Chương 231: Chapter 252: Follow-Through

It's Day Three of the Trial of the Century, but nobody knows it yet but me. Right now we're still stuck down at the equivalent of traffic court, commerce court is even less respected than the civil courts in Hearstwhile. After all, contracts are only supposed to favor the powerful, right? So every ruling is really a foregone conclusion, and even bothering to have a hearing just means allowing an underdog to get a chance at a ruling.

It takes a very convoluted and corrupt government to create all the conditions a backgrounds needed for a game like Harigold Glitter. It turns out that video games are the ultimate expression of "a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there". We play the games for fun, sure, but the setting that produces dramatic and high-risk action so that only one specific character can and will fix things? That is inherently a terrible place to live.

And, by extension, a terrible place to have to deal with the mundania of legal troubles. But ironically, not such a bad place to deal with high-profile life-or-death fate-of-nations legal crises. The game focuses on high-stakes drama, after all, and this world supports the game. So with all of that said, doesn't it make a lot of senses that I should want to escalate my rinky-dink contract conflict into a Trial of the Century?

We have a lot of repeat visitors from yesterday, people strolling up to the spectators' stands with their hammers in plain sight. I had plenty of new ones to hand out to anyone that doesn't have one yet. The crowd is still very 'downtown', working-class and untitled people who are coming by to see the show.

There's a sense of grim purpose that comes and goes, periodically I will be scanning across the crowd and I will catch the eyes of someone with a hammer in their hand and gleam in their eye, giving me a sign of connection, a nod or a salute or a wink. Solidarity. Even a ducal princess can get solidarity from the proletarians if she is in trouble, angry about it, and willing to put weapons in the hands of the people.

Especially if she's already got that folk-hero history of fighting monsters, rescuing civilians, opposing royalty, and bringing entire city districts out of poverty. The news in Hearstwhile moves at the speed of a minstrel's wander, for most of the citizens who don't have access to the herald network. But minstrels made it from Newtown to Hearstcliff a long time ago. I've had a groundswell of public support waiting for me in the streets all this time, laying dormant for me to need it.

I pass out hammers, handshakes and autographs to the people that stream in, getting as much contact as possible with as many people as possible without completely shutting out the journalists that are clinging like loud-mouthed barnacles to the side of our promotional hammer booth. It's mostly the same questions as before, and that's annoying.

Either they're hoping to get a different answer for a new story, or a different answer and trap me in my own words, or they just want to have me acknowledge them as some gratification, or they're just checking in as if I wouldn't tell them when I've got something relevant. For example, when I told them "Keep a close eye on things today, and see if you can get the evening editions.

There's a chance that starting tomorrow we'll be at a different venue, and I wouldn't want all the good people of Hearstcliff to show up at this commerce court when the real action will be miles away." That was me letting the reporters know valuable information up front. But unfortunately most of the reporters in this city seem confused by clear communication from someone in my position. I guess factual press releases of plain information is just not part of the local culture. Petty nudged me.

"You should get out of here. You need to be in place when the trial starts."

"I've got time."

"Not much," she pointed out.

"The entrances are all glutted, the crowds are moving slow. If you're going to get to the right corridor in time you should have left about five minutes ago. You'll be pressed as it is."

"I've got time," I said cheerily. Bruce rolled his eyes.

"Petty, she says she's fine, she's fine. She's got portals. She doesn't need to walk through crowds."

"Tsk, Bruce, when you say things like that it really sounds very elitist of you," I scolded wanly.

"It's all right if only one of the three of us has broad-based appeal across the classes," he said.

"I'll be the elitist scum. After all, I'm rich. I don't need to be rich and also well-loved by the commonfolk. I'm not greedy like that." But even as he said that, he smiled warmly and handed hammers over to a man with a bricklayer's apron and his two sullen-eyed teenaged daughters. I gave them handshakes and smiles, and a few warm words, and the girls lit up at the sound of my voice. Always nice to meet a fan.

I may have been a little charmed by them, only a couple years younger than me but they had stars in their eyes when I asked their names. And, just because Petunia is more often right than wrong, I was still hung up with them when the bells began to toll the hour.

"See, now I'm late," I said to her. I waved goodbye to the bricklayer's girls, and then shot straight up into the air. The new rules outlaw me opening any portals onto the courtroom floor. But not about flight. I sweep up over the edge of the building, where the facade walls turn into the retaining barrier around the amphitheater seating. The noise of the crowd bursts over me as I crest the edge, and I activate the aurora essence, dragging red-and-white lights behind me as I circle the stadium, spiraling in.

I buzz over the crowd, only ten feet overhead, nearly clipping some pretzel-seller who kept her wares on a forked pole held upright above the crowd. There's a lot more energy here, even before I do anything to rile the crowd up. On day one, the crowd was whoever happened to be here at the time. And the second day, it was anyone that saw the reports or that knew something about me and wanted to attend. On day three, there's momentum. By now, there's people starting to get invested in this event.

I crisscrossed over head while the doors opened up and the crowd pointed up, back and forth as I waved to the assembled spectators. Yes, I'm playing to the crowd to show off. And yes, I'm timing it so that nobody is paying any attention to the somber and deliberate solemnity of the court officials as they take their places. Gonna keep all eyes on me. And also, I'm reaching out to make sure my sorcerous senses don't get interrupted by anything. No wards down there, no dead zones.

I cruise lower, buzzing closer, making sure I don't find any exotic inks in enough density to make a magister's staff or a proper anti-sorcery ward. There is no reason at all why I should trust them not to try to ambush me. I'm sick to death of getting sideswiped, and I am past the point of being caught unawares because I didn't bother to look for trouble. When I was certain that there were no wards nor the mechanism to raise them, I shot straight up, and turned off my flight.

I zoomed up, and then slowed, stilled, reached my apex and then dropped back down. One lazy turn at the top of the arc, and then I'm gathering speed, rushing downward, trailing light and magic as I go. Today, I can be a comet again. I do not actually hit the ground at full-speed, but the crowd can't tell the difference between "fast" and "too fast". I drop in fast, but the air pulls at me just a few short feet before the ground to slow me enough that my steel-channeled body does not break anything.

Superhero landing: one foot, one knee, one hand flat, one fist clenched. My body is reinforced for the impact, and the floor here echoes magically through the stadium. I land like thunder, and the crowd goes wild. I stand, and dust my hands off, nonchalant. Gotta grow the legend, after all. There was a lot of yelling for order, and Teilur Nuur was yelling about the honor and decorum of the institution as if this whole court was not a pathetic joke that everyone knows about and nobody's laughing at.

The judge banged her gavel. The gallery banged back. Tap-tap goes the gavel. BANG-BANG go the hammers. I cross my arms and glare daggers at this bribe-swilling bitch. She has no fucking right to throw her authority around after she has besmirched her oaths of office this thoroughly in front of this many witnesses. If she wanted the respect of the community she had a million opportunities to earn it, and she ignored them all for her self-enrichment and gratification.

There was the usual ceremonial bullshit, where the bailiffs and the judge all congratulated themselves for being duly authorized, as if that meant anything, and lots of noble words were used despite everyone here already understanding that this is a farce. I managed to keep my patience through these wastes of my time.

"Having concluded the matter of opening motions and ground rules, we move to the proceedings of opening arguments where the counselor and the defendant may speak to-""Your honor I move to dismiss the case," I said, since this is absolutely the first opportunity to do so. Two fucking days we've wasted my time. But now we've finally got a floor that I can use. The judge heaved out one of those 'I'm already tired of your shit' sighs, and gestured at me to continue.

"On what grounds, Miss Harigold?" she said. Blatant disrespect. She was denying me both my inherited titles and my earned titles, both "Lady" and "Counselor", to give me "Miss". I am annoyed by this, as I'm supposed to be. She did it to annoy me. She probably thought it was payback for completely eclipsing her entrance with my overflights. That's fine.

"On the grounds that the signer of the plaintiff's contract was not entitled to do so," I said.

"The plaintiff's case stipulates that a liege can enter contracts for his vassals, heirs or subordinates."

"Yes?" she grumped.

"Defense contends that Nathan Harigold is not the heir of Duke Matthew Reginald Renault Harigold and Duchess Thamsin Rithika Daria Harigold," I said. Now clearly that's not an easy sentence to say. Leaving out the heavy emotional bearing, there's the simple fact that my family's names are tongue-twisters. I had to make sure I got it right on the first try because it would have been humiliating to stumble over one of my parents' many names. But also, yes, because this is a huge personal moment.

The thrum of silence that follows gave us all a collective moment to take in the impact. This is officially now a challenge of succession. I glance behind to the stenographer, who is staring back at me. The page in front of her is covered in shorthand, which she writes far better than that reporter from Day One. And that page in front of her is now an official court document establishing my challenge to Nathan's presumption as the heir apparent and crown prince of the duchy.

It is now a matter of established record. In the grand catalog of courtroom drama, "challenging succession" is somewhere between "pregnancy reveal" or "a second will", and "murdering opposing counsel in open court". And I was still keeping the rest of those in reserve if I need them, but I expect this will be enough.

"Matters of succession between royal vassals can only be resolved by the Court of the High Council," the judge said, perking up. We were less than a half-hour into this day and I've already hit the nuclear option. And while the rest of us have complicated responses to this, hers is entirely straightforward: I have just raised an objection with a motion to dismiss that can not be resolved in her court.

This case now has an escape hatch that drops all of us straight to the High Council, which gives her the best present I could possibly have granted her at this point: all of this is not her problem anymore. I could just see the dawning realization and the spreading glee on her face.

"Motion granted," she said, slamming the gavel with unseemly haste. To her, win-win. She gets to keep all the bribes because she has done everything in her power to give them their verdict. It's not her fault that this was always being held in the wrong court. Maximum payout, minimum effort. Just what every corrupt official is really looking for: all of the upsides, none of the downsides. The stenographer made her jots, 'motion granted'.

Which means we're officially out of commerce court and headed for the big leagues, it is now an matter of documented court proceedings that we have abandoned the contract case in favor of the succession. And if I win this, I'm not just the duchess-to-be, the crown princess. I will will officially be Nathan's liege-by-proxy, his superior. And by extension, he will not have the right to sign contracts in my name.

And since an heir-presumptive is not an heir-confirmed, it means that he was never my liege-by-proxy and that contracts he signed as my liege will be null and void retroactively. So my brother handed me a nasty, even deadly, dilemma, and the easiest way for me to get out of it was to push myself for a promotion that I needed to have anyway. But the only way for me to get that promotion was for a lower court to refer a case to the High Court.

And since there were no court cases that challenged his and my succession orders, I could not demand the promotion I needed. Which means, god dammit, that this whole debacle was exactly what I needed. And that Nathan's vile and unforgivable betrayal gave me the only chance I was going to get to advance to crown princess. So, that's one of the only obstacles to my plans out of the way now. I just need to win this case before the High Court. Easy stuff.

Hammers were hammering, the crowd was bellowing, but the judge straight up did not care. She was stepping down from her bench, she had done her part, she had ended this farce. The bailiffs were standing around looking uncomfortable. Teilur Nuur was screaming, lots of "you can't do this" or "come back here", though she has retained enough of her sense to not yell "we had a deal" right in the middle of the court. Me, I'm a little lightheaded.

I really thought I was going to spend the next six hours or six days arguing about this. I had hoped that it would work right away, I had hoped that the judge would bite my bait on the first bob, but I had not actually planned on it working so smoothly. God damn, I should have bought up my charisma ages ago. I could really get used to these situations that end in my favor. The judge is exiting stage right, trotting along. She's got her golden parachute and she is yanking the ripcord.

I don't know how much she extorted the Aumerje for, but she seems to have money that needs spending. The opposing counsel is spiraling out. I've got what I need. Well, time to go meet my adoring public. I float up away from the sigiled floor and head up to the stands, beaming with smiles. I land, already mid-handshake, chatting with anyone in front of me, giddy with relief. Oh thank gods. I've eliminated a petty irritation by escalating it into a full-blown crisis. Exactly what I needed.