The Trial of Callan Sorrel – Part 1: The Charge

ROYAL TRIBUNAL OF VALDORIA The Crown against Callan Sorrel

Lady Justiciar Ingrid Falk, Authorised Court Officer of the Crown, has decided in the matter of the accused Callan Sorrel, sergeant of the Queen's Watch, as follows.

In the name of the Crown of Valdoria, the accused is found

GUILTY

of the offences of

DESERTION OF HIS POST

FAILURE TO KEEP HIS OATH

Original statement of the accused:

On the night of the autumn muster I left the tower gate unwatched to go and drink with friends. When I was asked afterwards why the gate had been empty, I said that I had not noticed. This was a lie. I swore an oath to the Crown when I joined the Court as a volunteer, and I broke it. I ask the Court to determine my penalty.

Mitigating circumstances: the accused made a full and voluntary confession and expressed sincere remorse.

Aggravating circumstances: the accused is a sergeant. He ranks above the sentries whose watch he abandoned.

SENTENCE

• A fine of five hundred crowns, counted out before the Court.
• A night-long kneeling vigil at the tower gate, in silence, in full uniform, within the Articles of Consent.
• One night in the Guardroom Cell, with a blanket, bread and broth, and a latch that opens from within.

Further provisions:

• The VIGIL begins at the ninth bell and ends at dawn.
• The JUSTICIAR may visit at any hour, and will visit at least every half hour to ask whether the accused wishes to continue.
• The accused may end the sentence at any time by speaking the word STAND DOWN.

Signed, Lady Justiciar Ingrid Falk.

Callan read the verdict twice by lantern light on the cold steps of the old watchtower. He was thirty-nine, a real-life fire officer who spent his working life in charge of other people's safety and had a very private wish to be told, for one night, exactly where to stand. Ingrid was forty-four, a barrister, tall and level-voiced, and had spent a year building him this.

The tower was a heritage fort hired for the night, a squat stone gatehouse with a heavy oak door, a guardroom with a bunk and a lantern, and a flight of narrow steps to the battlements. The Articles of Consent lay folded in his breast pocket. He knew them by heart. His limits, hers, the quick-release latch on the guardroom door, the word that would end it.

"Sergeant Sorrel," said Ingrid, in her tribunal voice.

"Your Excellency."

"You have heard the verdict."

"I have."

"Do you accept it?"

"I accept it."

"Do you remember the word?"

"Stand down."

"Are you content?"

"Content, Your Excellency."

"Then begin." She pointed at the flagstones inside the gate. "Kneel."

He knelt on the cold stone in his full uniform, hands on his thighs, eyes forward. The great gate swung shut with a long groan, and the dark rose round him like water.

Continue the story: Part 2 – Stand Down.