Bianca di Rizzetto seated herself on one of the two thrones. The second was empty. The king was not here. Much might have been different in Ferrieres and the world if the king had been present. This moment would not be upon them had he been well, Thierry thought. He might come back to them, for an interval, as he did when the madness receded from him, but it hadn’t yet, this time. It was almost certain, de Vaux had said, that King Roch had no idea his brother was dead. He glanced at the provost. Robbin de Vaux was standing ramrod straight, facing the thrones.

There was a dais to the left of those. A stone lectern had been placed there. Three tonsured men in judicial robes sat on a long stone bench behind it, near a fire. Thierry knew them all, from his time at the university. Two had been retained by the duke-uncles of the dead man and the king. One was here to speak for Laurent de Barratin, who had acknowledged murder. And fled. That third man he remembered quite well, the best teacher he’d had, even if he hadn’t cared for his studies very much.

He stared at Denis Cassin. Poise and intelligence could be frightening, deployed in a cause. He wondered how much Cassin was being paid. A great deal, for certain. He was, Thierry thought, at some risk here, too. Everyone was!

Certain documents and findings, including the letter from Barratin and the confessions of the two men from the Châtelet, were read out. This was the making of a record, as much as anything. After checking with the clerics writing it down, the court chamberlain, a stout, bald man, nodded his head at the dais.

—

Cassin was all that Thierry remembered. Smooth, eloquent, drily astringent.

“The queen and the court will remember, of course,” he was now saying, having begun with principles of law precisely set forth, including those of the Emperor Valerius, naturally, “how Aristimedes defended Rhodias of the Ancients and the lands it ruled from the unbridled ambitions of one we do not name, by custom, but who wished to be a tyrant over a thousand years ago. Aristimedes took the hard, harsh steps that ended a deceitful man’s life, and thereby saved glorious Rhodias. The would-be usurper was…well, he was a man who craved wealth, and was known to lust for the wives of others in the circles of power. There is even a tale he had his mistresses painted in frescoes on a wall in a private chamber, for his private enjoyment.”

There was, Thierry knew, no such tale at all.

And then, predictable as rain under springtime clouds, Denis Cassin used that falsified image to begin describing the slain Duke de Montereau as a dire and desperate threat to Ferrieres: a vicious, greedy, self-absorbed hunter of wealth, chasing down the hard-earned coins of honest citizens for his own vainglorious goals.