Justice Burns

The circle of serious faces loomed menacingly along the circumference of the large oak table, the flickering, warmthless torchlight making their distorted shadows dance on the stone walls of Hillock Keep's assembly hall. Jean-Patric had been there many times before, occasionally guarding it, and it had never felt threatening. Now it did. Why was it so cold in here?
The austere face of Master Christophe, with its somewhat unkempt brown hair and equally disordered beard, spoke. "You will give us a complete and accurate account of the recent events before we decide on your fate. We will know if you are lying, and the effects of that will not be pleasant. Understood?" Jean-Patric felt the room grown colder with each baleful word, and dared not say no. Master Christophe reached inside his dark green robe, producing a sheaf of vellum, a handful of quills and a curiously small bottle of black ink. The bottle was uncorked, the first quill sharpened, and a fresh vellum sheet unrolled; Jean-Patric quietly took a deep breath and began his story.

"Let me first tell you about Marie, because I just don't think that any of you really knew her. She worked as an apprentice for the masons repairing the castle walls for about a year or so, bringing water for the men to drink and for mixing the mortar. She also kept alive the fire for hardening the bricks. I used to help her out when I could get away from my guard duties, because I liked her from the start. There is just something special about her. Was."
Jean-Patric faltered, looking down at his hands. When he looked up again, his hazel eyes caught the cold light of the torches, refracting it in a soft, warm cascade across the room. "Forgive me, Masters. I will… I shall go on." He wiped his eyes with one sleeve of his tawny linen tunic and swept a few strands of dirty blond hair from his forehead. "The people of her village, Meymac, wanted to burn her as a witch, and when her father was dragged away on some crusade south of the Pyrenees to fight the Moors, she had to leave. They said she was a witch because her family's fields grew faster than anyone else's, but I know she wasn't. Even if they were right, what harm could she do? She was just growing wheat."
"So she came here, to Hillock. She was alone, afraid, special. Beautiful. Not like the other women around here, fat matrons and farmers' wives, no; her face was as slender as the rest of her. But still no one else here wanted to help her, not even the men in my turb. They were afraid of her--my best friends feared her. Then we had this strange summer, with snow in July and whatnot. The weather was much blamed on you, my Masters, but that witchery was also blamed on other people, like Marie. She needed protection, even here, so I protected her. All she wanted was peace and quiet, to be loved and accepted. I gave her that, but I also had my own grief to handle. You sent my best friend Pascal to his death in the castle of Perigeux, assigned to a duty he had no training for, no experience. You had so many to choose from, and you chose Pascal!"
Jean-Patric was shouting now, rising halfway from his oversized oak chair and leaning heavily on the table, all weight on the knuckles of his tight fists. The room didn't feel cold anymore. His eyes flickered from face to face, accusing, unforgiving, seeking compassion. Master Patric, a young man with fair hair and a lute slung on his back, quietly left the room. Master Anton, wrapped in thick black robes, snorted in disgust, leaning back in his chair, completely indifferent to this show of emotion. Master Christophe took in the scene for a moment, slowly but firmly scratching his beard, then rose abruptly, slamming his fist to the table, roaring impossibly loud.
"Enough! It is not your place to question our decisions, Sergeant. The situation called for a man with the simple skills of looking good and staying quiet, and we chose a capable man from your turb, expecting capable performance. He failed to deliver. You are making the same mistake."
Jean-Patric stared at him in disbelief. He could have sworn that Master Christophe's lips had not moved. Suddenly, the room was cold again; Jean-Patric had to take refuge in his reassuringly big chair. The green-robed man watched him every inch of the way, then officiously regained his former authoritative posture, gripping his quill. "Proceed."

Jean-Patric's mind swirled with fear, confusion, anger, loss. He needed to get away from here, couldn't stand the pressure of those unforgiving eyes, wouldn't give up. They had to understand. He had to make them understand. Straight to the point. "Yes, it was us who burned those fields, Marie and me. I did it to avenge Pascal's death, to harm Perigeux as much as I could, and Marie did it to avenge years of persecution from those villagers. It was meant as simple justice. They would not let her fields grow, so she burned theirs. It was our right."
The quill stopped its rasping against the fine vellum as the writer looked up with his eyebrows hoisted in surprise. "You are not lying, young man. You believe in what you are saying." Jean-Patric gave a simple nod. Master Christophe's forehead wrinkled up into a complex system of valleys and ridges, his eyebrows interlocking just above the clear brown eyes. The grimace lasted for mere moments, the quill once again finding its place as the man looked down to his writing.
"We never told anyone about it. We planned to, but not until the Perigeux scum were either all dead or all fled. We just never got that far. We were careless. Last night, like always, we snuck out after dark and made our way to the farms surrounding that castle. The sky was clear, but the moon was new, and it was easy to remain unseen. She carried two little cinderboxes, filled with glowing coals from her brick fire, and I had the torches. That was all we needed to get a good fire going."
"We picked a field of oats, close to the forest edge but well within sight of the castle walls. Even in the dark, I could see the Perigeux banners waving in the breeze, like Marie's hair. I wished I could burn the whole thing down, just like that, but stone walls don't burn. We exchanged torches and cinders, then we split up. The field burns faster if you light it from both ends, so that's how we did it."
"We were just about to leave through the woods when she heard them coming. The peasants always come when they see the fire. Not to do anything about it, just to watch their winter supplies burn. Serves them right, too. We hid in the field, waiting for a chance to get away. It usually takes a couple of minutes before they leave, which is long before the fire would reach our hideouts. We waited."
Jean-Patric's back tensed as he spoke, reality mixing up with recent memories of the fire making his skin tingle, deadening the sounds of approaching people, slowly heating his blood, brewing hatred out of fear. He longed to go back to that moment, repeat it until he got it right. Tears formed in his eyes, but he wouldn't allow them to fall. He needed to be strong now. Jean-Patric fixed his gaze to Master Christophe's ink bottle to keep his focus. Funny how much ink there was in such a small bottle. He shook the thought away and forced himself to go on.
"I heard her shouting from the other side of the field. We were separated by the flames; I could barely hear her and I couldn't see her, but she was screaming insults at the peasants. Then there were sounds of armored men running, away from me, going her way. The bastard Perigeux sent his bloody soldiers this time--Marie must have seen them. I crawled out of the field and climbed up a nearby oak to see better. I saw that the oats were flattened in one end of the field, where they had been searching for us. They almost found my hiding place, but they were far from hers. She could have gotten away, but she saved me instead."
"They caught her and questioned her right there, but I couldn't hear what they said. The soldiers went on with their searching, giving her over to the villagers. They…"
The tears streamed down his tanned cheeks, leaving lighter trails where the dust and grime of soldier life had been washed away. There was no stopping them anymore, as the double loss of Marie and Pascal hit him anew. Babyface Pascal--youngest soldier in the turb, childhood friend; he wanted to be a soldier, but he couldn't fight. Sent to die for his good looks' sake. Marie--he would never hear her giggle over a spear broken in practice again, never again feed her unripe olives from his mouth, then watch over her until she wasn't sick anymore. Left to die because she loved him. "I watched them drive a pole into the ground, in the middle of the field, and tying her to it. They burned her at the stake. I heard her scream almost forever before she couldn't scream anymore, and now she's gone."
Jean-Patric wondered why there was no frost on the walls.

"He lost his one true love! Hasn't he suffered enough?" The lute was on the floor; the Master was hiding his face in his long-fingered hands.
"Patric is right," said the youngest Master, walking over to his friend to comfort him. His bare feet made no sound against the cold stone floor. "He punished himself already, so we don't really have to."
Christophe rolled up his notes and stuffed his writing materials away in his wide sleeve again. "We cannot be lenient on him, and you know it. We will have complaints about this; Perigeux knows where she was from, and the story will soon be out in the entire valley. We have to set an example, André, or Perigeux will be sending his soldiers here again. I believe Anton here would agree with me." The dark-robed man nodded, smiling mirthlessly. "And there is one more issue to consider."
He straightened his wrinkled green robe with its intricate yellow trimmings, walking to the staircase with three pairs of eyes firmly affixed to his back. As he reached the first step, he turned around, facing his companions once more. "He still does not understand what he has done. That is the worst crime of all." He paused, glancing around the four corners of the hall, knotting up his eyebrows again. "Isn't it cold in here?"
Christophe left. Turb Sergeant Jean-Patric Laval from Melle was no longer his concern.