Long May She Reign(53)

My hands shook, but I would not move. “No executions.”

Holt nodded. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

The accused was led from the room, and my advisers had a hurried conference before addressing the guards again. While they talked, a few other nobles followed Sten, whispering as they went.

Next the guards led a man into the room. He looked about my father’s age, with a patchy mustache and gray speckled in his hair.

“Henry Goodram,” Norling said, reading from a large sheet of paper before her. “Accused of forging diamonds, endangering the stability of the kingdom for his own personal gain, at a time when our kingdom needs its stability the most.”

“Begging your pardon,” the man said, “but I didn’t know what was going to happen at that ball when I did it.” A few nobles behind him leaned forward in interest, but some of the others stood up and started drifting out of the room. I guess they had anticipated more discussions of murder, not jewel forgery. “How could I have known? If I had, I wouldn’t have—”

“You expect us to believe that you didn’t intend to take advantage of the situation?” Norling said. “That you only had innocent intentions?”

“I didn’t know they weren’t real diamonds,” he said quickly, as though he hadn’t basically admitted his own guilt ten seconds before. “Someone sold ’em to me, the price was too good to be true, maybe, but I didn’t know they were fakes.”

“Were they convincing?” I asked. After all the fuss over the poverty of the kingdom and the need to drape ourselves in jewels, realistic fakes might be useful. They must have been good, if they posed such a risk to the economy. Or did they just pose a risk to the nobility’s pride?

“See them for yourself,” Norling said. She gestured at a man to her left, who walked forward and presented me with a tiny handful of jewels. I held one up to inspect it in the light. It gleamed a thousand colors, shifting as I moved. I wasn’t exactly an expert on diamonds, but it looked realistic to me. Someone like Madeleine Wolff would probably spot its inadequacies immediately, but I would never have noticed.

“I didn’t know!” the man said. “You must believe me, Your Majesty. I didn’t know they weren’t real.”

“But you did, sir,” I said. I shifted in my seat. His rambling desperation made my skin itch, horrified that I was the cause, but if he admitted to it himself, I couldn’t exactly let him go. “It was the first thing you said. You didn’t know what would happen at the ball when you did it.”

“I meant—I might have suspected they were fakes,” he said. “But I’m not an expert, so I went on what I’d been told. I wasn’t involved.”

I looked back at the diamonds. They sparkled in the light, revealing colors at their hearts. Just like real diamonds. “How were they made?” I asked slowly.

“From glass, Your Majesty,” Norling said. “With a lot of lead added to create that gleam. They make a paste, I believe. We’re not certain of the exact method.”

“They’re very convincing,” the accused man said quickly. “Anyone would believe they were real.”

“Do we have any more proof?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Norling picked up another sheet of paper and talked through the investigation, those who had spoken against Henry Goodram, how the trail for the source had turned cold with him. Add in his own slip-up here, and the truth seemed obvious.

“I will not go against my advisers’ recommendations,” I said carefully, hoping they were the right words. “But these are impressive fakes. Tell us how they’re made, exactly how, and we’ll consider that when we—with the punishment. We’ll take it into consideration.”

Someone in the crowd laughed. “Is Her Majesty planning to get into the fake diamond market herself?”

“If we can understand how fakes are made, perhaps we can use that knowledge. It could help us identify them. Or they could be useful in some other way.” Like maintaining the extravagant look of the court without it costing endless riches. “Knowledge is a good thing.”

“Including criminal knowledge, Your Majesty?” Norling asked.

“It shows intelligence. Ingenuity. We need those things.”

“But I didn’t make them, Your Majesty. I swear I didn’t.”

“That’s my offer,” I said, quieter than I would have liked. “Do with it what you will.”

The trials went on for hours. The nobles left the room in dribs and drabs until only a couple remained. Madeleine stayed through the entire thing, her hands settled carefully in her lap, and Fitzroy stayed, too. I tried not to look at him. My conversation with Naomi was still too fresh, and I felt a jolt of uncertainty every time he caught my eye. I had enough to think about, with the parade of cases presented to me.

Norling was the chief of justice, and she was the one responsible for making decisions, but the word of a queen could always overrule her, and I wanted to be certain that everything was fair. I had the power to dole out justice, or to destroy someone’s life, and I wanted to do the best that I could. I wanted to do better than my best.

But hours of speaking to people, of being watched and measured, left me feeling scraped raw inside, too tired to think. The moment the trials ended, I hurried away with my guards, avoiding Fitzroy’s gaze again.