The rumbles from the crowd turned into clear shouts. Arms were waving from the balconies. Augustus stamped his foot, but they didn’t silence. Heratio then took it upon himself, shouting, “Silence!” at the top of his lungs.

The crowd quieted but did not silence. However, it was enough for Augustus to speak. “That is an accusation against him, I assume? Heratio, were you notified of this accusation earlier?”

“No!”

“I will not allow you to ambush an accusation at someone of such gravity in my court!” Shouted Augustus. “If you speak any further, I will have no choice but to detain you and have you punished. If you wish to accuse Heratio of a crime, then he will be honour bound to be present for his defense, but only if he is notified of the place and time in advance. No matter what you say here, by the nature of the manner of this setting, they can only ever be wild and dangerous accusations!”

Augustus waited, his eyes fixed on Ignacius. At the first moment Ignacius attempted to speak, Augustus was ready to take action. But Ignacius knew not to press further. He remained silent. The crowd calmed itself gradually until they just waited along with Ignacius for Augustus to continue.

“Now then,” said Augustus when he deemed the crowd ready. “I will give my judgement. Keppe, for the grave crime of robbery and murder, I sentence you to be hanged until dead, two days from today.”

Augustus pointed at a group of men in the crowd. “You there, you group of men. I order you, as magistrate, to ensure he is delivered to the pens near the Senate. The scribe will give you a letter with my seal to be delivered with him. With that, my time here is done. I will hear no more grievances today. If you had a matter that was not addressed, you will have to wait until next week, or you can bring it to a court in a different area of the city.”

The group made no effort to hide their annoyance, but they moved toward Keppe showing their acceptance of the task. With everything completed, Augustus left the stage with Heratio following close behind.

“What happened there was unacceptable,” Augustus reprimanded.

“I –” started Heratio.

“No. We will discuss this when we get home.”

Augustus turned, looking for Ignacius in the crowd, but he had disappeared. Now that he felt the pressure of the crowd off him, Augustus began to remember something about a man who matched that description. A faint memory, the details eluded him. In deep concentration, he pulled on the memory as if it were a loose thread. Finally, he remembered Marielle had mentioned she had been followed by a freckled man with a scar. This Ignacius Lucienus was that man. He would need to be investigated, eventually. After he secured the loan.

Outside, on the street, they met with the scribe and bannerman, and together they walked to the magistrate building along busy streets.

“Bannerman, be honest with me now. Did you take a bribe?” Asked Augustus. “I will not make a fuss over it, I just want information.”

He nodded.

“Tell me the nature of how you were approached. What did they ask of you?”

“He offered me two venti to make sure that they were the last grievance brought before you. He came to me when I was talking to the crowd before the first issue was even brought forward. While I was still forming the list of grievances to be addressed.”

Augustus studied him to search for deception, but he found no hint of it. It seemed from what he said that Ignacius was there the whole time. He did not merely show up late and bribed to make sure his issue was heard, which was a reasonable thing to do. Instead, he specifically wanted to be the last issue heard. Augustus asked himself, why? He quickly realized the answer, to make a show of it. To imprint it in the minds of the audience. They would talk about this, and the tale of what happened, being so dramatic and interesting, would spread around the city. Giovannus meant to make their quarreling known to the whole city.

They will eventually come after Heratio and Gillivan, that was obvious. They would notify them of the accusation, and work to bring adequate evidence against them. But that attack would have been more effective with as little warning as possible. He gave up the strength of that to gain something else of greater value, to make it known that the Castellian house was in disarray. It would make getting the loan from the Sentellius family harder. They wouldn’t want to be seen taking a side in the issue. Did Giovannus know about his meeting with the Sentellius family? That must have been the reason.

The four arrived at the magistrate building. Before they separated and Augustus headed home, he made a request of the scribe. “Give me the parchment where you wrote the details of the last grievance. I wish to study it for a day. I will be sure to bring it back for the records tomorrow.”

The scribe complied, of course, but with some hesitance. “As you wish.”

“Thank you both for your work today.”

They then went inside together to collect their pay, then departed from each other with their work duties complete.

Now, alone with Heratio, they walked down the streets in brooding silence. At the gate to the Castellian grounds, they were accompanied by another guard, who walked them to the front door of their estate.

Once they were all alone, in a quiet corner of the estate, did Augustus speak on the matter with his trusted guard. “What happened there was completely unacceptable!”

“I agree, and I apologize.”

“He sold what he stole so quickly, did you not tell him that was a risk?”

“I did, but I chose the wrong man, and for that I am sorry.”

“Clearly!” Augustus collapsed himself into a chair. His hand rubbed down along his face, in exasperation. “I will need to take bigger risks because of this. You can sit down, your days might be coming to an end because of this.”

Heratio sat. He knew the consequence that would come, the same consequences that would befall Keppe. To be hanged until dead.

“I do not have enough influence to stop the punishment if they bring enough evidence. The other people that went with you on the raid, can they be safely silenced?”

“What do you mean? You want me to end them?” Now Heratio seemed on the verge of anger.

“No. They don’t have to die. Having them out of the city would be enough.”

“That would take some coin.”

Augustus reached into his robe and produced a gilden. “Take it and go handle it tonight by yourself. Leave Gillivan here.”

It was the last gilden Augustus had. Now he would be as rich as a commoner. With sadness, he handed it over to Heratio. “Be careful tonight, they might have anticipated that you would try to meet with them.”

“I will take every precaution. I can be quite sneaky when I have to be.”

They moved to find Marielle and all the servants before Heratio left, searching through the house and finally finding them in the garden.

“Everyone please gather inside,” announced Augustus.

They gathered at the eating table, all sitting down.

“How was your day holding court?” Asked Marielle.

“Eventful.” Augustus paused before continuing, giving Marielle a worried look. “Tonight, Heratio will be stepping out for a while, at my request, to handle a personal errand of some urgency. I have reason to believe there might be an attack here tonight, so I would like us to all take the utmost precautions. We will not sleep until Heratio arrives and we will all carry weapons on our persons.”

At those words, Heratio wordlessly got up and opened the door to his room. He returned with his hands full of weapons then dropped them on the table with a clatter. “Take whichever blade you like.” Then he turned around and headed to the door.