A Virtue of Child - Chapter 1

Yes, it's sample time of the work-in-progress, aka next month's release. Please note that this is an unedited chapter.

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I jerked out of a sound sleep, a scream at the back of my throat. There was no one and nothing in my bedchambers that shouldn’t be. My legs were tangled in the single sheet of cotton I used. Part of me wished Luc was here to hold me, reassure me even though we both knew it was a lie.

He hadn’t slept in my bed since his child died. Since the night my birth mother plunged her knife into Sister Claudia’s womb to use the babe’s death to fuel an obscene spell to rip open a gateway for the demons to enter our realm. I didn’t blame Luc. I’d horribly underestimated my mother, and he couldn’t look at me without seeing her.

Claudia had visited once. She was now as barren as I was. Master Aaron couldn’t heal or replace what the demon magic my mother wielded had corrupted. My meeting with Claudia was awkward. She claimed she didn’t blame me. However I blamed myself enough for the three of us.

I unwrapped the sheet from my limbs. There was no point in trying to go back to sleep. A few candlemarks a night was all the rest I could manage over the last two months before nightmares of my headless mother and Luc and Claudia’s bloody babe intruded.

From the silence in the corridor outside my chamber door, we were nowhere near First Morning. Whispers came from the new passage I’d created to the tunnel system, but I ignored them as I climbed out of bed and searched for a loose shirt and pants to wear.

Once dressed and my hair tied back out of the way, I padded through the silent Temple. Warden Ahiga nodded as we passed on his patrol, but otherwise, we said nothing. All of the Balance wardens took my idiosyncrasies in stride, just as they did with my fellow justices, Yanaba and Elizabeth.

I passed through the Temple kitchen to the back porch. Our cook Deborah and her kitchen staff weren’t even awake yet. The hearth and the brick oven glowed a dark pink, their fires stoked for the night.

In the exercise yard, I went through warm-ups and stretches before I started on the Jing unarmed combat forms Sister Shi Hua of Light had started to teach me before she also became pregnant.

I went through the first set and started on the second when I felt someone’s attention on me. The yellow tomato vines climbing the wooden lattice work of the garden couldn’t hide the small figure with the bright orange face and hands. I frowned.

“Ming Wei, what are you doing up this late?”

Yanaba’s squire cautiously peered around the corner of the wood frame. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Nightmares?” I asked.

She nodded. The girl had more of a right to bad dreams than any of us. Her parents had sold her to a Jing noble located here in Issura. The noble ill-used her before he burned his manse with himself and his child slaves inside. Ming Wei had been the only survivor.

With my strange eyesight, I couldn’t see the awful scars and distorted flesh on the left side of her face and body, so I didn’t stare at her. It was one of things that made her semi-comfortable around me. It also said something about her strength that she survived the horrible damage.

“May I say something?” she asked shyly.

“Of course.”

“You need to keep your back foot pointed forward,” she whispered. It was the same weakness She Hua had noticed and commented on.

I cocked my head. “You know these forms?”

“Yes, m’lady.”

Now, I was thoroughly confused. “Where did you learn them?”

“Mistress Yin Li has been teaching me along with her son.”

“During your language lessons?” I gaped at the child.

Ming Wei nodded. “Are you angry, m’lady? Justice Yanaba said it was all right for me to learn and share my knowledge with Nathan.”

“I am…surprised.” And I was. Ambassador Quan and his alleged mistress had been going to the Temple of Light the last few months. Since Shi Hua was a distance speaker, it was easier for them to go there to communicate with the emperor in Jing due to the sister being past the middle of her pregnancy. Few outside of the ambassador’s small circle knew his alleged mistress was in fact the ambassador’s bodyguard and Shi Hua’s maternal aunt. Yanaba had encouraged her squire to relearn the Jing language, something the child refused to speak since the night she was rescued. Plus, Ming Wei’s presence would give Yin Li’s son someone to socialize with.

“Do you think Mistress Yin Li would allow Nathan to join you for your lessons?” I asked.

“If you asked, I’m sure she would.” The girl nodded solemnly.

“Do you think you could assist me with my second level forms?”

Her color brightened, and waves of anxiety rolled off her. “You want me to teach you?”

I shrugged. “Sister Shi Hua started teaching me, but she cannot continue until after her baby is born. I don’t want forget everything she has taught me so far, so I’d great appreciate you assistance.”

Ming Wei bowed. “I would be honored m’lady.”

* * *

Ming Wei and I stopped our practice when the kitchen girls arrived to begin their work. While they proceeded to collect eggs from our henhouse, Deborah stepped out onto the porch and gave Ming Wei a honeyed treat before I sent the child off to the communal bathing room the female wardens used. When I followed my cook and Yanaba’s squire into the kitchen, Deborah waited until the child raced down the hallway before she turned, scowled at me, and shook her spoon.

“What are you thinking, Chief Justice?” Deborah waved the wooden utensil dramatically. I was rather thankful she was not waving around a knife. “Keeping that poor girl up half the night! Justice Yanaba actually depends on her squire, even if you don’t need young Nathan to the same level.”

“I didn’t keep her up,” I snapped. “I couldn’t sleep so I went into the practice yard. She was in the garden watching me, so I invited her to help me work on the Jing fighting forms.”

As I talked, Deborah strode over to the cupboard, placed her spoon on her work table, and pulled out leftover sourdough bread and hard cheese. She retrieved a knife and sliced both and placed them on a plate.

“Ming Wei said she is still having nightmares,” I finished softly. “That’s why she was awake and sitting in the garden.”

“We know, m’lady.” Deborah wiped her hands on her apron before she brought the plate over and gently pushed me toward the table in the little nook her assistants used for prep work.

“Hasn’t Yanaba been sending her to Brother Turtle?” I asked. The priest qualified as a miracle worker to me after he saved my junior justice’s life when she over-extended her spirit in her efforts to save the city from a demon attack last spring.

“Sort of…” Deborah shook her head. “The child has had so much trauma inflicted on her in her short life. She fears Brother Turtle after—” She sighed. “High Sister Mya has taken over Ming Wei’s care, but not even she can heal such emotional wounds in half a year.”

I nodded and began to eat the bread and cheese. Deborah was right. And I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what had been done to Ming Wei, much less how she had the strength to survive it. When I finished, I placed my plate in the tub for used kitchenware.

“I don’t know what we’d do without you, Deborah.” I hugged the older woman. For the first time, it truly registered how frail she was. She’d been the cook here when my grandmother Thalia was chief justice of Orrin. And I was hardly a child at thirty-one winters.

Deborah patted my hand. “No offense meant, but you need a bath yourself, Chief Justice.”

I laughed and headed for my quarters.

* * *

After bathing and changing, I strode down to my office, took a seat in my chair, and started reviewing the pile of cases I’d failed to deal with in a timely manner. My junior justice had been handling court cases, but Yanaba was more than halfway through her pregnancy. We’d already lost one potential Light child. Everyone was doting on Yanaba, including me. And it was well past time I began performing my own duties again.

No sooner than that thought had passed through my head when someone pounded on my door. “Chief Justice?”

Warden Mylon’s voice. I rarely saw the man. He preferred the night shift.

“Come in,” I called out.

He opened the door and peered around the edge. “The magistrate wishes to see you.”

Orrin’s magistrate Malven DiCook pushed past the warden. Rather than taking DiCook’s brusqueness in stride as most of Balance’s guards would have, Mylon grabbed DiCook’s arm and swung him until he was pinned against the wall with Mylon’s knife at his throat.

Let’s just say there was a reason my chief warden acceded to Mylon’s wish for the night shift.

“Anthea?” DiCook squeaked.

“Warden, please release the magistrate,” I said. “The duke would be most vexed with me if you slit the magistrate’s throat, even by accident.”

“Yes, Lady Justice.” Mylon released DiCook with a scowl. “Next time, wait until you’re invited inside.” He stalked out of my office and pulled the door quietly shut behind him.

“You’re letting your wardens get away with too much,” DiCook grumbled as he straightened his jacket. His extra clothing was necessary. The nights were finally becoming cooler as we approached the Vintner’s Festival.

“And you presume too much, so the contest is even,” I shot back. “I suggest not trying Warden Mylon’s patience again.” I gentled me tone. “What are you doing here at this hour? Surely you aren’t that desperate for a decent meal.”

The fact that the magistrate often showed up at meal times had become something of a running joke among my staff. But after tasting his wife’s culinary skills myself, I totally understood why.

“Remember Dante and Barbora’s shop?”

A chill ran through me. Dante was one of DiCook’s top peacekeepers. Or was until he and his family were murdered to feed the demon eggs planted in their bodies. Dante’s wife Barbora ran a seamstress shop, and the family lived in the apartment on the second floor. We tried to locate any family members, but we came up empty-handed, so I signed off on the duchy taking possession of the property.

“I thought it was sold at the monthly magistrate’s sale.”

“It was.” DiCook hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked on his heels. My gut clenched at the sign that I wasn’t going to like what I heard.

“The new owner opened up the storefront this morning for the first time.” DiCook shrugged. “What she thought was a dead animal inside turned out to be human corpses.”