December 14th, III Leeland:15

To Her Royal Majesty Anne Linsey Gray

Queen of Uelland

Bastings Hall on Farley Island

In the Charter City of Green Bridge

[Variant 5 block cipher, subtype A; as key, use word on fourth line, position corresponding to day of month, modulo word count of fourth line.]

Am safe for now in Uellodon, per my previous dispatch. Hope you received it. Found Spoon and academy friends in hiding. They oppose Hobb. Judges and lawyers, led by Wigglus, have occupied Old High Court to force Hobb to respect their—

Merrily found she was sweating. The new Variant 5 block cipher was designed to be easier for non-experts to encrypt and decrypt, but cryptography was not her strength as a historian. Merrily’s B grade in practical ciphers last semester had been her lowest yet at Triad. She gritted her teeth and slowly worked her way through the word.

—jurisdiction.

Where are you when I need you, Rolly? asked the First Voice plaintively.

Burning in the pit, answered the Second Voice. I expect he produces an especially good flame, being fat.

How does that even work? asked the Third Voice. Do you suppose the soul’s composition reflects the outward form of the body?

“Shut up, all of you!” Merrily barked aloud. There was a shocked, offended silence in her head, and she went back to her dispatch.

Hobb says he saw Giant-men near Roosterfoot and something else of which he will not speak. A returned exile is involved. Hobb insists we must put aside division to defend ourselves. I have not verified this information.

Your son wishes to come home. Arrangements will be complicated.

She paused in thought a moment longer. Then she turned back to the laborious cipher.

The man Boris is here. He is involved in some way, but I cannot tell whose side he is on. I will explain when I return.

Yours truly, Merrily

She rolled up the thin sheet of paper and bound it with a red ribbon, then stood up and started for the door. There was a pigeoneer up the street from the University grounds had a few Green Bridge birds; with any luck, her message would be in Queen Anne’s hands within a week.

She opened the door and jumped. There was a man there.

He was a slim man; neither tall nor short, but with an inexpressible quality that made him seem much larger than he was. His eyes were a shocking, bright blue, and his brown hair was combed back elegantly, with one carefully placed curl escaping to lounge indolently across his forehead. He was dressed in a coat and pants that would have fit quite comfortably in any clerk’s office, except that they were a deep purple in color. He wore a matching purple top hat.

The man bowed deeply to Merrily.

“Frederick?” she asked in astonishment. Then she repeated it. “Frederick! Good gracious, please come in.”

He took her hand, bowed flamboyantly, and kissed it, then straightened up and swept into her borrowed office as if he were entering a royal ball. “It is I, Mrs. Hunter,” he said. “May I sit? Yes? Thank you. Do close the door.”

Stunned, she closed the door and sat down in her own chair. Frederick removed his hat and placed it on the desk, then crossed one knee over the other and leaned forward, one eyebrow raised.

“It’s lovely to see you, Frederick,” she said. “I’d hoped we might cross paths while I was here. How are you keeping?”

“I molder,” he answered disdainfully. “This city hasn’t had a decent ball since last Midsummer, when you and your man lit up Palace Naridium like two stars, one very much brighter than the other. By which I mean you, Merrily. The better sort of people—the ones that have balls, I mean,” and he twinkled his eyes at her, “all fled long ago. No one has taken up the mantle of Beatrice Snugg. All we have left are butchers, bakers, and brewers, each providing dinners to the community out of heartfelt benevolence and without the slightest thought for self-interest. And soldiers; we have a great deal of soldiers to make sure everyone else is exceedingly benevolent and disinterested. But none of these proletarian heroes has the slightest inclination to celebrate the fierce and fiery joy of living. They’re all hiding in their homes, hoping the Republican Guard doesn’t cite them for some new infraction and throw them in Hoel. That toad Hobb has even cancelled the Snow Ball.”

“I see you’ve got a new suit,” she said helpfully. “Your fortunes must have recovered.”

He sniffed. “My father died last December, and to my great surprise I found that he left everything to me. I’d always thought the man despised me. Wigglus helped me set up a trust, and now the money is all managed by a charming banker across the river in Ville Porpo, safely out of Hobb’s reach. I visit him every month, and he takes me to all the best parties on the Carolese side. And he sends me back each month with a little sack to live on.” He stretched languorously in the chair. “It’s not that little, actually. My sack was quite large this month. We’ve invested in the war industries. I salve my troubled conscience by spending conspicuously; I understand it all trickles down to the working classes.”

Merrily rolled her eyes. “Did you pick a new name?” she asked curiously. “You were going about in Green Bridge calling yourself Frederick née Halfhouse.”

He smiled. “It’s Wholehouse-And-A-Half now. Because when I go to a party, it takes up the whole house and half the neighbor’s. But you can just call me Frederick, Merrily.”

A great measure of his pretense dropped away then, and his look grew suddenly earnest. “And Merrily, though it warms my tender and suffering heart to see you again, this is not purely a social call. I must ask a great favor of you.”

She sat back and raised one eyebrow.

“They say you’ve been in the Old High Court,” he stated.

“Who’s ‘they,’ Frederick?”

“The Republican Guard aren’t the only ones watching the streets, Merrily,” he replied, lowering his head and looking up at her through long eyelashes. “A great many people watch—and some of them tell me what they see.”

“Frederick Wholehouse-And-A-Half, spymaster,” she said playfully, “what do your watchful friends tell you? And what is this favor you want from me?”

“They tell me that the Republican Guard have increased their numbers around the Old High Court, and quietly moved stores of weapons into the surrounding houses. You don’t need a spy to tell you how this ends. The favor is this: You are the only person in the Republic who the Guard will permit to enter the Old High Court. I want you to take a message to Wigglus for me. Just a piece of paper, but it must not be seen or deciphered by the Guard. And I’d like you to bring me back whatever he gives you in return.”

“That’s all?”

Her guest smiled wryly. “I’d also like him to walk out of the Old High Court alive, Merrily, but I think that may be too much to ask of you as a favor. So that’s all.”

She hesitated a moment.

“Are you two still…” she trailed off.

He blinked his lapis lazuli eyes at her. When he spoke again, his voice was changed, and the bitter, acidic edge was gone.

“I love him, Merrily. And we are. You understand, don’t you? You can’t choose to stop loving someone. If he changes, or leaves, or hates you, or dies, still you love him. And if it’s to be death now for Wigglus, I won’t live the rest of my life remembering something I might have done to save him.”

He withdrew a single, folded sheet of paper from his coat and handed it to her. She opened it curiously; it was filled with rows and columns of apparently random letters and numbers.

“A cipher,” she observed. “He has the method and the key?”

Frederick nodded silently.

“I will take it to him, if I can,” she said.

Frederick rose to his feet.

“If I can be of assistance, Merrily,” he said, “I will be offended if you fail to ask.” He turned to leave.

“Actually,” she said with a sudden smile, “there is something you can do for me.”

✽✽✽

That evening, Merrily Hunter rode out from the gates of the New Academy in a carriage borrowed from Chancellor Pearsy. She wore an evening gown of light pink that showed off her shoulders, a diaphanous shawl, and a fashionable hat with a light veil. Her face was rather heavily made up, but could be seen plainly enough behind the windows of the carriage. Four Guardsmen rode behind the carriage, and others, in plain clothes, watched its progress carefully.

The carriage went first to the Merchants’ Post, where Merrily disembarked and put several letters in the mail. They were opened and read, according to Regulation Fifty-Six; but they were found to contain a few bits of unremarkable social news from the city and several pages of bad poetry.

The carriage then took its occupant to the docks, where Merrily tried to shop for fresh pears from Carelon and found that she didn’t have the proper ration cards. But at a nod from one of the guards, the vendor gave her the pears and would accept no money in return.

Then Merrily and her escort travelled to one of the broad parks in the city, where happy pedestrians were quickly found to walk about in the dusk, and children appeared to play and laugh in a very natural fashion. Merrily spent several hours touring the park, sometimes sitting on a bench and chatting with the passers-by about the virtues of Rule by the People, on which topic they were all more than happy to expound at length. The official spies kept a respectful distance, for the sake of appearances. When the light began to fade, the people faded with it, and Merrily returned to her carriage.

Then she directed the driver to make a circuit around the city, and then another circuit, and another. She stopped at several public houses, but found them deserted. The guards and watchers tailed dutifully behind her, until at last she gave up her fruitless search for merriment and returned to the New Academy. In the starlit darkness she took a long walk along the walls that ringed the campus, and then went to bed.

✽✽✽

Several hours earlier, a young man walked casually into the dining hall at the New Academy. He wore a sensible shirt of brown hemp cloth, canvas pants, and the short-billed cap favored by the students of the Revolution. He participated in the pledge of allegiance to the new flag of the Republic and ate a short meal with his comrades in silence. As they filed out, the young man hoisted his small pack and slipped through the large kitchen and into the narrow passage beyond. He ducked down the steep, narrow stair to the disused ale cellar.

Merrily—who had lent her dress and hat to Frederick several hours earlier—pulled from her pack a pair of tall pants made of thick, oiled leather. The pants ended in rough boots of the same material. She slipped into the hip waders, lifted the hatch in the floor, and descended swiftly into the sewers. She lit a small, hooded lantern, narrowing its beam to a single thin shaft.

She knew the way; she had worked it out a year and a half ago with Cyrus and Jonathan, planning to escape Palace Naridium beneath the streets with Vicod Rayth. That plan had changed dramatically… but her memory of the route remained. She had, more recently, contrived to see the Crown Prince again at another of Hobb’s grueling dinner parties, and had given him the day and time of the operation. Merrily prayed fervently that young Leeland had not been discovered, or changed his mind.

You see, said the Second Voice, when it really matters, we pray. What else could we do, when success or failure hangs by such a tenuous thread? We have already passed the outer limits of self-reliance. There are no atheists in sewers, attempting to sneak in and out of Palace Naridium on an errand that will end in our swift execution if we are discovered.

Merrily came to the narrow shaft that led where she needed to go. She listened carefully; there were no sounds of occupants above. She withdrew from the pack a miniature crossbow, cocked it, and checked the coiled line carefully. Then she aimed and shot upward toward a dim light.

Seconds later, Merrily pulled herself up by her arms, raising the lid and emerging from one of the indoor loos in the basement of Palace Naridium. She left the fouled hip waders hanging down into the shaft, stashed her pack in a corner not visible from the door, and stripped off the student’s outer clothing. Beneath, she wore the sober, dark suit and white shirt of a clerk, just as she had seen on Mr. Robe. She donned a wig with care, then checked herself with a small pocket-mirror. Satisfied, the young clerk moved out into the halls of the palace.

Merrily presented a weary confidence, just as if she were contemplating the end of a long day shuffling paper in the increasingly well-stocked administrative offices of the civil service. Those few of the other staff she encountered in the halls at this late hour paid her little attention. Palace Naridium was a big place, and civil servants came and went.

She made her way upstairs, passing through Begley Gallery on her way to the private apartments. The broad gallery was nearly pitch black; only a dim light shone through one of the several doors out onto the balconies of the Grand Ballroom.

For a moment, she let herself pause, and her mind drifted back to that night in June of last year. She had been separated from Jonny, emerging onto the opposite side of the fifth balcony. He and Cyrus had roped up a chandelier, and, with Mari Snort, had swung, swung, swung, and reached just far enough for her to grab his fingers and pull them up and over the railing.

Then he’d grabbed her around the waist. She’d been surprised, but smiled.

He bent her over and kissed her, mirroring Wigglus and Frederick on the floor below. The kiss lasted a long time, and then he raised her to her feet again.

“Merrily Hunter, I love you. I love you more than I love anyone. Marry me, Merrily, and let’s love each other forever.”

Her gaze drifted over his shoulder, and found Wigglus and Frederick on the floor below, still locked in their passionate embrace. Suddenly she saw. It all fit together. It was all going to be alright.

“Yes, Jonathan Miller,” she said, with a smile like the light of a thousand suns. “I love you, and I will marry you and love you forever.”

A shadow moved at the far end of the gallery. It was a human form, walking along the wall at the far end. Merrily froze. She recognized it as the thin, weary form of Hobb the Wise, First Minister of Uelland.

Now, said the Second Voice. Now is the time. We prayed to God to protect us—and here is Hobb the Wise, alone and without help in a dark corner of the night. We can carry out Father’s command. It is God’s will, and we are His instrument.

She reached into the dark coat and drew out the dagger that Lady Eustacia Triggle had given her as a gift when last she departed for Uellodon. Then she drifted slowly, silently to the wall of the gallery, moving toward the shadowy figure of Hobb. Her free hand reached up and buttoned up the coat, obscuring her white dress shirt.

This is murder, objected the First Voice. There is no rationalizing it. We’d be—not an instrument, but a tool. Don’t be a tool.

Hobb’s death will be our doom, and the doom of an entire nation, agreed the Third Voice. But Merrily ignored them, and continued drifting toward Hobb, one quiet step at a time.

The shadow of the First Minister appeared to have stopped, and was regarding one of the paintings intently. Merrily drew closer, closer, gripping the knife, until she was just ten paces away. She tensed her legs and crouched, preparing to spring.

Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed. And, nearly simultaneously, the painting that Hobb was staring at came crashing to the ground. Its frame shattered and splintered, and Hobb danced just out of the way before it fell over on him. The First Minister looked up in astonishment, first at the wall where the frame had hung, and then at the shattered remains of the artwork. Merrily hurriedly ducked behind a suit of steel armor on a stand. She listened over the sound of her thumping heart, and heard footsteps walking away, along with the sound of angry muttering.

She closed her eyes, and tried to calm her breathing. Attacking him was out of the question now. And, in fact, remaining here was out of the question as well. More footsteps could be heard, approaching rapidly from the other end of the gallery hall.

Back to the sewers, commanded the Third Voice. It was a mistake to come here at all, and now we have a chance to escape before we do ourselves real harm.

No! hissed the First Voice angrily. We aren’t the coward you would make us. We leave here with the Crown Prince, and without blood on our hands.

She slipped out of Begley Gallery, following Hobb toward the apartments. Ahead of her in the well-lit corridor, the thin frame of the First Minister stalked forward. She kept her head lowered, lest he glance back, watching him through her eyelashes. But he appeared to be on a mission now, and looked neither left nor right. Merrily kept a cautious distance.

The First Minister stopped outside the small audience chamber. Merrily recalled her visit there, last year, with Hobb, Chancellor Pearsy, Wigglus, and Cyrus Stoat. He entered, and the door was shut when she passed it. The muffled voice of the First Minster addressed some unknown person.

“What do you want from us?”

If there was an answer to that question, Merrily was not a witness to it.

At the Crown Prince’s chambers, she knocked once on the door. The young man opened it, and she found him dressed in simple hose and a dark shirt. He carried no belongings, and his face was heavily smudged with grease.

“I am ready,” he whispered, without any greeting. “Please show me the way out.”

There was a commotion in Begley Gallery, so they avoided it. Instead, Merrily led Leeland to the long, spiraling stair at the foot of the Rose Tower, and they descended into the warren of kitchens, storerooms, and servants’ apartments below the palace. They found the loos unoccupied, and Merrily’s pack undisturbed—though some local wit had pissed in one leg of the hip-waders. Merrily emptied and donned them, giving another pair to Leeland. And then together they descended into the rank sewage in the tunnel below.

The sewers beneath Uellodon were extensive and well-maintained, a little-discussed legacy of King Gerald the Last, who didn’t care for the idea of his subjects’ rear ends depositing their inevitable payloads into the streets and wells of the city. Sewage treatment being an idea whose time had not yet arrived, the tunnels led to the Green River, where the immense bulk of the watercourse tolerably diluted the effluvia.

The tunnels also led beneath the Old High Court.

Merrily emerged first from one of the holes in the public loo within the courthouse, followed shortly by the Crown Prince of Uellodon—much to the surprise of several lawyers who were making use of the facilities. Nodding pleasantly, the two new arrivals stripped off their hip waders and hung them, then tidied themselves and made their way out into the main hall of the courthouse. The two lawyers pondered this solemnly, shrugged, and returned to a vigorous discussion of the briefings on the latest pre-trial legal dispute in the matter of Foregrub and Quimble.

Wigglus was flabbergasted when Merrily appeared in his office, trailing the Crown Prince and still smelling vaguely of sewage.

“Your Highness,” he stammered, rising to his feet behind the small desk. “How did you get here? And why did you get here?”

“Use your nose, Attorney Snort,” replied the young man.

Wigglus did that.

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“Ah. Strike my last; I detect that you arrived by a most unpleasant route. Very well. Why did you traverse the underworld of Uellodon to enter this hopeless building?”

“Because I want to retain you to represent me,” answered Leeland. “I have a case in false arrest and false imprisonment.”

“My partners are quite capable, and are on the outside.”

“But Hobb’s spies are on the outside as well, Attorney Snort. They are not in here; and if they are, at any rate there’s little they can do if I choose to remain.”

Wigglus looked at Merrily in horror. “You were party to this insanity? You brought him here?”

She nodded.

“Merrily, I love you, but you’ve been a fool. This place is doomed. We will die in our own blood—or else at the end of a noose. How could you lead a child into this?”

She could feel her face flushing. But before she could answer, the Crown Prince spoke again.

“She acted at my command, Attorney Snort. Do not fault her for obedience—or for loyalty to my mother. And if I am not yet a man, I am no longer a child. In all candor, sir, I have come here to escape Hobb, but also to return to Green Bridge. I want to go back to my mother. And here, out of the reach of the Republican Guard, I can compel Hobb and Father to let me go.”

“No, you cannot, Your Highness,” retorted Wigglus sharply. “This building is surrounded by armed men. If you want to get back to Queen Anne, then go with Merrily back down to the sewers and use them to make your way out of the city. There is no leaving here any other way. One day very soon the Republican Guard will storm this courthouse, and when they do, if you survive, you will end up back at Palace Naridium—but in considerably less comfort than the royal apartments.”

The prince looked agitated, but kept a firm grip on his voice. “The waterfront is watched closely. It is too great a risk to depart there. But you also underestimate Hobb’s preoccupation with the symbols of our history, Attorney Snort. The Republic is entirely without precedent in any of the Neighbor Kingdoms. Hobb has cut off the traditional roots of the King’s power—the merchants, the landowners, the bankers and lawyers and owners of businesses. He has the army; but the officers of the army are overwhelmingly conservative. They respect the person of the King and the office of the Crown. And what is the future of the Crown? It is I, sir. Father has no other children, and isn’t likely to sire any legitimate heirs with his wife at the other end of the kingdom, in open rebellion. He will be forced to accede to your demands and to grant me safe passage back to Green Bridge. To kill me, or throw me in Hoel, would be to destroy the only real legitimacy he still possesses.”

Wigglus leaned back in his chair, making a tent with his hands and pursing his lips in thought.

“You want to make a political statement,” he said finally. “It’s not enough to slip away in the night; you have to stick your finger in Hobb’s eye on the way out.”

The prince smiled. “Not only Hobb’s eye,” he said softly.

Wigglus leaned forward again and put his hands on the table.

“This is an atrocity of a plan, and it will end in blood and death. But as you say, Your Highness, you are no longer a child. The halls of the Old High Court are open to any citizen of Uelland, and if you choose to be in them—well, then I’ll do my best to see that no harm comes to you for as long as I can. And if you really want to bring a legal case against General Logwall, then I’ll represent you. We can serve notice on one of the King’s Counselors.”

He turned his glance at Merrily.

“I hope you don’t come to regret this, Merrily,” he said. There was no anger or bitterness in his tone, but only sorrow.

She rose and walked around the desk, then gripped his shoulder, as if it were some tree she could hold on to in a hurricane. He looked up at her curiously.

“I have something for you,” she said. And she drew out Frederick’s sheet of ciphered letters.

He stared at the cipher for several minutes, while Leeland and Merrily waited. Then he looked up at her. There were tears in his eyes. He drew a sheet of paper out of his desk and wrote in ciphered script on it, consulting a key on another piece of paper near at hand. The message was not long.

He folded the paper, sealed it, and handed it to her.

“Give this to him, please,” he said. “He knows the method and the key. It’s not a strong method, so please ensure it doesn’t fall into the hands of the Guard.”

She nodded.

Wigglus rose and embraced Merrily fiercely, then stared into her eyes.

“Go now, Merrily. It is dangerous for you to come back by your secret, fragrant path. If the Guard should discover it, it would be bad for both you and for us. We won’t leave that way; it would defeat all our purposes to slink away in the dark. If Hobb permits you to come back by the front entrance, then visit us again.”

She nodded, blinking back her own tears, and left the small office.

“Now, Your Highness,” she heard Wigglus say as she departed, “let’s discuss the elements of your claim against General Logwall.”

✽✽✽

The next morning, Merrily was summoned to the palace, where she was escorted immediately into Hobb’s private study. The First Minister’s eyes were hollow, and there were dark circles beneath them. But he was carefully groomed, and his office was tidy.

“Were you involved?” he asked bluntly.

“Involved in what, First Minister?” she inquired.

“In the kidnapping of the Crown Prince,” he snapped.

“Has he been kidnapped?”

“He was seen on the roof of the Old High Court this morning, taking the air and having a bit of tea with the anarchists and traitors that presently occupy the building.”

She pursed her lips and gave the appearance of careful thought.

“I was not involved in his kidnapping,” she said, her pride clinging to the faint truth that the only kidnapping that had actually been committed was some eighteen months earlier, and she’d been at the other end of the kingdom at the time. “But it sounds as though he meant for you to see him. They must have been planning it for some time. I would like to go back to the Court this morning to see if we can negotiate—”

Hobb rose abruptly to his feet.

“Come with me, Mrs. Hunter,” he said. And he stalked out of the room. Merrily, nonplussed, rose and followed.

He took her to a coach that awaited them at the gates of the palace, and together they rode through the streets of Uellodon. Hobb said nothing, but stared intently out the windows of the passenger compartment. Merrily rode in silence as well, with a sense of dread growing in her breast. She felt her control of events diminishing with each street they passed.

Eventually the coach rolled through the arched western gate of the city.

“Where are we going?” she asked, keeping her tone neutral and inquisitive.

“We are going to Hoel,” answered Hobb shortly.

The little towns and villages outside the city soon faded away, and they travelled through the rich farmland along the north bank of the Green River. The journey took perhaps an hour, as Merrily’s panic grew with each mile. Then they arrived at a tall, gloomy fortress of dark stone blocks, frowning down on them to the north of the road. It was surrounded by a wall of stone, some twenty feet tall. A squad of red-cloaked Republican Guards stood to attention at the gate.

“Have you ever been to Hoel, Mrs. Hunter?” asked Hobb.

“No.”

“Then you’re in for a treat. It is an ancient structure, of great historical significance. For nearly four centuries it has housed the worst criminals of the Kingdom of Uelland. And, coincidentally, it is also where we conduct executions.”

Hobb stepped out of the coach, into a broad courtyard in front of the hulking stone structure. The grass in the courtyard was a mournful brown. A line of tall gallows stood on either side, and a crowd of people were busy about the timber structures. Nooses hung from each gallows already, and a man was at each noose, adjusting it carefully. A long line of despondent looking people—men and women both—were arranged at one end of the row of gallows.

“Wait here, Mrs. Hunter,” said Hobb. As she stood still, he walked over to a man dressed in a gray suit. Merrily recognized the slight form of Mr. Robe. Mr. Robe disappeared inside the main structure of the prison, and Hobb returned to Merrily.

“I’ve asked Mr. Robe to bring up some of the special guests,” he said, with an almost jovial grin. “A visitor of your stature deserves better than common murderers.”

After a few minutes, ten people were escorted out of the yawning gateway of the main structure. They were men and women, and they were dressed in the shabby remains of what might once have been suits and simple dresses.

They were brought up onto the gallows. They went quietly, without resistance. Mr. Robe came to stand with Merrily and Hobb, and gave a shallow bow.

“What are their crimes?” asked Merrily. There was a hard lump of fear rising in her throat.

“Economic crimes,” answered Mr. Robe. “The worst sort. A burglar or a murderer might hurt one or two people, or perhaps even more, if he is quite prolific. But a man who breaks the laws that govern prices, quantities, the quality of goods—those transactions that we all rely on to live safely, and to preserve order—that man attacks the Revolution itself, and tears at the flesh, not merely of one or two individuals, but of the entire People. He must be made to deter other jackals by the consequences of his crimes.”

“This can’t be right,” said Merrily, feeling sick.

“Can’t it, Mrs. Hunter?” asked Hobb. “Do you think that the punishment of death is disproportionate, perhaps, to the crime of selling fish at too high a price? Does it violate some sense of principle? Consider that it is civilization itself that is attacked, when a man violates the law casually. If we permit these black marketeers to go about their vile business, gnawing at the ropes that bind us together as a society, then what law will next be ignored? The prohibition against theft, perhaps? Or rape? Or murder? Where next will the chaos spread? At any rate, that was the finding of fact by the National Assembly; and the punishment to be applied here—”

Hobb was interrupted as an executioner on the nearest gallows loudly proclaimed the name of a man. Then he pulled the lever, the floor dropped out below the condemned, and the rope snapped taught. The man’s neck jerked into a horrible angle, and he hung limply.

“—is the will of the People,” Hobb finished. “Well measured,” he added, eyeing the limp form. “No suffering at all; a quick snap, and the criminal pays his debt.”

“Why do you want me to see this?” Merrily asked. “Do you think Queen Anne will be convinced by this spectacle to submit?”

“No,” said Hobb, shaking his head. “Anne is a practical woman, and she will be persuaded by practical considerations. And you are a practical woman as well, Mrs. Hunter. But the fools occupying the Old High Court suppose that they do so out of principle. I want to save them, Mrs. Hunter. I don’t want them to end up here. They must understand, and appreciate in the most immediate and practical way, that their principles are, not only wrong, but also the surest and quickest path to these gallows. Sometimes death here is quick and painless, but sometimes…”

He looked up at the next gallows, and nodded.

“Hector Quimble!” bellowed the soldier at the lever. And he pulled it.

“What!” exclaimed Merrily. “This man hasn’t been convicted—”

The rope snapped; but Hector Quimble didn’t die immediately. Instead he wriggled helplessly, jerking and dancing for several minutes at the end of the line. Finally, he stopped moving.

“Sometimes death here is neither quick nor painless, Mrs. Hunter,” Hobb finished his sentence. “Make them understand: They are irrelevant. Hector Quimble was convicted of his crimes. He was convicted by a panel of judges duly authorized by the National Assembly, under laws passed by the same body. Sadly, the man who tied Mr. Quimble’s knot got the length a bit wrong. He didn’t drop far enough to break his neck, I’m afraid, and he had to be strangled slowly.”

Hobb turned to face her squarely.

“If the Crown Prince does not return to Palace Naridium by nightfall, Mrs. Hunter, we shall be obliged to retrieve him, and everyone else in that courthouse will share the fate of Mr. Quimble.”

He turned and walked calmly back to the coach, as more names were called out, and more ropes snapped taught. Merrily, helpless, followed him, and Mr. Robe walked beside them.

“Even in the realm of death, we are making progress, Mrs. Hunter,” said Mr. Robe, smiling casually and nodding toward the wall of the courtyard. A wooden frame was set up there, with a heavy blade suspended over a bench. A basket lay just in front of the end of the bench.

“The noose is inefficient, for large numbers of applicants. We are preparing to dispense justice at a much greater scale, and with a great deal less suffering. Soon there will be no need for the rope to be the right length; no need for rope at all, in fact.”

✽✽✽

The Republican Guard would not permit Merrily to enter the yard in front of the Old High Court. So she stood just beyond the two bronze statues with their sad eyes.

“Wigglus!” she shouted, and waited for a response. Eventually he appeared on the battlements, recognizable even at a distance by his curly, black hair that was now a bit too long. Another man stood beside him. He was tall, dressed in hardened leather armor, and had a broad-brimmed hat. He carried a long bow.

Wigglus waved at her.

“They will attack tonight!” she screamed, not caring for her dignity as her voice cracked. “If the Crown Prince does not return, they will come for him! Hector Quimble is dead, and Hobb says everyone in the court will be executed as well!”

She could see the figure on the wall nod. Then it waved again, and disappeared out of sight. The man with the bow stood for a moment longer, letting himself be seen by those below.

Even as he turned away, Merrily recognized the bowman with a shock; it was Wallingford Spoon, Chancellor of the Royal Academy in Exile. He disappeared after Wigglus, moving through a narrow door into the great slanted roof.

She sat down on the ground between the two statues, looking up at their faces and perfect, idealized forms. They were meant to be Justice, of course. One needn’t have studied the past to see that.

What does it mean? asked the First Voice. What are these two women supposed to be, with their sword and shield and perfect bodies? And how would they judge what I have done, bringing the Crown Prince into that building? Have I killed Wigglus, and hundreds of others? Was there any principle at all? And if there was, was it the right one? How would I know?

There was no answer from the other voices.

She waited at the edge of the chilly yard as the afternoon wore on. The light dimmed early; it was nearly Midwinter. A bit of damp snow trickled down from the heavy, overcast sky. She wrapped her cloak tight around her, and shivered, but refused to leave. There was no sign of further activity on the roof of the courthouse.

In the streets beyond the barricades, beyond the space occupied by the Republican Guard, crowds had begun to gather. They meandered at first, pretending to be moving about on business, but soon most gave up the pretense and simply stood to watch. In the fading light, the torches and lamps at the guard posts, and the lamplight from inside the courthouse, were the only illumination of the building. The light flickered off the faces and bodies of the bronze statues, giving the illusion of dynamism to their expressions.

Merrily, now banished back to one of the houses nearby, watched helplessly from the rooftop as the Republican Guard brought up a stout, iron-headed battering ram. Crossbows were distributed among them, and boxes of bolts were passed around along the street at the front of the building. The Guardsmen strapped on breastplates and replaced their three-cornered hats with iron helms.

The assault began with little fanfare. Eight men simply hefted the battering ram and trotted up to the great oak double doors of the courthouse. A squad of perhaps twenty followed after them, their crossbows winched and pointed skyward. A handful carried torches.

She heard a heavy, slow, rhythmic thumping begin.

Merrily sat down on the rooftop and lowered her head. She couldn’t watch.

Then there were cries from the doors of the courthouse, and the sound of many more thumps and thuds. By the light of the torches, she could see a rain of objects coming down from above, impacting heavily on the men in the narrow space before the door. She thought, at first, they were rocks. But then, observing their shapes and trajectories, she saw that they were not rocks at all, but books.

The law library of the Old High Court was raining down from the battlements, crushing the attackers below with thick, dense volumes of paper and leather and weighty legal precedent. Hurled spine-first from four stories above, they were nearly as deadly as stones, and far more plentiful.

The soldiers below tried to shoot upward, but there was nothing to see in the darkness above them. More plummeting books thinned their ranks even as they winched their crossbows. The Guardsmen at the door soon abandoned the attack, leaving behind the ram and a handful of prone figures and fleeing back out of range. As they ran, several more fell screaming, with arrows protruding from their backs.

There was a murmur from the crowd gathered in the streets behind the barricades. The failed assault was quite visible there, and she could see others, like herself, gathered on rooftops with a view. She glanced over her shoulder at the Rose Tower, observing a faint light in its uppermost chamber.

The next attack was soon organized, however. Masses of Guardsmen with dozens of long scaling ladders rushed to the walls, swiftly placing the ladders and beginning to climb them. A few arrows came whistling out of the darkness, and perhaps half a dozen of the attackers fell from the ladders. But the rest continued upward.

Again, the defenders were prepared. Long polls pushed the tops of the ladders out, overbalancing them and sending the red-cloaked attackers screaming to their deaths. Some squads reached the top, though, and in the darkness she heard the sounds of fighting, and agony, and dying. Bodies dropped from the battlements, and in the dim light she could not see whether they were dressed in the red of the Guard or the dark suits of lawyers. After several minutes, the sounds died down, and the ladders were drawn up into the darkness. The survivors of the assault limped back to the guard posts, or were dragged by their comrades.

The murmurs in the streets behind grew louder. She heard the bellows of the Republican Guard, ordering the crowd to disperse. It did not.

Hours passed in silence, and the night grew very cold. The snow began to come down more heavily. Merrily shivered in her cloak, but refused to cease her vigil. The crowd beyond the barricades remained as well, and coats were passed around against the cold and snow.

It was sometime after midnight that the crowd was forced apart, and a large, dark shape came through, escorted by crew of soldiers. They did not wear the red coats and cloaks of the Republican Guard, but the silver and black of the King’s Heavy Arms—professional soldiers. They pushed between them a large, wheeled siege engine, with a thick, heavy flinging arm and a basket at the end. A wagon followed behind, laden on one side with large round stones and on the other with slim barrels.

Merrily’s heart sank to her toes.

The onager was placed between two of the guard posts at the edge of the yard, and the guardsmen on either side moved heavy slats in place to protect it against arrows from the roof of the courthouse. But then Merrily saw that something odd was going on around the siege engine. The black and silver-clad engineers were standing idly by, doing nothing. The Guard officers shouted at them, pointed energetically at the onager, and shook their fists—but the military men simply folded their arms and watched. At last, infuriated, the men of the Republican Guard set about winching the device themselves. One of them rather uncertainly adjusted the placement of the arresting bar. Then they loaded one of the barrels into the basket, carefully lit an oiled rope on its top, and released the tension.

The arm flung forward and hit the arresting bar. The flaming barrel wobbled uncertainly in a low arc, then landed in the cobblestone yard in front the courthouse, where it burned cheerfully—and harmlessly. A sudden jeer came from the crowd behind them:

“Hooked it, ya daft hillbilly!”

Guffaws and snickers sounded in response to this anonymous wit, and the nearby Guardsmen glared hard into the crowd. The military engineers stood impassively by, their faces showing not a hint of emotion.

On the next shot, the arresting bar was too far forward, and the barrel of pitch flopped down and impacted on the ground just feet in front of the onager. More jeers and laughs erupted from the crowd of onlookers beyond the lines.

“Just missed!”

“A little to the left, Guardie!”

“Give ‘er a citation, Captain! May’aps she’ll take ye seriously!”

The Guard switched to boulders, then, and commenced to probe their way toward the walls of the courthouse. Several shots, winched too energetically, went sailing over the courthouse and into the neighborhood beyond, causing sounds of destruction and guilty looks among the novice siege engineers. But others slowly found their way toward the walls, until eventually the crew managed to land several solid shots on the reinforced stone towers surrounding the doorway. The projectiles impacted with a terrific noise, causing a cascade of stone and roofing slates to detach from the tower and crash to the ground. But the tower itself stood firm.

“Another day or two, and they’ll have it down,” Merrily heard one of the military siege engineers remark to a companion.

Then the Guard ran out of stones.

Having found their range, they switched back to pitch barrels, but discovered quickly that, although the burning pitch made a terrific spectacle on the walls of the Old High Court, the stone stubbornly refused to light on fire, and the burning pitch dribbled down harmlessly to the courtyard. They tried to adjust upward for the roof, but when the first barrel went sailing over the Old High Court and landed in the highly-flammable neighborhood behind, the military engineers turned the wagon around and marched away with the rest of the ammunition. And that was the end of the siege works.

Near dawn, the Guard made a final effort. More scaling ladders were brought forward by large groups of Guardsmen, and they advanced on the walls. Another squad, holding broad shields over their heads and supported by crossbowmen, ran back to the fallen ram and picked it up. Falling books smashed against their shields, and some fell back with broken arms; but the rhythmic thump of the ram against the oak door commenced again. From the guard posts across the street, more crossbowmen raked the dimly-visible battlements atop the Old High Court with wave after wave of bolts. They had no targets to shoot at, but the steady sweep of deadly projectiles made it a mortal hazard for any man to rebuff the scaling ladders. And, indeed, dark-clad forms dropped from the battlements to the courtyard below at regular intervals. Two of the ladders were pushed off, but the rest remained upright long enough for the teams to reach the top.

Merrily watched, and listened, in agony. She could see nothing from the rooftop, but the sounds of fighting and dying there were loud and fierce and painful. Men, and parts of men, dropped from the battlements to the yard below. At the gate, the ram broke through, and the whole group of red-clad Guardsmen seized their hand weapons and rushed into the portal.

There came, from within, the sudden noise of twanging crossbows, and of many more screams. Merrily remembered that the passage inside the door ended in a heavy inner portcullis, though which she had seen Wigglus weeks ago. The cries abruptly ended, and none of the Republican Guard re-emerged from the front door.

An odd quiet settled over the courtyard, and the fortress-like Old High Court. The fighting on the rooftop had died down, but in the darkness Merrily could make out no details that would tell her which side had prevailed. She waited, shivering in the snow, for dawn to come.

As the faint light around her turned gray and began to strengthen, there was movement in the street below her. She looked down, and saw, to her great surprise, that the crowd from the streets outside the barricades was moving in a great mass toward the courthouse. They came deliberately, without rushing, without violence. The few Republican Guard remaining at posts around the courtyard shouted and threatened, but they were too few to hold back the crowd, who simply flowed around them. The people carried torches and crude, improvised weapons, and were dressed warmly now against the slushy snow. Some bore large packs. They passed under and around the two female statues, making their way across the courtyard littered with bodies and the detritus of war.

Merrily wasted no time in descending to ground level, using the skills acquired in Lightfoot’s Rope Swinging and Boulder Evasion Seminar to descend via a handy downspout. She joined the crowd as it flowed forward, and carefully made her way to the front.

When she reached the shattered oak doors, she found that the many bodies, which last night choked the narrow passage outside it, had been carefully moved and stacked on the sides. There were black- and gray-suited lawyers and red-cloaked Guardsmen in equal numbers. Passing the threshold into the building, she saw that more bodies littered the ground, riddled with bolts. These, too, were being drawn out to make room for the crowd.

She elbowed her way to the front, where she found one man in particular, dressed in a sober black cloak and a wool hat, speaking with a ragged-looking lawyer on the other side of the portcullis. Even as she arrived, the portcullis was slowly raised, and the man stepped inside. Merrily rushed up to his side, grabbing his arm, and looked at his face.

It was Frederick. He smiled wearily at her.

“Hello, Merrily Hunter,” he said, as the crowd flowed around them. “I’ve come to observe the public courtroom proceedings in the matter of Foregrub and Quimble, and I’ve brought a few thousand guests with me.”

✽✽✽

She soon learned that the Republican Guard had taken the rooftop, but the lawyers, bailiffs, and Applied Historians there had barricaded themselves inside the offices on the top level, denying the Guard entry. With a massive crowd now occupying the yard below and the surrounding block, the attackers were themselves besieged, and soon gave themselves up. When they yielded their weapons, they were allowed into the courthouse, where bailiffs escorted them back out of the building.

But Merrily paid little attention to the tactical situation. She and Frederick were directed to one of the large courtrooms on the ground floor, which had been converted into a field hospital. And there, among many other wounded and dying men and women, they found Wigglus.

His head was wrapped in a bandage of gauze that was dark with blood, and his white shirt was also stained red. His face was pale. There was a compress on his shoulder where a crossbow bolt had been removed, and his right arm was in a sling. His eyes were closed, and his chest moved faintly. But when Merrily spoke his name, he opened his eyes and smiled up at them.

Frederick woke him and gave him a sip of wine from a skin, and a little color returned to his face. Then Frederick smile and kissed him, and Wigglus returned the kiss unabashedly. Several of the other injured attorneys nearby smiled to see them, but no words were spoken.

Merrily walked out of the infirmary, and found she was exhausted. She sat down on a bench, watching scores of people move about in the broad, grand entry hall of the courthouse, now marred by debris and injured men. The droning sound of a lawyer’s voice in some nearby courtroom went on in measured, elegant cadences; the endless, defiant proceeding on the Foregrub and Quimble matter, she surmised.

Someone sat down next to her. She looked up, and found that it was Chancellor Spoon, of the Academy in Exile. He still wore his leather armor and carried his long bow, but the quiver was empty. The academic’s face was smudged and streaked with sweat and dirt, and blood spattered his armor, but he seemed more tired than injured.

She didn’t ask him why he was there; the answer was too obvious. Instead, she said:

“What happens now?”

He smiled ruefully.

“Now,” he answered, “events around us become more complicated and dangerous than ever before. And you, Mrs. Hunter, must leave while you still can.”