The lengthy walk to the banqueting hall passed in silence, led by a different butler from the one who had guided them earlier. Brother Pelter followed the man, then Glass, with the two guards bringing up the rear, clanking. Glass turned to inspect Sera and Melkir over her shoulder, both of them resplendent in the full regalia of Inquisition enforcers. A momentary pang of sympathy ran through her. The pair’s duties today would likely prove more onerous than either of them suspected. She hoped them up to the task and fast in their loyalty to the office they held. All had important roles to play today, be they abbess, inquisitor, or humble guard. Especially the three senior inquisitors, who had gone ahead to oversee the setting up of the courtroom in the middle reception chamber adjoining the banqueting hall.
Soon they began to hear the sounds of distant revelry. Sherzal’s extravagantly costumed house servants waited by each door they passed. Glass’s nerves began to sing as tension rose through her. She became acutely aware that she had worn the same habit for the best part of the last week, not even removing it to sleep. Opportunities to bathe had been severely limited. She missed the convent, every part of it, but the bathhouse most of all. Perhaps Pelter had planned that she should arrive stinking and that the high and mighty should wrinkle their powdered noses at the evident rankness of her offence.
A small crowd of lesser guests had already assembled in the newly instated courtroom by the time Glass arrived. Regol and Darla were among those standing to watch the abbess take her position before the court. Among the small sea of faces Darla’s stood out both for being a head above everyone else’s and for being dark with suppressed fury. Glass felt for the girl. Anyone who wore their emotions so openly was at a great disadvantage in every game that mattered beneath such a roof.
Glass set her chained hands upon the rail before her, and as she made contact with the wood a small tremor ran through her fingertips. She felt it in the soles of her feet too, as if some hefty statue had toppled in an adjoining room, or the mountain had shrugged its shoulders to slough off some huge weight of stone. Nobody else seemed to notice it.
Sherzal and the lords of the Sis kept the Inquisition waiting until well past midnight. Glass listened to the strains of music escaping the great doors to the banqueting hall, while the aroma of roasted meat reached out to rumble her stomach, waking her hunger despite her nerves.
A great fireplace stood behind her, stoked to a blaze, making her sweat, her habit becoming damp around the armpits. She imagined that from where the audience stood the flames would frame her, rising above her head, an intimation of things to come when Sherzal had her way.
A change in the tone of the chatter from beyond the doors heralded the start of proceedings. A minute later servants, three to a door, pushed the huge portals wide, and Sherzal emerged at the head of a broad column of lords, Tacsis behind her left shoulder, Jotsis behind the right, others of the great houses fanning out to either side, anxious to be in the first row.
Sherzal had changed out of her blacks into a gown of dazzling white. Silks from distant Hrenamon where somehow they still kept production despite the pressing cold, ivory buttons traded from the ice tribes, lace borne across the Marn. The emperor’s sister crossed to the chair that had been placed in isolation for her while the lords and ladies of the Sis took their seats, tiered as if in anticipation of some theatrical production, behind her. Two of Sherzal’s personal guards flanked her, both black-clad, a dark-haired man to her right, Safira to her left. The former novice met Glass’s gaze for a moment before letting her eyes drop. Was there a hint of shame there? Glass thought there might be.
Brother Pelter strode back and forth before Glass’s rail the whole time, on guard, awaiting his moment and perhaps feeling his own dose of nerves at performing before such a crowd.
The audience took several minutes to find their places and settle but slowly the conversation died to murmurs, and when Senior Inquisitor Agika rose to her feet silence fell. “If we could have the honourable Sherzal Lansis take the stand in readiness?” With a pale hand she gestured to a second railing on the opposite side of the judges’ bench, facing the lords.
Sherzal frowned. Her gaze darted to Glass, swept the judges, then fixed on Brother Pelter who echoed her frown.
Agika put a thin smile on lips unaccustomed to the burden. “Your complaint did initiate these proceedings, prime instigator.”
Sherzal scowled, then apparently deciding not to start the trial off on a note of contention, she abandoned the chair that was to all intents and purposes a throne, and stalked across to take her place behind the rail, the whiteness of her dress making the noise that crisp new snow does when stepped upon.
Brothers Dimeon and Seldom flanked Sister Agika behind the judges’ bench, the former almost as tall as Agika with her standing and him seated. Dimeon waved a hand at Pelter.
“The charges against the accused.” Brother Pelter faced the lords, the words eager to escape his mouth. “Abbess Glass of Sweet Mercy Convent, formerly Shella Yammal of Verity, firstly you are accused of wilfully denying the rights of a parent in favour of those of the Church, a
