Chapter I

As Gyelthan was sitting behind the balcony, he saw a messenger running in the street below like a leaf blowing on the wind: one of the messengers that always summons people to the court. He always wondered who these messengers summoned and what for, but for that, he could always look in the city archives the next day, so it never bothered him. Today, however, he felt some implacable sense of dread overwhelm him.

They're not coming for you, he thought, you've done nothing wrong. Some other senator’s son is in hot water though, I wonder who it'll be. But it always seems that the all-seeing eye’s gaze is always fixed on me, for no reason I can place. The messenger stopped at the bottom floor of the apartments and a slave answered the door. And it certainly seems like today I'm being much more than just watched…

The sound of horns could be heard coming from the distance. Oh, how those lower men love those circuses! It's the same thing over and over, they say it's not scripted, but it really is. It's better to go to the theatre, the theatre is where you really learn all you need to learn, what a citizen really needs. What you watch becomes the script of your life. It's a shame that those plebs are corrupting the language, though, the classics don't work in their bastardized ‘attempt’ at our noble tongue. In their slang, tragedy becomes farce, rhyme and reason are thrown to the wind! When we lose our tongue, I say, we’ll lose our noble spirit! Spirit, breath, tongue… The tongue shapes the breath, and the breath is the spirit flowing in and out and in and out of the body. The gods have made us uniquely noble animals, capable of reason. Thus, they reward us for our piety, when other animals must rely only on instincts. Although, as we seem to be turning our gods into mere figureheads for the state, they seem to be taking all we have, nigh all we are, away, our noble tongue most of all!

I always hear that the barbarians in the north, those pathetic Tz’reikh, always say, ‘we were once a great civilization, but our people lost their way and turned their back on the gods. We wrote that the gods came above all, but also contradicted that in the same breath, like a knife cutting with both edges, so for that, our gods took our writing away. Our civilization fell apart, and we were exiled to the White Mountains, where we became nothing but a band of roving savages. We’d be surprised if you'd not next do the same!’ He could almost believe that as well, as now Gaaleym seemed to be following the same course. Almost: no outlandish myth told by outlanders who merely wanted to justify their own inferiority could be close to true. He looked down at the purple goat-wool rug on the floor. Even if they're quite good for a couple of things, he thought.

On the streets below, young military men were practicing their marches, drilling various formations with their spears, shields, and broadswords. On the opposite street, a policeman was patrolling in his chariot, cracking his whip again and again, the blue-dyed horsehair crest on his silver-plated helmet blowing in the wind of the chariot’s motion behind him on an otherwise still day.

Gyelthan turned around swiftly as he heard a rapping in the wall outside his room behind him, softly, softly, but with a certain sharpness.

“You may come in now!” he answered.

It was the messenger he saw on the street below, who has been guided to his room by a young female slave.

The messenger pulled a book made of several bound wax tablets from his tunic.

“You have been summoned to the court on today, the Semi-Larternie of Shiothla. Please arrive at the courthouse at three-quarters on the dial.”

They left like they came, with barely a sound, barely a scene.

What have I done, what could I have done? he thought, I am only a senator’s son, I've never broken a law I can think of, and I can't think of a law that I’d want to! His gaze returned to the soldiers and policemen in the streets below. I did an extra year of military service myself. I even went to strange, distant lands across the southern sea, and unlike some of my fellow troopers, I didn't fall into the ways of the barbarians in those lands for a moment! I heard they eat people, but never saw it myself, anyhow, but barbarian-lovers say that that's of course not true. The barbarian-lovers smothered themselves in stinking barbarian war-paint under their uniforms, then only pretended that they were trying to kill the barbarians. They denied all of this, but I see right through it! We fall into degeneracy moment by moment, even if the process itself takes centuries. What is a moment compared to a century? And you wonder why no one else can see!

He went to his desk and pulled out scrolls to study the great orators. He wondered if great orators really had to study each other and decided this was probably the wrong way to go about practicing, but he loved his fatherland like his father and always wanted to revisit these speeches. However, he could not keep his mind there, and it was as if he could not read today. He got up and began to pace around the room.

What could I have done? Aren't they supposed to tell me? I believe I've done nothing wrong, but if I have, I'll own it! A good man has nothing to fear from the law. The law was made to protect the people, and for that I’ll protect the law!

He got completely lost in thoughts that overcame him like some storm cloud from behind, and when he next looked over the edge of the balcony, he saw that the sundial was at about three-quarters.

Well, I've got to go now! He put his dark blue tunic on over his white shirt and dashed through the curtains covering his door. He whistled to his young, fair female slave, who carried a stylus and tablets under her arm, and two hulking, swarthy male slaves who had nearly sword-length knives in their belts and small hatchets on their backs and whose hair was growing back in as jagged stubble.

“We’ve got to get going to the courthouse now, understand? Let's go!” They went at a steady and entirely unrelated pace down a couple of flights of stairs and walked down the street, past apartment and store, administrative building and guard tower, until they came to the courthouse. He pointed and the male slave on his left grabbed the door knocker and tapped it three times. Nothing. The slave turned around and Gyelthan glared at him as if to shoot beams from his eyes at him. The slave knocked again, this time much louder. Courthouse guards in pointed helmets with pikes in their hands opened the gates for them and they trod in softly and with yielding firmness.

It was as if no one could see them, they slinked down the hall. Down, down, until a guard pointed them to the room in which they would stand trial. As if not everyone knew. A trial could be real entertainment, everyone tended to come. Especially when someone of renown was on trial, because why would they commit a crime? The common folk always wanted to believe that their leaders had gotten where they were through corruption and the court was a neutral institution there to sort it all out. Thus they always gathered in the courthouse as if it were a circus but at a slower pace and with a stone-like wall of business stopping so much overt revelry.

As Gyelthan entered the room, it seemed not an eye was on him. People murmered to one another in barely-concealed excitement. The judge behind his table struck a hollow iron bell with a ritual mace four times, then waited a couple of moments, then struck it again four times.

“Attention, attention! We now begin the trial of Citizen Gyelthan Rreirdelaipsho! Gyelthan, please present your defense.”

“Defense?” he said softly, but firmly enough it pierced the quiet. “I have no defense. I don't know the nature of my accusation.” He paused. “Where would my accuser be, anyhow?”

In the left corner the court clerk was looking quickly through scrolls, which were so extended they rolled right off his desk.

“Your accused has left the Empire for the time being and is in the region of Balbona,” the clerk said in a raspy voice that could barely be heard.

“What is the nature of my accusation?”

The clerk went back to looking through scrolls panickedly.

The judge struck the bell twice more.

“Do you have anything else to say?” he said.

“Well, whatever my accusation, a good man has nothing to fear from the law. If I need be punished, then I'll take it gladly. But as I don't know of any wrong I’ve committed and still don’t know my accusation nor accuser, I see no reason I need to be punished by the law at all.”

The people collectively let out an inaudible gasp that nevertheless he felt overpower him.

“So you don't even consider your actions a crime?” the judge said.

“Well,” he knew he had to bluff now, “if my actions were a crime, then I'll gladly confess!”

“So yo do confess?”

“Yes, yes. I confess to it all!”

There was another suffocating, silent gasp from the audience.

“He didn't think you had committed it all though. Your sentence shall be…” the judge struck the bell four times, in alternating high and low spots, so it made a ding dong, ding dong pattern, and then the clerk looked through the scrolls like a rodent looking for burried seeds in the ground after the winter.

“Yes?” the judge said softly.

The clerk responded with words that it seemed not even the judge heard.

“Yes, well, get on with it!”

The clerk looked back down, his cross-eyed gaze driving like a wedge into the heart of the scrolls.

“Well, report back here tomorrow!” shouted the judge.

“So, what is my sentence?” asked Gyelthan as if his voice weren't quivering.

“Well, report back here tomorrow!” the judge repeated.

You already said that, Gyelthan thought. He and his slaves scampered out, and it was as if they were shadows, because no one even seemed to notice.

He returned to his apartment, and was glad his father was not home. He confessed to a crime he didn't know the nature of and still didn't know his sentence! Reporting back would mean he had to accept it, whatever it could be, but not reporting back made him a traitor to his land. I can't do either of these, he thought, maybe I could just leave town a while and reflect. The Sun lay on the western horizon and couldn't help sinking slowly into it. I'll try to earnestly forget all this business, then the guilt will be off me again. He sank so deep into thought there were no words, then snapped out. Or would it? It seems like there is nothing you can do. You knew there was nothing you could do in the first place though. If the gods favor you, then just take whatever comes, nothing can hurt you! He sank into thought again. But they're the gods of Gaaleym, the city who has accused you. How could they be on your side? He let out a heaving breath like some sort of silent roar. Yes, it is better to leave town a while, that is all. Wear old clothes, take no slaves and only a mule, maybe a wagon. Come back when you're ready, that's no crime, perhaps a misdemeanor at most. He drew the curtains on the cold night and walked over restlessly to lie down on his stone bed.