I Swore to Kill the Prince I Guard novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Bell Court

Bell Court is a round stone yard open to the sky, ringed with five tiers of benches for the peers of Aurelis.

For a century, lords have stood in its middle to hear the Crown's law.

The great bell hangs above the gate.

It was still shuddering on its chain when Evander and Piers came through that gate at a run.

Every head turned.

Two hundred peers sat in the grey light with their furs about their ears.

Lord Basil stood in the center on the worn flagstones, one hand on the rail of the regent's dais, in the middle of a sentence.

"...fled in the night, my lords, with the help of a confederate.

"A guilty man does not climb out of a cell."

Then he saw Evander, and his mouth closed, and for the first time in eight years there was no expression on his face at all.

Florian stood at the foot of the dais with his spectacles in his fist.

He saw Evander come in, and the color left his face, and then it came back all at once.

He did not run.

He only closed his eyes for the space of a breath and opened them.

Evander walked down the flagged aisle between the benches.

His wrists were raw.

He was in shirtsleeves with a prisoner's stubble, and the whole peerage of the realm was watching a man they had been told to hang.

"My lords," he said.

"I'm here to answer the charge."

"A confession," said Basil quickly.

"No."

Piers came up beside him and set a grey cloak down on the flagstones in front of the regent's chair.

He undid the knots as slowly as a conjurer.

"Sir Piers Fitzalan, of the Prince's Guard, to lay evidence before the Court," he said loudly.

"I'm rather surprised I'm allowed to."

"By the oldest law of the Court, you are," said Florian from the dais, and a murmur went along the benches, because it was true.

The cloak fell open.

The brass seal lay on the stones, with the little nick in the lion's leg.

Beside it lay twenty-two cards of wax, a stick of wax, and a brass pot.

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