At one o’clock that afternoon, following the formal adjournment of the appellate trial, Len Vey sat on the low granite coping of the outer tiered arena terrace, eating a crisp, yellow-green apple that Elsi Marr had brought up from the Orchard harvest.
The apple was small, firm, and tart, its skin bursting beneath his teeth with a clean, sharp spray of juice that washed the bitter taste of court thick parchment and charcoal ink from his mouth.
Beside him on the stone wall sat Ivara Quill and fourteen-year-old Tavi Rusk. Below them, dropping the broad, newly gravelled switchbacks toward the valley floor, the twelve hundred citizens of Rookvale were scattering in long, quiet ranks. They walked without haste, their voices carrying up on the mountain draft. Not in shouts of riotous celebration, but in the low, steady, conversational murmur of people who had witnessed an honest accounting and were now returning to their workshops, kitchens, and furrows.
Tavi kicked his heels against the stone stonework, tossing a rounded granite pebble into the dry gully below, watching it bounce down the scree until it came to rest against an alder root.
“No hangings,” Tavi remarked, his young brow furrowed with thoughtful, boyish skepticism. “The apprentice runners in the third ward had a pool on it, Len. Three boys bet two copper silver coins that Chancellor Morn would dance on a timber gibbet on the Guard peak before the bells rang three.”
