Footsteps echoed down the stairs leading to the subterranean prison level. Linsha lifted her head from the bed. This sounded more official than the guard bringing her tray of bread and water. This time there was more than one and she could not hear them talking, which meant this was probably the official council guard who would escort her to the trial. Finally.
Linsha lay back for a moment and waited for them. It had been four days since Sir Remmik had arrested her, and she had been expecting this moment since the first day. She was almost surprised he had taken this long to try her. She closed her eyes. By turning her head slightly she could hear the guards walk down the short corridor and come to a stop by her cell door. She did not make it easier for them by opening her eyes.
One Knight cleared his throat. “Rose Knight Linsha Majere, you are ordered to attend a council of your fellow Knights to determine your guilt or innocence in the charges brought against you by Knight Commander Sir Jamis Uth Remmik.”
Good. He sound slightly embarrassed. She cracked open her good eye, the one that was not black and blue and still swollen. “What?”
The Knight in charge repeated the order. Two other men stood to either side of him. All of them were Knights of the Crown. None of them looked satisfied with their orders.
Well, too bad. Linsha was in no mood to be accommodating. She was dirty, hungry, and thirsty; her head still hurt, her uniform was filthy, and her anger had been building for four days. She swung her feet around off the slab of a bed and stood up.
“May I have a moment to return to my barracks to clean up and change my uniform?” She was still in the formal uniform she had worn to the meeting with Iyesta, and now it was fit only to burn. The amount of water they had given her had not been enough to slake her thirst let alone clean herself or her uniform.
The leader shook his head. “Sir Remmik ordered us to bring you now.”
“Stupid bastard,” Linsha said with venom, not clarifying if she meant the commander or the Knight. She shoved the man out of her way and bulled past the other two out of the cell, down the corridor, and up the stairs. She strode through the guardroom past the surprised guards while her three escorts tried to catch up.
“Lady Linsha!” one of the Knights called. “You do not need to be in such a hurry.”
Linsha made a suggestion that caused the man to blush. She continued outside, her jaw clenched, her hands balled into fists. Daylight hit her like an invisible force. Although the late afternoon sun had fallen beyond the walls, the days in near darkness and the swelling of one eye had weakened her eyesight. She blinked a few times before she could see where the council was to be held, then she headed there without wavering toward the water trough, the barracks, or the kitchen. A small crowd of Knights stood outside the open doors of the main keep, silently watching as she approached.
She knew now why Sir Remmik would not give her time to make herself presentable. He wanted her to look disheveled, dirty, and something less than the other Knights. Well, his petty inconsideration would not work. She was Linsha Majere, the daughter of Krynn’s greatest sorcerer, the granddaughter of heroes. She was the first woman to attain the rank of Knight of the Rose, and by the gods, she was not going to grovel at the foot of a makeshift council.
The Knights quietly moved aside as she and her hurrying guards went to the doors. They kept their expressions blank, she saw, but at least there was no open hostility or condemnation on their faces.
A quiet hush enveloped her as she entered the hall. The furniture in the large room had been carefully arranged to resemble the council room in Castle uth Wistan in Gunthar where the Solamnic council usually heard such important cases. All but three trestle tables had been stacked against the walls. One table rested on a dais nearly three feet above the floor and overlooked a four foot square, or dock, marked off by a crudely built barricade. A huge Solamnic flag hung on the wall behind. Two other tables sat left and right of the dais. Four of the highest-ranking Knights in the circle sat on the council, two at each table. As senior Knight, Sir Remmik took the seat of the council judge on the dais. The remaining Knights who were not on duty sat on benches before the tables. They, too, watched quietly as she paused at the door then strode to the dais.
Sir Remmik frowned down at Linsha’s guard and pointed a stern finger to the dock.
For a moment she hesitated. Her skills in hand to hand combat far exceeded those of the three Knights beside her. She could incapacitate all of them, and they knew it. But as she looked at the four men who sat to either side of Sir Remmik, her heart sank. The Knight Commander had chosen his council carefully and well, picking the four Knights who most exemplified his ideal of the unbending, law-abiding, unimaginative Knight. They also happened to be four who firmly believed in Sir Remmik’s precepts and would not dream of questioning his word.
Linsha decided not to start her trial by antagonizing the council. She allowed the three guards to walk With her to the dock and stand behind her as she stepped inside.
Sir Remmik wasted no time. He listed the charges against Linsha so everyone knew exactly why she was on trial: murder, conspiracy, and treason. Then he launched into a long-winded explanation of her alleged motives, the events of the night of the storm as he saw them, and the evidence he had found to back up his charges.
Linsha’s skin grew hot and her eyes widened as she listened. Her head began to pound with tension. This wasn’t right! While her memory was still fuzzy on the attack in the storm, four days of rest and quiet had helped clear her mind and restore most of her memories. She knew their group had been ambushed, Sir Morrec had been murdered with her dagger, and she had been left alive for some unknown reason while the rest of the escort had been massacred. In every fiber of her body, she knew she would not knowingly kill Sir Morrec. He had been one of her few reasons to stay in the Missing City.
Still, in the corners of her mind where the pain still shadowed more memories of the attack, lurked that insidious uncertainty. She had struck out at someone, some figure she thought was an enemy. What enemy? Who had attacked them and why? Why wouldn’t someone investigate that? She desperately wanted to know the truth. If she had killed Sir Morrec by accident, then the Measure provided other penances to pay and ways that she could make up for the tragedy. But because she was still alive, Sir Remmik assumed murder and conspiracy, and that was all he wanted to know.
Her hands clenched into fists. The whole trial was so maddeningly vague. Would no one else see that? Would no one else stand up for her? Surely not everyone in the circle believed this trial was fair.
Nevertheless, as Sir Remmik picked up her dagger and described to everyone who had not been there exactly how Linsha had been found knocked unconscious over the body of the man she had just allegedly killed, a murmur of voices rumbled in the ranks behind her.
Linsha gritted her teeth. She was not allowed to dispute the charges until the judge finished the case against her, but by that time she had a feeling Sir Remmik would be hammering the nails down on her coffin. His belief in the law would not allow him to lie outright or manufacture evidence. All he had to do was cleverly twist everything she had said and done in the past few months into a sordid conspiracy to kill Sir Morrec and discredit the position of the Knights of Solamnia in the Missing City, and because of his reputation and rank, everyone would believe it. Her reputation was already marred by the previous charges against her, and she had not been in the Missing City long enough to overcome Sir Remmik’s dislike of her. One hundred years would probably not be long enough.