The outdoor session of the High Court trial was convened directly beneath the archway of the Low Sunder gate. There, the stone flags of the roadway were cleared of snow by the shovels of twenty valley drovers.
Judge Corin Pell sat behind the heavy oak frame stand table. It was flanked by two Crown scriveners whose quills scratched rhythmically across large folios of royal parchment.
Before the table stood Tomas Reed, Nessa Vale, and Master Sergeant Jarek Thorne.
Ten paces to the left, guarded by four Crown court guards with drawn steel broadswords, stood Senior Quartermaster Malcor Vance, his epaulets stripped from his shoulders, his silver badges of rank lying in a wooden tray on the clerk’s table.
A sudden rumble of heavy wheels echoed from the valley road.
A massive, four-horse traveling carriage built of black lacquered oak, emblazoned with the golden eagle of the Imperial General Staff, came clattering through the crowd of townspeople, escorted by six mounted cuirassiers in polished steel breastplates.
The carriage halted before the barrier. The door was thrown open by a liveried footman. An elderly officer stepped down onto the snow.
He was in his late sixties, broad-chested and florid-faced, with white whiskers combed out in the royal fashion. He wore the scarlet-and-gold gala uniform of an Inspector General of the War Ministry, his chest covered in a solid wall of gold campaign stars and diamond-crusted orders.
