The High Military Trial convened in the ancient marble annex beneath the Grand Assembly. There, seven ages of patrician chancellors had signed the royal breeding edicts that shaped the continent.
Behind the heavy, black-walnut court bench sat five trial judges: Grand Marshal Evander Sharpe head as Chief Judge. He was flanked by legal ministers from the Eurasian Coalition and the Pan-African Union.
In the prisoner’s dock, flanked by four armed Vanguard shock-troopers, sat seventy-two-year-old Reginald Vance.
He had been stripped of the purple velvet mantle that marked the Chancellor of the Northern Institutes. The heavy gold signet chain of House Vance had been unclasped from his neck, replaced by a simple pair of brushed-silver-steel magnetic binders. His silver hair, usually oiled and swept back in the severe patrician style, hung in thin, greasy strands across his forehead. His watery blue eyes stared down at the polished oak railing. His hands shook with the uncontrollable palsy of an old man whose empire had collapsed overnight.
The clerk struck the brass chime three times.
“The Trial calls Arthur Wright, Chief Beast-doctor Officer of the Commoner Vanguard Corps, to enter formal testimony,” the clerk announced.
The heavy bronze doors at the rear of the chamber swung open.
