Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [60]
Carl and Josef escorted Peter to the room’s center, to stand before the two people who were seated.
“Can you stand on your own?” Carl whispered into his ear. “No, don’t answer. Whether you can or you can’t, you have to, so do it. The good news is, one way or another, this won’t take long.”
Carl and Josef released Peter and stepped back a few paces. Peter was wobbly on his feet, but was able to remain upright.
“Let’s begin,” the seated man said. “I don’t like having this many of us gathered here all in one place.” Peter couldn’t begin to guess how old the man was. He could have been twenty or sixty. He was thin, but beginning to get a belly. He had dark hair, darker eyes and a short beard in good trim. An old scar slanted down one of his cheeks. He wore rough homespun, like the rest of them. His were dyed in green and ochre.
“This boy is called Peter,” Carl said, turning this way and that as he spoke to address the entire assembly. “He’s accused of unsanctioned thieving. Now he stands trial before Erwin, unchallenged King of all Thieves in the Town of Hamelin and its environs. Here also is Gisela, his advisor and his queen, and Hagan of the Lowenbrucke, Master of the Touch, and also a trusted advisor to the king.” Carl’s gesture indicated the other grown man standing in the room, among all of the children and young men. He wasn’t tall, but was nearly as thin as Peter’s lost brother Max. What hair Hagan had was also dark, but it was just a fringe circling around his ears and the back of his neck. He had bright green eyes that were fixed on Peter, seeming to pierce him, looking past his rude flesh and plunging deeply into his most private thoughts.
Gisela, the queen, seated beside King Erwin on his right, had reddish hair like Carl’s. In fact she resembled him so closely she could’ve been his elder sister. She wore a brown dress of wool and a tan-colored blouse made of the only bit of linen evident in the room. She was pretty, but had a severe look on her face.
“Carl tells us he caught you stealing in my town,” Erwin said to Peter, indicating that the few formalities had concluded and the actual trial had begun. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” Peter said. He didn’t know if he should call the man ‘sir,’ or ‘king,’ or any other form of polite address.
“And does anyone here recognize this boy as our brother?”
No one spoke.
“All right then. He’s guilty of thieving without my permission, for which the punishment is death. Carl, since you caught him, you can kill him. Your prize is whatever he has — yours alone in this case, with no need to share it among us.”
And with that, the trial seemed to be over. The king of thieves brushed his hands on his knees and began to rise, but he was interrupted when the queen leaned over from her seat and whispered in his ear. He abruptly sat down again.
“Hold on a moment,” the king said. “My lovely bride reminds me that I skipped a step. Does anyone assembled here wish to speak for this boy?”
“I will,” Carl said. Peter noticed that Carl hadn’t tried to speak up, or hadn’t even looked at all distressed, when the king had pronounced his quick judgment and started to leave.
“My young brother-in-law wishes to delight us again with his gifted tongue,” the king said, proving that Carl was indeed related to the queen. “What do you have to add, Carl?”
“Two things, King. First, Peter didn’t know he was breaking the laws of our Brotherhood.”
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” the king said, “as our current oppressors are so fond of reminding us.”
“True, King, so then to my second observation,” Carl said. “Peter proved to be a careful and inventive thief. I believe