Risky Business

"Bring the accused forward to hear her sentence!" the judge cried, leaning over his perch to peer at the crowd gathered below. The bailiffs grabbed Manager Melissa Bulgakov and dragged her roughly to her feet. The chains around her wrists and ankles rattled loudly, echoing through the chamber. The peasant crowd beyond the barriers hushed expectantly.

"Manager Melissa Bulgakov of the Scravers Guild," the judge said, "you are found guilty of the crime of Republicanism."

A murmur went through the crowd but Melissa just smirked.

"Does the accused have anything to say for herself?" the judge said, eyes squinting at Melissa.

"Yeah, I do," Melissa said. "Can these brute-kissers let me go long enough to say it?"

The judge frowned and slowly nodded. "Release her." The bailiffs let her go and stepped away, ready to use their frap sticks at a moment’s notice.

"Thank you, your honor," Melissa began. "I came to Malignatius seeking only to imrpove the lives of the wretched, to provide some comfort to them in their toil. In this, I was only following the moral guide of my now-deceased confessor, Father Lophius of Madoc. He said ‘If there is but one person who shivers on a cold night, all of us are cold. Is there no one to place a blanket around a poor soul and thus warm all of our hearts?’ You see, your honor, I was simply trying to ease the burden of the freezing poor. I do not see how selling them blankets and parkas could possibly harm them. I especially cannot understand how such an act could promote Republican values!"

"Ah, but they were not simple blankets and cold-weather jackets, were they, Manager?" the judge replied. "They were tapestries depicting the labor unions of the Second Republic, in an art style which I believe is called New Emancipation? And those parkas? The very jackets of those union members of old, bearing patches, and phrases which promote insurrection! I quote: ‘Proud to Be 353.’ Referring, I believe, to a particular branch of the so-called labor union. This quote is followed by a picture of a man planting a flag into the back of a corporate leader, with the further quote ‘Thus Always to Bosses.’ Simple blankets? I think not."

"What?! I didn’t know any of that! I just sell the stuff!" Melissa said. "They were part of a bulk purchase on Manitou! I can’t read! If I knew what the damn things said, I would have dumped them in space!"

"Lack of literacy is no excuse. As a merchant, you have a responsibility, just as does a priest or a noble lord, to look out for the welfare of one’s flock. Your customers are your flock."

"But . . . this is ridiculous!"

"I’m going to be lenient with you, since you at least claim to follow the scriptures of the Church. Thus, you may choose your sentence: imprisonment or severe penance, to be chosen by the local Orthodox bishop. What shall it be?"

Melissa slumped and sighed. "The gulag or the rack, eh? It’s not the first time for either. Go ahead and give me the penance."

"Penance it is. Father?" He turned to look at a priest standing in the crowd, smiling an evil grin.

"Branding," the priest said. "I think it shall be branding."

"No!" Melissa yelled. "You can’t do that! It’ll ruin me! Nobody’s going to buy from a branded merchant!"

"Exactly the point, you guild scum . . ."

[From Merchants of the Jumpweb, p. 8]