Ordermaster

XLVI

Kharl rode down Casters Way, a street whose shops offered no reason for the name. Riding beside him was Dorfal, again assigned to accompany Kharl.

“Quiet this morning, ser. Always is this time of day.”

“Most are at work or doing chores, I’d imagine.” Kharl could sense more than a few eyes on him, although they had to have been trained on him from behind window hangings or shutters, for he saw no one actually looking at him. He did not sense any large amounts of chaos, but Valmurl, like any city, was filled with small pockets of chaos-and order.

He did catch, through his order-sense boosted hearing, a few words and phrases here and there.

“ … that’s him … all in black …”

“ … mages everywhere wear the black …”

“ … big fellow … more like an armsman …”

“ … good at that, too … some say …”

“ … Lord Ghrant … fortunate …”

“ … we’re the lucky ones … lords still be fighting …″

Kharl couldn’t keep a faint smile from his lips. Whoever the speaker had been, he had been right. Through luck, some limited skill, and arrogance-both his and that of the white mages-he’d stopped the white wizards. If he had not, he had few doubts that the fighting would still be continuing, if only because that would have best suited Hamor.

“The square’s just ahead, ser, past the silversmith’s on the left.”

Kharl nodded. He hadn’t wanted an escort, but Norgen and Hagen had insisted. The Hall of Justice was too far from the Great House to walk, and there were no stables nearby. So Dorfal was escorting Kharl.

As the two turned at the silversmith’s, the morning sunlight glinted off the puddles remaining in the lower sections of the stone-paved square that fronted the hall of Justice. The gray stone structure was longer and narrower than the Hall in Brysta. Its double doors were of dark oak rather than light, and there were no guards posted either outside or immediately inside.

Kharl reined up outside the doors and dismounted. From the gelding’s saddlebags, he took out a small leather case, which contained only blank paper and a markstick.

“I’ll be back at noon, ser.”

“Thank you.” Kharl smiled at the young lancer, then turned and headed for the doors, conscious of Dorfal’s eyes on his back.

Inside the doors, a series of polished brass lamps set in wall sconces illuminated the hall-like foyer, and the white plaster walls had been recently painted. There were no decorations.

Kharl glanced around. The foyer was empty.

A thin white-haired man in a green jacket appeared from a narrow archway to the left. “Ser? Might I help you?”

“I’m looking for Jusof, the clerk for-″

“You must be Lord Kharl, I’d imagine.” The man bowed. “Most pleased to meet you, ser. Jusof is expecting you, ser. If you would take the narrow stairs to the left over there, the library and his study are just at the top.”

“Thank you.” Kharl bowed his head.

“Oh, no, ser. Thank you.”

Kharl followed the directions and took the stairs, so narrow that his shoulders almost brushed both walls at once. At the top was another foyer, with three archways set in an arc. The archway in the center had a single door, open into a small chamber. Kharl could see someone seated at a table desk on which were stacked piles of books and papers and that half filled the chamber. The ancient oak door set in the archway to the right was closed. The leftmost archway had no door and opened into a long chamber that seemed to run the rest of the distance to the back of the structure. It was filled with shelves, and on those shelves were rows and rows of leather-bound volumes, and all the volumes seemed to be the same size-at least from what Kharl could see.

Kharl strode forward toward the occupied chamber. By the time he stood at the doorway, the occupant was standing.

“Lord Kharl, I presume?”

“Yes. You’re Jusof.″

“None other.” Jusof was even thinner, if but slightly younger, than the man who had offered directions. His eyes were gray, large, and luminous, and his hands were enormous, with such long fingers that each hand resembled a spider.

“I had no doubt you were Lord Kharl, the mage.” The warmth of the clerk’s smile erased immediately the severity of his appearance.

Kharl laughed slightly. “Everyone seems to know who I am, and yet I’ve not met any of you. It’s very strange.”

“That will pass, I am most certain, but you not only are attired as befits a mage, but you carry yourself as such. There is a power there … one who looks cannot mistake it.” The elderly clerk smiled at Kharl. “You look like a mage, not like a cooper, or a carpenter, but I’ve been assured that you’ve been successful at all three occupations. I’ve also been assured that you can read and write with proficiency. Is that accurate?”

“Yes.” Kharl wasn’t so sure about his proficiency in writing, at least compared to the justicers and advocates who frequented the Hall of Justice.

“The lord-chancellor has stated that he wishes me to guide you in learning as much about justice and its procedures as possible in the season ahead. Lord Justicer Priost has no objections, so long as you do not disrupt the proceedings of any case, and I am willing to do that, if you are willing to apply yourself. It will mean working as hard as at anything you have done, for wrestling with the many-headed beast that is law is more tiring than most would imagine.”

A faint smile crossed Kharl’s lips as he listened.

“First, I will offer a precept, and an observation. The precept is: Never mistake law for justice. Justice is an ideal, and law is a tool. Absolute justice would be as unjust as applied injustice. Now … the observation is that justice is the wellspring of chaos. That is because those who are guilty will do anything to avoid justice, as will most of those who are innocent.” The clerk’s tone turned even more dry. “The innocent fear justice because of what they might do, or because of what might be done to those they love. The only ones who pursue justice with great vigor are those who would use the law as a weapon, and they are to be more feared than either the innocent or the guilty.”

Kharl only had to think about the clerk’s words for a moment.

Jusof cleared his throat and asked, “Does that surprise you?”

“No. I can’t say that it does,” Kharl replied reflectively. “I could not have said it as clearly as you did, but I have wondered about the very ideas you expressed.”

“You speak well for a former craftsman. Have you read widely?”

“I have read. Not so widely as I should, I fear.”

“That is true of all of us.” The clerk coughed. “I will summarize in practical terms what I just told you. Law is a necessary evil. With it, matters are never what they should be. Without it, they are inevitably worse.”

Kharl had to wonder, if the clerk of the head justicer in Austra happened to be so cynical, how fairly the judgments of his justicer were arrived at.

“The law is something that is always changing, but its roots date to antiquity. Hamor has an actual code of laws, set forth in great detail by the third emperor. These are periodically updated and recodified. We do not do this in Nordla. The laws of both Austra and Nordla derive originally from the Code of Cyad, such of it as remained, and largely from the ensuing case histories, by precedent, and as amended by any proclamations of the lord, provided that the lord justicer does not issue an opinion suggesting the legal invalidity of such a proclamation …″

What was a case history? What did Jusof mean by precedent? And how could a lord justicer invalidate a lord’s decree? Kharl feared that what was in The Basis of Order was simple in comparison to the arcaneness of law.

“We will need to get you settled. The lord justicer suggested that you spend some time studying the simplified procedures first, then the most important precedents. After that, as there is time, you can look into other cases and observe some of the cases that come before the lord justicer.” Jusof smiled. “There is a large table in the northwest corner of the library, right under one of the clerestories, so that on most days you won’t need a lamp …″

The chief clerk slipped around the table desk, the sleeve of his short jacket brushing a pile of books, which teetered but did not fall.

Kharl took his case in hand and followed the justicer’s clerk.