Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

The outburst was fortunately timed, for it muffled Benard's yelp of pain as the point of a dirk jabbed into his left buttock. He spun around to face Cutrath. He should have realized that the first thing the satrap's cub would do would be to ask Guthlag if the hostage had reported in yet today. A major war could not have produced as much blood as there was in young Horoldson's eye, but then, his hangover was working around a badly swollen jaw and no doubt a pounding lump on the back of his skull. Although no one else seemed to notice the confrontation, the space around them expanded as spectators wandered away to greet more distant friends.

"I am going to kill you before the day is out, turd."

"My lord is kind." That wonderful phrase could mean anything, or nothing. "The noble lord understands that his slave was wretchedly drunk."

Useless. Apology was a display of weakness and no apology could excuse an offense as enormous as Benard's.

"I will break every joint in your body, ending with your neck."

He probably could. Benard was beefier, but he lacked the training and the bloodlust. Even if he won at rough-housing, the kid would just battleform or call for help. "My lord is kind."

"No." Cutrath shook his head and winced at the result. "As unkind as possible. Enjoy your last morning, vermin. I'll be waiting outside to begin." He kicked Benard's ankle and stalked away.

Benard sagged back against the pillar again. He had survived the first encounter. The worst danger had always been that Cutrath would come after him in battleform; one warbeast could massacre a whole platoon of extrinsic swordsmen, let alone a solitary sculptor.

The satrap was standing in front of his throne, almost directly below Benard. From that angle Horold did not appear too grotesque, only very large and hairy. An ominous hush had fallen over the court, for Sansya was still kneeling at the fire. It seemed to Benard's untutored eye to be blazing normally now. Someone had primed it with too much oil—that was all, surely?

Horold lost patience. His voice was hoarse and violent, like a bull roar. "I ask you again, Veslihan! Does our holy guardian bless this meeting?"

Reluctantly she rose, still staring uncertainly into the flames. "I don't ... I think ..." Then she gabbled out the required oracle: "My lord holy Veslih blesses this house and welcomes all who draw near in Her name praise the goddess amen." She spun on her heel and fled the hall with red-gold robes rippling, auburn hair streaming. Without question she was on her way to inform Ingeld of whatever she had seen. Nevertheless, she had pronounced the blessing and there was no need for wholesale sacrifice or public penance. Matters could proceed.

"Amen!" shouted the congregation. The satrap took his seat. The scribes settled cross-legged in back of him; the two nearest the throne poised ready with stylus in hand and freshly rolled layers of clay ready on their boards.

"Begin!" roared the bull.

The herald called out the name of the noble Huntleader Darag Kwirarlson—the satrap's men would always be given precedence, even ahead of criminal matters. Darag petitioned his dread lord for a monopoly on pepper imported into Kosord and its purlieus for the next twelve years, free of all taxation or royalty. He gave no reason why he should profit in this way, and Horold did not ask for discussion.

"We gladly grant this petition of the valiant son of Kwirarl."

The scribes' styli jabbed rapidly at the clay. The keeper of seals came forward to mutter over their chicken tracks and approve them. The tablets were then removed to be baked and more were brought.

After Darag came two other Werists, appealing for amendments to the records of certain lands they had somehow acquired. Horold did ask for objections this time, but no one was foolish enough to raise any. The effect of the change seemed to be that the free peasants currently dwelling on those lands were henceforth bound to remain there as serfs, they and their descendants forever. The tablets were approved.

Horold's seal was much like Benard's, a stone cylinder about the size of a finger joint with a hole bored through the length of it for a thong and a picture carved on the outside. Rolled over wet clay, seals recorded their distinctive images. Benard's was made of agate and showed a hawk in flight, a symbol of his goddess; the satrap's would be of more valuable stone—onyx or chalcedony—with images of a wild boar. Horold's carried a lot more power.

Next came a footpad, a youth who had bludgeoned a traveler to death for the sake of his purse. He denied the charge; the Witness testified that he was guilty. Horold did not even call for the appropriate law to be read, because everyone knew the penalty was impalement. When the deadly little cylinder had sealed his fate, the boy was led away weeping.

So it went. The satrap never demanded to hear the relevant decrees of holy Demern, probably in case the scribes would not be able to read the appropriate panel, or even find it. More often he asked for precedents, and then they would consult the tablets in their baskets and mutter among themselves before advising him what penalty his predecessors had imposed in similar cases. Benard, when not struggling to stay awake, was impressed. The bloody-handed tyrant was doing a fair job of maintaining law without divine guidance. Ominously, evidence that a brawl had been begun by a gang of Werists was ruled irrelevant, but any man would favor his cult brothers over extrinsics. Apart from that bias, the satrap accepted the seer's evidence, listened to the accused's excuses or explanations, then decreed no more than the legal penalty, sometimes less: once when he sentenced a debtor to slavery, he let the man's wife and children return to her family instead of being sold, too.

At times he even displayed the cruel humor Benard so well remembered. A young cobbler was convicted of rape, for which the standard penalty was castration. His wife and parents entered a plea for clemency on the grounds that he was an only child and still lacked an heir to carry on the family. The victim had suffered no permanent harm or pregnancy and her husband had accepted her back to his bed. Horold inquired about precedents. Tablets were clattered and a scribe reported that State Consort Nars had never reduced or postponed sentence in rape cases.

"But were any of them cobblers?" the satrap inquired. "Cobblers work sitting down. Cut off his feet instead. He won't catch any more victims then. May holy Eriander bless his marriage. Next."

♦

Flankleader Guthlag said "Come!" and peeled Benard off his pillar. "I had a word with the chancellor. You're next!" He pushed Benard's shoulder with a gnarled hand.

"But ..." But he didn't want ... But, but, but ... Clutching his sketch, Benard went downstairs with Guthlag.

Satrap Horold cut off the current defendant in mid-whine. "Forty lashes. Next?"

"A petition, lord," the herald said uneasily. "The hostage Benard Celebre."

"Hostage?" the satrap repeated in disbelief. He scowled with bestial little eyes at the supplicant creeping forward on hands and knees. "Little Bena! You may rise." That meant Benard could sit back on his heels instead of keeping his face on the floor.

"My lord is kind."

"You have grown."

So had he. He had always been big, but now he was as gross as an ox, spread out in all directions, although what he had added seemed to be more bone and brawn than fat. His purple pall concealed most of his torso, but all visible parts of him bristled with coarse yellow hair, like ripe barley, and this shrubbery almost covered his Werist brass collar and the numerous bands of gold wrapped around his bulging limbs. Even his eyebrows had spread up his forehead. His boots obviously did not contain human feet; the proudly curved nose Benard had sketched had vanished into a snout, the lower half of his face protruding between two jutting tusks.