A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Chapter 558 The Trial - Part 4

He was led through corridors that were only half familiar, after he'd been down here once before, in order to make his way to the Minister's Hall when they were deciding on his punishment for striking a professor. They seemed even more grand than he last remembered them, but that was likely more because of the state of the surroundings that he'd spent time in the past week more than anything else.

He thought them to be getting nearer, and indeed they must have been, for the crowds of students seemed thicker here, yellow students wrestling with blue for the best view of the procession, as the noblemen gave orders to their retainers for space to be made. Their futile squabbling was quickly interrupted by another stream of guardsmen. They were gathering more and more as they went.@@@@

Another ten appeared, just before the doors to the Minister's Hall.

"My Lord!" Oliver heard a shout from the crowd. He turned his head sharply, to see Verdant, with a better position than the rest, allowed further forward by the guardsmen than the others would be, given his position as a member of the faculty. "Plans are in place, my Lord! Have faith in them!"

It seemed a desperate plea from a usually calm man. He saw Jorah and Karesh amongst the crowd behind Verdant, with Kaya peeking out behind them, as they were pressed by the throng of students, battling, and calling whatever they thought to be fit.

"Murderer!" Was quite the popular shout.

"Patrick!" With another, spat with the same venom as someone calling another man a pig or a rat. Somehow his own name had become a slur. Oliver smiled at that too. Despite Ingolsol's restlessness inside of him, Oliver felt no inclination towards violence.

He returned Verdant's desperation with a calm nod of his own. "Thank you, Verdant," he said, and then he was swept through the doors of the chamber, once more suffocated by its vast grandness.

A jangle of his chains from behind him as a guardsman abruptly halted him and brought him out of his revelry. They stopped, halfway down the aisle between the many rows of benches, facing off against the Ministers and their thrones as they sat a distance away. Even Hod was dressed as a noble ought to have been today – but that didn't do anything to change his behaviour.

He was still sprawled languidly, as though he couldn't imagine anything more boring than what he was now being forced to take part in.

"The prisoner will be walked to the palm of judgment," General Tavar said in a booming voice, silencing the crowd as he stood. His own gold armour seemed to shine even more brightly than the picture of Varsharn up above. With his silver hair, and his recently cropped beard, he made quite the striking figure.

The conversations ceased, as Oliver was led forward, in front of the thrones, and then dragged off to the right. There seemed an almost ritualistic air to the entire process, given the silence, interrupted only by the sound of his chains, and the stamping of his own boots and those behind him.

The hand of judgment was indeed aptly named. Oliver didn't have to wonder why he hadn't noticed it before. It had been covered in a purple cover, and only when he approached did the nearby guardsmen whip it off.

There it was revealed, a giant hand of marble and gold, forming a cage, as the fingers interwoven like the branches of a thorny bramble bush, and trapped the criminal inside. Somehow, Oliver thought that they wouldn't waste such a grand artefact on the ordinary criminal man. This was a piece of ceremony reserved only for the judgement of nobility.

Oliver was led up inside. Three steps, and then he was there. Enough room for four people inside, but only a single bench carved into the marble – and yet they did not neglect to place a purple velvet cushion on top. The guardsmen guided him into a seated position on top of the cushion, and then fastened his shackles to the wall behind him.

It seemed a peculiar bit of pageantry. The dignified treatment of a noble, yes, that indeed made sense, but not when following a week spent in the dungeons with the rest of the ordinary folk. It was a contradiction that didn't bear pointing out.