Finding Her Magical King novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Hall

We reached Highcastle at noon, and the bell was still tolling.

Ivor had called ahead from the car, and the wolves were waiting at the service gate.

There were nine of them in the king's green, with their jackets open and their faces set.

None of them said a word to me.

They simply fell in around me, and we walked.

The Great Hall was full of black.

Lords and ladies stood shoulder to shoulder under the banners in mourning silk.

The air smelled of lilies.

At the far end of the hall the throne sat empty on its dais.

Lord Thrale stood beside it in a black coat, with a handkerchief in his fist.

He was speaking about the grief of a nation.

Then the doors swung open under the wolves' hands, and he stopped.

The whole hall turned to look at me.

I had washed the cell off my face in a motel sink.

I was wearing Maeve's grey cardigan and a pair of Ivor's gloves.

"My lord Chancellor," I said.

My voice carried farther than I had expected.

"My name is Sorrel Wickham."

"You hanged my mother and father on a letter you wrote yourself."

A murmur went through the hall.

Thrale did not flinch.

"The poor girl has been under great strain," he said, to the room.

"She was found with a witch's knot in the very crown."

"I took it out."

"She admits it."

"I took it out," I said again, "and I crowned him anyway."

Somebody near the front laughed, short and unkind, and was hushed.

I walked down the aisle.

The wolves walked with me, and the lords stepped back from us one by one.

I stopped in front of a very old man with a white beard and a judge's chain.

I had seen him on the bench in the yard eight years ago.

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