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For No Miser’s Sake
By Kuliundheft
Part V As with the medical records, Vincent was extended a tacit permission to remain while the Council discussed their options, so he listened and tried not to pace. Winslow opened the debate with rough tones. “I suppose you’re all gonna tell me it’s not our way to give this man a good thumping for what he’s done.” “It isn’t,” Mary answered, but neither Father nor Edward offered verbal protest. “Rules can always be changed,” Winslow said. All four seemed to consider this, until Edward shook his head. “But it isn’t our way,” he said with clear reluctance. “We’d all feel better for it,” Winslow groused, but Vincent could see he was giving up the idea. Edward sighed. “Aye. But the question is, what should we do, not what would we like to do. Jacob?” Father roused himself with a little questioning hum before his expression focused. “Clearly, Mister Kessler cannot be allowed to remain among us.” Mary and Winslow nodded. Edward considered Brian, his lips pursed into a tight, thin line. He looked up at Vincent before he conceded with his own nod. “Then the only concern is how we will remove Mister Kessler and his children so that they cannot return,” Father said. “Don’t worry,” Brian put in. “We won’t.” The four Councilors seemed to have gone entirely deaf to his voice. “We can blindfold them,” Winslow said. “Take them out anywhere. Close off the entrance they know. Shouldn’t be that hard to reroute traffic once we get the word out. Give me a few hours, and I can have something worked out with Cullen. We can detain them that long, make sure we keep them in sight until we’re ready.” The other three nodded. “This isn’t right,” Vincent said. The Council looked up at him with surprise. Brian turned to him with dark suspicion. “Guess you want to have your own go at me, eh? Finish what you never got to do in front of the kiddies?” Vincent found himself also playing deaf, lest the memory of his own fury and what he had indeed come too close to doing distracted him from reason. “Jacqueline would not have brought Brian and his daughters here if the danger for them Above were not very real.” “Nevertheless,” Father answered, “she did break some of our most important rules, and look what’s come of it.” “And the Council will have to hold Jacqueline accountable. It was her decision to ignore our most important processes that left Brian and his daughters here Below with no knowledge of us or our ways. Brian was not made to understand this place as anything more than somewhere to hide.” “That doesn’t change the fact that he stabbed Mouse,” Winslow said. “Or that he tried to kill you.” “What motive can Brian possibly have had for what he did, except fear? If Jacqueline had handled this matter properly, that fear would have been minimized, or else removed altogether.” Edward leaned forward, his eyes bright and intelligent in his withering face. “You want us to blame Jackie for this, lad?” “I have no interest in blame.” Edward harrumphed, but said nothing. Vincent continued. “But we must understand the factors that led to the attack, and they are greater than Brian alone. We’ve established that he never meant to harm Mouse.” Father rubbed at his face. “As sorry as I am for Mouse’s injuries, I can accept that it was a tragic accident, and I can forgive Mister Kessler for that. What I cannot accept is the idea that we should continue to harbor the man who attempted to murder my son.” “Oh, shit,” Brian hissed, looking between Father and Vincent. Edward nodded at the topsider. “You don’t half do a thing, do you, mate?” “He saw me as a threat,” Vincent pressed. “His actions, as mistaken as they were, did spring from the best intentions.” Winslow and Edward exchanged frowning glances. “Murder can never come from good intentions!” Mary answered. Her condemnation silenced that line of arguments in Vincent’s mind; if he could not defend Brian to them, what chance did he have of defending himself? He, who had every reason to know better. He floundered for a moment and latched onto the more emotional point; it was sloppy, but it was what he could grasp then and there. “There is still the matter of the danger Above, not only for Brian himself, but for his daughters as well.” “Naturally the children may stay,” Mary said. Brian surged to his feet. “You’re not taking my girls from me!” Vincent laid a hand on his shoulder, and it was only when Brian startled and stared at him that he realized how automatic the gesture of comfort had been. He dropped his hand, but spoke soothingly. “No one is going to take your children from you. But they will have the option to stay, whatever decision gets made here today.” “Okay.” He nodded and looked back at the Council. “Okay. Just. Not that. Not Mel and Andy. They’re all I’ve got.” He sat back down. “I hate to be the one who says it, but Vincent does have a point,” Edward said. The other three looked at him disbelievingly. “Ach, come off it, lady and gents. This man isn’t the murdering kind. Jackie’s right about him being a decent sort of bloke. We can all see that. What’s the danger in letting him stay, now he’s done the worst he can do?” Father frowned, but Mary and Winslow looked uncertain. “We did offer him sanctuary, just this afternoon,” Winslow said. “Well, there you go.” Edward looked directly at Father. “Now, I’m going to say something we don’t like to hear, ‘specially as we’ve most of us watched Vincent grow from a mewling little bab. But three of four of us have lived topside more than not. We know the fear that gets into your head. The ideas you live by. Things we’ve all spent years unlearning. Give ‘em a face like our lad’s here, and assumptions get made. Doesn’t mean our chap Brian is a bad sort.” “You’re asking me to allow that Mister Kessler was justified in what he did, simply because Vincent is different from what he knows?” Father asked. “That flies in the face of everything we’ve tried to build down here, everything we believe.” “No one’s said anything about justified,” Winslow answered. “We all agree that none of this can be justified. But Edward’s right: what’s done is done. The danger’s past. The real question is, can we continue to offer these people sanctuary?” Father looked ready to argue, but Vincent spoke first. “Which of us has never acted in a way that is wholly unjustifiable? How many of our community have we welcomed, in spite of their mistakes, Above or Below? Forgiveness is what we’ve tried to build down here. Seeing the person and not the wealth, the poverty, the difference, or the mistake is what we believe.” Mary pursed her lips, and she looked ready to concede the point. Father’s frown deepened, but Vincent could see it was from facing a truth he didn’t like and not from outright disagreement. “Mister Kessler does sound genuinely sorry for what he’s done,” Mary ventured slowly. “And mercy has always been our most important ideal.” Father didn’t respond. “We’re all agreed that the danger is past,” Vincent pressed. “The attack was not random, nor was it a matter of greed or revenge or cruelty. It was perpetrated against a perceived threat and not likely to be repeated. How can we fault any man for acting in the best way that he knew at the time, when we ourselves strive to do the same by what we know?” “I see your argument,” said Father. “I really do. But Vincent, he would have killed you. He tried to kill you. You cannot ask me to forgive that.” Brian dropped his head, his own internal struggle evident on his face, but he said nothing. “We’re not asking you to forgive him, Father,” Winslow answered. “But we have to decide for what’s right, and sometimes that’s not what we feel.” Father considered this, but he turned his attention back to his son. “Vincent, I have to ask. After what this man has done, to Mouse, to you, why do you feel such a need to defend him?” Vincent might have said because this man is a stranger to our ways and cannot defend himself. He might have said because, if I can’t defend him, how could I ever hope to defend myself? He might have said because you and I both know what I am, even if you pretend not to. But these were all half-reasons, too tangential or personal. So he said, “Because the truth of the situation requires it. Brian is a man in need, not a poison to be extracted.” Father examined the faces of his fellow Councilors. When his gaze met Edward’s, the old man shook his head in consternation, but his tone carried a weary humor. “You’re the one who raised the boy on all those damned books, Jacob.” He lifted one hand in what might have been a dismissive wave, if his wrist hadn’t been too stiff to flick. “As usual, there’s no arguing with his reasoning.” Winslow snorted, but gave no sign of disagreeing. Mary conceded with a nod. Father sighed. “All right. Then we’ll vote. Those in favor of casting Mister Kessler out of the tunnels as we discussed earlier?” None of the four put up a hand; even Father remained still, if grim. He nodded. “It’s decided, then.” He addressed Brian. “Mister Kessler, in spite of your actions today, you and your daughters will continue to be offered sanctuary among us for the time being, provided that you can all refrain from throwing our community into further chaos or causing more grievous bodily harm to my people.” Brian nodded. “I would also recommend that the Council confines the three of you to the innermost chambers, where we can better keep watch.” Mary and Winslow gave their ascent; Edward remained silent, but the majority carried. Joshua and Dominic strode in then, the former carrying Brian’s knife. Vincent had to admit it looked a little smaller now that no one was wielding it against him, but it was still plenty to kill with. Winslow took it from Joshua and dismissed them both. He set the knife on a spare sheaf of paper; the blood on the blade still looked sticky and dark, with granules of sand glinting out of it. “I think we’ll hang on to this for right now,” Winslow said. Brian showed no interest in arguing. Father put his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Mister Kessler, I’d like you to understand that I don’t want you here, in my home. I hope that my son is right when he says that we’ll have no more trouble from you. But your fear and your ignorance have threatened us in ways that I don’t think you begin to understand. I do hold out a tenuous hope that you might learn something during your time with us. Please make the effort.” Brian accepted this with the silent nod of a man who knew better than to test his luck by speaking. “Good. Then we’re finished here?” No one had anything further to add. The other Councilors stood, but Father stopped Mary with a hand on her elbow. “Mary, I think Vincent and I could do with supper here tonight. Would you have someone bring something down?” “I’m not hungry,” Vincent protested. He had been intent on a solitary walk, deeper into the earth since he would not go Above, someplace cool and silent and devoid of prying eyes and expectations to be met. “I have to speak with the children about the lessons I’ve missed—” “The children all understand the circumstances. No, I need to have a look at that arm.” He nodded to Mary, who nodded back and disappeared. Vincent looked down at the bandage, and found that a wide blot of blood had leaked through the layers. He reflected that it was for the best that the Council had made its decision before Father had to sew another knife wound shut. Brian stood and looked lost. “My girls?” he asked the room at large. “I’ll take you,” Winslow said. Edward tottered out on Winslow’s arm, Brian in tow.
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