(eng) Mick Farren by The Song of Phaid the Gambler

Author:The Song of Phaid the Gambler [Gambler, The Song of Phaid the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

'He’s shiftless, deceitful and self seeking. Believe me, I know the man. I travelled some distance with him. He'd sell his own mother if he saw an advantage in doing so. Since he's been in this city, aye, even before he arrived, he was doing everything but crawl on his belly to curry favour with the toadies and lackeys of the court.'

This was more than Phaid was going to stand for.

'Just a minute now . . .'

'The prisoner will speak in his allotted turn and not before.'

Since the order was backed up by nearly a dozen blasters, Phaid shut his mouth and kept it shut. Makartur continued.

'He has been seen more than once in the company of the notorious presidential flunkey Roni-Vows and, on the occasion of this much vaunted incident when he is reputed to have killed two of the enemy police, he was with a woman who can only be described as a high born whore.'

Phaid felt sick to his stomach. Not only was he on trial for his life but the strange dream was coming uncannily true. Phaid had put all the old hill superstitions behind him when he had moved down to the cities. Now they flooded back with a sickening vengeance. What was the truth about the dream? Had Makartur sought the spiritual contact of his ancestors? Had Phaid's dream been forced on him by some supernatural power? Was one of them really destined to kill the other? Ghosts and demons closed in on Phaid, but they didn't offer any answers. He wanted to sink into a quivering jelly on the floor. He couldn't cope, but, then again, he had to cope. Makartur was far from finished.

'I would advise this tribunal that the presence of this man in our midst can only indicate that he is a spy for the presidency. We cannot afford to take any risks with him. He should be branded as an enemy of the people and hung accordingly.'

Phaid blinked. Every eye in the room was on him and he knew he'd have to come up with something good if life was going to last very much longer. The wallet of money that lay on the table in front of him, along with both his weapons, wasn't going to make the task any easier.

Phaid took a last look around, trying to read the faces of the people who were about to judge him. It had to be the strangest tribunal that he had ever seen. There were eight of them that were directly involved in the business at hand. Makartur stood as Phaid's accuser. There was Phaid himself and Vord, the man who'd seen the incident with the police and served as Phaid's only friendly witness. There were five on the actual tribunal, a pair of hard bitten northsiders called Lank and Marden, a middle-aged woman called D'Wan, a small man with the attitude and movements of a street hustler who went by the nickname of Blue Eyes and a statuesque red-haired woman who called herself Flame.

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