Chapter 498 — Public Trial

In Frostgate, the square before the cathedral district was packed with people.

Two days had passed since that unprecedented battle, yet the whole city still seemed wrapped in a strange, feverish atmosphere. For the citizens of Frostgate, this was the first time they had ever fought with their own hands for the right to live another day; for the common folk and volunteer fighters who had come from all across the Southern Region, it was the first time they had gathered together regardless of birth or station, unbound by any lord's whip and blade, and acted in pursuit of a great goal—and today was the day when all their efforts bore fruit.

The people crowded the square, every face alight with ardour and eagerness, and all eyes were fixed on the far end of it, where a platform had been raised, and atop that platform were bound the priests who had once stood so high and lorded it so cruelly over them.

The judges had become the judged—setting aside all questions of justice and morality, the spectacle itself was enough to thrill a great many people.

This was a trial, but unlike the countless heresy trials Frostgate had witnessed before. Its procedure and form might seem novel and hard to grasp to the locals—for the one passing sentence was not a high-ranking priest, but a three-member tribunal made up of a White Knight, a Cecil judge, and an arbitration advisor; and beyond that tribunal, many more sat beside the platform as jurors.

Some of these were clad in priestly robes, and people recognized them as priests from the small churches of Frostgate—men who had once stood in the square of the heresy trials and been punished alongside the common folk, and who had even served as allies during the assault on the great cathedral; thus, though they were priests, they drew no small number of friendly looks. Others were ordinary citizens dressed in clean and decent clothes, the most respected figures of Frostgate, whose faces many in the crowd knew well. The last group were clerks from Cecil.

These people were called the "jury"—witnesses and overseers of the trial, and representatives of every class touched by these events.

The Luan citizens had never seen such a curious and complicated form of trial, yet it undeniably radiated an air of fairness and reliability—the judge could not decide alone; every statute was read aloud in open court; and people from every walk of life stood as witnesses, watching over the whole process. To Luan citizens who had known nothing their whole lives but "heresy trials," this new set of "rules" from Cecil was almost staggering.

As for the priests bound on the platform, awaiting judgment, their feelings were rather less pleasant.

These priests, who had survived to this day, stared down at the square in something close to terror—at those lowly folk who in former days could only grovel in the dirt—and they felt that the people's gazes carried a heat almost physical, as though it would burn them alive upon that platform.

They had not been stoned to death by the furious mob two days ago, nor cut down on the spot by the White Knights and the volunteer mercenaries, and now at last they understood: they had lived not through luck, but because they had "another use."

The Cecil men had kept them alive until today only so that they could die today.

"Silence—the public trial now begins."

The "judge" beside the platform spoke. He was a middle-aged civil official from the Cecil region, once a scholar of some repute in the Kant area, but now he was to judge the spokesmen of the Daylight Church in the Southern Region in the name of Duke Gaoyang and the people of the South, and that fact kept his face drawn tight as he strove to hide all his nervousness and agitation beneath a solemn and reverent countenance.

After introducing, in accordance with Cecil law, the parties to the trial, the members of the tribunal, and the jurors, the judge looked toward the leader of the White Knights seated beside him—for since this trial concerned the Church, Wright had come to the tribunal in person as representative of the New Church. Taking the judge's cue, this tall "Great Patriarch," clad in White Knight armour, rose slowly to his feet.

A slight stir ran through the square at once—many had seen this White Knight during the "Battle of Dawn" two days before. His height of nearly two metres, his majestic White Knight armour, the holy light that radiated from his whole being—these vivid traits had left a deep impression on the Luan citizens.

Wright waved to the square, then turned his gaze to the priests at the centre of the platform. He noted the fear and tension in their eyes, but his own expression did not change in the slightest.

He laid his hand over his heart and swore solemnly: "I am Wright, Great Patriarch of the Holy Light New Church. I swear here in the name of the Holy Light that I shall guarantee the fairness and truth of this trial, that it accords with the sacred laws of Cecil, and that the people shall watch over all I say and do here."

Thus began the "public trial" destined to be written into the annals of history.

Many had assumed at first that this trial would be a "spectacle of punishment," an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—that the Luan priests would soon be lashed to the pyres and burned clean, just as they had done to so many innocents. But in truth, the trial adhered strictly to Cecil law.

The Cecil judge and the other members of the tribunal laid out, clearly and precisely, the crimes of the Luan priests one by one—seizing the people's property, destroying innocent lives, deceiving the populace, profaning the Holy Light... Then, one after another, citizens familiar and unfamiliar were led onto the platform by Cecil soldiers to testify face to face against those priests and confirm the charges; the tribunal in turn produced on the spot the ledgers, archives, and correspondence of the clergy found in the great cathedral—above all the "heretic purge orders" from the Northern Church—to establish the truth of every crime...

The people watched the trial with a strange intensity. They had been impatient to see the Luan priests burned at once—a simple, straightforward thirst for vengeance—but as the trial entered the "testimony in open court" stage, they felt an emotion sharper and more powerful than mere revenge.

They wanted to see those Luan priests convicted, and once every crime was confirmed, nailed forever to the pillar of shame.

They wanted to hear the judge declare innocent those who had been burned at will, to hear that the friends and kin who had been flogged, had their hands and feet cut off, had been branded with the mark of sin, were innocent.

They wanted more than to vent their anger, more than revenge—they wanted justice.

And that was the hardest thing in this world for common folk to obtain.

A lame woman was helped onto the platform by soldiers. Her leg had been broken by Church knights, and she made the people look upon that deformed limb as she denounced the cruelty of those knights, who had done such a thing to her merely because she had accidentally trodden on a pastor's robe.

An old woman came onto the platform with her son. Her son could not speak—for the priests had ordered the young man's tongue cut out, on the charge of "recklessly discussing the sacred words of the Holy Light scriptures"...

This trial was bound to last the whole day.

At the edge of the square, upon the high wall of the cathedral district, Gaoyang and Amber watched the trial unfold together.

"What sentence will those priests get in the end?" Amber peered down curiously. "The charges and evidence all seem awfully complicated..."

Gaoyang answered at once: "All hanged. No pardons."

"...All hanged?" Amber looked at Gaoyang in surprise. "So it was decided from the start?"