‘These will all be parties to disputes of some kind,’ I said to Kindly, recalling what Obsidian Tongue had told me. ‘Arguments about slaves, land, status, what kind of cloth your cloak can be made of, that sort of thing. The criminals — the people accused of crimes, I mean — will be in their cages.’ I shuddered as I recalled the little box I had last seen Lily in.
‘Are they really going to get through this lot today?’ the old man asked incredulously.
‘They have to. The law is that all cases have to be disposed of in eighty days, and this is the last day. And the day after tomorrow is the first of the Useless Days, remember? The courts can’t sit then, and the King has to preside over all appeals and witness sentences being carried out before they begin.’
‘And you don’t argue during the Useless Days, either, if you know what’s good for you,’ the old man recalled. ‘A bit of a problem if you’re trying to hold a trial, I should think.’
‘Anyway, many of these people will have had their cases heard before and have come back today for the verdict. And there’s more than one court sitting — there are a dozen judges, but they sit in pairs, one lord, one commoner. And two of them preside over the others and report direct to the King.’
‘That’ll do,’ the old man said testily. ‘If I want a lecture in law I’ll ask Obsidian Tongue. Where is he, anyway?’
I saw one or two people whose dress and demeanour resembled what I had come to associate with lawyers, but not the man we were relying on to defend Lily. ‘I don’t know. Better find an official and see if we can find out what’s happening.’
‘I’ll try one of the guards over there.’
A broad flight of steps led from the plaza up to the hall where the judges sat. Kindly mounted them to speak briefly to a cudgel-wielding warrior standing at the top of them. I saw him start at the guard’s answer, and then he began beckoning me urgently.
‘We were almost too late!’ he said when I had pushed my way through the crowd to join him. ‘She’s in there already.’ He paused. ‘In the inner room — whatever that means.’
I felt a chill and tried not to shiver in response.
‘It’s where the most senior judges sit,’ I said. ‘They try only the gravest of crimes. Like plotting against the King.’
We were ushered through the colonnade that fronted the hall into the largest room I had ever been in. It was a vast, echoing space, its roof held up by rows of square pillars and entire cypress trunks laid flat across the tops of its walls. It was almost as crowded as the plaza outside, but here the people seemed to have more sense of purpose: messengers and officials hurried back and forth; lawyers and their clients exchanged urgent words; grim-faced warriors conducted prisoners to where they were to meet their accusers. It was extraordinarily quiet. The people around me spoke in reverential whispers, and their words seemed to vanish directly into the ceiling.
I barely had time to take any of this in as we were hurried through the room towards a small doorway at its end. It was guarded by two tall warriors whose richly embroidered cotton cloaks and extravagantly plumed headdresses spoke of their mditary experience. It was not immediately obvious why highly skilled veterans bearing vicious-looking swords were needed for guard duty such as this, which any tall man wielding a cudgel should have been good for, but I guessed they were there to inspire awe. They were scarcely needed: merely to approach that doorway was to feel my stomach churning and my knees turning to water.
‘Who are you and what do you want?’ one of the guards asked in a bored voice. When you look as frightening as he did, I reflected, you do not need to shout.
‘We’re here for the trial of Tiger Lily, the merchant’s daughter,’ I said.
‘So?’
I looked at Kindly, who was already beginning to twitch with indignation. ‘This man’s her father,’ I said.
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
Kindly uttered a curious squawking sound. ‘Now look here!’ he cried. ‘That’s my daughter in there. You’ve got to let me in!’
‘No, I haven’t,’ the warrior said without moving. ‘And if you don’t watch yourself I’ll have you thrown out of the palace altogether.’
The old man’s face was turning darker by the moment, and I could see his fists clenching as if he were about to strike somebody. Seeing that this would have done no good at all, I said hastily: ‘Look, just tell us this, please. Who is allowed through that door?’
The guard swivelled his huge head in my direction and regarded me coldly for a moment. Then he reeled off a fist: ‘Court officials, the King, judges, lawyers, witnesses, parties to the dispute. Oh, and prisoners, naturally.’ He glanced sideways at Kindly. ‘Nothing in the rules about relatives. Now, does any of what I’ve just said sound like you? Because if it doesn’t, you’re in the wrong place.’
Without thinking, I blurted out: ‘I’m a witness! I was there when she was arrested!’
The man frowned. It was the first change I had seen in his expression. He glanced at his colleague, who spoke for the first time: ‘A witness? On whose side?’
‘I’ve got the woman’s father with me. Whose side do you think we’re on?’
‘Well, you never know.’ The two men
