The waiting petitioners rustled as they sat forward eagerly. The magistrate turned to them and said, “Watchman Goude waits to tell me of the young woman he has brought in. I shall hear her next, so that he may go about his rounds.”
The petitioners muttered in indignation, and Bess sat forward, surprised and suddenly nervous.
“Come now, maiden, he won’t bite you,” the watchman said kindly, but with a glint of amusement in his eye. “Let’s stand before him, shall we?” And he kept his pace beside her all that long way, or so it seemed, up to the magistrate.
They stopped the customary four feet from the bench, and Bess looked up in surprise. Why, he’s handsome, she thought, or nearly.
Handsome enough, surely, with dark hair around the rim of his judge’s hat, and regular features below, with a straight nose, strong chin, and large eyes—or at least, large for a man. He was perhaps a year or two younger than she herself. She was a little old to be unwed, but perhaps he didn’t notice—though he did seem to be noticing everything else about her. His glance took her in from head to foot, lingering on her face, then her hands and her basket. He seemed faintly puzzled. “Good day, goodwoman.”
“Good day, Your Honor,” Bess replied. Her stomach churned with nervousness.
“Why is she here, watchman?”
“She is newly come to our town, Your Honor,” Watchman Goude explained. “She tells me her errand is to seek out relatives that she has newly learned might be here.”
“Newly learned?” The young magistrate bent his gaze upon her, and Bess was surprised how penetrating that gaze seemed. Uneasily, she realized that this magistrate was probably nobody’s fool, and might be harder to deceive than she had planned.
He pursed his lips in thought. “How is it you have only just learned of your relatives’ whereabouts, young woman?”
A good question, in a land where everyone needed travel permits. Bess launched into her explanation. “I am Elizabeth from the village of Milorga, Your Honor, though my folk call me plain Bess.”
“Not so plain as all that,” the magistrate said thoughtfully, and Bess’s heart skipped a beat.
“My grandmother had a son and a daughter, Your Honor,” she said. “The daughter stayed in Milorga and wed my father. The son went to the reeve to become a soldier, and soon found himself in the Protector’s town. He wrote home for a number of years, but his letters came more rarely as time went by, and finally stopped altogether. Grandma was afraid he had died, but Papa and Mama assured her the reeve would have written to tell her if he had. So we have dwelt for many years, not knowing whether he was alive or dead—but this last Midwinter Day, a peddler came to our town, and when we asked after Uncle Raymond, as we always do, he said he had been arrested by a Raymond of Milorga when he passed through Grister, some years before.”
“Arrested?” The magistrate frowned. “For what?”
“A goodwife had accused him of giving her three yards of red ribbon, Your Honor, instead of five, and it was only three, when the magistrate’s clerk measured it—but Uncle Raymond had seen her old hat bedecked with red bows, and told the magistrate of it.”
“Had he indeed!” The magistrate smiled, amused. “Did the magistrate unwind the bows and measure them?”
“They had no need, or so the peddler said—anyone could see there was at least six feet of ribbon in those bows, if not eight.”
“They must have been huge indeed.”
“Why, I remember that now!” Watchman Goude exclaimed. “Goody Prou—Ahem! The woman in question was in a temper for weeks. Maybe it was lucky for your uncle that the reeve called him back to service the next week, damsel. He had scarcely been here a fortnight.”
“Really!” The magistrate looked up, interested. “Why was he called away so soon?”
“I can’t say, Your Honor—we never ask, when it’s the Protector’s business.”
The magistrate gave a quick nod. “No, of course not.” He turned back to Bess. “You have reason to think he might be your uncle?”
“Only from his name and his birthplace, Your Honor—but there can’t be all that many Raymonds of his age who came from Milorga. It’s a large village, but still a village, and everyone knows everyone else.”
“He was the only Raymond who was, say, forty-five years old, then?”
“No, Your Honor, there were three—but the other two are still there, and have been all their lives,” Bess answered. It was hard to meet the judge’s eyes—so penetrating, so warm a brown, so sympathetic, that they started something quivering inside her. Meet them she did, though, standing her straightest with shoulders back and head high. “Watchman Goude was good enough to tell me that you might look in your book for me, to see where he went.”
“We might do that, yes,” the magistrate said slowly, “but I must not stall this court session to oblige you. I have little free time today—but if you will discuss the matter with me over dinner, I may be able to find a few minutes then.”
Bess’s heart skipped a beat, and the other petitioners stirred, muttering in indignation about one of their number being invited to dine with the magistrate, and a stranger at that! She didn’t hear any lewd suggestions, though—there was that much advantage to being plain. “Why, thank you! You do me much honor,” she said.
The smile he gave her was brief, but dazzling. “At sunset, then, in my chambers.” He turned to the clerk. “Eben Clark, will you bring the book for the year Raymond of Milorga was with us?”
“I will, Your Honor.” The clerk met his magistrate’s gaze squarely, and though his face was expressionless, his eyes were shrewd.
Bess turned away, her heart pounding. Fate had given her the chance she had hoped for, far more quickly and easily than she could have believed. She was bound and determined that she would not waste it! Plain or not, loved or not, she would marry Magistrate Kerren!
But she hoped, at least, for friendship.
Bess came back to the courthouse as the sun was setting, pulse drumming, drawing deep breaths to calm herself. Desperately, she reminded herself that the marriage didn’t need to last more than five years. Of course, for that five years, she had to make herself so pleasant a companion, so indispensable to Magistrate Kerren’s comfort, that he would begin to trust her, would take her ideas seriously, and would eventually change his own ideals of government to come into line with hers. It had been happening as long as history, she reminded herself—even in the Bible, that book the Guardian had taught them that had explained so much that was mysterious in ancient Terran literature—men coming to accept the ideas of the women they loved. This was her part in the revolution, in bringing the ideal of rights to the people of her land, of rights for all people, even women; it was what she could do to work toward a better world.
Then, after that, the Wizard would send her back into her wonderful dreamworld of nobility and luxury…
The guard at the door knocked for her, and the portal opened. A butler gave her a short nod. “Maiden Bess. You are expected. Follow me.”
He turned away, and she followed as he’d said, trying not to resent his coldness, even rudeness—not a single “please,” not a word of welcome.
The hallway was paneled in wood waxed to a golden luster, wood also used for ceiling beams. A chandelier hung from its center, cut-glass pendants refracting the light of the candles to fill the space. Bess stared, and made no attempt to hide it—awe would be expected of a village girl, for few ever saw the magistrate’s living quarters in the courthouse.
The dual door at the end of the hallway stood open to show a huge dining room with a table long enough for twenty. Bess’s heart skipped a beat—was she to have dinner with the magistrate in that virtual cavern?