The open timber check barn at Checkpoint Three was transformed into a court of sovereign judgment. Behind the long table sat Lord Justice Vane. He was flanked by two Royal Circuit Clerks and six armed Lancers with drawn broadswords. Before the bench stood the prisoners’ dock, an enclosure of heavy cart driver’s hurdles guarded by Sile Rook and Bram.
Inside the dock stood Baron Orric Kray and Warden Malor, brought down under heavy guard from the high estates. Kray was a man of fifty, thick-set, with a florid face framed by a curled silver wig and dressed in a doublet of gold-stitched black velvet. Even in chains, his eyes burned with high-born arrogance.
“This proceeding is a farce!” Baron Kray roared, his voice shaking with fury as he rattled his iron wrist cuffs against the rail. “I’m a Peer of the Realm, Lord of the Southern Marches, and Warden of the High Passes! Under the Emergency Pestilence Promise of Year 15, the Crown granted the Border Barons total discretionary power over sanitary holding! No itinerant ditch-porter and no traveling circuit judge has turf to audit my administration! I demand an immediate escort to the capital!”
Lord Justice Vane didn’t even raise his voice. He adjusted a sheet of parchment with his thumb, his gaze leveling at the Baron like a loaded crossbow.
