The next hour passed in a blur of judgement. The men in chains were led before the bench one-by-one, and kneeling next to the headless bodies, fell to their knees and begged to take the black. Most were lesser men, Bollings and Horpes and Musgoods who had been left beached when Borros Baratheon’s tide had suddenly receded on the Kingsroad, but Munkun noted with interest when Ser Perkin the Flea stepped forwards. The swindler who gulled an entire city with promises of a world turned upside down collared at last, the golden voice that swayed entire garrisons of loyal men to treason, reduced to stammering pleas for mercy, he mused, and rushed to jot down the line in the margins of the trial records lest he forget before he returned to his manuscript.

For much of this time, Cregan lounged on his bench, resting his chin on Ice’s pommel. But when the guards dragged in Corlys Velaryon, he straightened up and laid the greatsword across his knees. The Master of Ships, normally so suave and dapper despite his advanced years, was clearly worse the wear for his arrest: his silver hair tangled and matted, a vividly-colored bruise above his left eye, and the left sleeve of his silk tunic had torn at the shoulder seam in the struggle. Only the last of these seemed to bother the Lord of Tides, who somehow managed to effect a casual air despite the chains around his wrists.

“Ah, young lord Stark, how good to see you in this place. This decor, so elegant…and how well your seat becomes you.” His tone was sarcasm edged with acid, but somehow he managed to keep his habitual courtier’s smile on his face.

“Sea Snake.” Cregan looked down at the prisoner with the closest thing to a genuine smile Munkun had ever seen from the Hand. “Good to see you. Where you belong. Standing in the dock. In chains. Like a common criminal.”

“Hardly common, and never a criminal.”

“Oathbreaking. Conspiracy. Kingslaying. Treason. These are no longer crimes?”

Despite his best effort to hold it in, Corlys let out a racking cough, which took him several moments to recover from before he replied. “Are these the crimes I have been accused of, young lord Stark? I was not informed when you had me clapped in irons. The laws of the realm give a lord the right to know the charges when he is arrested, is failing to do that no longer a crime?”

At this Cregan snapped his teeth together – like a wolf after a hare that has jumped the other way – and once more stalked down the dais to snatch some papers off of Munkun’s improvised writing desk (a plank laid across two pews). Brandishing the sheaf in Lord Velaryon’s direction, he read: “Larys Clubfoot confessed that, to introduce into your king’s vessel with a mummer’s trick, you did give him basilisk venom, which you had purchased in Lys during your travels. Basilisk venom causes a man to drown in his own blood. As your King did.”

“Did Lord Strong say such a thing? Let me confront my accuser then, and refute his lies, as is my right under the law. Oh wait, you killed him, didn’t you?”

Cregan tossed the top sheet to the floor and continued as if Lord Velaryon had not spoken. “Ser Gyles Belgrave of the Kingsguard confessed that you did bribe him to allow one of your own servants to enter this very room disguised in your king’s livery, bearing a cup of wine for the king. This same cup did he drink, and died thereof.”

“The same Ser Gyles whose body I see cooling on the tiles there? I’m afraid you really must leave some of your witnesses alive, my young lord Stark.”

And so it went, for the better part of an hour’s turn, as the Hand of the King pursued the Master of Ships across pages of Munkun’s own writing. With each page tossed to the ground, Cregan raised some piece of evidence – the king’s taster who’d been given antidote and a heavy sack of gold by a hooded and cloaked figure, a servant who overheard Lord Velaryon countermand the king’s order to remove the prince’s ear, “for he shall be king on the morrow” and the king’s sworn swords who had obeyed, the litter carriers who were paid by a hooded and cloaked figure to hear nothing as the king choked out his life’s blood, fellow conspirators who added their names to his petitions of peace sent out an hour after the King (who had expressedly refused his consent) had passed, Lords Massey, Sunglass, and Bar Emmon who’d been promised seats on the Small Council if they petitioned the boy king for Corlys to be named Hand – which Corlys batted aside with crisp denials, stressing his rank against the lowly and his word of honor against the highborn.

By the time the list of witnesses and confessions had ended and the papers littered the floor in ways that made Munkun wince every time a lordly boot moved, Cregan’s voice was hoarse, and he paused to call for a cup of wine. For all that Corlys’ cough had grown beyond even the old courtier’s ability to control, Lord Velaryon held himself back from asking for a cup for himself. Instead, he concluded his defense: “-and so my young lord Stark, you really cannot convict on such thin evidence as this. No living witness to any affirmative act of treason, no writing in my own hand that touches on any true conspiracy, only a sincere attempt to bring peace. The rest is mere hearsay and base rumor. I give you my word of honor, that I have done nothing but that which was for the good of the realm.”

Cregan dropped the cup in disbelief. “Your word? Put in on the scales, Sea Snake. Against it I lay two and twenty witnesses. Two and twenty. Statements given in open court and written down exact. Your word against the living and the dead. Against high and low. Your word is not worth that much. Not anymore.”

For once, Munkun saw a flush of red creep up Lord Velaryon’s elegant white neck. “How dare you, ser. I am Lord of Tides, Master of Driftmark, I have been Hand of the Queen, and even in chains I am still the Master of Ships. My word has been good enough for the hand of princesses, my word alone has been enough to outfit entire fleets of ships from the Narrow Sea to the court of the Empress of Leng! When was my word not good?”

“The worth of your word ran out when you turned your cloak from black to green. When you betrayed the queen you had fought for. When you served a false king in return for high office. When you murdered that king so you could seize his place and usurp his rule.”

Now venom stood in the Sea Snake’s eyes, and a sneer contorted his still-elegant features. “At least I fought for Rhaenrya. Where were you, boy? Hiding in your castle while you sent braver men than you to die in your stead!”

Cregan pounced before Munkun knew what was happening. His backhand lifted the prisoner off of his feet to crash to the ground in a crunch of paper. Even as Lord Velaryon struggled to lift himself up by the elbows, a boot planted itself on his chest, pinning him to the ground. Cregan’s arm was stretched up and back, Ice held in a reverse grip like a spear-fisher about to skewer an eel. And on that arm was fasted Munkun’s boney hand, dangling the rest of him off the ground.

“My lord, please!” Cregan turned his head, and the maester realized that he had been wrong earlier, when he had thought Lord Stark on the point of murder. Here was the genuine article. Cregan’s eyes were wide, his pupils dilated so strongly that his eyes seemed to be all grey. The wolf had emerged from its lair, the same wolf who had savaged Andals and Valemen and Ironborn and Riverlanders alike when any had dared to challenge the kings of winter, the same wolf that had tamed the North and held it secure since the dawn of ages. “My lord, this is not the justice you spoke of. Please.”

Slowly, slowly, Munkun saw iron chains of will drag the wolf back into its lair. Cregan lowered his arm, depositing the maester on his feet. “No. It is not. And that is what you wanted,” he spat at the lord under his boot. “You wanted me to kill you. The plucky, witty defendant. Unjustly slain by the brutish tyrant. Makes for a better end to your story than the condemned kingslayer. Executed under color of law. Doesn’t it?” Cregan gave a cruel smile at the look of frustration in the old man’s eyes.

In a swirl of wolf fur, the Hand stalked back the way he’d come, his greatsword slung over one shoulder. By the time Munkun had finished helping Lord Velaryon to his feet and collecting the scattered papers, the blade was back across Cregan’s knees and his back ramrod straight, the very picture of a lord dispensing judgement. “Lord Corlys Velaryon, I find that you did break that most particular oath you swore to Aegon of House Targaryen; that you did engage in conspiracy against the life of that same Aegon of House Targaryen, which is treason; that you did encompass the death of that same Aegon of House Targaryen, which is kingslaying. The penalty for your crimes shall be death, and by virtue of your rank, your head shall be smitten off by the sword. In the name of the King.” Back at his desk, Munkun’s pen raced across the page, trying to keep up with the monologue.

Cregan’s bully boys roused themselves from their game of dice and moved to surround the condemned man. “Take him to the black cells.”

“I believe I know the way, my young lord Stark,” the former Master of Ships declared, head tossed back in defiance. “I endured the black cells before, and emerged stronger than before. I will do it again.”

“In time. Mayhaps. But this stay will be more brief than before. Sentence to be carried out at first light. Next!”