The judges rose up from their chairs to get a better view, the constables ran towards Hall, Edmund and William were clearly surprised and the public was beginning to rebel against the court order as they rose as well and started talking. In the midst of all that confusion, Kaze, dressed in her service uniform got up, the last of the public to, and started to walk towards the divisor that split the crowd from the officials of justice and court proper staff.
Her hand, without the disguise it usually would be using, was cold dark steel, pushing people aside with a steady, slow, force as they gave way for her to pass. As she walked towards the small wooden seperator, the people that she passed by grew silent. Her nickname was whispered between the not few military staff present in the crowd. Finally, she placed that metalic hand over the separator and looked at Edmund and William as beckoning a question. If she could. Edmund nodded tentatively to the constable in guard. He wasn't keen on her, especially considering what Victor has told them about her, but here in this situation there was little he could do apart from that.
With a slow movement, her hand pushed away the wooden separator, and walked in, towards the four men around Hall. Her metallic hand placed itself on Strates shoulder, something that made his heart miss a beat and to look at the sudden surprise. As his eyes rose to meet the owner of said hand, they locked and she finally spoke, rising her eyes to meet the three constables.
"I am versed in first aid and on-site medical response. Please stand aside and give this man some breathing room."
The constables nodded and spread out, trying to secure the area. Strates was still kneeling beside Hall, since he couldn't stand up. That hand was pushing him down. Like Atlas holding the world. Only the world was made of iron. Her face got close to him and whispered.
"Allow me a few moments of peace with Sir Hall."
An order, not a request. Strates nodded with speed, displaying an itching nervousness and finally rising when Kaze removed her hand from his shoulder. He quickly excused himself and went towards the middle of the room, rubbing his shoulder. Kaze knelt beside Hall's prone body, and even before her hand moved to take his vitals, she knew. He was faking it. Dilated veins in the hands and neck. No eye movement discernible in the eyelids. A stiff position. That black steel hand rubbed its fingers in its palm, like an unconscious maneuver, and pressed Halls neck. With a bit of force. The sensors took a reading that was not needed anymore. But a confirmation to ease her mind somewhat. She placed her left hand on Hall's torso and leaned her face over Hall's, her mouth close to his ear, her hair covering the scene.
William was busy talking to Strates, but Edmund was looking at the scene like a hawk. He looked at Victor who was displaying an uncommon restraint and cool in this particular situation. Edmund leaned to his right, for a better view and he would have swore that he saw Kaze talking into Hall's ear.
The towering red roof of a tent billowed under the wind. The sunlight, that managed to penetrate the suffocating cloud masses of Leeds, flowed through the thin linen of the tent, and made the interior look like a large, red cavern, which was full of people. There was an empty and barren piece of ground in the middle, which was fenced by an array of burning torches. It was hot and stuffy, but no less unbearable than outside. "I will need a volunteer!", the circus performer exclaimed. "Come on, brave Bretonians! Are you... afraid?" "Don't", Hall's mother held his hand as he was about to raise it. "Never volunteer. Never give something for free. There will always be someone else who will. But if you can, take it."
A young, merry woman, whose smile looked like if it was about to tell a fairy tale, graciously fluttered towards the satisfied performer. He placed her into a wooden casket. Hall's mother took him out of the circus, intending to spare him from scenes of violence. But Hall could see, upon exiting, that the performer started cutting the casket into half. What he did not see was that the woman emerged unscathed, and that she was the star of the day.
"You may go now", Hall told Strates after recovering from his own circus act. "You have my account code. If you desire so, take everything." He symbolically dusted his clothing off from dirt and turned to the judges.
"Gentlemen", he then looked at Dagon and towards the audience, "And ladies. I am not here because the Steiners want me removed, nor because I disobeyed an order, nor because I had an affair with some high status prostitute. I was put here because I wanted to be put here. I wanted to be put here because", he said very casually, "I had correspondence with the Kingdom of Gallia." "Traitor!", the masses howled. "Order!", all three judges bashed their mallets. "Honourable ladies and gentlemen, I do not firmly believe that we can win this war. I was about to be sent to the front, where I would lose my life and get nothing, such as everyone else. I disobeyed that order so I could be sent to prison. While all other prominent commanders are killed, or captured, interrogated and executed, as it seems to be the Gallic practice with prisoners of war, I would stay safe in a prison of our own. And when New London surrenders, the War Cabinet would be replaced by the Commission of National Regeneration -- with me at its head."
He paused to take a sip of water. Unworthy of a last drink, he thought, but maybe he did not deserve better. "I have made sure to neutralize that correspondence, so you will not find evidence. But yet I confess it now. When I was laying down there, with my eyes closed, all became clear to me: I had been a fool. And I had rather die now, enlightened, than serve under a foreign king. So please close my eyes before I can see the crown fall."
He takes the glass of water again, but only looks at it, and does not sip. "If I am allowed a last drink... could I get a cup of Earl Grey with cardamine, please?"
A stunned silence filled the room, only to be broken by Edmund An honest man will never have any other. The Judges whispered amongst themselves for a few moments before they stood in unison. Captain George Richard Hall, as a result of your confession, the court finds you guilty of insubordination, cowardice and fraternization with the enemy. The sentence will be determined at a later date but you are henceforth stripped of your rank and all awards of your service. You will be taken from here to the military prison in Wiltshire to await punishment for these charges with that, the central judge knocked his gavel against the sound block and the three men stood and left. As Hall was been taken away, Victor approached the now disgraced Hall and said with a quiet voice filled with pity and understanding We'll see what can be done about that cup of tea...sir, he added with no sarcasm or hint of mockery, before turning on his heel and returning to his brothers.
Wiltshire was not the green countryside it used to be on Earth. It was not a remarkable place a decade ago, but that changed with the transfer of industrial infrastructure from Leeds to New London. Rainy weather had always discommoded its inhabitants, but not many years ago the clouds turned even darker, stung by many chimneys as by needles with poison. The night was crying right now, pained by sickness, and its tears were sick. It was pouring.
An enclosure of land behind the main Wiltshire military prison building was filling with water. Hall was standing on a wooden platform, surrounded by two soldiers, a lieutenant and a man with a black mask. The lieutenant was the only one carrying an umbrella. Everyone else had a hat, except Hall, whose clothes were already soaked. The side of the building that faced the enclosing had no windows except one, which belonged to the kitchen. Its light barely crawled its yellowness through the cold and the heavy rain.
"Any last wi-?", the lieutenant was interrupted as he intended to send Hall the routine "politeness" he sent to everyone before ordering them dead. "I still haven't got that cup of cardamine tea, Sir", Hall tossed his already prepared answer in. "Tea you will get, Sir, but we don't have cardamine here", the lieutenant replied. "It would be polite of you if I at least did not have to drink it under the rain." The lieutenant kept the umbrella in his hand and said nothing.
It was a Sunday morning, a little over a week after the trials. Natural light illuminated Hall's cell. He turned around, towards the wall, and continued sleeping. He had had another nightmare about being hanged during the night. It was already noon when he woke up and a letter had already been standing beneath the door for hours. He had been expecting a letter for the whole time, and he got up and read it as soon as he noticed it.
It was from the court. It was to notify him that he would be executed for treason that day at midnight, by hanging. Not by a firing squad, as it was customary, but he was allowed to file an appeal. He requested that his execution is postponed a day and that he is executed by a firing squad instead. His appeal was rejected on the grounds that there was no reason to postpone, the forecast having predicted good weather, and that his execution was to be performed in secrecy and silence, as public knowledge that a (formerly) high standing officer of the Armed Forces was executed for treason could have a negative effect on morale.
"Good", he said, "One traitor less." And he was only half sarcastic. However, this was not a letter from the court he had expected.
He spent the rest of the day in bed, trying to convince himself that it was all a dream -- not the current state of matters, but what he had done to deserve it.
After a few minutes, which he tried to prolong as much as possible despite being showered with cold and polluted rain that smelled like sulfur, his cup of tea ran dry. He was still pretending to be drinking, but the lieutenant noticed it. "It is 21 past midnight, Sir", he reminded Hall while looking at his watch. Hall gave the cup to a soldier and got up from the soaked platform. In front of him, there was a noose. It swung left and right on the wind. The imaginary curved line which it was repeatedly drawing in the air resembled a smile.
The small military hover car was speeding furiously through the rain, the captain of the Royal Guard at her side almost spewing the contents of his stomach. Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon was driving as she flew in space. Recklessly, with complete abandon, alone in this singular mission of hers. Just as lightning struck in the distance, illuminating the towering buildings around the hover car, her mind traveled to the start of this road, as her instinct kept them flying true.
Three days before the last day of Hall's trial, Tara Nelson Reidman Dagon, mother to Kaze was taking her tea alongside her husband and daughter, short days after their arrival in Bretonia. Both were being their usual unnerving silent self, while she was reading the news. Her mentioning of Hall's trial quickly triggered Kaze's attention and how she remembered the name. Hall. In a conversation between Tara's mother and the Queen Consort, her sister, about the Founder's Day revolt. How the one man that prevented a royal coup, that prevented a criminal and most horrid action, that betrayed his family for the crown never responded to the royal summons to receive his just reward. And that his name was Edwin Hall. A silent hero that was probably crushed by the pain of betraying its own kin for the House he loved.
She did not manage to fall asleep that night. Edwin Hall was the name of Hall's father as she remembered his files. The wind was punishing the region, something fierce, like it was trying to say something. And after Saigon, Kaze has learnt to hear what the wind was saying. She spent the remaining of the night, outside like in Saigon, meditating and thinking on the right path. Before, she would not even deign a thought. Hall was a traitor and justice was being served. But can the weight of a father's path brand and contain the path of its child? And in the morning, as her mother showed up to chastise her for the foolishness of spending the night outside of the house in the cold, Kaze Dagon was determined. Her path was set and she had red in her ledger with Hall. He was the one that opened the Pandora's box, he was the one that released her. He was the one that saw her as a tool but only later understood he unleashed something far more unmanageable. He was the one that gave her the chance she was waiting all her life. And now it was time to set the score right.
It was time to change him as he changed her. That morning, two cousins met for the first time in twenty years. That morning, Kaze asked for one boon, the only one she would ask of the Crown in all of her life. And the request was a surprise, for it was neither power, position or forgiveness. No, it was the only boon Kaze knew the Crown would ever concede. A boon of altruism. Not for herself, for she understood she could never be forgiven. But he could. And if there was a memory of his father actions, then there had to be a Royal record somewhere.
She placed her left hand on Hall's torso and leaned her face over Hall's, her mouth close to his ear, her hair covering the scene. "I am going to recite you a letter that I have read yesterday." Kaze breathed in and started her declamation. 'The Royal House of Bretonia invites Sir Edwin Hall, on this day, twentieth of December, seven hundred seventy two after settlement, to stand in front of your one true King, George the Fifth, at the Buckingham Palace in New London to receive the accolades and rewards fitting for a Knight of the Realm, a true defender of Bretonia.' His eyes opened in surprise. Kaze looked at him and smiled for the first time that he ever saw her smile, genuinely. "The man responsible to deliver this letter to your father was a corrupt, conniving man that was jealous of your father's fate. The copy that the Royal House has found is still being analyzed. But I could not allow you to continue down this path, Sir Hall. Rise. Rise true, and be certain, your father's service is not forgotten. It is only due."
The rain poured incessantly, and with each step she took, the wind howled behind her. Her captain uniform was already getting soaked, even with the trench coat over it, her hair, black, was straight and glued due to the watery hell it was crossing. The captain was behind her, trying, emphasis on trying, to keep her shielded from the rain with an umbrella, but her pace was fast enough to keep the distance. As she crossed the first security barriers, a guard held the last one, looking at the two late night visitors arriving at his post. Before he could speak, Kaze Nelson Reidman Dagon rose her bionic hand in non-compliance, crossing the entrance at last. The wind howled, rising her wet trench coat, threatening to stop the rain in its descent as she entered the patio. The Lieutenant on top of the wooden platform was trying to catch the noose, now flailing wildly due to the wind. Her bionic eye focused on Hall and her heart stood still. She arrived on time. At last, the wind died, and the Lieutenant managed to catch the noose. Kaze opened her mouth and shouted in her command voice.
"IN THE QUEEN'S NAME! HALT!"
The voice boomed through the rain and the Lieutenant lost his grasp on the noose. Hall and the guards turned, surprised, at the newcomers. Kaze looked at the Captain of the Royal Guard and pointed, like she was his superior, to the wooden platform. The man ran towards it to deliver a letter to the Lieutenant in charge. He read it once, he read it twice, he looked at both the Captain of the Royal Guard and at Kaze who was now walking towards the wooden platform. She started to climb the stairs as one of the guards decided to tackle her. The Lieutenant tried to give him an order to desist, but it was too late, as the man found himself flying thirty meters away into the damp, cold ground. "Hold yourself, men." He finally said. "Ma'am, I must check this first. Kaze nodded, her face still marble like, as the Lieutenant started his PDA to contact his director, descending the wooden platform. The remaining guards walked towards their knocked out colleague. Finding herself alone with Hall, she carefully and effortlessly ripped the cuffs from Hall. Finally, she turned to see his face and it was the face of a changed man. He eyed Kaze once again and couldn't help to bow silently in recognition. Kaze walked to the flailing wet noose and pulled it down. She then turned to Hall that rose up to see what was she doing. She looked at the noose and threw it away.
"Stand true, Sir Hall. Your father service was not forgotten. So stand firm. Do stand tall. And know that you are not alone. Bretonia has need of you." Kaze said, as the two stood, like statues facing each other, in that wooden platform with the wind and thunder picking up again in the heavy rain.
A storm was coming. Of the likes they have never seen.