Clara Casewell, Attorney to the Villainess [Vol 1 Complete]

Princess Mikhaila waited until the whispers from the gallery quieted, then took a deep breath and squared her shoulders.

“Prince Sellem,” she said. “You shall tell the court what you saw on the night Anis Clovos died. Did a dinner truly happen?”

Sellem lifted his head off the carpet carefully, his previous defiance having been thoroughly wrung out by the Sultan-Basileus. He kept his eyes low, near the kadi’s feet.

“Esteemed kadi,” he began smoothly. “It is my honor and privilege to tell the court all I know. On the evening of the tenth of April, I dined at the office of the merchant Anis Clovos. There were three of us at the table—myself, the merchant, and an Arcadian who gave his name as Pedro Alcântara. He was older, with blue eyes and a long beard—after seeing a portrait of Pedro de Bragança, I’m confident that they are the same person.”

Sellem regularly glanced at the high panel while he spoke, and his delivery was straightforward, with no flourish or unnecessary detail like Secondos’s desperate ornamentation.

“Pedro arrived with food from the evening market, which he distributed to each of us. After we finished eating, I took my leave. The merchant and the Arcadian remained behind to discuss their affairs, and Anis seemed perfectly well, insofar as I could tell when I departed.”

Whether he was doing it on purpose or just acting out of fear, it was certainly an effective strategy to not give the defense anything to grab onto.

But to Clara, that only made the things he chose not to mention all the more interesting.

“And what of the drinks, Your Imperial Highness?” she asked.

“Anis brewed us coffee. The Arcadian greatly enjoyed it, to my surprise.”

A convenient answer. If the victim himself brewed the coffee, it stood to reason that the coffee wasn’t what killed him, which shut down any potential questions about its preparation.

It was Justan who spoke next. “Brother, are you certain that the Arcadian was the one who distributed the food?”

Sellem nodded. “Without a doubt. After all, neither I nor Anis would have bothered with that kind of cuisine—we could have just had a servant prepare a proper meal. The Arcadian was the one who wanted to indulge in ‘local specialties’, as he put it.”

That kind of whimsy does sound a bit like Pedro, to be honest.

“Your Imperial Highness.” Clara lowered her head, showing deference before continuing. “Forgive my confusion, but I find myself returning to the same question that has been bothering me since yesterday. If you indeed witnessed all of this firsthand, why did you not appear before this court to say so?”

Sellem turned to her, and his brow twisted. “A prince does not owe such explanations to a foreign—” He flicked his eyes to the high panel and coughed. “As I said earlier, I am a busy man, and I administer matters of considerable weight at the Imperial Treasury. A merchant’s poisoning seemed to me a minor affair, beneath the time of one of the blood, so I judged that my testimony was not required.” He inclined his head toward the dais. “Of course, I see now that I erred. The court’s dignity deserved better, and I should have handed the day’s affairs to Recep Bey and come in person. I offer my deepest apologies to the esteemed kadi.”

Recep Bey?

“I heard your earlier explanation, Your Imperial Highness, and I indeed thank you for expanding on it. You have shared some precious information,” said Clara, fully meaning it. “But I have to say this does not satisfy me. You claim this trial is a ‘minor affair’ because the victim is a simple merchant, yet you know the accused is a foreign high noble, and you were part of the welcoming party that received House de Bragança’s fleet. A capable imperial administrator, as you no doubt are, would be more than aware of the political implications of that. So, with respect, I simply do not believe that your choice to be absent was because you judged this trial unimportant.”

“İtiraz.” Justan raised his hand, palm to the dais, and the clerk’s staff struck once in answer. “Esteemed kadi, the friend of the accused has wandered too far afield. Rather than ask about the dinner, she now questions my brother’s conduct, his motives, his very honor, when all that matters is what took place that night.” He turned to Clara. “Are you now accusing the imperial blood of some wrongdoing?”

Before Clara could answer—before she could even decide whether answering at all was wise—Warren rose beside her.

“Of course not, honored accuser. My colleague made no claims of wrongdoing on His Imperial Highness’s part,” he said, in that tone of his that was so infuriating when it was directed at you but now felt oddly reassuring. “She seeks only to understand why a witness of such standing chose such a curious method of giving testimony—a method that has already cost this court a day and a man ten lashings. That is a question of simple reason, freely invited by the conduct itself.”

Princess Mikhaila’s eyes bounced between the two enclosures. “So,” she said slowly, “nobody is accusing anybody. We are only asking questions. Is that right?”

“That is right, esteemed kadi,” said Clara. “We only want to understand the reasons behind His Imperial Highness’s actions.”

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“Hmm. Prince Sellem has already explained himself, and your concerns with his explanation are noted.” The kadi looked up at the high panel, then quickly down again, as if checking whether the answer had pleased the silence behind it. “Unless you have something else you want to say about this, I think the next questions should focus on that night, and not on yesterday.”

Even though Clara wanted to press further on this topic, she couldn’t help a flicker of admiration. Despite the kadi’s age and clear nervousness, the girl had effortlessly shelved a contentious issue in a way that allowed no retort but gave her leeway to consider it later.

“Thank you, esteemed kadi,” said Justan. “And on that point, I have some questions of my own.”

Wait, he has questions? I would’ve thought he’d want to get past this testimony as quickly as possible, and that I was going to be the one who’d have to ask the questions.

Justan turned to face his brother fully, his hands behind his back. “When the three of you sat at that table that night, what did you discuss? You have told us that the merchant and the Arcadian remained behind to speak of their affairs. But before you took your leave, what words passed between you and them?”

Sellem’s frown loosened a fraction now that the questions came from his own blood. “Trade, Brother. Spices, principally—the Arcadian fancied himself a man of the eastern markets. He asked about prices, trade routes, which houses dealt in saffron and which in pepper. Anis was glad to indulge him, and it was an ordinary conversation between men of commerce.”

“Men of commerce, you say,” Justan repeated, sharpening his tone. Then he turned to the kadi. “Esteemed kadi, as grateful as I am for our brother’s testimony, which I trust the court finds more reliable than yesterday’s, there is something more to say here. A delicate matter, which Prince Sellem could not have known as he sat at that table, for I uncovered it only yesterday, after an extensive investigation.”

Wait, it can’t be…

Justan let the silence stretch, and Clara clasped her hands tighter.

“Anis Clovos was a slaver.”

The silence broke. Gasps and whispers came from the gallery, and Warren glanced cautiously at Clara.

Princess Mikhaila’s mouth fell open. “A—a slaver? But that’s forbidden. And wrong. Grandfather outlawed it. The treaty. Everyone knows the treaty.”

“Indeed it is forbidden, esteemed kadi,” said Justan. “And I, of course, agree that it is disturbing. Which is precisely why the discovery is grave. After the proceedings yesterday, I spent quite some time reflecting on the questions posed by the friends of the accused, and decided to further investigate the victim. In his office, I found records which, while superficially referring to the trade of common goods, concealed a dark truth: Anis Clovos fed the Queen of Cities her spices with one hand and trafficked in stolen lives with the other.”

So he found out, too. Clara tried her best to keep her face still, but her pulse rose. Or he always knew, and chose this hour to reveal it so he could frame it in a way that benefits his case. After all, a prince wouldn’t air the Empire’s shame on a whim, not before Duchess de Bragança in the gallery and the Sultan-Basileus up high.

Which means Justan has decided keeping the embarrassing truth concealed is worth less than Pedro’s conviction. Maybe he thinks the prestige of standing up to Arcadia will cement his position in the succession race.

“Anis, a slaver?!” Sellem’s face went red with outrage. “That is disgraceful! I broke bread at his table! Had I the faintest knowledge of such filth, I would have dragged him before Father myself!”

Clara observed him. The shock was clean, but did it have the same genuine emotion Sellem had shown earlier? And would a man so genuinely blindsided arrive at ‘I’d have dragged him before Father myself’ in the same breath he finds out the truth?

“You knew him as the Empire knew him, Brother,” said Justan, and there was almost warmth in it. “A merchant of standing. Deception was part of his craft—and I can assure you that we shall see whatever remains of his operation dismantled, and all of his associates punished. But I ask the court to consider what this means for the question that has so vexed the friends of the accused.”

Here it comes.

“Yesterday they asked why a foreign lord of such wealth as Pedro de Bragança would trouble himself to murder a mere spice merchant. They said that there was no reason for a man of his station to come all this way and kill a stranger.” Justan let his gaze drift unhurriedly to Clara, then he raised his palm to her. “But Pedro de Bragança is no stranger to slavers, is he? His is the house whose armada shelled this very coast. The house that forced abolition down the Empire’s throat at cannon-point, whose name was built on the breaking of the trade, and whose wealth was built on the new markets that it opened.”

He spread his arms wide, as he had on the deck of the Esperança.

“So a lord of that house comes to Istantinople in secret, then seeks out a man and shares his table—a man he, perhaps, knew full well to be a slaver while the rest of us did not. After all, who can say what the Veiled Keys might have informed him of, as they continue their illegal operations in the Empire? And by the next morning, the slaver lies poisoned at his desk. Quite a coincidence, to say the least.”

Justan gave a solemn bow to the kadi. “The defense wished for a motive, and I fear I have found them one.”

Damn it. I can’t deny he makes it sound convincing.

The hall held its breath, and several heads turned to the carved panel high above the dais.

But there was no response.

They had to move past this fast—the worst thing a lawyer could do when cornered was to let the other side keep its momentum.

“A fine motive,” said Warren, evidently having come to the same conclusion. “If we accept that the man at the table was Pedro de Bragança—which has not been confirmed—and if we further accept that he knew what you say even the Empire’s authorities did not know. That is a great deal of ifs on which to hang a conviction, honored accuser. From one prosecutor to another.”

Clara nodded in agreement, then turned to Sellem. “Indeed. But I’ll set those issues aside for a moment, as I, too, have further questions for His Imperial Highness, Prince Sellem.”

Sellem narrowed his eyes. “What is it now?”

“You are a son of the Sultan-Basileus. An administrator of the Imperial Treasury. Anis Clovos, by your own account and your brother’s, was a spice merchant—a prosperous one, to be sure, but a merchant all the same. Why was a prince of the blood sharing supper in a merchant’s office?”

“There is nothing untoward or surprising about a steward of the Empire’s coin sharing a table with the men who furnish its treasury. I dine with many merchants on many occasions,” Sellem answered. “I make it a habit to know those whose commerce sustains the realm, to take their measure, and to learn the currents of trade before they appear in some clerk’s ledger.”

Clara smiled.

Alright, Lord Pedro, you win. I’ll play your game. Here goes.

“A clerk's ledger? Funny you’d mention that.”