Page 38 of The Magpie Lord
“Justiciar. Judge and jury?”
“If you like.”
“So what’s the penalty for killing someone with a Judas jack?”
“My job is to stop practitioners hurting people,” said Stephen irritably. “I’d have stopped Gammer Parrott by whatever means necessary.”
“You killed that warlock last winter,” Crane observed.
“That was necessary.”
“Judge, jury and executioner. What about Miss Bell? What’s the maximum sentence for aiding and abetting murder?”
“It doesn’t work like that. My job is to stop practitioners hurting people, and I do that however I have to.”
“So you left Miss Bell disinclined to hurt me, by bullying and threatening her.”
“If you want to put it like that,” said Stephen, tight-lipped.
“Until you forced me and her into alliance. So I stood up for her, more or less proving she was wrong about me as I did so, and left her far better disposed towards me. I can feel my local reputation improving as we speak.”
Stephen looked slowly round. Crane grinned at him. “Nicely played. Although when you’re relying on my intervention, I’d rather you warn me in advance.”
“I wasn’t relying on anything. You had every right to demand redress, and I’d have supported that. Though I did think—hope—youmight react as you did,” Stephen added, slightly less stiffly. “It was...fair. And I’m glad of it. It’s best for everyone to get her back on the straight and narrow.”
“You’ve got that authority, to let her off?”
“Well, yes. Judge and jury.”
“That’s quite a responsibility.”
“It’s how your ancestor set it up,” Stephen said. “The Magpie Lord founded the justiciary, he made the rules. Of course,hethought it would be an appointment of honour, not a job you give the misfits and the ones who can’t pay for training.”
“Not a popular job, then.”
“No,” Stephen said, with some emphasis. “Nobody likes the justiciary, sticking our noses into other people’s business and telling our betters what to do. They can’t stand us, right up till the moment they come up against someone stronger and more ruthless, and then they start clamouring for help and asking why we haven’t done our jobs before.” He kicked a stone into the white-blossomed hedgerow. “It’s harder out here. In the cities, there’s more danger but that means people understand more. Here, they just do what they like and treat the law like it’s for other people.”
“That attitude seems fairly common round here. I take it your aunt wasn’t sympathetic.”
“My aunt,” said Stephen viciously. “Dear Aunt Annie. Apparently the fact that she’s my father’s sister gives her the right to decide what he’d have thought about any situation. Apparently, she knows the definition of justice better than I do. Apparently, any friend of hers, such as Gammer Parrott, is above the law. Or rather, it’s impossible that dear Edna could have done a bad thing, therefore you must deserve the fate of the other Vaudreys regardless of evidence, andthereforethere’s only one reason for me to prevent you being murdered, and it has nothing to do with law or justice.”
“And that is?”
“Well, let’s see,” Stephen said. “You’re notorious for unspeakable vice. You’ve put me up in what ought to be your wife’s bedroom. And Graham saw—saw—me commit an abominable act on you in the garden last night. So why don’t you take a guess.”
“Shit.”
“I just want to know how exactly you’ve made sure everyone in Lychdale knows who you go to bed with,” Stephen snapped. “You’ve only been in the country four months! Do you even stop to sleep? And between your abysmal reputation and a pair of damp trouser knees, Mr. Graham seems to have conjured up a story out ofSins of the Cities of the Plain, which allowed my aunt to accuse me of gross depravity with, more or less, my father’s murderer.”
“The bitch. Stephen—” Crane reached for him. He slithered sideways, away, and started walking again, a fast, angry march.
“It’s what she wanted to hear,” he went on. “It confirmed that she was quite right not to offer to house me when my father died, which she’s been trying to justify for the last twelve years. It’s entirely reasonable to abandon a homeless boy if he grows up to be a sodomite, especially with a Vaudrey involved. And I could hardly make a convincing denial of anything going on, could I?”
Crane put a hand through his hair. “I’m extremely sorry. I can probably make Graham recant—”
“It won’t change her mind. I don’t care anyway.” Stephen halted abruptly. “Do you want me?”
“What?”
