Chapter 10: The Duke's Price

The council hall was a long room with a long table and a hundred years of dust in the rafters.

Twenty lords sat in their carved chairs, and every one of them had come to see a girl hanged by her own family.

Aveline stood at the foot of the table in the green gown she had pulled back on at dawn, creased from the tower floor, with a guard on each side.

She had slept two hours in a tower and eaten nothing.

At the head of the table, in the king's empty chair, sat Torin.

He was presiding in his father's place.

His face was cold as the stone behind him, and he did not look at her once.

The Queen sat at his right, with the Chancellor behind her chair.

"We are met," said Lord Crale, "to consider the matter of Lady Perdita's fall."

"And the tea," a lord muttered.

"And the tea. I call the Duke of Varrick."

Her father rose from the end of the table.

He was in a clean coat, but his eyes were red-rimmed, and his hands shook on the edge of the wood.

He did not look at his daughter either.

"My lords," he said. "It grieves me to say it."

"Speak, Gareth," said the Queen kindly.

"My daughter has been raised in every comfort, with the finest tutors in Hallowgate."

"And she repaid us..."

His voice cracked.

"She has become violent. Spiteful. A danger to every lady she meets."

A murmur ran down the table.

"She struck me in my own house, the night of the banquet."

"That's a lie," Aveline said.

"Silence," said the Chancellor. "You will be heard."

"Further," said the Duke, rushing on.

"I ask this council to note that the House of Varrick disowns her, as of this morning."

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