Drakor’s external narrator began wondering why he even signed up for this job.
Room #1
Kamilla
Drakor
Some random woman from the town that you don’t know
Room #2
Arius
Sten
Some random guy from the town that you don’t know
Room #3
Wanderer
Zelsh
Nyna
Room #4
Canary
Lionel
Another random guy from the town that you don’t know
Savil
(this is mostly randomized, because they’re mostly randomizing it in-universe)
Kamilla is called into the courtroom first, alone, bound in manacles and fetters so she can’t escape.
“Eesh,” says the random woman from the town, as soon as the door from the smaller room into the courtroom closes. “What d’you think she must have done, if they had her bound up like that?”
(The rooms are quite small, basically just temporary holding areas to sequester witnesses from the proceedings. Hard wooden benches run perpendicular to the doors on either side, one leading to the courtroom, the other to the room at the entrance to the third floor that you all came through.)
“She killed a man,” Drakor said. “It was disgraceful.”
He shook his head. “I mean, she used a chisel for crying out loud. Horrible weapon, especially considering she had access to knives. I told her she could have done better for herself, but all she did was make excuses.”
She raises a hand to her mouth in surprise. “Murder ? And they just let her share a room with us?”
(She spent the entire time manacled and fettered, to be clear, that wasn’t added just for the courtroom.)
Drakor shrugged. “I don’t know about you, but I know I wasn’t involved in her brother’s death. Why would I have anything to worry about?”
She makes a dismissive hand-gesture. “You can’t trust people like that.”
Meanwhile, over in Room #3, Nyna is called into the courtroom alone. (Unlike Kamilla, she is not restrained.)
Wanderer chose to come off as composed. He was in the same room as the aggrieved party, and he knows that Nyna very much would like things to go a certain way, but he does not believe that this story ending with ‘Kamilla is executed’ is the good ending.
No.
He thinks of Arius speaking up for Kamilla.
He thinks of Sten, fighting a seemingly pointless fight for family.
He thinks of how Kamilla didn’t leave immediately when she had the chance, instead choosing to stay with family despite having a complete exit plan.
It all parses as so illogical.
In the monastery, everyone was dedicated to the whole. There were disagreements, but people did not exist at odds.
Brevoy is strange.
The guy in Room #4 seems completely uninterested in the ongoing case. He just wants to complain about his own hearing being slightly delayed, even though he’s sure he’s going to win. To hear him tell it, it’s apparently some kind of complicated inheritance dispute between him and two of his siblings — civil rather than criminal, but from how agitated he’s getting, it’s clearly very important to him.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
She’d probably be thinking about something smarter if her room was more quiet.
A couple minutes after Nyna’s departure, she is escorted back to the small room, and the person who escorted her, one of the militia members you met yesterday, says “Wanderer? The magistrate commands your testimony.”
“…don’t know what he was thinking, he can’t possibly have believed that was actually what our parents put in the will…”
Drakor snorted. “It’s not a matter of trust. People like her, they have a very black and white sense of who their enemies are.”
He yawned. “Besides, she doesn’t have any weapons.”
minor retcon: Savil is also in Room #4
“Well, if you want to spend time around her, that’s your prerogative.”
“Of course.”
He obliges.