Jackdaw (The World of A Charm of Magpies)

There was a silence. Day glanced from Ben to Jonah, then over to Crane with a slight frown. Crane met his eyes with a look of affectionate understanding that made Ben’s throat tighten. He wondered if he looked at Jonah so revealingly, and if he would ever dare to be so open.

“I think the question is,” Crane observed, “has Pastern developed a conscience?”

“Of course I’ve got a conscience,” Jonah said. “He’s sitting right here next to me.”

Ben wanted to shake him. “That’s not true, Jonah.”

“It is. I’m trying to do the right things because you want me to. You know that.” Jonah gave Day a mulish look. “I’m not a saint.”

“I don’t recall suggesting you were,” Day said. “Suppose we hadn’t found you, Pastern. That you’d had your quiet life with your prosthetic conscience here. What if he’d left?”

“I wouldn’t,” Ben said.

Day sighed heavily. “Or fell off a cliff?”

“I wouldn’t let him,” Jonah said. “But if he did, I’d… I don’t know. I don’t care. It wouldn’t matter any more.”

“And there’s the problem,” Day said. “Right. I want to talk to Spenser on his own, and Mrs. Merrick wants to interrogate Pastern about windwalking, so, Jenny, take him outside now, would you? Nothing stupid, please.” That appeared to be addressed to both windwalkers.

Jonah gave Ben a quick, worried look. Ben nodded, since he couldn’t imagine this would make anything worse.

“Fine,” Jonah said. “But you don’t do anything stupid either. My cooperation ends if you lay a finger on him.”

“Go away,” Day told him, and Jonah departed with the Merricks, leaving Ben looking from Crane to Day with a distinct sense of being both outnumbered and outgunned.

“Well.” Day propped his elbows on the table. “The thing is, I am not impartial here. Not at all. I saw the painter’s victims die, and Pastern could have made Lord Crane one of them when he tore that picture. I would be very glad to see him hobbled and gaoled till he’s ninety. Come to that, you knocked Jenny Saint out and threw her off a roof. She broke her arm and collarbone, not for the first time. I could happily lock the pair of you up for good.”

“But…” Crane said helpfully.

“Yes, thank you, Lucien. But.” Day looked at Ben. “Well, you tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What I should do.” Day’s golden eyes were intent. “You claim he’s a reformed character. There’s a lot of people here who seem to agree. And, as Lord Crane reminded me, I do prefer to see people back on the straight and narrow if it’s possible to have them there. I can’t say I expected that of Pastern, and I’m not saying I’m convinced. But the fact that you two attacked my student and my”—a fractional hesitation—“friend shouldn’t make a difference to my judgement.”

“How can it not?” Ben demanded.

“Because that’s what judgement is. Now. You know what Pastern did, and you know the law. I say again, as a policeman, what do you think I should do about him?”

“What can you do but arrest him?” Ben asked. “That is, what are the choices?”

“Whatever I want them to be. I’ve resigned. I’m not a justiciar any more. I’m acting as a private citizen.” Day read Ben’s face and added, “If you’re planning to challenge my authority, don’t. You know what my authority is.”

“Being stronger than us?” Ben took a deep breath. “That’s not right, sir. Not right, and not just.”

“No,” Day said. “That’s practitioners for you. It’s why a practitioner who goes bad must be stopped, one way or another. So why don’t you tell me what way you’d choose?”

Ben looked between Day and Crane, over at the wall. Somewhere out there Jonah was in the sun and the wind. He should be soaring.

“I can’t say…” He cleared his throat. “I can’t say you should let him go. Not in the law. I know what he did. There’s crime and there’s punishment, that’s how it works. But—” He looked back at Day, praying for understanding. “But that shouldn’t be all. What’s the good in the law, in telling people what’s wrong, when they never get told what’s right, or have a chance to do it?”

Day was watching him, eyes intent. “Go on.”

“The law didn’t protect Jonah when his parents threw him on the street to starve. The law did nothing when he was left with, with slavers, by the justiciary—”

“What?” Day said sharply, and then, “In Cambridgeshire?”

“Yes.”

“The Collinses.” Day sat back. “Pastern was one of their victims? I see. I…didn’t know that.” He chewed his lip. “No. It may interest you to know that the Cambridge justiciary did finally catch up with them a few years ago, and that they were not offered mercy. Carry on.”

“Someone should have helped him,” Ben said. “You take a child, or a man down on his luck, and give him no help, just kicks, and make it so that any way he turns breaks the law, and then tell him he’s a criminal. It’s not right. That’s not how it should be.”

“Good Lord,” Crane said. “The copper’s a Radical.”