Jack Whyte - Uther

Uther inclined his head, conscious of the courtesy extended to him. "My thanks to you. So be it. Until tomorrow then."

Chapter THIRTEEN

"You say there are nine of them?"

Cay sat sprawled in the command tent in front of the ancient but magnificent folding campaign desk that had been a gift from his father just prior to leaving Camulod on this, his final patrol as a trainee commander. Despite its great age, it was made from richly polished wood, although it was nicked and scarred with the blemishes of a hundred years of use, for it had travelled on campaigns across the world, serving generations of his ancestors before ending up in his first command tent. He was relaxed, his legs indolently spread, one heel resting on the edge of the box in which he carried books, maps and documents that could not be stowed inside the desk for travel.

"What do you intend to do with them?" Cay continued. "And how will you justify arresting eight townspeople?"

Uther shrugged with disgust. "I don't know, Cay, and that answers both your questions. I undertook to pay silver in restitution for the damage done, but if all of this happened because some bad-tempered stall holder took a dislike to a trooper's face and decided to rearrange his features, then that will affect the apportioning of costs, not merely of blame. Who started it all? That is the major question here, and the way we handle it once we discover the truth will greatly affect the way we are greeted next time we come to Glevum.

"No matter what we decide to do, it will have to be something draconian. My guts are telling me my people started it. I was right there moments before it happened, and there was not a whiff of tension anywhere in that marketplace. Whatever those troopers did, they did instantaneously and for reasons of their own. I would give anything to know what those reasons were and which of them was the instigator." He turned his head to where Dedalus lounged in a folding chair in one corner of the command tent, leaning back against a supporting pole. "Dedalus, do you have any suggestions?"

"About what? Punishment?" Dedalus had been peering at his fingernails, biting a ragged edge on one of them, and he continued to worry it as he considered Uther's question. Finally he sniffed and spread his fingers, holding them up to the light. "Execute all of them. They probably deserve it for half a score of other reasons quite apart from this one, and they won't be missed."

Uther made a wry face, completely forgetting that he had been terrified of this man a mere twelvemonth before. "That is very helpful, Dedalus. I can just imagine the Legate's reaction on learning that we've started executing our own troopers."

"Well, you asked for suggestions. You didn't specify that they had to be practical. Put the idiots on chain duty, then, and suspend all privileges for the next three months. No furloughs, no liberty, constant latrine duty, stable cleaning and nightly guard shifts." Chain duty referred to the direst barrack-room punishment detail, an unbroken chain of misery and sewage.

"But how do I establish their guilt?"

"You don't have to, lad. They established their own guilt when they were arrested in the middle of the mess they made. Besides, you are their commanding officer. You rule by decree, and if your decree is chain duty, then that's what they do."

"Aye, perhaps. But how will I find out who was the ringleader?"

Dedalus snorted and pointed his finger straight at Uther. "I'll wager five to one, right now, that your pet creature Hard-Nose was at the bottom of it all. From what I know of her—"

"Dedalus, you didn't even know she was a woman until I told you, and you'd been living in her company for nigh on a year by that time, so please don't advise me about Nemo based on what you know of her . . ."

"Oh, well, if you're going to be that particular over niceties, I'll shut up."

Uther paced the length and breadth of the large tent for a while, deep in thought, and his companions made no effort to interrupt his reverie. He had returned from Glevum half an hour earlier, hard on the heels of the three decurions and their party of prisoners. After waiting for Cay to return to his tent after taking delivery of the prisoners and seeing them disposed of according to his instructions, he had launched into the story of what happened in the marketplace. Uther himself had not yet been anywhere close to the prisoners since his return.

He stopped pacing after a while and drew himself up to his full height.

"Very well then, there's no point in putting this off. Here's my decision. You and I hold joint command, Cay, so we both have to be involved in this. There's no choice there. We will hold a court of inquiry right here in the command tent. We'll have the entire troop of them, including the townspeople, paraded in here one at a time, and we'll question all of them about what happened. They've all been gagged and tethered since they were arrested, so they've had no opportunity to confer together or cook up any false stories. We'll listen to all sides, we'll discuss our own conclusions and opinions, and then we will reach a judgment among the three of us."

"Oh, no, not among the three of us!" Dedalus lowered the front legs of his chair to the ground and stood up. "You two are in command here, not me, not this time. I am an observer on this outing, and that is all."

"Centurion Dedalus, sit down, if you please. A few moments ago you were telling me I am expected to rule by decree."

Dedalus sat down again slowly, looking pained, his face twisted up as though his mouth were full of a bad taste.

Uther nodded at him. "Well, then, I am decreeing that you, as the most experienced officer present, will sit on this tribunal for the purposes of advising us in assessing responsibilities and rendering judgment. No more discussion on the topic. Now, who's the captain of the guard today? We'd better speak to him now, and tell him what we intend to do, because we are going to need both his help and his people."

The inquiry lasted for more than three hours, but by the end of it the inquisitors knew what had happened, even if they had not discovered the underlying motivation. The prisoners were paraded one by one before the three-man tribunal, marched in under escort and treated as though they were on defaulters' disciplinary parade, which in fact they were, troopers and civilians alike. The eight townspeople were brought in first, their wrists in iron shackles and their mouths gagged so that they were unable to utter a single word of protest. Before the gag was removed, each of them was informed by Dedalus, as senior magistrate, that the tribunal was being held in order to discover the truth about the events leading up to the brawl in the marketplace, and for that purpose alone. No one among the three judges, they were told, had the slightest interest in listening to any prisoner's complaints about his treatment. The prisoners were here in this predicament and under martial law as the result of their own actions, because they had been committing mayhem in a public marketplace, endangering other law-abiding citizens.

Each prisoner testified that he had become involved in the brawl either in self-defence or to protect a friend, neighbour or spouse. In every instance, the men told of a sudden outbreak of brutal violence unleashed without provocation by Camulodian troopers.

Listening to all they had to say and knowing that none of these men had spoken with any of the others since their arrest, the judges had no reason to doubt what they were hearing. Before the first of the troopers was brought in, therefore, the judges had agreed that the blame lay firmly with the Dragons, and that their priority now was to identify the ringleader. After that, if the questioning of the prisoners went well, they might have some hope of being able to identify the cause. Dedalus was still insistent that the instigator must have been Nemo, the natural leader of this particular group. The hard men in her squad, the Boneheads as they were known, revered her for her insane courage under stress. Despite all that, however, Uther was unwilling to believe that Nemo might be at fault in this instance— not without provocation.