Chương 233: Chapter 254: Challenge

On Day Four of my trial, we were moved to the Court of the High Council, and I turned it into an absolute circus. I did not recognize the judge this time, but he made a great first impression. I showed up an hour before proceedings and we met in chambers. I was there, along with Teilur Nuur and Inquisitor Pina. He waved us all to seats right away, looking over some pages.

"So I was looking over the relevant opening motions," he said.

"And this is disgraceful. Can anyone here explain to me why the defendant in this case had to file four dozen motions to prevent the plaintiff's party from bringing high-ordnance lethal weapons into the courtroom and was denied every time save one?" They struggled to justify themselves. He smirked and dragged out that awkward interview. He put them on the carpet and left them there for a while, trying to find some way to explain themselves in a way that sounded reasonable.

I liked him, he had a penchant for making creeps squirm and simper that I really appreciated. Then he rolled back three-quarters of the accepted motions, removing almost every gag order that had been placed on my defense. He gave a languid and rolling speech about the methods of the High Court, but I still remembered well enough from last time. My reception here had been a lot less welcoming last time.

Inquisitor Pina was livid and red-faced: last time she was here with me this conversation had been much friendlier to her and more hostile towards me. Last time, I had been on trial for mass murder, bank robbery, mayhem, and much more. This time I was technically the defendant in a challenge of succession. Nuur needed to prove that Nathan was the heir, not me, throwing out the entire case she had prepared about contract violations.

She was a commerce lawyer, a contract lawyer, and this was far from her training and practice. Succession lawyers were rare indeed, and Nuur was not one of them. But apparently the magisters had not replaced her with a succession lawyer overnight. I don't know why. Lots of possible reasons. Speculation is pointless.

After an hour of hearing his gratifying monologue about procedure and decorum, which had some very notable cut-outs for certain kinds of dramatic behavior and some very lax restrictions on what constitutes an infraction, it was time for us to roll out and head to the main floor. I was already grinning in triumph, and I haven't even started yet. I was not so distracted that I forgot my plan.

We got to the door, and the judge walked out, and stenographer, and heralds, and several other officers who are not particularly useful. I stood and waited. Nuur was twenty steps out when she realized I was hanging back. She turned, puzzled, wondering. I conjured the aurora, signaling the band. There's not normally a band at a court appearance, and that's a damn shame. But in a public appearance, bringing a band is just as easy as hiring and telling them where to show up.

I walked out on the first blaring brass notes of the Imperial March. Yes it's Darth Vader's music. Yes it's a bad guy's entrance music. Nobody cares. Nobody has ever cared. It's awesome. My dress swept around in a breeze all my own as I stepped out into the morning's slanting sunlight, glowing white and etched in red. Today's look was more subtle than the broad patches and panels of the previous outfits, the fabrics were chalk-white and embroidered with a dense weave of written text in blood-red thread.

The embroidered words spelled out the appropriate statutes of the standing law of succession challenge. Maybe it would not play as well for the crowd, but it would be a big hit with anyone who came close enough to see. I came up with the idea while I was mingling with the crowds yesterday. I was worried that it would look like pink from a distance. I found out later from my witnesses that it did not. It looked like crimson and white, though the patterns did not show.

My skirts and hair swirled like a cloak behind me as the trumpets rang Ta-ta-Ta! -tata-Ta- tata-Ta! and I strode purposefully to my podium. They faded down, leaving the kettle-drums for last, and then we got started with the real trial. Nuur was glaring at me sourly. She had tried to brighten up her outfit, but unfortunately she had decided to use Aumerje house colors to represent.

Better than magisters themselves, they wear brown and black, no good at all for standing out against a dark brown background at a distance. But instead of laying out her allegiance to the magisters with black and brown, she laid out her allegiance to the Aumerje house by wearing black and red, which will wash out to dark browns against a dark-brown background. And, more importantly, she did not have an extremely famous and powerful entrance theme.

I suspect she's starting to understand how she's losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the audience. She's probably going to have her own band to play her in tomorrow. And probably better colors. I'll make sure to have pyrotechnics ready to go. She's been slow to deal with the overt theatricality I've brought in. She is used to her job being a lame joke, just filling space to preserve the facade of justice in a fixed trial.

I on the other hand have taken that same principle of theater and expanded it so much that I'm influencing the trial itself. If I had not been playing to the audience, we would not have been able to lock out magister staffs. We would not have intimidated the last judge into abandoning her own trial. I would not have had enough command to move to a dismissal immediately. The power of a crowd has helped me dictate the pace and terms of the trial so far.

Judge Miliaw Gloudas would have surely pushed back against me a lot harder if the environment had not been"surrounded by an unruly mob armed with hammers that you're definitely going to have to walk through on the way out", and we all know it. The fact that I've got control of the audience and the incredible potential for large-scale violence they represent has been pivotal. And now the judge has taken off my brakes.

I am fully free to use my sorcery on the courtroom floor, except portals, and also to say whatever I want to say about anyone at all. We sit through the opening ceremonies, the usual self-congratulation for being so just and impartial and favored by the crown and throne. A crown and throne that we were all eagerly despising and working against.

The Court works for the Council, and the Council works for the Houses, and the Houses have gotten tired of being pushed around by the clumsy and boorish royals of Freckentop. And they are currently heavily in favor of supporting a self-serving profit-minded coup against the royals. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. After all the words of fidelity and unflinching honesty, we move to the trial. Teilur Nuur, already borrowing my tricks, immediately moves to dismiss this case.

The judge calmly reminds her that she is representing the plaintiff, so the only thing she needs to do to dismiss this case is allow herself to lose. This is probably not accurate, but there's not many precedents for a case starting in one court and then moving to succession challenge, so I'm going to trust his interpretation. After all, he's ruling in my favor. I'd be dumb to rock the boat. I'm not going to sabotage my advantage. I'm not going to squander it either.

My invitations went out yesterday morning after all. But the people I wrote to invite are not up in the stands of the stadium, they're waiting inside. I've got a great big stage right now, and the best thing to do with that much attention is to share it. But first we've got some posturing and declarations to get through. I'm gonna give Nuur credit, she is trying to keep up. She came out with more bombast this time, trying to impress the crowd now.

Instead of reciting her statutes and statements, she actually made a speech that hit some high notes. It was mostly about the presumption of primogeniture and patrilineal succession, though, and there's only so much you can punch up material like that. She was trailing behind, using material similar to my protests and proclamations from the first couple of days. She was trying to meet me at my own level, which was a mistake for her.

I wasn't interested in meeting her at that level, I was already escalating past that.

"What the esteemed counsel for the plaintiff has been trying to say with too many words and too many syllables," I declared, "is that she thinks the fate of nations and duchies should rest on a baby race to first place, first bottom on the blanket gets the throne.

Well, as everyone here knows, the reason that we have inherited aristocracy is so that the people who are being put in charge of land management, economic planning and diplomacy will be people who have been training for it their whole lives, raised by people who have done nothing else. Leadership is too important a job to leave up to chance. That is precisely why the high council takes final word on all issues of succession for royals, dukes and grand earls.

That's why every duchy in the kingdom has a vetting process in between 'presumed heir' and 'confirmed heir'. And the plaintiff doesn't seem to have a better case than 'but but but she's not the presumed heir' as if we're not here specifically to confirm an heir. If her strongest argument is 'we haven't decided yet', then it's probably for the best that nobody has ever invited the magister's guild to vote on successions before because by gods they are just terrible at it!

If big books and dusty robes and thirty years huddled in a dusty basement could make someone good at running the world they'd have had this job centuries ago. But since I've had to chase this gods-damned issue all the way up from commerce court to the High Council, it looks like they just won't get the point! So, I've compiled a list of one hundred reasons why the magisters are wrong, and stupid, and never should have gotten involved in this.

The good news is that we're already on number seven, just ninety-three to go! Let's keep count shall we! -" Gavel.

"Let's not, please," the judge said with calculated dryness, pulling a laugh from most of the audience. He's got good verbal timing, better than I do. Glad he's on my side.

"The bench finds that opening statements are finished. As the written materials and statutes are being reviewed, we will advance this court time to evidence and witnesses. Does either party have any material evidence to log?"

"Yes your honor," the magister's lawyer said, drawing herself up primly.

"We would like to submit a copy of the findings of Lady Harigold's previous turn in this court, where it was found that she is a mass murderess, a thief and a robber, a poisoning sorceress and contemptible in the eyes of the court." She held up a sheaf of papers and presented them towards a bailiff.

"Yes your honor," I said.

"Unfortunately the document I need is not in my possession, since no copy of it has ever been allowed. I call on the plaintiff to surrender their copy of the contract written between Nathan Harigold and Inquisitor Pina this past Autumnrise." The opposing counsel looked confused. The judge looked confused. Murmurs in the crowd.

"Lady Harigold," the judge said, carefully, "that document is relevant to the commerce case that was closed out in favor of this succession case. Why are you requesting it here?"

"That document includes information that I believe speaks to the motive of the plaintiffs," I said.

"Particularly the portions where they intended to extort money from me and demanded that I stop taking credit for the necromancer I killed. I contend that this entire farce being perpetrated by the claimants is all part of a power struggle to take credit for the only successful killing of a rogue necromancer in the past twenty years. If schoolgirls can kill necromancers in their towers, maybe the world doesn't even need a magister's guild in the first place.

So to keep their charter and convince the world that they are relevant, they are trying to silence me and steal credit for my work." Nuur rolled her head back, groaning miserably.

"Gods, I would love to silence you but nothing ever works." Shit, she's pulling better laugh lines than I am. So's the judge. Next I'm gonna have the stenographer dunking on me. But more importantly, one of Nuur's assistants did open a folder and did hand the document in question over to the bailiff. Finally. Finally that fucking thing is out in the open again, no longer hiding in the shadows waiting to get me.

Now I can start planning ways to destroy it, erase it, steal it, or just have it declared to be my property when this case is concluded. This gives me new options. When it was just a hanging guillotine blade that could hide anywhere, somewhere out in the world, I had no options. But now I know where it is. It is now part of the evidence locker for this case. I can start planning. But first, I've got more immediate business.

"While that is being sorted," I said smoothly, "the defense would like to call its first witness, Junia Pinking, Crown Princess of Pinking House." A stir through the crowd now. As I said, I'm not going to squander this opportunity. This damn trial is about to become the social event of the season. I'm going to call in every ranking noble and have them tell the crowd just how great I am and how much I deserve to be duchess.

And, by extension but not out loud, how much I deserve to be the leader of the Rapier Revolt coalition. I've got a friendly judge, a sympathetic audience, and a chance to turn this forum into a megaphone for pro-Natalie propaganda. In two weeks, I want everyone to be saying "well of course Natalie Harigold should be crown princess of Meadowtam." And in six months, "of course Natalie Harigold should be the leader of the revolt against the tyrants."

And a year later, "of course Natalie Harigold should be in charge of the rescue efforts." And then "in charge of our military response against the Blind". And finally "of course Natalie Harigold should be Queen of Hearstwhile." It's a progression. We're building something. I can't afford to miss a single opportunity to gather support and build a following. After all, I'm taking on the whole world. It's gonna take a lot of work to make that a fair fight.