The knights of Yurt, ranged along the wall to help give authority to the proceedings, looked both bored and tired, with an air of having long ago stopped hearing what anyone said. Even the king’s burly nephew Dominic, who used to pay very close attention to legal cases, had wandered off, but then he had been acting somewhat distracted lately anyway.

In pauses in the arguments, I could hear faint clangings from the kitchen. The smells of supper gradually became more pronounced. Several times already a servant had peeked around the door to see if we were done yet.

Abruptly King Haimeric pushed aside his lap robe and stood up. “I’ve heard enough!” he exclaimed. The excited arguing of the group before him stopped short.

“You brought this to me as a property dispute,” he said sternly. “But both your documents of property rights and your witnesses are highly suspect and highly contradictory.”

“We already told you, Your Highness, that they stole our deed and substituted a lying fake!” one woman put in bravely.

“And it’s become clear,” the king continued, not even pausing for the interruption, “that much more than property is involved. This field has become the excuse for verbal abuse and for physical violence, which you know I consider intolerable. Some of you have even claimed that others have dug up somebody’s relative and hidden the body-don’t interrupt me! And now you’ve told me that the quarrel over this field has even been the cause of a serious breach of promise.”

I had missed this final detail amid everything else, but it explained the weeping young woman.

“If those of you who were in the wrong originally,” the king continued, “hoped that by utter confusion you would avoid a ruling against you, you are mistaken.” All of the principal disputants looked jubilant, as though secure in the knowledge that not they but the others had originally been in the wrong.