“Guilty.”
The Chief Justice’s voice was smooth and clipped, the verdict immediately followed by two quick raps of his gavel. The echoes rang throughout the room, reverberating off of the polished obsidian walls and looming, stern-faced statues. Thereafter fell a somber silence, save for the sobs of the condemned (punctuated by fervent pleas for mercy and compassion) and the quiet snores of Justice Pomponius, sinking ever lower into his swollen armchair. Finally the guards regained some sense of propriety and began to drag the fair-faced lad out of the chamber. He struggled at first, until one of the men—looking bored—reached across and broke two of the boy’s fingers. Afterwards he was led meekly out, the ornate black Doors of Departure swinging smoothly shut as if to beckon the hapless victim to his fate beyond.
Justice Hadriana shifted back in her chair and sighed. The day was not off to a promising start.
On her left Justice Crispus coughed loudly and leaned over. “I don’t see,” he muttered, in what was clearly meant to be a conspiratorial aside, “quite why that business was so grim. After all, it’s only a foot. We’ve all got two of them.”
Hadriana resisted the urge to grind her teeth. “He’s a peasant, Crispus. He spends his days out in the grain fields while we sit indoors and talk about how hot the grain fields are. He needs to be able to stand upright; otherwise he can’t work, and if he can’t work he has to beg. A farm boy like that panhandling on the streets of the Capitol—we might as well save some time and toss him into the canal ourselves.”
Crispus crinkled his brow and made a show of mulling over her words. Then: “I suppose if he wasn’t a peasant he could probably afford one of those…” He gestured to her seat. “What do you call them…wheeled chairs?” A smirk stole across his face. “Maybe you could recommend him a physician.”
She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t expected remarks, irritating little pissant that he was. And it was irritating. Six upcoming cases sorting through traffic violations, a double burglary conviction with a veritable mound of paperwork, their third amputation sentencing of the week, and now Crispus was trying to be funny. This was why she hated sitting on the end of the bench.
Behind her, her slave kept adjusting her weight from one sandaled foot to the other. Lengthy trials made her restless; Hadriana could feel her tanned fingers drumming a poised rhythm into the wooden handles of her chair. They were sending tiny, multiplying flickers of pain through her swollen legs, but she didn’t truly mind. The throbbing helped to distract her from Crispus’s unrelenting tedium.
“Bring in the next one,” called the Chief Justice, and Hadriana relaxed into the ebb and flow of the Court.
* * *
“A moment, my dear?”
Her eyes flew open. She was always the last to leave after the day’s trials. Several of her colleagues, she knew, assumed she was trying to avoid the scrutiny and foot traffic of the end-of-day departure from the Hall of Order. Others liked to theorize that a woman—even one with her condition—could not stand to see any room left unclean. Hadriana let them believe what they wanted. Truthfully she enjoyed just being in the courtroom, experiencing its near-majestic stillness once the hustle and bustle of Gracian law had died down. She had certainly never expected to have someone else waiting with her, least of all the Chief Justice himself.
Felix Festus was close to forty, yet (as the criers were fond of pointing out) he didn’t look a day over thirty. His teeth, polished and crisp, could transform into a winning smile at a moment’s notice, and his lustrous black hair was pared down to the finest edge. Every part of his appearance was strictly tailored, as if he’d crawled from his mother’s womb donned in lavender silks and violet velvets. His ascendancy from third-circuit chariot clerk to Capital Arbiter to Chief Justice of the Republic of Gracia had been nothing short of meteoric. And there was no denying his charms either—although Hadriana, nearing fifty-three, had always considered herself beyond his notice.
“In private, if you please,” said the Chief Justice, motioning dismissively to her slave.
“No need,” she said at once. “I bought the girl some time ago. Her previous master removed her tongue, and she cannot read or write.”
“All the same,” he replied, watching her closely. “She has ears, and my words are not meant for hers.”
She nodded and patted her slave, who gave Felix a rigid curtsy and left the room. The Chief Justice’s piercing eyes stayed fixed on a carving of lions until she had gone, whereupon he turned back to examine Hadriana once more.
“It is a great pleasure to speak with you at last. I’ve wanted to meet you for some time, but the usual concerns of the country have contrived to eclipse…personal pursuits. At what foul point in history did the High Court’s duties descend into doldrums?” He did not wait for an answer. “I have long admired you, Hadriana. You share little of your secrets with the rest of the world, and to those whom you respect you speak even less. In the three years since my appointment, you have done naught but watch the innocent and the guilty trickle by. But your wisdom, shrewdness, and resourcefulness have not gone unnoticed. Oh yes—” he continued, for here Hadriana’s eyebrows had reached their apex, “—for a woman, gout-afflicted and widowed, to remain a Justice of the Republic in good standing? An impressive accomplishment, to say the least.
“Fortunately,” here he paused and glanced around the room, “a matter has arisen which requires an individual of your unique caliber. A matter concerning another Justice. It must remain between us, of course. Consider it of the utmost discretion. But I can think of no one better to charge with its completion—and by doing so, you would find yourself extremely advantaged in your own endeavors. The favor of a Chief Justice is not granted lightly.”
He extended a hand and regarded her closely. “Do we have an accord?”
After a moment of consideration, she reached across the desk and took it. “We do. Thank you, Chief Justice.”
He smiled lightly. “Call me Felix.”
* * *
By the time they returned home the sun was setting, casting slinking shadows off rows of creaking palms. The streets were still bustling with overladen traders, staggering dockworkers, and chortling soldiers teeming in unwashed crowds, but Hadriana’s carriage cut a familiar figure in the Capitol and they were given a wide berth. Her house stood solitary on its block, choked with overgrown ivy and looming military frescos. It was an ugly building, squat and solid and still squarely grotesque. And yet it was all Hadriana really had, the only lodgings she could afford to keep, and somehow that made her dislike it even more.
Another servant opened the front door for them, and her slave deftly wheeled her into the sitting room. Here especially in the house, erratically scrubbed pockets of cleanliness mingled with stubborn holdouts of dust. The girl pushed her several paces towards the staircase then rotated around to her front, squaring her stance and stretching out her arms in a carrying posture.
“Not just yet, thank you,” Hadriana said. “Could you bring me the latrones board?”
The slave girl seemed momentarily surprised, but bowed. She left Hadriana and withdrew into the darkened office across the hall, returning after a minute with an elegant section of wood in her hands. After placing it softly on the table, she pulled open a small compartment on its underside and began to remove carefully carved circles, white and black, distributing them across the board in starkly mirrored rows.
“You’re illiterate, but you know how to set up latrones.” Hadriana smiled. “I suppose your previous owner must have gotten bored from time to time.” The girl gave no sign of having heard, apparently engrossed in completing her task. It took only a few more seconds before she’d straightened to regard her master, awaiting further instruction.
Hadriana merely tapped the board. “Well?”
The girl kept her face blank, but Hadriana could tell that she was curious. After a moment she nodded and sat on the opposite end of the table, watching her closely. Hadriana extended two fingers and delicately lifted one of the white disks into the air.
“These pieces were my husband’s. The man who owned this place. He was always too busy to teach me the rules, so I learned by watching him.” She laughed. “Not that he was ever very good.”
The slave girl cocked her head, inquiring.
“I don’t typically discuss him. We met decades ago, at a different Justice’s villa. It was a masquerade; he was wearing a moleskin mask, while I was blindfolded. He offered me a probationary position as a clerk in his office.” Hadriana replaced the piece, and her hands came to rest on her chair. “That was before my illness, of course.
“The source of his interest in me seemed rather obvious, but it was interest nonetheless. When a person in power makes you an offer, sometimes it’s best to play along for a while. If only to see what comes of the game.” She gestured at the board between them. “For example.”
The girl seemed somewhat preoccupied with examining her own pieces. She raised one of the dark discs, studying the jagged letter carved into its surface.
Hadriana nodded. “Morlux. One of my husband’s most frequent opponents. They used to play once a week, but he hasn’t been back to this building since before I became a Justice.
“He’s a dangerous man. And it seems the Chief Justice thinks so as well. Does that frighten you?”
The slave girl sniffed and pulled the front of her tunic to the side, where a brand lay over her left breast. It was faded, but Hadriana could still make out the symbol for “runaway” stamped above her heart. The girl patted the letters with a fierce sort of pride, then let the fabric fall gently back into place.
As good a response as any, she supposed. It was time for her first move.