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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 3575083" data-attributes="member: 11760">Eventually, the group hears voices behind the door in the other corner and footsteps coming closer. A guard opens the doors and, with a jerk of his head, indicates they should enter.Although previous barons created this room as a throne room, over time, it has been adapted to the needs of a succession of rulers. The Oak Throne, carved in the shape of a spreading tree, is still located at the center of the far wall, atop a small series of stone steps. But behind it is a huge tapestry depicting the baron's sister, Baroness Talitha Midwood, praying before an altar to Lothian, with the light of her god shining upon her and, dimly depicted beyond the doors of the church in the tapestry, all her subjects. Desks line the far wall of the room, many of them covered in books and scrolls.And, indeed, Baron Nicodemus Midwood has a large book open in his lap, which he reads while listening to his steward murmur something in his ear. Neither looks up at the group when the doors open. A step down from the Oak Throne, a disgruntled dwarf dressed in a fur robe watches the group approach, his arms crossed, his glare hard and sharp enough to split a log, puffing away furiously on his pipe. On the floor beside the dias, Khenemet-Apep stands, his hands shackled to a chain belt around his waist, his feet manacled together. A guard stands behind him, vigilant, eyes never leaving the Wizard of Green Mountain.The constable nods to the sheriff and takes a seat on one of the benches that occupy the near half of the room. The wood has been polished smooth over the years. He gestures for everyone else to be seated.A door on the right wall opens and the heavy-set Bishop Jurgen Lehmann enters the room, fingering his ankh-crucifix. His eyes meet Emmerson's a moment before he sits on one of the upholstered chairs at a desk near the baron, but away from the chained Wizard of Green Mountain.The guard who let the group in leans over, whispering quietly, but loudly enough to be heard by those on the bench: "Should just be another moment now. Good luck."Bufer smiles and nods kindly at the guard, then looks round to his friends and opens his mouth to crack a joke. The warning glare he gets from Constable Bridger causes him to shut it again without so much as a peep.Sighing heavily, Bufer sheepishly rolls his eyes at the amused glances he receives from Hazel and Emus, then settles back to wait in silence, picking self-consciously at the frayed and threadbare edges of his travelling robe.The Oak Throne commands Hazel's attention from the moment she steps into the room. The man seated in its carved boughs, and those near him, are little more than nuisances in the way of the exquisite woodcraft. Da would love to see this, she thinks.Hazel sits slowly, drinking in the sight of the throne's spreading canopy, and is only reminded of the group's purpose for being there when the wizard's weight shifts and his chains clank against the floor. Afraid she might have missed something, she nods sharply at the guard's whisper, then has to look down to hide her grin at Bufer's penchant for speaking out of turn. She'd wager a month of firewood that the gnome will find some inopportune moment to pop up and spout off words of wisdom, which, when they come from Bufer, aren't much different from wisecracks.Emmerson takes his seat with martial discipline. Back straight, hands laced together over his stomach, eyes fixed at some spot between the floor, the baron and the bishop.The baron says something else to Steward Eule Wood, to which Wood makes a face, but he stands, clearing his throat, and points to the constable."Is your deputy here? The baron would like him to step forward and explain the charges he is to consider today."It would be hard to tell any of this from the baron, who is continuing to read the heavy book in his lap and has, in fact, picked up a slate and is jotting notes on it with a piece of chalk.There's an elbow in Tucker's side before he realizes he's holding up the proceedings. He expected the constable would be called first, being the senior official in the group, but thankfully Bufer was already prodding him before the steward had to repeat himself. The deputy stands uneasily and takes a single step forward."Lord Midwood," Tucker says, perhaps a bit too loud for the stone room. When his voice comes echoing back, the deputy pauses, sheepishly, before continuing at a more appropriate tone. The baron doesn't look up from his book. "The accused was being transported to Middleborough on charges of conspiring against the barony. Once on the road, he aided and facilitated an escape by his fellow prisoners and attempted to murder an official of the empire, my lord."The baron looks up from his book at this, raising one eyebrow. He looks from Tucker to Khenemet-Apep and back.His hair has chalk in it, and there is chalk on his coat sleeve and a dotting of ink on the white shirt cuff beneath it. Despite this, he is suddenly every inch a baron, and his brown eyes bore into Tucker. His fingertip still rests where it stopped in his book, marking his place, but he hands off his slate and chalk to the steward, who places them on a nearby desk.The bishop jumps up from his chair, which creaks with relief, as though he were a marionette on strings and begins casting a spell at the foot of the steps leading to the throne.A gold ring glints in the light streaming in from the narrow windows as the baron reaches forward, beckoning Tucker into range of the bishop's spell."Explain, deputy. In detail."</blockquote>

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