Sarai raised her right hand while the left still massaged her forehead. At the gesture, a guard lowered his spear in the general direction of the victim.
The victim’s shouting stopped abruptly.
For a long moment, the three principals stood in uneasy silence, watching Lady Sarai as she sat in her father’s throne, trying to think.
“All right,” she said, pointing, “you get your diamond back. Right now. Give it to him, somebody. No further compensation, though, because you were stupid to let her near it in the first place. Now, get out of here.”
Another guard handed the robbery victim the pendant; he took it, essayed a quick, unhappy bow in Lady Sarai’s direction, then fled the room, the jewel clutched tight in his hand.
The jeweler began to protest, and even before Sarai raised her hand, the lowered spear moved slightly in his direction.
The thief grinned; her head was down, but Sarai saw the smile all the same. A hot, rough knot of anger grew in her own chest at the sight.
“Straighten her up,” Sarai snapped.
A soldier grabbed the thief’s long braid and yanked her head back; the smile vanished, and she glared at Sarai. Sarai could see her arms flexing, as if she were trying to slip free of the ropes around her wrists.
“Sansha of Smallgate, you said your name was?” Sarai demanded.
The thief couldn’t nod, with her hair pulled back; she struggled for a moment, then said, “That’s right.”
“You spent all the money?”
“That’s right, too.” “It’s hard to believe you could use up that much that fast— eight rounds of gold, was it?”
“I had debts,” Sansha said, tilting her head in a vain attempt to loosen the guard’s grip.
“That’s too bad,” Sarai said, “because now you’ve got another one. You owe this man eight rounds of gold.” She pointed to the jeweler.
“Eleven,” the jeweler protested. “The stone was worth at least eleven!”
“You paid her eight,” Sarai told him. “The stone never belonged to you, only the money you paid her.”
The jeweler subsided unhappily, and Sarai turned her attention back to Sansha.
“You owe him eight rounds,” she said.
Sansha didn’t answer. Sarai had the impression that she would have shrugged, had her hands been free.
“I’m going to buy that debt from him,” Sarai said. “So now you owe me eight rounds of gold.”
“I can’t pay you, either,” Sansha retorted.
“I know,” Sarai said. “So I’ll settle for the five or six bits on the piece that I’ll get by selling you at auction. Somebody give him his money, and then take her down to the dungeon until we can get a slaver to take a look at her.” She waved in dismissal as Sansha’s expression shifted abruptly from defiance to shock.
She watched as the jeweler was led out in the direction of the treasury, and the thief was dragged, struggling and crying, toward the stairs leading down. Then she let out a sigh, and leaned over toward Okko.
“How did I do?” she asked.
He considered that for a moment.
“I think,” he said, “that your father would have lectured the jeweler briefly on his carelessness and might have only promised him the auction proceeds, rather than the full amount of the debt.”
“You’re right,” Sarai admitted. “That’s what I should have done.” She glanced at the door. “It’s too late now, isn’t it? It wouldn’t look right.”
“I’m afraid so,” Okko agreed.
“I wish my father was doing this,” Sarai said. “I hate it.”
Okko didn’t reply, but was clearly thinking that he, too, wished Lord Kalthon were there.
“I hope he’ll be better soon,” Sarai added.
Again, Okko said nothing; again, Sarai knew quite well what he was thinking. He was thinking that Lord Kalthon wasn’t going to get better.
Sarai feared that Okko might be right. She was doing everything she could to prevent it, but still, her father’s illness was growing steadily worse. It really wasn’t fair.
And her brother wasn’t any help—his sickliness was worse lately, too; he coughed all the time, bringing up thick fluid and sometimes blood. And he was too young to serve as Minister of Justice anyway, even if he were healthy; their father should have been around for another twenty years.
She wasn’t supposed to be her father’s heir, though; she was Minister of Investigation, not Minister of Justice! It was completely unfair that she should be stuck here, settling all these stupid arguments, instead of finding some way to cure her father’s illness. Why couldn’t some local magistrate have dealt with Sansha of Smallgate, and all the others like her? So what if the jeweler lived in a different jurisdiction from the gem’s owner?
Okko looked steadily back at her, and she realized she was staring quite rudely at him. She straightened up, then slumped back in the big chair.
For four years now, she had been learning the arts of investigation—with very little guidance, since there were no older, more experienced investigation specialists to aid her. Her assistant, Captain Tikri, was useful in a variety of ways, especially in her attempts to recruit spies, but he knew even less than she did about finding criminals or determining the facts of a puzzling case. Her father had taught her his own methods, but they were very limited—mostly a matter of which magicians to talk to.
Because magic could do so much in answering riddles and untangling puzzles, she had spent most of her time studying magic—in theory, never in practice. She knew the names of a hundred spells, but had never worked a one; she knew the names of a score of gods and as many demons, and had never summoned any of them; she knew the nature of a warlock’s talents, but had not a trace of them herself.
She had studied the working of the various spells of contagion and clairvoyance and whatever else had been used in the solving of crimes and mysteries. She knew how, with the appropriate spells, the merest traces of blood or hair could be linked to their owners; she knew which questions the gods would answer when summoned, and what the souls of the dead were likely to know-it was really rather surprising how many murder victims had no idea how they had died. She knew how warding spells worked, how locks both magical and mundane operated, and how gems could be appraised and identified.
And with all this knowledge, she couldn’t do a thing for her father or brother.
It was, of course, the fault of the Wizards’ Guild.
“Shall we bring in the next case, my lady?” Chanden, the bailiff, asked quietly.
Sarai blinked. She hadn’t even noticed him approaching the throne. “The next?”
“Yes, my lady. Tenneth Tolnor’s son claims he was cheated by the wizard Dagon of Aldagmor.”
Cheated by wizards. Her mouth twisted. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry. That’s all for today.”
“My lady?” Sarai knew the polite question was a protest, that she was shirking her duties—no, shirking her father’s duties, not her own—but she didn’t care. She needed to stop. She set her jaw.
“Perhaps a short recess, my lady?”
“All right,” she said, giving in. “Half an hour, at least. T need that long. I need it, Chanden.”
“Yes, my lady.” He straightened and turned to face the little knot of people waiting at the lower end of the room—the crooked room, Sarai realized, and a crooked grin twisted her lip. The justice chamber itself was crooked—why hadn’t she realized that years ago?
It all depended on magic, after all. They used magicians to tell who was telling the truth and who was lying, to determine what had actually happened when claims conflicted. But who could tell them if the magicians were lying? “Lady Sarai, Acting Minister of Justice for Ederd the Fourth, Overlord of Ethshar of the Sands, hereby declares that further judgments shall be postponed one half hour,” Chanden announced loudly. “Clear the room, please.”