“You, do not speak,” she warned him. “Nor you, either.” She stabbed a finger at the younger man’s chest. “The word of the Devil’s Hand carries far more weight than anything you might say in these lands. If you’d half the intelligence you think you own, you’d know that much at least.”
Under perhaps any other circumstances, Gabriel would have been amused, but Isobel’s eyes kept flicking sideways, the urge to look at the makeshift crossroads clearly held back by a thread, and he was imagining every scrap of silver he owned coated with thick black tarnish. . . . There was nothing amusing about this at all.
“The devil’s what?” The older man was shaking his head, looking at the marshal, then Isobel again, and then to Gabriel, as though another man could explain it all in ways that made sense. The younger man, at least, looked distinctly uncomfortable, like a man who’d woken in a jail cell and only slowly remembered the events of the night before.
“Oh, you poor, foolish bastard,” Gabriel said. “They told you nothing, did they? They sent you here to treat with magicians and told you nothing of what you dared, what you risked.”
Despite himself, Gabriel felt relief: the things he had told Abner had gone no further, or at least not into the hands of the men who’d sent these two their orders.
“Tell me, did those orders come from Jefferson himself or some even greater fool?”
Whatever bluster the American would have attempted to hide behind, the marshal cut him off before he could do more than open his mouth.
“Enough.” She turned to Isobel, lifting her hands in a gesture of appeasement. “Whoever they are, whatever they have done, the false claim will be judged and proper restitution determined. There’s a judiciary a few days from here?—”
“This is not a matter for a judge.” Isobel’s voice was sharp, and Gabriel felt his spine straighten in response, alert to violence even though he knew she would not, was reasonably certain the marshal would not, let it go that far.
“A false claim of insult is a matter of Law.”
Gabriel licked his lips and damned himself for a fool. “The Law is set for the affairs of those within the Territory. These men are outsiders, two for where they come from and two for what they are. Surely it would make more sense to have the Master of the Territory consider their actions and determine their punishment?” He cast a glance at the makeshift crossroads and the two figures now standing still, watching them. A shiver ran down his spine, remembering what Isobel had said. These were not quick-witted Farron, not allies even for a moment. If they broke loose while these two argued jurisdiction . . .
“How would you even transport them?” he went on. “You with one horse, them with none? You’d walk them two days to stand before the bench?”
“That is exactly what I aim to do,” she said. “My duty.” Her hand had shifted to her waist, where the pistol snugged into a leather harness. Gabriel didn’t know too much about handguns, but he’d seen the like before, back East. If it came to bullets, they had already lost.
“The Tree is equal to the Infinitas.” Isobel’s voice, Isobel’s words, but with an undercurrent, an echo he’d not heard in her recently. They had invoked the Master of the Territory, and he had come.
The Tree was not equal to the Infinitas. That awareness simmered in Isobel, resentful. But in this instance, it took precedence. It must take precedence. The Devil was Master of the Territory, but he did not own it, nor did he wish to. And the Left Hand was the hidden force, not the overt. The rebuke was gentle but clear, and Isobel bowed before it, objections tromped underfoot before they could rise.
Patience, maleh mishpat. It wasn’t his voice but the memory of it, and below that the whisper again, pouring molten into her ear, both of them counseling her: Abide. There is a greater plan at play.
She did not understand, but she was not required to understand, only obey.
“You may take these two to stand in front of the bench,” Isobel said. “And your Judge will pronounce judgment on them for claiming false insult.” The Americans, she suspected, would likely be stripped of everything save boots and saddle and sent across the Mudwater, warned never to return. “But the magicians are . . .”
The marshal went toe to toe with Isobel, a handspan taller but more slender, age giving her a brittleness Isobel could sense more than see, but a wicked cunning as well. “They must be taken to tell their portion of the story. Then the judge will decide.”
Isobel narrowed her eyes, the heated prickle of power seething behind them enough to make her want to shake the marshal, to scream in frustration at the woman’s blindness. Because she had trapped them, she thought them controllable. Thought herself in control, as though anything flesh could control these winds. “Then we will travel with you.”
A heartbeat, stretched and tense, and the marshal dipped her chin, dark eyes intent on Isobel’s face. “Agreed.”
Gabriel broke the awkward silence that followed. “If we’re to travel together then, might we know your name?”