"Master, huh?"
"Didn't used to be a dirty word, Hoss. It meant teacher, guide, protector, professional, expert-as well as the negative things. But it's the nature of folks to remember the bad things and forget the good, I suppose." He tapped the three books previous to his own. "My master's writings." He tapped the next four. "His master's writings, and so on, back to here." He touched the first two books, very gently. "Can't hardly read them no more, even if you can make it through the language."
"Who wrote those two?"
"Merlin," Ebenezar said simply. He reached past me to put his own journal back up in place. "One of these days, Hoss, I think I'll need you to take care of these for me."
I looked from the old man to the books. The journals and personal thoughts of master wizards for more than a thousand years? Ye gods and little fishes.
That would be one hell of a read.
"Maybe," Ebenezar said, "you'd have a thought or two of your own, someday, that you'd want to write down."
"Always the optimist, sir."
He smiled briefly. "Well. What brings you here before you head to the trial?"
I passed him the manila envelope Vince had given me. He frowned at me, and then started looking through pictures. His frown deepened, until he got to the very last picture.
He stopped breathing, and I was sure that he understood the implication. Ebenezar's brain doesn't let much grass grow under its lobes.
"Stars and stones, Hoss," Ebenezar said quietly. "Thought ahead this time, didn't you?"
"Even a broken clock gets it right occasionally," I said.
He put the papers back in the envelope and gave it back to me. "Okay. How do you see this playing out?"
"At the trial. Right before the end. I want him thinking he's gotten away with it."
Ebenezar snorted. "You're going to make Ancient Mai and about five hundred former associates of LaFortier very angry."
"Yeah. I hardly slept last night, I was so worried about 'em."
He snorted.
"I've got a theory about something."
"Oh?"
I told him.
Ebenezar's face darkened, sentence by sentence. He turned his hands palm up and looked down at them. They were broad, strong, seamed, and callused with work-and they were steady. There were scabs on one palm, where he had fallen to the ground during last night's melee. Ink stained some of his fingertips.
"I'll need to take some steps," he said. "You'd best get a move on."
I nodded. "See you there?"
He took his spectacles off and began to polish the lenses carefully with a handkerchief. "Aye."
The trial began less than an hour later.
I sat on a stone bench that was set over to one side of the stage floor, Molly at my side. We were to be witnesses. Mouse sat on the floor beside me. He was going to be a witness, too, though I was the only one who knew it. The seats were all filled. That was why the Council met at various locations out in the real world, rather than in Edinburgh all the time. There simply wasn't enough room.
Wardens formed a perimeter all the way around the stage, at the doors, and in the aisles that came down between the rows of benches. Everyone present was wearing his or her formal robes, all flowing black, with stoles of silk and satin in one of the various colors and patterns of trim that denoted status among the Council's members. Blue stoles for members, red for those with a century of service, a braided silver cord for acknowledged master alchemists, a gold-stitched caduceus for master healers, a copper chevron near the collar for those with a doctorate in a scholarly discipline (some of the wizards had so many of them that they had stretched the fabric of the stole), an embroidered white Seal of Solomon for master exorcists and so on.
I had a plain blue stole with no ornaments whatsoever, though I'd been toying with the idea of embroidering "GED" on it in red, white, and blue thread. Molly was the only one in the room wearing a brown robe.
People were avoiding our gazes.
The White Council loved its ceremonies. Anastasia Luccio appeared in the doorway in her full regalia, plus the grey cloak of the Wardens. Her arm was still in a sling, but she carried the ceremonial staff of office of the Captain of the Wardens in one hand. She entered the room, and the murmuring buzz of the crowd fell silent. She slammed the end of the staff three times upon the floor, and the six members of the Senior Council entered in their dark robes and purple stoles, led by the Merlin. They proceeded to the center rear of the stage and stood solemnly. Peabody appeared, carrying a lap-sized writing desk, and sat down on the far end of the bench from Molly and me, to begin taking notes, his pen scratching.
I put my hand on Mouse's head and waited for the show to begin-because that's all this was. A show.
Two more Wardens appeared with a bound figure between them. Morgan was brought in and stood as all accused brought before the Council did-with his hands bound in front of him and a black hood over his head. He wasn't in any shape to be walking, the idiot, but he was managing to limp heavily along without being physically supported by either Warden. He must have been on a load of painkillers to manage it.
The Merlin, speaking in Latin, said, "We have convened today on a matter of justice, to try one Donald Morgan, who stands accused of the premeditated murder of Senior Council Member Aleron LaFortier, conspiracy with the enemies of the White Council, and treason against the White Council. We will begin with a review of the evidence."
They stacked things up against Morgan for a while, laying out all the damning evidence. They had a lot of it. Morgan, standing there with the murder weapon in his hand, over the still-warm corpse. The bank account with slightly less than six million dollars suddenly appearing in it. The fact that he had escaped detention and badly wounded three Wardens in the process, and subsequently committed sedition by misleading other wizards-Molly and I were just barely mentioned by name-into helping him hide from the Wardens.
"Donald Morgan," the Merlin said, "have you anything to say in your defense?"
That part was sort of unusual. The accused were very rarely given much of a chance to say anything.
It clouded issues so.
"I do not contest the charges," Morgan said firmly through his black hood. "I, and I alone, am responsible for LaFortier's death."
The Merlin looked like he'd just found out that someone had cooked up his own puppy in the sausage at breakfast that morning. He nodded once. "If there is no other evidence, then the Senior Council will now pass-"