She reached out in the aethereal with her sight, and saw.

First she saw the Queen. The Queen burned like a small sun—bright gold, un-alloyed, undimmed. She was in a sort of pen at the base of the stands, and the wood of the barriers surrounding held a working on it—a curious and not particularly stable working.

Nearer at hand, she saw a group of men moving quickly—a young fat man with no talent whatsoever, and by his side a grey man who flickered with potency.

“Ah, yes,” she thought.

She glanced at the King, who was warded—ten times warded. He was covered in wardings, like a prisoner draped in chains. Amulets and sigils, runes and bindings were on him layer after layer. She had never seen anything like it, and suddenly—for the first time—she felt overmatched. For some reason she had expected a single, potent work—an internal mirror or a secret working that locked the target up as surely as a prison. Both Harmodius and the Abbess, in her head, remembered such working and had remedies.

But this tangle of cluttered thaumaturgy, with superstition, blind chance and careful science all mixed…

She looked again. It was like looking at the tangled remnants of a skein of linen after a kitten had attacked it.

Nor was she sure that the King’s will was in any way affected by it all.

He was merely… warded.

Nicholas Ganfroy had practised for a year for this moment. His trumpet rang out, loud and clear, piercing the tumult of the crowd.

Into his split second of crowd-silence, he roared the Red Knight’s challenge.

“He who styles himself the Red Knight bids defiance to any wight so craven as to pretend that the gracious Queen of Alba, high Desiderata, is other than the King’s own wife; loyal, faithful, and true. And he offers to prove this assertion on the body of any so bold in his blood or wanting in brains that will maintain her unfaithfulness, or will offer to exchange blows. And the Red Knight maintains he offers battle for no pride in his own prowess, but only to see justice done. And if no knight will offer to uphold the charges against the gracious lady Queen, the Red Knight demands her instant release by the law of arms, the Rule of Law of Alba, and also the Rule of War of Galle.”

Ganfroy’s lungs were as brazen as his trumpet, and he’d practised, shouting into basements and wine cellars. His words carried clearly.

There was obvious consternation in the royal stands.