Rust Stands in the Defendant's Dock #1
Fierenzo was a great city.
Nearly a thousand people had gathered in the grand plaza.
I could feel every pair of eyes turn toward me in an instant.
The fat, bearded Archbishop Coramdeo was no exception. He regarded me with a faintly weary expression, chin propped on one hand at the podium, and asked,
"Who are you?"
"I am Hyde, a Wood Badge monk! And I believe the death sentence handed down to the defendant, Milione Archibold, is a thoroughly unjust ruling!"
There was confidence in my voice. My name and my purpose would carry to every corner of this vast plaza, to every last person gathered here.
"A Wood Badge monk, you say?"
"Some worthless nobody dares object to Archbishop Coramdeo's judgment?"
A restless murmur rose. My sudden interruption set the crowd whispering, their words washing over us like a swelling tide. Coramdeo spoke again.
"Monk Hyde. It sounds to me as though you are volunteering to take up the defense of Miss Milione Archibold. Am I mistaken?"
"You are not mistaken! Your Excellency Coramdeo, I am certain beyond doubt that this verdict is a mistake on the part of the court!"
I stepped forward along the path the crowd had naturally opened for me, advancing into the courtroom. Milione was still held fast among the soldiers, looking for all the world like a beast that had been subdued.
"Hey! Hyde! What the hell are you spouting off about on your own?! Fine, kill me! Death sentence, whatever—go ahead! I never wanted to live anyway!"
Milione was furious. There was something of resignation in it as well. Of course there was—she had just been abandoned by her own parents.
I had been abandoned by mine from the moment of my birth, so I could not fully grasp the heart of a woman who, midway through life, had been told, "I have no daughter like you." Still, Milione seemed to have given up on everything in a dozen different ways.
Same old crazy bitch, then.
"Kill meee—! Just kill meee—!"
"Ugh, she's completely lost it."
"If you're gonna go mad, at least go mad with some class."
People frowned at the raw, shrieking malice in her voice. Beauty, it seemed, amplified every emotion on display.
With Milione still at my side, I bent and picked up a loose stone from the ground. Coramdeo narrowed his eyes at me from the bench.
"Why are you picking up a stone? Don't tell me you're about to trot out that tired line—'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone at Milione'? How many defense attorneys do you suppose have already tried that one?"
And what's wrong with "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone"? Is there any line that cuts closer to the heart of the matter? We are all sinners.
Still, this time Coramdeo had a point.
"Let us suppose I throw this stone at Your Excellency Coramdeo. If the stone strikes Your Excellency's broad forehead and cracks Your Excellency's skull, whose fault is it?"
Coramdeo's brow twitched. He stroked the thick beard he wore like a piece of equipment, then looked down on me coldly from the high podium. The gaze seemed to warn, How dare a nobody like you speak of my death?
So what? People die. Everyone dies.
With that feeling in my chest I opened my mouth wide again and shouted to the crowd.
"Honorable Judge! I trust that if Your Honor were struck dead by a stone, you would wisely determine right and wrong!"
"Of course."
"Then in that situation, does not the greatest sin lie with Your Honor for failing to dodge the stone? Should not Your Honor be the one found guilty?"
"What idiotic nonsense. In that case the unconditional fault lies with you, the one who threw the stone. Why on earth should I, the one struck, be found guilty? Your logic is absurd!"
"Exactly so. Then how much fault belongs to the stone itself? It was not I who struck Your Honor's head and killed you—it was this stone, was it not?"
I held the stone up for all to see. One by one, people began to laugh as if they could not believe their ears.
"What a fool."
"What fault does a stone have?"
"A Wood Badge monk—figures."
"Looks like he just wanted a little fame in front of a crowd. Not going to work like that."
The open courtroom erupted in noise. Only after Coramdeo slammed his fist on the table—bang, bang, bang—did silence return. Then he spoke.
"What sin could a thrown stone possibly bear?"
"That is precisely my point. In this case of the arson of the Grand Cathedral, Miss Milione Archibold was that stone. A stone thrown by a man named Rust!"
"What?"
"Why, Your Honor, would you sentence an innocent stone to death? Driving an innocent person to their death is murder! Can you bear that sin?!"
Murder. Innocence. Death sentence. Every word was hot enough to set the crowd's ears ringing. In a place like this, the stronger the words you chose, the greater their power.
At my words the people seated as jurors turned to look at one another. Their faces began to fill with interest and confusion—good news for me.
"Do you have evidence?"
Someone addressed me then. He was a knight in a yellow cloak and a wide-brimmed hat, a gold-cross badge hanging at his throat: Parmas of the Holy Crusade.
"That Lady Milione causes every kind of trouble is already famous throughout Fierenzo. This affair could simply be another of her whims. Do you have proof that Rust controlled her?"
"Not at present."
"Hmph."
Parmas snorted as if to say, I thought as much.
I did not let the moment slip. I raised my voice.
"But I can obtain the evidence! Give me four days! If you grant me only four days, I will seat the true culprit of this case—Rust himself—in the defendant's dock!"
"Oh?"
Archbishop Coramdeo's expression twisted strangely. He heaved his heavy body from the seat, walked slowly down into the courtroom, and came to stand before me.
"And by what means do you claim you will put that dreadful Rust in the defendant's dock?"
"Because Rust is hunting me! Because I am the only righteous man in the world who can face him! Because I am simply too excellent!"
Not a lie. The only one who can stop Rust is me—Hyde.
I shouted to the crowd around us.
"The stronghold of the Crescent Moon Sisterhood! The Agarpe domain! Baron Voltaire's wedding hall! Even the Grand Cathedral! Everywhere I go, Rust appears! That is proof he is pursuing me!"
The claim I had just made was a double-edged sword. The quick-witted among them would reason, Hyde's and Rust's paths keep overlapping. Rust is a man of unknown identity. Could Hyde himself be Rust?
Sure enough, Sir Parmas slammed the table and rose from his seat.
"Hyde! Are you not Rust yourself?!"
See? Exactly as I intended.
That accusation was a tremendous stroke of luck for me. Parmas, like his disciple Selim, was a man who never strayed outside the expected.
"Would it suffice if I showed you proof that I am not Rust? Read the novel I wrote—Backstreet Nymph's Village! Could a wicked man like Rust ever write a story so pure?!"
I submitted the novel I had written as evidence before the court. The crowd stirred.
"What about Milione Archibold's death sentence? Why are we suddenly talking about a novel?"
"I don't know either."
"But he says he can put Rust in the defendant's dock. Is that for real?"
Pages fluttered. Judge Coramdeo, Parmas, and the other jurors began to read my novel. Now they would learn of my greatness.
After about ten minutes, Judge Coramdeo turned to Parmas.
"Juror. Sir Parmas, present your findings on the relationship between the evidence just read and Rust!"
"Backstreet Nymph's Village is an extremely childish and deceptive tale. Rust is a writer who commands a high level of vocabulary. Hyde and Rust are not the same person."
Childish and deceptive? You son of a bitch.
Having a Gold Badge knight publicly certify that Rust and Hyde were different people was excellent—but it still pissed me off.
Just you wait, you bastard.
Judge Coramdeo asked me next.
"Can you truly place Rust in the defendant's dock?"
"There will be various conditions, of course. But Your Honor—consider this. Beyond saving the innocent life of Miss Archibold, this may become an opportunity to capture the heinous criminal Rust himself."
"Those manacles on your wrists and ankles suit you remarkably well."
I looked at Milione Archibold, locked in the temporary holding cell. Sturdy iron cuffs bound her hands and feet, and the sight was quite pleasing.
This quiet—how pretty she is.
Milione Archibold, however, was furious.
"Hyde, you did something completely unnecessary! When did I ever ask you to defend me?"
"You didn't."
"Then why the hell did you do it?! Even if you hadn't helped me, I could have survived somehow!"
That much was true. Even if I had not saved her, Milione Archibold would not have died. She could have saved her own life. She would have torn the jailers apart, punched through the soldiers with her bare hands, and fled.
But that would have been, in truth, the end of the woman called Milione Archibold. On that day Milione would vanish, and only Wrath would remain in the world.
"Milione. I am going to save you."
Living alongside her, I had felt and planned many things. Yet they had remained as hazy as walking through fog, and that had tormented me. Now, though, the designs I had been forming seemed to crystallize all at once, and the feeling was good.
I would save Milione. Not the Great Sin Seat Wrath—Las. If I could save the relatively decent Milione Archibold, reform her, and move her heart, then "Las" would no longer be necessary. In that case I would have captured and neutralized one of the most troublesome Great Sin Seats of the future. No one in history would ever have achieved such a feat.
I really am a genius!
Of course, that was not the only thought in my head.
"Milione, a death sentence is excessive for your punishment. There seems to be a political reason behind it. In truth, this penalty is likely aimed not at you but at Archbishop Archibold."
I had learned it today. Relations between the Knight of Six, Parmas, the Gold Badge Archbishop Coramdeo, and the Archibold family were poor. Archbishop Archibold simply had too many enemies.
Milione burst out laughing.
"You think that old fossil would so much as blink if I died? No. He's not that kind of man. Everyone's got him all wrong. So what's the old fossil doing right now?"
"Well. I intend to go meet him."
"Then pass this along for me."
Milione raised her middle finger at me.