devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band by richard anderton Page B

would just free me from these chains. I’ll be off,” said Thomas, holding up his manacled wrists, but the guards failed to see the joke. One of yeomen, standing behind the tumbrel, rammed the butt end of his halberd into the prisoner’s back pushing him off balance. Thomas toppled out of the cart and landed face down in a pile of steaming manure.
    “You should be thankful, that shit is fresh from the arse of the cardinal’s own mule so it’s truly blessed,” laughed the guard but this time it was Rich who failed to see the joke.
    “Enough! Clean that filth from the prisoner’s visage at once and be quick about it, the court is waiting,” barked the lawyer and he disappeared inside the hall.
    Five minutes later Thomas, still dripping from the buckets of water tipped over his head was led into the largest, and busiest, room he’d ever seen. Not even the great banqueting hall at Alnwick Castle could compare with the majesty of Westminster, where every stone declared that this was the seat of Henry’s power. The roof, supported by mighty hammer beams, soared above Thomas’ head like the vault of heaven whilst the brightly coloured flags decorating the walls seemed to glow like the banners of the angelic host.
    The hall itself was divided into different courts by a number of moveable wooden partitions that could be rearranged to create larger or smaller spaces as necessary. Between these makeshift courts, lawyers scurried about consulting papers, searching for witnesses and cursing the inefficiency of their clerks. The passages were crowded but, like the throng on the steps outside the hall, those inside seemed oblivious to the dead man walking amongst them.
    The escorts led Thomas to the court of the King’s Bench at far end of the hall. The judges’ seating, which gave this court its name, was placed on a dais below an enormous arched window. This seat was separated from the rest of the court by the King’s Table, which wascovered in a cloth of green and white silk. Flanking the dais were large wooden stands containing several tiers of seats. The first tier on the left was reserved for the jury, but the rest of the seating was open to the public. The escorts manhandled their prisoner towards a second smaller dais in front of the King’s Table. This platform was surrounded on three sides by a simple wooden bar. Thomas stood behind this crude balustrade and waited calmly for the proceedings to begin.
    News that a trial for something more interesting than debt or detinue was about to start soon reached the ears of others in the hall. Law students, lawyers and even witnesses in other cases began scrambling for a seat in the Court of the King’s Bench and the ushers had to use their staffs to stop latecomers from forcing their way in. Once filled with spectators, the court took on the air of an unruly schoolroom. Some of the audience pointed at Thomas and laughed whilst others poured ink down the collars of their unsuspecting colleagues or tried to snatch the square scholars’ caps from one another’s heads. Not even the arrival of the twelve jurors and the nine solemn faced judges could quell the crowd’s excited chatter.
    Thomas watched impassively as the white robed, black-capped judges took their seats on the bench. He didn’t recognise most of the learned men who were to sit in judgement upon him but he couldn’t fail to identify the man in red robes who occupied the central seat. It was Cardinal Wolsey. In his capacity as Lord Chancellor, Wolsey normally sat in the Court of Chancery, which heard civil rather than criminal cases, but no one wouldquestion the right of Henry’s chief minister to preside over a different court, especially in a case of treason, if he wanted. Once seated, Wolsey carefully adjusted the scarlet cardinal’s robes that he habitually wore, even when sitting as a secular judge.
    Fearing the worst, Thomas looked around the court to see if an advocate had been appointed to help him