The heavy thick parchment leaves of King Alden’s ledger turned with a dry, stiff rustle that sounded like autumn leaves dragged across stone. Each leaf was an entire sheepskin, scraped smooth by long-dead monks and ruled with faint lead-point lines that held two hundred years of dark oak-ink. The smell of ancient birch tar, dry calfskin, and cedar preservative rose from the open pages. It mixed with the cold limestone dust of the Great Hall.
The chief clerk of the court, Master Jonathan Cole, dipped a long goose quill into a heavy square well of dark oak-ink. His hand moved across the court docket with clean, steady care, transcribing the Latin phrases of Arlen’s opening motion: Motio Pro Praerogativa Coronae. Behind the bar, forty commoner spectators leaned forward, the creak of the oak benches echoing softly in the cold cave of limestone arches. Above the high bench, the stained-glass window depicted the scales of justice balanced evenly between a crowned monarch and an unarmored plowman. An ancient visual proof carved when the first dynasty still remembered the price of bread.
Tomas Reed stood over the counsel table, his scarred left forearm resting flat against the edge of the oak board to steady the parchment. His thumb, broad and callused from cart hauling, held the fourth leaf down while three senior clerks of the King’s Bench leaned over the table, their brass magnifying lenses hovering two inches above the script. Behind them, two junior clerks recorded every stroke and annotation in…
