“I look around me and what do I see?” The steward shot venomous looks in all directions. “I see lies and calumny everywhere! I see men who have given themselves over to bewitchment and betrayal!”
“If abuse is all we shall hear from you, you can stop here and now,” Sir Christian retorted sternly. “You have been found guilty. should repent, and beg for forgiveness.”
Harun covered his face with his hands. If you wanted to learn fast that however noble and honorable a man can be, he can also be a damn silly twit, there was no doubt, Sevenport was the place to go to. Radulf seemed to think along similar lines.
“Repent?” he spat. “What do I have to repent of?”
“You are proven guilty of murder, the most gruesome crime on earth – after heresy of course.”
Harun buried himself still deeper in his long fingers.
“Repent now, before it is too late. You will not have much time left. The finding of this court is not challengeable.”
“Oh, but it is.”
Away were the hands. Harun stared at Radulf. What was the man talking about? Had he gone mad? Yet the smile on Radulf’s face did not seem to Harun to be the smile of a madman. Rather that of a hungry wolf. And the wolf began to growl.
“Karl has started an intrigue, an intrigue to destroy my good name. He has enlisted help from all sides, and shirked from no devilish deed. Well, that leaves only one road open to me. Sir Christian, it is to you, as my Overlord, that I speak. I have nothing to repent, for as God sees us, I am innocent.”
‘Which tells you something about his amount of faith,’ Harun thought but said nothing. What was the man planning? He was sentenced, as good as dead, justice had triumphed, even if it had taken a rather crazy, roundabout way. What could Radulf do now?
The steward gave the answer to the question burning in Harun’s mind almost immediately.
“I am guilty of no murder. So I hereby challenge the finding of this court. I want to submit myself to the only justice left to me, a higher justice than that of men. I want to submit myself to God’s justice, and therefore I appeal for a trial by combat.”
*~*~*~*~*
A few minutes later, two figures were striding over the fields, away from the village. One of them small, silent and thoughtful, the other tall and not very silent.
“A trial by combat? By combat? I truly believe this whole country has lost its mind. Do you mean to say people here can turn justice upside down simply by bashing someone on the head?”
“It is not turning justice upside down,” Wenzel protested quietly. “It is the ultimate justice. The idea is that God intervenes on behalf of the righteous.”
“And does he?”
“How should I know. I’ve never seen a trial by combat. But it is said that God will not allow the innocent to be slain.”
“Indeed. And why, may I ask, did God not intervene when Radulf was impaling Lukas with his noble cutlery? Was he sleeping? Or taking a holiday, perhaps?”
“Nhmm.”
“That is not altogether a satisfactory answer.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Harun looked over his shoulder back at the village. Was Karl still standing there, in front of the church, immobile as if tied to the spot? Just as he had been when Sir Christian had said:
YOU ARE READING
Well Dead
Mystery / ThrillerA murder at the castle gates, a young widow in distress - and only one man willing to solve the mystery of the violent death that has disrupted the peaceful village of Sevenport! After years of hardship and slavery, Harun the Arab has found work as...
