Western Watch (3rd Draft)

Chapter 5

"Is it true?" The question hangs in the air. Merreth stands looking out the window, feet apart, hands behind her back. A breeze flicks up a few dry leaves and carries them off towards a nearby field. To be one of them right now, she thinks. Perhaps I am.

They're in an outbuilding of the new Watch Hall, by the look of it, a scribes' dormitory. Sawdust still covers the floor, the walls are freshly paneled, desks and bunk-frames are draped with painters' drop sheets. Rhekhell's office at the busy inn will not serve for this conversation. Too many ears. As it was too many eyes had seen Merreth ride up from the riverside surrounded by constables and the Red Hand. Instead, the High Mistress had met them here, at an unfinished building still skeletoned with scaffolding.

"I asked you, Lady Merreth, is it true?" Rehkhell paces along the far wall.

"Does it matter?" asks Merreth.

Rehkhell crumples the summons in her fist. It hasn't left her hand since Merreth saw her snatch it from an infuriated Tiandraa. "If you're guilty of what's written here, you'll be hanging from a silk rope before year's end!"

"I doubt it would come to that." Merreth watches another leaf flutter off to the field, as if chasing the others. She's numb, her heart dusted in frost. Her fear is distant, a storm on the horizon, now that the crisis has arrived. She hopes it stays there. She needs time to think, to figure a way out this trap. There's one way. All it would cost would be two years and a tacit admission of guilt, unless ...

"The accusations are false?"

Merreth nods at the balled paper in Rehkhell's hand. "I'll be dead before I come to trial. Conveyed to 'secure and appropriate lodgings by representatives of the aggrieved party'", she says, quoting from the summons. "It's unlikely I will arrive breathing, however."

"Don't be absurd, Lady Merreth. Such things may happen in the surrounding patriarchies, but inside our borders the law rules." Rehkhell pulls a drop sheet from a chair and sits down. "You'll arrive unharmed.\There will be a trial and a verdict rendered."

I notice you didn't say I'll be found innocent, thinks Merreth. There's a noise outside the window. A couple of horses come into view. Two Red Hand couriers, mounted, joined by a Watch constable on foot. She knows Sarrit is out there somewhere as well, no doubt pacing back and forth and chewing his lip. Tiandraa and Lyadkell will be watching him with bored disdain when they aren't studying the building and trying to guess what's going on inside.

"You're not here to help us," says Rhekhell. "and your sister didn't send you."

Rhekhell holds Merreth's fate in her hand and could crush it just like the crumpled summons. And yet ... "I never said she did. You assumed my reasons for being here."

"Reasons which are now clear," says Rhekhell. "You were to stay at Sable House Hold, Lady Merreth, yet you chose to violate the ban and flee here." Her gaze flicks westward, towards the unseen river. "Not surprising, where else would you run?"

"I didn't run," snaps Merreth. She'd been worried about fear. Anger is a more dangerous enemy right now. "What will you do, High Mistress? Send me to my trial?"

Rhekhell stuffs the summons into her pocket. "Tell me the accusations are baseless lies! Tell me you ran because you were frightened! If all of this is true, you've spat on your mother's memory, turned her generosity into nothing more than a foolish, selfish act."

"Generosity? What the blazes are you talking ..."

"Is it true?" Rhekhell is up and standing inches from Merreth, glaring into her eyes. "Answer me!"

Merreth remembers the warm crimson running off her fingers. The sensation was exhilarating. "I don't know. I don't remember."

"You don't remember," repeats Rhekhell. "No Wechtan noble would act as you have. Blood will tell." She shakes her head. "Blood will always tell. Your mother was warned and she followed her heart instead of her head." Rhekhell walks to the door pauses and glances back at Merreth. "My hands are tied by our traditions and our laws. You leave with the Red Hand within the hour."