Piers lunged and Ira threw all his bony weight onto him.
“No, lad! No, he lies!” The other nobles—their numbers more than tripled in the time since Piers arrived in the receiving hall—swarmed cautiously around and past them into the chamber as Ira held Piers back. “Lady Alys was untouched when we found her. She is safe with Lady Sybilla. She’s safe, Piers! For the love of God, would you concentrate on what you came here to do!”
Piers looked down at Ira, nodded hesitantly. “She must hate me for what I did. Did she … did she ask of me?”
Ira’s brows lowered into a pained looking frown. “She wished you well, my lad. There is no malice in her.”
Piers swallowed and then nodded again, this time more resolutely. “Alright,” he said. He looked to the open doors as if they were a portal to his eternal judgment. In a way, they were just that.
“Let’s go.”
It was yet an hour before the king presented himself to his court, and in that time, Piers let Ira fill his ears and mind with meaningless chatter. Grandfather and grandson stood alone on one side of the narrow room, while Judith Angwedd and her son stood opposite the long center aisle. The nobles gathered together to plea their own claims or simply to witness the goings-on approached neither group, only stared at the individuals with blatant curiosity. And this pleased Piers, because he knew it vexed Judith Angwedd.
Then everyone in the chamber was sinking suddenly into low bows. Piers felt Ira jerk on his sleeve, and then he realized Edward had come upon the rear of the dais. Piers too paid his homage, and did not rise until the rest of the chamber had, at a loss for the mannerisms of court.
The king was a tall man, pale, with a pointed face. His clothes fit his long, slender limbs closely, and when he sat in his ornate, marble throne, he leaned on an elbow and stretched one leg out before him, as if it was stiff.
A richly-dressed man with a rolled scroll stepped to the front of the dais. “Before the court of our sovereign lord, His Majesty King Edward, this day: Lady Judith Angwedd Mallory of Gillwick Manor and her son, Lord Bevan Mallory of Gillwick Manor. Regarding the estate and inheritance of the late Lord Warin Mallory of Gillwick Manor. Denied by Piers Mallory, a commoner unknown to the realm.” The man looked up from his scroll and eyed the sea of people. “Persons step forward.”
As Piers made his way to stand before the dais, perhaps only six feet separating him from Judith Angwedd, he noticed the man sitting just behind Edward at a little table, scribbling with a quill.
The court’s agent spoke again. “Let it be known that the matter with which you present the king this day will be irrevocably decided, and that your witness is your solemn vow. Perjurers will be held up to the law.” The man stepped back to the king’s side.
Edward raised his chin from his hand long enough to flick a long finger at Judith Angwedd. “You.”
The redhead stepped forward and curtsied so low Piers thought her forehead would bounce off the floor. She rose.
“Your Majesty, my husband, God rest his soul, was a good man. He naturally wanted our son, Bevan, to succeed him. This … commoner,” Judith Angwedd spat in Piers’s direction, “is a bastard from the village whore. He stole the Gillwick crest from my husband’s hand before his body was cold. His claim is a false one, and I would humbly ask that he be punished for not only his theft, but the humiliation his accusations have wrought.”
Edward’s eyebrows rose. “Is that all?”
Judith Angwedd bowed deeply once again. “There is simplicity in the truth, your majesty.”
Then the king’s eyes turned to Piers. “This crest, you have it with you?”
Piers nodded. “Yes, Sire.” Then without hesitation, he pulled the ring from his finger and began to approach the dais.
From either side of him, armed guards previously unnoticed rushed to block Piers’s advance. The court’s agent stepped from the platform with a disapproving frown and held out his hand. Piers heard Bevan’s snort as he placed the signet ring in the man’s palm. When Piers stepped back, the guards retreated.
Piers watched as the king held the ring between long forefinger and thumb and turned it this way and that, inspecting it. Then Edward looked to Piers once more.
“You claim that you are also Warin Mallory’s son?”
“Yes, Sire,” Piers said, and gave a hesitant half-bow, only because he knew not what else to do. “But let it be known to all who gather here that my mother was no whore. She was common, yes—the daughter of a simple dairy man who served Gillwick.” Piers glanced around and saw Ira’s shoulders square. “My grandfather, there.”
Edward said nothing for several moments, only looked between Piers and Bevan. Then he addressed Piers once again. “Who is the elder?”
“Bevan is, Sire,” Piers offered. “By not quite one year.”
Edward’s eyebrows rose again, this time in genuine surprise. “Then your claim is dismissed, man. By the very nature of primogeniture, the eldest son shall inherit his father’s estate. It would be highly unusual in any matter for a man to bequeath his home to an illegitimate heir when he clearly has another son to which his estateis legally entitled, even should the illegitimate son be the elder. Which you, by your own admission, are not.”
Judith Angwedd squealed and clapped her hands. “Thank you, your majesty! Your wise and—”
“Silence,” Edward threw at her. He looked to Piers. “Why would you bring such a frivolous claim to my court, knowing that you could not win?”
Piers swallowed. “My father bade me, Sire. On his deathbed. Bevan was born before me, yes. But not of my father’s loins.” Behind him, the court gasped. “Bevan Mallory is not my father’s son at all.”
Edward sat up in his chair and threw an annoyed look to his agent.
