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By Root 3077 0

over that, choosing their champion, and then demanding Chancellor’s. Chancellor had wanted to do it himself. He had been warned against this practice, which admitted any form of attack, and any weapon save the gun or the bow. Short and stocky in build, he was no match in weight for these thick-built men with the powerful shoulders and arms. But he was fit, and fast, and had learned a few tricks at sea he had found useful, before now, in dark streets in alien harbours, and he was tired of life as a draper’s major-domo. But though he was vehement, and Christopher naively eager, and George Killingworth, in a dignified way, perfectly prepared to take issue on behalf of his rights, the matter was settled by Rob Best, who said simply, ‘I’m the biggest,’ and by Danny Hislop, who said immediately, ‘Right. Best it is.’

Which was the intelligent choice. For no sooner did the Novgorodians see Robert Best issue, stripped to the waist, to defend his Company’s rights in the courtroom, than they decided to cancel the fight and draw lots. Then, buffeted in the back by the swaying of half the citizens of Novgorod, held back neither by rail nor by bar, they had witnessed the name of the Company sealed in a round ball of wax, and the name of the Governor of Novgorod sealed in another.

Beside him, Chancellor knew, Fergie Hoddim was grinning. On his other side, Christopher had turned faintly green. Then the tallest man in the crowd was brought forward to hold the two balls high in the crown of his hat, while another stranger came forward on tiptoe, his arm stripped to the shoulder and stretching, picked out one moist lump of wax.

The judge broke the ball in his hands, and unfolded the stained scrap of paper.

It held the name of the Muscovy Company. They had carried their point, and the Company was held innocent of any malicious intentions towards the Governor and people of Novgorod.

The air had not been rent by cheering, and the thumping he received on his spine was not entirely that, Chancellor thought, of bonhomie, but no one knouted them either. Now, Moscow-bound with the sledges hissing in train through the snow, he said to Fergie Hoddim, ‘What was grand about it from your point of view, Hoddim? No disputation; no subtle by-play between the opposing lawyers. Merely a display of animal force displaced by an accident of fortune.’

‘Aye, well,’ said Fergie, who with Hislop had joined Chancellor and his son in the heavy, roofed sleigh for the homeward journey. ‘It was the subtle by-play, ye might say, that got ye the accident of fortune, not to mention the happy outcome of the process, confirmed under the white wax, so to speak. As to disputations,’ Fergie said, ‘ye need look no further than Daniel Hislop.’

‘You may be right,’ agreed Danny Hislop, pink bull terrier to Fergie’s lined bloodhound. ‘I lack Mr Hoddim’s profound faith in the powers of argument. I wanted to do something crude, like threaten somebody.’

‘No, no,’ said Mr Hoddim. ‘Threats? Bribes? Remeid of law should be open to a’body, proponi in publicum, without recourse to perversion. Public justice is sacred.’

‘What was in the second ball of wax?’ asked Diccon Chancellor.

Fergie Hoddim looked astonished. ‘The name of the Muscovy Company,’ he said, affronted. ‘A good lawyer leaves nothing to chance. The wax came from the store ye had just bought up yourselves, and at a better price, I may tell you, than if the Tsar had elected to commandeer it. Just so.’

Diccon Chancellor laughed suddenly. ‘Just so,’ he agreed. ‘Mr Hoddim, don’t you miss your compatriots? Rude of arts and ignorant of politics, they’re too simple for you here.’

Above the long, glossy moustaches, the hooded eyes cast him a shrewd look. ‘Simple, would you cry them? They knew just how far to go, to test your power and standing, and mine.’

‘Not yours, my dear innocent: the Voevoda’s,’ Hislop said. His pale eyes gleamed at the Chancellors, father and son. ‘You know he is a banner lord? Magnified, feared and beloved of all men. I hear you are considering a trip to the Lampozhnya Fair. I hope you will insist on