The Writers discussion

Chapter Two:

Emeriel hardly slept at all the next night. The muffled conversation of the guards outside her cell, the sconces in the hallway casting twisted shadows through the bars of the door, the mad weeping of the prisoner in the cell adjacent hers and the guards yelling for them to shut up, and the hardness of the cot all kept her restless and alert, but most of all it was Siel, the thought and memory of Siel, that kept her awake. Siel had kept her awake for fourteen nights now. Because Siel should have been alive, and the fact she was not was so very very wrong.

Soor came to visit her early the next morning. She knew it was early in the morning because the guards had changed but she hadn't been served her morning meal yet. Soor was already decked out for the day, his verdant cape of rank pinned with a golden brooch that would have been gaudy if anyone but Soor had been wearing it. His clothes beneath it were formal, tailored, dark-colored. His dark hair was tied back with a green ribbon.

He told the guards, "She'll be fine with me, I promise. No one will get hurt", and with a charming smile and something silvery and glinting that changed hands, he sent the guards bowing themselves away, out of earshot.

He nodded to her through the bars. "Good morning, Emeriel," he said.

She nodded back and moved closer to the bars. "Did you interview those servants?"

"Yes. The messenger was a maid who had found the body. Nothing to do with you or your case." Soor leaned against the bars. "More pertinent to you is that I talked to the Majesty King."

"And what did you say?"

"I told him I knew you well and you would never kill on purpose. I told him what a good person I know you as. It ought to suffice."

"Did you mention Kari?"

Soor didn't look at her. "No. Why would I?"

She sat back down on the cot, folding her hands in her lap. "I thought you might mention the reason why I'm so good and decent."

"Would the Majesty King honestly think any better of you if he found out about your connection to Kari?"

"Possibly. Possibly not. How can I know? I've never spoken to the Majesty King in person in years. He's met Kari, hasn't he -- ? Oh, of course he has."

Soor sighed. "He has indeed met Kari. He doesn't like Kari," he said, sounding as exasperated as if he were trying to explain basic concepts to a child. “He only puts up with Kari because he has to.”

“Hmm. Still. I saved someone's life, Surely that's admirable no matter whose life it is.”

“You underestimate the Majesty King's dislike of Kari,” Soor replied dryly. “They could be dead or a slave in Palvis and the Majesty King wouldn't be too upset.”

The fact Soor spoke so nonchalantly of his own child's hypothetical death was chilling. Emeriel swallowed and nodded. “Why does he dislike them so much?”

“You have met Kari, haven't you?” was all Soor said before changing the subject. “Regardless. I believe I have your case under control. You don't have to worry about it. The Majesty King and I have discussed all pertinent facts. You'll be a free woman by tonight.”

Did she even deserve to be free while Siel was dead?

She cleared her throat. “Thank you.” The words were inauthentic, forced. “Where is Kari, anyway?” She would like to see the only person left in her life who meant anything. She hadn't seen them in weeks, since before Siel's death.

“Busy.”

So busy they had never once come to visit her after her lover killed herself? That did not sound like Kari.

“I might arrange for them to see you after your release, if everything is in favor.”

She didn't even bother trying to translate that vague sentence. At least Kari must be alive. The merest possibility of the only person she had left dying was far, far, far too much to bear. “But you must know where they are, then?”

Soor absently fiddled with his brooch, looking down.. “Yes I do,” he said. “They are, as I said, busy. But not injured or anything of that sort.”

“Do they know about – ?” she couldn't finish her sentence.

“No.”

She jerked her head up. “They don't? Why?”

“Because they are too busy to be distracted.”

She turned her face aside, staring at a thin, thin crack in the wall. She tried not to let him see how much that statement had hurt her. Soor had decided that her best friend was too busy to be bothered with news of their friend's lover's death, had he?

“I see,” she said. The crack started out spidery and wavering, hesitant, branching out here and there, then it angled down sharply, strong and finally in control of itself. How had the stone cracked to begin with? Was it a natural occurrence? Or was it slowly crumbling, slowly falling apart?

Soor cleared his throat. She still didn't look at him. He sighed. “Look, I promise to tell them. Just – you know what will happen when I do.”

“Yes.” Because Kari was like Siel. Kari was good too. Kari would drop whatever they were busy with to come to Emeriel after this. “Thank you.”

Soor rubbed a gloved hand across his forehead. Then he turned away. “I have to make some final arrangements before the next Judicial Session,” was all he said before he turned to go.

Then he was gone and the guards were back and Emeriel felt more alone than before Soor had come.


* * *

The Judicial Session began exactly at Midday. The Grand Gentlefolk were already seated when Emeriel was escorted in. It was cloudy today, and the room was much more somber than it had been yesterday. The light through the huge windows was gray and morose instead of golden and cheery. The Majesty King was presumably seated behind his curtains.

Soor stood on the elaborate rug in front of those curtains again, the record book he never opened tucked under his arm.

Emeriel was led to her chair instead of before Soor. She wasn't needed today, as far as she knew. She just had to be there and exist.

Instead of calling anyone forward to testify, Soor turned to the curtains. “Your Majesty, after hearing the testimonies of yesterday and the evidence I have presented to you, what say you of the case?”

“The accused is guilty of manslaughter in self-defense. The victim's wife killed herself because she hated her husband. The accused and said wife did not have an affair. “He said it a methodical way, as though he were only repeating verbatim what Soor had told him to say.

“The King has spoken, “Soor said, turning to face the Grand Gentlefolk. “What say the assembled Gentlefolk?”

Kalianas stood up first. She said, looking right at Emeriel, “I mean no disrespect to His Majesty the King, of course, but I believe that the accused murdered the victim, had an affair with my – with the victim's wife, and that the victim's wife – killed herself.”

The rest of the Gentlefolk looked at Emeriel differently after that. The next gentleperson rose and said, “I must of course defer to the Majesty King's wisdom, but I must admit that the Gentlewoman presents a strong case. . . “

Then the third rose and gave their opinion, and the fourth, until all seventeen had spoken.

Soor had been marking all the answers down in his record book, and he read from it when the final
Gentleperson was finished: “Eleven vote manslaughter, six vote murder. Three vote no affair, fourteen vote affair. Fifteen vote suicide, two vote murder.”

From behind the curtain, the Majesty King said, “The accused hereby is sentenced for civil service to the Kingdom of Brill, as myself the King sees fit.”

Soor closed his record book. “The accused is sentenced to civil service, as His Majesty the King of the Kingdom of Brill sees fit.”

The words “civil service” chilled her. She knew what it meant. She knew exactly what it meant. She knew all too well. She had renounced that life, but Soor had found a way to rope her back into it, ostensibly to pay her what he owed.

She rose with the King's blessing, still cold, still numb, still astonished and angry at the trick Soor had pulled on her.

Kalianas was crying, shrieking something about letting a murderer loose while staring right at Emeriel with a murderous gleam in her eyes.

Emeriel hardly heard her.

She was the King's Spy.

This is amazing!!! I love how descriptive you were. I love how you gave a time of day instead of having your readers guess when the Judicial Session started. I love your word choice! Overall, this is one of the best books I've ever read before! Good job, Tiffany!

Thanks so much!