With covert glances at the tall and silent chaplain, all the disputants and all their witnesses came forward, abashed, and swore individually. The broad-shouldered young man came over from the fireplace to swear last of all.

“Now take each other by the hands in fellowship,” the king continued. “All of you. Take each one’s hand to symbolize the peace that now exists between you.”

The flaxen-haired woman, her cheeks still wet but no longer weeping, went at once to the young man. She stopped as though abruptly shy two feet short of him, but he reached for her hands and said something to her. She slowly started to smile. While the rest went back and forth, shaking each other’s hands, sometimes with what I thought unnecessary firmness, the two stood silently, looking at each other’s faces. When the whole group left a moment later, they were still holding hands.

The king, the chaplain, and I went out into the courtyard with them and through the gates, to watch them walk down the hill from the royal castle of Yurt. The sun was low and red in the west. The king continued to stare sternly after them until they were out of sight.

“Well,” said King Haimeric in satisfaction, his usual good humor reappearing as soon as they were gone, “I don’t think we’ll hear from them again. And that’s the last of this month’s cases. I don’t know about you two, but I find giving justice hungry work. It’s hard for an old man to have to wait for supper!”

We went back into the great hall, where just in the few moments we had been gone the servants had illuminated the magic lamps that dated back to my predecessor’s time and brought out the trestle tables for supper. Now they were spreading the table cloths and lighting the fire in the fireplace. In the little balcony high on the wall, the castle’s brass choir tuned their instruments.