Is the Law of Our Side?: Part Five

"I trust I may not trust thee."

November 17th

Surveying her courtroom, Lady Iden spotted a flock of fools.

The blustering debut of winter had been battering the roads, and sunlight grew more scarce by the day. Since yesterday morning, the conditions had been more forgiving - a slight warmth, roads that were not icy or even completely sodden - but they did not long promise to be. The sky-watchers predicted another storm would blow in after dusk. It was one thing to make the trek if one had a seat upon the floor, if present to give direct support. But to come only to watch? Lady Iden could not fathom such a thirst for drama, much less obeying it at one's own peril. There would be other, safer occasions to gawk at the Capulets.

One would not know that, looking at the balcony.

"I do hope the sky-watchers have not been remiss in their duties," she tutted. "This is a rather larger crowd than I had anticipated, given the weather. I am anxious about the crush to leave at day's end. Lady Goneril, Lady Juliette, would either of you object to omitting our mid-session recess? It may be prudent to leave an hour earlier instead." Pleased by the immediate agreement, she continued, "You are to consider any future dates postponed if the roads are snow-burdened at daybreak. If the situation is uncertain, you may expect a messenger from me to clarify." Lady Iden next turned to her clerk. "Lord Felix, have you the lists of witnesses?"

As protocol demanded, Felix Thebe stood. He would have preferred not to be seen, as it was the intellectual side of the law, rather than the theatrical, which held its interest. Further, he was not insensible of the burden of his name. Lady Thebe, his mother, had chosen to remain neutral in this dispute between their relations, thus making him the only member of their house in attendance. Nothing about his post lent itself to partiality, but he still worried that some unwitting display might give a false hint to the conflict-hungry crowd. "I do have them, Your Ladyship." He handed the lists, folded and re-sealed with the insignia of the Crown Court of Verona, to the lady for her perusal.

Lady Iden had not long been reading them when she looked up with a curious expression. "Lady Juliette, is your list outdated?"

"No, Your Ladyship."

"Then how do you account for your grandfather's inclusion on your list of witnesses?"

"He supported my claim, and I have no other means of honoring that support."

"This is preposterous," Goneril cried. "I can think of nothing half so disingenuous and manipulative as this!"

"Can you not, aunt?"

Focused upon controlling the courtroom, Lady Iden missed Goneril's twitch. "You have each made your points. That will be enough."

Goneril sat, unsettled. This should have been her triumph. She had believed the first sign of trickery would be the death knell for her niece's claim. Juliette's position rested entirely on the dusty letter of the law. She had no answer for why Goneril had been treated as the heiress if she was to be passed over. But now, in the very moment, Goneril felt sick.

Is this the start of it?

She cast the unbidden doubts aside. It was a lie. It was a fiction, a dreadful fiction that had been planted in the wild outskirts of Miranda's imagination by sheer boredom. Goneril might be hated by some, yes, but no-one could ever actually believe such a tale. No-one could think she had murdered her own sister.

Could they?

The order of the day compelled Goneril to move on. Testimony was to begin, and Juliette was at the top of her own list of witnesses. After the girl's tiresome husband had his turn, Goneril could pull her to pieces and leave the ruins for Lady Iden to examine. There would be an opportunity for Juliette to be repaired by her husband in between, but Goneril intended to so thoroughly eviscerate her niece that there would be nothing left to fix.

For her own part, Juliette had no thoughts to spare for her aunt just now. She had woken up exhausted and queasy. To placate Hermia, she had taken a bit of food and a cup of ginger tea from the array Oberon had delivered before the temporary severing of ties. While it had seemed for a time that the tea had done its trick, Juliette was nauseated again, as well as light-headed and somehow hot and cold at once. That she was the object of everyone's attention did not help in the slightest.

What did help was to lock eyes with Fitzwilliam. They were a team, a great team, and today would be their victory. Both had worked diligently at their parts in this performance - she on handling hostile questions with composure, he on a manner that was more personable but not patronizing. For all the questions he would ask, she had memorized the answers. This success would help her to brave Goneril and Lady Iden. When Juliette stepped down, all would be well. They had made sure of it.

Fitzwilliam, as planned, led Juliette through a few easy questions after she took her seat and gave an oath of honesty. Once she was comfortable, he pivoted to the first important issue.

"Lady Juliette, do you know why your mother left a written will but your father did not?"

"That is quite standard by our traditions. My father brought a particular sum to their marriage, which was settled on any sons my parents would have. As my father was not ambitious, this sum never increased and so had already been dispensed in the marriage articles. As the head of her household, my mother did have an estate to settle."

"How did your mother settle her estate?"

"My siblings and I had an equal share in her personal effects, that we might choose what we each wanted. My brother, as my father's sole heir, was otherwise excluded unless my sister and I had both died childless." Absently, she rubbed her swollen belly.

"Did your mother divide all her wealth equally?"

"Not quite." Though her siblings had always known and never minded, Juliette feared some lingering guilt and resolved to only look at Fitzwilliam. "Her personal fortune we split evenly. I was to receive the majority of any outstanding inheritances and all of the household goods."

"Why the household goods?"

"The house was not my mother's to give. It belonged to my grandmother, as... as part..." Her hand flew to meet her mouth. After a moment and a deep breath, however, she again felt steady. "The house belonged to my grandmother, as part of the wealth of Lady Capulet. However, as it was vacant long before my mother was given use of it, she had used her own funds to furnish it comfortably. Anything she had paid for was to be mine, in lieu of the property she could not give. That was the intention. Of course, because of the fire, there were no goods left to be inherited."

Goneril's breath caught in her throat while she waited for the next question to be posed.

"Is this inequity between daughters unusual?"

Juliette shook her head. "Not at all. I am my mother's firstborn daughter, and that station is reflected in my mother's written will."

"Then you do believe she recognized you as her primary heiress?"

"I do. I was only a little girl when she died, and one does not speak of such things to children, of course. However, after studying my grandmother's documents and other-"

"Your Ladyship," Goneril cried, "my niece is offering only unqualified opinions, not facts."

The magistrate's eyes narrowed. "Tell me, Lady Goneril, have I given you the impression that I cannot discern what is an opinion and what is fact?"

"No, Your Ladyship."

"That I cannot judge for myself who is qualified to speak on a matter?"

"No, Your Ladyship."

"Excellent, then we are in agreement. Lady Juliette may resume her testimony."

Juliette thanked the magistrate and tried to smile prettily. All the trouble that had been poured into her preparations could not be lost to her rolling stomach. "After studying my grandmother's documents and the many others in our archives that have to do with inheritances, I do believe that my mother... my mother..." Another wave of nausea stuck her and would not recede. Juliette balled up her shaking hands, squeezing the blood out. Be strong. Be strong. "I do believe that my... that my mother was... recognizing... me..." Suddenly, she lurched to her feet. "Help me, Fitzwilliam."

"A recess, Your Ladyship!"

Just like all the others, Lady Iden watched him whisk his wife out of the courtroom. The door did not close quickly enough behind them to bottle up the sound of the lady retching. "The Court will recess for one hour."

---

"Sister, I think I must be done here. My knees are aching."

"Agreed." In rising, Goneril allowed Regan and Miranda to also escape of the misery of kneeling in cumbersome gowns. "It surely couldn't have been more than maternal nausea, but better safe than sorry."

"None of us wish ill on the child, as well."

Approvingly, Goneril smiled at her daughter. "Naturally. I want what is best for us all. There is, of course, nothing untoward in recognizing that it is everyone's interests that we finish as quickly as possible. If anything happened to the child, we should have to wait quite a while to continue."

"Indeed. Even Lady Iden would be at the martyr's mercy. But, sister, do you suppose Juliette will show her face again today?"

"I do. She will want to scurry home and be coddled, but the others will convince her to push on."

"They will," Miranda agreed. "If she remains, it forces you to be very kind to her, as my cousin has everyone's sympathy now."

"It should still be easy enough to discredit her theories."

"They are so incredibly pathetic, aren't they?" Regan shook her head, disgusted. "Does she honestly think being willed the plate and the silver means something?"

Goneril had to contend that the point wasn't entirely worthless. "To be Mother's heiress, she first has to be Cordelia's. She needs every scrap of legitimacy she can find."

"A bit more than a scrap, if one follows their logic. Grandmother was the executrix of Aunt Cordelia's will, wasn't she?" Miranda frowned at her mother's nod. "So she knew how that line would go. But you would have to think that Grandmother swapping your name for Aunt Cordelia's is the most important thing in the world for that to matter, wouldn't you? A simple name cannot override everything else."

"Certainly not. There were a few other apparent changes, trifling though they were." Goneril paused to look at her daughter. "My dear, I should tell you that you might hear one petty detail that may upset you. I would not have you taken aback in public. Your grandmother did make some small adjustments to her bequeaths. You received the same as you would have, but Juliette did receive a bit more than the rest of you in the end."

"How is that trifling?" Miranda scowled behind her veil. "Why should she punish me if she was quarreling with you?"

"Please, Miranda. It was not a large difference, and I think she may not have changed it, had she changed the rest. Your cousins are orphans, in need of her charity."

"Juliette was already getting Aunt Cordelia's inheritance! How did she need charity?" Miranda snapped.

Attempting to be affectionate, Goneril wrapped her thin hands around her daughter's. "These are the only bequeaths they will ever have from the family. What does a little gold matter when you will have everything that belongs to Lady Capulet? You and Miralene will do far better in the end. And your grandmother did adore you, her very first granddaughter."

"I apologize, Mother, but I cannot be so forgiving. Grandmother hid a great deal from us all. She said one thing and did another, and she left us in a terrible mess!"

"I know. I know." After a pause, she suggested Miranda find her siblings and take the air for a few minutes. "Aunt Regan and I have things well in hand."

Goneril waited for her daughter's footsteps to fade before she braced her aching forehead with her hand. "God help me, I could strangle her myself if she were alive. What could she have been thinking?"

"What are you thinking? How many times to do I have to tell you to stop? It's nonsense, Goneril!"

"Nonsense you won't speak aloud."

"Because it would give this lunacy a gravity it does not deserve. You are taking an idle ember from her imagination and making a blaze out of it. It means nothing, unless you think-"

"Don’t."

"As you wish, but do you see my point?"

"If Miranda had communicated with any of them, I would know."

"I don’t doubt her, sister." Regan did, as the more disinterested party (and, moreso, the party in danger of losing status) must. The timing of Miranda’s conversion was worthy of skepticism. However, Regan could not rate Miranda as much of an actress, not when she had been so brazen in her rebellion. The girl’s obsession over her child’s safety was another assurance, one obnoxious in its quantity. If Miranda cared at all about her child, and Regan believed she did, treason was not the route to take. Miralene would always need a mother, but that mother did not necessarily have to be Miranda. "If any one of them believed that you had murdered Cordelia, we would know it. We would have known when our darling nephew came for our throats."

Goneril scowled. "Would that he had. One less thorn in my side."

"But do you see what I mean?"

"I do, but they could lie. That isn't a fancy, Regan, it's the truth. No-one can impeach them on what happened that night, and you cannot say it does not grant a foundation to so much that happened afterward."

"Which only proves Miranda has a sharp mind, like yours. It is good to see the possibilities, but you cannot let this drive you. It would be a vicious lie, and Juliette isn't smart enough to lie."

Goneril took a calming breath. There was no reason to believe her nieces and nephew had ever blamed anyone but the Montagues. Perhaps Miranda had obscured the source of her speculation, out of guilt for abandoning her former friends. Perhaps not. It didn't matter. Although Goneril couldn't disprove it if she were incriminated, they couldn't positively prove it because she hadn't done it. And Regan was right. Their opponents were not clever enough for such a plot. "But I cannot help worrying. What am I, if I am not-"

"Enough! Everyone, including those ungrateful brats, knew the title was yours. Whatever stupidity Mother indulged in at the end, you were always her successor, damn what some old scrap of paper says. Some piddling, ancient law cannot outweigh years of actions. You were born to be Lady Capulet, and you shall be again. Nothing that Juliette or anyone else does can change that, so start acting like it."

"Thank you."

---

"Just admit it. You lost the bet!"

To keep the proceedings interesting, Leon and Freddie had a number of going wagers. Freddie, with his married sister's pregnancies in mind, had wagered on the weakness of Lady Juliette's stomach. Leon had risked a coin on its strength only to be sporting, but now that the occasion was upon them, he had no intention of losing. The smug look on his brother-in-law's face would be his.

"Prove it. Oh, wait, you can't."

"Maybe not from in here." They had hidden themselves in Charlotte's office - in hindsight, not such a bright idea. Freddie peeped out to see if the hall was clear. "Damn, I think I hear her coming."

Leon cursed under his breath. The game was up.

Yet, after a long and breathless wait, no-one came into the office. In the adjoining chamber, however, a commotion rose up in a chorus of muffled voices. Having learned no lesson, the men pushed aside some chairs to make room for themselves against the shared wall.

"Don't fret, my loves. Lady Anne and I will have you sorted out in no time at all."

"You're forgetting just how fat I am, Aunt Eleanor. I will need one of those banners from the courtroom to cover myself."

"Hermia, I'm so sorry you have to do this..."

"Oh, shut up. I'm only teasing myself, and you can't very well go out there with vomit on your gown, can you? And I would not exactly say no to a nice nap in the carriage right now." 

"Juliette, dearest, shall I do you up and let your sister have Lady Gale's help?"

"Please. If you would just take care that it's snug enough? I've never thought myself in danger of spilling out of a gown, but these bodices are-"

"Give me one reason not to have you both locked up."

"How could you possibly imagine I wouldn't find you in here? What kind of half-wit do you two take me for?"

After a suffocating stalemate, the veteran offender surrendered. "Char, we didn’t mean to cause any trouble. We were having a laugh, that’s all."

"I’m not laughing, Freddie. You two will not exchange one more clipped copper about anything that happens at Court, is that clear?"

"How the hell did you know about that?" Leon groaned. When she wouldn’t explain further, he shrugged. "Fine. I don’t see the harm, but fine."

"You don’t see the harm in you making wagers about one of my trials?"

"I’m not doing it in public! If your brother and I have a laugh, what is it to anyone else?"

"We’re not winning this one," a sobered Freddie muttered to Leon. "Don’t make it worse."

Charlotte paused a moment to consider her brother. Although she deferred to their father’s authority over Freddie, she had felt a degree of responsibility for his upbringing since their mother’s death. She would have been loath to crush his spirit, but he could be mischievous and self-indulgent. That love of mischief was why he was completing his winter term’s work at home, and that mercy had taken a great deal of arm-twisting on Charlotte’s part. Leon’s spirit had not helped matters at all. Still, if he was telling Leon to stop, there was some scrap of sense left to him, and Charlotte’s partiality for her little brother was slightly pleased for it. That won him another measure of mercy. "Freddie, you and I are going to have a serious discussion tonight. For now, go back to your seat and behave yourself."

"If I didn't know better," Leon teased as soon as the door closed behind Freddie, "I'd say you-"

"Have you no sense of shame at all?"

"What have I done to be ashamed of? It’s just a bit of fun." He folded his arms, trying to return her unwavering stare. Something behind her eyes, something haunted and raw, however, cowed him just a bit. "I think you could do with a joke."

"My work is not a joke."

"I never said-"

"Shut your mouth for once and listen!" Her words could not rush out fast enough to cool her blood. "I will not countenance you coming here and acting the fool. It is bad enough that Freddie does it, but you? You are Lord Iden, little as that means to you, and what you do reflects on me. I will not let your antics undermine my work." A threatening glisten in her blue-green eyes caught the firelight. "If any of the Capulets heard of your ‘jokes’, what faith would they have in me, the idiot who married such a man? They are a powerful family, and they came to me for justice. If they don’t respect me, respect my judgment, then the very things I was born to protect will be damaged. The peace and the rule of law are in my hands. Do you understand?"

"Charlotte..."

"Do. You. Understand?"

"Yes."

Their eyes remained locked a moment more, the tension robbing them both of air and words. When Leon blinked, he thought he saw the slightest tremble in her lip, but it was gone in an instant - as was she, the angry slap of her footfalls ringing in his ears.

---

Court reconvened with a minimum of audible reaction to Juliette's gown swap. Whether this was down to sympathy or Lady Iden's ferocious glare at the first tittering was debatable. Fitzwilliam eased Juliette into the questioning again before resuming the unfinished point. They navigated carefully.

Goneril was soon proved right in warning Miranda, and when that revelation came, it elicited a strong reaction from the moneyed audience. Next, Fitzwilliam brought Juliette back around to the traditions surrounding personal goods and the fact that Contessa's were left, ambiguously, to 'her rightful successor'. Though this did not much help Juliette's cause, it damaged Goneril's. More careful examination of wills and the attendant laws and customs brought Juliette and Fitzwilliam back around to Cordelia's will again. Juliette affirmed that Contessa had been its executrix and still chose not to alter her own will, which Juliette asserted showed favor not to just her mother but to her mother's line.

When her turn came, Goneril was still considering her options. The original plan, a frenzied assault on her under-seasoned niece, was out of the question. The audience's reactions still echoed in her head. It was bad enough when Juliette bored the ignorant crowd with a victory on some pinprick of the law. She could not be allowed to be seen as reasonable in her assumptions. Goneril knew she wasn't, but what she knew didn't matter. It was Lady Iden's opinion that mattered, and that lady saw all reactions and must be, if only slightly, influenced by them. Goneril was not at leisure to be kind, and yet she had to be or risk being decried as a bully.

"Lady Goneril, do you or do you not wish to examine this witness?"

"I do."

After expressing the requisite concern for her niece’s health, Goneril’s campaign to gently nudge the girl right off the chess board began. "At the time of my mother’s death, who did you expect would succeed her?"

"You, aunt."

"Did anyone in the family disagree, to your knowledge?"

Juliette smiled. "I was a young girl then, not privy to the politics of the family."

"If you please, yes or no?"

"To my knowledge, no."

"Thank you, my dear. Now, if neither you nor anyone else in the family believed-"

"To my knowledge, aunt, and at that time."

Goneril ground her teeth but acknowledged her ‘mistake’. "If, to your knowledge, none in the family believed that anyone but I would follow my mother as the head of our house, where did you come by this idea that you should inherit the title?"

"From Grandmother’s will."

"But you said as much yourself, that you were a young girl then, not involved in politics. The will only made reference to your mother, God rest her soul. Who told you that this had anything to do with you?"

"Grandfather. A few weeks after the funeral, he explained it all to me."

"And that was necessary because my mother never gave you any education befitting a Lady Capulet, was it not?"

"My grandmother provided a very good education. Whether it was suited to a Lady Capulet, I cannot say."

"If you were properly educated, you would be able to say."

Juliette looked to her husband, pleading for an objection. To the question that Goneril was ultimately ordered to pose, she answered, "I do not think it a mark of ignorance to value experience. I have not yet had experience as Lady Capulet, through no fault of my own. After some time in my role, I will feel able to answer you then."

Lest she give her expectant niece the back of her hand, Goneril stood back and collected herself. She did not tarry long, however. She would not nourish any doubt of her supremacy. "You can tell me, however, that you were not trained in law or politics or any useful thing, were you?"

"Grandmother was mindful of what my siblings and I had suffered. She treated us gently."

"Do you think it impossible to be both instructive and gentle?"

"I know that Grandmother didn’t think she could do both, not yet, by the time of her death."

"How do you know that?"

"Grandfather told me."

Eyes lit, Goneril turned to Lady Iden. "I would ask your ladyship to not consider Lady Juliette’s present assertions about her education. My father is, as we all know, not here to give testimony as to when and why he formed these opinions."

The magistrate was inclined to agree. "I am not casting aspersions on your honesty, Lady Juliette, and I would have welcomed the late Lord Capulet’s insight. However, reporting your recollection of what he said to you about your grandmother’s intentions is a step too far for me." With a nod, Lady Iden invited Goneril to continue.

Goneril found her niece’s education to be both a favorable topic and a soft means of discrediting her. At length, she hammered upon the point that Juliette had not received the traditional upbringing which Goneril and Regan (and, to an extent, Cordelia) had enjoyed. Both before and after Contessa’s death, Juliette had not been shaped for leadership in the usual manner. Conversely, Goneril had continued in her apprenticeship until the day her mother died. "After my mother, who you agree did not indicate that you were to be her successor, died, it was my father who overtook your education, yes?"

"As my brother was already studying at the Académie, Grandfather oversaw what my grandmother had put into place for me and my sister and approved improvements suggested by our tutors."

"Did any of these improvements ever include opportunities for you to study this role for which he claimed you were destined? For example, did he say he would ask for you to follow me while I performed my duties or make plans for you to visit our holdings and the people who depend upon us?"

"Those particular things, he did not do." Juliette bit her lip hard.

"Did that never strike you as odd that your fervent supporter, claiming loyalty to my mother, did nothing to increase your practical knowledge?"

"I cannot answer your question today, aunt, without violating Lady Iden’s decree regarding speculation. Had not a cruel twist of fate taken him, you might have had your answer."

Lady Iden drank in this moment as quickly as she could. A spark of anger had shown itself in Juliette’s eyes. Goneril’s were narrowed in contempt. Indeed, there still was some mistrust over the issue of Consort Capulet’s absence, but it went no further. This both intrigued and frustrated her, for she very much wanted to extinguish that fire as the law required. Smoldering embers were not good enough.

"Would that he might have given it," Goneril concurred. "Within the acceptable boundaries for your testimony, can you explain this supposed support from my father?"

Fitzwilliam, who had given over most of his focus to will Juliette to withstand her aunt’s attacks, popped up to object. "I do not believe your ladyship intended for your decree to be leveraged as a tool of dishonesty."

"Your Ladyship, I cannot see how adhering to the rules of the Court can be called dishonest."

"Lady Goneril means to force an incomplete answer, which could injure your ladyship’s trust in Lady Juliette’s beliefs."

Lady Iden held up her hands for silence. Here was another vexing conflict. The opportunity to stretch her own mental abilities by examining good points from opposite sides was never unwelcome. Conversely, she despised making the decision, for the outcome was so often conflated into an omen of general support from the highest authority. So few acknowledged that she applied the law throughout a trial… but then, she did have more freedom than anyone else in interpreting that law.

"The late Lord Capulet cannot be examined in these proceedings. His inferences cannot be challenged for logic and veracity. Accordingly, secondhand testimony of those inferences do not meet the Crown’s requirements."

Without hesitation, Fitzwilliam ventured again. "Where would the Crown stand on the reporting of opinions not drawn from purely subjective inferences? Would the reporting of opinions based upon extant evidence or common knowledge be permissible?"

"If the evidence or commonality of the knowledge can be presented to the Crown for scrutiny, then such testimony would be permissible."

By her own measure, Goneril’s refusal to roll her eyes was commendable. This grasping for the minutia of the law bored her half to tears. Yet, she rebuilt her query to accommodate the pedantry.

"In his own time, he presented Grandmother’s will to me. He explained to me that it was Grandmother’s legal right to name her successor and that, as my mother’s successor, I was the lawful heiress."

"He told you that those were his interpretations of the will and the law?"

"Yes."

"Very well. Was this your introduction to the idea that you had a claim to the title?"

"It was."

"So, in the absence of my father’s interference, you accepted me as the head of our house, yes or no?"

"Only-"

"A ‘yes’ or ‘no’ will suffice, niece."

Juliette frowned. "Yes."

Content with her work, Goneril moved on. After some time, she came to the conclusion of her examination. "Now, my dear, I would like for you to consider all we have discussed today when answering me. Can you not admit room for doubt to your claim?"

"No."

"No? Despite the will not naming you specifically?"

"No."

"Despite the lack of any indication or instruction from my mother, of any preparation whatsoever for the greatness to which you aspire?"

"That is correct, aunt. I never found any reason to doubt legitimacy of my claim."

"Why not?"

"Because I read Grandmother’s will. She did not name either of us, but she named my mother, whose line includes me, not you. I dearly hope that the experience of Lady Capulet will not make me lose sight of such simple logic."

By a stroke of fortune, Lady Iden warned Juliette against insulting her examiner. This gave Goneril time to drain the purple out of her cheeks. Regan caught her attention with a low whisper and mouthed that Goneril had done enough. Goneril, still quaking, agreed. Impertinent as she was, Juliette had been led to admit to the most important facts of the day.

Fitzwilliam thought rather the opposite. Juliette had showed herself to be resolute and intelligent, and even if Consort’s opinions could not be officially considered, they could not be unsaid. He did see that she was losing her patience as well, and so declined the opportunity to repair any imperfect statements. She was hardly their only witness.

When it fell to Lady Iden, she had only one question for Juliette. "Why have you pressed this claim to the title of Lady Capulet?"

"Because I never wanted to be Lady Capulet."

Yet another murmur surged through the onlookers.

"I never envied Lady Goneril or my cousins. I always had more simple aspirations - a loving family, like the one in which I grew up. My own grandmother had been kind and sometimes indulgent when I was small, and I looked forward to seeing my mother do the same for my children. After my parents died..." Juliette paused but pushed on. "I came to know my grandmother then as Lady Capulet, the person who had to protect our noble house, our family, and all those who depend upon us. She was wise and strong and had good intentions. I know, now that I am a mother myself, that she had great restraint, for she considered the common good in the degree to which she avenged her child's death. Losing my parents made me lose all faith in the name of Capulet. My grandmother restored it. I fully believed she could and would protect me, in every sense of the word.

"I was as shocked as anyone to hear that she had made my mother, and thus me, her heiress. I had no idea she had considered me for the role. However, she saw me almost every day for the final three years of her life. If any day gave her doubts about me, any reason not to have me as her successor, she needed only to change a document. She didn't. And I confess, I sometimes wish she had, because this is not the life I planned for myself. But if my Grandmother believed it was so, then it is my duty to lead our house and safeguard our family - all of it. It is my duty to fight to be in the position to do that, and to do all I can for all my life. That is, Your Ladyship, the difference between my aunt and me. My aunt does not like what my grandmother chose, so she fights to disobey. I do not like what my grandmother chose, but I fight to obey."

After a moment’s pause, Lady Iden invited Juliette to step down.

"I don’t want it, but it’s my duty," Regan mocked, sotto-voce. "If that does not smack of her husband…"

"I should have liked to push her further on Mother’s intentions."

"You made the right choice. You were firm but kind, just as she preached."

"Thank you."

Lady Iden, perusing the list, asked Juliette who would be called upon to give testimony next.

"The Lord Tybalt Capulet, my brother, if it please your ladyship."

"Him?"

"What in the world could he have to say?"

Neither sister had much considered their nephew as a witness, much less the one to follow Juliette. That signaled an importance, a tie to something in Juliette’s testimony that required his assistance. But what?

As was her right, Goneril reached her conclusion first, and she hated it. Indeed, she hated him. He had been conceived a bastard. By all rights, he should have been relegated to obscurity. Cordelia could have still made a better match if only their mother hadn’t insisted on casting her shame in flesh and bone. Instead, Cordelia had been latched to Caliban Gale and the entire family forced to accept their ill-conceived son. Tybalt had grown up too wild to ever deserve a place in the inner circle of the family - and that was why Goneril had such a hot pit in her stomach. Her nephew’s only scrap of relevance, the only thing worth risking all the realm being reminded of what sort of man he was, was that he was the last living soul to have set eyes on Cordelia. His words had written that history; they could rewrite it as well. He would have no scruple against lying to anyone and everyone to get what he wanted. He could lie to the heavens, and no-one could prove him wrong, even if Goneril eviscerated him afterward. What was said could not be unsaid.

Regan, for the first time, shared in her sister’s worry. "You don’t suppose…"

At that moment, a trembling page violated the sanctity of the courtroom. He opened the very door through which Juliette had fled earlier and passed a note to the guard. Captain Fitzwilliam, as that guard so happened to be, walked the message over to Lady Iden. The magistrate broke the seal with her letter opener and cast her eyes over the short note.

She then announced to the courtroom, "The sky-watchers say the next storm will be upon us sooner than they anticipated." A hint of annoyance crept into her serious tone. "I believe I must charge you all to leave as quickly as possible - without starting a panic, if you please. Weather permitting, we will resume from this point on our next scheduled session. Until then, the Crown Court is adjourned."

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