The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [138]
In short, who were the people of Eslen?
She realized she didn’t know and wondered if her father had. If any king or emperor of the Crothanic empire ever had, and if in fact such a thing were really knowable at all.
At the moment they were in the Onderwaed district, where the sign of the ridge-backed swine was everywhere in evidence: in door knockers, on small paintings above the doors, as wind vanes on the roof. The plastered houses tended all to be the same umber hue, and the men wore brimmed hats pinned up on one side. Many of them were butchers, and in fact, Mimhus Square was dominated by the impressive facade of the butcher’s guild, a two-story building of yellow stone with black casements and roof.
As they entered the square, Anne’s attention was drawn more to the spectacle than to the buildings around it. A large crowd was gathered around a raised podium in the center of the plaza, where many oddly clothed persons seemed to be under guard by soldiers. The soldiers wore square caps and black surcoats with the sigil of the church on them.
Above them—quite literally, perched on a precarious-looking stilt-legged wooden chair—a man dressed as a patir seemed to be presiding over some sort of trial. A gallows loomed behind him.
Anne had never seen anything like it.
“What’s going on here?” she asked Sir Clement.
“The Church is using the city squares for public courts,” the knight replied. “Heretics are common in the city, and it looks as if the resacaratum has discovered more.”
“They look like actors,” Austra noted. “Street performers.”
Sir Clement nodded. “We’ve found that actors are most particularly susceptible to the lures of certain heresies and shinecrafting.”
“Are they?” Anne asked. She spurred her horse toward the attish.
“One moment!” Sir Clement cried in alarm.
“I heard my uncle state that you were at my command,” she responded over her shoulder. “I wonder if you heard the same thing.”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“Yes, Highness,” Anne said icily. She noticed Cazio placing himself so he could come between her and Robert’s knight should the need arise.
“Yes…Highness,” Sir Clement gritted.
The patir was watching them now.
“What’s going on here?” he called.
Anne drew herself up. “Do you know me, patir?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed, then widened.
“Princess Anne,” he replied.
“And, by law of the Comven, sovereign of this city,” Anne added. “At least in my brother’s absence.”
“That is debatable, Highness,” the patir said, his gaze flickering nervously to Clement.
“My uncle gave me passage into the city,” Anne informed him. “Thus, it would seem he has some belief in my claim.”
“Is this so?” the patir asked Clement.
Clement shrugged. “So it would seem.”
“In any case,” the churchman said, “I’m engaged in the business of the Church, not that of the crown. It is immaterial who sits on the throne so far as these proceedings are concerned.
“Oh, I assure you that isn’t the case,” Anne replied. “Now, please tell me of what these people are accused.”
“Heresy and shinecraft.”
Anne looked the company over.
“Who is your leader?” she asked them.
A balding man of middle years bowed to her. “I am, Your Majesty. Pendun MaypValclam.”
“What did you do to come before this court?”
“We performed a play, Majesty, nothing more—a sort of singspell.”
“The play by my mother’s court composer, Leovigild Ackenzal?”
“Yes, that one, Majesty, as best we could.”
“The play has been judged to be shinecraft most foul,” the patir erupted. “That confession alone consigns them to the necklace of Saint Woth.”
Anne arched her eyebrows at the patir, then turned and gazed around the square at the faces of the assembled onlookers.