Twelve Angry Mares

by Princess Woona

Act I

The jurors filed into the jury room, each taking stock of the space for a few moments before shuffling on to let the next mare in. They had all been here before, but that was for just a few minutes right before the trial started for the day. The room was just as plain as it had always been, with little more than a tired old clock, three whitewashed walls, and an uninspiring view of the utilitarian end of the business district.

Some of the jurors took up near the long table in the middle of the room, but most stood, busying themselves with little tasks. A few drew from the water cooler, which burbled gently; one poked stubbornly at the ancient fan mounted on the wall. It hadn’t worked in days, but the juror went through the motions.

Several jurors worked to open the windows, against the best efforts of the warped frames. One of the pegasi, whom the others knew only by her assigned number — Seven — squeaked her window open with a grunt.

“Piece of gum?” she asked, offering a packet to the unicorn next to her, who was doing her best to catch what little air came in from outside.

“No thanks,” said Eight, flashing a little smile.

Seven unwrapped a piece for herself and stepped over to lend a hoof to one of the other windows. It didn’t open much, but it gave enough clearance for Seven to wad up and throw out the wrapper.

“Know something?” she mused to the earth pony at the window, who was too preoccupied in mopping off her brow to respond with more than a grunt. “I checked in with the weather patrol this morning. This is going to be the hottest day of the year.”

“Believe it,” mumbled Ten with the air of one who knew what she was talking about.

“You’d think they’d at least magic condition the place or something,” grumbled Seven to nopony in particular.

At the other side of the room, the bailiff finished his headcount and ticked off the last box on a clipboard.

“Okay then,” he announced, “everypony’s here. Now, if there’s anything you want, I’m right outside. Just knock.”

A chorus of affirmative sounds followed the bailiff to the door, which he pulled shut with only a mild complaint from the hinges. A second later, the room echoed with the sound of a lock snapping into place.

For a moment the room was silent, twelve pairs of eyes contemplating the gravity of their confinement.

“I never knew they locked the door,” commented one of the younger unicorns, Five.

“Sure they do,” said Ten, one of the older earth ponies, with a laugh. “What’d you think?”

“I don’t know,” said Five, shrugging a shoulder and passing by to the other side of the table. “It just never occurred to me.”

Ten’s eyes tracked Five around the table but paused at the small pile of paper in front of the pegasus that luck had assigned as their forepony.

“What’s that for?”

“Well, I figured we might want to vote by ballots,” said the forepony with a quick nod.

“Great idea,” boomed Ten. “Maybe we can elect her to the Council!” she continued, her laugh breaking into a hacking cough.

One of the other earth ponies, a robust mare, passed Ten by with a slight roll of the eye.

“What’d you think of it?” she asked a spindly pegasus, one of the few who hadn’t yet struck up with anypony else.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Two mildly.

“Yeah?” asked Three.

“Sure,” said Two, unsure of the right tone to strike. “I thought it was pretty interesting.”

“I almost fell asleep,” declared the earth pony, easing down onto the chair next to Two.

“I mean, I’ve never sat on a jury before,” said the pegasus, backpedalling with a slight laugh.

“Eh,” replied Three, rubbing her eyes. “I’ve sat on many juries before. They just let these lawyers talk and talk and talk, even when it’s an open and shut case like this one. I mean,” she said with an air of the absurd, “did you ever hear so much talk about nothing?”

“Well, I guess they’re entitled,” mused Two diplomatically.

“Sure they are, it’s the system, but if you ask me, I’d slap those tough foals down before they start making trouble. Saves a lot of time and money.”

Three shook her head, as if to clear it. “Let’s get started, how about it?” she declared to the room.

“Yeah, let’s get going,” chimed in Seven with a nod. “We’ve probably all got things to do here.”

“I figured we’d start off with a few minutes’ break,” said the forepony, waving a hoof towards the back of the room, where a plain door was framed by a water cooler on one side and a small washbasin sink on the other. “We’ve got one mare in the washroom still.”

Five caught her shoulder. “Are we going to sit in order?” asked the young unicorn hesitantly.

“What?” asked the forepony. “Oh, I don’t know.” She paused for a moment. “Well, I guess so.”

With a nod, Five counted off the chairs around the table, going clockwise from what was clearly the forepony’s seat at the table’s end, and tapped the shoulder of the well-dressed unicorn in the fifth one out.

“Excuse me,” she said, “you’re in my seat.”

“Oh,” said Twelve with a start, “excuse me.” She popped up and ambled over to a window, where Eight was still staring off at the nondescript office buildings.

“Well hey,” said Twelve, joining the unicorn, “at least it’s an outside window, right? Not like that courtroom.”

Eight nodded noncommittally.

“What’d you think of the case?” asked Twelve, leaning on the sill next to her. “I mean, it had a lot of interest for me. No real dead spots, you know?” She wiggled a hoof, grasping for the words. “I tell you, we were lucky to get a murder case. I figured we’d get an assault, a burglary. Those can be just the dullest.”

No response from the other unicorn; Twelve followed her gaze for a moment, her eye catching on a distinctive bit of masonry, tucked away behind an eminently forgettable office complex and barely visible from this angle.

“Hey, that the Woolstone building?”

“That’s right,” said Eight.

“Well, isn’t that funny,” she said with a little laugh. “Lived here all my life, never been in it.”

Again no response from Eight. Twelve stayed for a moment longer, but knew a lost cause when she saw one and moved off, back to the table, where Seven and Ten sounded like they were talking business.

“. . . three days, sitting in there for three days, for this?”

“Yeah,” agreed Seven emphatically, “and what about that business with the dagger? I mean, asking grown mares to believe that kind of manure.”

“You’ve got to expect that,” said Ten, wiping her face with a kerchief, “you know what you’re dealing with here.”

“You can say that—” started Seven, but was cut off by vigorous nose-blowing. “Looks like we got a walking foghorn in here,” she said with a laugh. “What, you have a cold?”

“And how,” said Ten, shaking her head sadly. “You know these summer colds, they’ll kill you. Can hardly touch my muzzle! Know what I mean?”

“Sure do,” she said sympathetically, “just got over one. Hey! Come on, we going to get started here or what?”

“One mare’s still in the washroom,” said the forepony apologetically, eliciting sighs from those ponies who hadn’t yet settled in to wait. An earth pony, who had, was scanning down a newspaper page.

“What’s new?” asked Ten, sidling up alongside her. “I didn’t get a chance to read the paper this morning.”

Four tilted the paper, revealing a page densely populated with numbers and figures. “I was wondering how the market fared,” she said brusquely.

“I wouldn’t know,” said Ten, recognizing something above her pay grade when she saw it. “You got a seat on the exchange or something?”

“I’m a broker,” said Four, barely looking up.

“I run a courier service,” pressed Ten, fishing in her purse for a card. “Shake Of A Tail. Name’s my husband’s idea. Got thirty-seven pegasi working for me.”

Four looked up at her over her glasses, but ignored the card.

“Started from nothing.”

Still no response.

“Well, okay, mares,” said the forepony, anxiously tapping a pencil, “let’s get started.”

“Yeah,” called Seven in agreement, flitting over to the chair opposite the forepony at the other end of the table, “we can all get out of here pretty quick. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I got tickets to the game tonight. You know, against Baltimare?”

She passed by Two, who made the mistake of paying attention. “We got this new foal, McSwine, McSwain, whatever his name is. Oh, a real minotaur this foal. You know.” She made a hoof gesture that could have been somepony jinking around opposing players. “Schoom!”

Two blinked.

“Schoom!” she repeated. “You know?”

Again, no response.

“You’re a real fan, aren’t you.” She rolled her eyes and grabbed the seat, then thought for a second before sitting in it. “Where do we sit?” she called to the forepony.

“I, ah, thought we’d sit in order,” said the pegasus, with a nod to Five. “She suggested it, and it makes sense. You know, sitting by jury numbers. One, Two, Three, Four, so on around the table. If that’s okay with you mares.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Ten, in the second seat.

“I think it’s reasonable to sit in order,” said Four, neatly folding her newspaper, setting it aside, and moving over one seat.

“Let it be,” said Ten, throwing up her hooves and getting to her feet, along with half the table as the jurors figured out their numbering. Twelve was one of the first down, cheerily polishing her glasses.

“What did you think of the Crown’s prosecuting stallion?” she asked the juror to her right, the lone zebra of the dozen.

“I beg pardon?” asked Eleven with the trace of an accent.

“He set out a logical sequence of events,” she said, with a tight wave of the hoof. “I was very impressed.”

“I think he . . .” said the zebra, fumbling with her coat, “he did an expert job.”

“Mm,” said Twelve. “Lot of drive, too. Drive.”

“Okay there,” said the forepony to nopony in particular, “we’d like to get started.”

The murmurs quieted.

“Say, the mare at the window?”

Eight turned around with the realization she was the only one not seated.

“We’d like to get started,” the forepony repeated.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Eight, crossing over to her chair.

“Tough thing to figure,” Ten was telling Four. “Colt kills his mother. Bing! Just like that.”

“Ah, you see, not if you run the figures,” Twelve said in an aside to Eleven. “I see it all the time.”

“I’m telling you,” pressed Ten, “they let those ponies run wild out there. Coming from the place they do, running away to cover things up, maybe it serves them right, know what I mean?”

“Is everypony here?” broke in the forepony.

“The old mare is still inside,” said Six, gesturing with a pencil towards the washroom.

“Could you, ah, knock on the door?”

“Yeah, all right.”

The earth pony rose, giving Seven a clear shot to Five.

“You a Baltimare fan?” she asked.

“No,” she said with a little smile, “Hayseed.”

“Hayseed?” Seven nearly choked. “That’s like being caught on the wing in a hailstorm once a day.” She shook her head at the poor unicorn. “What do they have. Who do they have, besides great groundskeepers?”

Five held her tongue, deciding to pay close attention to the remaining juror as she exited the washroom, gave her hooves a sprinkle from the washbasin on the wall, and hurried over to the remaining seat, moving remarkably quickly for her age.

“Say, we’d like to get started,” repeated the forepony.

“Oh!” exclaimed Nine, fluttering greying wings, “I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

“Hayseed,” repeated Seven, trying to figure how such a friendly looking mare got things so wrong.

“Okay, everypony,” said the forepony, now that she had a full audience, “if I can have your attention? You folks can handle this thing any way you want to. I’m, ah, I’m not going to be making the rules,” she added with a quick smile.

“We can, well, discuss it first, and then vote, that’s, ah, one way. Or, we can, well, vote right now, see how we stand —”

“I think it’s customary to take a preliminary vote,” cut in Four crisply.

“Yeah,” seconded Seven, glancing around, “let’s. Let’s vote. Maybe we can all get out of here.”

“Uh-huh,” said the forepony. “Okay! Well, then I think that, of course you know, we’ve got a first-degree murder charge here. And that if we vote the accused guilty, that means, well, in all likelihood it means banishment.”

“I think we know that,” Four cut in again, this time with support from the other side of the table as Ten waved her on.

“Let’s see who’s where,” declared Ten.

“Okay,” asked the forepony, “everypony thinks we should vote?”

The jury emitted various noises of approval.

“Okay, then, let’s remember that this has to be twelve to nothing either way. That’s the law.” She stood. “Okay, are we ready?”

This time around, silence.

“All those voting guilty? Please raise your hooves.”

The forepony raised her hoof to demonstrate, leaving it up. Six or seven hooves joined it immediately, a few others more slowly.

“One, two, three,” started the forepony, “four, five, six, seven —”

And then she realized that Eight’s hoof was down.

“Eight,” said the forepony, pointing to the elderly juror Nine; “nine, ten . . . eleven.”

She made a mark on the paper in front of her, more on principle than anything else. “Okay, that’s eleven guilty. Votes for not guilty?”

Eight’s hoof went up, slowly, turning a few heads around the table.

“One. Right.” The forepony consulted her note. “That’s eleven guilty, one not guilty.”

There was a pause.

“Well, now we know where we are.”

“Boy oh boy,” said Ten with a chuckle. “There’s always one.”

Seven ran a tongue over her teeth, gave a little shrug, and leaned back.

“So, what do we do now?”

“Well,” suggested Eight with a slightly nervous smile, “I guess we talk.”

“Boy oh boy,” repeated Ten, who seemed to have not heard. Across the table, though, Three took things a bit more seriously.

“Do you really think he’s innocent?” she asked in a firm, if neutral, voice. Eight drew breath, held it for a moment, glanced down, and then back up to meet Three’s eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said plainly.

“Well,” said Three, not quite taking that for an answer, “let’s be reasonable. You sat in court and heard the same things as the rest of us; the colt’s a dangerous killer; you could see it.”

Eight perked up at that. “He’s sixteen years old,” she said forcefully.

“Well that’s old enough,” said Three with a snort. “He stabbed his own mother, six inches into the chest.” She accompanied the words with an upwards gesture towards her own breast. “They proved it a dozen different ways in court; would you like me to list them for you?”

Eight deflated a bit. “No,” she said with a little shake of the head.

Ten shook her own head at that. “Then what do you want?” she asked with a forced smile.

“I don’t really know,” she replied. “I just want to talk.”

“Well what’s there to talk about?” cut in Seven matter-of-factly. “Eleven mares in here think he’s guilty. Nopony had to think about it twice, except you.”

“I want to ask you something,” Ten followed up. “Do you believe his story?”

“I don’t know whether I believe it or not,” said Eight, glancing towards the older earth pony. “Maybe I don’t.”

“So how come you voted not guilty?” Seven shot back, perplexed.

“There were eleven votes for guilty,” said Eight, feeling her way along. “It’s not easy to raise my hoof and banish the poor colt without talking about it first.”

Seven leaned back. “Now who says it’s easy?”

“No one,” said the unicorn quickly.

“What, just because I voted fast?” The pegasus bristled her wings slightly. “I honestly think the pony’s guilty. Couldn’t change my mind if you talked for a hundred years!”

“I’m not trying to change your mind,” countered Eight, “it’s just that . . . we’re talking about somepony’s whole life here. We can’t decide it in five minutes. What if we’re wrong?”

“What if we’re wrong,” echoed Seven, nonplussed. “What if this whole building comes down on my head. What if the Princess shows up and gives me a million bits! You can what-if anything.”

“That’s right.”

Seven thought for a moment. “What’s it matter how long it takes? We,” she said, “honestly think he’s guilty. What if we decide it in five minutes? So what?”

“Let’s take an hour,” said Eight with her best attempt at a winning smile. “The game doesn’t start until eight.”

Seven looked Eight up and down for a moment before conceding the point with a nod.

The forepony licked her lips. “Who’s got something to say?” she asked tentatively.

“I’m willing to sit for an hour,” declared the elderly pegasus to Eight’s left.

“Great,” said Ten, doing her best to ignore Nine. “I heard a pretty good story last night,” she started, cracking a grin. “This pony comes running into the doctor’s office, stripped to the waist —”

“That’s not why we’re sitting here,” snapped Eight.

Ten let her smile fall, bringing her forehooves down to the table.

“All right,” she said pointedly, “then you tell me. What are we sitting here for?”

In the following moment of quiet, Nine looked to Eight, back to Ten, and back to Eight again, unsure about being caught in the middle, but unable to add anything herself.

“I don’t know; maybe for no reason,” conceded Eight. “Look,” she continued, finding her confidence, “this colt’s been kicked around all of his life. Kicked at home, kicked out of the Everfree. Born there, you know, father killed in the war when he was six, fled the forest once the harvests started failing.

“Spent a year and a half in an Appleloosa orphanage while his mother did a term for forgery. That’s not a very happy beginning, and until now he was barely scraping by in a camp.” She was fired up now. “He’s a wild, angry colt; that’s all he’s ever been, and you know why? Because he’s been kicked in the flank by somepony, once a day, every day. He’s had a pretty miserable sixteen years, and I . . . I just think we owe him a few words, that’s all!”

Ten nodded with the formality of one who had heard but couldn’t possibly care less. “I don’t mind telling you this, ma’am: we don’t owe him a thing. He got a fair trial, didn’t he?” She leaned forward a bit; Nine pressed back to get out of the way. “How many bits you think that trial cost? He’s lucky he got it. Know what I mean?”

The earth pony pushed back from the table and stood, addressing the rest of the table while making a beeline for the coat rack. “We’re all grown-ups in here; we heard the facts, didn’t we? You’re not going to tell me we’re supposed to believe this colt, knowing what he is, where he came from?” She dug around in one of the coats’ pockets, pulled out a fresh kerchief, and gave her forehead a sorely needed mopping.

“Look,” she said, folding the kerchief and moving back to the table, “I’ve lived among them all my life; you can’t believe a word they say. You know that.” She retook her seat with a diffident shrug. “I mean, they’re born liars.”

“It suddenly occurs to me,” said Nine, standing with a small symphony of popping joints, “that you must be an ignorant mare.”

Ten froze. “Now listen,” she said dangerously, but the elderly pegasus didn’t give her the chance.

“Do you think you were born with a monopoly on the truth?” Nine stared the earth pony down, then deliberately turned away to address the table. “I think certain things should be pointed out to this mare.”

“C’mon,” said Seven, waving a hoof, “this isn’t a schoolhouse; we don’t need a lecture.”

“All right,” echoed the forepony, waving for quiet. “We have a job to do; let’s focus on it instead.”

Ten and Nine glared at each other, their expressions differing but equally unreadable. In the following silence, Twelve’s private conversation with Eleven suddenly became a public one.

“. . . Hay Pops,” Twelve was saying, covertly angling a notepad in Eleven’s direction. “It’s a product I worked on for the agency. ‘Hungry? Have A Heaping Hoof!’” she declared proudly, tapping the sketch of a cereal box with a pencil. The zebra nodded quickly, approving of the wordplay.

Twelve’s smile grew wider. “Thought that one up myself,” she said proudly.

“Very catchy,” acknowledged Eleven.

“Say,” said the forepony, leaning over. “Do you mind?”

“Oh,” said the unicorn, smile falling away. “I’m sorry.” She put the notepad down and swapped the pencil for a pair of glasses. “I have this habit of doodling. Keeps me thinking clearly.”

“We have work to do,” said the forepony, nonplussed, “so there’s no point dragging it out.” Twelve muttered further apologies, which served to placate the pegasus.

“Now,” started the forepony again, doing her best to reclaim the table’s attention, “now perhaps if the gentlemare down there who’s disagreeing with us . . . well perhaps you could tell us why, you know, let us know what you’re thinking, and we can . . . can show you where you’re mixed up.”

“Well look,” said Twelve, donning her glasses, “this is an idea, and I haven’t given it much thought, but it seems to me that it’s up to us to convince this mare that, well, she’s wrong and we’re right.”

Eight’s expression hardened ever so slightly, but the other unicorn took no notice. “Now, maybe if we each took a minute or two,” she pressed on, “just to . . . to . . . .”

Twelve sat back, deflated at the thrillingly unenthusiastic response. “Well, it was just a quick idea.”

“No, no,” said the forepony, patting Twelve’s forearm, “it’s a good one. So. Supposing we go once around the table?”

Eight made no response, but nopony else did either.

“That means you’re first,” said the forepony to the pegasus at her left, Two, who was suddenly and supremely uncomfortable at being the target of eleven pairs of eyes.

“Well, uh,” said Two hesitantly, in a voice barely loud enough to reach the mares across from her, “well it’s hard to put into words,” she said, voice growing a bit louder as she frantically collected her thoughts.

“I just think he’s guilty,” she said with a helpless shrug. “I thought it was obvious from the first gavel.” She attempted a smile. “I mean, nopony proved otherwise.”

“Nopony has to prove otherwise,” said Eight sharply. “The burden of proof is on the prosecution, on the Crown. The defendant doesn’t even have to open his mouth.” She leaned back. “That’s in the Charter. You’ve heard of it.”

“Oh, well, sure, I know that,” said Two doggedly. “What I meant was . . . well . . . I just think he’s guilty,” she finished lamely. “I mean, somepony saw him do it.”

“Okay,” said Three, neatly taking the conversation out of Two’s hooves. “Now here’s what I think — and I have no personal feelings about this; I just want to talk about facts.” As if for emphasis she took out a notepad, flipped it open, and started ticking off items.

“Number one. The old mare lived downstairs under where the killing took place. At ten minutes after twelve on the night of the killing, she heard loud noises. Said it sounded like a fight. And she heard the colt yell out ‘I’m gonna kill you.’ A second later, the body hit the floor. She ran to the door, opened it up, saw the colt running down the stairs, out of the building. She called the police, they came in and found the colt’s mother with a dagger in the chest; the coroner fixed the time of death around midnight.

“Now,” she said with the air of the eminently reasonable, “these are facts. You can’t refute facts; the colt is guilty.” She shook her head, almost apologetically. “I’m just as sentimental as the next pony, I know he’s only sixteen, but he still has to pay for what he did.”

“I’m with you,” declared Seven with a quick upward nod, seizing on the first opportunity she could.

“Okay, you finished?”

Three glanced back at the forepony. “Yeah.”

“Next.”

“It is obvious,” said Four in clipped tones, “to me anyway, that the colt’s entire story was flimsy. He claimed he was at the playhouse during the time of the killing, and yet one hour later he couldn’t remember the name of the play he saw or who played in it.”

“That’s right,” chuckled Three.

“And no one saw him going in or out of the theatre,” added Four, taking off her glasses to clean them, clearly not seeing the need for this recitation of the obvious. “Because he wasn’t there.”

“Listen,” cut in Ten, “what about the old stallion across the street? If his testimony don’t prove it,” she said, crossing her arms, “nothing does.”

“That’s right,” said Eleven, leaning forward, her accent making it come out like zatt. “He is the one who actually saw the killing.”

Three raised an eyebrow. “I thought your people’s words usually rhyme?”

“What, you are kidding?” snorted Eleven, “not all of the time. Pain in my hindquarters.”

“Now ponies, please,” plead the forepony, “let’s go in order here, huh?”

“Just a minute,” declared Ten, pushing back from the table and coming to her feet with a cough. “Here’s a stallion who’s lying in bed, he can’t sleep, he’s dying with the heat, you know what I mean?” She looked mournfully at the defunct wall fan before stepping around the table, moving closer to the windows.

“He looks across the way, sees the colt stick the dagger right into his mother.” Ten paused by the window, took a few deep breaths of what fresh air trickled in. “The time is twelve-ten on the muzzle. Everything fits. Look, he’s known the colt all his life, moved into the camp with him. Their windows are directly opposite each other across the tracks and he swears, swears he saw him do it!”

“Through the windows of a passing passenger train,” said Eight, waving a hoof back and forth.

“Right,” said Ten, mopping her forehead. “But the passenger train had no passengers in it. They were just moving it back to the depot. The lights were out, remember? And they proved in court that at night, you can look through the windows of a train, when the lights are out, and see the other side. Proved it!”

Eight’s lips thinned.

“I’d like to ask you something,” she said. “You don’t believe the colt’s story, but how come you believe the stallion? He’s one of them too, isn’t he.”

Ten’s expression froze, then slowly fell to a restrained snarl.

“You’re a pretty smart mare, aren’t you,” she said with quiet anger.

“Hey now,” said the forepony, jumping up with the flap of a wing as if to intercept Ten before she did something she regretted.

“Now, now,” said Eleven, holding up a hoof.

“Come on,” said Seven with a gesture, as if to brush away the comment. “Go on, sit down.”

Ten stalked back over to her side of the table. “What’s she so wise about,” she growled, “I’m telling you —”

“Hey now,” repeated the forepony, “now we’re not going to get anywhere fighting.”

Ten shot a vile look back but said nothing, taking her seat in silence.

“Whose turn it is next?” asked the pegasus.

“Five,” someone called out.

The named pony, a young unicorn whose horn was just a half-size too big for her face, blinked in nervous surprise.

“May I — can I pass?”

“That’s your privilege,” shrugged the forepony. “How about the next mare?”

“Oh,” said Six, a burly earth pony slowly, thinking it through, “well, uh. I don’t know. I started to be convinced, you know, very early in the case.” Her eyebrows drew together. “You see — I was looking for a motive. That’s very important, because if you don’t have a motive, where’s your case, right?”

She glanced at Eight, an earnest look on her face. “Anyway, that testimony from the married couple right across the hall, that was powerful.” She frowned. “Didn’t they say something about an argument between the mother and the colt around, about, seven that night? I could be wrong, but . . .”

“It was eight o’clock,” chimed in Eleven, forcefully. “Not seven.”

“That’s right,” said Eight. “Eight. They heard an argument, but they couldn’t hear what it was about. They heard the mother hit the colt, twice, then they saw him run angry out of the house. What does that prove?”

“Well it doesn’t exactly prove anything,” conceded Six. “It’s just . . . part of the picture —”

“You said it was motive,” pressed Eight. “Crown said the same thing. I don’t think that was a very strong motive. This colt’s been kicked so many times in his life that violence is practically a normal state of affairs for him. Born in it, bred in it, lived through it.”

She looked across the table, searching for a friendly — or at least not overtly hostile — face. “I just can’t see two slaps in the face provoking him to commit murder!”

“It may have been two too many,” observed Four. “Every pony has his breaking point.”

Eight stared, not quite sure how to respond.

“Anything else?” asked the forepony.

Six wrung her hooves for a moment in contemplation, then shook her head. “No.”

“Okay. How about you?”

Seven turned back to the table from watching the clouds pass outside, more grey than white at this point.

“I don’t know,” she said lackadaisically. “It’s all been said.” She pushed around a speck of lint on the table. “We could talk here forever, and I’d still think the same thing.”

She pushed back from the table, stretched her wings. “This colt’s five and oh. Look at his record! Wrong side of the war, but that doesn’t justify it. Colt was ten, threw a rock at his teacher. Twelve, sent him to reform school. Stole a carriage. Arrested for a plain mugging.” She cracked her wings, as if for emphasis. “Picked up twice for fighting with other foals, with stolen army weapons. He was real quick with those daggers, they say.”

“His mother beat him up regularly,” countered Eight. “She used horseshoes!”

“Well, so would I,” shrugged Seven. “A colt like that? Hah!”

“It’s these foals, the way they are nowadays,” mused Three, standing up. “I was a filly, I used to call my mother ma’am.” She smirked. “That’s right. Ma’am. Just like a little soldier. You ever hear a foal call her mother that any more?”

“Mothers don’t seem to think it’s important any more.”

Three shot a glare at Eight. “You got any foals?”

Eight hesitated. “Two.”

“Yeah, well I had one,” she said, sidling over to the table and rifling around her purse. “Was seventeen years old. Did everything for that colt.” She pulled out a worn photograph of a uniformed pony with a sandy mane and blank epaulets of a private. “When they bombed the Mane he started to cry.

“I saw it, was so embarrassed I almost threw up.” She shook her head, staring at the photo. “Said I would make a stallion out of him if I had to bust him in two trying. And then I marched him down to the recruiter, and eight weeks later he came back to say his part.”

Three paused for a moment, still shaking her head ever so slightly.

“They made a stallion out of him, all right. Hit my jaw, right hook. Then he shipped back out into the grinder, where one of them . . . .” She worried at the photo with a hoof, oblivious to the rest of the room. “One of them sent him right back home in a box.

“You work your heart out . . . .”

Eight said nothing.

Three quietly put the photo away. “Well let’s keep going,” she declared to no one in particular.

“I think we’re missing the point here,” said Four, tracking Three as she moved off towards a window. “This colt, let’s say he’s the product of a war, a filthy refugee camp, and a broken home. We can’t help that. We’re here to decide whether he’s innocent or guilty, not go into the reasons why he turned out how he did.”

Four maintained an impeccably matter-of-fact tone, laying down facts as easily as if she were reading them off a page, entirely ignoring a fidgeting Five next to her. “He was born in the Everfree. That place is a breeding ground for criminals; I know it, and so do you. It’s no secret that foals from camp backgrounds are potential menaces to society.

“Now, I think —”

“Sister, you can say that again,” proclaimed Ten. “Foals who crawl out of those places are real trash.”

“Listen,” piped up Five.

“I don’t want any part of them, I’m telling you —”

“Now listen, ma’am, listen,” said Five, pushing through. “I . . . I’ve lived in one camp or another all my life.”

Ten waved her off. “Wait a minute —”

“Please,” she said, holding up a hoof. “I’ve played in ruined trenches carved out of dirt and despair, tent cities pieced together with what other ponies threw out. I mean, maybe you can still smell it on me.”

“Now you listen here,” said Ten, rising slightly.

“Hey,” warned the forepony, hovering forward, “come on now; there’s nothing personal —”

“Oh, there was something personal,” snapped Five, on her feet in a flash with a hoof curled tight, ready to strike. “Or don’t I matter now because I’m one of them?”

Despite the palpable tension in the air, Twelve managed to stay nonchalant about it all. “Come on, now,” she said with the flick of a pencil. “She didn’t mean you. Let’s not be so sensitive!”

“This sensitivity I can understand,” said Eleven, catching Five’s eye with a nod.

“Okay, look, let’s stop this argument?” pleaded the forepony as Eleven joined Five in milling about the edges of the room, the both of them giving Ten a wide berth. “We’re only wasting time here,” she added, trying in vain to corral her jurors.

“Forget it,” she muttered, lowering herself back down. “Your turn down there,” she said, gesturing vaguely.

Eight blinked at her. “I didn’t expect a turn. I thought you were all going to try to convince me, wasn’t that the idea?”

“Check, that was the idea,” said Twelve, not looking up from the notepad.

“Oh, I forgot about that, she’s right.”

“Well what difference does it make?” asked Ten, growing increasingly more flustered. “She’s the one who’s keeping us in here; let’s hear what she has to say!”

“Well now wait a minute,” said the forepony, hovering again in a flash, “we decided to do this a certain way. I think we ought to stick to that way.”

Ten snorted in her general direction then stepped away from the table entirely. “Ah, stop being a foal, would you?”

The forepony frowned, then pulled back. “What do you mean, a foal?” she asked defensively.

“What do you think I mean?” said Ten, rolling her eyes. “F-O-A-L, foal!”

The pegasus let her pencil drop and glanced around the room for support; finding none, she gave a halfhearted little smile and flapped away from the table herself, moving to intercept Ten.

“Look, just because I’m trying to keep this thing organized? Well here, you take it!” she announced with a ceremonial gesture to the head of the table. “You take on the responsibility; I’ll just keep my mouth shut, that’s all.”

“What’re you getting so hot about?” asked Ten irritably. “Calm down, will you?”

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” said the forepony sweetly, grabbing Ten’s shoulder and gently nudging her towards the head of the table. “Here! Here’s the chair. You want to take the chair? Keep it running smooth —”

“Did you ever see such a thing!” demanded Ten, shaking her off and stepping back in disgust.

“Listen, you think it’s funny or something?” sniped the forepony, pressing forward.

“Hey, forget it,” said Twelve, coming up alongside her and bringing her back to the ground with a well-placed pat on the back. “The whole thing’s unimportant; come on.”

“Unimportant?” she asked, indignant. “Well here, you try!”

“No,” said Twelve soothingly, “nobody wants a change!” She led the miffed pegasus back to her seat. “You’re doing a beautiful job.”

“Yeah, you’re doing great!” called Seven, who hadn’t been paying attention to much of anything for the past ten minutes. “Just great. Hang in there and shoot, you know?”

“All right,” said Ten, who had reseated herself, angled slightly away from the head of the table. “Let’s hear from somepony.”

“Well, if you want me to tell you how I feel about it,” ventured Eight, affecting good cheer, “it’s all right with me.”

“I don’t care what you do,” muttered the forepony, easing back into her chair.

“All right, I don’t have anything brilliant,” offered Eight. “I just know as much as you do. According to the testimony, the colt looks guilty. Maybe he is.” She sat back affably, doing her best to catch everypony’s eye. “I sat in court for three days, listening while the evidence built up. Everypony sounded so positive, you know? I began to get a peculiar feeling about this trial; I mean, nothing is that positive.”

Seven rolled her eyes, but to her credit appeared to pay a modicum of attention.

“There were a lot of questions I’d have liked to ask. I don’t know, maybe they wouldn’t have meant anything, but . . . .” She shook her head. “I began to get the feeling that the defense counselor wasn’t conducting a thorough enough cross-examination; I mean, he let too many things go by, little things.”

“What little things?” snorted Ten. “When these stallions don’t ask questions, it’s because they know the answers already and they figure they’ll be hurt.”

“Maybe,” conceded Eight. “It’s also possible for a lawyer to be just plain stupid, isn’t it? I mean, it’s possible?”

“You sound like you’ve met my sister-in-law,” quipped Seven, eliciting a hearty chuckle from Six and a hacking cough from Ten.

“I kept putting myself in the colt’s shoes,” continued Eight. “I’d have asked for another lawyer, I think. I mean, if I was on trial for my freedom? I’d want my lawyer to tear the Crown’s witnesses to shreds, or at least try to! Look, there was one alleged eyewitness to this killing. Somepony else claims she heard the killing, saw the colt run out afterwards. There was a lot of circumstantial evidence. But actually those two witnesses were the entire case for the Crown.”

She learned forward, a little fire in her voice now. “Supposing they’re wrong!”

“What do you mean, ‘supposing they’re wrong?’” asked Twelve, who was still standing, leaning nonchalantly against a wall. “What’s the point of having witnesses at all?”

“Could they be wrong?”

“What are you trying to say?” said Twelve, genuinely perplexed. “Those ponies were under oath.”

“They’re only ponies; ponies make mistakes; could they be wrong!”

Twelve thought for a moment, then gave a little shrug. “Well, no. I don’t think so.”

“Do you know so.”

Twelve frowned. “Oh come on; nopony can know a thing like that; this isn’t an exact science.”

“That’s right,” said Eight with a nod. “It isn’t.”

Twelve thought about it for a moment but said nothing.

“Okay,” burst in Three, rising angrily. “Let’s get to the point. What about the dagger they found in the old nag’s chest?”

“Wait a minute,” cut in Two, “there’s still some ponies who haven’t talked yet; shouldn’t we go in order?”

“They’ll get their chance,” said Three, waving her down, “be quiet a second. Well, what about it?” she asked Eight. “This dagger. You know, the illegal military weapon this fine, upright young pony admitted buying the night of the killing. Let’s talk about it.”

“All right,” said Eight, grabbing the bait and holding on with a smile, “let’s talk about it. Let’s get it in here and look at it; I’d like to see it again. Madam Forepony?”

“We all saw what it looked like,” said Three as the pegasus flitted to the door and rapped twice. “Do we have to see it again?”

“The gentlemare has a right to see exhibits in evidence,” declared Four with an air of finality. “The dagger, and the way it was bought, is pretty strong evidence, don’t you think?”

“I do,” said Eight with a nod.

“Good. Now suppose we take these facts one at a time. One,” said Four, enumerating a list, “the colt admitted going out of his house at eight o’clock on the night of the murder after being punched several times by his mother.”

“No, no, no,” said Six. “He didn’t say punched. He said hit. There’s a difference between a punch and a hit.”

“After being hit several times by his mother,” amended Four icily. “Two. The colt went directly to a neighborhood pawn shop, where he bought one of those, what do you call them.”

“Combat dagger.”

“Combat daggers,” said Four, nodding thanks to Five. “Three. This wasn’t what you’d call an ordinary dagger. It had a very unusual handle, carved out of ursa bone and finely detailed in green and black. Its blade was serrated on one side, unlike normal Canterlot daggers, which are a straight blade on both sides. Four. The storekeeper said it was the only one of its kind she had ever had in stock. Five. The colt met some friends of his in front of a dive at about eight forty-five. Am I right so far?”

“Yes, you are,” said Eight quietly.

“You bet she is,” growled Ten.

“He talked with his friends for about an hour, leaving them at nine forty-five. During this time, they saw the dagger. Six. The coroner identified the murder weapon, in court, as that very same dagger. Seven. He arrived home about ten o’clock. Now,” she added, “this is where the stories offered by the Crown and the accused begin to diverge slightly.

“He claims he went to a play at about eleven thirty, returning home at three ten to find his mother dead and himself arrested.”

“He also claims the two policeponies arrested him and threw him down half a flight of stairs,” observed Eight.

“Now what happened to the dagger? He claims it fell through a hole in his saddlebag on the way to the theatre, some time between eleven thirty and two-ten, and he never saw it again.” She glanced around the table. “Now that is a tale, gentlemares. I think it’s quite clear the colt never went to the play that night. No one at the house saw him go out; no one at the theatre identified him; he couldn’t even remember the name of the performance he saw.”

The door cracked slightly as the bailiff passed the dagger to the waiting forepony, perfect timing as Four brought her hypothesis home. “What actually happened is this. The colt stayed home, had another fight with his mother, stabbed her to death, and left the house at ten minutes after midnight.

“He even remembered to wipe the dagger clean and pick off any stray hairs.” Four accepted the dagger from the forepony and leaned across the table towards Eight, delicately holding the handle of the weapon and shaking it for emphasis. “Now are you trying to tell me that this dagger really fell through a hole in the colt’s saddlebag, somepony else picked it up off the street, went to the colt’s house, and stabbed his mother with it? Just to, say, test its sharpness?”

“No, I’m just saying it’s possible the colt lost his dagger and that somepony else stabbed his mother with a similar dagger; it’s just possible!”

Four glared at her. “Take a look at this dagger,” she said, slowly turning it over and stabbing it into the table, point-first. The blade gleamed dully with its wicked-looking serrations; above it, the green and black painted ursa-bone handle caught the light.

“It’s a very unusual dagger. I’ve never seen one like it, and I worked in the provisioning corps. Neither had the storekeeper who sold it to the colt. Aren’t you asking us to accept a pretty incredible coincidence?”

“I’m just saying a coincidence is possible!” maintained Eight.

“And I’m saying it’s not possible,” growled Three, coming up behind Four, the two of them looming over at the unicorn with nothing but a dagger and three feet of table between them.

Eight stood for a moment in silence, and maintaining eye contact reached into her purse. Without any fumbling about she grasped something and slammed it into the table. And now there were two daggers quivering in the table, side by side, and save for the evidence tag hanging off of one, identical in every detail.

The room burst into noise before the hollow thock of the dagger’s impact echoed away, but Four’s level voice came out on top.

“Where did you get that?” she demanded quietly.

“I went walking for a couple of hours last night,” explained Eight. “I walked through the colt’s neighborhood. Bought that at a little knick-knack shop just three blocks from the colt’s house. It cost six bits.”

“It’s against the law to buy or sell combat daggers,” said Four, her eyes narrowed. “Particularly items of plunder taken off dead soldiers.”

“That’s right,” said Eight with the hint of a wicked smile, “I broke the law.”

Three snorted. “Listen, you pulled a real bright trick, but supposing you tell me what it proves. Maybe there are ten daggers like that. So what?”

“Maybe there are!” cried Eight.

“So what does it mean?” shouted Three. “You found another one like it; what’s that, the discovery of the century or something?”

Twelve couldn’t quite wrap her head around the development. “You mean you’re asking us to believe that somepony else did the stabbing with exactly the same kind of dagger?”

“The odds are a million to one!” yelled Seven.

“It’s possible!” maintained Eight.

Four nodded. “But not very probable.”

Eight had nothing for that.

“All right, mares, let’s take our seats,” said the forepony, hovering just above them. “There’s no point milling around here.” They did, with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“I think it’s interesting,” said Two, fluttering her own wings, “that she’d find a dagger exactly like the one the colt bought.”

“What’s interesting about it?” demanded Three. “Interesting. Pah.”

“I don’t know; I just thought it was interesting.”

“There are still eleven of us here who think he’s guilty,” continued Three, ignoring her. “What do you think you’re going to accomplish? You’re not going to change anypony’s mind. So if you’re going to be stubborn and hang this jury, go ahead,” she said, almost goading Eight. “The colt’ll be tried again and found guilty, sure as the setting sun.”

Eight stepped away from the table to pace the room.

“You’re probably right,” she said quietly.

“So what are you going to do?” asked Seven, taking a few steps after her to the window. “You know, we could be here all night.”

“It’s only one night,” said Eleven. “A pony may lose his freedom forever.”

“Well why don’t we just set up house here,” shot back Seven, flitting back to the table with a pump of her wings. “Somepony send for that bailiff, we’ll get a deck of cards, we’ll just, you know, wait the whole thing out.”

Twelve laughed at that, but Two took it to heart. “I don’t think she ought to joke about it,” she complained to the forepony.

“What do you want me to do about it?” asked the pegasus with a helpless shrug.

Ten rapped the table, irritated. “I don’t see what this business with the dagger has to do with anything. Somepony saw the colt stab his mother; what more do we need? You mares can talk the mane right off my head, you know what I mean?” She stood and waved a hoof vaguely in the direction of the windows. “I’ve got a warehouse full of packages going to seed while you’re talking! Let’s get done and get out of here!”

“The dagger was very important to the Crown prosecutor,” said Eleven, half-rising to follow Ten’s stomping pace, “he spent a whole day —”

“He’s a nineteenth assistant or something; what does he know about it!”

“Hey,” said the forepony in a soothing tone, “let’s get on with it; these side arguments only slow us down, you know?”

At the window, Eight said nothing but instead stared off into the evening sky, clouds greyer than usual with the promise of rain. The faint bustle of the town floated in, but by this hour most ponies had closed up shop and were home already. Between the humidity and the sky, there was no reason to be outside now. Not worth the risk.

“Well, what about it?” asked the forepony with a genuine air.

“You’re the only one,” added Six.

Slowly, Eight crossed back to her seat. All eleven others had taken their seats around the table, though they sat in various stages of disarray and discomfort.

“I have a proposition to make,” Eight said quietly, staring intently at nothing in particular. “I’m going to call for another vote. I want you eleven mares to vote by secret, written ballot. I’ll abstain. If there are eleven votes for guilty, I won’t stand alone. I’ll take in a guilty verdict to the judge right now.

“But if anypony votes not guilty,” she said, turning to each juror, one by one, “we’ll stay here and talk it out.”

For a moment there was quiet, save for the faintest music drifting in from the town and the sound of the wall clock ticking off seconds to itself.

“Well, that’s it. If you want to try it, I’m ready.”

“All right, let’s do it the hard way!” said Seven, clapping her hooves. Almost immediately a chorus of approval followed, the forepony’s call for discussion a mere formality. She passed out slips of paper, which the eleven others snapped up. Eight rose and paced back to the window, and behind her eleven heads bowed to the table.

Some wrote quickly, some slowly, but in the end every slip found its way back to the forepony, who stacked them neatly in front of her and without fanfare began to read.

“Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”

Eight stared out the window at the heat, the humidity, the freedom.

“Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”

Eight could hear the forepony reach for each slip, read it, and cast it aside in a small pile with the others. The room was silent, save only for the crinkling of paper.

“Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.”

The rhythm was regular, even, and then quite abruptly was broken by the shuffling of a chair as the forepony stood up so fast it nearly fell over.

“Not . . . guilty.”

The table exhaled, some with breaths they hadn’t even known they were holding in.

“Guilty,” finished the forepony lamely; at the last crinkle of paper the room erupted with a babble of voices. But Eight paid them no heed; she walked back to her chair and sat, vindicated.

“How do you like that!” roared Ten.

“And another one flips her damned mane!” grumbled Seven.

“Who was it!” snarled Ten. “Which idiot changed her vote?”

And as she looked about, no pony moved.

Comments

[Princess Woona]

6421790

Oh man — thanks! If you have half as much fun reading it as I did writing it, you're in for a great time!

[MrAskAPirate]

Ooh, this looks interesting!

I played Juror #3 in a highschool production of this story; I'm looking forward to seeing who you cast as whom,

[MrAskAPirate]

“He even remembered to wipe the dagger clean of fingerprints.”

Or maybe he never had fingers to begin with!

[Princess Woona]

6427084

Someday I'll post a chapter and get it right the first time: no stupid mistakes, no dumb typos. Clearly that day is not today. (Here's hoping Act II goes better....)

And yeah, Three is a barrel of fun! Big ol' juicy moments.