The side-galleries were packed with spectators from town and county, and the benches behind him thick with local dignitaries and fellow members of the legal profession. Robert and Francis Hincks were busy at the Legislature, but Dr. Baldwin and Clement Peachey, the firm’s solicitor, were just two rows back. With a slight movement of his head to the left, Marc could see Beth smiling down upon him with a confidence he himself did not feel. Above her, in the prisoner’s dock, stood Brodie Langford, his own gaze fixed upon Diana Ramsay sitting nervously beside Beth. Marc adjusted his wig for the tenth time and tried to shrug his shoulders more comfortably into the folds of his black gown. He felt much as he had six years before when he had first donned an ensign’s regalia with its jangling accoutrements: a sham unworthy of the uniform. But a uniform, he knew now, was not something you wore, it was a livery of honour you grew into – or not. At this point in his thoughts, the clerk stood up to announce the case, and all rose as Justice Gavin Powell entered and took his seat high above them all.
