Selenay nodded and closed her eyes, a tiny frown of concentration on her face. And slowly, a faint blue glow began to gather over the heads of both parties, growing stronger and stronger, until it stood out clearly even in the well-lit courtroom. Alberich kept his face expressionless, but he felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck. When anyone in Karse used magic—well, the only people who did were Sunpriests, and the very few times they ever did so outside of the inner sanctum of a temple, someone usually died....
"Now," said Mirilin to the coachman. "Tell me again what happened, precisely."
The coachman, an earnest old gentleman who kept his gaze fastened on Mirilin the entire time, repeated his story, virtually word-for-word, while the light about him glowed steadily. He didn't even seem aware of it, although those in the courtroom who were paying attention to this case murmured with satisfaction.
"And now, sir, would you tell me what happened again?" Mirilin continued, with a courteous nod to the shabby fellow.
"Nah, lookit me leg!" the fellow bleated indignantly, gesturing at the limb in question, which was splinted and bound with clean rags—the only things that were clean about him. "Any'un with 'af an eye kin tell what's what!"
"Nevertheless, please tell me again," Mirilin replied, with far more patience than Alberich would have shown. The man began his tale with ill grace, but the moment he got to "—an' I stepped inter the street, an' this bastid comes whippin' up 'is 'orses—"
The light went out.
Although the man clearly was unaware that anything had happened at all, the onlookers saw what Alberich had. A gasp—not of surprise, but of satisfaction—went up, and Mirilin cut the rest of the man's speech off with a wave of his hand.
"Sir, you are lying, and this man is telling the truth. He owes you nothing." Mirilin glanced meaningfully at the constables that waited just beyond the barrier. "Now, the penalties for perjury are substantial in a regular court, but since this is a Heraldic hearing, and I have discretion, I shall allow you to leave in peace—providing you do leave quietly. I suggest that you find a more honest means of employing yourself from here on, because you are now in the official records as a perjurer, and the next court you bring yourself before will take that into account."
The man followed Mirilin's glance and set his jaw angrily, but didn't even try to dispute the judgment. Instead, he shuffled off, quickly getting himself out of the door (or at least, as quickly as a splinted and wrapped leg would allow) while the coachman thanked Mirilin effusively.
But Mirilin waved him off with a slight sign of irritation. "Do not thank me for simple justice," he said. "Now, please, we have a heavy docket to see—"
The coachman took the hint and followed in the path of his accuser.
:That was the Truth Spell, Chosen,: Kantor said with satisfaction, :And it is nearly the only sort of magic that you will ever see a Herald using. There's mind-magic, of course, which is things like Mindspeech, Foreseeing and FarSeeing, but unless you are the Herald doing the mind-magic, well, you aren't going to actually see anything. Mirilin is better at the Truth Spell than Selenay, but he wants her to have the practice in setting it, because when she needs to use it, she'll be doing so with many more eyes on her,:
:Is that all it does?: he asked, :just show which person is telling the truth?:
:There is a more powerful version that can compel the truth, but it's not likely to be used here,: Kantor replied, as an old woman with a cat came hobbling up to the table. :That's saved for things that are a great deal more serious, and not all Heralds can invoke it. You have to have a very strong Gift, and it usually has to be one like Mindspeech.:
:Will I—: he began, and stopped.
:You will. You'll probably be very good at it.: But Kantor was evidently sensitive to feelings as well as actual thoughts, for he quickly added, :But given that you're going to be the Weaponsmaster, I doubt you'll be called upon to do it much. If at all.:
The afternoon trundled on, under its own momentum of petty grievances, minor misunderstandings, rancor, greed, selfishness—and bewilderment, hurt feelings, a certain amount of genuine grief, and the genuine trust that a Herald would put things right. As the afternoon went on, there were several inheritance cases that came up, and in one, Mirilin worked something like a miracle, not only getting compromise, but in getting all of the aggrieved parties to apologize to each other and reconcile.
Sometimes both parties were equally right and wrong, and it was then that Mirilin truly showed his worth. Somehow he always managed to get both sides to see the rights as well as the wrongs of the case, and for the most part, managed to get them to work out a solution without having to have him decree one for them. That was sheer genius, and Alberich did not see how he managed it. Astonishing.
No wonder he's assigned to this! Alberich thought more than once, as Mirilin played near-invisible midwife to yet another compromise.
:In many ways, Selenay will have to do exactly this when she is Queen,: Kantor pointed out. :A court is a little like a village or a neighborhood; everyone knows everyone else, everyone has his own particular agenda to pursue, there is an entire pecking order within the group that outsiders would never be aware of, and above all, you can never forget that someone has to be aware of all of the undercurrents and keep conflicts from breaking out into actual feuding. The actual complaints here will be different from those within the Court, but the dynamics of personality are fundamentally the same.:
So that was what Selenay was learning here. Perhaps these people weren't as daft as he thought.
The court was closed around dinnertime, with a backlog of people still waiting. But no one complained overmuch, perhaps because Mirilin had kept things moving fairly briskly.
On the way back, Selenay and her mentor discussed the intricacies of case and personality with great animation; Alberich achieved his goal of becoming unnoticeable, as he rode behind them. This was good; he actually learned far more than he had expected as Mirilin offered the fruits of his hard-earned experience to Selenay.
And when Selenay took her leave of Alberich, he found that he was looking forward to the next session down in Haven. If Mirilin hadn't exactly warmed to Alberich, at least he hadn't rejected Alberich out of hand.
He returned to the salle and headed for his shared living quarters with the feeling, on the whole, that he was rather pleased than otherwise with the way that the day had gone. But Dethor's first words, spoken as he walked into the midst of a conversation that had certainly been going on for at least a mark before he arrived, put a chill on his good humor.
"There you are," Dethor said, as the other two Heralds in the room looked up at his entrance. "What do you know about a group that calls themselves the 'Tedrel Mercenaries'?"