Judge hungrily licked her lips. “By all means.”

Selest spilled names like a broken cask spills wine. Her entire acquaintance came out in a burbling rush. Several Orso knew had already been executed. Tears began to trickle down her face, leaving black powder tracks all the way to her spit-flecked lips. She denounced friends, partners, family members. Boras Heugen, her cousin, shrivelled into his seat with characteristic cowardice. It came as no surprise these days, of course. Orso had seen courage in that dock, and inspiring camaraderie, and towering dignity. He had also seen brothers denounce their sisters, wives denounce their husbands, parents denounce their children.

Judge started to frown. She shifted impatiently in her chair. She curled her lip and reached for her hammer.

“I denounce Savine Brock!” screeched Selest.

Orso felt as if his guts had suddenly fallen out of his arse. And he was not the only one on whom the name fell heavily. There was no cheer. Only a disbelieving mutter. The ex-noblemen looked grim. This was an attack on their leader. An attack on them. And Savine had made herself popular, recently, at the other end of the social scale. She had fed people, clothed people, brought them fuel in the bleak winter when the Burners had brought them nothing but corpses.

Sworbreck glanced worriedly over at Judge, but Judge waved him eagerly on. “Of what do you accuse her?”

“Of profiteering, speculation and usury on the grandest of scales! It is a fact that for years she exploited the working men and women of the Union for her own profit! That she conspired with her father, Arch Lector Glokta! That she conspired with bankers, Gurkish agents and Styrian spies!” Selest lifted a trembling finger to point straight at Orso. “It is a fact that she conspired with the king!”

He stared back in shocked upset. “Everyone knows she bloody conspired against me!”

“Then why did you spare her and her husband the noose?” shrieked Selest. It was a good question. One to which Orso had himself struggled to find a satisfactory answer. Selest was less circumspect. “Because it is a fact that Savine Brock was for years the king’s lover!”

Orso sat back frowning on his stool as the whispers fluttered about the public galleries. That one was harder to deny with much conviction. They were memories he still often guiltily caught himself enjoying, after all.

“Not only that! It is a fact!” Selest spat the word with a kind of savage triumph. “That Savine Brock is the king’s sister!”

Orso felt the colour drain from his face. Probably he should have lied his head off. That was what everybody else did in here. But he was taken too much by surprise. Everyone was.

“It is a fact!” Selest was screaming now, spit flying, broken voice echoing. “That Savine Brock is the bastard daughter of King Jezal the First!”

There was a breathless silence in the court as people struggled to make sense of what they were hearing. The Representatives sat gawping on their benches. The public galleries gave a collective gasp. Captain Broad stood, flask frozen just short of his mouth. Judge sat bolt upright in her chair, mouth twisted into a delighted grin.