The black-and-gold court carriage of Senior Justice Vance rumbled into High Redoubt at noon, with six mounted royal heralds carrying long silver trumpets. Justice Vance was seventy years old, with eyes like chipped slate and a reputation for incorruptibility that had scared frontier barons for three decades.
Vance entered the claims tent without ceremony. He didn’t sit upon the cushioned chair that apprentice Olla offered. He stood before the wagon bed, examining the three lead plates with his magnifying glass for twenty silent minutes.
He ran his gloved thumb over Danel’s arrow-cut header, then inspected Hester’s approved mulberry charcoal rubbings, checking the official seal stamps with an expert eye.
“This is a main field register,” Justice Vance said, his gravelly voice filling the tent. “It has greater evidentiary weight than every speech delivered in the capital for twenty years. Advocate Morrel has filed five petitions to have this hearing moved to a closed chamber in High Redoubt. He claims the commoners are mutinous.”
Tomas Reed stood before the judge, leaning his weight slightly onto his left heel to relieve the burning pressure in his right foot. “We’re not mutinous, Justice Vance. We’re the men who dug the ditch. We ask only for an open hearing where the lead can be read before the kingdom.”
