Chapter 8: The Tribunal Yard

Captain Kang's hand was still on his sword.

"I can be at the Tribunal before they reach it," he said.

"And then they'll have you too."

"Let them try."

"Captain." Soyul caught his sleeve. "Where does the king walk in the mornings?"

He stared at her.

Then, slowly, he understood, and something almost like a grin went across his face.

"The archery ground," he said. "Every morning at the first bell. He shoots badly and blames the wind."

Soyul didn't stop to put on her good jacket.

The king stood on the archery ground in a plain blue robe with a bow in his hand.

Three eunuchs stood behind him holding arrows.

His last arrow was stuck in the grass a long way short of the target.

"The wind," he said, when he saw her.

"Majesty, will you come with me?"

He lowered the bow.

"Where?"

"To the State Tribunal. They've taken my maid for stealing a jade toggle from your great-uncle's clerk."

The king looked at her for a moment with his heavy-lidded eyes.

Then he handed the bow to a eunuch.

"I've never been to the State Tribunal," he said. "Is it nice?"

It wasn't.

The State Tribunal's yard was bare packed earth behind high grey walls, muddy from the night's rain.

A wooden stool stood in the middle of it with straps on the legs.

Dalrae was on her knees in the mud beside it with her hands tied behind her.

Her cheek was red where somebody had slapped it.

She was still swearing.

The clerk with the jade cicada stood over her with a paper.

Six Tribunal officers stood along the wall.

People had gathered at the gate to watch someone get beaten: a water seller, two porters, a woman with a baby.

"The maid has confessed," the clerk announced to the yard. "Not only to the theft."

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