his responsibility to see to their needs. His father, she said, would have expected no less of him. They had been his people not so long ago. Alymere could not argue with her reasoning and so took the seat in the great hall and listened to the endless procession of petitions from frightened people. He could remember watching his father in the same seat, dispensing justice. Firm but fair, his father had always maintained. They came to the knight's seat looking for justice — if they left having discovered fairness then it was a day in which Albion itself triumphed.

He did not feel comfortable sitting in judgment.

As he had said not so long ago to Gwen, it was not yet his lot in life to be wise, but when he had said that he had no way of knowing just how few of his foolish days were left to him. In those five long days that the Assizes ran, listening to petition after petition deep into the hours of darkness, he learned something of the nature of people — good people in the main — that he would never have thought true: it didn't matter how rich, how poor, how humble or ugly or beautiful or bitter, how clever or cunning, how hardworking, how venal or base or scheming, how dishonest or desperate, how noble, how proud, people were all inherently the same, and that similarity boiled down to simple self-interest. It turned his stomach. Just once he wanted to hear of a man bringing claim for the betterment of his neighbours, not to redress some perceived loss to himself or his property. Was it so hard to find a man who cared more for the wellbeing of those around him than he did for himself? It was all just so… petty.

Alymere kept the realisation to himself. It was, he decided, just one of the many things that separated a true man from a common one.

He shifted in the seat. The muscles of his lower back ached and no amount of fidgeting seemed to lessen the pain.

He rested his sword across his thighs, as though the blade might lend some gravitas to his decisions.

"Speak," he said, looking down at the woman and the two men on their knees before him. None of them would look at him as they spoke. It was hard to make out some of their mumbling over the whispers of the onlookers and other petitioners crowded into the house's great hall.

Justice had become a spectacle. He fingered the hilt of the sword.

"My lord," said the first of the men, a balding, overweight wretch with the grease of more than one meal marring the front of his shirt. He coughed, and somehow even that little sound succeeded in sounding obsequious. "This man, Isaiah, who I used to call my friend , has wronged me gravely and I come before the court seeking redress. Only what is right, nothing more."

"Now there's a surprise," Alymere said wearily. "How, pray tell, were you wronged by your friend , and why should it warrant my intervention? What is it? Money? Land? Crops? Did he steal from you or, no, I see a woman between you, perhaps he cuckolded you? Is that the crime for which you would have him punished? Enlighten me as to why two grown men need me to sort out their differences."

"We had a deal, my lord. A bargain struck in good faith. I delivered upon my side, but when it came time for him to honour his word, he broke faith. I am an honest man. A decent man. I do not understand why it should have to come to this, but there is no reasoning with him. I only want what is rightfully mine. As I said, nothing more."

"All well and good. What was the nature of this bargain of yours? Would either one of you care to explain?"

The woman looked up then. There was a look of weariness in her eyes that spoke of fear so blunted it had faded into resignation. She was not pretty, but neither was she ugly. Her face possessed an almost masculine strength, with a sharp jawbone, narrow cheeks and aquiline nose, but it was her eyes that fascinated Alymere. They were where the woman lived.

She did not say a word.

Beside her, the second man stood. Where his accuser was both corpulent and slovenly, he was a spindle of a man, all slack leathery skin and protruding bone. His clothes were threadbare with wear and patched in several places. Alymere could see a thousand wrinkles in the wattle of his neck and found himself thinking that if it were possible to age a tree by the rings of its trunk it ought likewise be possible to age a man by the wrinkles of his neck. "Master," he said, his voice as thin and reedy as his frame, "Craven speaks true in that he paid a fair price for my daughter's hand, I can't dispute that, but I have offered every coin back and more. He simply refuses to take it."

"Because I want what's mine, Isaiah. I want the girl."

"Ah," Alymere said, understanding. "You traded away the hand of your daughter, the price was paid, and now you seek to change the terms of your arrangement? Is that it?"

"No, my lord, I would simply give my friend back his coin and let my daughter be free of my foolishness. I am an old man, I let fear rule my heart instead of love."

"What does love have to do with business, Isaiah? I met your price and you were happy enough to take my pigs, were you not?" The fat man interrupted.

"You sold your daughter for pigs?" Alymere asked, barely able to keep the smirk from his face.

"Aye, and goats too. A dozen sows, three nannies. Plus coin. More than a fair price," the fat man said.

"I am sure it is," Alymere agreed. "So why the change of heart?"

"My daughter came to me and begged me to free her of the deal."

"She has you wrapped around her finger, you old fool. I will give her a good home. She will want for nothing. And I say again, a deal is a deal."

"But will she be loved?" The thin man challenged.

"What has love got to do with anything? You get enough pigs and goats to keep you fed into your dotage and I get a brood mare for fine healthy sons to take over the farm when I'm done," the fat man said, shaking his head in disgust. "That was the bargain and well you know it."

"Let me think on this," Alymere said, raising his hand to forestall any more outbursts. Both men lowered their heads, but the woman looked at him. He found himself unable to think as he met her gaze. "There is a moral root to the petition as well as a fiscal one. A man should be held to a bargain he has made. If a man can break a pledge, what then is the value of his word? Where is the honour in such a man?"

"Exactly," the fat man muttered.

"Silence!" Alymere bellowed, pushing himself up out of his chair. "I have little love for you, fat man. One more word and I shall have your tongue cut out so I don't have to listen to any more of your bleating. Understood?"

The fat man's bloated face had gone a sickly shade of white. He said nothing.

"Good." His outburst over, Alymere sank back into his seat. He felt the blood pounding in his temples. He ran a hand across the rough stubble of his beard. "On the other hand, he has offered full recompense, returning the animals and the coin so that neither party is worse off than when the bargain was struck, and surely there are other brood mares out there that can bear you children, because, as you so rightly advocated, love has nothing to do with it, after all. She does not need to be comely, only fertile. When you open your mouth I find that I am of a mind to throw out your petition, Craven, and tell you to go back to your farmstead with your pigs and your goats, but, and this is the only thing that may save your case, when I think of a world in which a man's word is worth naught my blood curdles. Are you familiar with the Oath to which knights swear?" he did not wait for the man to answer. "A true man must never do outrage, nor murder. There has been no murder here, at least. A true man must flee treasons of all kind, making no room for treachery in his heart. Treachery? Could the breaking of faith be considered treacherous? Perhaps. One could certainly argue so.