The crowd burst into a torrent of talk, and the bosses turned to unleash their rage and humiliation on the hapless steward. Torgi fell to his knees, hands upraised in pleading.
The duke sat back and waited.
Finally, the crowd quieted, and the Boss of Loutre rose. “Lord duke, we must insist that this miscreant be brought forth to trial and your charges proved, for we find it difficult to believe that any steward could be guilty of such perfidy!”
“And because they need to save their faces,” Dirk muttered to Magda.
She nodded, not looking at him, but murmuring back, “They’ll raise this siege and go to their homes, but they must prove that they had reason not to fight the Fair Folk.”
“He is the Boss of Loutre’s man,” the duke told them. “Therefore, it is fitting that Loutre preside over his trial.”
He gestured to Cort, who stepped forward with two Quilichen archers. They lifted the boss’s chair and set it before the duke, facing the other bosses and captains, but on the ground below the dais. The Boss of Loutre stared for a moment, then stepped up, swelling with the self-importance of being designated by a duke of the Fair Folk. His fellow bosses bristled with envy, but had to sit and watch.
The duke watched, too, but somehow his whole posture told all the watchers that he was there to make sure Loutre did it right.
The boss sat, lifting his head high with all the dignity he could muster. “Bring forth the accused!” His bruisers hustled Torgi out in front of his boss, and threw him down kneeling before Loutre. “You are accused of treachery and theft from your own boss,” Loutre intoned, then lifted his gaze. “What evidence is there against this man?” Gar stepped forward. “I am the guard who caught him out in his mistranslation.”
“Yes, I recognize you,” Loutre said slowly. His jaw squared with determination not to be intimidated by Gar’s sheer size. “Tell us what happened as you saw it!”
Gar told, carefully naming all the other witnesses in his testimony. There followed a small parade, with Ralke, then the brute, then the captain of the Hawk Company stepping up to tell their tales. When they were done, the boss turned to Torgi, face swollen with rage. “What have you to say for yourself?”
Torgi had a great deal to say, a chain of rationalizations and excuses that might have deceived his boss at any other time, but now only sufficed to make him even angrier. “Enough!” he finally exploded, and a bruiser stopped Torgi’s babble with a backhanded slap. Loutre lifted his gaze to his fellow bosses and the mercenary captains. “You have heard the witnesses, and his defense. What is your verdict?”
“Guilty!” they all cried, then elaborated: Torgi was guilty of treachery and incitement to war, and should be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Loutre smiled vindictively and opened his mouth to pronounce the sentence.
But the duke of the Fair Folk stepped in again. “The verdict is sound and the sentence just, but I find this rogue so nefarious that I claim him as my own.”
Furious babble erupted again, and Loutre whirled about to protest, but the duke only raised a hand, as though in promise. This time, he let the clamor run its course. One by one, the watchers noticed the locked stares of boss and duke, and quieted.
When all was silent, the duke assured them, “We shall see that this perfidious steward receives just punishment for his crimes, as only the Fair Folk can mete it out.”
Everyone in the crowd, even the bosses and captains, remembered gruesome tales from their childhoods, shuddered, and subsided, convinced that Torgi would fare far worse with the Fair Folk than with any punishment the Milesians could devise.
“Take him away,” the duke commanded, and two men of the Fair Folk stepped down to haul Torgi off, as though they’d been expecting to. The crowd relaxed, falling into a buzz of talk. The duke sat back, letting it run for a while, then suddenly, thundered, “Be still!”
The people fell silent, all eyes upon him.
“I do not wish to be troubled so again,” the duke snapped, voice still amplified. “It is high time you Milesians put your own house in order!”
A buzz of trepidation, went through the crowd. “Apparently you do not know how to manage your own affairs,” the duke went on, “so we shall have to teach you! To that end, all you seven leaders, and all other bosses, captains, and squires within a hundred miles of my Hollow Hill, shall assemble in the plain about that hill to meet with me on the forty-fifth day after Midsummer! There we shall discuss issues of concern, and shall hear and decide disputes between you, captains, squires, and bosses alike!”
A roar of incredulous talk went up from the crowd. The leaders remained silent, though, glowering up at the duke, but not daring to defy him. Magda alone fairly beamed.
“Be not affronted,” the whip-crack voice commanded. “All other dukes of the Fair Folk will expect gatherings of the same sort within their own districts. Emissaries of the Fair Folk shall go among the bosses and captains and squires throughout the land, summoning all to assembly, and woe betide the boss who refuses, for lightning shall break and crush his walls, and his enemies shall swarm into his town to loot as they will, at the command of the Fair Folk.” Then, before the talk could start again, “Go now! Strike your camps and march out of this valley, and do not even dream of disobeying me, for Fair Folk shall watch your every step, and lightning will strike the man who dares to rebel against my words! Go home to your towns, and let each boss send forth messengers to other bosses and squires, spreading word throughout the land that the Folk of the Hollow Hills will no longer tolerate war!”
He turned and strode away. His retinue followed him, hauling the hapless steward with them, and the crowd stood, riveted in silence, as the Fair Folk marched back up to the duke’s pavilion on the hillside. He went through the door—and a storm of talk burst forth in the valley.
Cort helped Dirk to rise, and supplied an arm for him to lean on, asking, “Why a month and a half after Midsummer?”
Magda explained, still beaming. “It will give him time to make sure report of this day is sent to all other Hollow Hills.”
“Midsummer is one of their festivals, when they travel to one another’s hills,” Gar explained. “It’s the perfect opportunity for each hill to send troupes of messengers to other hills. Word will spread through them all quickly enough, and they can capture Milesians and send them home with their summonses to the bosses and captains and squires.”
“What sort of issues shall they discuss?” Magda asked, frowning.
“They’re all so cussedly independent that I don’t think there’ll be any shortage of quarrels,” Gar answered, “but I’ve put a bee in Master Ralke’s bonnet. He’s going back to Loutre, to point out to the boss how much money all the bosses will have saved by not fighting, and how much more they could make if all the men left alive spent their time farming and making trade goods, instead of taking up valuable farmland for mass graves. He’s going to tell the boss about the profits that can come from protecting merchants and increasing their trade, but taxing them only a little—especially if each boss is a silent partner with each merchant.”
Cort stared, amazed, then slowly smiled, and Magda turned very thoughtful. “If each boss has an interest in his merchants’ profits, he will have an excellent reason for maintaining peace.”
“Merchants do much better with stability,” Gar agreed.
“And with money from a boss, or even a squire, to invest in goods to trade, he could reap golden profits indeed! I think I shall have to see to greater support of my own merchants.”
“See how good ideas catch on?” Gar asked Cort. To Magda, he said, “When the assembly of rulers meets, perhaps you can talk them into guaranteeing safe passage for merchants—if those merchants pay a hefty tariff, a tax for bringing goods into or through a domain. That way, each boss’s merchants will receive safe-conducts from all the other bosses—and will pay the same tariff.”