The Desert Spear

around them wordlessly and went into the house. They were heading for the kitchen, Selia knew. Watches always took over the kitchen, to ensure that their special eating needs were attended to. They kept to a strict diet of plain foods with no seasoning or sugar.
    Selia signaled Jeph. “Go and pull Rusco from the store,” she told him, and Jeph ran off.
    Selia was always elected Speaker for Town Square, but on years when she was also elected Town Speaker, she appointed Rusco Hog to speak for the Square, so that it would keep an independent voice, as prescribed in town law. Few people were pleased by this, but Selia knew the general store was the heart of the Square, and when one prospered, the other most often would, as well.
    “Well come in, and let’s have supper,” Selia said when they’d had their ease a bit. “We’ll handle standing council business over coffee, and then on to this last affair when the cups are cleared.”
    “If it’s all the same, Speaker,” Raddock Lawry said, “I’d just as soon dispense supper and the rest till the next council meeting and get on to the business of my dead kin.”
    “It is
not
all the same, Raddock Fisher,” Jeorje Watch said, thumping his polished black walking stick. “We can’t just take leave of our customs and civility because someone died. This is the time of Plague, when death comes often. Creator punishes those what sin in his own time. The Tanner girl will have her judgment when the Brook’s standing business is done.”
    He spoke with the authority of one who is never questioned, though Selia was Speaker. She accepted the slight—a common one from Jeorje—because he argued to her favor. The later the hour grew, the less likely Renna’s sentence, if death, would take place that very night.
    “We could all use some supper,” Tender Harral said, though he and Jeorje were often at odds themselves. “As the Canon says,
There’s no justice from a man with an empty stomach.
”
    Raddock looked around to the other Speakers for support, but apart from Hog, who was always the last to arrive and the first to leave, all were resolute to keep the council meeting in its traditional fashion. He scowled but gave no further protest. Garric started to open his mouth, but Raddock silenced him with a shake of his head.
    They had supper, and discussed the business of each borough in turn over the coffee and cakes that followed.
    “Reckon it’s time to see the girl,” Jeorje said when the business of his borough, always handled last, was complete. The closing of old business was the Speaker’s to call, but again he spoke over Selia, thumping his stick like the Speaker’s gavel. She sent the witnesses out onto the porch, then led the nine council members in to see Renna.
    “Girl ent faking?” Jeorje asked.
    “You can have your own Gatherer examine her, if you like,” Selia said, and Jeorje nodded, calling for his wife Trena, the Herb Gatherer for Southwatch, who was near ninety herself. She left the kitchen and went to the girl’s side.
    “Men out,” Jeorje ordered, and they all trooped back out to their seats at the table. Selia sat at the head, and Jeorje, as always, the foot.
    Trena emerged some time later and looked to Jeorje, who nodded permission for her to speak. “Whatever she done, girl’s shock is true,” she said, and he nodded again, dismissing her.
    “So you’ve seen the state of her,” Selia said, taking up the gavel before Jeorje could try to take over protocol. “I move that any decision should be postponed until she comes back to herself and can speak her own defense.”
    “The Core it should!” Raddock shouted. He started to rise, but Jeorje cracked his walking stick on the table, checking him.
    “Din’t come all this way to glance at a sleeping girl and leave, Selia,” he said. “Best we hear from the witnesses and accusers now, in proper fashion.” Selia scowled, but no one dared to disagree. Speaker or no, if she went against Jeorje, she would be doing it alone. She called in Garric to make his accusation, and the witnesses, one by one, for the council to question.
    “I don’t pretend to know what happened that evening,” Selia said in her closing. “There ent no witness but the girl herself, and she ought to get to speak in her own defense before we pass judgment on her.”
    “No witness?!” Raddock cried. “We just heard from Stam Tailor, who seen her heading toward the murder not a moment before!”
    “Stam