Emily, the next morning, 7th rot., 7th day

I stayed up too late looking things up but I wanted to have data in front of me before we started the trial of the leather crafter for sacrilege. Kayseo and Lyappis together managed to get me awake, fed and dressed half way between the second and third bells. They even made a sling for my right arm out of black silk so it wouldn’t clash with my robes.

The morning was half over by the time Lyappis set me on her arm and carried me downstairs. It must have frustrated all those morning people who woke up a quarter bell before the first bell of daylight.

I refused to process. I could think of nothing as stupid as someone my size processing surrounded by giants bowing their heads to the floor, and I refused to be carried in a procession. Ridiculous.

When we got to the manse’s reception hall, there was the lord’s chair, a huge thing, covered with cloth of gold. The room was full of Cosm, mostly silverhairs, milling about. So far, few had noticed my arrival seated on Lyappis’ forearm.

I spotted Fed for the first time in an age. She had gotten a lot bigger since I saw her last. She had to be a head taller than her mother now. Poor Oyyuth. Fed was a terrible tease about getting as big as a silverhair too. She would be a full-grown one in two to three more years. Fed saw me from across the room. I winked at her. She winked back. She’s a good kid.

Lord Sopno approached and made a bowing obeisance. I spoke before we got all muddled up in blessings and the like. “Blessings be on you, Lord Truvos. Why is there a cloth of gold cover on your chair? Do you usually use such a thing?”

“Well, no” he sputtered, “Great One. It’s for you, you see. We can’t just put you on an ordinary chair, since you’re the, the...”

“Great One,” Aylem said from behind me, startling me so I flinched, “he just wants to pay proper respect and honor. Don’t you think that you shou...”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s bad enough I’m dressed up in this ridicuous outfit that was made for shrine ceremonies in Aybhas. I am not going to sit on a piece of cloth of gold for a trial. This is a judicial proceeding, not a costumed festival dance. No offense intended, folks, but I am not going to do it. I am not some sort of cute talking dress-up doll here to play judge for your entertainment and edification. Take that fool thing off that too-big chair because I’m not going to sit on it.”

“Emily,” Aylem chided, “it’s not...”

“No, and in case I didn’t mention it, no.” I turned and looked Lyappis in the eyes, “Revered One, put me down.”

“Great One, I...”

“Now,” I glared and I meant that glare. I was good and piping mad. The formal robes I could stomach but not a Lord Holder’s throne covered in cloth of gold. It was over the top and it reminded me of the throne of the Emperor of Mattamesscontess.

Lyappis made a mistake. She put me down on the chair. I took off my hat, undid the clasp on the mantle, shrugged the mantle off, and then jumped off the chair. I managed not to jar my arm too badly on the landing. I toppled over on my butt but that was fine by me. I crossed my legs and stuffed my left arm into the sling on top of my right arm.

“I will sit on the floor before I will sit on a piece of cloth of gold. It’s too much. I refuse.” My voice it too soft for most of the people in the room to have heard that exchange but one person certainly noticed.

All 20 and a quarter hands of Lisaykos in her full regalia got down on her knees in front of me. She put her staff down, put her hand over her heart, and made a silent obeisance. Then she put her palms together, pressed them against her forehead and lowered her praying hands and head to the floor in front of me. If I had been less angry, I would have been very embarrassed.

“Blessed Lisaykos,” Aylem frowned so deeply that there was a canyon between her eyebrows, “what are you doing?”

By now the room had gone dead silent so everyone heard Lisaykos’ muffled voice as she spoke into the floorboards: “If the Blessed Emily must sit on the floor, then how can I stand or sit in a chair in her presence. I believe this is the only proper posture under the circumstances.”

Kamagishi joined Lisaykos immediately followed by Fassex, who I noted did not have the halberd this morning. I had to wonder how badly Lisaykos chewed her out. I was shocked when Aylem joined them. Then everyone in the room did the same.

It was an amazing sight and just as unnerving as attending a meeting of the Convocation. Seeing all those gigantic Cosm on their knees in front of me was not something that would help my stomach settle any time soon. It was time to break up the party.

“Fed? Troy? Would you two please remove the cloth of gold from Lord Sopno’s chair, which he has been kind enough to lend me, fold it carefully, and give to one of the household staff of the manse so it can be put away properly?”

“Your will, Great One,” Fed and Troyeepay said in perfect unison and then leapt to their feet to do as I asked. Troy went to find someone to give the cloth to and Fed came and made a kneeling obeisance, “would you like a hand into the chair, Great One?”

“That would be most kind of you, Trainee Fedso’as. Please be careful around my right arm. It is very sore right now.”

Fed lifted me very carefully into the chair. She draped the mantle around my shoulders and put the hat back on my head. Damn, she was getting big.

“Thank you, Fed. You have my blessing and leave to depart. The rest of you also have my leave to rise and be about your business. Lord Truvos, why are there no other chairs? Shouldn’t the Queen and High Priestesses, as well as yourself and Lord Gunndit be seating with me?”

Fassex answered before poor Lord Sopno haup Truvos could collect his wits to respond, “it is customary for the High Priestesses in attendance at a trial to stand. The Queen is traditionally seated.”

“No, not acceptable,” I said. “Set up chairs for yourselves, please.”

“That is neither proper nor respectful,” Fassex snapped.

“Holy One,” it hurt my bruised right side but I managed to raise my volume, “I don’t care a turd for proper or respectable, but I will not spend a trial sitting in this chair turning my bruised side and shoulder to took up at you standing with your too-tall head some hundreds of hands above me. I’m not doing it. You will sit so I can look at everyone without too much pain. The alternative is for you to skip the trial and we’ll manage without you.” I followed that up with the best wrath-driven glare I could manage.

The startled look I got back from her made my day.

“Now, is there seating for all of the people here?” I asked, looking at about twenty Cosm lingering, including Lord Gunndit’s and Lord Truvos’ families.

“Trials don’t last long, Great One,” Kamagishi instructed. “I will verify the crime and you will state what the criminal’s punishment will be. That’s all that will happen.” I didn’t know. I had never been to a trial before. Prior to my arrival in Foskos, trials never included Coyn in any way.

“Really?” I wasn’t so sure that the trial would be short. I had other ideas. It depended on if I could repurpose the trial to cover some problems with the law.

Kamagishi gave me a warning look. *Please do not make trouble, little one,* she said on the inside of my head.

Once the chairs were brought in and all the high-ranking types were seated, Kamagishi came and knelt before me, “Could I have your leave, Great One, to begin the trial?”

I made a face as if that question required thought, “I suppose I could.”

*Emily, please,* she gave me an impressive hairy eyeball of a look.

“You have my blessing and leave to proceed, Holy One,” I said with all the dignity I could muster.

Usruldes in his Hessakos the Courier suit spoke up from the back of the room: “I beg forgiveness for my rudeness but we can not hear the Blessed Emily’s voice. She speaks very softly. May I beg a boon from the High Justicar to cast amplification?” He then bowed an obeisance.

“Yes, you may, Lord Irhessa,” Kamagishi answered him. She briefly touched the great polished cat’s eye gem in the justicar's necklace, appropriately carved in the shape of a cat’s head, and I feft a soft touch of wind on my face. Then it was gone.

“Was that the charm?” I asked Kamagishi quietly. She nodded.

“But my voice doesn’t sound louder,” I was confused. I should have been able to hear an amplification.

“We can can hear you now, Great One,” Usruldes said. “You can hear her, right, Troy?”

“Yes, father.”

I was bemused. How did that work without raising the intensity of the sound closer to me? The intensity of sound dropped off by the inverse of the square of the distance. It needed to be loud out of my mouth to still be audible in the back of the reception hall. So why wasn’t my voice louder?

“What’s wrong, Emily?” Kamagishi whispered, looking concerned at the face of consternation I must have been making.

“How does that magic work? It looks like it is breaking the laws for acoustic waves. How can my voice be heard the same here as in the back of the room without a drop in the amplitude? It looks like energy can’t possibly be conserved.” I confess the physics puzzle made me forget momentarily that I was sitting in judgment at a trial.

“Great One,” Huhoti said from her chair on the other side of the Queen who was seated next to Kamagishi, “I can see with my magic sight that the energy of the molecules in the sound wave were translated from just beyond your mouth to just in front of the listeners’ faces. It’s a translation in space, as if the distance it crossed didn’t exist.”

“So where is the energy coming from to make a translation like that and how is energy conserved within this inertial reference and on the governing time line?” I looked over at her. Huhoti was probably the only only person present who would even understand why this was a problem. What was the relationship between energy, space, mass and time, and did they co-exist in a relationship where time or space was conserved as well as energy and mass? I started thinking about which relationships from the theory of relativity might be affected by the postulated conservation of multi-directional time. Then my thought process was disturbed by a pinching sensation on my butt. That was followed by a loud sigh from Lisaykos, who was seated one chair down from me on the other side of Fassex.

I turned my head to see the look that many erring healer trainees have nightmares about, those steely grey eyes glaring down that formidable beak of a nose as if I were a fly and Lisaykos was a very large and very focused cat.

“May I remind the Great One that this is a trial, and not a festival for maniacal masochistic mekaners?” Icicles formed and dropped off her words of disapproval. I couldn’t help reflexively swallowing over the magnitude of my misdeeds in the face of propriety personified. Lisaykos can be very scary when she wants to be.

It did not escape my notice that Fassex, seating next to me on my left, between me and Lisaykos, was looking at the ceiling with mild interest and a modest grin. Incorrigible!

“Holy One,” I looked at Kamagishi with as serious an expression as I could manage, “the Blessed Lisaykos has made a cogent observation. We should proceed.”

“Very good, Great One,” she made a solemn bowing obeisance to me. Her straight-man routine was perfect. I was in awe of her composure.

I glanced over at Aylem, who gave me a sympathetic look whose silent message to me was: “You did it again, you boffin.” Then she made a lopsided smile and rolled her eyes at me.

The moment was shattered when a man in the back of the crowd started laughing in earnest.

Too many people were in the way for me to see who was laughing. The crowd turned and parted on its own to reveal two people, a man and a youth, in riding cloaks with their hoods up, scarves on their faces, and mittens on their hands. From the flush of red on their noses and around their eyes, they had just come in from outside.

"Lord Sopno," Aylem looked at him seated next to Huhoti, "I believe we will need two more chairs for the King and the Revered Garki.

"Oh, please, no!" Garki's boyish voice called out as he pulled his scarf down. "Great One, I am attending the King today. I should stand behind him if he is sitting."

This now made sense to me. Imstay was probably the only person in Foskos who could laugh at the farce on this side of the room and get away with it. He slapped Garki's shoulder, peeled out of his cloak and outerwear, and handed them to a member of the household staff. Another staff member appeared at Garki's side to do the same for him. Garki blushed at the attention paid him. He was too used to being the servant and not the one who was served.

Imstay said a few words to Garki that I couldn't hear and then both approached my chair. Getting on their knees, they made their obeisance as they said in unison, "May the blessings of the eleven gods be upon you."

"And also upon you. Please rise," I said. How easily the words now came to me. It bothered me on one level that it had become easy. I told myself for at least the millionth time that it was just play-acting, just so I would never forget that these huge magical giants could squash me like a bug. All this precedence stuff was insidious.

"I must beg your forgiveness, Great One," Imstay beamed that used car salesman smile of his at me, "but the look on your face when the Blessed Lisaykos spoke to you followed by Aylem Queen rolling her eyes at you...well, I admit, it was joyful to see all your wonderful expressions again after not seeing you for so long." The fake smile cracked and he looked at me with a face I could not decipher for I had never seen it before, "I am glad to see you alive and well. I was worried you might be harmed."

I'm not sure where the words came from, because I found myself saying, "Thank you for your concern, Imstay King. I am glad to be among my friends once again." Holy crappola, I sounded as bad as a small-town politician on a campaign.

"Great One," a worried-looking Garki interrupted, "must I sit in a chair? I came in the role of the King's attendant." He was wearing the red and white riding clothes of a recorder or librarian in training at the Fated Shrine of Galt.

I could see Kamagishi frown at him and almost start to say something when I preempted her, "Revered One, did not the divine paw of Galt fall upon your fated shoulder in Black Falls while you were helping me? I was there and I saw it happen. Galt has taken you for his own. You can not dodge a god's will, Revered One. For this event, you must sit with us in a chair set out for you."

His face was a cry of appeal which I had to ignore; but if I was already stuck inside this farce, there was no way I was letting him escape.

He crumpled, "your will, Great One." He bowed an obeisance and backed away to where a member of the household staff took him by the elbow and led him to a chair next to Lyappis.

Once Imstay and Garki were seated, Kamagishi, who was seated immediately to my right, stood and waved her hand over the recording scroll on a small table between her and the Queen. The magic pen leapt to life, ready to write. Kamagishi then made a signal to a guard with an open-faced sallet and wearing a dress tunic with Truvos facings of lavender and deep yellow: "Bring forth Oyseray of Arkmet Village in the Holding of Truvos, here accused of the attempt to murder a sacred person and sacrilege."

The guard returned with another guard in the same uniform. The leather crafter was between them. They placed her about 30 hands in front of me.

I looked up at her scowling and belligerent face. "Please have her kneel," I said to Kamagishi.

Fassex responded, "it is customary, Great One, for the accused to stand unless the accused is from a noble house." Her voice was just a touch condescending as if I needed instruction.

"Thank you, Holy One," I did not let my ire show, "but I refuse to be forced to look up at the person who dislocated my shoulder and threw me into a bush. She will kneel." I pointed my finger at her face and motioned downward to the floor. No one moved.

"Guards," I motioned to both of them standing behind the accused. They walked up to the leather crafter and forced her to her knees.

"Holy One," I looked at the startled Kamagishi, "I have never run a trial. I must ask your help to conduct the proceeding, please."

Kamagishi nodded her agreement and began: "Oyseray, you are accused of attempting to murder the Blessed Emily, prophet, revelator of Tiki, Mugash, Giltak, and Galt, and of sacrilege against her person." Kamagishi's hand touched the cat head pendant of her necklace of cats' eyes, "I cast the compulsion of truthfulness upon you, Oyseray. You will speak when we allow you to speak and you will speak the truth without omissions." Kamagishi paused and looked at me, "do you want me to question her, or do you want to, Great One?"

"I have questions for which I require answers," I replied, clenching my fists to hide that I felt nervous and unsure of myself. I was about to embark on a risky venture and I did not know how it would turn out. I was glad that Imstay was here because now I would not need to bell the King inside his own lair. I could begin overturning the law of Foskos starting with this trial. I felt a trickle of nervous sweat run down my back under my kirtle and robe. Then I pushed that thought out of my mind and set my mind to begin.

Lyappis told me Oyseray's history days ago when she asked me about how my shoulder became injured. At the time, my innate timidity was wishing the Cosm authorities would never discover what happened with the leather crafter. I had no desire to decide another judgment on someone which would probably lead to another execution. It was so hard holding someone else's life in my hands.

I knew I couldn't dodge this bullet when Lyappis told me they found the leather crafter and had her in custody. I didn't ask where. I didn't want to deal with it so I didn't want to know. Then Lyappis told me about Oyseray's bad history with Coyn.

Oyseray worked in her family's shop in Yuxvos, which she ran with her mother. She had been married and had three children. After her mother passed away, Oyseray inherited the shop. Without her mother around to manage the shop's Coyn, the job fell to Oyseray, but she was not good to her slaves. Over eight years, ten Coyn died from either Oyseray's discipline or her neglect of their health or basic needs. She paid the kill tax every time.

When it was clear that Oyseray would treat her slaves with a minimum of decency, her husband left her and took the children with him. Lyappis said they did not know where her husband and children were.

Under the Foskan law on Coyn slaves, paying the kill tax ten times triggers an inquiry. If that inquiry finds that the slaves died from other than accidental causes, then the owner is guilty of the crime of cruelty. The punishment has three parts. First, the Cosm in question is barred from ever owning or hiring a Coyn slave ever again. Second, they are banned from living in a community of greater than 200 Cosm, as a way of limiting contact between the criminal and Coyn. Third, the criminal must pay a fine of ten times the kill tax.

Oyseray accepted the position of leather crafter in Arkmet, the smallest settlement in Truvos, because the bonus for excepting the position paid for most of her fine. Lord Sopno knew of Oyseray's history but decided to lease the available leather and shoe shop to her based on the high quality of her work and the prohibition of owning any more Coyn. She had worked quietly and well for four years in Truvos. The Coyn of Truvos avoided her.

"Crafter Oyseray, when you picked me up and threw me out the backdoor of your shop and into the bushes, what was your intent?" I heard Kamagishi suck in a breath at my question and Aylem gave me a concerned look.

"I did not want you in my shop," she said in a surly voice. "I tossed you in the bushes because I believed you would walk away unharmed but convinced to never return."

"Crafter, use the Blessed Emily's proper title," Fassex commanded.

"Your will, Holy One," Oyseray responded, unable to do anything else due to the charm of compulsion. The omission of proper title had been a minor point so I had let it pass.

"By Oyseray's answer, it is clear to me that she had no intent to murder me. Regardless, the..."

"Great One, intent through willful ignorance should apply," Kamagishi gently but firmly interrupted.

I held up a finger, and looked at her sideways, "Please wait, Holy One. I've just begun. Willful ignorance can not apply to this crime of attempt to murder. We will address to issue of intent later."

"What?" Kamagishi was startled.

"Patience, boobala, patience," I said softly to her without turning my head.

I heard her whisper to Aylem, "what's boobala?" Then I heard Aylem cough to cover the laugh. I'm sure the stillness that followed in both meant they were talking by mindcast.

"If Oyseray had killed me, she would be guilty of murder by the precedent of having intent by willful ignorance. This is a problem because it is not consistent. A strong argument can be made that since Oyseray had no direct intent to even harm me, there was no willful ignorance that can be applied to the crime of attempted murder of a sacred person. There is willful ignorance here, but it applies to a different crime. So, my first decision is that Oyseray is not guilty of an attempt to murder a sacred person.

"Oyseray, another question for you," I noted she looked shocked. I'm sure she believed she would be tossed into one of the Great Cracks as her punishment. "Why did you throw me out of your shop?" This caused a small stir around the room, though I'm not sure why. Maybe the question was too far outside the expectations of the assembled spectators.

"Coyn are trouble for me, Great One," she replied meekly. "I don't want Coyn anywhere near me. The Coyn of Truvos leave me alone and I'm glad they do so. I didn't want to hurt you. I just wanted you gone."

"I state now my first legal opinion that the application of willful ignorance as a form of intent is inconsistent in Foskan law. This is obvious in the case of Oyseray since it can be argued either way, depending on the level of harm suffered. I have examined the guidelines for recorders and judges. While the guidance allows willful ignorance as a form of intent, there is no detailed discussion of how it applies or its history in previous trials. I believe willful ignorance needs review for how it is applied within the kingdom. A detailed study of the last several centuries of data is my recommendation. Such a study should also look into the possibility of making willful ignorance its own thing instead of an extension of intent because I believe the application of intent is also flawed, as I will show in just a bit."

The murmuring around the room grew.

"Permit me to ask some questions of the experts here assembled," I took off my scholar's hat and removed the small packet of note paper I hid inside the hat liner earlier. Then I removed the pencils from inside my arm sling. Aylem went bug-eyed and Lisaykos' look of resigned exasperation was most satisfying.

"Revered Trainee Garki, will you be so kind as to pass these out to those seated?"

The boy leapt to his feet, hurried over, and slid to a full obeisance posture on his knees, stopping in front of me. "Your will, Great One," he accepted the paper and pencils after he raised his bowed head. Then he sprang up and handed them out.

After he had retaken his seat, I addressed those seated: "Please write down what crime the Blessed Aylem committed when she killed me last year."

(Continued in Part 2 Installment 7)