The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

with dangerous hemorrhaging if she’d eaten it. No one else in the palace reported anything strange in their breakfast.
    The Gnuls had to be neutralized now.
    The major officials of the court bowed as the royal couple moved toward the thrones on the dais. Lord Andrall stood to the right of the thrones. Jonnias and the Marnaks to his right. Behind the senior lords, Fred and a cadre of Darville’s elite troops blocked any retreat through the back door. Another cadre had orders to move into position by the main entrance as soon as the royal couple passed through it.
    No one smiled. No hands reached out with petitions. The mood of the court reflected the grimness of Darville’s purpose. The full court would not have been assembled so hastily except in a dire emergency.
    “They all have to know what is happening to Coronnan. I can’t keep this private within the Council of Provinces,” he muttered to give himself the courage to face the assembly.
    “The lords would hide the ugliness behind secrecy,” Mikka reminded him. “None of them have any concept of the reality or the consequences of their petty schemes and manipulations. You must force them to face this issue.”
    “Bring in the evidence and the prisoner,” Darville commanded when he reached the dais.
    The guards shifted position enough to allow a stoop-shouldered man of middle years wearing hand and foot manacles passage to the center of the chamber. Two grim-faced guards in palace green escorted him on either side. A ragged hole in the prisoner’s tunic, above his heart, revealed to all the place where his badge of office had once resided. Upon first examination of the man’s crimes, in the chill hours before dawn today, Darville had ripped the insignia away in disgust and despair.
    “Where is the evidence?” Darville reminded his men.
    The sergeant opened his mouth as if to protest. Darville scowled at him, daring him to disobey. The sergeant signaled to the privates waiting in the corridor.
    Expressions carefully schooled, the foot soldiers carried a shrouded litter between them into the audience chamber. All around them, gently born men and women gasped in horror and withdrew from the stench of a three-day-old corpse. Escape from the grim proceedings was firmly blocked by battle-hardened men.
    “You will all hear this prisoner’s tale.” Darville lifted his voice to parade-ground levels. “You will all witness my judgment.”
    Grimly he whisked the sheet off the dead body for all to see the wreck of a once human face and form. Patches of skin had been burned away. Multiple stab wounds had ripped open his chest. Blood coated the open mouth where the tongue had been cut out and stuffed back in backward. One eye was missing.
    The king covered the body once more before he lost control of the hot bile in his throat. From the sounds at the far end of the long room, others succumbed to their revulsion.
    “State your name and your former office, prisoner.” Fred stepped forward and faced the man in chains.
    “Caardack. I was senior magistrate of the city of Baria in the Province of Sauria,” he whispered, never lifting his eyes from his chains.
    “Louder. Speak loud enough for all to hear.” Fred prodded the prisoner with a short club.
    Caardack almost doubled over at the touch of Fred’s weapon. Evidence that he’d endured more than one beating since being taken prisoner. He repeated his statement a little louder.
    “Tell your tale, simply and clearly. The entire court needs to know how far from law and order our people have fallen.” Darville sank onto his throne. Mikka placed her hand on his and squeezed gently. He had to endure this. For the good of the country, Caardack had to name his confederate in public. The court needed to see the perfidy of one of their own.
    “I have been magistrate of Baria for twenty years,” Caardack said proudly. He stood a little taller and straighter as he leveled his eyes on the king. “Always I have striven to be fair and just and maintain the laws of my king and the Stargods.”
    “Why, then, did you proclaim this man’s death an accident not worthy of further investigation?” Fred pointed to the corpse.
    Caardack looked furtively around the chamber, keeping his mouth firmly shut.
    “Tell us why, Caardack. I promised you leniency only if you named those who ordered you to ignore death by torture. Illegal torture. Death perpetrated by a small cult of fanatics against a man in my employ!”