Chapter 18: The Midsummer Court

The Hall of Judgment at Highcastle Palace holds six hundred people, and by noon it held every one of them.

It had white marble, a vaulted roof, and gallery rails thick with court ladies in half-mourning.

The Crown Prince sat on the dais in a plain chair at the right of the empty throne.

Beside it, in a padded seat with a rug over his knees, sat the king.

He looked very small.

Corwin stood a pace behind the duke's left shoulder with his arm in a clean sling and his good hand behind his back.

On the opposite bench Lord Hadrian wore black, with a white rose pinned to his breast.

He looked like a man at the funeral of someone he had loved.

"You don't have to speak," Leander had said in the carriage, very low.

"I'll be called."

"They'll hang you."

"The man who took the coin might hang.

"I'm holding a ledger that says so."

Leander hadn't answered.

He'd only taken Corwin's good hand and held it until the wheels stopped.

The lawyer rose, thin in his black, and bowed to the dais.

"Your Highness, Your Majesty.

"This court is asked for one thing: the protection of a young man from himself."

He called the housekeeper first.

She came forward grey and shaking, with her apron wound in her fists.

She swore that on the morning of the ninth she had seen a mark on the butler's throat.

"A cut," she whispered.

"A small one.

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