Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories (34 page)

“How say you, Quintus Tullius?” The praetor sounded almost bored and did not even bother to look at Quintus.

“Innocent! I am innocent!” he shouted. He stared wildly about the crowd gathering beneath him. “I have done no wrong!”

“Then you have nothing to fear,” said the praetor, but in such an off-handed, unconcerned manner that Quintus suddenly felt almost as frightened as he had at Ardus Wald.

“I am no traitor,” he shouted. “Not a month ago, I was given the grass crown by the centurion Brutus, first spear of the Seventh!”

“Liar!” The cry rose from the group of men behind his accuser and they quickly drowned out his protests. Neither the praetor nor the lictors saw fit to quiet them until one of the lictors moved behind Quintus and placed an exposed tip of his sharp axe at the base of Quintus’s neck. “You will not speak unless spoken to, Quintus Tullius, or I shall behead you right here. This is not about you, so just play along and we’ll see that you don’t come to any harm.”

Silenced by the threat of the sharp metal, Quintus was forced to stand and listen to the lies concocted by the popolares. He was to be a scapegoat, he realized as he listened to the so-called witnesses tell vicious fictions about how he had met secretly with the elf king, how he had arranged for his legion to enter the pass last, and how before the ambush had triggered, he had climbed to the safety of hills. The accusations were submitted by affadavits signed by eyewitnesses from all three legions, forged, beyond any shadow of a doubt.

Their purpose, he realized as his fear mounted with every lie, each grander than the last, was to salvage the reputation of the late Lucius Varus. His allies might mourn his loss, but even more they must fear the repercussions of his failure. But why him? He was merely a tribune, and he could produce hundreds of witnesses to attest to his innocence!

Because Flavius Mamercus was dead, he realized, as his blood ran cold. The accusations grew ever more absurd, and despite his fear, Quintus almost began to get bored. At this rate, they’d be accusing him of fathering himself by raping his mother before nightfall. The theory, garbled as it was, appeared to be that Quintus practiced sorcery in secret and hoped that the evil elves would install him as a puppet Amorran sorcerer-king. It was wildly ridiculous, but when the long list of lies finally came to an end, the praetor had only two questions for him.

“Is it true, Quintus Tullius, that you are a sorcerer?”

“No!”

“Is it true, Quintus Tullius, that you can see auras of magic?”

Immaculatus, they knew! But how?

The praetor still refused to look at him, and Quintus realized that the man was avoiding his eyes because enough of a conscience remained to him that he dared not meet the gaze of one he was about to murder. Quintus’s first instinct was to deny the charge, but he knew that they must have a witness in hand … yes, there, waiting in anticipation behind a fruitseller’s stand was Nicander, one of the tribunes from the Seventh. He must have been one of Varus’s spies, curse it, and if Quintus perjured himself now, his word would be worthless to defend himself against the other charges.

He took a deep breath and looked down at the crowd. “Yes, but—”

The crowd, larger now, audibly gasped. A buzzing of voices broke out just as the axe blade jabbed deeper into his skin and the voice in his ear snarled for silence. Alarmed, he complied, and that mistake sealed his doom, for no one could hear his explanations after the crowd erupted a moment later. It was responding to the praetor loudly banging the heel of his staff against the marble in indication of a verdict.

“Condemned out of his own mouth! I pronounce you guilty, Quintus Tullius, of sorcery, treachery, and blasphemy! You shall be gagged, bound, and thrown from the Rock of Tarvas! May the Immaculate One have mercy on your soul.”

When Quintus opened his mouth to protest the outrage, the lictor behind him slipped in a gag and drew it tight. Despairingly, he thrashed away from the man, but four of the man’s fellows were quick to seize him. Quintus could not believe it! Had he survived Aldus Wald only to be murdered by his fellow Amorrans? The crowd was going wild, some were jeering at him, others, more rational, were shouting at the praetor.

“To the rock!” the senator boomed in his deep, carrying voice, and Quintus knew that he was dead. Oh, the shame that this would bring his father! Immaculatus, why did You not let me die with honor at the pass? Did You bring me back here for this?

I did not scorn a criminal’s death. The voice flickered through his panicked mind, sounding almost amused. Be at peace.

Be at peace? Are You mad? I’m being murdered here! Quintus would have shaken his fist at the sky again if he could have only gotten it free. The lictors were wrapping him with thick ceremonial cords, the sort executioners used to strangle their victims; he noticed that the praetor had already disappeared. Off to collect his thirty pieces of silver, no doubt. Quintus hoped that the craven man would be dead with tomorrow’s dawn too.

But as the lictors carried him down the steps, he could hear some sort of commotion ahead of him. “Stop,” he heard a commanding voice thunder over the crowd, and to his surprise, his would-be executioners stopped. He craned his neck around, trying to see what was happening, but as they were holding him barely above waist-level, he could see nothing but legs, togas, and the occasional sword.

“Put him down … on his feet,” the voice ordered, qualifying the command just in time as Quintus felt the lictors’ hold on him relax. When they rotated him about and stood him upright, Quintus was surprised to see that this potential rescuer wore the royal blue cape of the Lazuli, the princely cadre of sixty-six archpriests who stood below no living man save the Sanctiff himself. Better yet, it was Julius Albus, a man Quintus knew to be an acquaintance of his father’s. “Get that out of his mouth.”

Quintus retched and coughed so hard he doubled over. Still, he felt tremendously relieved, at least until he realized that Albus was not looking at him. Nor did the Lazulus show any signs of ordering him released. His heart sank again when he heard Albus tell Ahenobarbus and the head lictor that the verdict was void, not due to its irregularities, but because the Sanctiff was claiming prior right of trial.

“The civil authority is subject to the Church authority where matters of sorcery and blasphemy are involved. Crimes of treason and the like are of no account when compared with the greater danger posed by mortal crimes against Church law.”

When one of the lictors seemed disposed to argue, Albus gestured, and twelve Redeemed, ex-gladiators all, silently flanked him, six to a side. They belonged to the Church’s most fanatical order, and each of them was scarred and hard, for all that they now served the Lamb instead of the Wolf. The lictor quickly closed his mouth, and even the curator decided that he was not inclined to argue the issue. A second gesture, and Quintus was again swept up from the ground, no more gently than before.

As the Redeemed carried him off toward the great alabaster building that housed the White Throne, Quintus found himself wondering if perhaps it wouldn’t have been better if they’d simply hurled him from the heights. From what he’d seen at the pass, a quick death on the rocks was likely rather better than a slow and painful one by earth, water, and fire.

But once around the corner and out of sight of the crowd, the Lazulus ordered Quintus unbound. An armed Redeemed remained on either side of him, each holding an arm, but in a manner that suggested that they were primarily intending to help him keep his balance after his rough treatment. The walk to the Sanctiff’s palace was not far, and by the time they entered it, Quintus was starting to hope that he might even survive these bizarre machinations. The only thing that worried him was that Albus had not spoken so much as a single word to him.

The Lazulus stopped before a tall pair of arched doors, nodding to the guards posted there. Then he turned toward Quintus, and for the first time his expression showed familiarity. “I cannot say that you have nothing to fear, Quintus Tullius, for I do not know the truth of the matter. But I can tell you this; the Sanctiff takes little note of the Senate and its political intrigues. So there may be hope for you. But if you have entangled yourself in the black arts, rest assured that there will be no saving you.”

Quintus nodded. “I understand. But if I may ask you for a favor?”

“You may ask …”

“Please tell my father that I am here. Otherwise, I fear he will think me dead. And please assure him that I have never soiled my soul with sorcery of any kind.”

Albus nodded his acquiescence without expression. “I will do so.”

“Thank you, Julius Albus,” Quintus bowed deeply, and when the Lazulus departed, he allowed the waiting guards to escort him through the doors and down the long corridor to the cell that awaited him. He smiled upon entering it; for all that it was a prison, and a sparse one at that, it was the height of opulence compared to what he’d known of late.

• • •

Locked in his windowless cell, he might have lost track of the time were it not for the faint sound of the priests singing the evening Vespers every night. By his reckoning, it was five days before he was visited by anyone but the silent father who brought him a simple but healthy meal of bread, wine, and fruit three times a day. Lacking anything for entertaiment, Quintus found himself musing uncharacteristically on the utter pointlessness of Æmor’s war with the wood elves. Even if Varus had been a wiser general, even if Everbright had not proved to be so cunning, what would have been the benefit?

Treasure? The Amorran treasury was full, at least as far as he knew. Fame? Æmor’s legions had been victorious so many times that only the historians could count the number of triumphs that had been celebrated, let alone who had won the glory. Power? Quintus was no merchant, but he found it difficult to see how possession of the Merithaim elvenwoods would bestow the city with any additional strategic advantage against her foes. The legions much preferred the more straightforward fighting that took place on the plains and hills than the chaos that so often prevailed in the wilder hinterlands.

About the time that he was expecting his last meal on the fifth day, he was surprised to see Julius Albus standing at the open door of his cell. But this time, his blue cloak was pinned with a gold broach and he was not accompanied by uncouth ex-gladiators, but six Sanctal Guards resplendent in silver and scarlet.

“Come with us, Quintus Tullius,” he ordered. Something in his eyes warned Quintus to hold his tongue and reserve his questions for later. He obediently followed the Lazulus, and as he did so, the Guards fell into position on either side of him, though they did not lay hands on him or on their weapons.

At the end of a walk that took him through enough turns to leave him thoroughly confused, they came to a small wooden door, unmarked. Albus held up a hand and entered, then returned and bid him follow. It was, Quintus learned, a side entrance to the great chamber in which the Sanctiff was enthroned.

It was not, however, the sight of the small elderly man in a light blue robe that caught his attention and took his breath away. Nor was it the huge alabaster throne on which he sat, carved from a single piece of ivory that was purported to have once been the jawbone of Leviathan. No, it was the welcome, if unexpected sight of six men standing in chains before that throne that caused his heart to leap within his breast.

Gaius Aufinius, the Urban Praetor, was there, and next to him was Ahenobarbus, the red-bearded cousin of the late general. Nicander too was there, along with another of his accusers and a broad-shouldered man that might have been one of the lictors. Aufinius seemed to shrink at the sight of him, though his eyes turned to the Sanctiff when the old priest raised his hand and pointed to a man standing near the back of the wall.

Quintus nearly fainted with relief at the sight of Brutus, still clad in his battered, battle-stained armor. Never had he seen a more welcome sight than the centurion’s ugly, weathered face. And accompanying him were at least ten men of the legion, including two tribunes and several centurions.

“Publius Junius, we have already heard your testimony and that of your men. Now, is the man who has just been brought before us the man of whom you spoke?”

Brutus glanced over and met Quintus’s eyes. He looked as determined and ready to fight as he had in the mountain pass, but he half-smiled and nodded his head briefly in acknowledgment of Quintus before answering.

“He is, your Holiness.”

“What is his name?”

“Quintus Tullius Acerus, senior tribune of the Seventh Legion, your Holiness.”

“Thank you, Publius Junius.” The Sanctiff turned to the look at the six men, and for the first time, Quintus understood that it was not him who was on trial, but his former accusers. His would-be murderers. Then the Sanctiff cleared his throat, and in a loud voice that echoed through the chamber, pronounced his judgment.

“Let it be known that these men are oathbreakers, false witnesses, and are guilty of attempted murder under the color of Amorran law. They have offended not only the dignity of the city of Æmor and its citizens, but also that of its Most Holy and Immaculate Church. I hereby remand them to the justice of the Curia and may God have mercy on their souls, for they shall find none here in Æmor.”

“It is written,” said a clerk from the side of the room, scribbling furiously. He passed the parchment to a young man seated next to him, who added no more than a line with a quilled pen.

“It is signed,” he said, passing it to the third man at the table. The last clerk dipped a great stamp in wax that was heated above a small brazier beside him and slammed it down upon the parchment.

“It is sealed.”

Quintus looked at the doomed men. No influence would save them now, not even if all three Consuls spoke for them. Ahenobarbus had turned white under his beard, and a mixture of horror and fear filled the faces of the others, though they remained silent. Aufinius alone remained composed; he looked more thoughtful than afraid. Nicander looked as if he might be sick. As Quintus watched, he swayed on his feet and nearly fell.