“Rock steady. I’d never have guessed. And you had him going, I can tell you that.”
“Nah. He was just toying with me. He could have done me at any time.”
“That”—and he pointed at Thomas—“is a load of crap. I was watching him, watching his eyes. There were a few times when he was really worried. He would have this confident look, but then I’d see the confidence shake, just a little. I can read people, remember. I know what’s going through their minds, and more than once, he was starting to wonder if he’d taken on more than he knew.” Then James grunted softly. “All over a matter of principle to defend a sneak thief. Amazing.”
“Well, what about what you did? That was amazing as well,” said Thomas.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything.”
“Oh, come on!” Thomas said firmly. “The way you looked at that man, the way you talked to him. It was like you were giving him no choice except to say what you wanted him to say. You talked to him like . . . I don’t know, you were a king or something, commanding immediate respect and obedience.”
James laughed. “You don’t know what you’re on about.”
“I sure do. I know what I saw and what I heard. Here was a man with a sword and a gun, backed up by his troops, to say nothing of a crowd of people looking on who could have jumped in if they were so inclined . . . and you, with your hands empty, took control of the situation completely away from him. He had no idea what to say or do except whatever you told him to do.”
“I startled him, nothing more. And amused him. It meant nothing.”
“No, you imposed your will on him is what you did.” Thomas contemplated him for a moment, as if truly seeing him for the first time in his life. “You know who did that?”
“Don’t start.”
“Spellcasters.”
James rolled his eyes. “I told you not to start.”
“I am totally serious, James.”
“Yes, I know you are. That’s what’s so annoying. I’m not a spellcaster just because I managed to convince a sergeant to throw us into gaol. If I was really some sort of spellbinder, I would have convinced him to let us go completely.”
“And if I were a truly great swordsman, I would have been able to defeat him,” Thomas said with growing eagerness. “For two guys who haven’t had any training, we’ve been able to pull off quite a lot.”
“Again: We’re in gaol.”
“But at least we’re still alive. That’s got to count for something. Who knows what we’d be able to do if we’d been able to spend a few years in a Guild Hall, honing our talents and reaching our full potential? You might be tossing around blasts of lightning with a wave of your hand, and I might be able to take on an army of men single-handedly.”
With a heavy sigh, James said, “Those days are past, Thomas. You know it, I know it, and all the ‘what-ifs’ in the world aren’t going to change that.”
“James . . . the only thing that has ever changed anything in the world is ‘what-ifs.’ Without those, we’d all still be rooting around in swamps, primitive and afraid of terrifying creatures lurking just beyond the perimeter of the campfires.”
“Yeah, well . . . all things considered, maybe we’d be better off back in the swamps.”
Poxy, who had appeared to be dozing, suddenly lifted her head as if she was anticipating something. Moments later, they heard a noise at the door, the sound of a bolt being slid back, and the door opening with a loud creak. Torchlight filtered in from the hallway, and a pair of guards dressed in the same manner as the sergeant had been were standing there waiting for them. They had their guns unholstered and, even though they were not aiming them at Thomas and James, the unspoken message was clear: Make any sort of move against us, and we will blow your brains out. The mute warning, once sent, was readily received. Thomas and James got to their feet, keeping their hands visible and at their sides. Poxy growled low in her throat, and James patted her on the head and quietly urged her to settle down.
“Come with us, if you please,” one of the guards said.
“And if we don’t please?” James said automatically. Thomas glanced heavenward.
The guards gave no answer. That alone was a response.
Turning to Thomas, James said with false joviality, “I don’t think we’re actually being given a choice here.”
“I could kill you where you stand,” offered one of the guards. He actually sounded rather keen to do it, no doubt because attending to corpses was someone else’s problem, and he’d be relieved of the odious duty of dealing with the prisoners.
“That’s okay,” Thomas said quickly, before James could utter another of his dubious witticisms and get them both killed. “I think we’ll come with you.”
“As you wish.” The guard sounded vaguely disappointed. His companion just looked bored.
Thomas toyed with the notion of trying to overwhelm the guards and flee the gaol. As quickly as he contemplated it, however, he set it aside. They’d been told that Sutcliff was someplace that could lead them to balverines and was also the residence of the mysterious Mr. Kreel. That being the case, becoming fugitives would hardly serve their cause. They needed to face down the magistrate, present to them what Thomas considered the rightness of their actions, and then hope for the best. He was fully aware that matters might not exactly turn out the way that he was hoping, and having to fight their way out could wind up being the only option. Best, though, to let things play out before embarking upon that last-ditch scenario.
They were brought up a twisting flight of steps, with Poxy leading the way, James behind her, and Thomas behind him, with the two guards bringing up the rear. Ahead of them, at the top of the stairs, was a heavy door that was open wide, with another guard standing next to it, holding it open and glowering down at them. He looked especially suspicious of the dog. Thomas was starting to wonder if people suspected that Poxy was, in fact, the brains of the group. Considering the number of times that he and James seemed to fall headlong into danger, he was starting to wonder that himself.
They emerged from the door and were let out into a narrow courtyard with the open entrance to another building at the opposite side. More guards were lining the path on either side. Thomas recognized a couple of them from the squad that had originally arrested them. Not for the first time did he wonder to where the girl had been taken away. It would be coldly amusing if, once she had been separated from them, her right hand had been summarily chopped off, and she’d been sent on her way. That scenario tended to render all of their own actions as somewhat moot.
He discovered in short order that that was not the case. They were escorted into a room that was too large to be an office but too small to be a true court. There was an oversized desk at the far end, and a seating area off to the side that was crammed with onlookers. Thomas wondered if they were others who were waiting to be summoned before the magistrate, but then James and he were brought forward and made to stand several feet in front of the desk, at a respectful distance. More guards were standing to either side of the desk, clearly to act as a buffer should anyone have thoughts about attacking the magistrate. Certainly, that wasn’t an option since their weapons had been taken from them upon their arrest. Still, Thomas found that he rather liked the notion that he and James were considered so dangerous that, even unarmed, they were treated as if they were capable of inflicting catastrophic harm.
The fact that they were the only ones brought forward told Thomas that the onlookers were just that: an audience who was there primarily to be afforded some entertainment. No doubt they were hoping for a good legally mandated thrashing or maiming or even—one could only dream!—a hanging. It was Thomas’s sincerest hope to be able to disappoint the lot of them, the bloody vultures.
There were two doors to the front of the chamber: one to the right and another directly behind the desk. The door to the right opened, and through it came his old friend, the sergeant, pushing ahead of him the young thief who h
ad gotten them into all this trouble in the first place. She had a face so bereft of expression that Thomas had to think even James would have been daunted playing poker with her. Her hands were firmly bound behind her back, and she was wearing her hood up so that her face was almost invisible within. She deliberately dragged her heels, and the sergeant pushed her from behind, nearly causing her to stumble. He grabbed her by the back of her tunic and yanked her upright.
“We meet again,” James said with surprising cheer to the sergeant. The sergeant said nothing in response but contented himself with scowling at him. That was fine with the boys; they were getting used to it. It seemed at some point or another, everyone they met scowled at them.
Not the crowd, though. Apparently amused at James’s insouciance, a ripple of laughter rolled through the onlookers. This did not sit well with the sergeant, who gave them an evil look as if they had somehow betrayed him and, for that betrayal, would face a fate even more forbidding than what awaited the young men. The glare quickly restored order, but quite a few people were still smiling. For some reason, that cheered Thomas considerably.
Then the door behind the desk opened wide and immediately, as if on cue, everyone in the room promptly got to their feet. Thomas and James had no need to do so since they were already standing.
A cadaverous-looking man with a gleaming pate utterly bereft of hair emerged from the unseen room behind the door and closed it firmly. Thomas took one look at him and felt a chill down his spine. He had an immediate instinct that things were not going to go well with this individual. The man, whom Thomas assumed was the magistrate, took his place behind the wide desk and sat with his shoulders hunched and his head thrust forward in a way that evoked a vulture. That, of course, suggested to Thomas that they were as good as dead. Immediately, he started reassessing the room in terms of how one might exit it in a hurry. Unlike the nimble-handed thief, the young men’s hands were free. That could well prove to be a mistake if the situation called for them to attempt a sudden breakout should matters go against them.
He knew what he had said to James about taking a principled stand and dealing with the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, if it seemed that they were not going to get a fair hearing and that the magistrate’s mind was already made up, with only the speaking of their sentence to be uttered, then Thomas didn’t see any reason not to try to get the hell out of there.
“So,” said the magistrate in a gravelly voice, once the spectators for that afternoon’s entertainment had seated themselves. “You are the two young scoundrels who thought to undermine my law, eh?”
Oh yeah. This is going to go great, thought Thomas.
Still, there seemed no way that matters could possibly get worse, and so Thomas spoke his mind: “We felt that—”
That was as far as he got before a sharp impact on the back of his head staggered him. One of the guards had thumped him solidly with his fist, and Thomas felt as if his brain were bouncing back and forth inside his skull.
“You were not given leave to speak!” snapped the magistrate.
Poxy, seeing that Thomas had been struck, spun and growled ferociously at the guard who had hit him. The guard immediately went for his gun, and James instantly shouted, “Poxy! Down, girl! It’s going to be okay!” He dropped to one knee and wrapped his arms around her to settle her. Poxy did not try to struggle from his grasp, but there was cold fury in her eyes, and she looked as if she was ready to lunge at the soldier if James let go of her for so much as an instant.
Thomas shook off the ringing in his head and didn’t bother to point out that, since the magistrate had posed what sounded like a question, thinking that an answer had been expected was hardly out of line. Certainly it wasn’t worth a blow to the skull. It was just a further indicator to him that they were not going to get a fair hearing. Because of that, he was already running through his head how the first thing he would do would be to move like lightning, yank the sword from the guard’s scabbard, cut him down, grab his gun, shoot the sergeant, vault over the desk, take the magistrate hostage, and use him as a shield so that they could make their way out of the chamber. From that point on it was simply a matter of running as fast as they could.
It seemed a reasonable plan, with the only thing deterring him being the fact that he had never in his life killed a person or come close to killing a person. Even when he had been fighting the sergeant, he hadn’t been thinking much beyond defending himself and simply hoping to disable his opponent. In this case, disabling was not an option. He needed to kill or be killed, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he could accomplish the former in order to stave off the latter. He supposed he wouldn’t know until the moment came.
The magistrate stared at them for a long moment in a challenging manner, as if waiting for them to say or do something that would further earn his ire. The boys wisely said and did nothing, and he nodded once briskly as if satisfied that a lesson had been properly administered. Then he turned to the sergeant, and said, “And this is the young thief with whom they were in cahoots.”
And that was the point where James stood, squaring his shoulders, keeping one hand resting steadily on Poxy’s head. “You, sir,” he announced in a voice as clear as a clarion bell, “are an idiot.”
The magistrate paled in shock, and then, before anything else could be said, James suddenly pivoted and faced the soldier who was standing right behind him. The man’s fist had been cocked, prepared to deliver a cuffing just as he had inflicted on Thomas, and James in full fury shouted, “Try it! Try it when I’m looking at you instead of with my back turned! Try it, I dare you, because then you get to explain to your wife this evening how you got your fist shoved down your own throat!”
The soldier stood there with his fist held exactly in the same position, and his eyes were wide in shock as James’s infuriated gaze drilled into him. Then, as if the man were nothing to him, James slapped the fist aside. “You,” said James, “have no idea who you’re dealing with.” As if indifferent to any further threat that the guard might pose—or perhaps simply secure in the knowledge that Poxy now had his back—James turned to the others, and said, “None of you have any idea who you’re dealing with. You, Magistrate, as I said, are stupid. Or, at the very least, woefully misinformed. If that’s the case, then your problem is with whoever gave you bad information, not us.” He began a slow pace, fixing his gaze upon each and every person there. Even the spectators were watching him raptly. “I’m going to be honest with you: I think what my friend did was a bonehead move. This girl is nothing to us except someone who tried to rob us. But he refused to stand by in the face of what he saw as an injustice, and he is going to explain to you, right now, why he did that, and you are going to listen to every word he has to say. Do you understand me? Do you all understand me?”
There was a deathly silence, and all eyes slowly turned to the magistrate. He had not moved so much as a centimeter since the beginning of James’s outburst. He could just as easily have been a statue for all the outward signs of life he was displaying, and Thomas began to wonder if the man hadn’t simply died from shock right there.
And then the corners of the magistrate’s mouth began to twitch. His dry lips stretched a bit, causing cracks to appear. He trembled ever so slightly, as if he were having some sort of a mild fit, and then from his mouth issued a noise that sounded like a creaking hinge.
It continued and became rhythmic, and more sustained, and louder.
And Thomas realized, to his utter astonishment, that the magistrate was laughing.
The soldiers were too stunned to react; it was obvious that they had never seen anything quite like this. But the spectators, eager to remain in the magistrate’s good graces, and seeing that there was implicit permission to be amused as well, promptly followed the magistrate’s example. Within moments, the entire chamber was ringing with laughter.
James was looking in amazement at Thomas. He wasn’t sure what the meaning of all this merriment was, b
ut it stood to reason that it was going to be of benefit to them. And he leaned over and whispered, “Maybe you were right! Maybe my willpower is overwhelming!”
The magistrate was now on his feet, still laughing loudly. It sounded incredibly strange, as if it was an action that he had not embarked upon for a very long time. Then he leaned on his desk, putting one hand to his chest, recovering himself, although the spectators were still laughing loudly.
And then he reached into the pocket of his long black coat, withdrew a pistol, and aimed it straight at James. His face still displaying a rictus of a smile, he croaked, “I’m going to kill all three of you myself.”
James and Thomas were frozen in shock. All the plans that Thomas had for how to escape death should it come down to it were blown right out of his head at the abrupt reversal of the magistrate’s attitude.
The magistrate cocked the hammer on his pistol, and despite all the close scrapes that they had faced, the fact was that they had never been as close to death as they were at that moment.
Their salvation came from a most unexpected source.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Magistrate.”
It was the young thief. Her voice was clear and firm, and there was not a trace of fear in it, as if the magistrate’s intention to gun them all down by his own hand was of no relevance to her at all. Although her hands were bound, she managed to flip her head back so that the hood fell away.
“How dare you!” said the sergeant. “How much rudeness is the magistrate supposed to endure?”
But the magistrate was staring at the young girl and his eyes widened, revealing a latticework of veins. “Sergeant ...” he said slowly, “is this the one whose hand you were going to cut off? This is the girl?”
“Yes, Magistrate,” said the sergeant. “I apologize for her arrogance. I thought I had managed to beat it out of her, but apparently—”
The magistrate whipped his gun around, aimed, and fired.
The sergeant staggered, a look of astonishment on his face like nothing that Thomas or James had ever seen. More out of reflex than conscious thought, he reached up to his forehead, and his hand came away covered with blood. The sergeant’s mouth moved in a vain attempt to form a question, but all that emerged was more blood, pouring down his chin, dripping onto the clean and pressed white shirt of his uniform. Then his knees gave way, and the sergeant collapsed to the floor, lying there in a spreading pool of his blood.