Jurors.
I have a judge. Now I need jurors.
This is tough. I've known, more or less
from the start, that I need impartial jurors. That means people from outside
the town. Not necessarily because I wanted the trial to be fair, mind, but
because that's what's expected. I read a book once, and it said jurors have to
be unbiased towards the case. So, like, that's a requirement.
Then I learned why they have to be
unbiased, which brings us back to fairness. The truth. All that nonsense. For
the briefest second that idea didn't appeal to me, and I contemplated getting
people who hate Jeffrey's guts so he'd be prosecuted for sure, but… the thought
of Daena angrily putting her foot through my face for stacking the odds… not good.
Not good at all. Especially now that I know Pagan will put Jeffrey to death if
he's guilty.
(I wonder if Pagan would do it himself. He
might. He's bloodthirsty, in an
always-calm-but-ready-to-go-to-war-if-you-look-at-me-funny kinda way. He DID
lop off my dad's arm, y'know.)
So yeah. Fairness. I need fairness. Which
means I need jurors who don't give two hoots either way about what happens. To
that end I sent a small delegation of travellers out to nearby towns to find
people who might be interested in sitting on a jury for thirty gold. Preferably
intelligent people. Edmund's leading a little group of nobles I quietly
hand-picked; I hope they bring back some good candidates, and not just
brain-dead louts who are eager for money.
I never had to think about complicated
stuff like this in the old days. I slept in a fish barrel some nights, for
gods' sake. I was a simple man, with a simple barrel. And… perhaps a complex
smell. Libby says I smelled quite ripe.
…
Oh, Libby. I kissed a woman who wasn't you.
And she tasted like the underside of a barge. I assume. I've never licked a
barge before. What scum I be.
Speaking of family, Doc is getting
increasingly insistent that I bring Eve in for an examination. The little
bugger shows up on my doorstep at least once a day with his cronies in tow,
flat-out begging that I hand over a strand of her hair. I keep finding the door
unlocked, as well, so I suspect he might be trying to sneak in and steal her
hair off her pillow or something. Little does he know that her hair never seems
to drop off her head.
Which is… really weird. Now that I think of
it. Huh.
Anyway. Alongside all this judging
nonsense, I'm thinking of telling Doc to leave town. I don't mind the rest of
the swaddled-up desert-dwellers, but he's a bloody nuisance. And nobody trusts
him. I fear he might be a quack, and a prosperous town like Pubton has no room
for quacks.
Yeah. Maybe I'll give him the boot
tomorrow. That sounds like a plan. It'll give me something to do while I wait
for news on jurors. I'm really impatient to get this trial moving, gotta say.
Before something else happens.
Things are coming. My dreams keep telling
me so.
Sincerely,
Dragomir the Mayor
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