The Lagoran court sat in a long stone hall near the harbour, where salt, tar, fish, damp wool, and the older smell of law seeped through the walls. Three magistrates occupied the raised bench. The senior one had a square beard and tired eyes. The second was nearly bald and watched purses more closely than faces. The youngest had a sharp mouth and a habit of tapping his pen against his teeth. Below them sat the scribe, writing each word for rolls that would be copied, indexed, taxed, disputed, and perhaps forgotten.
Rafiq stood at the accused’s rail. He had been imprisoned six weeks awaiting hearing. The cell was small, damp, and sour with the bodies of former occupants, but it was not the worst place he had slept. He had slept on stone floors in Solymer when Zeid’s fever would not break. He had slept in the companionway of a ship while Lagoran men threw hooks across dark water. He had slept sitting upright beside a bed because a prince’s breath had sounded wrong and no one else heard the danger.
He could endure a cell.
The charge was murder. The penalty, if the court found him a slave who had killed a lawful master, would be death. Some said drowning beyond the harbour chain. Others said hanging before the Exchange. Lagoran justice enjoyed choosing its lesson after counting the audience.
What Rafiq feared was not death. He feared the roll.
The city advocate stood before the bench, dark-robed, heavy-jawed, and paid enough to mourn with confidence.
“The accused,” he said, “is a foreign eunuch of eastern origin, entered into the Vendarin household under the name Sandro, purchased in good faith after proper valuation, and charged with poisoning Master Aldo Vendarin, citizen of Lagora.”
“My name is Rafiq,” Rafiq said.
The court looked at him.
The senior magistrate lifted one finger. “The court enters the name Rafiq as claimed. Proceed.”
The advocate proceeded. He described the fruit, the ratbane, the housekeeper’s testimony, the physician’s finding, and the fact that the accused had made no attempt to flee. He argued premeditation, resentment, rebellion, and danger to every household in Lagora if a purchased servant might kill a citizen and then dispute the contract.
Stolen novel; please report.
The scribe wrote. The magistrates listened.
When the advocate had finished, the senior magistrate turned to Rafiq.
“You have heard the charge. How do you answer?”
“I killed Master Aldo Vendarin,” Rafiq said. “I do not dispute the act. I dispute the law.”
A murmur moved through the hall.
“On what ground?”
“On the ground that he was not my lawful master. I am named to the household roll of Prince Zeid ibn Seylim ibn Tahir al-Din, son of Sultan Seylim, envoy of Al-Marwiyah. I was separated from that household during unlawful custody after Wenen. I was transferred through debt rolls, valuation rolls, and sale memoranda without witness from my prince’s house. A man cannot purchase what was never lawfully sold.”
The younger magistrate leaned forward. “You say the sale was void.”
“I say there was no sale. There was theft, dressed in good parchment.”
“You are entered as a slave.”
“I am entered falsely.”
“You are a eunuch.”
“That is not an answer to law.”
A small stir crossed the hall. The young magistrate stopped tapping his pen.
Rafiq continued.
“I hold office on a sovereign household roll: clothing, medicines, private attendance. I was not surplus, not spoil, not debt-goods, not assignable flesh. I was removed. Every hand that sold me sold a defect forward.”
The advocate rose again. “The accused’s theories are elegant. A citizen of this city remains dead.”
“Yes,” Rafiq said.
The advocate stopped, irritated by the agreement.
The senior magistrate studied him. “Why did you not flee?”
“If I fled, your rolls would say runaway slave and murderer. If I stayed, the rolls would have to write my name.”
The scribe’s pen moved faster.
“And that was worth death?”
“My name is all that remained attached to my prince.”
No one spoke for a moment.
Then the senior magistrate conferred with the others. The advocate bent over his papers. The Vendarin heirs murmured among themselves: widow, daughter, son newly arrived from Spiren with Spiren-school phrases and funeral debts already in his eyes.
At last the senior magistrate said, “The court will examine the chain of sale.”
The advocate objected at once. “My lords, the family demands sentence.”
“The family may demand,” said the senior magistrate. “The court must decide.”
A clerk entered by the side door, hurried to the dais, and whispered in the senior magistrate’s ear. The magistrate’s face altered slightly—not much, but enough for Rafiq to see.
“Clear the doorway,” the magistrate said.
The guards began to move. Spectators craned their necks.
From the back of the hall came a voice Rafiq had not heard in two winters except in memory.
“I claim right of audience.”
Zeid had reached the back of the Lagoran hall only after the ransom road had opened.