trail and it wasn't his cursed fault that he'd killed the nephew, who everyone knew was a clumsy foul-tempered lunk. He'd been defending his own life and his legal claim.
'He killed a man, it's true,' said Marit. 'But why aren't the men who ambushed him being held for assault and conspiracy?'
'He attacked them, unprovoked,' said Osya. 'It was pure spite on his part, him with his short temper.'
The man stared accusingly. He was ready to be ill-used. He would never get a fair hearing.
She handed the keys to Osya. 'Let him free. He's telling the truth.'
He grinned, baring teeth. 'Nay, I'll take the punishment, for otherwise the town council will take their revenge on my clan, and there'll be nothing I can do to spare my kinfolk. Knowing one Guardian heard and acknowledged the truth is enough for me. As for these poor lasses-' He indicated the sobbing young woman. 'You can be sure she never said one word to encourage that asstard Forren, but the piss-pot would have her just to prove he can have what he wants, and leave her and her cousin to rot to death when she had the belly to say no to him. Hear me, Holy One. Maybe it's true we have fewer small troubles than before, but why is there no justice when those who hold the reins in this town do as they wish and get legal rulings out of Wedrewe to support them? They enforce the statutes among the rest of us, but hold themselves above because they were appointed by the arkhons out of Wedrewe.'
Marit turned to Osya. 'Is the town council appointed, not elected? Do they enforce the law on others and ignore it themselves?'
She hid behind her hands. 'I just record the hearings and the deeds and the legal rulings set by the council according to the statutes of the holy one.'
'You're a clerk of Sapanasu?'
'The Lantern's temple is closed, Holy One. That happened the year after I served my apprenticeship, twelve years ago now.'
The words rasped out of Marit before she could bite them back. 'Temples are closed? What have you become?'
'We are at peace, Holy One,' whispered the clerk. 'We are a peaceful place.'
Marit sucked in a grunt as pain racked her torso. But the spasm passed, and she recognized not physical pain but the horror of knowing she had walked into a situation she had no power to
alter. Maybe she could execute Master Forren or his cronies on the town council for their crimes, but she had no clear idea how her Guardian's staff — the sword she carried — sealed justice if she could not actually stab a person with it. Anyhow, if she condemned Lord Radas's justice, done at his whim, how could she justify her own?
Because you can see the truth.
Yet truth is not so easy to discern. Emotion twists memory; folk convince themselves of what they want to be true. They hide behind layers of self-deceit, not all of which are easily penetrated even by one who possesses a second heart and a third eye.
She did not trust herself to so casually wield the power of life and death over others while remaining convinced she was right. She did not trust anyone who did.
'Osya. Bring road tokens, enough for all who are prisoner here to depart unmolested. Then release all the prisoners except for the one who murdered the old man. Do not try to pass off false tokens as true ones, for I'll know the difference. After the prisoners have walked free, ring the town's summoning bell.'
It was all she could do, and in the end the angry young man who had lost his claim chose to depart, helping the young woman carry her sick cousin. He alone thanked her; the rest fled without a word.
After they were gone, Marit led Warning into the main square, where she mounted and waited as the bell rang once, twice, and thrice. Folk approached in twos and threes in a stuttering stumble, fearful of her presence in a way that disturbed her so mightily she could not look at it squarely for it would make her consider what the Guardians had become in their eyes: not guardians of justice but 'holy ones' who demanded obeisance.
It was foul. Obscene.
It was easy to recognize the members of the town council, replete in fine clothing and shiny ornament. They strutted until they marked her bone-white cloak; then they cowered with heads bowed. When she drew her sword, the assembly trembled like leaves battered in a storm.
'Look at me,' she said, indicating each member of the council.
Amazingly, they first glanced toward the tallest man among them, who was also the most sleek, well-cared-for, and puffed up.
'Look at me, or be known as criminals because you fear my gaze.'
She might have enjoyed the thrill of anger assuaged by their cringing fear and abject obedience now that they faced her sword, whose blade could cut death out of life, but she did not want to think she had anything in common with people such as this.
'First you, Master Forren.'
'I am entitled-!'
Such a rush of self-important impatience frothed in his mind: He had done nothing wrong! The girl had encouraged him with her simpering glances and coy refusals..She was a cheap piece of rubbish, cadging drinks off visiting merchants and begging for a rich man to toss her a few vey. Was it wrong of him to demand something in return? As for the man who had murdered his nephew! He had claimed mineral rights that properly belonged to Forren; the town was given to him in its entirety to oversee in the name of the holy one's arkhons out of Wedrewe. How could Forren be blamed for exercising the rights given to him?
Who was this cloak to say nay to him? She might be unclean herself!
It is not easy to shame those who are sure of their own shame-lessness.
He spoke the truth, but so twisted in his own mind it was no longer a meaningful truth; he could not see the difference.
Marit had never been as stunned in her life, not even at the moment of her death, when the dagger plunged up under her ribs. All that she, as a reeve, had flown for, had worked for, had believed in: justice, the assizes court, the temples and their offerings, truth. In this man's mind, hers was the dream and the lie, and his was the reality: The land was peaceful under the supervision of the holy ones and their arkhons at Wedrewe. His prosperity was all that mattered.
'You are not entitled by the law as written on Law Rock,' she answered him.
'The old ways brought disruption and crime! We are better served by our new statutes.'
'Some are better served, while many are served ill. Enough!' He shut up, as she meant him to do. Yet she had no power where folk did not recognize her authority. Fortunately, ironically, she could still lie. T will return here in a month's time to stand again over your assizes. Act justly, and you will have no reason to fear me.'
She sheathed her sword and urged Warning up. Wings spread, the mare jolted into a trot, found the paths of air, and galloped
into the sky as the crowd ducked. Anger and despair smothered her, and then she clawed free. She could not overturn all that had gone wrong. She had to do one thing at a time, within the tiny sphere she could control. As she flew past the inner palisade she began to look for the lad named Peri.
She spotted him on the road running northeast. At each town where an inn boasted stables, he displayed a token that bought him a meal, a rest, and a horse; it was an efficient system, and he always got good mounts. He rode on oblivious of her presence. Folk on the ground might feel the tremor of her passage much as they felt the bluster and pressure of wind, but as long as she remained in the air their eye was not drawn to her; the movement of Warning's wings did not alert them.
She followed him north, over the Liya Pass, into Herelia.
'Do you like flying?' The reeve, Miyara, shouted to be heard above the bluster of the wind.
Mai laughed; nervously, it was true, but also because the journey was so astounding. The sea lay behind them. The sun rode aloft. The land looked so different a place from up here. The steep ravines and ridges had a beauty that a person struggling to cross on foot could never see. The mountains spread in majesty into the southwest, and from the height, Mai saw how many more peaks marched away into an unknown distance. Clouds made turbulent pools of gray in the blue sky where they had caught on summits. A strange pattern glimmered on a saddle-backed ridge, but it was only a trick of the light on bare rock.