Gilda beamed at him and said, “I know.”
Orgoru stared at her until he realized she had only been playing her role to the hilt; then he began to smile again. Gilda laughed and said, “There, I see you’ve begun to understand the game. Now kiss me, handsome prince.” Nonetheless, Orgoru was ready to take a few weeks seducing her. Gilda, however, had more immediate plans.
Dilana’s magistrate was older, much older—but so was Dilana. From being the grand duchess of the deluded, she had become a matronly, though lean and angular, widow of a peasant who had died at the hands of bandits with their two sons—at least, so far as the magistrate knew.
They sat in his study, the garden a swathe of color beyond the windows, complementing the rich wood of the paneling and his desk. The velvet upholstery of chairs and settee might have been taken from those flowers, so well did the whole blend. For a moment, Dilana marveled that every courthouse in the land could be identical right down to the finishing of each room. Its purpose was clear—to make the magistrates feel at home, when they were always strangers in new towns. Still, the familiar setting could only lighten homesickness, never cure it completely.
He nodded, frowning as he read her papers. It was reason enough to start a new life, far from the scene of her bereavement, and the memories of past joys. He laid the papers aside with a sigh. “Yes, surely, Goodwoman Dilana. You’re welcome among us, and I’m sure there will be many people who will be glad of your skill with herbs.”
Dilana knew better than to bat her eyelashes or cast coy glances from the corners of her eyes, knew how false such gestures would seem coming from a mature woman—but she did lower her gaze to her hands, folded in her lap. “It was good of Magistrate Proxum to speak so well of me.”
“No more than you deserve, I’m sure,” Magistrate Gorlin said. “I haven’t met this Proxum, but a magistrate knows quality when he sees it.”
Was he speaking of the mythical Proxum, or himself? Dilana dared hope, and murmured, “Magistrate Proxum is quite young, sir.”
“So his judgment is not fully formed, eh?” Gorlin smiled, amused. “Still, people cured are people cured, Goody Dilana. Even a man in his twenties couldn’t mistake that.”
“My skill couldn’t heal my husband, though,” Dilana said, affecting infinite sadness, “nor my sons.”
“But you couldn’t come to them in time.” Gorlin leaned forward to touch her arm in reassurance. “Loss strikes us all sooner or later, mistress—and though I haven’t suffered the death of a spouse and children, three wives and six babies have passed from my life as surely as any grave could take them. You know that we aren’t even allowed to write letters to those we leave behind us, don’t you?”
“I do, sir.” Dilana muffled her voice and, to her own surprise, felt actual tears start to her eyes. “It must be some slight comfort to know that they still live—but I can see that it would be slight.” She strove to pack as much sympathy behind the words as she could.
“Slight indeed.” Gorlin sat back with a sigh. “But we must go on, mistress, we must still seek life. There are too many who may need the help we can bring, too many whose lives we may yet enrich, for us to seek to end our sorrows for loss alone.”
“Yes, we must go on.” Dilana looked up, her heart really aching for the poor magistrate and the loss he had suffered. Now it was she who reached out a hesitant hand to reassure and comfort, “At least you, having passed through it thrice before, know why life must go on, know it by experience.”
“I do that.” Gorlin took her hand with a gentle smile. “When I left my first wife, I was plunged into sadness that darkened all the world about me—but I pressed on to my new duties, out of sheer faith that the people had need of a magistrate.”
“I am sure they did,” Dilana said softly, thrilling to his touch, to the caress of his voice. “There are people you have protected from bandits, weak folk whom you have saved from the oppression of their stronger neighbors.”
Gorlin let out a massive sigh. “It’s so good to talk to someone who has seen, and knows by living!”
Dilana blushed and lowered her gaze again, taking her hand away. “There are virtues in experience that nothing but some time spent living can bring, Magistrate Gorlin.”
“Yes, virtues of understanding and sympathy.” Gorlin took her hand again. “It will be very good to have you here among us, Goodwoman Dilana.”
“You flatter me, Magistrate Gorlin.”
“Well, yes.” Gorlin’s melancholy cracked into a smile. “And I intend to. Call me William, Mistress Dilana.”
“Why, thank you, Magis—William.” Dilana looked up in surprise. Now she batted her eyelashes. “But I have no private name to give you; I am only Dilana.”
“Then I shall call you Dilana indeed.” Gorlin caressed the hand he held.
The courthouse looked exactly like the one in Bess’s home village, which gave her a sense of reassurance, but didn’t surprise her at all. Everyone knew how a courthouse was supposed to look: big and square and built of warm yellow brick, with a roof of tile instead of thatch exactly divided by four dormers, and real glass in the big rectangular windows. She didn’t know that identical courthouses all across the land made the power of the government seem to be everywhere, and invulnerable.
The watchman led her through the big double doors into the usual vestibule, fifteen feet by ten, and turned to his right, through a smaller set of double doors that led into the courtroom. The magistrate sat behind the bench, two feet above everyone else in the room, looking far too young for so exalted a position—and would probably have looked intimidated by it all, if he hadn’t been frowning darkly at everyone. Bess’s heart sank until she realized that he was probably scowling to hide a feeling of being too small for the task.
The watchman gestured her to a seat on a bench along the wall and whispered, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, maiden. He must hear other petitions first.”
“Of course,” Bess whispered back, and settled herself with complete composure. Bess she might be, but the self-assurance of believing herself to be a lady of quality still hung about her, belying the simplicity of her homespun blouse, bodice, and skirt.
The watchman straightened and signed to the magistrate. Bess was a bit nearsighted and didn’t want to squint, so she couldn’t make out the details of his face, but at least he seemed not to be as ugly as a bull. At the third try, the watchman caught the official’s eye, and the magistrate nodded slightly. He didn’t interrupt the current petitioner, though—a bearded middle-aged man asking for more time to pay his overdue taxes. It seemed the summer had been hard, and the crops not what they should have been, and he also seemed to feel the need of going into great detail about it all. Bess sighed and settled herself to be patient. There were several other people waiting—she counted eight, but from the way some of them glared at one another, she suspected there were only five cases. Still, the ones involving arguments were apt to take quite a bit longer.
The bearded man took long enough. Finally he paused for breath, and the young magistrate said wearily, “Yes, the season has been hard, farmer. Your tax is reduced to twelve bushels of wheat and one bullock.”
The farmer stared, taken aback, then began to smile.
“Next year, though, if the weather is good, I’ll expect you to make up the shortage, or at least part of it, and the rest the year after.”
The smile faded.
“Clerk, note it,” the magistrate said, and the clerk, older than the magistrate by half and probably his guiding hand for these first few years, nodded and bent to his pen.
The farmer swallowed, ducked his head. “I thank Your Worship.” He stepped over to the clerk’s high writing desk, pulling his hat on.