Chapter 11: The Hearing

Sixty Council members turned to look at me.

I put down my napkin and stood.

"Your Majesty, may I answer my father?"

"The Council's law lets the named person answer," Corwin said. "Go on."

Father's glass hung in the air.

"Councilor Ashworth says I am unwell," I said. "He may be right that I have not shifted."

"I have asked the Registrar to bring something that I think is better evidence of who is unwell."

The gray man from the wedding stepped from the wall with a leather folder.

He laid two pages side by side on the long table in front of the Council.

One was the Registry's decline. The other was a sheet that I had signed at the King's desk two nights before.

"Two signatures," I said. "Both say Linnet Ashworth. One of them is mine."

"Look at the A in Ashworth."

A white-haired Councilor at the head of the table bent over the pages.

"They are not the same hand," he said slowly.

"What is this?" Father said. "A forgery trial at my own dinner?"

"It's a decline from the Mate Rite, six years ago," I said. "Sent over my name, to the Crown."

"I never wrote it."

A murmur ran along the table.

"The Rite named a match," Corwin said. "The match was declined. I accepted that for six years."

He did not look at Father.

"I would like to know who signed the decline."

"She did," Father said.

His voice was loud and flat.

"She was twenty-one, and silly about the engagement. She didn't want the Crown's attention. She signed it in my study with me standing there."

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