The Sword Thief

Squirrel had spent some time in jailhouses before, but never in the Imperial Dungeons of the Realm.  The experience of the former had not prepared her for the latter. The Dungeons were, as Lady Corrine would have said “gelid,” and though Squirrel didn’t care for fancy words, for once she had to admit that plain old “cold” didn’t seem to apply. They’d given her a thick blanket, but it did nothing to diminish the bone-aching temperature. The Dungeons would have been dark too, if not for the light of the spells that made escape impossible. They were embedded in very stone and made the Dungeons as bright as noon day. Squirrel was sure all of the guards could see the magic as well; none of them carried torches and all of them walked with confidence that would have been impossible in utter darkness.

Well, she wasn’t going to try to escape. She knew when she was beat. And even if she could, she didn’t think she could meld back into the life of a street thief anyways. Last night - or was it the night before? Time didn’t matter in the Dungeons - had proven that a year living in Captain Delman’s house and eating three meals a day and being fussed over by Lady Corrine had softened her. She’d be dead soon enough on the streets. Might as well die by hanging; at least she’d meet her fate on a full stomach.

She traced the burns on her hands. When she’d grabbed the sword, its magic had burned through her gloves blistering and charring her palms. She’d thought they’d have to be cut off afterwards and wondered how she’d explain the burns to Lady Corrine. Now they were bright and angry looking but no worse than if they’d only been scalded from spilled soup.

Footsteps and voices made her look up. It wasn’t long before the cell door opened and a guard allowed Lady Corrine to enter.

“Oh Sofia!” She cried embracing Squirrel and enveloping her in folds of dark green brocade. She held her hands tenderly once they had pulled away and tutted over the burns. “The trial will be tomorrow, dear. There’s nothing to be afraid of. This is all a terrible mistake and we’ll get it sorted out.”

Despite the frigid air, Squirrel nearly laughed. There certainly hadn’t been any mistake. She’d been caught with the coronation sword the night before the Queen’s coronation and had the burn marks from the sword and the bruises from the city guards to prove it. The only sorting out tomorrow would be how fast a noose would be around her neck. But Lady Corrine had an irrepressible optimism, especially regarding anything involving Squirrel. She was convinced Squirrel was her own long lost daughter that she and Captain Delman had searched tirelessly for for years. Squirrel found it convenient to encourage this belief; but Lady Corrine’s zeal couldn’t save her.

“Just tell them the truth tomorrow, Sofia,” Lady Corrine said gently. “And it will be alright.”

The truth? There were some parts of the truth she wouldn’t admit to even if tortured and the rest of it wouldn’t be believed by anyone besides Lady Corrine and Captain Delman.

“Of course, Mama,” she said. The promise would make Lady Corrine happy for now and they all might as well pretend to happiness before the inevitable.

“Are you comfortable, dear?” Lady Corrine surveyed the cell. “I would have been here sooner, but they wouldn’t let me bring anything, not even when I shook out the blankets for them and offered to have the soup put through a sieve! Oh it’s a crime not to let any sort of comfort in these walls. It is gelid in here, absolutely gelid!”

“The blanket is warm enough,” Squirrel assured her. “I haven’t noticed the cold.”

Lady Corrine gave her the look she always did when she knew Squirrel was lying, but only sighed. Neither of them could change anything.

Behind them the guard coughed, “The time is up, Lady Delman.”

“Goodbye Sofia. Tell the truth tomorrow and we’ll have you home again.”

Then they were gone. Squirrel huddled under the blanket. Living as the Delman’s ward had been strange at times, what with Lady Corrine’s determination to educate her, but it was the best part of her short life. She would be sorry to leave it.

*

The courtroom was built with massive stones and large windows too high above them for escape. Squirrel sat on a wooden bench next to the lawyer the Delmans had hired for her, not that he could do anything. Behind them a railing kept back the curious onlookers who buzzed with speculation about the girl who’d stolen the sword. She didn’t understand why half the court had turned out to see her sentencing. Everyone knew she would hang. Lady Corrine sat on a bench just behind the railing; Captain Delman was nowhere in sight. As the Captain of the Guard tasked with safeguarding the coronation sword he was probably in another cell in the Imperial Dungeons. Squirrel hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask. In front of them was an ornate wooden throne, carved with scenes from famous judgements.

The room suddenly went silent. Squirrel glanced back. The queen had entered. She was dressed in red and white robes for justice and mercy, and walked slowly to the throne. She turned when she reached it and the sword on her belt caught every eye before she sat and the trial began. The hilt was set with a blood-red ruby, an emerald, and two sapphires, each lined with pearls and diamonds. The sheath was likewise adorned with smaller gems and glittered in the sunlight. Even a small jewel would sell for enough to live on for a lifetime. The sword was the most magical object of the realm and though much of it was shrouded  in mystery there were things everyone knew. Only the rightful ruler could hold it without being burned and no monarch could be crowned without it.

The proceedings began. Squirrel listened to herself announced and accused as Sofia Delman, thief. The prosecution outlined how she had how she had stolen the sword, which she couldn’t help but pay attention to out of professional curiosity. The way the prosecution described it anyone could have snatched the sword. Her lawyer made arguments based on where Squirrel had told him she was when the sword was stolen (which was only a guess after all; no one knew when the sword had been taken) and there was much arguing. And then they wanted her story and they wanted her to tell it. So she did.

“I didn’t steal the sword. I only heard about the theft afterwards. It was reported late. The guard on duty hates Captain Delman and wanted to make trouble for him.” That at least was true. She’d heard the glee in his voice when he told the Captain about the theft two days late. She omitted how she’d overheard this conversation with her ear pressed to the back of a painting that covered the listening hole in the Captain’s study. So far she had counted six people who knew about it: the captain, his wife, his aide, two colonels, and herself. The captain didn’t know she had found it.

Even with the delay, Captain Delman had deduced the most likely thief, “The Captain found evidence that suggested Duke Orliff had orchestrated the theft to prevent the coronation, but he couldn’t accuse him in time to retrieve the sword. I had worked as a maid for the Duke once…” Here she left out that she had never been hired; she’d simply walked in and acted like she belonged so that she could learn the layout of the house. She had lived well for a month after that robbery. “…And I had stumbled across a likely spot where he might hide the sword. So I thought I might as well get it back myself.” It was the lest she could do for the Delmans who had given her everything.

Here she was interrupted and asked how she knew about this hiding spot and where it was. She said she found it while cleaning - true, but she neglected to mention that she had been looking for it - and that it was in the Duchesses’s sitting room. Really, it had been easy to sneak in, open the hiding spot and find the sword. The Duke had updated his security a little, but not enough. He was almost begging someone to steal the sword from him.

“So I took the sword. It burned…” too late she caught the frown from her own lawyer. Well, it wasn’t like she could hide the burns anyway. “I’d brought some materials to disguise the sword as a broom and that let me get it out of the house and down quite a few streets.” And then everything went wrong. She was out of practice on the streets and didn’t know routes of the city guards anymore or which streets were blocked off. Even with the sword’s disguise, it glimmered with magic, and was like a beacon in the night. The city guards had quickly spotted her and gave chase.

“I was taking it back to the vault when I was caught,” she finished. Everyone knew that part, there was no need to go into details.

The prosecution sneered in contempt, “And after that pack of lies-”

“Wait,” said the queen suddenly. Every eye turned towards her, “I want to see her hands.”

There was a pause and then a guard motioned for Squirrel to step forward. She held out her hands to the queen. There was the all evidence needed to convict her.

The queen studied her palms carefully and smiled, “These burns are healed.”

Squirrel kept her eyes down and bit back a comment that the burns were only mostly healed. Who was she to correct a queen?

The queen looked over the court, “There are many things not widely known about the sword. Of course it burns anyone who touches it. But if there are no malicious aims, the sword heals the burns as well. She was indeed returning the sword to its rightful place.”

The court exclaimed with all the shock that Squirrel felt. Of all the people to believe her, she’d never thought the queen would! She barely heard the order that she was free and walked back to the bench in a daze. Soon Lady Corrine was enfolding her again in brocade and weeping in relief. It was only when they were in the carriage going home that everything began to seem real. “Ah, Sofia, didn’t I tell you it would be alright? Once Duke Orliff and that guard who betrayed the Captain are dealt with we’ll have him home again. All of us, at home.”

Squirrel smiled and then a thought struck her, “You knew about the healing?”

Lady Corrine nodded, “I heard something once, long ago. And when I saw your hands yesterday I knew it must be true. No burn heals that quickly.”

*

It was good to be back in the Delman Mansion, in her room with the four poster bed and blazing fire. Lady Corrine fussed over her and ordered all her favorite foods and pressed her to eat far more than she actually could. She didn’t mind though. Captain Delman was home the next day, first on bail and then restored to his position when it was discovered the guard who hadn’t reported the theft on time was in Duke Orliff’s pay. He scolded Squirrel for finding and using the listening hole in his study and then dragged out every detail of her infiltration of the Duke’s house that she hadn’t been willing to admit to in court and declared that she would make a fine spy someday. Lady Corrine protested, but not for long as she diligently fussed over her husband and insisted he have another piece of cherry pie and maybe a day or week off from work to recover. The burns on her hands were fully healed long before Lady Corrine remembered Squirrel ought to be working on her education; it was the happiest time of Squirrel’s life.

Prompt: The sword on her belt made an impression.