All around them, adults and children bowed deep, saying, “Your grace.”
Briar looked at Daja, then Sandry. “Who’s the Bag?”
“Duke Vedris,” Sandry replied, as Daja glanced at her, startled. “The ruler of Emelan.”
“I often work as a truthsayer, your grace,” Niko told the duke. “If it will simplify things, I can do so here.” He rode over until he could lean down and press a hand briefly to Tris’s cheek. She grabbed his fingers and hung on.
“Your grace,” cried Green Tunic’s mother, “my boy was attacked with magic! Look at him!”
“Look at our sons,” someone else shouted. “They too were attacked!”
“One of them called up a waterspout,” said a wealthy-looking man in the leggings and long coat-tunic of the Traders. “What if it had turned on ships? It nearly struck the market. You can see where it dug cobbles from the street.”
Sandry passed the dog to Briar and stood with hands folded neatly in front of her. “Your grace, may I have leave to speak?” Her voice, polite and clear, rang through the air. If no one could have seen her torn and muddied clothes, they might have thought she was a queen in her throne room. “It is my right.”
The duke leaned on his saddle horn. “As one accused, you may speak, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren.” His voice was soft, but clear. “Proceed.”
“A noble?” asked someone, clearly surprised.
“You never said she was a lady,” Green Tunic’s mother accused.
“She bit me, Ma! And she’s dressed like normal folk!”
Sandry waited until everyone was quiet. “Your grace, my friends and I were visiting the market when I heard an animal cry.” Her small face was pale and set; she kept her chin up. “Six boys were hurting it, in an alley back there.” She pointed. “If you assign blame for the fight, give it to me, please. I attacked them. My friends came to help me—just as the boys’ friends came to help them. And I still think they were very, very wrong to harm a helpless animal.”
“Did you inflict all these injuries, Lady Sandrilene?” Her uncle’s voice was stern, but the corner of his mouth quivered.
Daja rose, leaning on her staff. “Some of that was me, your grace.”
The Trader who had spoken glanced at her. “Trangshi,” he muttered. Sandry glared at him. He met her furious eyes once, then looked away.
Ashamed, Daja bit the inside of her cheek, then went on. “San—Lady Sandry is saati—a true friend. They knocked her down, and I went after them.”
“Don’t be greedy,” said Briar, getting to his feet. He passed the dog to Sandry. “Some of these poor sniffers’ ouches are mine, your worship, sir.”
“But this is a quarrel of children,” objected the duke, looking with confusion at the townspeople.
“There was magic!” cried the Trader. “A waterspout attacked the boys!”
“It was an accident!” Tris lurched to her feet. “I meant to dump water on them, and only water!” She broke off, crimson, then swallowed, and went on. “I lifted it out of the sea, and—somebody spun me around.” She wiped her sweaty face on a sleeve. “When I looked again, the water was spinning. I couldn’t—it got away from me!”
The duke straightened, his eyes now cold. The chatter going on under the main discussion stopped. Everyone watched Vedris IV.
“Two cases are before me,” he said in that clear, quiet voice. “In the matter of injuries done to these youths, the healer’s bills shall come to me, to be paid by funds held in trust for these young people. But—those bills must be for legitimate wounds, and they must be sworn to before a truthsayer.”
“That’ll stop the fakers,” Briar muttered in Daja’s ear. She nodded.
The duke folded his hands on his saddle horn. “There is also the matter of cruelty to an animal.” Daja and Briar saw people’s eyes widen. “The law is plain. Here in Emelan, where the Living Circle is honored”—he nodded to Lark and Rosethorn, who bowed—”we no more harm animals for sport than we do human beings. The fine, for those who have forgotten, is twenty silver astrels.
“Those who wish repayment for the healer’s fees will tell the truthsayers if they are also liable for damage to the animal. If they are, the fine for that must be paid first. All parties will pay the truthsayer’s fee.”
For a moment no one made a sound. Twenty silver astrels was three months’ income for a poor man, a month’s income for a craftsman. Truthsayers were even more expensive than the fine.
The woman who had been eager to proclaim Green Tunic’s innocence was the first to reply. “We need no truthsayer or healer,” she told the duke, bobbing a curtsey. She gripped her son by one ear and dragged him away. Other youths and their families thought the better of involving truthsayers and left as well.
To those who remained—some merchants, a handful of Traders, and the group from Winding Circle—the duke said, “Penalties for the unlicensed use of magic are high. This must also be addressed.” Heads nodded everywhere.
“Your grace, if I may,” Niko said. “Trisana did not know she is a mage. The law does make allowance for the—accidents—caused by young mages, without proper teaching.”
“Poppycock!” yelled a baker in a floury apron. “How could she not know? This was a ship-killer, not milk curdling in the churn!”