TQG 68

68. Investigation

[Battle Cry] is an ability common to [Warriors] and many of their subclasses and advanced classes.  It provides a morale boost to the [Warrior]’s allies, while simultaneously decreasing the morale of the opponents.  It is therefore, technically, an attack.  Using an ability like that inside of a city, town, or village, was therefore somewhat against the law, although the fine would likely only be a few silver.

Still, it should have gotten some sort of response from the occupants of the constabulary.  However, a moment passed, and nothing happened.  Another moment passed, and still nothing happened.  Phil stuck his head inside the building, and he laughed.

“There’s some guy sleeping on the desk in there,” he said.

“Wake him up,” I suggested.  Phil entered the building, and I followed.  Shadow disappeared into my shadow as I approached the building.  Thena, Laurant, Larissa and Tarisha joined me, while Tarisha requested the others remain outside due to the lack of space.

Upon entering the constabulary, I immediately realized how the desk attendant could have slept through the [Battle Cry].  There were three empty bottles of Thornbery wine next to him, and one bottle that was only half empty.  Phil picked up the partial bottle and glanced at me for permission.  I shrugged, and he upended the bottle over the sleeping constable.  This, at last, caused the man to jerk awake and sputter in outrage.

“Who are you?  What do you think you’re doing?  Do you know who I am?” the man questioned in his outrage.

“Are you the head constable?” I asked him.

“What?  No, he’s out--”

“Then you’re fired,” I informed him simply.

He jerked in surprise, no doubt because the system had just informed him his [Status] had changed and that he really had just lost his [Job].  He turned to me and, this time with a bit of fear in his voice, asked again “Who are you?”

“I am Earl Hail Jeoran, as you would know if you weren’t a drunken slop who could sleep through a [Battle Cry] that half the town heard.  Now get out.  Leave your badge of office and your keys.  You can wear your uniform home, but I suggest you find a change of clothes soon.  If you wear it after today, you will be charged with impersonating an officer of the law.”

With an unsteady hand, trembling from fear and the shock of his sudden change in [Status], he unfastened the badge from his breast and placed a set of keys on the desk in front of him.

“Is the head constable in the building?” I asked again.

“No, he never comes in but once a week,” the former constable answered.  “Or if he’s arrested a new prisoner, but he never stays long.”

I nodded.  I stuck my head back outside the door and shouted “Would someone kindly find me the head constable and bring him to me as soon as possible?  Tell him his lord has words for him.  He probably doesn’t want to hear them, but you can drag him here with one health point left if that’s what it takes, I don’t really care.”

I ducked back into the room, ignoring the chorus of “Quest Accepted” from outside.  The former constable was looking quite frightened.  Not at me, so much as Tarisha.  It was unlikely that he had ever seen someone above level one hundred before.

“You may return to your home.  I am serious about changing out of that uniform, citizen, however.  I suppose you could return it to the constabulary, perhaps your replacement will buy it from you,” I suggested.

“Yes, M’lord,” the man said, and he hurried out of the room.  I picked up the objects that he had left behind.  The silver circle of the constabulary, and a set of keys.  Curious, I began to explore the building.

The ground floor of the constabulary was mostly offices.  The largest belonged to the head constable, which was cluttered with papers.  Most of the others were vacant, I noticed.  There was a communal workspace with desks which seemed to have seen recent use by someone, although the building was presently absent of any of the shire’s law enforcement.

At first I thought that the entire building was empty, but then I heard the cries and the moans coming from the lower floor.  What I found when I followed the sounds to their source upset me quite a bit.  Beneath the constabulary was supposed to be a set of simple holding cells in which the accused would be held until the circuit magistrate arrived to review their case.  The constable had turned it into a dungeon.

There were ten cells, and in each of them were between ten to fifteen people.  A quick glance showed that most of them were below fifty percent health.  A few of them were barely above ten percent.

“Thena!” I called.  “Heal these people, please.”

“Of course,” she said, stepping past me.  They were mostly low leveled peasants, and as such she was quickly able to bring them to full health.  As they recovered their health, many of them also began to recover their spirits, and they turned to us with hope in their eyes.

“Earl Jeoran,” A woman said, stepping to the front of her cell.  The others seemed to defer to her, and they bowed when she did.  “We are your loyal subjects.”

“Would you please explain why you are imprisoned down here?” I asked.

“Myself?  I spat in the Steward’s drink, I did,” she admitted.  “I was doing it for weeks before he figured it out.  Then he called his friend the constable, and well, I’ve been here ever since.  Figured I’d die down here until I heard your servant announce you.  And now we can only hope that you are an honorable and just lord who will set things to right in this land.”

I surveyed the prisoners, [Analyzing] them, but aside from the fact that they were all relatively low leveled civilians there wasn’t much I could tell at a glance.  “Are you saying that you have all been unjustly imprisoned by the constable and the steward?”

“Well, no,” she admitted.  She pointed towards one of the cells.  “Three men in that cell are accused of murder.  And some of the rest of us have committed a few petty crimes, mostly due to our poverty.  But the crime that most of us have committed is to speak out against the steward or his lackeys.  Or to resist their unjust rule in some fashion.”

I sighed, rubbing my temples in frustration.  Another headache that I didn’t want to deal with.  “How long until the magistrate arrives?”

“Magistrate?” the woman laughed.  “My Lord, I have been down here six years.  There is no justice in this land.  When the traveling judge does arrive, he drinks and he eats at the stewards mansion and he laughs and he jokes and he has a merry time.  Then he leaves the shire without ever holding court.  The steward is the judge and the jury in the shire, my lord.  And sometimes, the constable is his executioner.”

“Sounds like I need a new magistrate too then,” I muttered.  I turned to my friends.  “Okay.  So, I honestly don’t know what to do here.  Some of them might actually have committed crimes, but it sounds like a lot of them are innocent and are being imprisoned illegally.  I can’t just leave them down here, but it will take a lot of time to figure out which ones need to be brought before a magistrate for a trial and which ones should never have been imprisoned to begin with.”

The Travelers exchanged looks, and it was Phil who stepped forward.  “So, in our world, when someone is accused of a crime and is awaiting trial, they are sometimes released into the community on bail.  They are required to provide money or property to be held to ensure that they show up for their trial.  When they appear, that property is returned to them.”

The woman laughed.  “That sounds like a fine idea, but if any of us had any property worth anything we would either not be down here, or the constable would have long ago confiscated it.”

“Perhaps, but it does give me an idea.”  I turned to the spokeswoman of the prisoners.  “What is your name, good woman?”

“I am Bell.”

“Bell, will you swear by Thedum that you have not perjured yourself to me?” I asked.

“I swear by Thedum’s holy name that I have spoken only the truth as it is known to me since I heard the mighty voice of a warrior announce the presence of the Lord of North Shire,” she said, and she moved her hands to make the symbol of Thedum before her.

“Right.  Good enough for me,” I said.  I turned to my friends.  “So, this might be a hassle, but could you question each of these prisoners why they’re imprisoned?  If they can swear by Thedum that the only reason they are imprisoned is resistance against the steward or the constable, let them go.  If it’s something petty or stupid, let them go.  If they’re accused of an actual crime, but will swear by Thedum to appear before a Magistrate to answer for it, then let them go.  Unless it’s something like assault, banditry, or murder.  You know, something serious.”

My friends exchanged looks, and all said “Quest Accepted,” except for Tarisha.

“What will you be doing next, My Lord?” she asked.

“I’m going to start going through the head constable’s papers to try to figure out this mess,” I explained.

“Then I shall keep you company for that task.  I will not leave your side so easily at this time,” she said.

“That’s fine.  You four got this, right?” I asked.

“Yup.  Always wanted to be a cop,” Phil said, and so I tossed him the keys to the cell.  Tarisha and I returned to the ground floor, where she stood stoically while I began rummaging through the papers in the main office, trying to figure out how things had gotten so bad.  There was no organization to the documents that I could find.  I was expecting arrest reports, status reports on investigations into the bandits, details on the status of the shire and the surrounding lands.  Instead I found receipts for wine and food, the price of which was extravagant.  I found poorly written poetry, and love letters from a viscountess in the neighboring county, who repeatedly asked for gifts of jewelry, perfumes, clothes, and other fine things.  I examined the book shelf, and instead of finding books on law and law enforcement, I found the collected works of several comedians known for their bawdry tales of debauchery and obscenity.

Finally, after thirty minutes, I found a ledger.  It was hidden in the bottom drawer of the head constables desk behind a lock, which I had unceremoniously jimmied with a dagger that had been carelessly left unsheathed on the desk itself.  I scanned through a few pages of the document, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

“It seems that I’ve been giving the good constable too little credit,” I said, mirthful.

“Lord Hail?” Tarisha inquired.

“Oh, it’s just that he’s actually made my investigation into the corruption of this constabulary quite easy for me.  He’s been recording all of his bribes and his misuse of public funds in this ledger.  He wasn’t even trying to disguise it in code or something like that.  Look here, it says ‘beat Farmer Penton until he gave up his hidden coins.  Twenty-two silver.  Payment for protection from Northridge Bandits.  Sixteen gold.  And here, he charged the shire for a visit to a brothel.  Oh, and it seems that he’s being paid a salary of five hundred gold per year, which is about twenty-five times what a competentconstable of a territory of this size and population would draw.”  I shook my head in bemusement, then stashed the ledger in my inventory.  “That’s his base pay, not including all of the bribes he’s been taking.  It seems that the constable of North Shire is a very lucrative position to hold.”

“So, what do we do next?” Tarisha inquired.

I sighed.  “I suppose I write the court in Zhesa requesting a special inquisitor and magistrate to investigate the constable’s corruption.  I mean, given the amount of evidence I have at hand, I could just pronounce judgment right now, but the penalty for corruption on this scale would be execution. I’d … I’d rather that judgment come from a magistrate’s lips than mine.”

“Of course, My Lord,” Tarisha said, clearly sympathetic to my dilemma.

I sat down at the constable’s desk, took his stationary, enchanted his ink, and began to write a letter that would mean the constable’s death.  I addressed it to the head of the inquisitors, detailed the evidence of corruption that my brief visit had uncovered including a description of the ledger, requested a formal investigation into the matter, and sealed the letter with [Magical Seal: Personal Crest].  Then, after a moment of consideration, I also sealed the document with wax and the stamp that I had been using for my letters for most of my childhood.

The letter seemed abnormally heavy in my hands as I exited the constabulary to look for someone to deliver it.