“Which Verrakai was he?”

“My father.”

The Marshal-General chewed on her lip for a moment. “To kill with magery condemns you to death, under the Code of Gird—you know that.”

“Yes, Marshal-General.”

“Did you think of that at the time?”

“No. I thought how horrible it was that another man might die—and hated what I did, but—I did it.”

“The Code of Gird offers no alternatives to death for your act,” the Marshal-General said. “Do you feel that is just?”

Dorrin just stopped herself from shrugging, which would add rudeness to her crime. “Marshal-General, laws are written as they are for a reason. I swore fealty to the king, which included swearing to obey the Code of Gird as administered in Tsaia. I have no complaints.”

“I do,” the king said. He looked from Dorrin to the Marshal-General. “I believe she saved my life—and other lives—by acting as she did. This man nearly killed my brother and Aris Marrakai; we asked Duke Verrakai to help us find the one who did so, and she has done that. By all reports, she has carried out the commands we first gave her, when we asked her to take on the Verrakai domain. I am not moved to waste a valuable peer for a quibble of law.”

“You must, my liege,” Dorrin said. “For if a king does not obey the law, how can his subjects?”

“I do not want to see you die, Dorrin Verrakai.”

“And I am not particularly eager to die,” Dorrin said. “But the law is the law, and we are both sworn to it.”

“As administered in Tsaia,” Duke Mahieran put in, quoting the oath. “And in Tsaia there are other things to be considered, mitigating factors, and also the King’s Mercy. That Dorrin Duke Verrakai killed with magery is not—since she freely admits it—in question. But the King and Council may, if they choose, consider her motives, what alternatives she might have had available, and then at the king’s discretion, he may choose an alternative punishment.”

A mutter from those watching.

“Let us consider,” Mahieran went on. “First that this man, as Duke Marrakai and I were both convinced from Duke Verrakai’s words, did poison the horses of Prince Camwyn and Aris Marrakai, and thereby imperil their lives. He was guilty of treason, and for that alone would have been condemned in a trial to shameful death. Second, that since he was not really Pedraig the groom, but a Verrakai in Pedraig’s body, his life was already forfeit under the Order of Attainder. Third, that he was no doubt conspiring to assassinate our king on the very day of his coronation by poisoning his horse—and perhaps others—the very same way he had done with the prince and young Marrakai’s horses.”

Mahieran looked around; the peers and palace guards were nodding.

“So that Duke Verrakai having killed this traitor is no crime, but a service to the Crown. She used magery to kill him, that is true, and killing by magery is against our laws—but suppose she had pierced his body with a poisoned blade? Killing with poison is also a crime—but is there anyone here who thinks if she had done that she would deserve death for so dispatching an enemy of the Crown and people of Tsaia?” Heads shook, the murmur rose.