Chương 230: Chapter 251: Hammers

Everything comes down to preparation. I've been told that I don't give myself enough credit for how well I improvise in the moment, but I contend that even if that is true, that preparation and forethought are always paramount. The better you're prepared, the more ways you can improvise a good outcome. It's all about giving yourself the tools, right? Well, not in this case. I use that specific turn of phrase because today I'm giving other people tools. Lots of them.

An hour before the official start of Day 2, I'm out in front of the building again. I've got my cousins with me because as soon as I explained my plan Bruce insisted on taking part and Petty insisted on keeping an eye on him. For all that Petunia seems to earnestly dislike being near trouble or disorder, she spends more time like that than she would like because she refuses to let our cousin go unsupervised.

This is our trio: I generate shenanigans, Bruce participates so he's close enough to snark and remark, and Petunia participates so that things only ever go slightly out of control. We're standing at the entrance to the stadium tribunal, right next to the front doors. I have a decent-sized contingent of journalists in front of me, a good healthy mix of reliable reporters, unpredictable investigators, wild-card writers and sensationalist stringers. They pepper me with questions and I salt them with mysteries.

But what is not mystifying here is whether I'm making big moves today. We're handing out hammers. I have conjured up a spiffy booth piled high with hammers, inscribed with my name and today's date. Not a carpenter's hammer, these are ball-peen, with a hooked claw. This is a tool, sure. But it is also the tool most easily converted into a very serious weapon of vandalism or assault. We're handing out thousands of them.

Zhudten always has more lumber than it can deal with, and I've got a robot foundry that can take custom orders. The crafting and shaping is the hard part, the time-consuming stuff that can rack up some real expense. Unless you're a sorcerer who works both oak and steel, and you can turn ingots and logs into finished products in mere minutes. The finishing touch is a sign thirty feet long and five feet high: "WE'RE BUILDING SOMETHING".

See, that's the thematic hook that justifies handing out construction tools to all the spectators. We're encouraging attendance! We're offering promotional giveaways for a sympathetic audience! We're also arming thousands of people so that the powers-that-be feel a little more powerless-that-was. My reputation for explosions and disappearances is not enough, I need the courts to be afraid. And it's easier to make them afraid of riots. The courts have always been afraid of riots. They're used to it.

Much easier than trying to teach them to be afraid of me from square one. If I walk in there and a dozen magisters leap out of the alcoves and surround me with sorcery-nullifying wards, they're not going to be afraid of my reprisals. Unless I can shout loud enough, get mad enough, and tap into the simmering anger that comes with any large-scale government corruption.

Having the essence of the lion would help, but I think I've spent enough time being mad and helpless to do anything about it, and that's what really matters. After all, I'm the one that knows how closely Hearstcliff is balanced on a violent riot already. All I'd be doing is bringing it a couple years early. Bruce is having a grand time handing hammers to anyone walking in, encouraging them to "keep an open mind when and where you use this", or telling them "you'll know the right time".

Petunia keeps telling him to be less obvious, but she's not trying real hard. I think she might want good seats for some mayhem too. The reporters by my side are really focusing on the hammer thing. Most of them are trying to find different ways to trick me into saying "it's so well-armed anarchy breaks out and smashes my enemies to bloody death". I'm good at staying on message.

"I want the world to understand my purpose. This is a constructive endeavor, we're building a future. This is about putting power in the hands of the people who need it most. This is about leverage and putting the right tools in the right place. We're going to create something better, even if that scares the people who have dedicated their careers to making sure that nothing better can be possible. We've got the strength, and the tools, and the numbers. We've got the will, and the resources."

"You've got a fuckoff huge wagon full of kneecap hammers and lots of angry citizens," translated one of the tabloid reporters who I'm really learning to like. He's got my number and he's calling me out, while the more respectable reporters are all pretending to take me at my word.

"I'm sure I didn't hear a word you just said so I won't be able to confirm or deny," I said smoothly.

"Now, let's talk about witness testimony-" By the time the Right Honorable Milliaw Gloudas arrived to declare that court was in session, the air was humming and the ground was vibrating with the suppressed energy and the thrum of thousands of overlapping conversations. Sure, maybe I will have to improvise today. But when it happens, I've got a lot of tools I can use. The judge took her place at the bench and banged her gavel twice. About a thousand onlookers banged their hammers back at her, one-two.

I did not tell them to do that, but that's either spontaneous responses or Bruce got up to something while my back was turned. Maybe I get a little suspicious just because he looks too much like Nathan. Or, I get suspicious because he really is kind of a little shit. My dress today is just as bold and striking as before, certain that it can be seen and recognized from any seat in the house. Stark white, pure red, as bold as I can get them.

It's the same dress as yesterday, actually, just cut into different patterns. Instead of a spiral swirl, I have reordered those fabrics into harlequin diamonds, to make sure I'm still the most interesting visual contrast on stage. But, it was not even a contest. Counselor Nuur has refused to try to dress for flair, and has returned wearing somber and respectable garb. I would be disappointed if it did not work to my advantage.

When I was first introduced to Hearstcliff lawyering, I was told that this job is just basically an entertainer's position, and that big drama means more than having the law or precedent on your side. My take on it at the time was that if you threw around enough drama and human interest you'd win your case. What I did not understand was that all of it is just drama and human interest to distract from the fact that the verdict is always settled before we ever get started. Stolen novel; please report.

But I still think my method has merit. And since I am, in a sense, getting into the business of politics, it makes sense for me to try to muster as much public appeal as possible.

"As our first matter of order is to review the opening motions and which ones have been sustained or overruled, we shall begin at this time," the judge said. She granted Nuur's motion that I am not allowed to call witnesses from the royal family, since they are far too important for a case heard in the deputy commerce court. She overruled my motion that the magisters cannot bring staffs to the courtroom.

She granted Nuur's motion that I am not to draw correlations between the royal security force and the magister's guild, since those positions are obviously unrelated. She overruled my motion that the magisters cannot bring staffs to the courtroom. She granted Nuur's motion that I am not to mention anyone's dueling records even if they are publicly accessible. She overruled my motion that the magisters cannot bring staffs to the courtroom. I carefully thumped my heel down twice on the stage.

It was a very small, very still motion, nobody would even know that I had moved. But the steel base of my heel hit twice, bang-bang. It was not words, but it was a deliberately-created sound, and it echoed out through the stadium. She granted Nuur's motion that I am not to call any witnesses to the state of the royal princess's crime scene during my birthday party reveal. She overruled my motion that the magisters cannot bring staffs to the courtroom. My heel thumped down, bang-bang.

She granted Nuur's motion that I am not to mention House Aumerje by name or by insinuation during any of my arguments. She overruled my motion that the magisters cannot bring staffs to the courtroom. Bang-bang. The sound had more resonance, others were joining in. She granted Nuur's motion that I am not to employ any sorcery to interfere with other court officials or the prosecuting attorney. She overruled my motion that the magisters cannot bring staffs to the courtroom. BANG-BANG.

The noise reverberated, hundreds of hammers all striking in time. The judge hesitated, looking around. She cleared her throat, and made her next rulings. They were predictable. BANG-BANG. Louder again, and I could pick up a tone to it, an edge. Angry. After twenty motions, the noise was really getting loud. A whole stadium staring, glaring holes in the judge. Another ten, and there was a new undercurrent of noise, in between the banging, in between the motions.

It was the sound of a disgruntled crowd that was getting ready to take matters into their own hands. I cleared my throat, cracked my knuckles, stretched out my neck. There was a thrum in the air, expectant. The sound a crowd deciding whether it was a gathering or a mob. Milliaw Gloudas granted Nuur's motion that I am not to open any portals within the courtroom floor... and granted my motion that no magister was to enter or approach the courtroom floor with a staff. A whole building sighed in relief.

It's early in the morning still, and the smallest possible measure of justice has been seen. Teilur Nuur looked like she'd bitten into an apple and found half a worm in it, and she went to her assistants to start whirling up a flood of new notes and pages and motions, re-strategizing as hard as they could. It all comes down to preparation, after all. We sat down to lunch at the pub. We were surrounded by people that had kneecap- I mean, ballpeen hammers.

Shoved through a belt, stretching out a pocket, or just resting on the table next to them. All of them engraved with my name and the date. Honestly, not even the weirdest stadium giveaway I'd heard of. Back home, major-league baseball has some weird traditions. I was glad to see that neither Bruce nor Petty seemed particularly uncomfortable that everyone else eating at this establishment appears to be either rather poor, or very poor. They were much more interested in the particulars of the case.

Bruce was shaking his head.

"You took a beating out there, Natalie. It was hard to watch."

"What? Nah, it's fine," I told him.

"Everything's under control." I had ordered the special, which was a saucer-sized dome of dense tear-bread that was full of little bubbles of melty cheese and steaming minced meats. I cut into it and savored the smells coming off of it. Petunia was not going to let me off easy.

"The hammer thing was supposed to be your big push. It was supposed to give you everything you need. But I was listening and tallying. This is not a winnable case!" She seemed disappointed in me. And annoyed. And the more unconcerned and nonchalant I acted the more distraught she seemed to get.

"Hold up," I said.

"Petty, you have to know that I'm not minimizing the danger here. You've seen me act flippant about perceived danger before, and it was only ever just perceived. I don't have nearly enough self-possession to act unfazed if something can really go wrong. I panic and run in circles and I don't calm down until I've planned my perfect answer. We're fine here, don't worry."

"First of all," she said, waving a steak fry at me like a scolding finger, "you are frequently wrong about the actual degree of danger and risk. Secondly, I am seeing you act unconcerned and nonchalant, and you're going into this trial with your hands tied, hobbled and blindfolded! You're currently under more gag orders than a novelty practical-joke factory. You stood there like it did not matter that your case was becoming completely unwinnable."

"What?" I scoffed.

"Pssshaw. Not nearly. They quibbled over every point that I'm not worried about. They're focusing on the timeline, that one contract was signed earlier than the other. And they're trying to shore up the discrepancy that they are using definitions from different jurisdictions that are otherwise incompatible. Whatever. The main thing they're aiming for is to keep me from disparaging or besmirching the reputations of these institutions that are arrayed against me, the royals, the Aumerje, the guild, the college.

But they didn't even seriously consider the one thing that actually matters."

"Which would be?" she prompted me impatiently.

"A venue change," Bruce interrupted.

"What?" she said.

"Yeah," I said. Bruce shrugged.

"Well, what else could it be? Cousin Nat is not worried about how corrupt the judge is. So, she knows that this judge won't be deciding the case. She's not flinching any time they restrict what she can say about the magisters, the guild, the college, the inquisitor, the royals, the Freckentops, the Aumerje, the prosecutor, the law itself, the party, the security team, the assault... so she's not going to talk about any of that." He looked up from his coffee.

"Petunia. Do come on, you know Cousin Natalie well enough to know that she always either layers contingencies so densely you can suffocate on them, or she just pins every hope she has on exactly one plan with exactly one outcome. She either throws a hundred schemes that have a chance, or a single scheme that she thinks is unbeatable. If she's wrong she bemoans her bad luck, if she is right she congratulates her plan. She is quite consistent about this."

"Screw you Bruce. But yes, it's a venue change."

"But their opening motions make it fully impossible for you to fight back against the magisters, the inquisitor, the house, anyone! You've got nothing you can do!" Petunia protested.

"So," Bruce said, musing aloud as he stared at me.

"She's not planning to contest against any of them."

"Quite true," I said, winking.

"I'm going after Nathan."