The Black Chalice by Steven Savile

Author:Steven Savile [Savile, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9781907519673
Publisher: Solaris
Published: 2010-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

Thirty-One

More than a month had passed with no-one tending to the law of the land, but that did not mean that the disputes of the people under Sir Lowick's protection ceased, merely that they simmered, slowly building to the boil.

Without the knight there to dispense justice and keep the peace, neighbours grew fractious: conversations which would normally have been civil took on an undercurrent of spite, and arguments came to blows. It was not some dark magic that gripped the people. It was nothing more mysterious than fear. Word of the raids had spread. While they might not know of the fall of Medcaut, they each knew or claimed to know someone who had lost family to the reivers that winter. They were not cowards. They were as brave as the next man. All any of them wanted was to feel safe in their own homes.

It was Gwen who suggested he should preside over the Assizes.

Despite his misgivings, she convinced him that the people needed to see that they hadn't been abandoned. In his uncle's absence it was his responsibility to see to their needs. His father, she said, would have expected no less of him. They had been his people not so long ago. Alymere could not argue with her reasoning and so took the seat in the great hall and listened to the endless procession of petitions from frightened people. He could remember watching his father in the same seat, dispensing justice. Firm but fair, his father had always maintained. They came to the knight's seat looking for justice - if they left having discovered fairness then it was a day in which Albion itself triumphed.

He did not feel comfortable sitting in judgment.

As he had said not so long ago to Gwen, it was not yet his lot in life to be wise, but when he had said that he had no way of knowing just how few of his foolish days were left to him. In those five long days that the Assizes ran, listening to petition after petition deep into the hours of darkness, he learned something of the nature of people - good people in the main - that he would never have thought true: it didn't matter how rich, how poor, how humble or ugly or beautiful or bitter, how clever or cunning, how hardworking, how venal or base or scheming, how dishonest or desperate, how noble, how proud, people were all inherently the same, and that similarity boiled down to simple self-interest. It turned his stomach. Just once he wanted to hear of a man bringing claim for the betterment of his neighbours, not to redress some perceived loss to himself or his property. Was it so hard to find a man who cared more for the wellbeing of those around him than he did for himself? It was all just so... petty.

Alymere kept the realisation to himself. It was, he decided, just one of the many things that separated a true man from a common one.

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