“Every juror has to swear that he has nothing against me,” Gallen said, surprised at the undisguised malice in the sheriff’s voice.
“Oh, and I’ll swear it,” the sheriff said. “I’ve got nothing personal against you. It’s not your fault that you’re so good at what you do. Why, whenever a highwayman strikes, there’s always a bit of a bustle, folks wagging their tongues. ‘Why can’t our sheriffs protect us?’ they ask. ‘Why do we pay these louts three pounds a month, when for just a bit more, we could get Gallen O’Day up here to do the job proper?’
“And when one of us lads goes to a dance and asks an ugly young woman onto the floor, like as not she’ll say, ‘And who do you think you are that I should dance with you-Gallen O’Day?’ So you understand, Gallen, that it’s nothing personal, but after the trial, I for one shall be glad to be rid of you!”
Behind Sully, several other sheriffs laughed, as if this were all just part of some great meaningless hoax. They’d come for entertainment, and they didn’t care if they were cheering Sully on, or Thomas, or Gallen. It was all just fun.
But there is a look that a man gives you just before he seriously tries to kill you. It is a fixed stare with constricted pupils and a face that is set and determined. It’s a look that is both relaxed and calculating, and Gallen saw that look now in the eyes of Sheriff Sully. The man was jealous of him, so jealous that he thought it a small thing to kill Gallen.
The sheriffs turned away, walked back to their campfire. Gallen stood at the window, watching them. Gallen could smell the scent of fires. “That croaking old frog,” Maggie whispered. “I’d like to gouge out his eyes and use them for earrings.”
“That isn’t a ladylike thing to say,” Gallen whispered. A cold pain shot up the back of his spine and through his heart. Never had he felt so weak, so unable to defend himself.
So this is the way it ends for me, he wondered. He had done his job as a bodyguard, perhaps done it too well. Now, highwaymen with blood debts against him would stand as witnesses in his trial, and jealous lawmen would cast their jury ballots against him. And there was no way that he could win.
All of this time, Gallen had believed that others respected him, believed that by fighting so hard against the evils of the world he had won their favor. But now he saw that some of them only feared and hated him for what he’d done.
He laughed under his breath. He’d come home to Tihrglas after his adventures on far worlds, come home with the hope of going salmon fishing in the river, of resting and tasting the scent of the clean air under the pines. He had done it so often in his youth, casting his yellow wet-water flies out into the flood and jigging through the rippled stream until a salmon struck, bending his old hickory pole to the snapping point.
But he hadn’t been fishing now in years. Sometime a couple of years ago, he’d put the rod away, and now it looked as if he’d never have the chance to take it up again. Sometime, while trying to win honor and right the wrongs of the world, he’d given up the things he’d enjoyed most.
Gallen glanced into the living room. Deacon Green sat on the sofa, still studying the testimonies of the felons. The creases in his brow and the singular concentration with which he studied showed just how worried he’d become.
It was getting late, and Gallen looked out the window. People were still pouring into town to see the demon and angel in Thomas Flynn’s stable.
The trial of Gallen O’Day would be an added sideshow that few would want to miss. Even now, the sheriffs had a fire beside the road, not twenty feet from the door, and they sat together with their three witnesses. Perhaps two hundred observers had gathered around the house to listen while the false witnesses drunkenly railed against Gallen O’Day, telling how he’d summoned demons from hell, and how he’d laughed about it after.
Gallen studied the faces of the men. The two Flaherty brothers were difficult to miss. Mason was a tall man, hard and strong, and Gallen couldn’t even recall having seen him in the battle on the night that Seamus was attacked. The younger Flaherty, Argent, was one that Gallen recalled well. He had put a knife to the boy’s throat, tried to hold him hostage so that the robbers would back off, let Gallen and Seamus go free. Now, Gallen wished that he had killed the boy in cold blood when he’d had the chance. He doubted that he would be able to get either of the Flahertys to change their testimony.
The third man, though-he interested Gallen. His name was Christian Bean. He was a small man, fat and soft, with a rounded face accentuated by a thin beard. He kept more to himself, seemed almost afraid to talk. Gallen remembered him from the battle, too, but only dimly. The man was a coward who had hung back during the robbery.
Gallen looked up at the stars, thought for a moment of the planet Tremonthin and the young Tharrin woman whose whole world was in jeopardy. Gallen licked his lips, enjoying the way his pulse quickened. Gallen always felt most alive in battle, when the threat of death was imminent. Gallen smiled, for at the moment he felt the thrill.
The spectators at the front of the house began plying Christian Bean with liquor, and he railed against Gallen. Gallen could see the man’s face only by firelight-little piggy eyes that glanced worriedly, hunting the shadows around the house as he described the demon he’d seen, its face glowing like a blue star, the swords in its hand.
“It’s a shame you don’t have another witness in your behalf,” Maggie muttered absently from the bed.
With a start, Gallen realized that there had been another witness to the attack: the very demon that these men accused Gallen of summoning. Little did anyone realize that the demon was Gallen O’Day himself, in disguise. Everynne had sent him back in time after his journey, so that he would return from his long foray to other worlds before he’d even left his home.
And with a second shock, Gallen realized that Christian Bean didn’t fear Gallen or fear that his testimony would be controverted and shown to be a lie. He feared the fairy folk of Coille Sidhe who might yet come to Gallen’s aid. With that recognition, Gallen laughed aloud and rushed to Maggie’s side and kissed her. He knew what he had to do.
The wind came in blustery just after midnight, and the limbs of the house-tree swayed and cracked. Gallen wore his silver mantle, and his robe of changing colors had taken on a deep black to match the night. He wore his black boots and black fighting gloves, carried a single sword, and in his pockets he had the mask of Fale, a mask of palest silver-blue that shone like starlight.
“Are you sure you should be going out there?” Maggie whispered, as she tied the hood of his robe over his mantle. “It’s the only way I know to shake the witnesses,” Gallen said. “If I can scare them into admitting the truth, there will never be a trial.”
Maggie gave him a kiss for luck, then sent him on his way.
Under cover of darkness, and with the sound of the wind and the chattering of voices and the singing accompanied by lutes in the distance, Gallen climbed to the attic of the house-tree and slid open the service door. Slowly, and ever so quietly, he crept out on a limb, then reached back and closed the door behind.
There were people everywhere below him. There could not be less than a hundred just under the bough he was on. Some were sheriffs, but many were just curious onlookers.
Gallen closed his eyes and let the sensors on his mantle show him the scene in infrared. He climbed from limb to limb, until he was nearly over the little knot of sheriffs who sat beside the fire.
Taking a small dronon translator from his pocket, he clipped it to his lapel, then flipped off the translator so that its microphone would simply amplify his voice.
All night long, travelers had been forcing rum and beer onto the sheriffs and the witnesses, and Gallen sat listening to them talk, until at last Christian Bean began raging in a loud whiny voice. “Aye, that Gallen O’Day is half a devil himself. He’s more than a murderer. Mark my words: if he can pray to the devil once and raise hell itself, surely he can do it again-so none of you are safe!”