The candles in the great bronze chandeliers of the King’s Bench had burned down to pools of animal fat upon their drip-pans by the time Hester Quill reached the concluding section of the careful audit. For seven unbroken hours, her dry, relentless voice had laid bare thirty-five years of systematic financial predation. Outside the high window row windows, the midnight wind off the river wharves rattled the leaded glass panes. He carried the damp chill of the autumn tides into the crowded courtroom.
Before the court dais stood thirty open iron-banded chests recovered from Vault Four, their contents categorized by eight independent court scribes into three stacks of parchment folios. Every stack was tied with red silk ribbons and approved under the court seal of the King’s Bench. The air in the Great Hall was heavy with the scent of beeswax, damp wool, and hundreds of years-old sheepskin. But no one moved to leave. Hundreds of working citizens from the Seven Communities sat wedged into the oak benches. He listened in disciplined, solemn attention.
Tomas Reed sat at the petitioner’s table beside Hester, resting his left arm against the oak table. He had unfastened the three-inch steel buckle of his calfskin brace by a single hole. He allowed the cool air of the hall to soothe the inflamed tendon across his wrist. His left forearm, marked by the jagged white furrow left by the mercenary crossbow bolt at the Bellwether water gate, held its steady position without tremor. He rhythmically…
