Chapter 18

I was worried about the upcoming trial, and as a result, sleep eluded me. I was in no shape to drive the next morning. Morgan volunteered to drive one of the Oak Leaf vans. Even with Morgan and I taking a van, there would be room in the remaining vehicles for Matthew to get back to Oak Leaf.

Our leave taking was brief. Lord Matthew was there; not realizing the significance of our journey, he simply clasped hands and said he looked forward to seeing us at Oak Leaf. Lord Oliver and Elk also wished us luck. I was sad that Lady Michele had not yet returned.

A few minutes into our drive, Morgan said, “Ashley, if I had not insisted on accompanying you last night, I think I would have woken to find you gone to Balance Hall alone, taking my life into your hands without my input. Let us avoid yesterday’s folly and actually plan together.”

I realized that what I was doing could easily look like setting him up for the exact political fall I was hoping to avoid. “I’m worried about the politics. I’ve been working to make it clear to Oak Leaf that sacrificing you to political expedience will not be our strategy. I guess I was a bit concerned that you might try to take on more of the responsibility for Lucinda and Passion Mill than I thought fair and wanted to write the first claim and avoid that possibility.”

Morgan chuckled. I relaxed, happy that working together to save Lucinda had restored our easy familiarity. “Given the chance, I might have done exactly that, trusting Brenhaven to manage the politics and trying to spare you some of the risk. Perhaps we had better actually coordinate our efforts.”

I smiled and nodded. “I can do that. You expect Brenhaven to support you?”

“Within their ability. I am Lord Brenhaven’s get, and while he did not act as father much, we have developed rapport in the last few years. The house must not be risked, but nor shall I be easily discarded.”

That was a relief. “How involved will Brenhaven want to be in preparing your case? Lady Elizabeth, who may be our best at politics between the houses, will be handling mine.”

“I’d assume that we will be fairly involved.”

Lady Elizabeth would be thrilled to have more challenges placed in front of her. Now I’d committed to working closely with Morgan, and she would need to coordinate her case with another house. I was piling on the constraints.

Along the way, I drifted off to sleep, only to awaken screaming to yet another dream of Stone and Pride.

Within a few minutes, I was able to calm myself, Morgan’s reassuring presence beside me, the familiar motion of the van reminding me that Stone and Pride were in the past.

Shortly after noon, we arrived at balance Hall. Balance Hall is built along the lines of a noble seat, even though it is shared among all the houses. However, it is built to a much older plan than Oak Leaf. We walked through a series of antechambers. I said we were waiting for the arrival of Lady Elizabeth, Next for Oak Leaf. We were directed to a waiting room and lunch was provided.

Lady Elizabeth arrived after lunch and we began to discuss the circumstances surrounding our interactions with Lucinda. Lady Elizabeth was informal and relaxed in her approach. She worked quickly and efficiently to understand what had happened.

After an hour of taking notes, she stopped, smoothed her gown and stretched. “At this point, I normally try to understand the worst-case view of the circumstances: how would someone use the facts to paint things in the worst possible light.”

She continued, “Consider this interpretation. You know that Stone does not like you. You and Lord Morgan arrange to leave with Stone and have him killed. Mane, terrified, is told that he can either choose to have his soul consumed by a demon or be executed in a manner of your choosing. You bring the demon into the community, violating the integrity of the boundary and feeding her energy from many members of the community. Then you destroy property so she can escape. Unfortunately, here, the worst case doesn’t help us; it’s bad enough we need to avoid that interpretation at all costs.”

“Your worst case isn’t fair; I, rather than Stone was taken. You’ve twisted all the justifications and the benefits that the community got from our actions,” I said.

“Yes, exactly. Sometimes it’s possible to have a good response even when you are not able to convince people of your justifications. Here, I think convincing the houses of your interpretation of the events will be critical.”

She continued, “You think we should plead bad law. Why do you think the law is bad?”

In my own head it was simple: the law led to the ridiculous conclusion that we should not have saved Passion Mill, so the law had to be bad. I understood Lady Elizabeth would need more than that. I said, “I am not entirely sure the point of these laws. If someone manages to get themselves mated to a demon bride, we don’t stand in their way. That would be a good way to spend a lot of energy fighting demons, and sacrificing your soul tends to be a sufficient disincentive. What harm are we trying to prevent?”

Lady Elizabeth pondered. “Imagine someone making a deal with a demon to feed them a constant supply of mates in exchange for some ongoing service.”

Morgan and I laughed. I said, “That would be one very foolish person. If the demon bride does actually mate the victim, that bond would take priority over any agreement. You’d have both a mad, heart-broken demon and victim as your enemy. That’s probably self-limiting.” Morgan nodded, confirming my analysis.

“A good point. So are you saying that an association with a demon can never be against the common good?”

“Absolutely not,” Morgan said. I was surprised he felt so strongly.

He continued, “Lady Lucinda spoke of how by terrorizing and consuming those around them, she might stretch her time with Badger to 10 years.”

“You said nothing of that in your paper,” I said.

“I talked about how she might extend her time by living up to people’s fears of a demon. However, no I did not emphasize that path. Imagine a demon bride mated to someone filled with hate, someone who wished to revenge themselves on the world around them in exchange for the eventual price of their soul.”

I shivered. Lady Elizabeth asked, “What are her limitations? How much damage could such a mate do?”

“I don’t know. Even if she used her strength and healing simply to rend people apart and recover from any damage, that would be devastating. There clearly are crimes in this space,” Morgan said.

Now it was my turn to consider the harm of a demon mating. I imagined Stone mated to Lucinda, her holding me down, letting me run only to be recaptured, so that Stone could show me that I could not survive the openness I asked people to find. Without a doubt that would break me; pushing people beyond their boundaries was a perversion of how I strove to shine. Interestingly, as much as fearing for myself and my community in that situation, I was sad thinking of Lucinda forced to do that. I could imagine her as a predator eager for the hunt, possibly even taking joy in playing with her food, the scent of fear, and the eventual surrender. In the moment her love for Stone would drive her. But for the rest of her life, she would live with who he forced her to become. She would be as much a victim as anyone. I struggled not to be sick.

“Lady Ashley, are you with us?” Lady Elizabeth asked.

“I’m sorry. I imagined Lady Lucinda mated to Smooth-Tumbled Stone. Lord Morgan is correct; there are clearly crimes here that we need prevent.” Morgan sucked air through his teeth.

“However, what we did seems different,” I said. “With us she shined brightly in the light of passion. Yes, that’s it! The flaw in the law is the assumption that demons never stand in the light of passion. Sometimes, at least, they do.”

“That ... will be hard to swallow,” Lady Elizabeth said. “Even if we can accept the idea that demons can shine in the light of passion, how can we capture that in law?”

“Do the two of you think I am right?” I asked.

Morgan simply nodded. Lady Elizabeth paused for a minute. “What parts of Lucinda’s story are you uncertain of? In particular, where are you depending on Lucinda’s input? I do not trust her.”

“Not trusting her seems prudent,” Lord Morgan said. “We’ve seen care for her mates even when that is not in her interest, but we do not know of limits for her care. She claims she would be happy to die rather than consuming her mate, but we have not actually seen that happen.”

“That last point is particularly important,” I said. “For all we know, there’s something in the mating bond and anyone would eventually offer their soul; we only have her word that is not the case. However, at least between Lucinda and Flowing Mane, we have confidence that he did want to offer himself before the two of them met.”

Morgan said, “In general, we cannot trust her information about her limits. We have reasonable confidence about her emotions; her mating bond seems close enough to web magic that our reasoning about web magic is likely to apply.”

He continued, “We have good evidence that she did bring strength to Passion Mill’s web and save the community. Lady Ashley, how confident are you that she helped you in your scene?”

“Very. She said she played with me and that was certainly true, but through our work I will eventually be able to practice what I learned from the shepherds without damage to myself.”

“Remarkable!” Lady Elizabeth said. Of my own choice, I would not have shared the details of my time at Shepherd’s Crook with Lady Elizabeth. However, through her rank, she was privy to what transpired last spring.

“We didn’t get a chance to talk to Mane about his experience with her,” Lord Morgan said. “However, I’m convinced that she helped Badger. To the best of my ability to detect, he was not coerced in offering his soul. His story is consistent with research prior to my paper.”

Lady Elizabeth tapped her foot. “This is a big change. Lady Ashley has given those of us at Oak Leaf experience getting used to change. Truthfully, a lot of our world is changing: the Scholium is challenging a lot of assumptions. Electronic processing and motor vehicles give us a world much different than the one my mother faced.

“Perhaps we need to rethink demons too. I think you’ve convinced me.”

“Well, at least demon brides. There are many types of demons,” Lord Morgan said.

“Point taken. So, what should the law be?”

Unfortunately, that proved a hard question. We were able to agree at least among ourselves that the current law was wrong and that whether the demon stood in the light of passion was an important factor to consider. Perhaps because of my time at Shepherd’s Crook, I was more comfortable with Lucinda’s role as huntress than Lady Elizabeth, although my comfort was very relative.

Lady Elizabeth was able to put together our initial claim. I was happy with it: responsibility was balanced between Lord Morgan, named at Brenhaven and the Lady Riding Atop, Ashley, Third for Oak Leaf. We chose not to acknowledge that Lord Morgan and I had burned down the shed, although Elizabeth felt it was important to state that we believed Lucinda had escaped in the fire.

“You do realize that by pleading ‘bad law, ‘ you turn this almost entirely into a political discussion. If I cannot convince the nobility of your claim, your situation is dire,” she said.

We nodded grimly.

Lord Morgan took a copy of the claim, added a cover message and sent it to Brenhaven. Lady Elizabeth submitted our claim before Balance.

Balance Hall has a great hall, similar to the noble seats. We sat at dinner with the other nobles who were at the hall. Shortly after the soup course had been served, a lord walked in and began talking urgently to the nobles then on the staff of the Scales. A look of shock passed across their face. They nodded.

Within minutes, there were guards standing behind my chair and that of Lord Morgan.

“Lady Ashley, Third for Oak Leaf,” an older lord said, standing to address us, “Lord Morgan named at Brenhaven, you and the houses of Oak Leaf and Brenhaven are charged with the crime of consorting with demons. You shall be detained until the scales are balanced. Your cooperation is required.”

“We entered the claim. As such, we are treated as cooperating parties, and while we might reasonably be asked to attend Balance Hall, this is uncalled-for.” Lord Morgan said.

“When as the Lord Balancing the Scales, I deem a defendant dangerous to the scales, I may detain them even if they would normally be presumed a cooperating party.”

I looked to Lady Elizabeth. She spared me a brief nod, but the expression she offered the Lord Balancing the Scales was pure anger. I hoped never to face that anger myself.

I stood. The guards roughly stripped me and confiscated my gun. They searched me thoroughly. While they did not presume sexual touch, they showed no gentleness. I could not imagine what they thought I might hide in my vagina, anus or mouth that would help me. For a moment, I thought the guard would take my pendant, but he eventually released it to fall between my breasts.

The great hall at Balance Hall can be divided to separate prisoners from the rest of the nobility. Where most great halls have a U-shaped arrangement of tables, there is a gap in the short side of the U at Balance Hall. A sturdy metal grate can drop from above, giving the prisoners approximately a third of the hall. We were walked across the hall, and the guards retreated, covering us with their guns while the grate dropped.

“My lord, shall we hide them from sight and sound as well?” one guard asked.

“Yes, perhaps that would be best.”