Fable: The Balverine Order (Fable) (28 page)

“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, but 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.

The girl had not been in the least bit startled. Rather, she stared down at the sergeant with a sort of indifference, as if the abrupt taking of a human life was of no consequence to her. Then she looked back to the magistrate, and said, “I would appreciate it, Magistrate, if someone unbound my hands. My wrists are starting to chafe.”

“Do as she says!” the magistrate ordered. The soldiers had scarcely had time to process the fact that their sergeant was dead when one of them moved forward to release the girl's wrists. Then the magistrate turned back to Thomas and James and stared at them as if not quite certain what to make of them. This was someone whose entire world was carefully constructed in such a way that he knew all the components of it intimately and was able to control all of them. At least that was how Thomas saw it. But it was clear that he was utterly bewildered as far as the two of them were concerned. Settling for the simplest means of dealing with the situation, he pointed at them with one bony finger, and said, “Take them back to their cell. Do nothing to injure them. Nothing.”

 

 

SO IT WAS THAT JAMES AND THOMAS FOUND
themselves right back where they had been scarcely an hour earlier. As if they had never left, Poxy contentedly lay down, rested her head on her paws once more, and settled back to sleep.

“What the hell just happened?” said James.

Thomas shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

James gently thumped his head back against the wall. “I can't believe that I actually thought I'd imposed my will on that . . . that gargoyle. What the hell was I thinking?”

“I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking that here you were talking about
me
being brave? Suffering cats, James! At least I was holding a sword when I made my stand!” He laughed, incredulous. “Shouting at the guard, facing off against the magistrate. I've never seen anything like it.”

“And it would have been the last thing you'd ever seen if it hadn't been for . . . I don't know
what
that was! That girl! The magistrate looked ready to piss himself! Who the hell
was
she?”

“Well,” Thomas said thoughtfully, “she obviously knew the magistrate, and he knew her, and she knew he was going to know her.”

“Meaning . . . ?”

“I don't know,” Thomas admitted.

“Okay, well, that was useful.”

“Whoever she was, though, I have a feeling we're going to find out. He told them not to harm us, remember. Obviously ...”

“There's something about this that's obvious?”

Thomas nodded. “He's not sure of our relation to the girl and doesn't want to do anything that's going to upset her.”

“I'm not sure of our relation to her either, so at least we're on the same page in that respect.”

They talked for a time longer, batting around theories, none of which were provable or even particularly convincing. Eventually, just as before, Poxy suddenly hopped to her feet and turned to face the door. Her body was tense, as if she were bracing for another possible battle.

Then they heard the voice of one of the guards saying, “This is the one, my laird. They're in here.”

“Thank you. You're free to go.” The voice was deep and confident and slightly lilting, and there was a slight burr to the words that sounded foreign to Thomas and James. Moments later, they heard a key turning in the lock, and the door swung open.