Chapter 85: I felt and looked awful (2)

“I almost pity that young squire.” Sam muttered.

“Don't,” Emma replied. “It might make him into a better person in the end.”

“Ok then,” the Empress straightened from the table where she had been scribbling furiously for a few seconds and I saw that she had propped her sword against the table next to her. “That brings us back to Sir Craythorne. So, according to young master Varnier the qualities of the knight. He said Duty. Duty, humility, charity, compassion, honesty, mercy, respect and kindness.” She picked up the piece of paper and brought it back over to Sir Craythorne. “Did I miss one?” She asked the room.

“No, Imperial Majesty.” It was the Duchess that answered. She looked pale.

“Right. So lets work through the list then Sir Craythorne. Duty. Have you been properly Dutiful.” She looked over the top of the paper and gazed steadily at the man. “I will come back to Duty.” She said. “I did find it interesting that young Master Varnier said that one first as one's feudal duty is actually some way down the traditional list. But anyway, Humility was next. What do we think of Sir Craythorne's sense of humility?”

She looked at the man again. “Remind me Sir Craythorne, what was it you said? “I am the very flower of knighthood.” you said. “I exemplify all of the qualities that are looked for in a knight. Those things are the important qualities of a knight. They are true because I say that they are true.”

She sucked the air through her teeth in the same way that my dwarven craftsman had done when I had asked him how much Ariadne's ring was going to cost. “Doesn't sound very humble to me Sir Craythorne.”

Sir Craythorne said nothing. He stared at a point a little above the Empress' head. As if he was holding himself above the entire affair. I found myself waiting to see some crack in his composure. But then I realised what was happening here. What was going on in his head. He thought he would be able to redeem himself. He thought that he would be able to take some kind of quest and overcome this minor disgrace. He was resigning himself to a minor penance of some kind.

“Now what's next?” The Empress wondered. “Ah yes. Charity. Madame Duchess, do you have a Chancellor of some kind that monitors money in the Duchy.”

“I do, Imperial Majesty.” I wondered if it was my imagination that the Duchess was emphasising the title.

“Is he here?”

“He is.”

The man stepped forward. He had a book under his arm and I was again struck by the thought that I was watching a piece of theatre.

“Chancellor. How much is Sir Craythorne worth?”

“At a rough estimate, if he liquefied his assets and investments and collected his rents up until today, right here and now, then he would be worth approximately 238 million Nilfgaardian florens.”

There was a general sucking of breath at the amount. It was indeed a lot of money.

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“And how much has he donated to charitable causes?” The Empress was looking at Sir Craythorne's face as she asked.

“64,000 florins to the building of the statue to St Lebioda.”

“I hated math at church school. But that's less than 1% isn't it.”

“It's the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction of 1% Imperial Majesty.”

“huh. So that's what Charity looks like.” She nodded as though noting something away for future purposes.

“So Charity. What's next. According to young Master Varnier we're onto Compassion. When referring to the victims of these crimes. How did you refer to those people that died? I seem to recall something...What was it now? Ah yes. “Just another whore,” wasn't it? I think we can move onto the next point. Ah yes. Honesty. Now we come to one of the crux's of the matter.

“When we knew we were coming to Toussaint we sent a group of the guards here in advance. Their task was to assess the safety of the realm and whether or not there were any threats to my person or to the personages that I would be bringing with me. We asked everyone as to whether or not we needed to know anything. Our questions were many and wide ranging. I do in fact have a list here somewhere. Ah yes, here it is.”

She took another piece of paper from the table.

““Are there any criminals, whether mundane or magical, currently operating in or around the Duchy?” is the question that we asked. There were a few answers of course but then there are always people willing to cause problems. But I notice that your assigned task of catching this Laughing Jack had obviously not been completed and yet you said nothing. Why was that?”

Sir Craythorne didn't answer. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

“Come on Sir Craythorne. You're not even trying. You could say “I forgot,” or “I wasn't at the meeting.” I know that last one was false so that would be a bad choice but at the same time you could say something. It's not a rhetorical question after all so why did you say nothing Sir Craythorne?”

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

“I'm waiting.” The Empress snapped.

“I....I didn't think it was important.”

“Why not?” she bit the words off between clenched teeth.

“Because they were just....”

“Because they were just commoners or because they were just prostitutes?”

For the first time I saw the beginnings of a crack in Sir Craythorne's confidence but then it was as though he just blinked and the confident facade was back. I could almost see his thought process. “This can't be happening to me. I am Sir Craythorne, title title title title. This is beneath me.”

He continued to be silent.

“I'm going to take your silence to mean that you thought both things. I think we have further evidence about the Compassion part of things. But when you were asked, you specifically left out information that was required. You kept that information from us. Doesn't sound very honest to me.

“What's next?” She consulted her paper, “Mercy. One of my favourites. That title you claimed Champion of the Tournament of the rose wasn't it? How did you win that one?”

I suddenly felt embarrassed. The Empress was drawing this out. This destruction of a man. I found I didn't really want to watch any more.

“According to the organiser of the tournament, your final opponent, aware of your reputation for drubbing opponents tried to concede. You refused until he fought you and beat him into senselessness. Thus preventing him from offering his service to the realm. I understand he has been forced to retire to manage his estates as his arm will never properly heal.”

“He insulted me by refusing to fight me.”

“He paid you a compliment. But you wanted to show off your skills so that people would fear you did you not?”

Sir Craythorne went back to staring into space. There was a slight shift in his expression. He looked as though he had dismissed the Empress' interpretation of events as she didn't understand. As though she couldn't understand, which was when I got another piece of the Empress' anger. He was looking down on her because she wasn't a knight. Because she wasn't a man.

Part of me started to hope that the Empress would take him outside and kick his ass.

“Respect.” The Empress read from her list “It can hardly fail to escape notice that you have yet to use my proper today. Also the dismissal of rape and murder victims as “whores”, especially as one of them was a farmers daughter visiting town. Even an idiot would see that the possibility that the other victims were taken because they were the only women that were out at night. What's next? Kindness.

“I noticed that you didn't once protest when your squire was removed from here by the ear. Also some of the earlier evidence would count against you.

“So that brings us back to Duty.”

The Empress went to the table and put down the various pieces of paper that she had used over her discourse so far and clasped her hands behind her back.

“Duty. It's an interesting idea. Mostly interpreted in these cases as Duty to one's feudal superiors.”

She sighed and scratched at her head before suddenly turning on Sir Craythorne.

“Do you know that the earliest stories that I can remember involve stories about the Knights Errant of Toussaint. I can remember stories about men who would do anything. Knights who would defend the honour of a peasant woman just as much as they would the highest nobles of the land. Knights who would place their cloaks across puddles to prevent a woman's feet from getting wet as she walked to fetch water from the well. Knights who would go out of their way to avoid hurting an opponent and treated all that they came across with kindness and decency. But one of the things that I always remember is that once given, a knight would die rather than break an oath.

“But one promise that was held above all else. That was the oath that was sworn on the heron. I will admit never understanding the idea of the perfection of the bird as I remember thinking that herons always looked rather stupid to me but then, as I grew older I saw the beauty and grace of the bird, especially in flight. So then it was clear to me that an oath to the heron was an oath to the ideal. To the hope of perfection and so a knight would die before giving up an oath to the heron.

“Does that sound right Sir Craythorne?”

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

“I checked with two people who administer these oaths. The first was the keeper of the Heron. That man that says whether or not a man is a Knight Errant and therefore able to properly swear on the heron. Despite his informing me that the tradition has become somewhat relaxed and that anyone can call on the heron to witness an oath now, it still meant that the knight, or the oath-taker would not rest or take on any other task until that oath would be fulfilled.

“I also checked with the Duchess. The the other keeper of oaths to the Heron and she agrees with my assessment as well. I spoke to the Duchess at length. She recalls, quite clearly, that the matter of “Laughing Jack” was brought to the attention of the court. She saw the concern of the common-folk and, quite correctly according to the laws and traditions of Toussaint, called for a knight to solve the problem. You were one of the knights that offered your services were you not?”

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

“It doesn't matter. Court records confirm it. They also say that the Duchess assigned the task to you and that you swore on the Heron that you would see “Laughing Jack” caught. The records even show that the court cheered your oath.

“Now we come to the nub of the matter. Yesterday was the day of my coronation. I know that you were in attendance then. I find this unusual as I received a number of apologies from knights who could not attend due to duties that they had taken up, witnessed by the heron. What about the day before. The day when Lady Francesca could still have been saved?”

Sir Craythorne still said nothing.

“I can answer this as well. You were fighting in the tournaments. Perhaps you could explain to the assembly what fighting in the tournament would do to help you catch Laughing Jack?”

Sir Craythorne said nothing.

“Still nothing Sir Craythorne? The tournament has been going on for the last couple of weeks as there have been a number of different events and I see from the records that you are taking part in many of them. How could you possibly have had the energy to hunt a rapist and murderer? A rhetorical question that one which I don't expect you to answer. So during that time, according to my reports, there was another disappearance and death. This was before I was here so I wasn't aware of that. The Duchess heard but, again quite correctly, she assumed that you were dealing with it as you had sworn on the heron that you would do so.”

Sir Craythorne looked bored.

“But before the tournament. What did you do to try and catch the killer?”

There was a pause while Sir Craythorne failed to answer the question.

“That wasn't a rhetorical question Sir Craythorne. I expect an answer. Did you interview the victims families and friends?”

No response.

“How about mounting a watch?”

No response.

“Did you even patrol?”

No response.

“These are elementary things in the pursuit of a murderer. According to your squire, who was questioned on the matter last night, you have patrolled four times. You patrolled the nobles quarters and the palace grounds. An odd choice of patrol area given that Jack has only really struck in the poorer districts. According to your squire you said that this was to make sure that Jack didn't take anyone important. You also looked at the crime scenes and shook your head a few times.

“You left word that if the “Laughing” was heard then you should be sent for. Word was sent twice. The first time it took you three hours to arrive at the site given that you were attending Lady Foxmere's ball. The second time you refused to be woken from your bed and didn't arrive at the site until the morning by which time the girl was dead. The common-folk then gave up trying to contact you and formed a militia in an effort to protect themselves. A militia which is considered illegal in Toussaint as the common folk are supposed to bring their concerns to their feudal masters so that they can be protected. But they did that and you failed to protect them. Your failed to protect them and you failed to protect Lady Francesca. You failed Sir Craythorne.”

“I will catch him.”

“Do you swear by the heron that you will do so?” The Empress sneered. I saw some people shifting uncomfortably. “You will forgive me, Sir Craythorne that I am not going to take your word for it.”

She stalked a little way off.

“I am told by many, including you, that you exemplify what it is to be a Knight Errant. I find this lacking in several important areas as we have seen so I am forced to take steps. The people of Toussaint are my subjects too and I need to protect them and unlike some in range of my voice, I take my duties seriously. You, yourself have proven that they need protecting. I have no doubt that there are some good men in the ranks of the Knights Errant but if you are what people are taught to aspire to then this is a significant failure and steps must be taken to correct the course that has been set before further rot sets in. And rot there is. Having looked into the matter you are not alone in neglecting your proper duties and treating others poorly. That you have in turn tried to pass these things onto the younger knights is something I find worrying and now I must take certain steps. Drastic ones.

“I have spoken to the people in charge of the knightly orders that you claim membership of. They have all said that you will be removed from their rolls. In a short while I will administer the rest of your punishment in a while. I would do it now because I am frankly sick of the sight of you but I want you to witness the damage you have done to Toussaint and your way of life.”

She moved back to the table.

“This first piece of paper that I'm signing, is an Imperial order placing Toussaint in a state of Martial Law. The Imperial Guard will provide border guards, patrols and police force while I am here until they are relieved by the fourth Alba division. Orders were sent last night to the Colonel of the 4th and he expects to be here in three days.”

The declaration met with shouts and cries of dismay from the gathered nobles of Toussaint.

“All matters of Law and order will be brought to the Guard and they will be dealt with accordingly. All knights that are currently on mission will be reinforced by Guardsmen to aid in the completion of their tasks.

“This second piece of paper that I am signing now is a further Imperial order that suspends the authority of the Knights Errant indefinitely and releases them from the oaths that they have sworn without blame.”

There were more cries of concern. Even Sir Craythorne appeared shaken.

“This is another declaration that if any existing Knight Errant who presents themselves to the General of the Guard and asks to serve Toussaint, they will be found duties but they will be placed within the chain of command according to the General's whim. Those Knights Errant can consider today to be a clean slate. They will not be tarred by the past. They may either serve, or they may retire. But they will be expected to obey military discipline and the proper chain of command.”

The Empress signed the orders and attached her seal of office to each. The secretary took the pieces of paper and handed each to the waiting heralds for the orders to be announced.

The Empress finished, picked up her sword and came back to Craythorne. “What do you say to that Sir Craythorne?”

He seemed a little stunned. “You...”He appealed to the other nobles. “She can't do that.”

“She can.” It was a different voice that sounded like a whip-crack across the room. “Not only can she. She also should.”

It was the Duchess who spoke. The Duchess in her plain, simple dress.

“You made a liar of me sir.” Her voice wavered as though she was on the verge of tears. “I swore my own promise, Sir. I told the Empress that she and hers were protected by my knights. I swore it sir. I swore it on the heron. I swore it, sir, and you have made me break that promise. For they were provably not safe.”

She visibly took a swallow. “I have read the records sir and I have heard the testimony. I have not slept for the pain that this caused and I am distraught. Distraught sir. You have made me an oath-breaker. Me. The Duchess of Toussaint, an oathbreaker. I have told the Empress that I no longer believe I am fit to rule but she has refused my desire to retreat to a nunnery.”

The Empress was back at her table, writing.

“I believe that there is no better person,” The Empress said. “No better person to oversee the rebuilding of Toussaint into what it should be, than the Duchess. This last order states that Martial Law will be lifted when Duchess Anna Henrietta declares that the Order of the Knights Errant have returned to their former glory. She will be advised in this duty by the Colonel of the 4th. The Colonel is a good man and will advise you well Duchess.”

“Thank you, Imperial Majesty. Thank you and I swear. I swear it and it will be the first oath of the new order. Our new order. I swear by the Heron. The knights Errant of Toussaint will once again be a thing that we can be proud of. I swear that Toussaint will be safe for all of our subjects. I swear that...” I saw tears brimming in her eyes. “I swear that I will do better. I swear all of this on the Heron. Who will help me? Who will help me forge the Knights Errant into something that Toussaint can be proud of? That all of Toussaint can be proud of, regardless of their station or birth.”

The other knights in the room cheered their Duchess' oath. I may be a cynic. And I may still have been angry and bitter that day, but she could not have done it better if she planned it. The knights cheered. Both the former knights Errant and the Imperial Guard.

“But there will be at least one knight that will be missing from their ranks.” The Duchess hissed and never was there more anger in a voice. As I say, if it was natural and unscripted, it was beautifully timed.

The Empress nodded, playing with her sword pommel. “Sir Craythorne. It was your actions that have forced these circumstances on Toussaint and they must be answered for.”

Even Sir Craythorne himself was not immune to his surroundings. He was as much a product of Toussaint and the culture that was there as anyone. You could almost feel his desire to be part of it and his pride's desire to lead that charge. I suspect he was even willing to make some changes in his own behaviour and outlook. That's what made what happened next all the crueller.

“What has happened here has shaken the Duchy of Toussaint.” The Empress declared. “Indeed, before it is all done, I suspect it will shake the entirety of the Empire. I know my cousin the Duchess will turn the office of knighthood into the pinnacle of what a Knight should be by the time that she is finished. But it should not, and has not escaped notice that she should not have to do this in the first place. There have been many sins of omission committed here and by the time we are finished I suspect that there will be many punishments meted out to cruel and neglectful men who have called themselves “Knight Errant.”

“But today, that neglect and casual cruelty has been given a name and it has been given a face in the personage of you, Sir Craythorne.”

She moved to stand in front of him. Again, it was not lost on me that he towered over her physically.

She smiled suddenly.

“I can see it in you Sir Craythorne, despite everything you still believe that you are going to get away with this. You expect to be Exiled. You expect that you will be given some penance and that you will be able to worm your way back into the good graces of this court. You expect to be able to redeem your family name and, by right of arms, reclaim your place as one of the foremost knights of the realm.

“I am telling you now that this is not the case.”

Something in the Empress shifted then for a moment. The Empress stopped being the figure of the Empress and became a simple woman, losing all her airs and graces and spoke to Sir Craythorne as another person.

She had her sword in her hand and she seemed different. By this point I had met Cirilla Elen Fiona Riannon the Empress. I had also met, Ciri, the woman. The friend and noblewoman, who knew enough not to take herself too seriously. The woman who watched the world go by with grace and humour. I had shared a meal with this woman and liked her a great deal.

This was a new facet of the woman that I saw, just for a few minutes in the throne-room. I am now, at the time of writing, some distance and time away from these events and writing with the aid of quickly scribbled notes from the brain of a terrified, tired and enormously angry man. But I remember at the time that I was reminded of something.

The bard has told many stories of The Empress and one of the things that he tells us is that at one time, The Empress lived rough in the towns and villages of the Empire. Having no notable skills to live by in that rough time and place, other than her skill with her weapons, while being forced to defend herself from attacks of the most unsavoury nature, she fell into banditry. I have made no particular study of that time in the Empress' life as I was more interested in other directions of study, while also rather thinking that the study of the Empress' life would not be unique enough to make my name as a scholar. I would also have had to deal with the many biographers that had already begun work when she first returned to the public stage.

What I do know and remember is that, at that time, she was known as Falka and she was feared for her quick sword and quicker temper.

What possessed her to choose so blood-soaked a name, I will hope to one day be able to ask her. But in that moment in the throne room of the Duchess. I think we all met Falka for a moment. I for one am glad that she has chosen a more.....regal and gentle approach to rulership.

“Shall I tell you what I think?” She asked him. I almost couldn't tell that it was the same person. “I think you are a coward.”

He hissed and almost recoiled, his hand going to his sword hilt. The rest of the court backed off and I think that they too expected sudden violence.

The Empress grinned hungrily.

I guessed that she honestly might have begged him to draw on her. I checked over the other coutiers. Lady Yennefer, the woman who I knew the Empress thought of as a Mother was watching carefully, she was playing with a pentagram that was attached to a black choker around her neck. I don't know her well enough to guess what she was thinking but she was looking utterly concentrated on the Empress.

Her “father” Geralt had not changed his physical attitude. If anything he looked bored with the entire affair. I guessed that if Sir Craythorne did draw on the Empress then Witcher Geralt, at least, was not afraid for the Empress.

After a moment, Sir Craythorne realised that he was about to draw steel on the most important woman on the continent. He relaxed his grip and returned to an upright posture.

The Empress almost looked disappointed.

“Oh don't get me wrong,” she said after a long moment. “I don't think you are a physical coward. If I declared war on someone or needed a dragon slaying then I suspect that you would volunteer and do so with courage and skill at arms. But that's not the point is it.”

She began to return to the poise of the Empress Cirilla.

“Humility takes courage. Mercy takes courage. Charity and Compassion takes courage but of a different kind than the one you have used. These things leave us open to abuse and to others taking advantage of us and it takes courage to overcome that fear. It takes courage to reach out to those strange to ourselves. It takes courage to offer charity to those that we do not understand and to give your last piece of food to the man, woman, non-human or even one considered a monster. That is the kind of courage that you lack. Your arm and your sword have made you strong. Made you famous and wealthy. You have depended on it and have feared losing it and therefore losing your standing. You have bullied those weaker than you so that they would never be able to climb to meet your accomplishments. Beating your competitors until other men fear to face you.

“I flatter the Duchess that she will make these things less of a virtue in the future. But you can no longer be lauded and held up as a thing to be aspired to. Therefore I must destroy you utterly and it will be as though you were never born.

“You will never work your way back into our good graces. You will never reclaim your lands or your titles or your fortunes. Your name and deeds will be struck from the pages of history and when people mention your name it will only be to insult but encourage the incompetence of another.”

The Empress made her voice an imitation of a long-suffering craftsmaster chastising an apprentice.

“Well, lad you made a right hash of that. But don't worry. At least you're not as incompetent as Craythorne was,”

Her voice returned to normal.

“Your very name will be made a joke and then you will no longer be the man. You will be forgotten.

You will be taken from here. Your arms and armour will be removed from you and they will be destroyed. The blacksmiths will be instructed to melt them into slag which will be shipped out and dumped into the sea. The jewels will be sold and the proceeds will be dealt with as the Duchess sees fit. But there will be no single gift. No bequest or charitable work for you to be remembered by in the giving of that gift.

“Your mother has already been spoken to and has begged leave to go to a nunnery. The Duchess and I have agreed to allow this. Your sister, we understand, is doing well for herself up at Oxenfurt university after she disappointed you by being neither pretty or charming. The Arch-Chancellor and I have spoken and he has seen to it that the fee for her education will be waived. She will be free to pursue whatever studies she sees fit and when she decides to marry, your mother has agreed to a dowry amount and both the duchess and I will take steps to ensure that she will not be penalised by any who wish to tarnish her name with your disgrace.

“Your lands, holdings and investments will be given over to the Coulthard family from the North as some small recompense for the pain that you have caused. The Coulthard family's merchant endeavours have proven that they are more than capable administrators of farm lands and I suspect that they will take to running a vinyard with just as much zeal and industry. They will be charged with running the lands for the sole purposes of financing the new order of knights so that the new Knights Errant can be drawn from any young man who shows promise, rather than just those people from the families who can afford to pay for the equipment.

“Will you see to that my Lords and Ladies of Coulthard?”

We looked at each other and one by one we kind of turned to look at Mark. Mark looked at each of us with a slight raised eyebrow before nodding at whatever he saw in our faces.

“We shall, Imperial Majesty. It would be our honour to help with the formation of the new knightly order and may I say that we will help in any way that we can above and beyond this.”

“Grateful to you Lord Coulthard.” Said the Empress.

“May I enquire however, whether the Empress wishes the name changed? I, for one, might be confused if I was ordering “Coulthard wine,” rather than a good Kayalese red.”

There was a few small titters of nervous laughter at Mark's joke. The laughter increased a little when the assembly realised that the Empress wasn't going to tamp it down.

Mark waited for a moment after the laughter had died down before continuing.

“Mercy, is one of the cardinal virtues.” he said in his best Fatherly churchman voice. “Although, I will admit to my own anger against the....thing.... in front of you Majesty and it is not my place to appeal for mercy on his behalf. I would though suggest that his ancestors might have been good and faithful servants of the realm. Destroying their name for the sins of a son who turned out to be lacking seems a little....harsh.”

The Empress has one of those faces that can smile without moving her lips.

“You see, Craythorne.” She said slyly after a while. “That's how you do mercy.”

The Duchess walked towards Mark and proffered her hand. Mark frowned a little in confusion before bending over her hand to kiss it but was forced to straighten in astonishment as the Duchess lowered in a curtsy of respect.

The surrounding soldiers of the guard stamped their feet three times in salute.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Sam in amazement. I asked him about it later and he told me that that's a sign of respect from the guard. Something rarely given when the guard depend on their anonymity and impartiality. It's a sign of ultimate respect.

“Keep the name Lord Coulthard.” the Empress said when the uproar and surprise from the rest of the room died down. “With the Duchess' permission of course. You are right. It would be harsh. The rest of it will be discussed later.”

Mark bowed deeply and backed up a bit to the uniformity of the rest of us.

“There is one exception to this.” Said the Empress. “The family castle and it's buildings will be turned over to the Duchy of Toussaint for the purposes of housing the new order of Knights Errant. It will be used for training and housing and whatever else is deemed necessary while the new order of nights is formed. If the servants that live there are required to manage the land then they will be housed elsewhere. In buildings still to be built if necessary.

“As for you Craythorne. There will be no grand execution for you to make a final gesture. You will be given no ceremonies or rituals. As I say, you will be stripped and shaved. You will then be shipped out of the castle at night, In secret, and shipped north. Far to the north where you will be given work. It will be menial work. It will be hard work and it will be solitary work. We don't want you forming some kind of Prisoner rebellion or making your way elsewhere and trying to redeem or rebel in some form.

“There, you will spend out the rest of your days. But you will be watched. If you try to leave, you will be beaten and returned to your new place of employment. If you try to commit suicide you will be healed and returned to work. If you lay your hands on a weapon, you will be beaten and the weapon broken, before returning to work.”

The gasps of the watching crowd told me that this punishment was having the desired effect. The people there couldn't imagine a worse fate.

“We are trying to encourage mercy now so I will give you this one mercy. Every year. On the anniversary of the night Francesca disappeared. Someone will come to you and you will be taken to a tree and given a rope. You may ask to be hung then. I say hung because you are nothing but a piece of meat to me now. If you transgress in any way, you will be punished by one of the things that you set such great store by. We will remove your teeth for instance, or an eye, or an ear or...well I'm sure you get the idea. There is my mercy. In a years time, we will see if you take my mercy.”

She nodded at a guard.

“Take him away.”

And away he went. I'm not sure he believed it, even as they took him out. I wonder when he truly began to realise what was happening. At what stage it was. I have since learned that he was smuggled out of the palace in secrecy. I also know, that not one person tried to rescue him, and not one person protested his treatment.

I am a scholar and a student of history. What happened in that throne room that day was history whether we like it or not and historians, certainly historians from Toussaint, will be examining what happened in the days surrounding the Empress' coronation with studious eyes. But for me, here is my assessment. My....editorial if you will.

There is a necessary requirement, sometimes, for rulers to be cruel and ruthless. What happened there to that person, Craythorne, was both of those things. He was held up as an example of everything that was wrong with modern knighthood in Toussaint. He was held up before his peers and the highest people in the land. He was made a fool of, even though he didn't have the wit to see it, before being disgraced and destroyed. He had everything, literally everything, taken away from him. They even arranged it so that he wasn't even left with the shred of dignity that a man gets when he is on the way to the gallows or to the chopping block.

Instead he will go off to be... whatever. A shepherd is one of the possibilities that I thought of. Or a monk in one of those mountainous shrines where there is a holy place but only room or the ability to house one monk who must maintain the shrine.

What was done to him was cruel. It was unusual.

So then the question becomes.... was it necessary?

That is something that I don't know the answer to. One of the questions that I have heard asked was.... an example needed to be set, certainly. But redemption is a powerful thing and the production of a redeemed Sir Craythorne de tumpty tum would have been a powerful thing. So why did she not try to turn him into a tool for her own use?

And there is another question.

Was he beyond saving?

Another question is this. The Empress meted out that judgement. The Duchess was obviously mortified and I would flatter her and believe that her.... distress and later courtesies and grace were truly meant. But it was the Empress that made those judgements.

I wonder why.

There is the point that Sir Craythorne's negligence had lead to the disappearance of my sister who was one of the Empress' favourites. So soon in her office it is unlikely that she has many friends and that my sister undoubtedly provided that thing. A friend. It is possible that the Empress was angry and I believe that she was. I believe that she was furious. Almost beyond the capacity for thought. But she still could have made it happen differently.

Sir Craythorne was not alone in his attitude towards the lower classes of Toussaint and I hear that many former Knights are struggling to live in the new regime. So he was just one among many, so to single him out for his prejudices, neglect and incompetence when there are so many other bastards to choose from seems odd. He was a product of a slow decline. A decline so slow that good people didn't even realise it was happening until it was too late.

The Empress has many tools at her disposal to vent her anger on the fuck who lost my sister. But she didn't use any of them except the most public and the most cruel one.

So why did the Empress do that when she could have done so many other things?

I have a guess. I truly hope that my guess doesn't lead to me losing my head. It will take me some time to get to my point so please bear with me.

Was what she did cruel? As I say, I think so. He could have been killed with a quick blade out back somewhere and quietly buried in an unmarked grave. As I say, the Empress has all kinds of tools at her disposal if she desires some kind of personal revenge. But Craythorne's destruction was so public and so brutal and so utterly utterly uncompromising.

The feeling that I was watching a piece of theatre never quite left me throughout the entire proceedings. I think we were all players there, up to and including The Duchess of Toussaint. I don't know if anyone else was in on it or not. But here's what I think happened.

The Empress was going to destroy someone. It didn't matter who it was and fate threw Sir Craythorne into her path.

There are several perceived problems with the fact that the Empire has an Empress now instead of an Emperor. One of those problems is the rather incorrect and outdated perception that there is a member of the “fairer” or “weaker” sex on the throne. She is expected to be weak, gentle and merciful and people will assume that they will be able to play on that. All eyes were going to be on her first few days of rulership. If she displayed reasoned thought and action then people would take that for weakness and seek to exploit it. They would plot and scheme so all of a sudden the new Empress would have to put down armed rebellions left right and centre with increasingly harsh punishments that people would assume were being carried out despite the Empress' objections.

So instead she decided to pick one. One person, who crossed her early in her reign, who she then destroyed in the most public, cruel and complete fashion. As a result, no-one will ever dare to cross her again and she can be as reasonable and merciful as she likes as everyone will remember what she did to Sir Craythorne.

Sir Craythorne will never recover from that. Even if he was rescued he is now the man who's incompetence led to the declaration of martial law and the disbanding of the Knights Errant. The Duchess will be the hero who rebuilds them. People will write plays about it and sing songs.

In a couple of generations, the Duchess will probably even be considered a chaste saint who bestowed visions on those first few knights who went out into the world to right wrongs and vanquish evildoers. She may even be turned into the new personification of the Lady of the Lake.

They will tell stories of her.

You watch.