The Fickle Winds of Autumn

Father Steadman pushed his way through the murmuring crowd of priests to his presiding raised seat at the front of the Grand Arbitration Hall.

The whispering snatches of gossip swirled and eddied around him.

“I heard there’s been some sort of attack here in the Cathedral!”

“Impossible!”

“I heard it too - murdered by witches!”

“What! Are none of us safe?!”

“But the Patrex wouldn’t have called a session of the Court at such a late hour for that.”Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

“I heard screaming in the corridors near the South Door - I knew something evil must have occurred.”

The busy grumblings of the room diminished to a strained silence as he stepped up to the platform and lowered himself into the large canopied chair.

He never enjoyed the sparse formality of the room - the blank walls stripped back to their barest truths - except for the stark imposing symbols of the Church, high above the judge’s chair. The atmosphere reminded him too much of the officious nature of his job - and the unhappy truth that he was older now, and more used to fighting with words and scrolls than with the honest grip of a sword hilt in his palm.

And these words and scrolls could be such tricky, squirming, distrustful things.

A crowd of expectant faces gazed up at him from the expanse of wooden benches - some anxious to learn what had brought them all there at such a late hour: others, obviously more concerned that the Arbitration had interfered with their glass of evening wine.

“Please be seated, gentlemen,” he said.

A surge of feet shuffled on the floor and the aged benches complained beneath their clerical burden.

“Bring the prisoners forth.”

Four uniformed guards marched two bound youngsters into the Hall. From their diminutive size, the prisoners were clearly Talmadge’s acolytes - and he had been right - one of them was indeed a votaress.

But the acuteness of his initial assessment did not bring with it the usual ripple of satisfaction.

A girl?

Here within the vallum and sacred boundaries of the Cathedral chambers?

But Talmadge knew the Code of Precepts?

True, he was a little eccentric - strange even - but he was no fool.

Why would he have risked bringing a girl with him here?

This did not bode well.

A turbulent murmur prickled through the room and grew steadily louder as the boy and girl were led towards the front of the Hall.

The guards shoved the pale youngsters forcefully into position - before the steps of his chair - but the girl, in particular, was of so slight of build, there could be no possible need for such rough treatment.

The two acolytes shivered; they were unkempt and dishevelled from their obvious struggles with the guards.

His keen eyes followed them intently, but they hardly dared to return his gaze, or look up at any of the other faces which crowded in around them.

Perhaps this showed an understandable nervousness or shyness?

Or perhaps it indicated a sense of guilt?

He pursed his dry lips.

The smooth, telling weight of the gavel filled his hand - it lacked the meaty heft of a weapon - but his role now was not one of combat - he banged it with a calm satisfaction and requested silence.

“Reverend gentleman,” he said, into the solemn, respectful hush, “I have called you all here, at such an unusual hour, because I have some terrible news.”

He paused to ensure that the assembled priests had the opportunity to digest the seriousness of the situation.

“Just moments ago, it appears that Talmadge was killed - here, in his old chambers, on the South Corridor.”

His audience rumbled out a disconcerted mutter which echoed around the chamber.

“Many of you know by now that he had recently returned to our fold, and had been once again working for the benefit of our beloved Church. However, I have called you all here to witness the testimony of his two acolytes, who are accused of his murder.”

The tide of eyes turned away from him and swept their focus towards the youngsters.

“What is your response to this accusation?”

The pallid-looking boy turned and addressed the room. His quavering voice struggled to push his words out.

“Yes… yes, it’s true. I did… I did kill him… somehow.”

The boy was clearly confused and frightened - not the usual qualities of an assassin.

And why would Talmadge have taken him on as a votary if he was at all dangerous?

He had trusted the boy enough to take him on his mission to the Reevers.

Perhaps something there had affected him?

Something which had caused the boy to snap?

He had seen it many times, in the cold heat of battle - even the most hardened of soldiers could relinquish their senses, their nerves frayed at the edges.

It had been a sad outcome to the operation - Beris was a very capable captain - there were not too many like him left - and the other two were both seasoned, reliable fighters - they could ill-afford to lose such valuable troops - especially now.

“But I had to,” the boy continued, “Aldwyn had gone mad. He was going to kill Kira. I had no choice.”

A low, uneasy buzz filtered through the assembled ranks.

“And Kira had nothing to do with it. She didn’t know anything about it. It was all me. She is innocent in all this.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to explain things a bit more thoroughly than that,” Steadman said.

“But he was mad,” the boy protested. “Aldwyn was mad. The star-taint had descended upon him. You must have seen it - the erratic ways he had been behaving lately - he was transfixed with the idea of the Quillon and what it could do. He was going to kill her.”

The words rang partly true in Steadman’s ears.

But the boy seemed to blush and fluster slightly at the mention of the Quillon.

Perhaps there was more to this, more than the boy was telling?

To his left, Caldor stood.

Steadman took care to compose his outward features.

An uneasy anguish flickered across his shoulders - but Caldor’s position as second in the Pleiad did give him the right to speak.

“Most reverend gentlemen,” the black-robed priest began, “there is undoubtedly much substance to what the boy has said - many of us have long suspected Talmadge of duplicity - which of us knows what he was truly capable of? Look at what he did to our beloved former Patrex.”

A troubled murmur ruffled through the benches.

“And further,” Caldor continued, “I have it on good authority that this magikal relic - this Quillon - could not even be used for the protective spell that we of the glorious Church have deemed necessary. Perhaps Talmadge required it for rather more sinister purposes - perhaps even, as the boy had suggested, he intended to use it in some sort of dark ritual on the girl.”

Apprehensive waves of discontent spread and echoed amongst the clerics.

“We must even consider that he intended to use it for his own selfish ends, in order to finish what he had started all those years ago - his complete usurpation of our beloved Church.”

Steadman gripped the gavel tighter.

No doubt Caldor was enjoying the sound of his own sermon - but where was all of this leading?

Perhaps he should intervene before a general tumult erupted?

But clearly, the black-robed one was not intent on stopping just yet.

“This gentlemen,” Caldor proclaimed, “this was the real reason for his return here all these years later - he had grown a sour and bitter man and had spent all those years away from us busily plotting his devious revenge - a revenge on all those of us who had the clarity to see through his scheme the first time he was in our midst.”

The taut murmurs grew louder; an elderly provost shouted his agreement above the general unrest.

“For, by breaking the Truce, his actions are certain to anger the Reevers. It seems that he was not simply content with the threat to us from the witches, but also intended to bring down an even stronger enemy upon us in order to ensure our complete and utter destruction.”

The clamour grew; heads nodded; fingers jabbed and pointed their accusations.

“And can we truly believe that the girl is innocent in all this? A girl who has openly defiled the sanctity of our most revered chambers? A girl who has lived within the sacred protection of our own vallum? You are all well aware that, of those permitted within our boundaries, only our respected Librarian can be a female - and even this is only through necessity - because of the powerful corrupting nature of some of the documents held in our precious store of knowledge, only a female, who of course, cannot wield the magik, can be trusted to maintain them. Talmadge knew all of this - yet he still chose to violate our Church with her presence. And what would the boy not say in order to save the soul of his sweetheart? Why would we believe the words of one who has just confessed to us that he is a murderer? How can we now trust anything he says?”

The assembled priests shook their heads; some stood and openly shouted their anger; their arms waved and called for punishment.

“We must proceed with great caution,” Caldor continued, “and treat them both as guilty, to make certain we do not release an assassin into our midst who would murder us all in our beds as we sleep tonight.”

The infuriated crowd stood to protest; to implore their own safety; to condemn the obviously guilty - why did they need a trial to offer justice to such wanton criminals?

Steadman clashed the gavel down on the table beside him.

He could not allow this unruly and dangerous behaviour to continue.

No doubt Caldor was a worthy orator - but some sort of justice must be adhered to - he could not be permitted to talk up a furious mob of vigilantes.

The sharp piercing rhythm of the mallet cut through and halted the rumbling discontent.

Talmadge was dead, it was true - and his murderers, if that’s what they were - deserved to be punished - but the least he could do was offer them some sort of fair hearing, to try to uphold the laws and values of the Church he had been elected to represent.

“Gentlemen!” he called. “There will be no murder trial tonight! Not in this heated, fractious atmosphere. We must not let our emotions get the better of us in such important matters. This is not the way of our Precepts. We will retire for the night and give ourselves time to consider more carefully what we have just heard. We will resume in the morning with a formal trial - and if the acolytes are found guilty, they will pay for their crime with their lives.”