The Great Hall of Justice was the ancient, limestone heart of Bellwether. A huge Norman-arched basilica built two hundred years earlier, whose soaring vaulted ceiling was carried by twelve huge eight-sided piers of polished quarry dark rock. At the eastern apse, raised six feet above the flat stone slabs upon a dais of red stone, sat the High judge’s bench, covered in heavy crimson velvet stitched with the golden wheat-pulley wheels and iron towers of the kingdom.
On the high woolsack sat Lord Chancellor Alistair Vane, wearing his long ermine-trimmed robe of state, his ancient, high-born face framed by a heavy powdered periwig. Flanking him were the two Chief Judges of the Sovereign Assizes and the Master of the Rolls, their leather-bound registers open before them.
In the prisoner’s dock to the left. It was surrounded by eight spear guards in full steel breastplates, sat Director Tovin Crane and four senior directors of the Smelters’ Cartel. They were stripped of their furs and jewels. Their wrists joined by was heavy forged-iron fetters that rested upon the oak rail.
And filling the gallery—standing five deep along the aisles and packed shoulder-to-shoulder behind the brass bar of the court—were the three hundred casters.
