8.2
Jewel stared down at the men.
All seven of them had been stripped to only some worn trousers. They each sported bruises and cuts days old by the color and scabbing. One of them had an eye swollen shut and purple.
The one ahead of the other six met her gaze with a calm that was matched by his fellows. But there was also an ease to each of them. In spite of the shifting care they favored one side or another from injury they were not men who were broken by their assured death.
The space that had once been occupied by Bathory’s chair and all the other chairs and table against this wall had to be removed. Jewel occupied far too much space for any but the throne that had been so long empty to be remain. And even then it had to be moved forward on her right so she could more comfortably lay her coils there in comfort and grace. Paul took his place as her husband and count, occupying his father’s seat.
He was still not tall enough to fully fill the space meant for a larger man.
Jewel and Paul sat alone in judgment. Her Father could not be here, showing too much difference to him in this matter would undermine Jewel’s still nascent authority.
The Countess of Kaeketeh had to attend to this matter herself.
She had not actually heard enough on the road to expect the men were even imprisoned, let alone that they awaited judgment. But then again Kaeketeh ahead of anywhere else in the realm except maybe Rochford was more assuredly Jewel’s then any other territory in Viznove. And there was no court better suited than that of the Countess of Viznove to judge them.
Still loath as she was to wish death on anyone, Jewel had felt a tremor of frustration to find out that the complications to her inheritance would not even wait until the rest of her vassals arrived to declare their fealty.
Bathory’s captain of the footmen turned to the men, men he most assuredly trained and knew in person. His face held blank and his voice betraying none of the fear wafting off him.
“You stand before your Countess, to be judged for the betrayal and murder of your charge and honor bound liege. Who you seven openly consorted in the slaying and subsequent violation of the body and soul of the late Countess Elizabeth Bathory.”
All seven men kept their eyes straight ahead, in that firm stillness Jewel had always seen the Countess’ men maintain.
The bearing that but for their lack of armor was matched by the guards that mingled with Jewel and her father’s own men. There was fear coming from them, but honestly far less than Jewel expected given their death was assured.
Beaten and bruised but at peace. What stink of terror there was to them was more lingering than fresh. Days old at best.
Jewel needed to clear her name of any involvement in this matter. She could not afford not to. But As the final law of the land beyond the High King himself Jewel had no one but herself to forbid her curiosity.
If she was to decree their deaths there was one question that burned to be answered before it was lost forever.
“Your fate is sealed, you have forsworn pacts with stars above and mortal law both. But before you are judged I would know. Why did you slay the Countess Bathory? Why doom yourselves so?”
Two of the guilty men shifted uncomfortably, their fear sparking higher.
One of them seemed almost surprised but it was their leader who spoke.
“Too long have the daughters of Kaeketeh gone missing in the night! Too long since my sister never came home! It has been twelve long years since that night but the vile fiend is finally dead! For the vengeance of my family I’ll gladly suffer any doom!”
The one who had jerked in surprise tried to speak up. He was muttering something.
“W-what, b-”
One of his fellows shoved him off his feet with a hiss to shut up.
“Be Still! You will all be sharing the fate of my judgment! Nothing you say here will absolve you of that. You have spilled the blood of your sworn lady!”
Jewel spat the words with all the authority she had practiced for her entire life. Drawing on the lessons from the war and practice with Mother.
She waited for them to continue but none moved, not even the guards. The guards who were barely breathing. The silence of the feasting hall turned courtroom festered til it was smothering. Finally it had dragged too long for Jewel.
“Please to your feet, and come before me, you are each owed to speak for yourselves.”
The other six shuffled away from their fallen comrade as he struggled and then finally got to his feet. The entire display slowed by the shackles on ankles and wrists.
But he was already speaking as soon as he was up to his knees.
“They told me! they said you’d approve! That we were doing you a favor! That it was good and righteous work! The Countess was a vile woman! This was Justice!”
Jewel glared at the man, for speaking what she was thinking, what she could with barely a glance see was held as true by far more than the seven before her. The tension in their captain’s neck and jaw spoke volumes.
The rising stink of fear from nearly half of the footmen and guard of Kaeketeh in the room settled a suspicion. She couldn't even disagree with him truthfully, and she could taste the agreement from others there. But a newly risen Countess could not afford to reward guards for slaying her predecessor!
Besides!
Jewel had not wished this to happen at all!
And yet how many terrible things had this stopped? How many were saved from further filling the now empty ‘larder’ beneath Kaeketeh Keep?
The city was hers, word had already reached her that there was not a single person in Kaeketeh who wasn't openly celebrating the death of the old countess. There was already word that these men were being cheered as heroes.
Not exactly their names, but already the story had grown to legends that entailed at least three instances of terrible magic and fierce battles.
Jewel was the law of this land, she should be able to make any judgment she wanted.
But it was all too soon!
Paul, her father and mother all were very clear in this. She lacked support from all her lords and vassals. She lacked assured allies and though she might be able to lay waste to one or two armies Jewel could only be in one place.
Most importantly she did not want to do that!
A rule born in war and bloodshed echoed the terrible stories of the Tyrant wyrm of old.
Jewel refused to have her first act as countess be the bloody subjugation of her vassals and conquering of their land.
The room had fallen silent. Paul rested a hand on her coils and gently stroked against her scales. Letting his fingers drum lightly as he passed the ridges of her larger ones. Near the mane on her spine.
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These men by law had to suffer for betraying the compact with their lady, for defying oaths made to the gods that they would protect their countess. To satisfy and assure her vassals and allies that Jewel did not in fact enact the countess’ death. They had to answer for that betrayal publicly, but at the same time Jewel could not call it justice.
Not when they had killed that awful woman and her evil.
And how was it fair that these seven should suffer alone when Jewel could smell far more than them was complicit in the countess’ death?
That thought struck like a bell in her head.
There had been more evil in Kaeketeh than just Bathory!
Jewel turned to the Captain Bathory’s Guard, the silence had truly dragged as she worked over the infuriating problem in her head. Trying to pry open the puzzle like she would one of the simple and now much yearned for disputes on the simple shifting of a fence line.
But she felt a solution of sorts, a feeling like a rhythm and a music that she could follow into a dance.
A way out for her and all of them and more.
It made her tone suddenly light.
“Captain, for matters of proper recompense and glory to you the rightful protectors of Viznove and her late grace the Countess Bathory. How many of your loyal footmen perished in the taking of these traitors?”
Confusion caught the captain and long trained obedience did the rest of the work.
“None of the footmen perished that night my Lady.”
Jewel raised a brow in surprise.
“Oh! How fortunate, then enlighten me, how many other conspirators were felled in the capture of these surviving seven?”
That got the captain to shut up and go stiff, glaring up at Jewel, she could practically hear his head trying to churn up the lie he was going to tell her, could smell the stark new terror and hear his heart pounding with it.
The lead traitor spoke up in the silence offered while his former captain tried to find a way out.
“There were no others then us seven, we guarded her chambers that night alone, then snuck into her room and it was we seven that stabbed her through the heart, cut off her head, arms and legs and then took a part each to the courtyard and saw her burned to ash.”
Jewel hummed and widened her eyes in fake surprise, she did as she had learned from mother and Paul. and perhaps just an unsavory bit from the late countess herself.
“Oh I see! So what poisonous drought or working of sorcery did you bargain for to put all the guards on watch to sleep so you could enact such a blatant act of treason in the Capital and Seat of Viznove?!”
The captain’s eyes widened and he took a step back, his hand going to the sword at his side. There was a shift among many of the armed guards wearing the colors of Bathory.
More than half.
But the rest were looking around with shock and surprise much as the Rochford men did.
Murial was already taking position in front of Paul.
Good, her husband would be secure if this came to bloodshed. God’s blessing or no.
The leader of the traitors laughed, dry and cruel.
“They didn't get ensorceled or drugged or even particularly drunk. We seven carried her bloody pieces to the courtyard and we burned her on a pyre set by us ahead of time. They looked away as we carried her cursed flesh and stained ourselves in her blood.”
He spat at the captain of the guard’s feet. Who now had apparently fully realized what was at stake.
Jewel for her part took on another questioning, curious, innocent tone.
“How strange, that hardly sounds like the acts of loyal, upstanding or dutiful guards holding to the vows you so completely betrayed. Why didn't you escape if none interfered?”
The seven men were smiling, not joyful smiles, they were cruel grins that knew their future held misery. But that had seen the opportunity to drag others down into the dark rotting pain with them. They smelled like the soldiers Jewel had seen cut open at the belly that still fought to kill their enemies though death was assured.
“Oh we did not try to escape good Lady Jewel, when the fiendish woman was burned to ash come the dawn we surrendered to the good captain to await your justice. It’s strange actually, I could have sworn I saw quite a lot of them standing with us around the pyre and cheering.”
There was a slight lilt of mock surprise and wonder at the circumstances in the tone as he spoke of it to her.
The captain of the Bathory Guard was gawking, he was gaping at the unarmored, bruised and battered man. Finally after Jewel watched the comical display for a good while words finally found their way free of the man’s lips as he bloomed into pure and unrestrained panic and fury.
“LIES! The traitor lies and seeks to drag others into the doom he’s rightly earned! He-”
Jewel interrupts with her softest most penetrating croon.
“Tells every word true as he knows it.”
Jewel looked around at the Kaeketeh footmen. She saw arms preparing to draw swords or brace spears.
“Unlike you.”
Her declaration had silenced the captain’s growing rebuttal with a choked off whimper.
Jewel surveyed the room and saw it was mostly full of cowards.
She saw the hands that had dragged hundreds of women into the Countess’ clutches knowing full well what it would entail.
She saw craven brutes who had not even the bravery to stand here with the seven of them before her. Who stole and took from those that would soon have everything of them further taken.
A Countess had been murdered by her own household guards. And that was not even the gravest of their crimes.
To Secure her position Jewel had to pass judgment on those responsible for a noble’s death.
But in that moment Jewel saw a chance to enact True Justice. And as soon as the thought finished forming she could feel the words rising from her throat.
“As the Countess of Viznove and Lady of Kaeketeh I pass Judgement on the traitor guards of House Bathory.”
The footmen rallied, they were moving to turn on her, on each other, on the guard from Rochford who were already withdrawing to encircle Jewel. Falling into position with either Muriel or in the familiar positions they had taken with Jewel during drills.
“On all who have turned their eyes from the evil and vile acts done before them.”
Her voice was singing and echoing off the air and stone of the Keep and as each word landed she saw the men of Bathory stumble.
“On all who saw and knew betrayal of the oaths of nobility and fealty and did nothing.”
And then the weapons began to fall from shaking hands.
“On those whose hands took life they should have guarded.”
Strong men collapsed to their knees as they gave startled anguished gasps.
“For every trespass against innocence, for every year stolen, for every drop of blood tainted.”
She spoke the words and though they might sound like she said them for the vile woman who was dead and burned Jewel could only think of Adelyne and the thing that could have been made of her.
Of the things that yet still existed out there somewhere partly because of these men!
“I judge you guilty of all acts vile made under the shield of your complacency and cowardice.”
Not one of Bathory’s guards was not curled up in shuddering tremors upon the floor. Even the seven sacrificial traitors convulsed before her. And she could not see it as anything but just.“I declare your penance shall be to live and suffer every year stolen under your watch or by your hand.”
Jewel felt it ringing out of her throat like the flame of wyrm doom.
She felt the stones drawn close to watch every utterance and the very air humming to her words. She had risen up to fill the room, her wings extended to surround all the men who had lived long years in the Countess' service and then had the gall to look the other way and let her perish now!
The world which always was there close and attentive and comforting to her now listened as Jewel called out to it.
And then something inside her twisted and Jewel toppled into a heap, the constant current of wyrmflame that ran through her body suddenly bursting free and clear. Twisting out in a coruscating lashing of bands which struck every single one of the late Bathory's men in the feasting chamber.
Their voices rising into the shrillest screams before all the world turned black around her.
The last voice she heard was that of Paul and Murial yelling her name.