The Last Day of the War - Part 1

"Irisa, you are a true daughter of Galine. You know nothing of the world, but that will soon change." Velvel walked to me and put his hand on my shoulder. His smile never once wavered, but neither did any one of the fifteen inertia rifles pointing down at us. "Let us go to your studio now so you can pick out a something nice to wear for your trial tomorrow. The gown you bought last weekend with Anna would do nicely I think. Come, my speeder is waiting for us out front."

* * * * *

My trial was without a doubt the most formal courtroom event ever to occur in the history of Galine. The lowest ranking individual in the room that day was the court scribe, a Senior Chieftain of one of the Upper Clans whose black leather harness with its tooled silver was nearly as ornate as the belts and baldrics of the Nobleborn. A quick glance around the courtroom revealed no faces from my house or from any of the clans under it and the shields above the Judges chairs indicated all who would judge me were the First Swords of Noble Houses. I noticed someone had forgotten to place the cover over the chair of the Inquisitor and the small shield set at the top of its high back belonged to the Matron of my society. The Inquisitor would only be present for sentencing and that was a thing for the second trial, not the first.

If the matter were truly this serious, I thought as the four Guardians of Truth marched into the room, surely they would have called my parents back to city…

The brightly lit courtroom was built so its corners corresponded to the four cardinal directions of the compass and it was into these corners that the Guardians moved. They wore the armor of heavy infantrymen lacquered in a gleaming black and carried the halberds required by tradition. Belts and baldrics covered in gold indicated that they were also Nobleborn and the inertia pistols and fighting knives that hung from them indicated they were ready for violence. The roundels on their helmets were also not of my house. The court seemed to be becoming more a conspiracy against my family than a trial.

While everyone around me seemed prepared for combat, I certainly was not. I had chosen to wear a two layer silk blouse with a long divided skirt and the uncomfortable formal sandals one had to wear to official State functions with decorative cut outs in the gilded leather over my feet and leather ties that had to be wrapped up to the middle of my calves. The dark blue inner layer of the blouse fit snugly and fell to just below my waist while the light blue outer layer draped loosely and ended several inches above the inner layer. The two layers were joined along their upper edges and the front and back of the blouse were pinned together by gold broaches on either side of my neck and above either shoulder. The short sleeves were open along their length until just above my elbows where more gold pins held the ends together. My skirt was also a light blue and had slits running high up my thighs, higher than necessary truth be told. It was possible to tell at a glance that my arms and legs were bare of the sym bolic tattoos worn by those of the lesser Societies or the uncultured Outworlders. The outfit was completed by a simple gold circlet engraved with the symbol of a rampant bear above my forehead.

It was not an outfit meant for close combat.

While I sat in the enclosed bench waiting for the judges to enter I tried to stretch my calves without being obvious about it. I hated those sandals. The Eastern Guardian tapped his halberd three times on the marble floor and everyone in the court rose as the judges entered. The men and women filed silently into the courtroom and took their positions in front of their respective seats. I struggled to not gasp when I realized the Great Council of Galine, but for my father, was present in its entirety. The judges remained standing and the Eastern Guardian tapped his halberd three more times on the floor.