Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [18]
I was, truth to tell, quite set to detest the place. Whatever its age, no matter its architectural or historical importance, Justice Hall was keeping Mahmoud Hazr from his rightful and chosen place in the world. No pile of stones or family tree justified the disruption of a man’s life—of the lives of two men. Two good, righteous, valuable men who had been happy doing hard and important work, until a brother had died and a title descended on one. I had no illusions that anything Holmes and I could say might prise Mahmoud from his perceived duty, but I had come here intending to try my damnedest.
But oh, the house.
I had thought Alistair’s small mansion near to perfection, had found its human scale and diversity deeply satisfying. Justice Hall was another measure of human endeavour entirely.
The house was composed of three main blocks, with the largest, central portion set back between the two wings like a lion welcoming visitors between its enormous outstretched paws. Or like a sphinx; yes, there was something distinctly feminine about the Hall, its strength delicate rather than muscular. The drive crossed a stream that merged with the beautifully curved pond, and came to its end in a circle between the two paws; from where we stood, the drive looked remarkably like a ball of yarn stretched taut, awaiting the great feline’s attention and amusement.
Too symmetrical and unadorned to be called Baroque, too richly varied for a Palladian label, its stone some indeterminate shade between warm gold and cool pewter, with crenellations and domes and a wealth of windows that hovered just on the safe edge of excessive, Justice Hall was unlike any building I had ever seen. Rather, I corrected myself, it resembled other grand houses of the nobility, but in the way that a woman of strikingly original beauty resembles her inevitable crowd of imitators—the similarity is in one direction only. I felt I had never truly seen a country house before. It was almost improper to think of it as a mere “building”; this was an entity whose signal characteristic was its unearthly perfection.
The sun did not shine on Justice Hall so much as Justice Hall called forth the sun’s rays to fall at such and such an angle. We did not look upon it; rather, it invited our eyes to admire. It sat in its exquisitely shaped bowl and smiled gently on the careful arrangement of dappled deer on its slopes, the fall of shadows from its trees, the play of the breeze on the water at its base. In the summer it would glow; in the rain, its face would appear pensive; under a blanket of snow it would be a fairy-tale castle; in the moonlight, this would be the dwelling place of the gods.
Justice Hall was the most self-centred house I had ever seen. My heart went out to the man at my side: If Justice Hall wanted Mahmoud, I did not believe Ali had a chance.
As if he had read the thought on the side of my face, Alistair made a small sound, a grunt of disgust, or perhaps of despair.
“You see?” he said.
I do not know why it took me so long to consider that Alistair’s motives in seeking us out might not be purely philanthropic, but it was only at that moment that I perceived the stain of jealousy beneath his philadelphic goals.
Maybe, I thought, just maybe we will find that Marsh Hughenfort actually wanted to come home. Perhaps his eyes viewed the panorama before us with all the love and devotion of his Norman ancestors. His blood and bones, after all, were bred here; more than eight centuries of his people had devoted their lives to holding the land against all comers. Mahmoud must be nearing fifty, the time when a man’s eyes might well begin to tire of the dry, grey, comfortless, and infinitely treacherous desert and to seek the relief of green hills and childhood shapes. Perhaps Justice Hall’s seventh Duke had chosen to come home from the wars, to die as an old man in the bed where he had been born.
With that, I was no longer so sure of the coming discussion with the man I had called Mahmoud Hazr. I was bound by loyalty, without question; but there were two of my brothers