Court is held in Silchester City, hosted by Duke Ulfius.
Special Guests
King Pellinore.
Gossip
“Maybe war isn’t so bad if it’s over there, in other peoples’ lands. Look at the gifts everyone got last Christmas time!”
“That is un-Christian, and shortsighted as well. Didn’t your own cousin lose a son in that war? And what of those widows over in the Franks’ lands now, crying all winter.”
“We have spent our share of time shivering in the winter and crying over the dead. It’s time we got some back, that’s what I say.”
News
Ulfius: “King Claudas of the Franks won a great battle last year against the Alemanni, his greatest opponents. He promised his wife and his bishop that he would become Christian if he won, and now they are pressing to hold him to that promise.”
Brastias: “King Pellinore has apparently abandoned his kingdom to pursue some fantastic creature he encountered. It is as if he is under the spell of magic.”
Royal Conversation
The royal court is rocked by scandal when Sir Argan, the Royal Constable, is brought to court for killing his wife Dyagenne in a pique of passion. The half-mad Argan openly declares that he was cuckolded by King Uther! He challenges King Uther to trial by combat which the king accepts, disdaining even his Champion’s pleas to take the combat for him.
Sir Argan loudly invokes that God deliver Justice, and though wounded, in turn seriously wounds and disarms the king, who he then threatens to slay unless justice is granted. Sir Argan ransoms Uther’s life for the price of a strong castle, which Argan then promptly builds. He names the impenetrable fortress Uther’s Shame — an enduring monument to the king’s lust and betrayal