The open wooden dais in the center of High Redoubt square was crowded with three hundred working veterans. Just then, the morning bell tolled. Behind the heavy walnut court bench sat High Bailiff Raymond Thorn. A grim, stone-faced judge who had served forty years enforcing crown writs on the frontier.
Sir Vane the Silver-Stitch strode up the timber steps, his silver-stitched velvet coat sparkling in the winter sun. He carried no dueling glove today. At his hip hung his twin Toledo dress swords, their gold-trimmed basket handles polished bright.
“Court guard Thorn,” Sir Vane announced, bowing with mocking elegance toward the bench. “I have come to record the default of the cart driver Tomas Reed. He has refused the challenge of arms, and by the chivalric customs of the March, he stands unsafe as an infamous slanderer.”
Tomas Reed stepped up the steps. He carried his ash-wood pack frame across one shoulder and a narrow metal tube of sheepskin thick parchment in his right hand. His face was weathered and calm, his patched wool coat buttoned to the chin.
Tomas laid the thick parchment before Bailiff Thorn. “I don’t default, Guard. Under King Alden’s Judicial Exemption Code of 114, Article 8, I enter my formal, sovereign refusal of private combat.”
