“You arrested the cooper. Please tell the Hall what happened.”
“Yes, Lord Justicer.” Egen bowed again before speaking. “It was last sixday. Someone rang the fire bells, and we proceeded up Crafters’ Lane. When we arrived at the fire-it was at the scriptorium-the crafters and the scrivener had quenched the fire, but someone was screaming. She said something like, ‘No! She’s dead. You cut her throat.’ That was what I heard.”
“That’s not-” Kharl started.
“Silence! You will be heard, cooper,” added the justicer. “Continue, if you will, Captain Egen.”
“We’d come because of the fire. Sometimes, thieves set them, and sometimes people try to loot shops. So, when I heard that, I went into the cooper’s shop and found the blackstaffer. She was on the floor, and her throat had been cut.” Egen inclined his head slightly. “There was a bloody knife next to the body. The cooper’s apprentice admitted that the knife belonged to the cooper, that it was a drawing knife. His consort had accused him in public. He tried to escape, and it took three armsmen to subdue him.”
Reynol nodded. “That will be all for the moment. Please remain here in the Hall.”
“Yes, Lord Justicer.” Egen bowed again, politely.
“Charee, consort of Kharl, please stand and come forward.”
Charee stood. Her steps toward the dais were unsteady. She did not look at Kharl, and her eyes were fixed on the floor stones before her.
“You are Charee, consort of Kharl. Is that correct?”
“Yes…Lord.”
“You understand that you must tell the truth, and that if you do not, you also will be punished?”
“Yes, Lord.” Charee’s voice trembled.
“How did the blackstaffer come to the cooperage?”
“Kharl carried her in. She’d been beaten, bad, ser, left in the serviceway to die. We couldn’t leave her on the street, but…” Charee looked down.
“Go on.”
“Um…blackstaffers…I’d heard tales…and I told Kharl she could stay, but only in the shop, not in our quarters up the stairs, and that she had to leave soon as she could.”
“What did he say?”
“He said we couldn’t throw her out on the street.”
“What happened after that?”
“We put her on the old apprentice’s pallet in the shop, and I cleaned her up, and got her some blankets. She slept some, then woke up, but she couldn’t see proper. Said she was seeing two instead of one-”
“How long was she in the shop?”
“Let’s see, ser. It was fourday when Kharl found her, and sixday when…when the fire happened.”
“Tell us what happened that morning.”
“I brought down some bread and cider, and the blackstaffer’s clothes. I’d mended them. I helped her dress. See…we were going to take her to Father Jorum so she wouldn’t be in the shop once she could walk and get around. Then I went upstairs to get the morning meal for Kharl and the boys. Kharl ate and came down to the shop. A while later, I heard a boom, and people yelling, and then there was smoke. I came down and…I thought she was lying down…except there was blood…and she wasn’t moving, and I ran out front and told everyone.”
“What did you say? Do you recall the exact words?”
“I…I said…I think I said…‘No! She’s dead. Someone cut her throat.’”
“You didn’t say that your consort cut her throat?”
“No, ser.” Charee straightened.
“Are you certain? Why didn’t you?”
“It…well, ser…didn’t seem hardly likely. He could have just left her. No reason for him to bring her home, then cut her throat. ’Sides, he was out front fighting the fire.”
After a moment, Reynol nodded. “You may return to the bench. I must ask you to remain.”
“The cooper Mallamet, step forward.”
The stoop-shouldered older cooper stepped toward the dais with a gait that was not quite a shuffle.
“Your name?”
“Mallamet. I’m a cooper, honored justicer.”
“You know you must tell the truth or face punishment?”
“Yes, ser.”
“What do you know of the prisoner Kharl?”
“He’s a cooper, ser.” Mallamet looked at the smooth stone floor tiles.
“He’s accused of killing a blackstaffer from Recluce. What do you know of this?”
“He had her in his shop. I knew that, ser. And he was making black oak barrels. He was using her to use order to make his barrels better than he could hisself.”
“How did you know that?”
“Everyone knew that.”
“How did you know that?”
“Folks at the Tankard were talking about it, how he was workin’ late, no one around, and they heard her chanting stuff.”
“Lord West’s wizard has inspected those barrels, and there is no additional order infused in them.”
“I was just tellin’ what I knew.”
“Did you tell everyone this so that you could take business from the cooper Kharl?”
“Ser?”
“You heard the question, cooper.”
“Ser…I was just tellin’ what I heard…”
“Bailiff!”
“Lord Justicer.” The bailiff stepped forward.
“Have the cooper Mallamet taken into custody for false witness. Ten lashes.”
“Armsmen! To the fore!”
“Ser…no, ser. I was just tellin’.”
“Silence!”
Kharl just watched, totally puzzled, as two armsmen escorted Mallamet out of the Hall of Justice. If the justicer and Lord West wanted to hang Kharl, why were they arresting Mallamet? But why had the justicer not asked more questions about what had happened?
“The cooper Kharl.”
“Stand,” hissed one of the armsmen behind Kharl.
Kharl lurched to his feet, unsteadily. “Lord Justicer.” He bowed his head, then looked up, straight at the justicer.
“Earlier, cooper, you had objected to the testimony of Captain Egen. Now, you have a chance to tell what happened.”
“Honored justicer,” Kharl began carefully, “it all started when I was carrying sealant back from Hyesal the apothecary’s shop…” He told the entire story as it had happened, ending with, “…and when the captain said I’d killed her, I tried to explain that I hadn’t done anything. I didn’t run. I didn’t do anything except I said I didn’t do it, and then someone hit me over the head, and I woke up in gaol.”
“How do you explain that the blackstaffer was killed with one of your drawing knives?”
“There were lots of people around the front of the shop, ser. Anyone could have walked in. Also, I’m not a killer. I mean, I don’t know how to use a knife that way. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Most crafters have a way to defend their shops. What is yours?”
“I keep a cudgel close by, ser. It’s close enough to a forge hammer…”
“And you are a cooper, and that means using a forge. Had you unbanked your forge that morning?”
“No, ser. Charee and I had to walk Jenevra-she was the blackstaffer-to Father Jorum’s. I didn’t want to waste the charcoal.”
“Have you anything else to say?”
“I didn’t do it, ser.”
“But you did try to get away from the armsmen, did you not?”
“No, ser. I said I didn’t do it. I might have backed up one step, but I didn’t try to get away. They were saying I did something I didn’t.”
“That will be all. Please be seated.”
Kharl felt as though the justicer hadn’t really paid any attention to his words. But there was no way out of the Hall, not with his hands bound, and armsmen behind him and all around the Hall.
“Lord justicer!” The bailiff in gold and blue rapped his staff on the stone floor of the chamber.
The justicer looked at the functionary. “Yes, bailiff?”
“Your honor…there is a witness. He has a pass from the Quadrancy.”
The frown of the justicer was so fleeting that Kharl would not have seen it had he even blinked. “Very well. Have him step forward and state his name.”
There was a slight sound behind the justicer, and a slender, gray-haired man, clean-shaven and in blue velvet, his tunic trimmed in gold, slipped into the seat at the higher dais behind the justicer, a seat that had been vacant throughout the trial. Even from where he sat, Kharl could see that the newcomer was old, and that there were dark circles ringing his deep-set eyes.