*Ah.* The old man looked genuinely troubled. Jory watched him choose his words. *You will understand, ma'am, that the law has some difficulty with—that is, a person born deaf and dumb is presumed in law to be an idiot, unless the contrary can be shewn. Blackstone is quite clear. I am not sure he can properly be examined at all. Perhaps you would tell me what you know of his movements, and—*
Jory stood up.
Lusty grabbed at his elbow, and Mr. Trevisa started back in his chair, and the clerk dropped his pen. Jory stood with his chained hands in front of him and made himself breathe, the way Mr. Watson had taught him to breathe before he spoke to strangers—low, from the belly—so that the voice would come out steady and not crack or bray.
"I was not born deaf, sir," he said. "And I am not an idiot. I would be glad to answer for myself, if you will let me."
The room went still. He could see that it had gone still; nobody's lips moved. Mr. Trevisa stared at him with his mouth a little open.
And then the door opened behind the clerk's table, and Lady Ormerod came in.
She had walked; there was colour in her face from the hill and mud on the hem of her grey gown, and her cloak was thrown back off her shoulders. She stopped just inside the door. Her eyes went round the room once—the captain, the seaman, the fair young man who had uncrossed his legs and sat up very straight—and came to rest on Jory, standing in his irons in the middle of the floor.
He could not tell what she would do. He had been sure of her last night, in the kitchen. Now he looked at her face and saw nothing in it but a great tiredness and a great stillness, and his heart, which had lifted when the door opened, sank down again. The fair young man was watching her too. He was watching her the way a cat watches a bird that has not yet decided whether to fly.
Then she turned to the desk.
"Mr. Trevisa. I am Lady Ormerod. Forgive my coming in unannounced." Her eyes flicked back to Jory, and her mouth shaped the rest of it slowly, as she had in the yard, so that he could not miss a word. "He can speak, sir. I should be very much obliged if you would hear him."
The old justice looked from her to Jory and back, bewildered, and then—Jory would always remember this, and think better of him for it—he took off his spectacles and folded them and set them on the desk, and turned his chair a little so that the light from the window fell full on his own face.
*Very well, young man,* he said. *Is that better? Can you see me?*