Forgetting the Score
Fifth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
"Your Honor. Most Esteemed Council. I posit before you thus, in summary, my client's proclaimed innocence twice confirmed now, with the established evidence of no prior wrongdoing and no credible claims of maleficence, and with the testimony of the witnesses who have taken the stand and twice been tested with divination and truth compelling magic against the accounts of the accused--my client's alibi remains completely solid. And I now have solid proof of his innocence. Your Honor?"
"You may approach the stand, Solicitor," the call had a less sharp edge to it than it had at the start of this trial, Elbert thought inwardly, though he did not allow the satisfaction to show on his face. "You say you have further evidence to present before the Court?"
The shock on the face of the oh-so-smug Magister Baeros was sweet as the honeyed wine that was so popular in the Deep. His plot to erase all trace of his wrongdoings by using smuggled Memory Moss was far worse than covering up a series of murders of his business rivals and even partners.
He had been so very careful to work through intermediaries and to guide events such that no one would ask the right questions, or those divined would lead to false and twice-tangled trails with men accused of crimes they did not recall committing in earnest. No. Because of his trade ties to foreign backers from the west and east, the fool had revealed he had committed high crimes of treason! His title and wealth might stave off the noose at the lower courts using the right patsies to take the fall and distance himself from the crimes committed, but to draw the attention of the Crown to his activities? Dos had named it sheer madness.
Elbert called it justice in poetry writ.
It was unfortunate, then, that Elbert had to use his connections to the higher officials through his friend, to get the right spell cast to help him turn over a niggling suspicion he had held onto the first he laid eyes upon the odious trade magnate in question, as they just could not keep the smug expression of triumph and vindictive pride off their face while offering simpering words of support to those wronged and giving testimony on the stand that was just a tad too confident of their own lack of involvement in such "vile affairs". Elbert felt guilt for abusing that friendship to aid in his own case such as he had, but then again he was likely allowed to even approach the spirit-kin mage because of his own usefulness at resolving unusual cases in the favor of the right party, such as the case may be. Men would lose their heads for this, plots of the merchant princes aside, men had betrayed their oaths to guard and monitor the Crown's holdings.
Lady Beryl was all too happy to help regardless, so the guilt did not linger long enough for him to hesitate at the last.
Magister Baeros kept his nose clean enough, to be sure, but rather than leading to the arrest of the proxies he used for his scheme to rule Sorcerer's Deep grey market from afar--as no sale of goods there could be said to be done without assent from the powers-that-be, he had led to his own downfall through sheer towering arrogance.
And it had been entirely undone and by a dozen private investigators or mercenary troubleshooters... who he couldn't be entirely sure weren't really agents of the Inquisition in some cases.
And one spell cast at the right time and place, asking the right question.
Elbert's client had been willing to pay for them and didn't seem the sort to have any far-reaching connections of that nature, but then again, a man could be a peasant or a prince and still remain a pawn.
***
"What do you mean you want to remain a Solicitor?" Dos tried not to scream the words at him, the shock having made him shift through a myriad number of emotions before finally settling on 'disgusted amusement'. "You could be a Justice if you applied yourself. Hell, you're the one with connections at Court..."
"And I don't intend to abuse those connections,"
unless it's to cheat to acquire evidence for a case, he thought, somewhat troubled at doing something ethically questionable even if for a good cause. "Besides, we are helping people! Just like we intended when we set out to study and practice the law."
"Only because you couldn't make it as a playwright," Dos accused blandly,
leaving unsaid how he could not either, shuffling through pages for his own work. "Legal counsel does pay better here, however, when you inflate your own reputation by helping out sea people and bull men and other strange folk for a song." For some reason, success at representing such minorities had garnered better optics for their practice than if he had spent time representing the merely poor or disadvantaged, Dos had remarked upon it cynically more than once. After all, the fantastic and unique had a wealth of their own and frivolous men of status would pay to be advised by 'the best' if not necessarily represented. It was worth noting that they could not rely on simple bribery and political connections to assure a case would be thrown out of court if they committed wrong-doings, these days.
"T-that aside... You have to admit, we are being paid unusually well. Court-room procedures here are very elaborate compared to anywhere else bar Braavos, even the lower courts are quite thorough." Proceedings in Braavos to represent the less affluent or those without high status were far more cursory affairs, working off established precedence but not as much jurisprudence as those found in the Deep or even Tyrosh. The other cities were adapting at varying speeds, though he did not doubt Braavos would hit the ground running.
"How goes your own 'courtship'?" Dos broke his train of thought with a lift of his eyebrow, expression that of stone.
"Non-existent as always," Elbert replied, barely blinking at the accusation by this point. "Do you think Companions are busy running all over the world fighting monsters and abolishing slavery and whatever else they get up to on an average week? Well, high officials are probably busier. They have to do their own paperwork, after all," Elbert finished with a smile, dropping the final stack of his own penmanship in the 'out' bin on his desk. There was a chiming of a bell signaling the approach of a new client. "You or I?" Elbert asked his partner in time-honored tradition to determine who would take the lead on a case.
Dos took out a coin stamped with the King's face and flipped it.
