“This is no undead ghoul haunting your graveyard,” he growled to the constable, who was several feet behind him. “Just a monster of the flesh.”
“How can you be sure, my lord? She was drinking… terrible things…”
“Typical of her class, I assure you.”
He bent and forced my chin upward with a fist. Please don’t recognize me, I thought, over and over. The disdain in his touch burned.
The constable blanched. “Her face… what’s happened to it?”
“Terrible scarring. Some curse, I’d imagine. Let me examine — argh!”
He leaped back as my teeth snapped inches from his fingertips.
“Scum of the night!” He swore, swinging an iron-clod boot into my ribs. My cloudy vision boiled red and I bit back a cry for Rawthorne. So far, Bram hadn’t seemed to recognize my face, but if I uttered my brother’s name…
“I think I preferred the skull,” the constable wheezed. “What shall we do with her, my lord?”
“A public trial. Grave-robbing, necrophilia, who knows? We’ll see if this dark creature’s as brave before the many blazing eyes of justice. Bind her. That spell is not permanent.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Dawn was just peaking pallid creepers over the horizon by the time we reached the town square. My anger faded, replaced by fear. I did not like being out in daylight. I felt naked and exposed. Rawthorne wouldn’t know to look for me in the sun.
Bram attempted to question me several times throughout the journey, but I answered only with growls. “Fine,” he relented. “We’ll save it for the trial.”
I didn’t know what to expect from a country trial. When my world had been bright and full of the Temple’s colors, arguments and prisoners were brought privately before my father and the court to be weighed and studied and voted on. What did this “public” mean then?
I soon found out.
In the center of the town square lay a large wooden wheel, sunken into a stone platform and pierced by an iron axle. Atop the wheel a moldering pillory crouched. The two men dragged me to it and unlocked the pillory. They had to unbind me in order to stuff my face and hands inside. As soon as the ropes fell away, I kicked and bit and flailed, but I was no match for two full grown males.
The constable clutched a bleeding hand.
“See the apothecary for that when this is over,” drolled Lord Bram.
I was helpless.
The cleric vaulted from the wheel and instructed the constable to strike the Courthouse’s gong along the perimeter of the square. Soon an evil clangor rebounded through the morning air like a murder of crows disturbed.
Fucking noise, I thought. At night it’s so much quieter.
Lord Bram cried out to the sleeping houses: “People of Polidor! A great evil crept its way into your village last night, pillaging the peaceful resting of your dead and feeding on their bones! If not for your brave constable and I, she might still be lurking among the graves. Awaken, for this evil must face justice!”
Despite the immaturity of the hour, a crowd of people soon emerged from their houses to answer the cleric’s call. Women and small children saw me and shrieked, while men brandished petty weapons from safe distances. Several of them approached the constable to shake his hand and congratulate him on his courage. I tried spitting in the man’s hair, but he was too far away and it is apparently quite hard to expectorate with your neck pinned down. Instead, I dribbled. The crowd hooted in disgust.
“Monster!” roared Lord Bram. “You stand accused of trespassing, grave-robbing, and necrophilia! With what dark name has the devil christened you?”
“Eat shit,” I snarled, and the crowd seethed.
With terrifying calmness the cleric seized one of the spokes of the wheel and spun. The world blotted into gray. People might think that spinning is less dizzying for the blind, but it’s not. We are so in tune with the position of our bodies that such violence of motion is an agony. I bit my tongue to keep from screaming.
Finally, I slowed to a stop.
“What is your name?” The cleric growled.
I coughed out blood from an injured tongue and said, “They call me Lord Bram’s Backside, for I am the wretchedest of them all.”
The impact of his hand upon my cheek rocketed through my skull and silenced the crowd. He spun me again, faster. Gorge rose, and I wrestled it back. The crowd hurled refuse at me: rotten vegetables, spoiled meat, cow dung. Do they keep a stockpile just for these sorts of occasions? A fetid apple exploded against my ear, and half of my world vanished. Please, I can deal with cloudy vision. Don’t let me go deaf, too.
Lord Bram yanked the wheel three more times before letting it subside. In the silence I said, “Posy.”
“Posy…” If the name meant anything to him, it did not register. He addressed the crowd: “Posy, daughter of thieves, was witnessed by two men of this town violating and robbing the grave of our esteemed Baroness Marellia. I myself saw her attempting to flee the scene.” He stepped from the platform and pulled a man from the crowd. “Watchmen of the graveyard! Share with the public what you saw!”
“O’ course, my lord. I was mindin’ the graveyard, watching and a smokin’, almost done with me shift, when I heard noises coming from the far distance, bout where the Baroness be resting.”
“What sorts of noises?” A voice called from the crowd.
“Oh, you know. Diggin. Talkin.”
“Talking?” Sliced in the cleric. “Did you see anyone else?”
“I don’t rightly know, my lord. I figured she was a-talking to the dead!”
Lord Bram peered at me. “An uncommon talent, to be sure.” For the first time, I did not meet his gaze. “Continue.”
“Right-o, sir. So I was a little frightened, and went to rouse the constable for help…”
A stumbling, animated story of the night followed, punctuated by gasps and hisses from the crowd. Then, the constable rose to speak. When he recounted how I threw myself upon him, “all full of lusting and blood thirst!” I had to force myself not to grin. It’s amazing, how easy it is to scare a man.
But then Lord Bram took the platform. “Posy Gravewalker, how do you plead in the face of the crimes?”
I did not answer.
Boom! Pain exploded on both sides of my head as he struck my ears with the heels of his hands. Warm blood trickled down my chin. For several long seconds I was deaf and blind, then:
“—witnessed grave-robbing, defamation of corpses, and trickery. Do you deny it?”
“I robbed a grave, so what?” I cried out. The crowd hushed at the change in my voice. For the first time, I sounded like what I was. A frightened and bleeding little girl. I craned my neck and tried to look people in the eye. “Is that really so bad? The Baroness wasn’t using those treasures. Corpses are wealthy while the living starve!”
“And harvesting her bones to dance on her grave?”
“I… it was just… a joke…”
The cleric reeled. Teeth bared in a terrible grimace, he seized the spoke of the wheel and with all his strength whirled it. Blood flew and speckled the crowd. My swimming mind began to drown.
“Please,” I whimpered. “Please, somebody, help me…”
But the crowd erupted into a mob. They hurled burning things. Bits of my cloak caught and sizzled away. They jeered:
“Freak!”
“Monster!”
“Scarface!”
“Vermin!”
And then I saw him.
Rawthorne, standing mere feet away, sallow and still as the crowd seethed. His eyes met mine. He took a drink from his flask and turned away.
“No!” I screamed. “Please, wait! Help me! I’m sorry!” I entreated the cleric: “Lord Bram! I’m sorry! We were just really hungry, that’s all! We needed some money for food and—”