Lora of Two Worlds

Roland marched Windsor Yves into the shire court under guard.

Felix convened the court at once. And there on the floor of the court, with no dagger standing at his back, Windsor Yves swelled right up again:

”Lord Sheriff — you will hold the law even, of course. Captain Odenheim, leaning on the strength of his arms, has dragged me in here by force. I’d only ask: does the Lord Sheriff stand only for the officials, and think nothing of a small common man like me?”

Watching him play the poor-mouth, Roland would not grace it:

”Lord Sheriff — I went to the Minister of Rites’ mansion to buy back the Odenheim deeds, and Windsor Yves took the excuse of his steward’s sitting in the cells to refuse the settling.

We were inviting him to the shire court to see his steward — when someone in that mansion tried to put an arrow into us by stealth a second time. With no road left open, I brought him in by main force, and I ask the Sheriff to hear the two cases as one.”

Two cases heard as one — and the searching of the Minister’s mansion could go in by the front door, warrant and all.

”An arrow! Ha! Ha! And did one eye see it? I could throw a knife at your own rooftop and cry that you had tried to assassinate me. When a man means to hang a crime on you, the charges never run short. Lord Sheriff — isn’t this taking you for a fool, framing me out of thin air?”

”And without a search, how do you know it is a framing?”

Roland let the cold laugh out.

Before ever leaving the mansion, he had sent a man back to word Gareth: put men on the few crossroads that led away from the Minister’s mansion. Not foolproof, no — but that archer would not now slip out easily.

Roland had his strategist’s cunning, and Windsor Yves had his ladder over the wall.

Even as he was marched out of the mansion, a houseman had already run to the inner quarters to carry it to his father, the old Minister of Rites:

This was past enduring! Without one writ out of any office, the Odenheim people had dared walk into the Lohenheim Master of the King’s Ceremonies’ own house and lay hands on his son.

The old Minister took his litter, and the bearers went at a trot the whole road to the Lord Regent’s office of the Eastern Capital.

He had marked it plainly enough these last weeks: Legard had been going about, sounding every man — all to get his grip on the Eastern Capital’s military command:

”Every other marcher command holds the sword and the civil rule in one hand. The Eastern Capital’s district is not the capital city of the old days — why keep it split in two, Augustburg fashion?”

The Count stood close with Lord Darcy, who was pressing the naming of the crown prince — and if the Count’s leanings moved a part of the Eastern Capital, was it for one thing but his sword?

And the Odenheim house had been bleeding trouble upon trouble of late — the very hour to go before the King and impeach the Count, and make him hand over the Eastern Capital’s command.

With the Minister’s house kicking up this row, Legard was a drowsy man handed a pillow — nothing could have suited him better.

On the shire court court floor, Felix weighed it briefly: settle the deeds first, before Windsor Yves could hatch some new turn of mischief. He said:

”Since the man this court holds has stood in the way of the Windsor settlement, the court will stretch its own rule and open a back door for the Windsor house: bring out the suspect Windsor Fortune, and let him do the young lord’s sums here before the bench. If that is favoritism, then let it be favoritism toward the young lord, no?

Officers — bring in the suspect Windsor Fortune.”

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What in the world — this game, on him.

Windsor Yves laughed cold and private: these little devices, to spend on him?

Windsor Fortune was brought up. One sight of the young lord at the bench and he fell to wailing: ”Young lord — a wronged man stands before you! The Odenheim tenants beat our man to death, and now they smear us as the ones who loosed a hidden arrow at their young lady...”

At which it came back to Windsor Yves: the bully-boy they had carried home had died in the night.

It was this same Felix, that evening, who had asked him — keep the man in the shire court cells for treatment, or take him home whole?

And a fool would have chosen home.

”You great lout — yours is a heavy sickness indeed. Yesterday you wandered off lost in your own fog; today you’re talking rattle. Avery the Third walked out of this court on his own two feet, hale as an ox — and you have him beaten to death!”

Windsor Yves turned to the bench, hands folded: ”Lord Sheriff, you see it for yourself — the man has been frightened clean out of what wits he had. There’ll be no reckoning out of him. I’ll come another day, I think.”

The great doors of the court were door-boards; with the court sitting open, the boards were taken down, and the hall ran straight into the corridor beyond — down the long passage, past the waiting hall, the viewing hall, and the shire court gatehouse, the front gate itself could be made out far off.

By now Felix had already seen it: outside the court, a party of men pushing the serjeants aside and walking in. No sound carried — but at the sight of serjeants giving way like paper men, there was no guessing left to do:

The Lord Regent himself had come.

The serjeants dared not stop them. But in the gatehouse — Jonan Carey barred the road, fist folded to his breast.

Felix drew his eyes back and smiled:

”Another day serves as well. This court had meant to let him do his sums, walk once through the story of yesterday, and send him home. But since he is still lodged in the great cells — then today the heavy instruments come out. Once the six-and-thirty have had their turn with him, and something comes loose, you will be asked over again.”

The color moved across Windsor Yves’s face: the instruments? If only the fool doesn’t let slip who it was brought Webb in— no. Not Webb only; there was nothing at all the man could be let say.

”Webster — how does the second Miss Ashby do in her cell?”

”To answer the Sheriff, my lord — the second Miss Ashby weeps and wails, and says the Windsor house will buy up the whole of Lohenheim, sooner or later.”

Felix smiled: ”Oh? Has the King carved off one of the two capitals and made a present of it to the Windsor house? Set a man to listen at her door and write down every word she lets fall.”

A wise man swallows first and settles after; Windsor Yves plied the smile on:

”Lord Sheriff — why not say sooner that they could walk? The reckoning, then! Windsor Fortune — today is the eighteenth day. Out loud where they can hear you: principal and interest together, how much?”

And Windsor Fortune was not the man to miss it: what a good heart the young lord bore — this was the leading of them home.

Money out on pledge, paid back before the term — the interest stands all the same. The figures sat ready in his head, and they came straight off his tongue:

”East Great and East Little together — principal and interest, four hundred fifty-five thousand florins.”

East Manor had once been a royal farm — thirty-five thousand acres of it, split by the lie of the land into the Great and the Little for governing. The Odenheims’ five other manors were private holdings, each of no more than a few hundred acres.

Lohenheim land stood at thirty florins the acre just now. The Windsors, watching Webb go hunting wolves with empty hands, had ground him hard on top of it — ten florins the acre, and not a coin more.

Twenty days, interest at three parts in ten. Black-hearted money comes in quick.

In the gatehouse, Jonan Carey’s answer came back — no holding Legard — and the party was already walking in.

Roland drew from his breast a voucher of the East Vault — and written on its face: gold, forty-five thousand five hundred marks.

”A voucher to draw gold. We made a point of lodging the metal with Second Master Hugo’s East Vault — surely that even you can’t doubt? The Sheriff stands witness for us — and the young lord returns the Odenheim deeds to East Manor.”

”Windsor Fortune! Over here, and pass the voucher!”

With the gold-drawing voucher in hand, Fyfe and Lora followed Windsor Fortune off to fetch the deeds — passing Lord Regent Legard and his party shoulder to shoulder.

Before the man could so much as open his mouth, Felix was out the door to meet him, hands folded:

”Lord Regent? What brings you here? A plain pledge-settlement between the Windsor and Odenheim houses, nothing more. Your servant has already stood witness to it — the Windsors return the deeds, and both parties go home.”

”A settlement?”

Legard looked from Windsor Yves to Roland Odenheim, doubt written over his whole face.

Windsor Yves looked back and saw his own father standing behind the Lord Regent — and what a tide of regret broke over him: why had he not held out one breath longer, just then?

Damn that Ashby hussy — ”buy up the whole of Lohenheim,” was it?

The old Minister was still at sea in the affair. A serjeant led Rowena Ashby out; the sight of Windsor Yves set her wailing:

”Young lord — the Odenheims put me in a cell! You must win me back my breath. I have it all settled: tomorrow at midnight we go take the manors in — every farm-wretch of East Manor run out into the road!”

The old Minister: Wasn’t it my son they had arrested?

The Lord Regent: Hmph!