“Your trial will not go well. The general will hear your testimony, and she’ll be gravely disappointed. She’ll want to believe you. Until I testify. And when the court finds you guilty, I’ll pay you a special visit in your cell. I’m sure the jailer will turn a blind eye despite his opinions on mixing with… the like. How does that sound? Even Cantic won’t care what I do with a condemned woman.”
Her pulse beat like a frightened rabbit’s, and she hated herself for it.
A blackcoat opened the door of the administrative building, and Rogan pushed Touraine through. Aides and soldiers alike stared at them as Rogan marched her inside and down to Cantic’s office. He didn’t say another word, but the damage was done. She couldn’t possibly win.
“Touraine. You’re accused of treason against the empire and murder of a Balladairan soldier. How do you plead?” General Cantic leaned forward, elbows on the long table at the front of the small audience room, her hands steepled.
Touraine. Just Touraine, the name unadorned, the way the Balladairans had handed it out to her as a child, along with her new clothes and new bed and new language. She had never disliked the sound of her name before that moment. She sat in a stiff-backed wooden chair, her arms wrapped around it and her locked wrists dangling. She was going nowhere. She wondered if the Sands had been told about her trial, or if Pruett and Tibeau had been left to wonder.
Cantic wore her formal uniform, all black except for the gold left sleeve. The four other gold stripes presiding wore their formals, too. They sat arrayed to Cantic’s left and right at the long table. The room they all sat in was probably where they all came together to discuss strategies when they weren’t glaring disapprovingly at soldiers, waiting for them to answer for their crimes. It lacked the usual attempts at martial decor, no mounted swords or old muskets on the walls, no war tapestries. Maybe they kept those in another room. The starker, the more frightening.
The princess was in the small room, too, waiting. The heir wouldn’t come to a simple court-martial for murder. That meant Cantic was taking the charge of treason seriously. The young woman’s face was stern and haughty, lips pursed. The elegant woman Touraine had met before looked cold and intimidating. The effect was enhanced by the two royal guards flanking her and the captain of the guard standing at the door. They wore black coats, but their button panels were gold and the buttons black. Their short gold cloaks hung still, as if the cloaks, too, were waiting for Touraine’s answer.
Touraine had always had faith in Balladaire, or at the very least, Cantic. She hoped that faith wasn’t misplaced. She took a breath, deep as her healing ribs would allow.
“I’m innocent, sir.”
“Then explain yourself for the jury.”
“As I said before, sir, I got lost after the driver let me off too early.”
Touraine fought for another breath. The windows were shuttered tight against eavesdropping. It kept the sun out, but it kept clean air out, too. A room full of sweating men and women shouldn’t be closed off from a breeze. The manacles on her wrists were already slick with sweat. One officer hadn’t put on enough scent to mask his body odor; another officer had put on too much.
“As you say. What next?”
“I… think I was drugged, sir. At the governor-general’s dinner.”
Now someone did laugh. Touraine turned sharply. A muscular colonel with gray streaks in his close-cut beard smiled. “She drank too much, General, and she’s trying to cover her mistakes.”
Touraine ignored him. “Truly, sir.” She tried to explain her logic—the strange drowsiness, the fog—but one of them was picking her nails and another was looking at Touraine like she was something he’d cleaned out of his nails.
“Maybe you could ask the governor,” Touraine said, reaching desperately. “Maybe she noticed someone acting strange that night.” Touraine wasn’t going to throw her life away by accusing the governor of drugging her, no matter what reasons the woman had. Accusing a Balladairan never went well for a Sand.
Cantic laced her fingers and rested them on the desk. “Unfortunately, Lord Governor Cheminade is dead. Furthermore, whether you were drunk or drugged, it is your actions on trial, not your mental state at the time.”
The news shocked Touraine’s body rigid against the chair. How? Why? Was it the rebels? The questions ticked one after another, spinning in her mind so that she didn’t hear Cantic at first.
“Soldier!” barked Cantic. “What happened next?”