A Time of Changes

62

Not many days later the news of my disgrace became public in Manneran, and swiftly reached Salla. Noim showed me the accounts. I was described as the chief adviser to the High Justice of the Port, and openly labeled a man of the greatest authority in Manneran, who, moreover, had blood ties to the prime septarchs of Salla and Glin — and yet, despite these attainments and preferments, I had fallen away from the Covenant to take up unlawful selfbaring. I had violated not merely propriety and etiquette, but also the laws of Manneran, through my use of a certain proscribed drug from Sumara Borthan that dissolves the god-given barriers between soul and soul. Through abuse of my high office, it was said, I had engineered a secret voyage to the southern continent (poor Captain Khrisch! Had he been arrested too?) and had returned with a large quantity of the drug, which I had devilishly forced on a lowborn woman whom I was keeping; I had also circulated the foul stuff among certain prominent members of the nobility, whose names were being withheld because of their thorough repentance. On the eve of my arrest I had escaped to Salla, and good riddance to me: if I attempted to return to Manneran, I would immediately be apprehended. Meanwhile I would be tried in absentia, and, according to the Grand Justiciar, there could be little doubt of the verdict. By way of restitution to the state for the great injury I had done the fabric of social stability, I would be required to forfeit all my lands and property, except only a portion to be set aside for the maintenance of my innocent wife and children. (Segvord Helalam, then, had at least accomplished that!) To prevent my highborn friends from transferring my assets to me in Salla before the trial, all that I possessed was already sequestered in anticipation of the Grand Justiciar’s decree of guilt. Thus spake the law. Let others who would make selfbaring monsters of themselves beware!