Chapter Thirteen
Grant offered Mark a mug of water. It was warm and tasted brackish, but Mark didn’t care. Not long after breakfast he began to feel poorly again. By the time Grant had returned from court with a coach, Mark had so overheated in his bloodied waistcoat he wasn’t sure he could bear to wear it at all. “I’m not accustomed to the tropics, I suppose,” Mark told him. He struggled with the buttons on his waistcoat. “I can button this again when we get there. Do you have a fan?”
Grant blushed prettily. “Fishermen don’t have fans and such, m’jeste.”
He wondered if he’d packed one and left it in the snow as useless rubbish. The thought made him laugh. Packing a fan in winter was almost as absurd as needing one desperately after pitching it in the snow. “Can you buy me one?”
“I might, but that coach won’t wait for me. They’ll come in here and haul you off if they have to. Folk are already gathering at the courthouse.” Grant let out a huff. “Here, let me help you.” He helped unbutton the waistcoat, and then touched Mark’s forehead with the back of his hand. “I hate to say it, but I think you got the fever.”
Infection from the wounds. It didn’t frighten him as much as he expected. All that mattered was relieving the heat.
“We should’a got you some gracian, but I—”
Someone pounded on the door, interrupting Mark’s shock and whatever else Grant intended to say.
“That’ll be the coachman.”
“Let me wet down my hair.” Mark stood and narrowly avoided a tumble by grabbing onto Grant as he left to open the door. The room seemed to sway much farther than he moved, as if he walked on a floor that rolled like ocean waves but in all directions.
“Whoa there.” Grant propped him back on the bed. “You best sit. Just wait a minute, m’jeste.” Grant strode to the door, his footsteps heavy on the bare boards. The sound unnaturally pounded through Mark’s chest and skull as if someone was hitting his head with a padded glove. “He’s not well,” Grant told the men outside. “Just give me a minute, all right?”
“The court is assembling. Can he attend or no?”
“I can,” Mark assured them. Compared to his slog through the snow, this would be easy. He had help. And then, after, he’d make them take him to Dainty where he’d recover from the fever. He just had to make his case so well that there’d be little argument.
It sounded simple but his eyes ached and felt swollen and his wounds burned and his thoughts kept wandering off to where he lost track of them, leaving him to stare blankly until he realized he ought to be doing something.
Mark started to get the washbowl and pitcher himself, then remembered he couldn’t. “Please, Grant—” He gestured. Grant took a moment to figure it out. He tromped over to his little wash area and brought back the bowl and pitcher. He stood in front of Mark and held them helplessly.
Apparently not everyone used his mother’s cure for fever. Mark had only a wisp of memory, but the recollection of cold water and her hands in his hair gave him comfort. “I’ll hold the bowl. Just pour that slowly over the back of my neck and in my hair.” Mark accepted the bowl and leaned over, the sway of the movement making him feel like he’d plant his face in the water. He closed his eyes. The water felt like ice down the back of his neck. Tentative at first, Grant’s strong hand began working the water through his hair as he poured. Mark didn’t expect his touch to be so supple. He didn’t dare hope it was because Grant was practiced at touching men.
“Not sure this is the best idea,” Grant murmured. “You might catch a chill on top of everything else.”
Mark pawed away some of the water that curved around his face and into his eyes. “People actually catch chills here?” The water stopped. He set the bowl down between his feet and wrung the water out of his hair.
“You bet they do. Here, let me get you something for that.” Grant brought him a large rag made from what used to be a heavy linen shirt. The thick cloth implied that the island got cold enough for someone to want to wear such a thing. Hard to imagine with weather like this in winter. Grant’s scent softened the rag’s dusty smell.
Mark nearly toppled again just reaching for his bag. The room seemed to roll at a steep downward angle every time he moved his head.
“What do you want?” Grant asked, crouching.
“A ribbon. Any ribbon. Please, let me pick one out.” He didn’t want Grant touching the masks or anything else that might get him hurt. Grant brought the bag close and held it while he found a ribbon and tied his hair back. It took him longer than usual to smooth the ribbon’s curls and straighten the tails.
The two men from the carriage strode over and pulled him up. “Hey!” he heard Grant bark, and then things blurred. Shadows rushed by and people spoke in muffled, deep tones. Water seemed to have filled his ears. When he resurfaced he was on the stairs wobbling his way down between the coachmen.
“Grant, my bag.” Mark’s own voice sounded far away. “Put it somewhere safe. Please.”
The men loaded him into a bulky cherrywood contraption that could seat a dozen people. It had beautiful brass fittings and leather cushions and something that looked more like a large umbrella than a roof to serve as shade. He noticed that the coachmen were armed, and he had two additional sacred guards armed with both pistols and long rifles, the sort sharpshooters used.
“Am I being arrested?” Mark asked. He suddenly wished he had his rapier and pistol. The guards’ silence worried him. Could word of him have reached Perida ahead of Dainty? It didn’t seem possible, but they had stopped by a few islands on the way ....
Grant charged down the stairs, his golden hair tied back with an ancient, threadbare ribbon, wearing nothing but a shirt, brown trousers and fisherman’s boots. The guards made room for Grant on the footman’s step and the carriage began to move. The wheels rolled well and softly on the sand road, but the carriage’s sway seemed excessive. He hadn’t felt nauseated on Dainty, not once, but now he thought the carriage’s roll would make him sick. Or maybe it was the wine with breakfast, or the cheese.
He held his head in his hands and took deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth.
What seemed like hours later, the carriage entered a deep shade. Vague impressions of trees and strange carriages and people in fine clothes strolling on tall stone sidewalks flashed by the edges of Mark’s vision. Birds with harsh, jay-like voices rasped like small crows and squealed like hawks over the cries of gulls. Beneath that, smaller birds made sounds like dripping water amplified many times, and something gargling rocks, and one whistled more like a person than a bird.
Other sounds whispered, not at the edge of his hearing but inside his mind. Worse than an itch inside his ear, no matter which way he turned his head or focused his mind he couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Until—
What is that? Who are you?
We’re—The voice faded.
—brother. Please be silent. We—
“Who are you?” Mark whispered to them.
“Huh?” Grant gave him an uneasy sidelong look.
“Nothing.” Mark wasn’t sure whether it would be worse to know for certain he was going insane, or to know that the voices weren’t just absolutely real, but that he could hear what he sometimes feared might be allolai and morbai. He wasn’t ready for the world to be that near to what priests made it to be.
The carriage stopped and the men helped him up. Black and red spots flooded his vision, but he kept his feet moving across the sidewalk, down stairs very similar to the court back home at Seven Churches, and into cool, dark places that soothed his head.
“What is this?” A priest emerged from shadows. He might be a heretic, but he wore the same absurd hat and half-red, half-white robes that the mainland priests wore. He was older, with gray eyes and an unkind mouth whose down-turned edges nearly vanished into jowls. A heavy gold chain around his neck marked him as a constabulary priest.
“The plainti
ff, gerson,” one of the guards told him.
“You, bring Darren with his bag of medicines, quickly.” The priest looked Mark over like he was crawling with maggots. “Is he fit to testify?”
“I am,” Mark assured him.
The priest’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you? I’ve had differing accounts but no clear answer.”
“My name is Mark Seaton, and ....” What? He wasn’t really a crew member on Dainty, not yet, anyway, and he didn’t want Captain Shuller mixed up in this. “I have a message.”
“You’re a messenger?”
“All I can lay claim to at the moment is that I carry a message. I have no letters of free passage.”
“Is the message private, public or sacred?” He would have only guessed the last if he thought that Mark might be in disguise or had lost his letters of passage and only now felt safe to reveal himself.
Wait, he’d had a plan. He had to be a jester, didn’t he? He couldn’t remember.
Yes, he did, so that his word could outweigh those men. “I—I’m of Lord Argenwain’s house, a pupil of Lord Jester Gutter.”
One of the guards flinched back and they both nearly dropped him. He thought he’d been holding himself fairly well but at the loss of their support his knees buckled. Fortunately he didn’t fall before they grabbed him up again.
“So you’re a jester,” the priest growled.
As much as he hated priests, now that he was in court he didn’t dare lie. “Not by any standard but my training.”
“I suppose you think you’re being clever. Bring him to the fellis room. And you—Grant Roadman, correct?” The guards took Mark away as Grant began to formally declare himself.
The guards helped Mark deeper into the Court. The lamp light seemed overly large, as if each flame were a fire in a hearth. Those lights made him feel excessively warm again.
The gerson caught up with them, accompanied by another, younger priest holding a bag. “Quickly now.” The guards picked up their pace and took him into a small, shadowy room with one lamp in it. They set him down in one of several chairs circled around a central table. A tall vase of strange flowers stood by a second door from the room, and a coat rack held several black robes. “Why didn’t you give me your jester’s name?” the gerson demanded.
Mark didn’t have a good answer for him, so he kept quiet.
The gerson leaned close. “I’ll have it now.”
If he didn’t do this, Grant might suffer for it. “Lark.”
“Lark, I need to know that you’re fit to testify. Tell me,” he said, his expression cooling to a steady neutral, “what was Ambergen’s Trust?”
“A treaty between Saphir City and Duke Ambergen bound by marriage that lasted all of seven months before Saphir’s mayor declared the treaty violate on the grounds—”
“That’s enough.” The priest looked into Mark’s eyes. “You have sufficient faculty for a trial.”
“I do?”
“I believe so.”
The younger priest offered him a smoldering tube of paper rolled around something greenish brown. “A smoke for the pain.”
Smoke. One of Lord Argenwain’s friends had gone blind from smoking too much. “I don’t think I want it.”
“Don’t be afraid. It will help. Look.” The young priest clamped his lips around it and drew in a breath. He held his breath a moment before blowing out a delicate, almost pure white smoke. It smelled pleasantly sweet. He held it out for Mark.
Mark took it gingerly, touched his lips on it and drew in a breath, uncertain. The smoke coated his mouth and tongue in a bitter flavor and then the smoke seared his lungs. He coughed, then gagged. He couldn’t breathe—
All at once the tension bled out of him. That’s when he really felt the pain, not just in his head like before. His leg and arm throbbed. The slightest twitch and his wounds bit him savagely.
“Try again,” the priest said. “Hold the smoke in.”
Mark breathed deep and held the smoke. A wash of drunk pleasure and the gradual relief of his pain left him cushioned in warmth.
“Ready?” the younger priest asked.
“I think so.” He wasn’t in any shape to go dancing but he could sit or stand, whatever they’d need, and talk.
The gerson supported him when he stood back up, and the guard helped him ease on a black robe far too long for his height. A frog at the throat and a belt held the robe shut. A guard pulled up the robe through the belt to shorten it enough so Mark wouldn’t trip on it. Mark hummed a few bars of Fenwell’s “Night Walk” while a guard cracked the door and murmured something to someone on the other side. Formal voices and controlled laughs carried above the hubbub of rabble on the other side of the door. This very moment he would stand for the first time in front of the island’s nobles—barons—whatever—and jesters. It should have unnerved him, but curiosity made him eager to go out.
Was that—he thought he heard softer voices, a whispered song in an uneven chorus, coming from the court room. Was it a real language, or had the addling of his mind made his imagination equal to reality?
He had to focus on what he knew was real. “How many men of note came to court?” Mark asked. It sounded like a theater out there rather than what he’d imagined a court proceeding would be like.
“Quite a lot,” the elder priest told him. “I’d like to believe they’re showing their support for equal justice, but I suspect they’re here hoping to see the mysterious new jester. Despite our efforts to keep speculation about your identity to a minimum, word raced away.”
“But I only just told you—”
“No one believed for a moment that you were anything but a jester.”
“Why would anyone think I’m a jester?”
“Oh please. A young man in foppish clothing besting four seasoned soldiers? But we of the constabulary orders prefer not to assume.”
Mark’s thoughts floated around, little fireflies that he could only catch one at a time. He thought he ought to be afraid, or at least concerned, but then he thought about Gutter and whether this would get back to him, and it seemed funny. What would the papers say? It would appear in small, crowded print on a back page because it had little to do with the mainland. A young jester, Lark by name, appeared in court ....
In a murder trial.
It no longer entertained him. It made his skin crawl, and that feeling only worsened with the suspicion that Gutter might even approve.
Or worse, Gutter might be horrified and ashamed. Maybe it would be proof that Mark wasn’t a good person after all.
Backing out of the trial now wouldn’t change the fact that he’d killed two men.
I’m a killer. I’ve robbed two human beings of life.
The permanence of it all threatened to shatter him. It didn’t seem to matter that they would have killed him given the chance. He wished that their hateful determination made him feel better. Why didn’t their murderous intentions balance his guilt?
“Have you had more than just the leaf I gave you?” the younger priest asked.
“Leaf?”
“The smoke,” the gerson said impatiently.
“Oh. Uh, no. Why?”
The gerson sighed. “This will be a fine circus.”
The younger priest took Mark’s pulse at his throat. “I don’t like it. He came in flushed with fever, and now he’s pale.” He touched the back of his hand to Mark’s cheek. His hand felt icy cold and Mark flinched from it. “I think his fever is getting worse. Have you had gracian, master jester?”
The thought appalled him. “No!”
The door opened. “It’s time,” the gerson declared, and walked out into the courtroom all but dragging Mark along with him.
“But—” the younger priest protested, as the guard shut the door.
A door for the second balcony on the other side of the crowded, multi-tiered oval chamber opened. A tall, dark-haired gentleman in a clean-cut gray coat and waistcoat with matching breeches and hair ribbon ent
ered in a stately manner just as the elder priest settled Mark into a plush chair. The elegant gentleman sat on the edge of his seat to accommodate his dress sword, well apart from the small coteries of jesters and barons dotted near the rail one level up from the court floor. A group of anxious women and children entered the pit below the court floor’s level, weaving through the crushing crowd toward the front. People made way for them and quieted, though only for a moment. Commoners kept trickling in, some singly, some in small packs, until there was no more room to stand. Their talk created a storm of noise. Within that storm, Mark heard an occasional word that wasn’t Cathretan or Hasle, but he couldn’t figure out where the words came from. He also heard some smooth, elegantly embroidered Osian, and the dexterous tongues of Neuch, and the sinuous drawl of Vyennen.
It wasn’t as warm in the room as it was outside, but the unmoving, stifling air battered Mark’s sense of balance. Sweat tickled down his face. Ladies in the balconies fluttered gilded feather fans, while paper ones flashed in the pit. He had no idea how the women managed to survive in their floor-length gowns. He roasted in much less.
A guard escorted Grant, dressed in black robes, to a box between the judge’s desk and Mark’s chair. Grant blanched when he noticed a large, elaborately dressed noble seated beside—was that a female jester?
The sinuous brunette in red wore a gold and red mask painted directly on her skin. She stared at Mark over her fan, pupils wide and deep.
Grant relaxed a little when he saw the stately man Mark had noted.
A badly-scarred herald came in next, glancing to his right at the large man with the female jester. The man nodded. The herald’s black wig and black robes emphasized how slender and pale he was. A ragged line beneath his mouth formed a ridge where his chin had been. His head sat askew over ruffles that hid whatever had happened to his neck.
People started to chatter again.
With no trial to entertain them yet, the jesters started commenting. Unfortunately the comments didn’t rise above the pit’s cacophony. A jester with a whorled, thorny, purple and crimson mask painted on his face laughed loudly, calling attention to himself. Onyx lines edged in silver lined his eyes and sparkled along the lines between his nose and cheeks, making his eyes seem cat-like. The whorled jester’s attention was turned toward a slender, older nobleman, but his gaze flicked sideways toward Mark often. The first instant that their gazes met, Mark felt something sharp and yet enticing, like an expert barber’s touch, caress his spine.
The judge’s door behind the desk finally opened. Everyone quieted, and many leaned about to get a better look.
The judge wore an ample curly black wig that made his head look too large. Black outlined his eyes. He was a handsome, relatively young man with amber eyes and a stern face. Grant gave Mark a stark look, and Mark smiled, hoping it would reassure him.
“This court is now in session,” the herald declared in a clear, formal voice unimpeded by his terrible war injury. “Judge Wellman presiding.”
“I’m pleased to see that the barons and jesters of the island have taken an interest in court today,” the judge said dryly. “Bring in the accused.”
A door opened near the rear of the court. The machete man and the man who’d had the rapier, both dressed in white robes, limped in escorted by constabulary priests. The rapier man wore the bright red cut Mark had given him on his face. Their hands were manacled behind their backs, their sleeves draped like furled wings along their sides. Mark’s belly tightened and pinpricks danced on his skin. Fortunately the fever smothered and blurred most of the memories of his blade cutting flesh, and the blood, and the cries of the men he’d killed, and the choppy memories of the cutting they’d done on him.
Most, but not all. Flashes of dying moans and blood scent snuck in with the babble and the sweaty, fishy, perfumed stench of the crowd.
The men went up a short flight of stairs to a small, raised area fenced by flowery ironwork. The constabulary priests in their fine uniforms, dress weapons sparkling in the lamp light, helped them sit.
One of the children near the front sat up. “Daddy?”
“Hush.” The woman near the child yanked him back down in his seat.
What would it be like to discover that your father did things ... or did he approve of what his father had tried to do?
Maybe his father was a hero in his eyes, as Gutter was a hero in Mark’s eyes—sometimes. Like his relationship with Gutter, the boy’s relationship with his father might be complicated. Love offset by pain. Dependence and mistrust balanced with devotion and submission.
What would it feel like to see Gutter placed on trial? To see the great man brought so low. Mark couldn’t bear the idea. What the boy faced now had to be excruciating.
The herald raised his hand, palm toward the audience. “For those of you who are uninformed as to the stricture of these proceedings, let me instruct you. The accuser shall speak first, then witnesses for the accuser, and then the accused shall put forward their case and witnesses. Rebuttals and counters are allowed, however, they must be brief. At no point will the audience be permitted to speak. Master jester, state your name for the allolai, morbai and attendants of the court.”
It took Mark a moment to realize the herald had meant him, and another beat to remember his jester’s name. “Master Jester Lark.” His belly fluttered. He’d now publicly declared himself something that he had no right to, letter of reference of no. It also made him uneasy that the herald invited allolai and morbai into this in a tone that suggested that they were literally real, could listen, and might even be interested.
Why won’t I let myself believe? If they are the voices, then I know they’re here.
Because his mother had always promised him that it was all superstition, while his father maintained that allolai, morbai, masks with souls and ship figureheads who wept and loved really and truly existed. He was still caught between his parents, and he was still loyal to both of them, though they’d long been gone from his life.
“Are you the injured party?”
“I am.” The double meaning, both literal and legal of injured, tickled him and he laughed, though it ought to have been too obvious to be funny.
“Please explain how you were wounded.”
The sloppiness behind that question irritated and worried him. Didn’t these people know how critical a turn of phrase could be? He could be damned with the verbal misstep of a single word. “I was busy at the time, but let me see what I remember. First, a blow to the crown with a bottle, followed by a rapier slash to the arm and I’m pretty sure the broadsword edge cut my leg. It was a little crowded and the blood in my eyes made it hard to see. Or did you mean to ask me what happened? I believe it’s the people, not the instruments they used, that are on trial here.”
A few chuckles echoed in the room, but a softer sound caught his attention. It was a single intake of breath from where some of the lords and jesters sat. It ought to have been too subtle to hear.
“This is not a matter for amusement, Master Jester Lark,” the priest said.
Something near the ceiling glowed like an emerald shadowed in dusky purple clouds, distracting him. Maybe it was a reflection from someone’s jewelry.
“Master Jester Lark!”
The herald stood before him. Mark blinked, not sure what had happened.
“This is not a debut. Please refrain from singing.”
“I—” Mark hesitated. Had he been singing?
“Do you see the men who assaulted you in this courtroom?” Impatience hardened the herald’s voice.
The court seemed darker and he couldn’t make out anything but shadows. “I can’t say. It’s dark.”
“Are you saying it was too dark to see them?”
“No. I recognized them the moment they came into the room. They’re both right there.”
The ones who’d lived.
“How did your meeting with them come to pass?” the herald asked.
; “One attacked me from behind after his companion whistled to distract my attention. They pinned me to a wall, and demanded my bag first, and then my purse.” Mark remembered charging, and the man with the rapier retreated, teeth bright in a grimace, framed by an innocent blue sky. The machete man had a pistol, and he aimed—had it gone off? Mark couldn’t remember. But that was all after. “They argued about waiting for Jonas and Bates.” Did he have that in the right order? His memory, usually so quick to answer his mind, now failed him. It seemed like a fitting punishment for his snit about how the herald posed his questions.
Someone or something started moving the lamps, maybe to improve the lighting but they must have been children because they were playing around. Mark rubbed his face. “I’m tired and the lights are dancing.”
“He’s addled. He doesn’t remember a damned thing,” one of the accused protested.
“Duly noted,” the judge assured them.
Duly noted? His temper flashed red, and for a moment all he could see was the rapier man. “I don’t know which of them hit me from behind but I know these are the men who tried to kill me.” The rapier man stared back at him, cold, hateful.
“Master jester, do you have proof of injury?”
“Show us! Undress yourself!” someone with a rich baritone called out.
Neither the judge nor the herald voiced an objection, so Mark released the frog and belt. “I’ll strip naked if it pleases you. I’m trained to satisfy.” He let the robe slide off his shoulders and turned in place.
A woman cried out. “He needs a physician!”
“A brave man’s pants,” a woman with a purring voice noted.
“Control yourselves,” the judge said sharply.
“That’s my blood on those clothes,” one of the accused said. “He was asking around about Colonel Evan, so I followed him, figuring he was up to mischief at best. I asked him what he wanted the colonel for, and he told me I ought to mind my curiosity. I told him I wasn’t afraid of men like him, and I had a mind to call the guard. He starts crying for help and cuts his own arm. Then him and that fisherman attacked, and my friends came in to help. I can show you what they did to us. Put a bullet in my body, cut us all up, and killed my friends. Big brute like that and a trained jester. They was both deep into smoke and drink, just like he is now.”
“So you admit to being there,” the judge said.
“Allolai as my witnesses, we defended ourselves from that mainland whore, and if he was hurt it was because we fought for our lives. They attacked us!”
“You’re a liar.” Grant gripped the edge of his box.
“Your name, for the court,” the herald said.
“Grant Roadman, your holiness. I didn’t even get in on the fight. I saw the tail end of it. It was four on one before I even got there.”
“So how do you explain us getting so messed up if the odds were so bad?” the accused demanded.
“Because you took me for a child.” Mark gripped the rail, his hands close to Grant’s, passion keeping him on his feet. “You didn’t expect me to put up a fight. You planned to kill me and take what you wanted of my effects. It’s true I cried for help. You said, no one gives a shit. That may be true, but the lack of regard for who and what I am doesn’t make an attempt to take my life in any way defensible.” The dim room started sparkling with blue and green and his skin hummed, especially his lips, which buzzed like bees. Dark splotches blotted out the brilliant colors like clouds billowing among oversized stars. “I told you that you could have my bag if you let me go, but you insisted on having my rapier, and I’m sure you would have asked for my pistol next to make your murder that much easier.” Everything started to lean over to the right and then up—
Mark jolted awake on the ground with Grant and the stately gentleman on either side of him.
I fainted.
How stupid and embarrassing. His head pounded.
“He’s a spy and an assassin, I know it!” the accused cried. “Tried to come to our island posing as a gentleman, but he’s a jester, and he’s looking for the man who saved us all from ruin. Take his word or mine as to what happened. It don’t matter. You gonna pick him over me, this foppish murderer over a soldier who did good service, who lost his blood and friends to mainl’nd tyranny?”
Mark tried to say something in answer, but before he could catch his breath a guard opened the witness door. “Dr. Berto is here.”
“Allow him entry,” the judge said. “Let’s hear what the physician has to say about the injuries.”
A large, hairy, male doctor crouched beside Mark, setting down two large, white bags.
“I’m all right.” Mark tried to sit up. His words slurred and he gave in to the hands pressing him down.
The doctor took his pulse and prodded him a bit. “He needs immediate medical attention,” Berto said. “These are definitely sword wounds. As for this head wound ....” His fingers probed in Mark’s hair and a sharp pain made him wince. “He still has bits of glass in his scalp. What poor excuse for a physician examined this man?”
“Are any of the injuries self-inflicted? The arm in particular.”
The doctor checked his arm. “It’s possible, but I would expect the front of the wound to go deeper in that case. It’s far more likely that this is a sword wound incurred by someone standing in front of him, or a knife wound from a slash given by someone standing at his shoulder.”
“Can he continue to attend court?” the judge asked.
“No.”
But Grant would be alone. “I can stay. I promise I’ll keep my seat and I should be fine.” He felt much better, though his head thrummed painfully in time with his heartbeat.
“I will take the physician’s judgment over yours,” the judge said. “Master Jester Lark, you may submit further testimony or witnesses within twenty four hours if you are inclined to do so. We will proceed with Mister Roadman’s testimony, as we’ve had only a few words from him so far.”
The elegant man and the doctor helped Mark up and out through the witness door. After a complicated series of turns, they emerged into bright sunshine dappled by trees and the relief of a fresh, if warm breeze.