[This is set before the attack on Emmon and William.]

[Allenel/etc.]

        Over the days that were to follow in the trial of Fillip Menagrem,
both the jury and the spectators in the courtroom were to learn exactly
how dull court proceedings could become.  There were things of interest,
obviously -- each time a new witness was called, everyone would lean
forward to listen closely, wanting to determine whether the rumors about
what this person had seen, or this one had heard, would match, in any
degree, the witness' actual testimony.  All too often, the rumors and
predictions were wildly inaccurate, perhaps because a certain
ginger-haired "journalist" was responsible for leading the public to
anticipate much more florid accounts.

        In short, despite the nature of the crimes for which Menagrem had
been charged, there was much less blood and gore and scandal to be heard
from the witnesses.  Arno Everett, the prosecutor sent by the Crown from
the capital city of Bleckner, continued to play his role as least
interesting character in the play.  Even those who made sure to have a
seat every morning would have had difficulty, if asked, to describe the
man in much detail.  Short.  Thin.  Older.  With spectacles.  Quiet voice.
Insistent. Beyond that, there was little that was remarkable about the man
other than his apparent lack of passion.

        The defense attorney, however, was completely different.  Perrin
Mayce more than made up for Everett's distaste for melodrama.  For every
witness who had any information to offer that might possibly be construed
as adverse to his client's case, Mayce found a way to cast at least a
small doubt -- whether it was a hint of venality ("did you hear of a
reward being offered for information about the body found in the canal?")
or jealousy ("madam, did you not once have feelings for my client?"),
absent-mindedness ("how could you have seen my client there, at that time,
when earlier you testified that you were elsewhere?  Did you lose track of
the time?") or drunkenness ("and how much had you imbibed that evening?").
Some might not have cared for the way Mayce could pursue a witness, shake
them up -- but it was clear that he was presenting as effective a defense
for Fillip Menagrem as he possibly could, and the general opinion was that
he was a fine young man and an able attorney.

        Still, the fireworks were few and far between after the opening
day. Until Lucc was called by Arno Everett to offer testimony on what he
had seen and heard and done on the day that Fillip Menagrem had been
captured. The prosecutor led the witness through each step, through the
damning confession that Menagrem had made, laying one more brick in the
case he was building against the murderer of Netit Vanit, the attacker of
Lawrince Ournel, the killer of Denlira Ophelian.  Then, when he was done,
Everett thanked the witness for his time and nodded to the defense table.

        In the jury box, Marisa shifted in her seat, trying to keep her
attention focused on the testimony.  It already had been a long day, but
she knew that she could not let her mind drift.  Lucc was a key witness,
after all, and she had to be sure that -- despite her acquaintance with
him -- she listened carefully to make sure that Mayce had the opportunity
to point out any chinks in his story.  Especially about the things that
Mayce claimed had been done to his client by his captors.  Ournel had not
agreed that the confession had not been spontaneous.  Batista Dyer had
calmly listened to Mayce's accusations about this mysterious blade and his
garishly-dressed mage companion and expressed her own disagreement that
Menagrem had been treated in any way undeserving of his situation.
Everett hadn't asked Lucc whether he agreed with the other witnesses'
assessment of the events, but Marisa suspected Mayce would.

        He didn't do so immediately, however.  Instead, Mayce spent some
time exploring Lucc's background -- his family history in Montfort, and
briefly his own experiences during the dark times of the Republica and the
Church. Mayce didn't delve into the facts too deeply -- at times, the
judge, Allenel Gilford, would look up as if to say that counsel should
proceed with more relevant questions.  But there were those who knew --
Allenel, Marisa, and John the wainwright, including others in the audience
-- that Lucc's family had been, like Allenel's, destroyed during that
time.  And Lucc himself had personally met the Republica's torturers.

        In the audience, in a back pew, Barnabas Portnoy turned his unlit
and empty pipe in his hands.  The old face, under the white hair and
behind the white walrus mustaches, was expressionless.  But he could see
how the questions troubled Lucc, from the way the boy held himself in his
chair, and he could hear it in the tense tone of the boy's questions.
And it was obvious how relieved Lucc was to have himself distracted away
from the memories when Mayce moved on to other, innocuous topics.

        It was the change away from those dark topics that caught him.
Mayce half-turned, so he could see both jury and witness box, and asked --
in a deceptively quiet voice, all the more striking for its contrast with
his previously forceful manner -- whether Lucc would speak truthfully
about how the confession had been obtained from Menagrem.  In the moment
that followed, Barnabas could see it.  Allenel could as well; the judge
rubbed one hand across his eyes, waiting for the response.

[Lucc]

Lucc's gaze focused on Mayce and a silence settled for several heartbeats
over the witness box.

Long before entering this court room Lucc had already traveled down the
hellish path of his memory, seeking some insight in how he would respond
to this inevitable question. Again he had relived the hours he had been
questioned by Limpia torturers for answers he did not have, but soon
created. Sometimes he glimpsed his body's memories of its previous soul's
last hours in a Church dungeon.

And he knew that when he had stood aside and let Hood cut Menagrem that he
had been no better than his past tormentors.

Until he heard remembered the ghostly Denlira's torn face and fatal love,
and how Fillip had used her, abused her, and discarded her in a lonely
forest. Then he knew that Menagrem was probably more pathetic than even
the worst torturer. Even Delgado had some honor to his name.

And the anger at his own murderers rose - they were long gone but Fillip
was no better than they.

But he was not them.

Again he thought of Denlira - a spirit lost and alone, and he remembered
how Morrighu, the Bean Nighe, had protected him from that fate. Offered
him a gentle passage.

He remembered why he had chosen to remain - to see Truth born again in
Montfort. He been given his rebirth in Montfort's flames to fulfill his
duties.

~I only gave my word not to name them,~ he told himself, remembering his
promise to Hood and Lovvorn, ~So no binding will be broken when I now
speak.~ Nor had he denied the means in his statement; he just never had
stated exactly what happened.

Lucc met Mayce's eyes - then looked out at the jury when he said, "A knife
was used to obtain Fillip Menagrem's confession."

[Brawl]

Fierce and redoubtable he was, but even the minotaur was worn down with
the passage of the day; and though there was nothing on the field of
battle that he could not smite down with his maces, time and boredom were
more subtle foes, and like to defeat him soon.  Tired and irritable, Brawl
had likewise irritated the Court from time to time; however, in his
defense, it is hard to silence a yawn, especially one so deep and
penetrating as his. But he was not the one on trial, nor the one looking
on as Everett and Mayce determined his fate.

It was easy enough to pay close heed as Mayce dealt with one witness after
another, reducing testimonies to nothing where he could and casting doubts
where he otherwise could not.  A clever ploy, and one that earned the
minotaur's grudging respect.  It was a battle, of sorts: such terms Brawl
could understand.  And the man wielded his words quite well.

Everett, however, was none so dramatic as the other, and so had earned the
minotaur's general ire (nine yawns of ten, probably more, were during the
prosecutor's time) although still Brawl forced himself to sit up and
watch.  It was a hard task, and if listening was hard enough, harder yet
was to make sense from it all.

What had seemed clear from the outset was clouded now; such was Mayce's
intent.

[Allenel/et al.]

        "A knife was used ..."  Mayce repeated, almost musingly.  Had the
audience expected him to burst into a torrent of outrage?  Of course they
had -- he had been theatrical before now, and the stories spread by
Archibald Chisholm had cultivated the attorney's image as a hot-head,
given to uncontrollable shouting.  "A knife."  Mayce turned to look back
at Menagrem, and nearly everyone in the courtroom followed his gaze, to
the face that still bore the marks of the knife-wounds.

        Perhaps Mayce knew that here, now, it was best to be quiet, to let
the jury and the spectators gaze upon the half-healed wounds and to
imagine for themselves how it would feel to have the steel edge carving
into their own skin.  And when he spoke again, leading Lucc through a
description of exactly how the knife had been used, Mayce kept his voice
low, with just the faintest note of growing indignation.

        "So, you are telling this court that this confession -- this
confession upon which the prosecutor has placed so much weight -- came
only after this knife was used?" Mayce asked.  He turned back to Lucc.

[Lucc]

While Lucc would have loved to point out that there was greater evidence
than that - for the attack on Ournel and Denlira's murder - he knew that
to answer more than what was asked would do more damage than good.

"Yes," he said simply. Arno Everett had already brought forward some of
the Envoy's early concerns that the secretary's murder, and the assault on
his own person, might have stemmed from an organized attempt against the
Crown's representatives. That it wasn't until the confession did they know
that the attacks had been motivated by personal vendettas.

[Fillip/Elenia/Serun]

All Elektra could tell them was that Lucc was to be called this day; she
had done so because she wanted their dear friend to have the support that
she could not legally give. She could not be biased, but they could be
there for him. They knew well what memories Lucc had called forth while he
searched for a path between two binding oaths. They knew what Mayce's
question cost.

Serun shifted; trying to find a comfortable position for his tall body on
the wretchedly narrow spectators' benches. His gaze traveled over to where
the accused sat in chains.

Once Fillip Menagrem had been able to present himself as a wounded young
man of noble bearing; giving no hint of guilt. Nor any visible sign of
weakness. During the early days of the trial he had stoically sat - with
his head held high; his testimony painting the portrait of a young man who
had loved nobly, but also foolishly - whose beloved had been a wayward
woman and had brought cruel misfortune to her man. He had easily portrayed
the lover who loathed speaking ill of his beloved, despite her unwholesome
faults.

But the long days seemed to have begun to take their toll.

First he had looked a little haggard (easily explained by his current
ordeal), with dark circles beneath his eyes; then his hands could
occasionally be seen shaking; but now he seemed afflicted by body tremors.
His dark eyes darted about the courtroom, and the sound of a woman's voice
could make him cringe. And in the last couple of days he had begun to
mutter to himself - only by Perrin Mayce's diligence had this not become a
daily occurance. And it was only by his lawyer's insistence that the boy
still looked presentably groomed.

What Serun had heard from the Guard was that Fillip had often been found
folded in a corner of his cell - howling at nothing. That no warding
seemed to keep Denlira's spirit from attending him.

Serun wondered at her absence in the courtroom - once she had been in a
hurry to declare Menagrem innocent. Now she seemed content to let evidence
of her nightly visits be seen.

[Allenel/et al.]

        Marisa had to resist the urge to reach for John's hand.  Just one
look at Allenel Gilford's face was enough for her to want the reassurance
of the wainwright.  But she made sure to keep her hands in her lap and her
eyes on the proceedings, on the way Perrin Mayce walked to the table where
his client sat.  The defense lawyer stood with his hands clasped behind
his back, his eyes fixed on the floor, in a pose quite reminiscent of the
prosecutor himself.  Arno Everett just leaned back in his own chair,
fingers steepled, letting the silence stretch out.

        And in that silence, Marisa wondered -- certainly, there had been
witnesses who had spoken about Menagrem's and Denlira's relationship.
And surely she did not doubt Lucc's testimony of how Menagrem had been
tracked.  But it had been done with the aid of an unnamed wizard, whose
companion was an unnamed man with a knife.  A knife that had been used to
draw forth a confession from the defendant.  Regardless of how she might
trust Lucc ... could those unknown men be trusted?  The waitress rubbed
her nose, trying not to think of what she might be willing to say, to stop
someone from cutting her own face.

        When Mayce turned around and spoke, to demand that all charges be
dropped against his client, the crowd still remained quiet, its mutterings
soft but insistent.  As the sound grew, Allenel gaveled it silent again
and directed that he would hear argument from counsel in his chambers.
Archibald Chisholm bobbed up, beginning a protest that the public had a
right to hear, but even he knew better than to press the point when
Allenel turned that intense gaze on him and told him to take his seat
again.

        The three of them disappeared into the back, with only Bog Antlyn
-- who would record the entire exchange -- to accompany them.  Some time
passed, and Marisa tried not to fidget.  After a while, Brion Hillrover
agreed to let the jury step down from their seats, to take refreshment,
and to walk about some.  Even Lucc was permitted to step away from the
witness stand, though instructed not to talk with anyone.  Fifteen minutes
became thirty, thirty became forty-five, and later some might say that
they heard raised voices from the back -- Marisa couldn't hear them, she
would say that the noise from the restless crowd drowned out any hint of
what was occurring in chambers.

        Over an hour, and the day drawing close to an end, before the
three returned.  The jurors took their seats again, the spectators again
filled the benches.  But no explanation from Allenel, or Mayce, or Everett
was forthcoming.  Instead, Allenel announced that proceedings were done
for the day, but the trial would resume one hour earlier the next morning.
When he struck the gavel again to adjourn the session, Chisholm leapt up,
demanding an explanation -- Allenel simply slipped into the back again,
face grim, declining any comment.  The best the ginger-haired publisher
could obtain was a quiet statement from Everett that more news might be
available the next day, and an expression of the Crown's confidence that
the judge would decide wisely and justly.

        Perrin Mayce, on the other hand, could barely contain his outrage
at what had been done to his client.  And his disappointment that it had
taken so long for anyone to admit that this so-called "confession" had
been forced from Menagrem by means of torture.  Free to go for the day,
and start her shift at the Dragon's Inn, Marisa took one last glance into
the courtroom before pulling her shawl about her and hurrying away.