The Dragons of Argonath (24 page)

There was a sharp intake of breath. The Aubinan campaign had surfaced already in the trial, and here it was again.

"I think we have heard enough of your opinions, Advocate. Take it up with the law committee. Nothing is set in stone concerning standards of secrecy. We operate under the conditions of war, as you well know, with a treacherous and powerful enemy. There are reasons for secrecy."

"That's what they always say," said Gentello with a weary wave to the jury.

"And what does that mean?"

Gentello realized he had gone too far and was in danger of contempt of court.

"I apologize to the court. I was out of order. I will continue my questions when the court has withdrawn into private camera."

Judge Tuva adjourned for the day and announced that court would reconvene in the morning with no one but the jury, judge, lawyers, and witness.

Relkin conferred briefly with Bushell, who commended him for his calm answers to questions. Relkin shrugged, he'd been through it all before.

He strolled out of the courtroom and found Eilsa waiting for him. The sight of her brought a lightness to his heart. He took her hand and would have kissed it, but for her hiss of, "No!"

She pulled away while she rolled her eyes to indicate her chaperon. Relkin sighed. Of course, there were always chaperons watching the heir to the chieftaincy of Clan Wattel.

"By the gods, it is hard sometimes, Eilsa. I just wanted to hug you, but we cannot do more than touch hands."

The thought brought back some of the gloomiest feelings from his visit to the land of the Wattels during the spring.

"Not until we are wed, Relkin, when you retire from the legions. Either that, or I must renounce the claim of the line of Ranard to the chieftaincy of the clan. My family would just die, if I did that."

"Your family wishes that I would just die, and that's a fact."

Eilsa had a small smile. "Don't say it, I'm afraid it might be true."

She looked up.

"Ah, Lagdalen is here. She looks perfect in her advocate's robe, don't you think?"

Relkin thought Lagdalen looked uncomfortable in the heavy, floor-length brown and black robe, but he kept that thought to himself.

Lagdalen came up to them with a smile. She embraced Eilsa.

"It is so good to see you here again. Thanks for coming."

"I could not stay away when Relkin was due to testify."

"Of course. So where are you staying?"

"We have taken rooms on Foluran Hill."

"Ah, excellent. You must come and dine with us. This week there will be the Festival of Shoes, why not then?"

"Well, it would be an honor to dine with the Tarchos. But my chaperon will insist on coming too."

"Excellent, we'll plan on it, then. And Relkin, will you come too?"

Of course he would, though he would have to get leave from Cuzo.

"I will have an official invitation issued. Not even Dragon Leader Cuzo would want to overrule that!"

They walked together up the hillside on winding Water Street to where Lagdalen's law offices stood. Behind them came Aunt Kiri, the stern-faced chaperon, wearing traditional Wattel costume. She hardly said a word, but was fiercely determined to keep Eilsa Ranardaughter from losing her honor to this ruffian dragonboy. Like many in the clan, Aunt Kiri was sternly opposed to the idea of a match between Eilsa and a scruff like this.

It was a fine day, and there were many other people out on the street, all happy to see some sun after the long rainy spell. There were still pools of water here and there they had to hop across. Water Street was a very old street, and parts of it were in need of repair.

"So how did I do?" he asked Lagdalen.

"Very well, Relkin. You've testified so often now that you're becoming a professional witness."

"It brought up a lot of memories, none of them good."

Lagdalen nodded. "You went through a lot with the Dook case."

"Best part of a year, one way or another. By the gods, it was boring sitting in court day after day. I don't know how you stand it, Lagdalen."

She laughed. "It isn't boring for me, Relkin. I follow every shift, every pattern. It's a battle, not unlike a duel with knives. We have to parry the other side's thrusts and drive home our own."

"I don't think I could stand it. I have to get outdoors more."

"That's one thing we don't get enough of, we devotees of the law."

Outside Lagdalen's law office they said farewell to her. Then they went on up the zigzag of Water Street where it climbed the steep slope to the plateau of the upper city, near the Tower of Guard.

The afternoon light shone on the tiled dome of the temple off to their right.

Eilsa was allowed to walk beside Relkin, and to talk with him openly, but they were not allowed to touch again apart from the initial handclasp. Not within the view of Aunt Kiri, anyway.

"I had another letter today from my uncle Stoom. He says I must consider my role in the Clan Wattel before anything else."

"Then, he hasn't changed his mind. We didn't expect him to, though."

"No, we didn't. They will all fight our wedding until it is over, and even then they will fight. The closer it comes, the harder the struggle."

Relkin shook his head sadly. "Seems unfair, really. This is the Argonath; you have the free woman's right to marry whom you will."

Eilsa hushed him with a finger to her lips. "Don't let auntie hear you say that. She'll take it as a threat against my virtue."

Relkin grumbled.

"Yes, of course," she went on. "Under Imperial law I have that right. But I am of Clan Wattel, and we have been here all through the ages. We remember a time before the nine cities. We knew a long time when there was no Imperial law."

"True, Clan Wattel has a long history. But now great changes are coming; all the lands of old Veronath are free, and people are streaming back to them. Clan Wattel will change too."

Eilsa sighed. "I hope so, for our sake, but it seems to me that the clan wants to wait out the time of the Argonath. They believe in their hearts that the Argonath cities will fall and that the dark forces will return. In their view the enemy always comes back, and victory is never complete."

Relkin could only shake his head in dismay. Such stubbornness could only make things more difficult, especially for himself.

"We'll just have to show them another way. Did you know there was a big dance on the day after the Festival of Shoes?"

Eilsa's eyes lit up. Like all her clan, she loved to dance.

"It's always held after the eldest daughters in every household put on the new shoes they were given at the festival."

"It sounds like fun, Relkin."

"Great fun. Will you be able to come?"

"Oh, yes, but Aunt Kiri will come too."

Aunt Kiri's dour face had grown thunderous at the idea. But she would come, for Eilsa Ranardaughter had a will just as powerful as that of her chaperons.

The next morning there was a light rain falling on the city from grey, leaden skies. At the appointed hour, wearing a freecoat with collar turned up, Relkin was waiting outside the law courts. He expected to undergo a relentless grilling from Advocate Gentello with many attempts to trip him up and shake his testimony. He comforted himself with the knowledge that he'd said it all before, over and over, and it wasn't really that complex.

Relkin noticed Advocate Gentello among the crowd. The advocate for the defense was holding a conference with four gentlemen in wide capes and tall rain hats. Relkin felt an instant dislike for Gentello, whose voice he was going to have to listen to for hours to come. The morning's proceedings would be held in secret, however, with no members of the public allowed in. Gentello's oratory and booming voice would have only the jurors to sway.

The public might not be allowed within the courtroom that morning, but the public was still there. A group of Aubinan supporters of Glaves were murmuring together at the edge of the portico, readying their protest slogans for the moment the doors were opened to admit the advocates and the witnesses.

Lagdalen passed by, head bent in earnest conversation with Bushell, too preoccupied for any pleasantries. They knew they had a difficult day ahead of them, but at least they were sure about what to expect.

Except that quite suddenly, through the crowd, came a small squad of legion soldiers, four men and a corporal. They marched up in formation and crashed to attention in front of Relkin. The corporal stood forward. Rain dripped off their hats.

"Are you Dragoneer Relkin, Marneri 109th?"

"I am."

"Then, I must advise you that you are under arrest. You are to come at once to the Tower of Guard."

Relkin was stunned for a long moment. What strange dice had the gods come up with now? What was old Caymo doing to him here?

"May I ask on what charges?"

The corporal sniffed and pulled a small scroll out of a pocket under his cloak. Shielding it with a hand, he read the docket.

"You are charged under legion regulation, code number 545, with illegally possessing stolen goods, to wit, gold bars brought home as loot from Eigo. You are further charged with banking said bars, along with other articles of gold and silver in the Royal Land Bank in Kadein. There are several further charges relating to these first two."

Lagdalen and Bushell protested. Relkin was due to give important testimony that morning. There had to be some mistake. Couldn't the arrest be put off, at least for an hour or two?

It could not. Corporal Genny's orders were simple and straightforward, and allowed for no deviations.

While Bushell and Lagdalen still argued, Relkin knew it was pointless. If a charge had been officially laid, then the process would have to take its course. Relkin had been in the legions long enough to understand the bureaucratic imperative. He just shrugged and fell in surrounded by the four unsmiling members of the Marneri First Regiment, First Legion, the famous Double Ones. With Corporal Genny at their side, the group marched away from the court and turned up Water Street toward the Tower of Guard.

As they went, Relkin's thoughts were in a whirl. He'd never heard of the regulation involved. Beyond the first couple of dozen regulations, and a few amendments that had become important down the centuries, nobody knew them except military lawyers, and even they had to refer to books.

If pressed on the point, Relkin would have been the first to admit that the gold tabis were loot of a kind. He'd found them hidden in the wall of an elf lord's house in Mirchaz. Their city was burning as the slaves rebelled, toppling the elf lords from their cruel thrones. Relkin had felt perfectly justified in taking the fat gold tabis, like little pillows of gold. He would also have to admit that he'd banked some of them, though not all.

Being of a cautious nature, Relkin had actually split the tabis in three piles, one of which he'd buried under a rock out by the third milestone from Marneri on the Blue Hills Road.

The "other articles" involved were gifts of gold from the great king Choulaput of Og Bogon. They were the foundation for the collective fund that Relkin had set up for the 109th Marneri Dragons as a group. All the survivors of the mission to Eigo, who fought at Koubha and helped liberate the land of Og Bogon from the menace of the Kraheen army, were included in the fund. The value of the banked gold had been put into bonds and stock in limited companies registered in Kadein, Marneri, and Talion, the three premier cities of the Argonath.

None of this was a secret. Relkin had even filed the customs documents that were required by the city of Kadein to bring ashore such articles of treasure. He had also investigated the position relating to taxes in the city of Marneri and paid those taxes in full.

But now there was this strange regulation that he'd never heard of.

They marched into the Tower of Guard and took the steps down to the detention cells.

It was quiet there. Indeed, it had been a relatively peaceful period in the city the past few weeks. The cells were almost empty, except for a few drunks and a burglar caught on Foluran Hill. Relkin waited, twiddling his thumbs for an hour or so. Then Lagdalen appeared, accompanied by two guards who stood by the outer door while she spoke to him.

"The charges were filed by a certain Commander Heiss, an Aubinan officer in the First, Firsts."

"Aubinan? Oh, great." The implications sank in. Relkin was now a pawn in the struggle between Aubinas and the empire.

"The charges are related to several obscure clauses in the legion regulations code. It is the definition of 'loot' that it all depends on."

"Oh, of course." He had a problem. The gold tabis were definitely loot. The rest had been given by the great king. Relkin thought about it for a moment.

"Well, then," he said. "Messages have to be sent to Og Bogon and to Mirchaz. Ask them there if we deserve the gold. Ask the great king. He will say we took nothing! Ask the new rulers of Mirchaz if we deserve the gold tabis we took!"

Relkin felt a flash of bitterness. He should've buried all the gold. That was what the dragon had advised. Relkin had come on all superior, talking about banks and compound interest. The dragon dismissed it all as "bear on the ice," which translated roughly as "pie in the sky." Damned dragon was right. Something that happened too frequently.

Lagdalen groaned. "It will take time to do that, and that's what they are counting on. Damn them! You see that's what this is all about, Relkin, making us take months, even years to clear your name. In the meanwhile, your testimony will be tainted. They will bring up the charges against you while they cross-examine you in the Glaves case. I have to say this is very dramatic of them."

Meanwhile Relkin's reputation would be ruined. Promotion to dragon leader would never come if he were a criminal. Marriage to Eilsa Ranardaughter might also be threatened.

"You still have Bazil's testimony. He was there too. Hell, there were others."

"Right, so they don't have a hope of changing the verdict. They're desperate, Relkin. We've been through trial after trial, and we have always won guilty verdicts. But the Aubinans won't accept it. Glaves has become a symbol to them of the independence they want."