The Petition of Edwin Marsh – Part 2: Recess

The service ran by the clock, as the verdict said. For an hour he sat on the plain stool in the Justiciar's chambers and spoke only when asked. She sat at her desk with a pile of papers and did not look at him for forty minutes. The clock ticked. The fire murmured. Every half hour she raised her eyes and asked, "Does the schoolmaster wish to continue?" and he said, "I do, Your Excellency," and each time it was true.

At eight she set down her pen, and stood, and the Court seemed to gather round her.

"The fine."

He counted out six hundred wooden crowns into the tray, one at a time, aloud. It took a quarter of an hour, and it was the most peaceful quarter of an hour he had spent in a year.

"The correction."

He knelt on the rug. The cane was a plain rattan, and she used it within the count he had chosen himself, twenty strokes, each exact and brief, each followed by his own voice, one, Your Excellency, thank you. At the tenth she stopped. "Does the schoolmaster wish to continue?" "Yes." "Do you want me to stop?" "No." "Then we will finish." She finished. She put the cane down and put a hand on his head and left it there.

"The mercy of the Court," said Beatrix, quietly.

She drew him up from the rug, and sat in the armchair by the fire, and pulled him down to sit at her feet with his head against her knee. For a long time she stroked his hair and said nothing at all. The fire burned low. The clock ticked. Somewhere in the house a door closed.

"You wrote that you forgot that service was a gift."

"Yes, Your Excellency."

"I would like to give you something in return." She rested her hand on his shoulder. "You have done everything the Court asked, honestly and without complaint. You may take pride in that."

His shoulders shook, then, quietly, and she held him through it, and the Justiciar was nowhere to be seen.

At midnight she spoke the word.

"Recess," said Beatrix, softly.

She took off her glasses and let down her grey-streaked hair and sat on the rug beside him in her old cardigan.

"How are you?"

"Forgiven," said Edwin, with a wondering laugh. "Which I did not expect, and did not know I needed."

"It was never in question." She kissed his forehead. "You were a model petitioner."

"May I petition again?"

"Whenever you wish," said Beatrix. "The Court is always open to the honest."

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