I stood before the tribunal three weeks later with no chain on my wrist and no title before my name.
The hearing took place in the old music room, chosen because the public gallery could fit inside it. I sat at a plain table beneath the windows. Cora sat opposite me, not as queen but as the person who had requested the inquiry. Harlan presided. A clerk recorded every answer.
The winter ledger lay open between us.
I admitted that I had signed the Gray Harbor orders. I admitted that I had known the evidence was incomplete. I admitted that I had failed to check the prison conditions and had not demanded an inquiry after Thomas Vale died. I admitted that I had treated Cora's claim to the throne as a danger rather than a right.
I did not say that the king had made me do it.
When Harlan ask
