[u][b]Kolmar, Gwynneth, July 22nd 5005 IC
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[i]
Knowing things is not the same as knowing people - Unconventional Saints and Unlikely Heroes [/i]

The early summer sun beat down on the Square of Judgement like a hammer. By nightfall, the food sellers and junk vendors opined, there would be a great storm which would sheet the city with rain and rend the air with lightning. For now, hundreds of men and a smaller portion of women sweltered in the heat, miserable at the end of the short chains that bound them to the iron rings in the center of each ancient flagstone. Advocates, or at least those who claimed to be advocates, bustled among the prisoners exchanging quick words before moving on. Many other people just came to gawk and jeer at the presumably condemned. 

Gwynneth was a Hawkwood Fief, but by ancient treaty those accused of capital crimes were brought to they city of Kolmar for an audience with a judge from the Reeve’s guild. Few people who received such an audience were pardoned, but the influx of money both from the family of the accused and their victims both seeking to ensure justice was done, ensured that the nobility of Kolmar did not allow the practice to die out. It also made the city a dangerous place, particularly after dark, as grieved citizens of one type or another sought to settle scores with fists, knives, or whatever other weapons were available. 

An accused murder could increase his odds of aquital by engaging the services of an advocate. In theory the advocate would plead his case to the Reeve, using his knowledge of the law to win freedom for his client. In practice however the advocate usually did little more than offer a bribe to the judge, a tactic that was somewhat more effective than impassioned speech making. The majority of the accused had no way of paying an advocate in coin or property, but the advocate could recoup his effort by compelling the accused to sign a letter of indenture that would allow him to work off his debt. This too was more ideliesed than practical, as in most cases the advocates simply sold the indenture to the Chainers at a reasonable markup. The Chainers promptly lost the letters of indenture as soon as they got their new employees off planet and away from the prying eyes of the Church, and the luckless individual was likely to spend the rest of their life as a slave in some backwater hellhole. Such was the course of Justice in the Known Worlds.

Sister Annika moved quietly among those awaiting trial. The chains that held each of the accused were of a precise length, about half the length of the vast granite flagstones. Thus even a berserk madman was of no danger provided one walked along the seams between the stones and didn't stray into reach. Most of those who would try such a thing had been to badly beaten in transit to attempt it here but it never hurt to be careful. Guards in Hawkwood blue and white, emblazoned with the golden stag of the Wilde family, stood at regular intervals around the edge of the square hefting rifles. They were not impressive men, mostly unshaven and with their livery poorly washed and Annika certainly wouldn’t have wanted to chance her life on their marksmanship if one of the prisoners made a sudden lunge.

To the Estakonic Priestess the square was a babble of voices both auditory and mental. Her telepathic ability would not normally have been strong enough to pick up anything beyond surface thoughts but as the ancient Urth saying went, nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of being hanged. Each prisoner she passed dwelled almost entirely on their crime, replaying it over and over as judgement approached. Here a potter smashed in the head of a lover who had spurned him, there a drunk relived the horrible sensation of finding himself standing over a corpse stabbed in a bar fight. Some few of them were even innocent, puzzling over who had framed them or what series of unhappy accidents had lead them to this dire impasse. There was little she could do for them, not without revealing how she had come by the information or engaging an advocate of her own, for which she lacked any form of payment. Like all Estakonics she was sworn to poverty, expected to beg for her sustenance, a practice that didn’t lend itself to extravagant legal expenses. 

It took her perhaps an hour to find the man she had been seeking. He was wiry and bearded and his left eye was covered with a leather patch. His hard angular face made him look untrustworthy but Annika sensed that wasn’t as true as he liked to pretend. He had been framed, a fact clearly apparent from the meticulous detail in which he had recreated the events after it was too late. She didn’t doubt he had killed before, but of this particular crime he was innocent, set up to take the fall by the gang of thieves with whom he had been working. The revenge he was planning was colorful and a little more detailed than Annika wanted to picture.

“My Son,” she said, the words a trifle ironic when addressed to a man old enough to be her father. The prisoners head jerked up as she stepped closer to him. His right eye was a surprisingly bright shade of blue, cool and piercing.

“Oh bugger off priest,” he snapped with pro forma animosity.

“You know it is a sin to think about a priestess that way,” she added tactfully, fighting down a blush from the sudden mental images she had lifted from the man’s mind. Priests were supposed to put away such worldly thoughts but the man's imagination was vivid. She was an attractive woman, long limbed and with smooth olive skin and dark eyes though most of the rest of her was concealed beneath her conservative robes and habit.

“What do you…” he began but then changed his mind, closing his mouth with an audible clop before regarding her for several long seconds. 

“What is this,” he demanded, scowling at her.

“Confession,” she told him simply as she knelt down beside him, her hands assuming an attitude of prayer.

“I don’t have anything to confess,” he snapped glaring at her with his one good eye. Annika giggled and he looked at her as though she had just sprouted another head.

“That isn’t even remotely true,” she chided him, full lips curving into a smile.

“But as it happens, it is me who needs to confess,” she told him.

“Confess?” he asked, his bushy eyebrows knitting as his puzzlement began to give way to annoyance.

“Yes, I actually came here to offer you a job Logan,” she told him with a beautific smile. He barked a short laugh which died in his throat as he realized that she knew his name.

“How do you..,” he began but then shook his head dismissing the thought. Instead he lifted his chained hands and rattled the metal links.

“Do I look like I’m in any position to take a job?” he half sneered.

“That depends on how you do in your interview I suppose,” she returned. Logan shook his head.

“You must be out of your mind,” he commented. Annika wondered if that were true, she had already given the Avestite who had been following her the slip in order to meet with Logan, while it wasn’t technically against Cannon Law it wasn’t going to win her any points with the Inquisition.

“Pray with me,” she directed. For a moment it looked like Logan might object, but instead he rolled onto his knees and clasped his shackled hands before hers.

“Merciful Pancreator, bless this child, Logan Christopher, forgive him any sins he has committed or omitted. Grant that if he is worthy he find me at the Church of Saint Athelia at midnight,” she continued, altering the words of the litany but not it cadance. As she spoke her hands parted slightly and a slender metal rod about the length of  man’s finger protruded from between her clasped hands. Logan’s eyes widened for a moment before he lifted his own hand slightly and drew the lockpick between them, making it vanish as if by magic.  Annika concluded the prayer of forgiveness and then stood.

“There you are,” a voice snarled and a hand grabbed her from behind. Annika gasped as she was spun around to find herself facing an unfamiliar man in the vestment of an Orthodox priest. He was a Novitiate like her, though unfortunately as an Estakonic, this meant she was required to obey him. 

“What are you doing here sister,” he snapped. The novices eyes burned with puritnical superiority through the stink of garlic on his breath and his pimple marked face didn’t exactly lend him grandeur. 

“I am hearing confessions,” she responded acidly.

“You might try it some time,” she added with a wave at the square intended to convey the lack of orthodox clergy.

“The Bishop wants to see you, you will come with me,” he snapped grabbing her by the arm and physically turning her towards the western gate. At least he tried to. Annika had grown up in the courts of the al-Malik family and was no stranger to bigger stronger cousins attempting to push her around. Instruction in Paranu Bindi, a combination of meditation and martial art hadn’t hurt either. She continued to turn with the momentum of his shove, gripping his wrist with one hand as she pivoted around behind him, her other hand thrusting hard up into his arm pit, pinching the nerve painfully. The other novice let out a pained squawk that choked off on a rising note.
“Let us be polite about this,” she hissed in his ear, “But make no mistake, if you touch me again we will have cause to visit the Sanctuary Aeon before we visit the Bishop. Am I understood?”

“I will tell the Bishop about this!” the novice squealed tears running from his eyes from the painful hold.

“Good, I’m certain he will be very impressed,” she responded tartly. Convinced she had made her point she gave the novice a shove in the direction of the western gate.

“Lead on then,” she told him, “we wouldn’t want to keep his grace waiting.”

[@POOHEAD189]