38

"The court will come to order," the bailiff said.

There was silence in the conference tent.

"The court martial of Aimard Quesney is now in session," the man went on. The words came easily to him—he, Quesney's counsel and the prosecutor were the only ones with any trial experience.

Hal, hastily briefed in military legal procedure, sat at the center of a table. On either side of him were his fellow judges—Lord Myricil, a beribboned if elderly infantry officer, and Tzimsces, an eager-appearing, young quartermaster captain.

In front of him, at another, smaller table, was Aimard Quesney, and the officer assigned to defend him.

Behind them were the assembled witnesses, including Captain Sir Lu Miletus, Quesney's commanding officer.

On the table in front of Hal and the other judges was an unsheathed sword. At trial's end, if the point were aimed at Quesney, he was guilty; if away, innocent.

No one in the tent thought there was any possibility of an acquittal.

"Lieutenant Aimard Quesney is charged with failure to obey a lawful order in the face of the enemy, to wit fly in combat against His Majesty's enemy, the Roche."

There were other charges—insubordination, improper behavior, and such that courts have always used to make sure the net they'd casting is sufficiently broad and fine-meshed.

"This case is a capital one," the bailiff said, "so it is emphasized the matter is an extremely grave one."

Everyone in the court looked appropriately grim, except for Quesney, who grinned wryly.

"The head of the court is Lord Kailas of Kalabas," the bailiff finished,

"and all matters of procedure and evidence will be subject to his ruling."

The prosecutor stood.

"May it please the honorable members of this court, the king's representative, myself, will attempt to prove that—"

"You can stop there," Quesney said.

Wide eyes and shock spread through the tent.

For some reason, Hal wasn't surprised, nor bothered.

"The defendant will be silent until permitted to speak at the proper time," the bailiff said.

Hal held up his hand.

"A man on trial for his life might be permitted a few liberties," he said.

"I'm sure the King's Justice can allow for that."

Now the shock grew larger.

"Lieutenant Quesney," Kailas said, "I assume you have something to say?"

Quesney looked perplexed, then took a deep breath.

"I do. I assume that the court is bound and determined to find me guilty of refusing to fly into combat.

"I say this considering who the head judge is, a man who brought death to the skies, and then to the innocent people on the ground.

"If this were a proper court, that is, one determined to decide whether or not I was right in refusing to kill any more men and women, it would exclude Lord Kailas as being prejudiced on the matter, since he is, with all due respect, sir, the bloodiest-handed flier in any of the three armies."

"Sir!" the bailiff snarled. "Sit down, or I shall be forced to have you gagged!"

"Gag me if you will," Quesney said. "But this court should be prepared to delve into the matter of uniformed homicide before judging me."

"You are hardly helping your case," Myricil said calmly.

"If you want to be hanged," Tzimsces added, "we're more than prepared to help you in your quest."

Hal rapped sharply with his knuckles.

"I gave Lieutenant Quesney permission to speak," he said, "and have not withdrawn that permission. I would request the members of this court to honor my authority."

Again, Quesney gave Hal a surprised look. Evidently Kailas wasn't behaving like the hanging judge the flier had expected.

"To simplify matters, and allow others to go back to their licensed murder," he said, "I concede freely that I disobeyed orders several times to fly, and will refuse any future orders given me, so all these assembled witnesses can be permitted to go their own ways."

Quesney's defender looked hopeless.

"Treasonous bastard!" hissed Tzimsces.

Quesney looked defiant.

" Perhaps I've gone loony," Hal wrote. " Or perhaps …" He stopped writing, considered what he was going to say next, went on:

… this is to compensate for some other things that I've done. But there is no way I'm going to hang Quesney, in spite of Cantabri's near-order. I don't think it has anything to do with the fact we shared a tent and he gave me advice when I was a new flier. There's been several who've done that. So I don't feel particularly indebted to him.

Nor do I feel that he's any particular example of virtue— he's at least as obnoxious in his self-righteousness as any street-corner priest.

Maybe— and I think I'm guessing— maybe he stands for something beyond this damned war and killing, something that should be protected

.

Or, more likely, I'm just getting softheaded in my old age.

Gods, but I miss you, and wish that I was with you, and all was quiet.

"So you decided, all on your very own," the prosecutor asked Quesney,

"to declare peace with the Roche."

"No," Quesney said. "Not peace. But I was tired of killing."

"All of us are tired of killing," the prosecutor almost snarled. "But we are still patriots who know our duty."

Quesney shrugged, made no response.

"You're not on trial," Hal reprimanded. "Stick to the point."

The prosecutor nodded.

"Sorry, your lordship." Then, to Quesney:

"Perhaps I might ask why you enlisted in the service of the king in the first place?"

"Because I wanted to fly," Quesney said. "And, frankly, because I wanted to do my part in the war, to drive the Roche back to their own lands."

"Your own part," the prosecutor asked. "As long as it didn't involve killing? Perhaps you're a bit unsure of what war is all about."

"Your lordship," Quesney's counsel said. "Lieutenant Quesney is being unfairly chivied."

Hal thought.

"No," he decided. "I'll allow the question. I'd like an answer to that."

"I'm not a fool," Quesney said. "Of course I knew—know—war is no more than killing. But—I'll be honest—I hoped to be able to do my duty to my country without… without…" Quesney's voice trailed off.

"Without having to bloody your own hands?" the prosecutor sneered.

Quesney was staring at the wooden duckboards of the tent.

"I guess I wasn't being very smart," he admitted. "But I went along with things as long as I could… and then something broke."

"So you made out your own peace treaty," the prosecutor said.

"Wouldn't it be convenient if all of us could do the same when we've decided we've fought enough.

"If we did, what do you think would happen?

"Do you imagine the barons who now rule Roche, and their soldiers would just smile happily, and go back to their farms and jobs?"

"No," Quesney said. "But… but someone's got to do something to end this war before it destroys all three countries."

Hal remembered what King Asir had told him.

"Doesn't it seem to you that something is in the hands of the barons who quite illegitimately now rule Roche?"

"No," Quesney said. "They're part of the whole killing machine—as much as Lord Kailas is, as much as I was."

"I see," the prosecutor said. "But you aren't now. That seems most arrogant of you."

"I don't mean it to be," Quesney said, and Hal could hear the honesty in his voice. "But I had to do something… and this was all I could figure out."

"Let me ask you, Lieutenant. What effect do you think your refusal, as an officer, to obey lawful orders will have on other soldiers?"

"I would hope that it would make them refuse to keep on with the killing… on both sides."

"You therefore advocate disobedience to the king's orders?"

Quesney hesitated, then nodded.

"That, sir," the prosecutor hissed, "is the highest of high treason!"

"He surely seems determined to hang," Myricil said to Hal. The three judges had decided to eat together, and discuss what testimony there'd been in the two days of trial.

"And I think we should oblige him," Tzimsces said. "If we didn't have a firm hold on what the taletellers say, his nonsense could be all over the armies in a day! Gods know what effect that would have on the average trooper, who, as we all know, isn't guilty of thought when he can avoid it."

"I have a bit more faith in our soldiery than you seem to," Hal said.

"But you do have a point."

"You certainly can't say Quesney's a coward," Myricil said. "You and I, Lord Kailas, know there's a point where any of us can break. Quesney has just reached that… and gone beyond. Or perhaps, if we accept his viewpoint, he's suddenly become the most moral of men."

"As the prosecutor said," Tzimsces said, "if we allow Quesney to spout his drivel, then we create the precedent for any of us to decide we've had enough war, and just go home.

"We have a duty to the king—and to Deraine—to deal with the man most harshly." Tzimsces sipped at his wine. "Although I'll grudge that the man is clearly mad.

"A pity, for a man with his record."

Myricil nodded, smiling grimly.

"A warrior gone wrong, without doubt. And I agree about his mind having left him. We live in a terrible world, gentlemen. I do not wish to be the one who orders Quesney's death as a reward for his services to Deraine.

"Aimard Quesney no long wishes to chance death, which certainly is an indication of being able to reason logically, particularly considering how deadly this war is to dragon fliers. Therefore, he cannot be insane, for an insane man would wish to continue on, until he is killed. What a predicament."

It came then to Hal.

"I think, Lord Myricil, that you have the solution to our problem."

Hal ordered the court-martial recessed for the day, and set to on Myricil and Tzimsces.

It was dusk before they wearily agreed with Hal's suggestion.

"Thank heavens I'm not a career army man," Tzimsces said. "For I fear there'll be no promotion this side of the ocean for the three of us after King Asir hears of this."

"Don't worry about it," Hal said. "The king seldom remembers things like this for long."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Myricil said. "For when, when the war's over, I come begging on your doorstep asking for a crust of bread, we can debate whether you were right or not."

"Actually," Hal said, "it's not the king I'm afraid of, but Lord Cantabri."

"We have unanimously decided," Hal announced the next morning,

"that this court no longer needs to sit. We have reached a verdict."

Both defense counsel and prosecutor started to yammer.

Hal thudded the butt of his flier's dagger on the table, and only then did the men in the tent notice the sword that should have been set between the judges and Quesney was gone.

"Our decision, justified by military code and precedent, is that the defendant, Lieutenant Aimard Quesney, cannot be held responsible for his actions, due to his clear impairment of mind."

Quesney was on his feet. "I never thought you'd be capable of—"

"If you do not sit down," Hal said coldly, "I shall order you to be removed, to be tied and gagged, and then returned to this court."

Quesney's mouth was open, but he saw the look on Hal's face, and slumped back down in his chair.

"We further order him, since he is evidently a threat both to himself and to the public order, to be removed to a proper place of detention in Deraine, for an attempt to restore his sanity and then determine, at that time, whether he wishes to obey orders or to continue to disobey, in which case this court shall be reconvened and the trial shall continue."

Two guards brought Quesney into the deserted tent.

Hal eyed him coldly.

"You wished to speak to me?"

"Yes, you bastard," Quesney growled. "You silenced me, and you made my stand into a joke! How dare—"

Hal was on his feet.

"Silence!"

Quesney shut up.

"You two," Hal told the guards. "Outside."

"But sir, what if the prisoner attempts to escape?" one said.

"Then I shall cut his frigging weasand out myself."

The two saluted, left the tent.

"Now, I have less than no interest in hearing what you have to say," Hal went on. "Except for answering one question.

"Are you such a fool that you really want to have a rope strangle you?

Remembering that your last letter will be held until the war's end, and there will be no one permitted to transcribe your last speech, no matter how noble.

"All you'll be is one poor damned fool in some unmarked grave somewhere within the borders of Roche.

"You have a family.

"What a memory to leave them. Now, answer my gods-damned question."

"No," Quesney said. "I'm not a madman, contrary to what you decided.

Of course I want to live, and—"

"That's enough." Hal came close. "I put the guards out because I don't want any witnesses to what I'm going to say.

"You're going back to Deraine. They'll find somewhere to mew you up with women who think they're the king, men who scratch all the day and night, children who're in some private world of their own.

"That's a horrible damned thing to do to a man who's at least as sane as I am. Maybe saner. But it'll keep you alive. You'll live to see the war out.

Stay mad until the war's over, when no one will care about a peace-spouting idiot, and you'll be quietly released from the asylum.

Nobody'll be reconvening any damned trial, and no one will care about punishing you. Then you can, if you want, start prancing back and forth in front of the king's palace, shouting about what a murdering bastard he is.

Or you can come to my estate, and do the same.

"If I'm still alive then.

"Or you can go around from town to town, preaching about the evils of war, and maybe enough people will listen to keep this kind of shit from happening ever again.

"I don't think you can succeed—people seem to like cutting each other up and down too much. But you can try.

"Because," and Hal spoke with great emphasis on each word, "you…

will… be… alive!"

Without waiting for a response, Hal turned.

"Guards!"

He looked at Quesney.

"Now, get your sorry ass out of my sight… And when this is over, drink a dram to my memory. I've wasted enough time on you. I've still got a war to fight."