Chapter One – Part Six – Court
The closer to the stairs they got, the louder the noise grew. At first like a low rumble, the kind an approaching storm makes when it is still too far away to see or feel the wind. Then, suddenly as they began to climb the stairs and passed the great fountain, the waves of yelling and screaming washed over them like a torrent – a dam bursting at its seams from a deluge of anger, resentment and bloodlust.
“Welcome to court,” Edvard intoned loudly, bearing an ironic smirk.
Kintere had never seen such a thing. There was a small platform at the top of the stairs, clearly just loud enough for entrants to find their way to their seats but below that there was nothing but a descending sea of white-robed people shaking their fists in the air and bellowing down at the stage far below. There, seeming small and useless, a frail man stood with his arms raised in the air, yelling back at the crowd, a stern look on his aged face.
“The duke,” Rhayd guessed.
“I didn’t think he was quite that old,” Mireya said.
“He’s not,” Edvard said, turning his back on the crowd, clearly unimpressed. “He’s not even sixty summers old. He’s ill, and taken the death of his wife hard.”
“Poor man,” she said with an audible frown. “Why is he here? He should be in mourning, shouldn’t he?”
“Of course,” Rhayd growled impatiently. “Likely he’s been forced to come by this business with that ogre.”
Kintere could barely take it all in. Before the Duke stood a triad of warriors – scabbards empty of weapons, but present with armour none the less. They stood out from the rest like abominations. Between the three was a form, impossible to see from this distance, but huddled against the floor and covered in a tarp. Kintere breathed a sigh of relief to see its size compared to the men. It could not possibly be an ogre – it was far too small. He said so.
“Interesting,” Edvard returned, tugging at his beard and looking back down toward the arena floor. “Perhaps we should make our way closer.”
If anything, being in the midst of the crowd was even worse. As they descended the main stairway through the throng, the sound of the court’s yelling got louder and louder. Clearly, the room was designed to pass every voice to all corners equally – which meant with just about every man in the arena yelling at the top of their lungs, the noise was almost unbearable for those not used to it. By the time they were halfway down the stairs, even Rhayd was grimacing, and Mireya had her hands cupped over her ears with a look of pain twisting her beautiful face. Of all of them, only Edvard seemed unaffected. Kintere guessed he had been through this more often than he’d like, however – he may not be showing discomfort, but he did look like a storm about to break. As they met the last landing and halted before the guards there, Edvard turned back to look up at the crowd and reached deep into his cloak, drawing out a small, thin spike of stone, which looked like bloodstone as far as Kintere could tell. He raised it above his head and whispered a word.
The yelling stopped. In fact, Kintere could not hear anything any more. He looked back up through the stands and saw mouths moving. The three warriors were moving as well, but their metal armour made no sound. There was a haze extending from Edvard’s upraised hand which was growing to encompass the entire court, slowly but surely creeping up into the stands. As it did, courtiers stopped moving, stopped yelling, and stopped shaking their fists. Rhayd was following the rippling progress of the haze with his typical patient judgement, and even though he couldn’t hear anything, Kintere did feel better. Carefully, so as not to startle her, he big man tapped a finger against the back of Mireya’s hand where it rested over her ear. Startled, the girl looked up at him and made as if to speak, but no words came from her mouth when it moved. Blinking in confusion, she looked to Edvard, and made a silent “O” in understanding.
It took fully a minute before the haze had filled the arena, but by that time, the four of them had made their way into the main stage past the guards, and were standing between the Duke and the warriors with their prisoner.
“I see there has been a gathering of the court premature to my suggestion,” the elderly man spat in the face of the Duke, lowering his hand. Sound travelled freely in the arena again; Kintere was glad to know he had not been made deaf. “A sad affair. I’ve come to add my business to the docket as promised.”
“Curia Thryche,” the Duke began, drawing a startled gasp from the crowd behind. The Duke held up his hands, commanding silence. “Yes! This is Curia Edvard Thryche, of the Order of Regulators, adjunct to the Accord Council of the King, your sovereign! We will hear him.”
“We were here first,” one of the warriors burst, fist clenching for a weapon that was not there. “We will be heard before this… rabble.”
The Duke began to respond, but had no time. Edvard raised the spear of bloodstone again, aimed at the warrior’s throat and stopped him in his tracks.
“You will await your calling, sir,” the grizzled sorcerer growled. “Unless your business pertains to the entry of students to the Academy of Weaving at Jinda and Attensah.”
Another stunned silence from the court, followed by a rush of whispers, once more silenced by the Duke’s hands.
“Where is my brother,” Rhayd said suddenly, drawing eyes to him. Likely Kintere would be the only one to realize how furious he looked, standing with feet akimbo and arms folded tightly across his broad chest. “I assume you’re here on his business, Drakar? On the other hand, perhaps you would be so good as to tell Kintere where his brother, Porphigaul is? Two of the city’s most respected businessmen not here to represent what I assume is their business to the ears of the King’s agency?”
The leader of the trio of warriors gritted his teeth and glared at Rhayd before developing a sinister smile.
“Perhaps the Duke is best to answer that, young one. He’s the one keeping poor Gaul in prison.”
Rhayd’s baleful gaze fell upon the ailing Duke with as much force as it had the warrior.
“Where is my brother,” Kintere asked first, knowing if he let Rhayd run wild there would be more than one person he knew in prison. “And Rhayd’s. What is going on here?”
The Duke sighed and visibly sank, stepping back into his tall throne and resting his forehead on one palm. He looked, for a solid moment, like the loneliest man in the world, before he straightened, leaned back, and put on the mask of leader rather than the compassionate guise of arbiter.
“Porphigaul and lord Khalenn conspired to kill one of my soldiers three nights ago. Lord Khalenn fled the city, and Porphigaul was jailed for his… Indiscretion. These men here had taken to finishing the business left for them by their masters. What you see there covered on the floor is the fruit of their labour. An Ogre of Namar.”