Stare Indecisis

The Great Court Opens

The crackle of woodgrains splintering into the air rung throughout the court, as my fist bashed against the surface of the defense's dais. Gaslamps gleamed across my face as sweat and vigor oozed from my cheeks. I tightened the swells of my blue cravat and thrust my finger towards the witness stand. Stalling time was over!

"Your Honor, his fingerprints were on the pistol! He was standing over the victim's rotting corpse!"

I caught my breath for a pause, channeling all my will into the weight of my voice.

"Blood soaks the witness' hands!"

The public gallery that hung overhead went up into a frenzy like banshees. Howling away, clutching onto their fretting bonnets and bowlers, their chatter fumed into the air and created a vortex of sound. I saw the clash of movement before my eyes: those swinging fists and gaping pupils, sitting sharp against their birchwood chairs as a statue of Lady Justice peered on with interest. I found strength in the disorder, to make chaos the order of the day. The world must be turned asunder to shake the deepest assertions of men—for entry into the gallows, or to the innocent grace of God.
This was the royal court of the Griffin's Mane, and I felt a mythological force working up at my muscles, the room rising all around me.

The judge cracked the end of his gavel with continuous force, the braids of his wig teetering right and left as he joined in on the cacophony.

"ORDER! O R D E R! Mr. Battersby!"

I stood at attention, a coif of a smirk forming over my face. The brown flannel of my sleeves rustled, the cross of my arms matching the surety of my mind.

"You have just accused Mr. Northgard of murder! Are you mad, man!?"

The only one with earmarks of insanity was the stalky man in the tweed suit, cordoned off at the witness stand—Silas Northgard. His face paled with terror, his hands quaking as they grasped the stand to buttress his body and his soul. If only I could plunge the fear out from the swollen circuitry of his bones, to make him bleed the course of his guilt for all to see and gasp—I knew victory was firm. He couldn't buy a path to innocence!

"I've never been more certain in my life. The truth doesn't falter, my Lord!"

Even still, the barest of chuckles trickled out from the opposing dais. It seemed to quiet the room with its ever-present oddity, slicing through the ruckus of the moment like a bayonet through flesh. The discordant notes of humor came from the mouth of London high prosecutor James Adderley, whose presence stung from his shoe-soles to the blinding shine of his spectacles.

"The defense counsel's state of mind should rightly be in question, Your Honor."

Adderley's voice was as deep as the roots of decaying trees burrowing into the ground, his earthen baritone crooning of plea bargains and mass convictions aplenty. He propped his hands up on the tip of a walking stick and leaned towards me. His gangly fingers jutted out, tendrils from his wrist.

"Mr. Leopold Battersby, is it? Calker's son, born on the musty wooden planks of a whaling ship? Rose his way out of the gutter to slither his way through Oxford Law? I'm impressed, truly, a living paradigm of British tenacity."

The man clapped—attempted to, anyway—and the motes of dust that once stuck to his skin sputtered out into the air. Emboldened by the silence of a hundred souls, he steeled his gaze on my face.

"I'm afraid your meteoric tale has come to an end."

Adderley plunged his stick against the mahogany floor, causing an uproar in the crowd once more. Vicious barbs rained down from the rafters against my psyche—old refrains like "pauper's son!" and "leach of the law!" and "Oxford bastard!" ringing in my ears. I yearned to bang the tableside once more and defend my honor before the rule of law.