“You can’t ‘demand’ any particular sentence from a court,” put in Joachim quietly. “You know that. And we have not yet heard evidence of any capital offense that would require the death penalty.”
This stopped Dominic for a few seconds, and in the pause the duchess marched determinedly up to stand beside him. She was still bright red.
But her voice was firm. “May I address the court?”
“Please do.”
“Prince Dominic has made some accusations against me which I must deny at once,” she said clearly. Those watching were completely silent, listening. “Prince Ascelin and I did indeed pass last night in the same tent together.”
At this there was a faint murmur from the knights, which she ignored. “But our conduct was completely chaste! I am a duchess and the queen’s own cousin, and my standards of conduct are exactly the same whether camped rough during a hunt or entertaining elegantly in my own castle. For Prince Dominic to accuse me of acting in another way, in any way that would impugn my honor, is for me the grossest insult. Let me reassure him, and all the court, that if he had spent the night lying between us our relationship could not have been any purer.”
Dominic winced at this. “He still came into Yurt in disguise,” he said to her, “hoping to overcome your virtue, even if he hasn’t yet succeeded.”
Diana’s eyes were almost wild, in spite of the formality of her denial. It must be difficult being caught between fury toward Dominic and fury toward Nimrod. But her forthright nature did not fail her. “Concealing his true identity may have been a slight prevarication, but he did not come under completely false pretenses. I always knew perfectly well who he was.”
This caused a sudden stir, silenced at once when she continued. “He came as a hunter because he wanted to help me as a hunter. If he’d come as himself, he would have had to come as a recognized suitor for my hand.”
This certainly got everyone’s attention.
“And what’s wrong with that?” cried Dominic. “Do you discredit the possibility that anyone honorable could ask for your hand?”
“Not at all!” she replied haughtily. “But it was not a role he could play well. After all, I had rejected him five years ago.”
This actually silenced Dominic. It took me a few seconds to recover my own voice. “I would like summon the accused to testify for himself,” I then said.
Nimrod had been following my improvised legal hearings from just inside the Holy Grove. He looked toward Dominic, then back at me, but he made no move to emerge.
“Come, Prince Ascelin,” I said, still in my magically amplified voice. “The royal court is its own sanctuary.” I tried to remember the exact words I had once heard the king use. “I guarantee your safe-conduct. The knights of Yurt are under orders to kill on the spot anyone who tries to harm you while under the court’s summons.”
The knights all slapped their sword hilts ritually. Dominic had about five seconds in which to overrule my offer of safe-conduct. The knights would never have killed him, but once he let my statement stand, he would be bound by it.
He let the five seconds stand, and the following thirty. Nimrod came out of the grove.
He walked forward slowly, as though consciously controlling his strength, his head held high. “Let me confirm,” he said when standing before Joachim and me, “the purity of my relations with my lady the duchess.”
I was delighted to see with how much dignity the contestants stated their cases. Dominic, the duchess, and Prince Ascelin were all well used to court hearings. If I had had a group before me like the villagers King Haimeric had heard before his trip, there was no way I could have persuaded them that this muddy patch of ground under a sunny sky was a place for formality.
“I came to Yurt to try to catch the horned rabbits,” Nimrod continued. “I did indeed come under a false name, but only because I did not want to put the Duchess Diana under any sense of obligation to me.” He paused as though bracing himself, but when he went on his voice was still clear. “She had, as she has already told this court, rejected my proposals when I met her and spent a season courting her in the great City. It was an unexpected advantage of hunting the horned rabbits that I was able to renew our acquaintance on a friendly basis.” He shot her a quick glance as he finished speaking, but she was studiously not looking at him.
“But she’ll never have you now!” cried Dominic triumphantly. “She won’t love a coward!”
“You call me a coward for choosing not to kill you?”
“When the duchess’s honor was in question, your only interest was your own skin!”
Nimrod tossed back his hair. The change in him was quite startling. He was furious now himself, and his strength no longer seemed controlled. “No one impugns a prince’s courage like that and lives!”
“I don’t give much credit to your courage. You slipped out of the royal castle and carried out your attacks on my lady’s virtue where you thought I wouldn’t see you!”
“And I don’t give much credit to anything said by someone as hopelessly jealous as you are!”
“Come on!” the regent bellowed. “Come on, you overgrown sprat! Do you want to try your luck with your bare hands?” Nimrod dropped into a defensive pose as Dominic, his fists ready, began to advance.
Good. This was what I had been waiting for: a formal statement before everyone of what they were fighting over, followed by a new outbreak of unrestrained conflict. I hoped that the duchess would start beating Dominic again-or even Nimrod-but she stood to one side, frowning.
I didn’t have time to wait for her. “Stop!” I shouted in a bellow of my own. It echoed up and down the valley, until a series of louder and fainter voices all seemed to be crying Stop. “Stop your fighting, before I must ask the knights to restore the order of this court!”
They both stopped and looked at me.
“This quarrel is now almost inextricably confused,” I said with the best wizardly glare I could manage without shaggy eyebrows. “This quarrel has become an excuse for verbal abuse and for physical violence, which you know the king-and we as the king’s representatives-consider intolerable. If either one of you hoped that by utter confusion you would avoid a ruling against you, you are mistaken!”
I paused to give emphasis. “
For one second I caught Joachim’s eye. He was smiling.
“You will have to work out for yourselves,” I went on, “who has been accepted as a suitor and who rejected, who has impugned whose honor and who is a coward, but you will have to do it without violence!”
For almost a minute I didn’t think it would work. The valley itself seemed to be watching and waiting for their response. But both Dominic and Nimrod had dropped their fists, and at last Dominic said, “So what do you want us to do?”
I sent Joachim to get his Bible from his saddlebag, so that they could swear on it. The hermitage was closer, but I had no intention of bringing out the relic of the Holy Toe. Even a saint who was not normally cranky might well be irritated by today’s proceedings.
The three priests of the church of Saint Eusebius had started to confer together again, and Dominic went to join them. I wondered uneasily what the regent might have to say to them. For a brief moment, I wondered if it might also be possible to swear the hermit, the priests, the entrepreneurs, and even the saint to peace, but bringing in the supernatural was, I knew, beyond me.
Evrard came up beside me. “You continue to surprise me, Daimbert,” he said, which I supposed was a compliment.
Joachim returned with his Bible, and I had the unlikely triangle of Dominic, Nimrod, and Diana all swear to observe peace toward each other. They even managed to give each other the kiss of peace. I had rather hoped that Nimrod and the duchess might find this a way to break through the new coldness between them, but if so it was not evident.
“Now that this case has been concluded,” I said, “we as the king’s representatives will end this-”
Dominic interrupted me. “Wait. I’m still regent. There is another urgent case that needs royal judgment.”
Joachim and I looked at each other. Whatever Dominic wanted to do, I certainly hoped it did not involve me.
