Chapter 164

They tried her at the north gate, in the mud, on the morning the road opened.

Lyra had asked for it from Nana’s stool, and the eldest had done the rest. She had said in council that the trial of Lyra was set for the first sitting after the north was settled, and that the north would not be settled while a pale man sat on top of it, and that she would not have a trial wait on him. So she had found the old words for it: a trial of the King’s house might be held wherever the council stood, and on that morning the council would be standing at the north gate, because that was where the pack would be. Every spring since the walls were built, the whole of Vaelmoor turned out to watch the last drift dug off the north road. It was a holiday. There were chestnuts.

There were chestnuts that morning too. Nobody had thought to stop them, and I was glad.

***

The drift lay across the road a hundred yards beyond the gate, where the wind off the Shelf had packed it all winter