Chapter 39
Silence fell upon the chamber.
Tribunal Pajov broke it with a sputtered, nervous laugh. “This is based upon the words of a witch whose credibility was dismissed earlier?”
Semras glowered at him. “It is based on the fact that I saw no sign of joint inflammation on his hands when I examined his corpse. I’m no gravewitch, so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now it’s evident—”
“Fact, you say?” Tribunal Whitmore asked, cutting her off. “This is no fact. This is mere conjecture.”
“There is proof supporting what she says if you will not take her word for it,” Estevan replied. A vicious, triumphant smile slowly stretched across his lips. “I suppose, brother, that you have found yourself in possession of a copy of the autopsy report I requested?”
“I may have wandered into your office when I last visited your house,” Cael told him. Then, he turned to the tribunals. “You should find it among the reports I put together, Your Honours.”
“What?” Whitmore sat back and flipped through the papers spread across the table. After seizing one, he read it, muttering the lines under his breath. The paper creased under his blanching grip.
“You will find no mention of Torqedan’s alleged stiff joints in the autopsy report,” Estevan said, smirking. “Until now, I had never suspected that it had been an act he was putting on, so I did not realize it was missing.”
Garza ripped the paper from Whitmore’s trembling hands. “One autopsy report requested by the very man accused of framing—”
“There is another one.” Cael walked closer to the tribunal’s tables and directed their attention to another stack of papers.
Semras swallowed back her nerves. She had hoped too much before; she dared not do it again. Not so soon.
Not until Estevan was given back to her.
Smiling proudly, Cardinal Velten looked at his eldest son. “You have been very thorough, Cael. As always.”
“I have a surgeon in my retinue. An excellent one,” Cael said. “I asked her to review the previous physician’s findings. Let’s see what she reported in her own examination. Your Eminence, will you do us the honour of reading it for us all?”
The cardinal gave him a nod as Garza passed the report to him. His eyes skimmed over the lines until he found the right ones. “State of the articulations: age-appropriate wear,” Cardinal Velten read out loud. “No trace of affliction.”
The judges paled far beyond what was healthy for old, wizened men. Pajov was clutching his chest, while Whitmore stood so straight his chin receded into his neck. Of the three, Tribunal Garza looked the most shaken.
Mouth agape, the old judge stared at the cardinal, a deep shock painted all over his wrinkled face.
His hand shook around the golden insignia pinned on his dark robes, as if seeking strength from the thing of dead metal.
“… But why? I do not … why? Did he … did Torqedan truly commit—no, no. That was not his style. He would never have killed himself, not after all the times he spoke of his fear for the Inquisition’s future.
He would have fought for us until the end. ”
Estevan stood straighter. The chains around his wrists rattled and echoed somberly across the chamber. “A new witch purge would have secured the Inquisition’s power for at least another generation.”
Silence welcomed his declaration.
Then Whitmore opened his mouth. “You cannot possibly be suggesting …”
“… That Torqedan poisoned himself with a witch’s ointment—all for the sake of generating hysteria around a fabricated threat?” Estevan let his words sink in. His smirk turned cruel. “Why yes, I do. But do not mind me; I am just the prime suspect in a suicide case.”
“But he …” Tribunal Pajov began, eyes lost in his own thoughts. “He publicly endorsed witch medicine. Why would he do that, then?”
Cael chuckled. His unrehearsed laugh sounded all the more chilling for it. “To cause an even greater uproar, I imagine. If he had appeared benevolent toward witches, his poisoning at the hand of one would have set the public opinion ablaze.”
“No one would bat an eyelid at a woman vengefully killing an old enemy,” Estevan added.
“But killing a kind old man who had stood in defence of her people? That was bound to cause hatred and strife. So Torqedan dedicated the later years of his life to becoming a martyr—a live or a dead one, I cannot say.”
Semras winced as the answer dawned on her.
“A live one. He didn’t know prickly comfrey was much more toxic than the common variety.
The apothecary he consulted had no reason to think of informing him of the different types, since trading prickly comfrey is illegal for them.
That’s why he died confused, saying this wasn’t what he wanted.
He took a dosage he thought would only sicken him, not kill him. ”
With growing horror, the tribunals gawked at each other. Whitmore returned his attention to the report papers spread before him, scanning and pushing them aside as if looking for the one that would contradict what they were hearing.
Face pale and sweaty, he lifted one in front of him like a shield, then pushed his slipping glasses back upon his nose.
“B-But Warwitch Leyevna prepared the very salve that killed him. Could she have known of his plan and … and decided to accelerate …” His words faded as he spoke; he knew he was grasping at straws. “The letter frames her, but maybe …?”
“This was Torqedan’s doing as well,” Estevan said somberly. “He simply framed the most credible suspect. I bet that if we compared the ink of his parlour to the one used to rewrite it, we would have a match.”
“I shall have it done,” Cael said. “One more piece of evidence to confirm the facts of the case would be quite welcome, considering how convoluted it is already. Any more questions or doubts, Your Honours?”
No answer came. To Semras’ greatest satisfaction, the tribunals had become speechless.
Estevan exhaled deeply. “All this just to return the Inquisition to its violent days of prestige.” A self-deprecating scoff escaped him. “To think we all nearly fell for it. Had I thought of confirming his hands’ condition from the very start …”
Semras’ heart fell. She could almost feel her Wyrdtwined’s guilt at reconnecting the two enemies together.
“So …” Tribunal Garza looked down at his hands. “Eloy Torqedan was only …?” A deep grief laced his voice, strangling the rest of his words.
Estevan bristled at his sorrow. “… A madman who would stop at nothing to keep a dying institution artificially alive,” he spat out. “That much seems clear to me. Is it not to you all as well, Your Honours?”
The tribunals didn’t answer him. They couldn’t. Even their old prejudices couldn’t justify their colleague’s madness.
“Your verdict, Tribunals?” Cardinal Velten asked with a smile kinder than ever.
“… Case closed,” Garza replied somberly, gesturing at the waiting sword-bearers.
They stepped closer. Semras tensed, then relaxed as they only removed the chains on her Wyrdtwined. Once they were done, another wave of the hand from Garza sent them out of the room.
Faces drawn and colourless, the tribunals stepped down from the high table. Cardinal Velten followed them with his ever-present smile.
Tribunal Garza stopped before Estevan and Semras. “Let us speak no more about this matter,” he muttered. “We will publish a heartfelt eulogy in the newspapers for the good Torqedan did in our name … and then quietly write his name off the record of the Inquisition.”
Estevan frowned. “You would bury this affair? You cannot possibly—”
“Yes, boy, we will bury this affair! If words come out of what he did, it will taint the good reputation of our holy Inquisition. It might even become the first step to our dissolution! It is one thing to rid ourselves of a rogue inquisitor; it is an entirely different matter to have a tribunal scheme like that to keep the Inquisition relevant! We will not risk the ire of the public. As such, this incident will never be spoken of ever again. Is that clear?”
“Truly, it’d be a shame to tarnish such a stellar reputation,” Semras mocked.
The tribunal glared at her with indignation. “You, witch, better stay out of—”
Her Wyrdtwined stepped between them, shielding her behind his back.
“That man wanted a war, and you would see his crime covered up by false praises? If the fate of inquisitors is to turn into old pricks more concerned with their reputation than justice, then you can have this back.” Eyes blazing with a cold fury, Estevan ripped the Inquisition’s insignia from his cloak, then threw it at the tribunal’s feet.
“I would rather die a heretic than live to become a tribunal one day.”
The three judges stared at him in shock. Whitmore looked back and forth between Estevan and the insignia, his face paler than ever, while Pajov blinked his bleary eyes in disbelief.
Hand pressed over his curved back, Garza bent down to retrieve the golden sigil, then rubbed its patina with saddened reverence. Pain flashed in his eyes before they steeled back into aloof arrogance.
For a brief moment, Semras felt pity for the old men.
They were fools, but fools who had chosen their path in life believing it to be righteous.
Products of a dying era, they could sense its end coming, yet didn’t know how to face it with grace; fear and stagnation had entrenched them too deeply in their outdated ways.
In a way, so were witches. They had been enemies for so long, but, in the inexorable march toward modernity, the Covens walked at the far back of the line hand in hand with the Inquisition.