A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

He was led through corridors that were only half familiar, after he'd been down here once before, in order to make his way to the Minister's Hall when they were deciding on his punishment for striking a professor. They seemed even more grand than he last remembered them, but that was likely more because of the state of the surroundings that he'd spent time in the past week more than anything else.

He thought them to be getting nearer, and indeed they must have been, for the crowds of students seemed thicker here, yellow students wrestling with blue for the best view of the procession, as the noblemen gave orders to their retainers for space to be made. Their futile squabbling was quickly interrupted by another stream of guardsmen. They were gathering more and more as they went.

Another ten appeared, just before the doors to the Minister's Hall.

"My Lord!" Oliver heard a shout from the crowd. He turned his head sharply, to see Verdant, with a better position than the rest, allowed further forward by the guardsmen than the others would be, given his position as a member of the faculty. "Plans are in place, my Lord! Have faith in them!"

It seemed a desperate plea from a usually calm man. He saw Jorah and Karesh amongst the crowd behind Verdant, with Kaya peeking out behind them, as they were pressed by the throng of students, battling, and calling whatever they thought to be fit.

"Murderer!" Was quite the popular shout.

"Patrick!" With another, spat with the same venom as someone calling another man a pig or a rat. Somehow his own name had become a slur. Oliver smiled at that too. Despite Ingolsol's restlessness inside of him, Oliver felt no inclination towards violence.

He returned Verdant's desperation with a calm nod of his own. "Thank you, Verdant," he said, and then he was swept through the doors of the chamber, once more suffocated by its vast grandness.

It was not nearly as empty as when Oliver had last remembered it though. Back then, there had only been five thrones, for each of the ministers to sit on, and they had been the sole audience, despite all the space that the hall had offered.

Today, the Ministers were there, but as were others. Benches had been set down, many rows of them. There must have been two hundred people filling the seats, all of them noble in their appearance, with attire as fine as what Oliver currently wore. Men and women alike.

Some of them were staff members that Oliver recognized – he saw Professor Yoreholder and Professor Volguard, both wearing the same grim expression, despite their positions in entirely different ends of the vast hall. Explore hidden tales at My Virtual Library Empire

The benches were broken up only by the large and numerous pillars that ran up into stone beams, hovering beneath the vast domed ceiling. Oliver hadn't had the wearwithall to look up on his previous visit.

He hadn't been quite so calm then, with the fractured state of the fragments inside of him, but today he did, and he noticed the murals that decorated the dome, as well as the glass at the very top of it, that let in the light of the sun.

He saw a picture of a delicate-looking but fierce silver-haired woman, dressed in a white robe, with purple eyes, pointing a silver spear. He assumed her to be Claudia. Next to her, there was another woman, in golden plate armour, of remarkable size, with red hair and a sword. Varsharn, Oliver guessed. Between the two of them, there were a set of scales.

Neither one of the Gods seemed to be particularly focused on the scales, despite their size, but they were there nonetheless.

The murals themselves were enormous, and beautifully lifelike. The paint was not done to be flat. It was texturized in a way that gave the Goddesses a lifelike appearance that came up out of the stone of the dome on which they were painted.

A jangle of his chains from behind him as a guardsman abruptly halted him and brought him out of his revelry. They stopped, halfway down the aisle between the many rows of benches, facing off against the Ministers and their thrones as they sat a distance away. Even Hod was dressed as a noble ought to have been today – but that didn't do anything to change his behaviour.

He was still sprawled languidly, as though he couldn't imagine anything more boring than what he was now being forced to take part in.

"The prisoner will be walked to the palm of judgment," General Tavar said in a booming voice, silencing the crowd as he stood. His own gold armour seemed to shine even more brightly than the picture of Varsharn up above. With his silver hair, and his recently cropped beard, he made quite the striking figure.

The conversations ceased, as Oliver was led forward, in front of the thrones, and then dragged off to the right. There seemed an almost ritualistic air to the entire process, given the silence, interrupted only by the sound of his chains, and the stamping of his own boots and those behind him.

The hand of judgment was indeed aptly named. Oliver didn't have to wonder why he hadn't noticed it before. It had been covered in a purple cover, and only when he approached did the nearby guardsmen whip it off.

There it was revealed, a giant hand of marble and gold, forming a cage, as the fingers interwoven like the branches of a thorny bramble bush, and trapped the criminal inside. Somehow, Oliver thought that they wouldn't waste such a grand artefact on the ordinary criminal man. This was a piece of ceremony reserved only for the judgement of nobility.

Oliver was led up inside. Three steps, and then he was there. Enough room for four people inside, but only a single bench carved into the marble – and yet they did not neglect to place a purple velvet cushion on top. The guardsmen guided him into a seated position on top of the cushion, and then fastened his shackles to the wall behind him.

It seemed a peculiar bit of pageantry. The dignified treatment of a noble, yes, that indeed made sense, but not when following a week spent in the dungeons with the rest of the ordinary folk. It was a contradiction that didn't bear pointing out.