The queen, who might have been one of those mistresses, listened, stony-faced. Her poise was impressive, but if you looked closely, you could read fury in her body language, including the hands with which she gripped the arms of her throne.

Cassin went on, with a slight, sorrowful shake of his head. “I now turn, of necessity, to the matter of dark magics employed against Jad’s anointed, our beloved King Roch, by the demonic Duke de Montereau, and his wife from Batiara, from the city of Macera, where such evil arts are known to—”

“No!” said the queen of Ferrieres.

She had risen to her feet.

“Counsellor, you have great licence here, defending a nobleman. But not this slander. Not this. If you persist, your role as counsel will not protect you. Be advised!”

Cassin stopped as if he had collided with a wall. He smoothed his gown with a nervous hand. He coughed, lowered his head.

“Yes, your grace,” he said quietly, when he was able to look up again.

That exchange would be in the record, too, Thierry thought. It really would have been wiser for Cassin to bear in mind that the queen was from Batiara as well. She didn’t like—it was widely reported—Bettina de Montereau, the slain duke’s wife, now his widow, but she would not, she had not stayed silent for this double slander.

Cassin was too experienced to be undone by this, but he did lose some of his force, Thierry thought, if not his eloquence.

You would have said it was too lengthy, his speech, except he spoke so well, with light and learned allusions, flattering those who listened, three clerics independently recording his words, to check their writing against each other’s later. He had a habit of laying one finger along the side of his face when he was pausing for a particular effect. Thierry remembered it.

He drew a breath. This had nothing to do with him now. The dukes had two advocates to counter and rebut what Cassin was devising: an image of Laurent de Barratin as a heroic protector of Ferrieres, both the court and the humble citizenry, against a power-mad nobleman chasing his brother’s throne, a threat to every man’s purse, and to every woman at court, married or otherwise.

And perhaps a magic-user, accursed of Jad?

Cassin had paused again. Now he drew himself up and spread his legs wider. A signal he had come to an end, that people ought to pay even more rapt attention to the words he vouchsafed them from the dais.