He added, “Let us also remember some other things that the distinguished advocates have not mentioned. First, as you heard at the outset, the Duke de Barratin confessed to ordering this murder. The provost of Orane is not alleging things yet to be proven. Two of the Barratin guards also confessed, offering details, including the choosing of a leader for this butchery, the hiring of horses, and of the house whence they burst forth in a black night to hack Rollin de Montereau down in the frozen muck of the street.” He spread his arms wide. “There is no uncertainty here, your grace, members of the court. There is none! There are confessions.”

He paused. “And then there is a cowardly man’s flight from Orane, from his crime, from this court. This is the person who will now seek to be protector of the prince? Guardian of Ferrieres until the king comes again to lead us? He is most of the way to his own lands by now! He will hide behind his city and castle walls and winter’s distances, while an advocate, paid extremely well for his skills, tries to disguise what has happened.”

He didn’t want to end on Cassin. He needed some—

He had it.

He said, “I am at an end now, and I appeal to your grace for mercy if I have overstepped in my attempt to serve Ferrieres. Here is my last word. Powerful men often believe justice has little to do with them. That they live above it, outside it. Maybe it is true. Maybe it is! But perhaps it is not so now, here, for one reason: an equally powerful man was slain. And we know, we all know—it is taught by our holy clerics—that the dead cannot find rest, or shelter and light with Jad, when they have been murdered and those who did it are permitted to walk away free, to ride away free, to flourish in their power. A slain lord cries out to us. Will we not listen to him, in the god’s name?”

He stopped there. He bowed again. But not, this time, to the three men behind him. He was, he realized, still enraged. Fury was not done with him. A strange feeling, the way it could rule you. His hands were shaking now, he saw. He put them behind his back, walking again to his place behind the provost. He’d look like a contemplative advocate, he thought, bitterly.

There were whispers everywhere. A hum, a buzz, a steady throb of noise in the chamber. He tried to ignore it, to slow his racing heart. Robbin de Vaux turned in his seat again. He said, softly, “I wasn’t certain why I kept you with me, Thierry Villar. Something of an impulse. It was for this, I now realize.”