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Chapter 866: Smashing a Glass

After the second sentence, things accelerated past all precedent.

Four nobles were escorted from the crowd by the new king’s guards.

A stir ran through the hall.

“Your Majesty—what—”

“You guessed correctly.” Roland spread his hands with the ease of someone confirming a minor point. “Those four told the truth. Their courage—their willingness to simply try—has earned them a place on my wagon. Reform requires people who dare to act.” He turned to the four nobles, all of them looking somewhat dazed. “Do your best. Don’t waste this.”

“Yes—yes, Your Majesty!”

Courage, George thought, with considerable heat behind it. Qualification. Those four are barons on the edge of ruin. Barren lands, poor management, barely enough yield to feed their own households. Of course they’ll give up their domains—their domains aren’t worth defending. The only thing they lose by surrendering is a symbolic title. Those men were already nothing. Giving Roland their “lands” costs them less than losing a bet. He felt the familiar irritation of watching mediocrity receive credit—then a different thought arrived.

He had heard a story from the king’s city not long ago. A handful of witnesses had described what happened after Roland occupied the palace—a trial in the holy hall for the great nobles who had held power there. The result had been comprehensive: nearly every noble of consequence swept away, Timothy himself sentenced to death. Less a trial than a purge.

The proceedings, witnesses said, had been strange.

Roland had asked the nobles to answer ten questions. An incorrect answer meant prison—and the justification given, apparently, had been mind-reading.

At the time, George had dismissed the story entirely. He’d assumed it was cover—a pretext Roland used to eliminate enemies of his personal choosing, dressed up in mystical language to save the embarrassed nobles’ dignity when they confessed. The idea of actual mind-reading had seemed too absurd to consider seriously.

But now, in this hall, the story had a different shape.

Could the rumors be true?

“Third sentence,” Edith said, her voice carrying its practiced brightness. “I have no intention of surrendering my land and power, but faced with overwhelming force, I would not sacrifice my life for them.”

The atmosphere in the hall shifted.

The nobles who had repeated Edith’s first two sentences carelessly—almost as sport—were now watching the scene with new calculations behind their eyes. They had seen the first four chosen and escorted out. The stakes had been defined.

This time the repetitions were uneven. Some voices were too quick, some too slow. And from among the remainder, the guards still found their targets.

To George’s genuine surprise, Earl Delta was among those selected.

“What is happening?” Guye moved close, his voice barely above breath. “Has the new king already persuaded them?”

George counted. Twenty-one chosen so far—among them several nobles who had met with him recently to discuss resistance. Without those men and their attendants, the crowd had lost nearly half its numbers.

“Impossible,” George said. “If Roland had contacted so many of them in advance, I would have known.” He kept his voice very level. “They were selected on the spot.”

“Then why didn’t they simply say so before? Huth was with us yesterday—”

“Think about what you’re asking,” George said. “Would you stand up in front of Roland Wimbledon and announce: my lands are worth more to me than my life, and I intend to resist you?” He let the silence answer. “The point isn’t who’s being chosen. The point is who’s left behind.”

He worked through the logic carefully. Roland could close his eyes and point at anyone, call them his supporters, and suppress those remaining. But that created its own problem: if Roland chose wrongly, he’d push people who might have supported him into open opposition. So either this mind-reading trick was genuine—which seemed impossible, since the nobles were all wearing God’s Stones of Retaliation—or Roland had some other means of identifying actual allegiances.

The guards: six women. Even if they somehow knew everyone’s private loyalties, six guards could not hold sixty-plus armed men. The numbers made sense only as theater, not enforcement.

Unless he wanted them to resist.

George tucked that thought away. He would examine it later.

“Submitting before power is nothing to be embarrassed about.” Roland was addressing the second group of chosen nobles, his voice warm again. “The powerful have always ruled the weak—that is simply the history of the world. The ability to read a situation clearly and act accordingly is as admirable as raw courage. Your ancestors took and held ground in Graycastle, extended their bloodlines across generations—that achievement alone proves their capability. I am glad to see their wisdom has passed down to you. I promise you will be treated no differently from the first group. I only ask that you remember what you chose tonight, and that when you face similar choices in the future, you keep in mind what Neverwinter is.”

He turned to Edith. “Next sentence.”

She nodded. “I do not want to give up either land or power, and I do not know which way to choose.”

Short. Only a few nobles repeated it—five or six, most of the remaining crowd choosing silence, apparently having realized that each sentence sorted them more finely. From those who spoke, the guards took three.

“Ahem—Your Majesty, I think we have all demonstrated sufficient belief in your ability.” Guye’s diplomatic voice. “This is, after all, a welcome banquet—”

“Yes, please, perhaps we might call this sufficient—” Delta tried to join in.

“There are fewer genuinely undecided ones than I expected.” Roland appeared not to have heard either of them. “Indecision is not, strictly speaking, a virtue—especially when history is accelerating around you. But you belong to the category that is still reachable. Stay where you are. You may feel differently in a moment.”

He looked at the remaining nobles. His expression was no longer quite warm.

“The last sentence. I believe you already know what it will concern, so I will spare you the effort and say it plainly—” He let a beat of silence fall. “No matter what, I will not surrender my lands or my power. For that purpose, I am willing to take a risk—because if I can defeat the king, my house and my fortune will survive.”

The hearthfire seemed to waver without cause.

No one spoke. The air had turned cold in a way that had nothing to do with the lake outside.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t say it aloud,” Roland said. “As I have said from the beginning: this is not a suggestion. Those who do not repeat have disqualified themselves from my wagon. Your road ends here.”

“You cannot convict us without evidence!” George snapped. “Without a proper trial!”

He looked around. Twenty-seven nobles still standing, which was considerably more than he would have predicted. With their attendants—two to four each, plus several probationary knights—they numbered over sixty. Even six extraordinary guards could not manage sixty armed men.

Doesn’t he worry about what happens next?

Guye kept his composure, keeping his manner diplomatic even now. “Your Majesty, if this was meant as a jest, I feel it has gone far enough. The last statement carries implications none of us can simply repeat. You cannot be certain that is what occupies everyone’s mind. I, for one, have never contemplated betrayal of the Wimbledon family.”

“That’s right—I have done nothing against you!”

“Your Majesty, please reconsider!”

The voices rose, overlapping.

“Mind-reading, I find, becomes more precise the more you speak.” Roland was unmoved. He took a crystal glass from Edith’s hand. “Save your words for a shovel.”

“A—shovel?”

“You will be escorted to the North Slope Mine to work for twenty years in punishment for conspiracy—after all, you have not yet acted against me,” he said, and then his voice went quiet and specific, the way a blade goes quiet before it moves: “But if you resist my verdict in any way, your conspiracy becomes treason. The sentence for treason is death.”

Roland drained the glass in a single motion.

Then he tossed it.

It traced a clean arc and shattered at George’s feet—a sound like a small catastrophe, ringing in the sudden silence.

“Arrest them.”

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