“I saw no one enter the treasury,” the guard said.
The oath flame stayed blue.
Hadrin rubbed his knee beneath the lawyer’s bench. At sixty, he could still argue all afternoon. Sitting on carved fae furniture was another matter.
Beside him, the baker clutched his bloodstained cloak. Two days ago he had taken bread to the royal treasurer and found him dying. Now the court meant to hang him for it.
“Did you stab him?” Hadrin asked the baker.
“No.”
The flame stayed blue again.
Magistrate Ysol leaned forward. Her silver wings were folded tightly behind her chair. “We have two true answers. We still have one dead man.”
Above her hung the court’s oldest rule: The flame knows a lie. It does not know the world. It flared red when a speaker knowingly lied. A mistaken person could speak beside it all day and keep it blue. So could someone answering a question too carefully.
Hadrin had won cases that way. He disliked remembering it now.
“Your cloak,” Ysol told the baker.
“I held him up. He was falling.”
The clerk opened the evidence box. Inside lay a blade tip, broken off at a jagged angle, and a delivery receipt.
“Found beside the body,” she said, pointing to the tip. “The receipt was on his desk. Both sealed in my presence.”
The treasurer had died on the eve of a public audit. Court Minister Varn sat in the front row, his cane across his knees. He had argued loudly against that audit. His department collected the levies the treasurer meant to examine.
Hadrin asked to question him.
Varn lifted the cane. “A minister’s private business is protected.”
“Until two independent links connect it to a crime,” Ysol said. “That is also the rule.”
Varn smiled at her. He had promised to support her appointment for another term. Hadrin had heard him make the promise that morning.
The lawyer turned back to the guard.
“Where were you standing?”
“Outside the treasury window.”
“You heard the treasurer cry out?”
“Yes.”
“But saw no struggle?”
“None.”
“The curtains were shut.”
“They were.”
“Then why are we asking what you saw through them?”
The guard looked toward Varn. It was a small movement. Hadrin saw it because he was waiting for one.
“Did anyone ask you to close your eyes?”
The guard said nothing.
“You may refuse,” Ysol told him. “You may not knowingly lie.”
The flame stretched toward his mouth. Still blue.
“My pension,” he said at last. “I’ve worked thirty years for it.”
Hadrin kept his voice level. “Who threatened it?”
“Nobody. He offered money.”
“Who?”
The guard swallowed. “Minister Varn. He said he’d visit the treasurer through the side door. That I should close my eyes until I heard him leave.”
“Did you see him before you closed them?”
“Yes. He paid me himself.”
“And afterward?”
“I heard him say, ‘Stay where you are.’ I know his voice.”
The guard hadn’t seen anyone enter. That sentence had been true. It had also helped put a baker in chains.
Ysol called for the minister’s servant, whose name appeared on the delivery receipt. The clerk had summoned him that morning; he waited behind the court bailiff.
“I will not take the blame for his cane,” the servant said before Hadrin asked anything.
“What did you deliver?”
“That cane. The minister wanted the treasurer to value its silver head. I carried it there at three. The receipt is his signature.”
“Was it yours?”
“His. I’ve cleaned it for nine years.”
Hadrin pointed to the cane on Varn’s lap. “How does it open?”
“The head turns. There is a narrow blade inside.”
Varn rose. “This is my private property.”
Ysol gripped the arms of her chair.
“The receipt and servant establish your cane’s presence,” she said. “The guard separately establishes your secret visit. Two links. Bailiff, take the cane and examine his pockets for treasury property.”
“Your next term,” Varn said softly, “will be difficult.”
“This one already is. Sit down.”
The bailiff stepped between Varn and the door. He took the cane. From the minister’s inner sleeve he brought out a brass seal stamped with the treasurer’s audit mark.
The clerk placed it beside the receipt. Then she turned the silver head of the cane and drew out its blade.
The end was broken.
She laid the preserved tip beside it without touching the sharp edges. The jagged breaks fitted together. A fine groove ran across both pieces in one line.
“Let the court see,” Ysol said.
The clerk carried the box past both benches. Hadrin saw the baker’s hands stop shaking.
“Did you kill him?” Hadrin asked Varn.
The minister looked at the blue flame. He did not answer.
No flare. No confession. Hadrin could have stood there asking until dark. The metal would not become less broken.
He asked Ysol to release the baker and hold Varn for a separate murder hearing. She did both. The guard was held for taking the bribe. The clerk sealed the blade, tip and stolen audit seal in a new box.
Outside, the baker breathed as if the court had kept all its air for itself.
“My shop,” he said. “People were throwing stones at it.”
Ysol ordered the bailiff to post the baker’s release there. That would not mend the windows. It might stop the next stone.
“You’ll have your fee,” the baker told Hadrin. “Tomorrow.”
“Tonight I would settle for bread.”
“Then come along.”
Hadrin followed him down the steps, favoring his sore knee. At the shop, the baker unlocked the door and reached for a loaf.
“Sit,” he said. “You look old.”
Hadrin sat before he could think of an answer.
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