Suddenly, Ursula Major smiled.
Was Alfric reprieved?
No!
For Ursula said:
‘You are a criminal, for you have wilfully destroyed state assets to further your own ambition, and you have led an old and senile man to a hideous death. This amounts to treason. Therefore we pronounce your doom. You are guilty of treason. Therefore, you must die.’
That proved what Alfric had already guessed: he had hopelessly misjudged the situation.
Alfric had guessed that Ursula Major was prepared to destroy him, but not that she was ready to do so in public view. He had expected backstreet murder, knives in the dark, arson, poison, arrows fired from the shadows. He had feared death at the hands of Ciranoush Zaxilian Nom. But not this! Not a formal condemnation from the throne.
‘But,’ continued Ursula Major, ‘while you must die, we do give you the chance to die as a Yudonic Knight. If you wish, you can seek to prove your innocence by trial by combat. If you do not wish to be dragged away by the executioner, then you can seek to prove your innocence in challenge against this hall.’
‘Against the hall?’ said Alfric in astonishment.
‘Yes,’ said Ursula. ‘Do you need an explanation of what that means?’
Alfric made no answer, for the question was purely rhetorical. Of course he knew what it meant.
In trial by combat, one fights and kills to prove one’s innocence. The state puts forward one or more champions, and the accused criminal must murder all those champions to prove himself not guilty. On this occasion, Ursula Major had volunteered every single person in the hall to champion the state.
Which meant that Alfric would have to kill off the entire hall, man by man, to prove his innocence.
An impossible task.
But he did have one advantage.
It was his privilege to choose who he would fight first.
Alfric looked around, seeking a suitably weak victim. But he saw none. He suspected this had been planned long in advance. None of the old, the weak and the crippled was in this throneroom, though such people existed in the ranks of the Yudonic Knights.
However, there was Guignol Grangalet.
Alfric caught Grangalet’s eye, and the Chief of Protocol looked away nervously. He knew Alfric could kill him easily. But, what was the point of that? Who cared whether a civil servant like Grangalet lived or died? Ursula Major could get another Chief of Protocol easily.
Nothing would be served by murdering Grangalet.
So…
Alfric was doomed.
He might kill the first man to champion the cause of the state; and he might kill the second, the third, maybe even the fourth — but sooner or later, one of his foes would kill him.
Or was he doomed?
Surely… surely Ursula Major had made an error.
Alfric cleared his throat.
‘If I heard you rightly,’ said Alfric, ‘you volunteered everyone in this hall to fight for the state.’
‘So I did,’ said Ursula Major. ‘Such is my privilege.’
‘But surely you exclude yourself from that number,’ said Alfric.
‘I do not,’ said Ursula Major in a level voice. ‘I stand ready to meet you in combat if you satisfy the necessary protocol.’
‘And the necessary protocol is?’ said Alfric.
‘Very simply, that you prove yourself to be a woman,’ said Ursula Major. ‘For it is the law of the Yudonic Knights that a female cannot meet anyone in trial by combat excepting another female. If you can prove yourself to be a woman, Alfric, I’ll happily fight you.’
This roused a laugh from the Yudonic Knights.
Alfric let that laugh die away, then said: ‘So, if I’m not a woman, I have to fight the men. The males.’
‘Such is your destiny,’ said Ursula.
‘And I can choose… I can choose any male in this hall to be the state’s first champion.’
‘That is your privilege,’ said Ursula.
‘Since that is the case,’ said Alfric, ‘it would appear that you have put the lives of King Dimple-Dumpling’s ambassadors in peril.’
A babble of protest uprose from the Yudonic Knights. Ursula Major called for silence. She was not granted it.
‘Silence!’ she said. Then, shouting, this time: ‘Silence! Shut up, or else!’
Slowly, the noise from the Knights muttered down to almost nothing.
But Alfric knew he had unsettled them.
Ursula Major had designated ‘the hall’ to meet Alfric in challenge. Which meant that Alfric was entitled to choose any person in the hall to fight him.
If he chose one of the orks, then the ork would doubtless die, for any Yudonic Knight could cut such a blubbery creature to pieces with no trouble at all, regardless of what weapons the soft-natured thing might have in its hands.
Alfric could easily kill both of King Dimple-Dumpling’s ambassadors.
Which would mean war between the Qinjoks and Wen Endex.
Ursula Major now had no choice.
She would have to cancel the trial by combat.
Or Alfric would kill the orks and plunge Wen Endex into a ruinous war.
Ursula stared at Alfric in fury, then said:
‘You want to kill the orks? Very well! Kill them!’
Again there was an uproar from the Yudonic Knights. It did not cease until Guignol Grangalet joined Ursula Major in shouting the Knights down to silence.
‘As I said,’ said Ursula Major, ‘kill the orks if that’s what you wish.’
Alfric glanced at the orks. The grey-skinned creatures had shrunk away from him. They were huddled together, holding hands. And both were crying. He was embarrassed.
Well?
Should he murder them?
Alfric made a cold-blooded calculation, and decided there was no profit in killing orks. It would win him no prestige with the Yudonic Knights. It would not serve to prove his courage; which, in any case, had been adequately proved already. He had threatened to plunge Wen Endex into war, and Ursula Major But wait!
Was she bluffing?
Was she waiting to see whether he really would go ahead and challenge one of the orks?
Alfric looked again at Ursula Major, saw the depth of her frustrated rage, and decided that, no, she was not bluffing. She wanted him dead. Even if a war with the ogres was the price of his death.
Alfric cleared his throat.
‘You invite me,’ said Alfric, ‘to murder two ambassadors. I do not think such an invitation civilized, nor do I intend to accept that invitation. Nevertheless, let all here bear witness to the fact that you extended such an invitation to me.’
‘You were the one who suggested it!’ shouted Ursula Major, unable to contain herself.
‘I felt it my duty to point out the grievous error you had made,’ said Alfric coldly. ‘I would never take advantage of such an error, for I love my country. But others would not be scrupulous. Whether I live or die today, I do not want you to repeat your error. I do not want Wen Endex driven to war on account of your foolishness.’
This excited the Yudonic Knights again, and Guignol Grangalet had difficulty in silencing them. Alfric knew he had scored a decisive blow in this battle of wits. The odds were against him, but maybe, just maybe, he could undermine Ursula Major’s authority to the point where she got laughed off the throne.
As Alfric was so thinking, he was engulfed in the arms of an ork. It was Morgenstem.
‘Thank you, Alfric,’ said Morgenstem, giving him a big slubbering kiss. ‘Oh thank you, thank you, thank you so much for sparing us.’
The Yudonic Knights broke into open laughter, and Alfric knew all the ground he had made up was lost. He was enraged. He wanted to break Morgenstem in half, to smash the soft and slobbery creature. But he knew it was too late. The ork had made him look ridiculous, and he could not recover his dignity by killing the thing, an action which would only lead to an embarrassing scene with Cod.
‘So,’ said Ursula, as Morgenstem released Alfric, ‘we see this thing for what it is. A lover of orks.’