King Roderick leaned forward from his dark rock throne. His hand reached out to touch the cold, snapped bronze pin lying on the red stone floor.
His fingertips traced the deep, curved gouges in the metal. The King had served thirty years in the Royal Navy in his youth. He knew the look of snapped metal under cable strain. He knew what happened when an anchor crank winch broke its pawl under a storm swell.
The King turned his cold, piercing eyes toward Horace Vane.
“Master Vane,” King Roderick said, his voice dropping into a register of terrifying royal quietness. “Did you authorize the substitution of willow pegs for iron tie-rods at the three-hundred-and-eighty-foot bed joint?”
Vane’s throat moved wildly. His hands trembled against his purple velvet robes. “Sire... Thirty years ago... The timber was seasoned... The treasury was short of bullion... The committee approved...”
“The committee approved a lie,” the King interrupted, his voice cutting like a broadsword. “And to preserve that lie, your clerks cut the mid-air ropes of court land-mappers hanging four hundred feet in the air.”
The King picked up the heavy gold signet ring of state from the velvet table beside him. He didn’t look at the Lord High judge. He didn’t look at the Duke of the High Ward.
