"Thank you," I rasped. Then I stood up and looked around more carefully. Luceiia had stood, too, and now held my elbow, supporting me against the slight sway in my stance.
"Lignus, where is he?"
"The soldiers have him in custody. He is badly burned, and in great pain."
"So is his son. Where are the women?"
"In the wagon. I brought some clothing and blankets."
"Were any of them burned? The women?"
"No, and they are warm and cared for, although they are terrified out of their wits."
I frowned at her. "Terrified? Why? Have they been harmed?"
"Of course not, Publius. But they are frightened by all that has happened. These are women who are not used to being seen, and now they are the centre of public attention. They are distraught. And they are still afraid that they will have to live with him tomorrow, after all this has died down."
"Tell them they need have no fear of that, wife. None at all."
"I have told them. They do not believe me. All this has been too sudden and they have lived in fear of him too long. One of the daughters is heavy with child."
I looked at her, seeing the stillness of her face. "His child?"
"You can't be surprised, Publius? I told you about it long ago. This only confirms my suspicions."
I was quite inexplicably at a loss for words, and I found myself making excuses for the man, suggesting that it might be someone else's child, and that we were condemning him unjustly, but Luceiia had no patience for that.
"In God's name, Publius, whose else could it be? He kept them chained to his bed, did he not?"
I sighed and conceded that she had the right of it. "He did, aye. Incest is common enough, God knows, for all that it's condemned. But this chaining of his daughters to their stall, like cattle ... I think I'll flog him personally in public."
"No, husband, you will do no such thing. You will commit him to trial by the tribunal of the Colony. The tribunal we have talked so much of setting up. He will be tried by his fellow citizens and banished from this Colony, to return only upon pain of death. His trial will mark the birth of our new system and provide sufficient unity of outrage to cement its laws. We may have reason to be grateful to Lignus the drunkard."
"Lignus the murderer, if his son does not recover. How is the boy?"
Luceiia shrugged and a frown darkened her face. "I do not know. He was still unchanged when we left home."
"Well," I said, looking around me again, "let's go and see how he is now. We'll leave some soldiers here to make sure the fire doesn't spread, but I think there's little danger. Thank God there is no wind tonight, the woods are wet after the rain of the past few days, and there are no other houses nearby. It should be safe enough. Let me go and organize things here and send these people home."
Lignus would have been a piteous spectacle, had there been an ounce of pity in my soul. Luceiia had not exaggerated, he had been badly burned about the face and head. I lodged him in a stone hut, under heavy guard, when we returned to the villa where, with an ill grace born of my resentment, I went looking once again for Cletus and directed him towards yet another patient in dire need of his healing arts. Then, and only then, did I go looking for Caius.
I found him waiting for me in the triclinium, seated in front of a blazing fire with ten of the twenty-two councillors, far more than I had expected him to rouse, grouped around him. They were talking animatedly, but fell silent when I strode limping into the room.
"Ah, there you are, Publius!" Cay rose to his feet immediately and waved me towards an empty seat placed beside his own. I could tell by the tone of his greeting that he had been discoursing already while waiting for me. His voice rang with the orotund, slightly exaggerated resonance that he used to sublime effect when dealing with gatherings he wished to dominate.
"You must have smelled the concoction Gallo is serving us. Your timing is excellent and you probably need a hot drink, for the warmth of it, if not the stimulus."
As I moved to be seated, two of the household servants stepped forward bearing trays of steaming mugs filled with Gallo's personal specialty for long, dark nights: hot milk flavoured liberally with strong honey mead. I gulped one down completely and helped myself to another as Caius resumed his seat and continued speaking in his formal, gubernatorial tone.
"I've been telling our friends here about the discussions you and I have been having recently, concerning the increase in lawlessness that seems to be surrounding us." I noticed that he specifically ignored Luceiia's role in these discussions. "And I have apologized for rousing them from their beds at such an ungodly hour, except that the seriousness of tonight's events does indeed warrant such extreme actions."
I cut short whatever it was that he had been leading up to. "It warrants more than that." I looked around the faces in the room, but spoke directly to Cay. "How is the boy?"
He cleared his throat. "I believe his condition is stable."
"No improvement? He's still comatose?"
"Yes, I am afraid he is. There has been no improvement that I am aware of."
"Have you told these people what happened to him?"
"I have."
"Have they seen him?"
"No, I did not think that was necessary. There was nothing to gain by it; nothing to see except a small boy swathed in bandages."
"Hmmm!" I made a show of counting heads, though I knew from the first exactly how many were present. "We have twelve councillors here, out of twenty-two. That gives us a quorum. I think we should convene an extraordinary meeting of the Council here and now. Were all the others invited?"
"Yes, but for one reason or another they could not come." Caius cleared his throat, with some embarrassment, I thought. "I must confess, though, my summons was not worded with sufficient strength to indicate a Council summons."
"How could it have been? No one had thought of having one then. The idea only occurred to me now. But I believe it necessary that we meet here, formally, right now. We have ample and sufficient reason and there are some imperatives that have thrust themselves upon us in the past hour. If we tackle them resolutely, now, while the situation is still unfolding, we may solve all of them and save ourselves a long and weary task in time to come. Does anyone object?"
The councillors merely shrugged and muttered, but they were amenable enough. They had to be, and I knew that, because they did not really know what the agenda of the meeting would be. The only objection came from Caius himself. "It is very late, Publius. We could be here all night."
I recognized this as a mere formality. I could not, however, define the origins of the small, half-amused smile that had twitched at the corner of his mouth before he began to speak, and I made a mental note to ask him later what had prompted it.
"I doubt it. I would like to outline the situation now in force, as I see it, and make a few specific recommendations for action. If the councillors present approve those recommendations, we should all be in bed within the hour. If there are any serious misgivings voiced, I shall vote to adjourn until the full Council can meet tomorrow, in which case we can still be abed within the hour."
Caius shrugged his shoulders. "That is agreeable to me. Is anyone opposed?"
No one was, and we went directly into formal session with Caius chairing. He gave me the floor and I went straight into the tale of my discovery of Simeon by the lake. I described the child's injuries in graphic terms, attempting deliberately to enlist their horror and outrage.
Then, while they were still wide-eyed with disgust, I went on to describe the events that had followed: the scene in the cottage, the women chained to the bed, Lignus's struggle to avoid arrest and the fire which, had Lignus's hut been closer to other buildings, could have been disastrous to the Colony.