Is the Law of Our Side?: Part One

"What perils past, what crosses to ensue"

November 10th

The first sovereign Duke of Verona had granted oversight of the law to those families who had most honorably upheld it before and during the Veronese Revolution. He had believed that the most dangerous corruption in a magistrate was the desire to keep a position that could be lost to the ever-changing whims of the powerful. A hereditary judiciary nullified that danger. It gave the law a sense of permanence, of timelessness. As his legal system had long outlasted his dynasty, the Duke's reasoning had been proven sound to the Veronese.

Unless Thou Tell Me How

"I pray you, bear me hence from forth the noise and rumor of the field."

Content Warning: Click here for content warnings. (Potential spoilers)

October 31st

"Oh, my poor little man," Georgiana tutted. Her nephew had fussed since they had arrived at Darcy House that morning for a day's visit with her mother. For the inmates of Capulet Manor, it was their first day at liberty. The other adults had moved from one type of confinement to another: meeting their adversaries in Lady Iden's chambers to negotiate the terms of the trial. Rather than go to sit silently in a stuffy room, Georgiana had offered to bring Will to see his grandmother. "You're too little to remember, aren't you?" To her relief, he started to quiet down. "You've been away these three months, and that's a long time at your age, isn't it? This is your home, though you don't remember it just yet."

How to Choose

"Men at some time are masters of their fates."

October 18th

When the fashionable noble houses had fled their ancestral lands to build newer and better family seats in the capital, the House of Gloucester had stayed put. Lord Gloucester would forever be merely one of a crowd if the family had followed fashion. On his ancestral lands in the Cirenwade district, he was a king. Numerous generations on, Lord James Gloucester currently reigned over a quasi-court comprised of his extended family and local gentry who had outgrown the inelegance of nearby Port Gale. Though he lacked a throne room, the lord's study, a lonely place with no buffer and no escape, loomed as large as any royal audience chamber ever had.

After twenty-eight years of these command performances, Neve still hated to be summoned. It was so often a waste of patience and time. Her father-in-law liked to assert himself, and one method of doing so was to call for a person and then make them wait in the hall. Exceedingly rare was the occasion when a caller was admitted immediately. How many hours of her life had she spent here, pressing her child's hand - usually her son's - between hers and assuring them that all would be well? Her son was in the study without her today. Fortunately, God had blessed her with a wonderful distraction.

Fair Sun

Author's note: The images in this chapter are not necessarily literal illustrations of the text.

"A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee." 

October 1st

Verona had extinguished the last embers of summer. Each day, sun and warmth grew more scarce. Frost would soon blanket the northernmost regions. It would not take long for the cold air and cool light to sweep south and stake winter's claim. Paulina and Mercutio, however, were still living in the warmth of summer. A skeptic could have pointed to the cozy chamber and overlarge fireplace with which they were spending this night, just as they had for most of their short marriage. The poet would have looked to the couple. And, as it so happened, they were very fond of poetry.

Ladies of Esteem: Part Two

"Put thyself into the trick of singularity."

September 16th 

Juliette approached the great hall with her head held high. Inside her, trepidation sparked and ate away at her confidence, one crumb at a time. Beyond the doors, the war council awaited her arrival. It was comprised of good, trustworthy people: her husband, her siblings and their spouses, her aunt and uncle Gale. These were people she loved. Their opinions and good counsel, offered in earnest, proved that they loved her as well. She didn't want any of them to be disappointed; after this meeting, some could be.