Justice Done

Written By Big P

“Ave, long live the King!”
My arm swung down sharply from a salutary position as I greeted the Manager-Prefect’s lady secretary, who greeted me in kind not soon after. The woman, older and unattractive, stood as she hailed the King, but not out of any respect to His Highness. She stood so that she could usher me into the Manager-Prefect’s office, putting her fingers, calloused from typing, gently on my shoulder as she nudged me into the door she was opening.
Manager-Prefect Opiter Patricius is a well-structured man, tall but not too tall, his hair in dreadlocks and wearing a mustache that reminded me of a hedgerow planted on his upper lip. My arm and his rose at a high angle, the King was hailed, and our arms swung downwards.
“Special Detective Titus Constans! It has been far too long, my boy!” The Manager-Prefect said with real joy as I stepped into the room.
I took off my Kepi with one hand and presented the other for a shake. His fat hand gripped mine firmly as I smiled at him, but I made a note to wash it later. Patricius’ hand felt as though it was dipped into a vat of sweat, no surprise due to the Manager-Prefect’s fondness for baklava and the health detriments a diet as “well developed” as his brings, but I could tell the Summer heat and the toga he wore was getting to him. No matter how well made it was, wearing a toga always felt like you got out of bed and took all the sheets (and the comforter) with you. But, there was no other choice if you wanted to keep your job. One of the first things Caelius did when he got the Pontifex’s seat was to ban suits for government officials. It was unbefitting, he said, of our nation’s best to be clothing themselves with foreign trash.
“Manager-Prefect! It indeed has been.” I said, sitting down just as Patricius’ hands were telling me to do.
“The last time we spoke must have been…what…the Victory Feast? At my manor out near the Aurelia.” He stroked his mustache as he spoke, leaving visible beads of sweat in the hairs.
“That sounds about right, sir. You absolutely must get me Lollia’s mansaf recipe, Aufidia has been begging me to beg you for it since the Feast.”
Aufidia is my wife, the second I’ve had. She was the younger sister of one of the other Detectives in the Sentinels, pretty and nice enough. I’d only known her for perhaps half a year before I proposed, but I needed to get married again. A man can’t climb the ladder in Tellus unless he’s married, due largely to moral values and all, and they look down on guys whose wives pick up and leave. Like the ex-wife of yours truly. The Pontifex’s marriage to a very nice looking woman not long after he became the Pontifex (the woman some daughter of a Duke or Count who still had a very nice mansion) was all the newspapers talked about for almost a month.
“Later, later, and I swear on the Gods about that. There are more pressing matters to attend to, my dear Constans, very pressing matters indeed. Perhaps the most pressing matters in the history of this department.”
This piqued my interest. In our time as the Kingdom’s “special police”, the Sentinels took on some big jobs. Most of them were after the business in Besontio, smoking out the last remaining rebel leaders, but after that, it was smooth sailing. Arrest a Centaur-lover here, shoot a Kinsmanite there. With jobs like that, anything in the orbit of serious business would at least catch passing interest from me, but something in the Manager-Prefect’s eyes, something in the way he clicked his tongue as he spoke, told me that this was truly and deeply serious.
“Well let’s not beat around the bush, then. What’s going on?” I tried and perhaps succeeded at keeping my voice as neutral as possible.
“We need to make an arrest. A high-profile one at that. Publically.”
Shit, I thought.
“Why, who, where, and when?”
“It just came in from on high. Royal Seal, so this has our full attention. According to the missive, this fellow is the oldest of the Old Guard and his secretary recently overheard him making some decidedly unpatriotic statements about our Pontifex and King.” “Republican?” I asked, wanting a smoke.
“No, no. Imperial. Went to one of the army colleges out in the Mountains, as far as I recall. Served right next to Baghdasarian in Meridie. As far as I can tell from what they gave me, he’s just a bitter old man whose country died long before he did, and he’s going to die mad about it.”
I had to raise my eyebrow at this. The Sentinels took treasonous talk very seriously but hardly did we shoot anyone over just that. We were fair about that at the very least.
“That’s highly irregular, sir. Unless we have anything more on him?”
“The big hats sure seem to think we’ll find it. They’re worried about an attempted coup or some public denunciation if I had to guess. Tīkoke might have them shaken up, but I don’t know. Maybe they just want him out for good and don’t feel like paying for house arrest. It’s always hard to tell with things like this.”
“Sure, sure. What’s the guy’s name? I’ve probably heard of him, you said this was a high-profile job.”
“Laurentius Vulnix, a Tribuni in the Royal Army. He’s a Marquis, not like it matters much anymore.”
I knew that name. I did not realize it at the time, but I knew that fucking name.
“Never heard of him before. He saw action in the Deluge, I take it?”
“And the Civil War. He made Tribuni after slapping the Republicans around in the streets of Besontio.”
“Too bad. He could have made a good patriot. When are we picking him up?”
“My sources say he’s holding a ball tomorrow. The powers that be want him arrested then and there, so you haven’t a long time to plan. They said they want to send a message to his associates, but want to keep the public at large away from the issue, him being a Tribuni and the public having respect for that title. You and a team will be inserted under the guise of regular police, sent to provide security for the event, and are to make the arrest at the end of the night. After you do that, the place is to be searched from top to bottom. Not a hard job, just one that comes with a lot of heat.”
“Not a hard job.” I meant that sincerely; it was not a hard job. However foolish I may be for thinking that now, you surely cannot blame me for thinking this would be a piece of cake.
I left Patricius’ office not long after, wiping his hand sweat off on the base of my tunic. Before we went in with the guns, we’d need intelligence on the place itself, and as the officer directly overseeing this operation, I’d be the man doing that. After grabbing lunch and reading over the necessary files, I grabbed a partner: a younger kid by the name of Vibius Ulpianus. He needed experience in this kind of thing and I knew that if things went South I could handle it myself. Besides, his dad, I think, was high up in the Navy or maybe the Air Corp and would look kindly on the Sentinels for putting him so deep in a case like this so early in his career. Was it stupid? Most definitely, but we needed funding and a good word from those who matter same as any other branch of service.
As we drove in my autocar down a winding country road, the kid was silent, building up the courage to ask me about the war, as I soon learned. Up until that point, I was enjoying the smells and scenery of rural Tellus, the most blessed land on Ecumene. Skinny trees lined the road, their leaves glowing in the afternoon sun. This was the hill country outside of Reginca, the favored retreat for elderly statesmen, businessmen, and diplomats, and I could not blame them for their choice. The rolling hills that moved by as we drove made me think of Summers spent drinking iced carob, but I had always had a fondness for hills. They felt like home, and for the longest time, I had not been able to abide wide open spaces. You’d think the opposite, but in an open field, you focus so much on the big picture that the little things that really matter escape your notice. They make me paranoid because of that. A symptom of the job, or maybe age: I turned 55 just the week before this operation.
“Sir? You served, didn't you?”
We drove in silence a while before I answered.
“I did.”
I hoped that the kid would leave it at that, but I knew he wouldn’t. These kids, this new generation, don’t know anything about the Deluge. They just know that something was stolen from us that must be reclaimed. I’ve heard it for half my life, they’ve heard it for all of theirs.
“Did you ever kill anyone? A Centaur? A Gnome maybe?”
“I’ve killed people as a Sentinel.”
“No - but, I want to know what it was like. To be out there, fighting for our country.”
“Whatever you think it was like, it was not that. Now shut up, we’re almost there.”
I thanked Qhaxsus for my good fortune as the gate to Vulnix’s manor came into view, flanked on both sides by statues of soldiers at attention. As the autocar rolled up, an old man came out of a small gatehouse, clutching a newspaper.
“Ave, long live the King!” He raised his arm in a salute. I did the same.
“Ave, long live the King. My name is Titus Salo, this is my partner Vibius Salo. No relation, heh. We’re from the Reginca Metropolitan Police and we’d like to speak with the Tribuni. It's nothing bad, sir, we just need to discuss a matter.” I flashed him a badge.
The gatekeeper looked at me funny. I figured he didn’t know about the ball the Tribuni was planning, and because of that, he was rightfully wondering why MetPol was knocking on his gate. I figured we’d introduce ourselves as officers of the law as we’d need to inform Vulnix that “MetPol” would be doing security for him anyways, and it’d give us an easy entry into the manor to give it a look over. I wasn’t worried about using our given names either. There are probably 10,000 Titus’s, maybe 5,000 or so Vibius’s, and well over a million Salo’s. I know at least ten Salo families myself, none of them related to one another.
As we waited in the autocar, the gatekeeper phoned the big house to ask if he should let us in or refuse and get shot. The Tribuni or whoever he has answer his calls made the right decision, as in under five minutes we were rolling on gravel up to the front door. The manor was tastefully pretentious. The entire thing was made of stone, cut from a local quarry as far as I could guess, and it was not too big at all. What it did not have in size it made up for in aesthetics. Statues of soldiers from the days of the Martyr all the way up to now dotted the courtyard, and etchings that brought to mind the Tranquility were found above windows, doors, and on the columns which led to the front door. The manor appeared to be two-storied, but with a tower attached at the back, the purpose of which I could only guess at. Perhaps it was just meant to look nice, perhaps a sniper was waiting up there. I’ve seen it before.
Vibius and I walked between two statues of men in ancient armor, meant to be modeled on the personal guard of Lucius I judging by the standards they held. Vibius stopped to admire the artwork, but something about the whole thing put me off. It's not every noble that has the balls to even vaguely compare himself to Saint Lucius, and if Vulnix was willing to do so even in passing, who was to say what else he would do? A butler opened the door for us and we strode in, dressed casually in sensibly colored tunics. We did not want to appear hostile at all, and showing up in uniform would do just that. For all intents and purposes, this was a friendly visit to tell the Tribuni that the government cared enough about him to have MetPol doing security for his fancy party. The butler led us over tiles one could see his reflection in over to Vulnix’s study, and even I had to admit that the Tribuni kept a nice house. Paintings of various members of his illustrious line could be found on the walls that led to the study, which was probably just as ancient as the family. The door to the study was a beautifully worked piece, light in color with a flowing grain, and the sound it made when the butler knocked upon it told me that it was real Lievonijan Maple. Like I said, tastefully pretentious.
A gruff voice from inside ordered us to enter: an order I was keen to act upon. I made sure that my revolver was well hidden beneath my tunic, looked over Vibius once to ensure that he was unarmed just like I ordered him to be, and stepped inside.
“Ave, long live the King!” I salute. Vibius salutes. Tribuni Vulnix salutes.
The Manager-Prefect was right. Vulnix is an old man, his head completely shaven, a short beard on his face. His skin is dark and deeply wrinkled, his back bent by age. He wears a tunic, but I can see it is maybe twice or three times as expensive as ours even from across the room. For a brief second, I thought I recognized him from somewhere, probably from a newspaper clipping, but I could not be sure. Vulnix does not stand as we enter and he salutes, so it is up to us to walk up to his desk. In the sixth of a minute it took us to cross the room, Vulnix reimmersed himself into what he was reading: none other than the Divine Record itself, open to the Testament Of The War God. I made a mental note of this.
“How are you on this fine afternoon, Tribuni?” I gave him my best smile. Vibius tried and failed at the same.
“What is the purpose of your visit? I am reading the scriptures.”
“Ah. I apologize for intruding then, your Lordship, but we do need your attention for this matter. My name is Titus Salo, and this is my partner Vibius Salo. No relation. We come on the behalf of the Reginca Metropolitan Police.”
This gets the man to look up from the gospel, staring at me with fire in his eyes. Unsurprising, these noble types don’t like to be dropped in on suddenly by government officials in the best of times, so one could imagine their reaction to a police visit.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I feared that the very nice copy of the Divine Record he held in his hands might have begun dissolving after being hit with the acid he just spit at me.
“It’s nothing bad, I assure you, sir. All goods things actually. The Royal Council has caught wind of the party you planned to hold tomorrow and wishes to provide you with security for the event. MetPol will be doing it completely for free.”
He continued to glare at me.
“I did not request nor do I need security.”
“That is understandable sir, but surely you’ve read the news the past few years. The world is simply not as safe as it used to be, and the government wishes to ensure that its loyal servants are well looked after.”
Not a lie at all. That’s exactly what we were doing.
“And I have my own private guards who are more than capable of protecting us at the ball, not that they will even need to. Do you think something is going to happen, Officer?” He sneers at me.
“No, your Lordship. This is simply a precaution. For your sake and ours.”
“Why must you insist on this so?”
“Because it has been ordered by His Eminence the Pontifex.”
Vulnix blanches as I hold back a smile. I wanted to toy with him for a little bit, see how he’d react when I finally sprung it on him. Confusion and a little bit of fear. Exactly what I expected.
“Then…please have your superiors offer the Pontifex my most sincere thanks. I am honored that His Eminence would take such actions to ensure my safety and the safety of my guests.” The Tribuni stumbles over his words just a little bit as he speaks.
“I’ll send the good word forth. Have a blessed rest of your day, Tribuni.” I offer the still shocked Tribuni a salute, Vibius does the same seconds after.
As we walk out of the manor, Vibius turns to me as I am thinking of exit strategies from the house if things get bad at the ball, he being visibly excited by our exchange with the Tribuni. I had no idea how long he’d been on the force, but it could not have been long based on the smile he wore on his face.
“He’s definitely guilty of something,” Vibius chuckles.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’d be scared too if two cops knocked on my door saying they have orders from the Pontifex.”
“And maybe you’re hiding something yourself?” I can hear his smirk. I see it as I look him dead in the eye.
“Do not even joke about that.”
I let the silence sit a while before I continued, making sure the kid understood.
“I want you to take the autocar - you can drive, right? - and go into town. Find a phone booth somewhere quiet and ring Patricius, tell him to get some guys over here quick as possible to make sure the Tribuni doesn't run off. While you do that, I’m going to hold down the fort here.”
“Are you sure you can do it alone?”
“Yes. Now go do what I told you, please and thank you. Put a bit more fire in the engine before you head out.”
The kid looks at me funny for a moment before walking off to the car. I make to walk back with him, before ducking beyond a very well-maintained hedgerow. This being hill country, I need only take a little hike before I can see the entire grounds of the Vulnix Manor. It occurs to me that this was probably once a holiday residency (at least in name only) before the land reforms took whatever farms the Vulnix’s owned away. What likely happened was they sold their main house to someone, probably a businessman, and moved here permanently to be with the other washed-up noble families who sit on their asses harvesting the checks the government gives them to keep them sated. You may think this was just idle imagination, but it is not. With the knowledge that this was once a vacation home, I could deduce that there probably won’t be any secret passages, trapdoors, or anything of that sort. Their absence would make my job so much easier, not only because Vulnix wouldn't be able to pull tricks with things that he doesn’t have, but also because I wouldn’t have to spend time worrying about them.
I idly check my pocket watch. Two hours have passed. For the love of the Martyr.
I spend the next few hours of my time here watching the Tribuni’s gardeners trim the hedges and the ornamental trees. Inside, the housekeepers were mostly likely dusting off the cabinets or sweeping floors that had already been swept ten times today. Poor bastards, they reminded me of me when I was in the Army. Constantly cleaning my musket, constantly cleaning my stupid orange uniform. Cleaning the blood off my bayonet. Cleaning the blood off my sleeves.
I blink myself back to the present, deciding that now would be a good time for a chew. I got my little tin box from my pocket and stuffed a bit of the tobacco into my mouth, chewing it slowly. No need to waste it, especially with how much this stuff is taxed, being Meridien and all. The Manager-Prefect has told me to quit a few times, talking about how bad it is for the Sentinels’ image, but I never cared. It’s always calmed my nerves, and I need calm nerves for this line of work.
About five hours pass before I hear the rumble of the autocar down the road. Turning around to look at it, my hypothesis that said autocar is in fact my autocar is proven, as I can see Vibius in the front seat doing all he can to drive straight while two guys sit in the back, all of them illuminated by the electric lamps on the side of the vehicle. In a move smarter than I thought he was, Vibius stops on the road still a good ways away from the manor, allowing the two Sentinels to get out, waiting for me to come back. I’m with him again in a short time, my knees aching from the journey down the hill, and I complain about this to him while I give the engine a little bit more fire.
“Are you getting too old for this job, then?” He smiles wide.
“Yes. Yes, I am.” I say, climbing into the car, grunting a little bit as I do. Of course, I push him out of the driver’s seat and take it for myself. “Is my autocar alright? I paid a lot of money for this thing, kid.”
“Yes. I didn’t think I drove too bad.”
“You drove like you were struggling to see the road.” A little runt like him, maybe only five foot seven at the maximum, probably was struggling to see the road.
He mutters something I don’t hear, probably about my knees or the dip I just spat out the window, and we are off on the road.
At the same time the next day, I am back at the front door of the manor, now in an ill-fitting MetPol uniform, looking over guests as they arrive and saluting them if they happen to salute me. Most of the male guests, all dressed in those stuffy togas or equally stuffy parade uniforms, were accompanied by women that looked maybe a decade younger than they were. Most also did not say a word to me as they stepped through the manor’s doors. I could have really used a chew at this point in time, but that would have attracted unnecessary attention to myself. The last thing I needed was for some rich bitch to call up the MetPol office about one of their officers chewing tobacco on Vulnix’s granite walking path, only to get told that “No ma'am, there are no MetPol officers at the Vulnix residence, what are you talking about?”. Anyways, I stood in that position for maybe two hours as autocars from all across the country for what I knew rolled into the grounds and their owners entered the doors, chins held high, being offered politically correct, 100% Tellusian sparkling wine the moment they stepped foot into the home.
Just as I was really beginning to lose my nerve for want of a chew, a change of scenery, and a desire to get the job done already, a hand was laid on my shoulder. I turned around to find the brown eyes of Vibius, who offered me a grin.
“Shift change, sir!”
I grinned back, Gods damn me, but it was finally time to do the job. I strode into the manor with purpose, making for the ballroom. Gods damn me again, but I smiled at myself in the reflection the tile floors offered me as I entered that room. A band was playing a smooth waltz (for jazz had been recently banned), though most people were not dancing, but rather talking in little circles of friends. I spotted the bald Tribuni, the center point of the largest circle on the ballroom floor, and then looked at my men stationed around the room. I nodded at them. They nodded at me and started advancing as I did. I felt the adrenaline start to run as the Tribuni’s face became clearer and clearer in my vision, his voice more and more perceptible.
“...and that was all near Lake Bawrim, at the corridor. We could have held it, Yxotl strike me if I lie, if Nikolaso was a stronger King, a better man. We could have held if he did not pussyfoot, forgive my harsh language.”
My steps slow.
“I was there! I should know! I fought alongside my boys bravely, I never asked them to do a thing I would not! We held the line for months, shelled all day, shelled all night, fighting off partisans behind as much as we fought the militias in front of us. If we had a bit more time, maybe a bit more men, we could have held for a decade! But no! The King had to bend because the Clip-Clops gained a little bit of ground up North and the Vampires declared war; never even crossed the border I don’t think.”
And suddenly I am back there.
I am holding my musket, crouched on an isolated hill, firing down on the horde that gallops across the open grassland. Centaurs, eyes wild, hair in a single lock, shouting something, fire at us as they charge. They do not even stop to reload, they don’t need to because they are so damn strong that they can do it while they run no problem. We have no idea where our commander is, he should be here with us directing our fire, but I have not heard him once so I’m screaming out “READY” and “AIM” and “FIRE” even though I know fully well that no one is listening since I can hear that all trigger discipline collapsed long ago. I can hardly see anymore, my eyes are irritated and threatening to close because of all the smoke irritation and my lungs feel like they’re going to collapse from the same, but I can hear the Centaurs coming up the hill, shouting and their hooves beating on the ground and their muskets roaring out damnation. I hear someone down the line, maybe Julianus, scream loud enough to deafen the musket fire, and realize far too late that it was Amulius right next to me screaming because one of the fuckers took his arm off with a saber. I fumble with the sword on my belt but find myself on the ground, something somewhere snaps as I am trampled and I feel my skull rattle in my helmet and I am looking up at the steppe sky, smoky but so big that it is still so blue and I am wondering where Captain Vulnix is.
And he is right here in front of me now. His story does not mention the blood and the tears we shed, the horrors we faced, staring down a foe that would not stop even when shot in the chest. He does not mention how he was nowhere to be found when the Centaurs crested that hill and almost killed every single one of us, kids from the Labor Battalions who did not sign up for this war and who loved their King and their Country but who just wanted to go home.
I felt so many things as recognition dawned, so many things that I did not even notice when I pushed through the circle of people, when the skin of my hand felt the cold metal of my revolver, when its chamber was emptied into Captain Laurentius Vulnix of the Imperial Army.
I now wait in the same jail cell I put so many in before. I cannot remember what happened after I killed him. I just remember the screams, not from the ballroom, but from that hill in the Steppe. Patricius has refused to see me. He’s going to hang me, I figure, and doesn't want to look me in the eyes before he does. I understand that. I understand why he’s going to hang me. Vulnix was going to die anyways, sure, but there are procedures to follow. Procedures when it comes to killing.
I’ve heard the papers are calling me a Republican, a terrorist with a grudge. So I write it here: I am not a Republican. I am a patriot to my core. I fought for my country. I almost died for my country. And I did not kill a nobleman or a Tribuni or any other honorific the papers bestow unto him. I killed a coward.