NOVEL FROG Chapter 33 - The Trial (Part 2)
Chapter 33 – The Trial (Part 2)
As everyone settled back into their seats, the Podesta raised a hand of shimmering basalt, glancing between both defendant and prosecution. When neither of them brought up any other complaints, he gave a slow, solemn nod. “Now that the oaths have been sworn, this trial may begin in earnest. So that there can be no more confusion, I will outline the terms of this trial here and now. To begin with the accuser, Ado Visconti, shall present proof of the crime, in whatever form he believes would be best. Once each case has been made, the representative of the criminal will be allowed time to provide some proof of innocence. Once the accuser has finished presenting all of his evidence, the Rettori shall vote on the guilt of the accused, with myself as the tiebreaker should such a thing be necessary. Am I understood?”
They nodded.
“Excellent,” he released a gravelly sigh, sinking back into his basalt throne. “Then, by my duty as Podesta d’Iscrimo, I declare this trial officially begun. May the Goddess favor the just. Signor Visconti, you have the floor.”
“Of course,” Ado stepped forward, having managed to regain some of his earlier swagger. “To begin, I would like to thank the Podesta who, as we are all aware, has made this trial possible. And of course to Signora Vicar, who’s great contributions has seen this city prosper despite the recent tragedy…”
For a moment, Palmira was confused, trying to figure out what he was trying to do. Where was his testimony? Why was he…?
Despite her confusion, he kept going like that for a while. Just on and on, thanking and buttering up what seemed like every noble in attendance. After a couple minutes of that Palmira blinked, beginning to zone out despite herself. She tried to focus, but he just kept talking without saying anything. She thought this was supposed to be a trial! She was prepared to argue with one of the most influential men in this city, not listen to him kiss ass!
“…and naturally Signor Iloro, who’s obsidian mines…”
Goddess above, get to the point already!
Palmira glanced around the room, wondering if she was alone in thinking this was ridiculous. Unfortunately, the Podesta and Rettori seemed bored but unsurprised, while the rest of the nobility were somehow eating up the blatant pandering.
Then she stopped, catching sight of something out of the corner of her eye.
“…the lovely Signorina Marcielle’s Donna Sanguinarie, who have helped us all…”
There, on her chair! Her eyes widened at the sight of a large spider—no, a crystal spider—crawling up the leg. Forcing herself to remain still, she watched as it crossed the gap over to her leg, swiftly crawling up and beneath her shirt. It became difficult as she felt its eight unnaturally cold legs skitter across her bare skin, but she managed until it burrowed into her hair and up into her mask, finally coming to rest right next to her ear.
“Palmira? Can you hear me?” Chiara’s voice whispered through the artificial arthropod. “Wait, don’t say anything. Just flex your hand for me, and I’ll take that as a yes.”
She did so, hoping the relief she was feeling at hearing her friend’s voice wasn’t too obvious. Thank the Goddess for this mask, it was proving more useful than she expected.
“Excellent. So, before I say anything else, I want to thank you for stepping up, but let’s be honest; we’re both aware you have no idea what you’re doing. So I’m going to help walk you through everything you need to say, because if I leave you to your own devices that big mouth of your will get us all executed the second you open it up.”
Hey! She wasn’t that bad! She knew when to keep her mouth shut, at least. Especially when she didn’t have Morte egging her on.
“Palmira! Pay attention!” Chiara’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts. “He’s finally done catering to the crowd.”
“…and, with that, I would like to bring in my first witness,” Ado smiled, waving to a young woman standing nervously behind him. She wasn’t a noble, as evidenced by her lack of makeup and colorful attire. “Signorina Angela, the primary maid of my late cousin Duke Visconti. She was attending to her lord on the night of the murder, and was in the room with both Cadorna and the Duke when it occurred. I present her to this house of law, to allow you all to hear her story and learn the truth of what transpired that night!”
“Technically, a commoner’s word against a nobles shouldn’t be worth anything,” Chiara muttered, frustrated. “Unfortunately for us, this is also a local’s word against a foreigner’s, so it cancels out. We can try and undermine her by pointing out her station, but in this case it’ll probably just make us look bad.”
Awkwardly stepping forward, the young woman gave a nervous glance towards the lord. At his nod, she cleared her throat and began speaking. “It’s true. I was there, when Duke Visconti perished. At first we assumed it was a heart attack—he’s always been, uh, fond of drinking—but when the guards checked the bottle, they found that it had been poisoned. So, um, right, Signor Cadorna was there as well. He had set up a meeting with the Duke a couple days before, I’m not sure about what. But once he arrived, Duke Visconti began feeling a pain in his heart. It crippled him, and before we knew what was going on, he… he passed away.”
She took a moment to steady herself, quickly dabbing the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. “…Signor Cadorna was taken into custody soon after. I knew not much that happened beyond that. I’m just a maid, as you good folk well know. I’m sorry, that I couldn’t be of more help today.”
“Don’t fret, Signorina!” Ado’s blinding grin contrasted sharply with the maid’s own sorrowful expression. “That was more than enough! Why, you all heard her, didn’t you? Dante Cadorna was in the very room when the murder occurred!”
“There wasn’t a lot there, despite it being a firsthand account,” Chiara mused, her voice drowning out the murmurs of the crowd. “It’s more like… I see, he knew that girl was mourning the late Duke, so he sent her out first to garner sympathy, the ass. Okay, we aren’t going to be able to counter her story, instead we’ve got to focus on setting up our own.”
“Very well. Then, if you are finished…?” The Podesta waited for Ado to nod, before waving Palmira forward. “Representative of Cadorna, you now have the floor. Do you have a rebuttal to the accusations?”
Nodding, Palmira stepped up, taking one last moment to center herself.
“I don’t doubt what Signorina Angela saw that night,” As she spoke she tried to temper her crasser way of speaking into something more refined, something that she hoped would go over better with the nobles in attendance. Mostly she was trying to copy Chiara—who was the most stuck-up person she regularly talked to—but some of the dry legalese Ósma had her study was starting to shine through as well. “However, I can’t see how this counts as ‘evidence.’ There was no accusation made here—Dante Cadorna was simply sitting in the same room as the Duke, nothing more. In fact, I’d like to call into question a simple logical fallacy at the very core of this trial—why in the world would a man poison someone and then stand there and watch it happen. I’m fully aware of your distaste of foreigners, Signor Visconti, but even you can’t believe the noble Dante Cadorna would be foolish enough to stand at the scene of his own crime.”
Ado raised an eyebrow, looking surprisingly confused. “Why wouldn’t he be? Is that not the most dramatic way to settle an old score? What murderer wouldn’t want to be there to watch the life leave their victim’s eyes, to watch the blood drain from their face, as they only realize too late what has happened? It’s only natural, I would think.”
What.
And why did the nobles behind him look like they were agreeing!?
“Tone it down,” Chiara hissed in her ear. “Don’t appeal to common sense, only to facts. The people on trial are nobles—they don’t have much of it in the first place, I doubt they’d recognize it in someone else.”
“You say that,” she frantically changed tracks. “But what old score is there to settle? We arrived in this city a mere day before the Duke died! They’d never even met before!”
The not-yet-a-duke smirked, and she’d realized only too late that she made a mistake. Even if she had no idea what it could be. “Actually, the two of them have met before!”
“They have!?” Chiara gasped, which very much did not help.
“We have!?” Dante spluttered, speaking aloud for the first time in the trial. The Podesta gave him a warning glare, but nothing more.
“It was twelve years ago, as a matter of fact! During the Grand Ball of Paedella—which both late Duke and Dante Cadorna attended—young Aretino was asked to grab his father a glass of wine. The precocious lad managed to make it only a few steps back to his father, before he tripped and soiled Cadorna’s silks. Since then, the man has obviously been waiting for the day to repay the insult in kind, even going so far as to use the same brand that was spilled on him all those years ago to do the deed!”
He could not be serious.
“Are you telling me…” the exhaustion in her voice was palpable, because surely not. “That you think the motive for this murder is… when the Duke was a child, he spilled some wine on Dante’s suit, and because of that has held a grudge against a child for twelve years.”
“Indeed,” the man’s smirk grew even smugger, which was not helped by the fact that the rest of the nobility looked like they were agreeing—how petty were these people!? “It’s so obvious, it’s almost tragic that nobody noticed sooner.”
“He didn’t even remember they’d met before!”
“He is lying, obviously.”
“What kind of defense is that!? ‘He’s lying,’ well I think you’re lying! Do you even have any proof of that story being real!?”
As the man opened his mouth to answer, the Podesta suddenly clapped his hands together, the booming noise causing them both to fall silent and turn to him.
“I believe,” he told them slowly, “that we have begun to stray from the original argument. Signor Ado, remain silent. Representative, is there anything else you wish to dispute about Signorina Angela’s case?”
Palmira took a calming breath, ignoring Ado’s grumbling about how he was going to have the Podesta exiled once he became Duke, something the man heard if his sharp look was any indication. Nodding, she turned to the lord and continued with the trial.
Things, unfortunately, didn’t seem to get much better for them. As the minutes ticked by and she failed to get anywhere, each new question and testimony continued to wear on both her sanity and her faith in humanity. Chiara’s advice also tended to only be partially effective, and normally only for reducing the impact of Ado’s insane claims rather than fully negating them. It seemed no matter who or what evidence he brought forth—the guard outside the hall, the owner of the vineyard who made the wine, even the freaking chair that the Duke had been sitting in—there was nothing it felt like she could do to counter him in a way that wouldn’t be immediately undone by him pulling some bullshit story out of his ass.
It was maddening.
“And here, to the good lords and ladies of this court, I present this—the bottle which held the poison that did the deed!” Ado dramatically held up a thin blue vial, barely larger than a finger. “Not only that, but we found it when we searched the inn Cadorna is staying at, hidden beneath the floorboards! Had our city watch not been so good at their jobs it may have remained hidden, but in a display of typical Firozzi arrogance he slipped up and the vial was found!”
“Finally, something we can use!” Chiara nearly shouted in her ear, talking over Visconti’s current overly long story. “That bottle is fake! I saw it yesterday—he bought that bottle off of Umo Velenoso. And he’ll back us up on that, too. He’s having an affair with Marcielle’s mother, so I had Anima bribe him yesterday to keep his mouth shut.”
Hope rose within her, and she nearly sighed in relief as she listened to Chiara’s explanation.
“That is quite the accusation, Ado Visconti,” she spoke up once the man was finally done talking. “Especially one without any weight to it. Beyond the simple fact that Dante Cadorna never even stepped foot in the inn before he was arrested—a fact I know by this point won’t move any of you, but one I feel needs to be said, regardless—I’m aware that that bottle is a fake, and had nothing to do with the murder! And I would like to call on Signor Umo Velenoso to prove it, as that particular bottle was in his possession up until yesterday!”
There was a round of gasps, mostly from the common people above. They’d been more receptive of her words than the nobility, which was unfortunate considering they were the only people she didn’t need to convince of anything.
“A fake?” Ado put a hand over his heart, barely even trying to pretend at shock. Or maybe she was starting to project her frustration onto the man. “That is absurd! Signor Velenoso!” he spun and called out to one of the nobles sitting behind him, a thin man with a somehow even paler complexion than the rest of them. “Please, enlighten us, do you think this vial is fake?”
For some reason, she felt a spike of unease at the way he phrased that. The way he spoke… it was almost too confident.
Velenoso stood, nervously tugging at the hem of his sleeves. His eyes darted to her, and then, to Ado, and then to somewhere else in the crowd. And then, finally, he answered.
“It is not,” he clearly stated, crushing Palmira’s last hope into dust. “In fact, I, ah, met up with Duke Visconti yesterday in my official capacity as an alchemist in order to deduce the origins of the poison. The adventurers must have heard about this, and attempted to bribe me with a frankly ridiculous claim about my good person!”
Shit shit shit shit—
“We did not—!” Palmira tried to deny, only for another noble to stand up, this one a woman with an unfortunate face and curly black hair fading to blonde at the roots.
“I as well!” she shouted savagely. “They made up a horrid rumor about my hair and attempted to bribe me with it! The sheer nerve of them!”
After that it was like the floodgates opened. Noble after noble stood, each agreeing and adding to the claims of bribery, even ones she was certain they had nothing to do with. And with each addition, Ado’s smile widened further and further, until he looked so insufferably smug she could practically smell the arrogance wafting off him.
He knew, she realized. Somehow, he’d discovered their plan and countered it without them ever realizing.
…Or maybe she was giving him to much credit. Maybe they’d just picked a bad first mark, and everything was going to shit because of that. Maybe it was just bad luck.
…Maybe they’d tried to bribe to many people.
Palmira decided that, if they got out of this alive, she was going to murder Chiara herself.
“How sad,” satisfaction oozed from each word Ado spoke. “Expected, but sad. In the end they were criminals, and a criminal has no defense against justice.”
Justice. The word burned its way through her brain, stoking the embers of her rage in a way nothing else had.
Where was the justice for the women sold into slavery by the first Duke? Where was the justice, for the children starving in the streets, begging just to survive? Where was the justice for the innocent, when a noble decided somebody needed to take the fall for their crimes?
This man stood on top of the world through sheer chance, and he had the gall to call it JUSTICE!?
Something snapped, and Palmira saw red.
“Podesta, I feel we have gathered enough evidence, don’t you—?”
“Why the fuck are we even listening to this guy!?” Palmira roared, literally spewing fire against the inside of her mask. “Who the hell even is he!? He says Dante killed a man—why? There’s been no evidence! No gain! All signs point to him being the one to do it, but now we’re listening to this random asshole who’s never stepped foot in the city before just because he’s related to two dead men!?”
“Palmira what are you doing!?”
“Excuse you!? I’m to be Duke, it is on my royal authority that—!”
“Shut the fuck up! You’re the cousin of the son of the man who sold out our city to the elves, your authority is stolen and your title only kept out of fear of retribution!” she spat, something more than just rage at the current trial burning within her. Unable to stop herself she continued to shout, old wounds she’d long since thought scabbed over bursting from her mouth without thought. “You call us foreign, yet your family stole the birthright of this city and keep it under the thumb of another race just to hold onto your own power!”
Angry murmurs began to spread from the crowd of commoners above them, and even some of the nobles began to look displeased by the reminder.
“It is because of my family’s protection that this city can even continue to function!”
“YOUR FAMILY’S PROTECTION!?” she roared. “I worked as a maid under your family and was nearly sold into slavery because of it! Girls I knew—Gia and Emilia and countless others—were sold by the Duke to the elves! And you call that protection!?”
“Emilia!” someone gasped above, and an older blonde woman nearly leapt over the balcony in her haste to reach the edge. “Did you say Emilia, a maid of the Duke!? My lost daughter? You’re saying she was sold!?”
What was once angry murmurs now began to rise to shouts of outrage.
“The elves kidnapped my sister during the war!”
“My father died in the sacking!”
“If Visconti hadn’t opened the gates, they would never have gotten in!”
Ado, panicking as he realized a mob had suddenly started to form above his head, scrambled to regain control. Then something seemed to click in his head, and with a significantly shakier smile than before he turned to point directly at her. “Wait, a maid who worked for the first Duke Visconti? As in, perhaps, the maid who was seen fleeing the scene of his death? Could it be that you killed the first Duke of Iscrimo!?”
He had probably meant it as a hail mary. Something to distract the crowd from the controversy that was his family with a different controversy (that was also about his family). It was such a leap in logic, one that only someone directly involved would have been able to make, but not one that would hold water if anyone in the building was currently thinking straight.
Unfortunately, Palmira also was not thinking straight. Too utterly consumed by rage to think straight, tore her mask straight off her face. “You’re right, I did! And I’d do it again! I was eight years old and he tried to sell me to an elf! So I burned down his house with him inside!”
Dante placed his face into his hands, resigned to death.
And above them, the crowd exploded.
What had started as angry jeers and shouts had now become a full-blown enraged mob, clamoring at the edge of the balcony overlooking the courtroom. Some guards were trying to hold them back, while others were right there next to them, raising their weapons with intent to use them. Below, the nobles weren’t much better, with some looking terrified up at the mob, others looking one step away from joining them, and some even just fleeing the building entirely. Lenna—who Palmira had forgot was even in the room—had crouched beneath a table to cower, while the rest of her guild had jumped to her feet, closing ranks around their Guildmaster and Palmira while the latter continued her shouting match with Ado Visconti.
In that moment, what had once been a normal courtroom now looked one step away from exploding.
But in the midst of the chaos the Podesta sat silently, his molten eyes unblinkingly taking in the room. From the frantic nobles, to the fuming foreigners, to the riot occurring above his head. Then, ponderously raising a hand, he made a fist and clenched.
The basalt seats which filled the courtroom suddenly erupted, flowing around and over the people like a liquid. Goey rock covered everyone, snapping and yanking those who were standing back to their seats and covering the mouths of those who even then still continued to shout. The black stone then solidified, locking everyone—commoners and nobles alike—in place.
In an instant, the courtroom was silent.
The Podesta nodded and lowered his hand. Only the Rettori remained free to move, the four of them looking remarkably unbothered by the chaos.
“Though I appreciate enthusiasm, this is a place of law, not violence.” he spoke to the wide eyes staring from their stone prisons. “Unfortunately, it appears that tensions are running a bit too high, and things have begun getting out of hand. Normally, we would call for a recess to let tempers cool, but if I let any of you out of my sight I’m afraid I’d have something much worse than a murder case to preside over. As such, the trial will move onto the final phase: the verdict. As there is no current Duke, the Rettori shall vote on who they believe to be the guilty party, with myself as a tiebreaker should the need arise. Do both parties agree?”
Nobody spoke. Even those capable of it remained silent and rigid.
He sighed. “I need a verbal response.”
Finally, Ado managed to nod, enough sweat on his brow to fill a river. “Y-yes, Podesta. I agree. We should wrap this trial up quickly.”
Palmira—jolted out of her own flight-or-fight reaction—swiftly agreed. “Uh, yeah,” she said, glancing warily at her now encased Famiglia. “That sounds great.”
“Excellent,” the Podesta relaxed back into his chair, practically melding into the stone throne. “In that case, the Rettori will now present their verdicts. Rettori Primavera, the Lord of Spring, please stand and cast your vote.”
The Rettori Primavera stood and swaggered to the front of the dais, black and green robes billowing with each step. With an easy smile and a spring in his step he spread his arms wide, as though to encompass the whole of the captive audience. His green eyes glittered with amusement behind his round glasses. “Well, this has certainly been a fascinating trial. I thought today would be boring, but you all have really knocked it out of the park with this one! Not just accusations of murder, but confessions as well!”
Palmira’s stomach dropped. Was he really—?
“That is why, having thoroughly examined the evidence, this Primavera has come to his conclusion,” he clapped his hands together. “Ado Visconti. On behalf of this council—no, on behalf of the people of Iscrimo—I cast my vote to declare not just you, but the Visconti Famiglia as a whole guilty of the crimes of regicide, kinslaying, and numberless counts of treason!”
If it weren’t for the basalt prison holding her up, she would have fallen over in relief right then and there.
“You—!” Ado spluttered, his voice barely audible over the cacophony that had exploded (from those who could still talk) following the Rettori’s declaration. “What is this!? You’re saying I’m guilty? This trial isn’t even about me—it’s about Cadorna! This random woman just starts spewing allegations out and you think you can turn this around on me!? She has no evidence, only baseless accusations!”
“Evidence, you say?” The Primavera’s smile thinned, any amusement fleeing in the face of the cold fury which replaced it. “The evidence is in our very history, Visconti. Twenty years ago your uncle sold our city to the elves in exchange for personal power. That, alone, was an irredeemable betrayal. The fact that he later picked out individuals to sell in exchange for personal wealth is not just believable—I would be more surprised if he hadn’t done that.”
“That—that is not regicide, though!” Ado snapped, eyes wild with fear. “Nor is it fratricide nor treason! It is—if he had done it, that is, which he most certainly did not—merely the loss of a couple commoners. It is not something half as awful as treason!”
“Just a couple commoners, huh?” By this point the smile had completely left his face, replaced with a sneer of disgust. “You mean commoners like the ones up there?” he motioned to the captive audience sitting above their heads. “The people of Iscrimo? My people? Your people? The ones that, when Aventio Visconti became Duke, he declared he would treat ‘as his own flesh and blood?’ The ones that he sold? If that is not kinslaying, what is? If that is not treason, what is? This city was founded by the Volans as a bulwark against elvish oppression, and no matter what form our government took we have always held true to that ideal! The ideal your family has spent the past twenty years spitting upon! And if that is not regicide, the killing of that which leads a city, what is!?”
The Rettori heaved deep breaths, forcing himself to calm in the silence that followed his speech. Finally, he nodded, stepping back into his position beside the Podesta. “My stance is clear. Even if the Visconti are not guilty of this specific crime—which, to be clear, I would not put past them—they have been a blight on our city too long. Therefore, I declare the family itself guilty.”
The silence that followed was deafening. And in that silence the Rettori Estate, the Lady of Summer, stood, her dark skin contrasting with the gold of her robes.
Taking the place of her colleague, she glanced at the nobility, then up at the commoners, then over to their guild. And then she sighed. “Well, la Primavera was certainly right about one thing—this has been a fascinating trial. For a number of reasons. I’m not one for dramatics, however, so I’ll say my piece and leave it to my fellows to talk your ears off after.”
She cleared her throat, and then nodded at Primavera. “I’ll admit, I was on the fence before, but hearing how passionate la Primavera was I find myself moved. Therefore, my verdict is this: the Visconti are guilty. Congrats, I guess.”
With that final shrug, she slumped back into her chair.
“What…?” Ado rasped, looking as though he couldn’t understand what was going on.
To be fair, neither could she.
Next the Rettori Autunno stood, her curled hair a brilliant orange to match the red of her robes. Unlike the previous Rettori, who were convivial and uncaring respectively, Autunno faced the crowd with stern eyes and an expression that could have been chiseled from stone.
“This has been a sham of a trial,” she began, glaring out at each and every person in attendance. “Everybody here has made a mockery of law and justice since the very start, wielding lies and influence alike to further their own goals. If I had known what I was getting into, I would have simply arrested the lot of you and spent my morning doing something productive instead.”
Her judgement was like a physical weight, pressing down on everyone who caught her eye. But, even as she glared at them, a glimmer of something dark appeared in her eyes. “…However. Today, it appears that I have been given a unique opportunity.”
Her cold eyes landed on Ado, and she sneered. “I would hope you remember how I ascended to this position, Visconti. My father was killed by your very uncle, when he tried to stop him from opening the gates. And today is the day I can finally avenge his memory. I, the Lady of Autumn, declare the Visconti Family guilty. And may they rot in that Hell of their own making.”
She sat, still stern, but looking like a weight had finally been lifted from her shoulders. With her piece said, she sighed and turned to her final colleague.
Finally, Rettori Inverno, the Lord of Winter, rose shakily to his feet. Unlike the others, who seemed if not certain, at least confident in their positions. Inverno, on the other hand, looked almost terrified. His eyes darted around the room sporadically as he surreptitiously wiped sweaty hands against his blue and black robes.
“I…” he began, locking eyes with a desperate Ado before swiftly glancing away. “It appears… Well… this has been…” he coughed into his hand. He remained silent for a moment, locking eyes with the other Rettori who were watching him with near malicious judgement. “G… Guilty…” he said at last, his voice barely more than a whisper, yet audible over the deafening silence of the courtroom.
It was not a confident vote, and the man practically dropped back into his chair. But it was still a vote, and behind the pounding in her ears, Palmira realized suddenly what that meant.
“Well,” the Podesta smiled, grim satisfaction dripping from each word he spoke. “It looks like we have a unanimous vote. How wonderful! For the crimes of treason, kinslaying, and regicide against the city of Iscrimo, the Visconti are hereby declared guilty!”
Palmira didn’t hear anything else—couldn’t hear anything else, over the pounding of her own heart and the roar of the crowd. As the basalt released her body—but not Visconti’s, she absently noticed—she slumped down next to her guildmaster, who was staring at her with awe and no small amount of confusion.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he whispered.
Palmira released a half-hysterical laugh in reply. “Yeah, I can’t believe it did either.”