Toria pulled her head up even higher, even though it seemed impossible that it could go any higher. “You invite me? Why on earth should I go, and what if I refuse?”
The officer again nodded, again contentedly, as if he had only been waiting for a similar question. “We are acting on the behalf of the city magistrate.” In support of his words he shook his ornamental whip. “We are empowered to compel the lady if she refuses to come with us of her own free will.”
Egert wanted Toria to look to him, even though it was inconceivable.
What could be simpler than for her to look back in search of help, support, protection? But from the very first he knew that she would not turn to him, because there was no point in awaiting protection from Egert, and if she looked into his suffering, guilt-ridden, haggard eyes, she would experience neither comfort nor hope. He knew this and all the same he silently implored her to turn to him, and it actually seemed that she was about to do so, but then she froze, having turned only halfway.
“Gentlemen,” interrupted the headmaster, and Egert saw now how his utterly ancient head wobbled on his thin neck. “Gentlemen, this is unbelievable. Never before has anyone been arrested within these walls. This is a sanctuary! This is a refuge for the spirit. Gentlemen, you are committing a sacrilege! I will go to the mayor!”
“Don’t worry, headmaster,” said Toria, as if pondering. “I am of the opinion that this misunderstanding will soon be worked out and—”
Breaking off, she turned to the officer.
“Well, I understand that you will not stop short of force, gentlemen, and I do not desire that these hallowed halls should be further desecrated by violence. I will go.” She stepped forward and quickly shut the door to the study behind her, as if wishing by this last action to shield Egert from outside eyes.
The door was shut. Egert stood in his corner, clawing his fingernails into his palms, listening as the clatter of boots, the whispering of the distraught students, and the lamentations of the headmaster receded along the corridor.
The courthouse was a very grave, very ponderous, very awkward structure that stood on the square. Egert had accustomed himself to avoid the iron doors, carved with the inscription DREAD JUSTICE! He knew at least ten paths that bypassed them because the round black pedestal with the small gibbet, where a manikin dangled in a noose, seemed frightful and loathsome to him.
A wet snow was falling. It seemed dirty gray to Egert, like cotton packed in a wound. His overshoes stuck in the slush, and water trickled in streams past the lamppost that Egert was using as a refuge. Trembling from head to toe, shifting from foot to foot, he stared at the closed doors until his eyes hurt, initially deceiving himself with a foolish hope: that the iron maw would spring open and release Toria.
The flock of students, which had at first gathered around him in a crowd, gradually dispersed; downcast, subdued, they wandered off without looking at one another. Various people went in and out of the courthouse: bureaucrats, haughty and self-important or solicitous and preoccupied; guards with javelins; petitioners with their heads drawn down to their shoulders. Blowing on his cold fingers, he wondered, Had they accused Toria of anything? What might they accuse her of? Who could help them now if even a visit from the headmaster to the mayor came to naught?
He spent a long night full of fear on the square, illuminated by the barely gleaming light of the streetlamp and by the ominous reflections in the windows of the cheerless building. Dawn broke late, and in the pale morning Egert saw acolytes of Lash entering the iron doors.
There were four of them, and all of them looked like Fagirra. The doors closed behind them, and Egert hunkered down by his post, wearied from fear, anxiety, and despair.
The accusation, of course, originated with the acolytes. Fagirra’s words spilled out of Egert’s distant memory, “The city magistrate heeds the advice of the Magister.” Yes, but the Order of Lash is not the court! Perhaps I’ll be able to explain to the magistrate, to open his eyes. It is likely that the Black Plague has also robbed him of those close to him, for the Plague respected neither rank nor office.
A group of guards hurriedly exited the iron doors. Egert thought he recognized the officer who arrested Toria among them. Pitilessly tramping down the slushy snow with their boots, the guards rushed away, and Egert berated himself for his foolish suspicion: that they once again headed for the university.
If only the dean were alive. If only you were alive, Luayan. How can they dare? And now Toria has no one to turn to except for …
He pressed his cheek to the cold, wet lamppost, waiting for the whip of fear at the idea of going up to those iron doors, of passing by that executed manikin, of stepping over that threshold. But then, Toria had already stepped over it.
He spent a long time convincing himself that there was nothing frightening in what he planned to do. He simply had to enter the courthouse, and then he would leave right after he had seen the magistrate. He needed to convince him. The magistrate was not Lash. But Toria was already there, and Egert might get to see her.
This thought decided him. Immediately recalling his protective rituals, interweaving the fingers of one hand and clutching a button in the other, he moved toward the iron doors following an intricate, winding route.
He would never have summoned the courage to seize hold of the door handle, but fortunately or unfortunately the door opened in front of him, producing a scribe with a bland expression. There was nothing else for Egert to do but step forward into the unknown.
The unknown turned out to be a low semicircular room with many doors, empty desks in the middle, and a bored guard by the entryway. The guard did not so much as glance at Egert as he entered, but a flabby young clerk, who was absentmindedly tracing the point of his rusty penknife along the tabletop, nodded inquiringly but without any special interest.
“Shut the door behind you.”
The door swung shut firmly without Egert’s help, like the door of a cage. The chain attached to the dead bolt clanged.
“What’s your business?” the clerk asked. His expression, sleepy and entirely ordinary, comforted Egert slightly. The first person he encountered in this formidable institution seemed no more sinister than a shopkeeper. Gathering up his courage, squeezing his button for all he was worth, Egert forced out, “The daughter of Dean Luayan, of the university, was arrested yesterday. I…” He faltered, not knowing what to say further.
The clerk, in the meantime, had brightened. “Name?”
“Whose?” Egert asked foolishly.
“Yours.” The clerk, evidently, had long ago become accustomed to the obtuseness of petitioners.
“Egert Soll,” said Egert after a pause.
The cloudy eyes of the clerk flashed. “Soll? The auditor?”
Unpleasantly startled by the clerk’s knowledge of him, Egert nodded reluctantly.
The clerk scratched his cheek with the tip of his knife. “I think … yes. Wait just a moment, Soll. I will announce you.” And sliding out from behind his desk, the bureaucrat dived into one of the side corridors.
Instead of being glad, once again Egert became frightened, more intensely than before, so that his knees were shaking. His legs took a step toward the doors. The somnolent guard looked at him, and his hand settled absently onto his pikestaff. Egert froze. A second guard, who unhurriedly walked out of the very corridor down which the clerk had disappeared, examined Egert critically, like a cook examines a carcass that has just been brought back from market.