Twelve Angry Mares

by Princess Woona

Rating: teen
Tags: Alternate Universe, Original Character, Twilight Velvet, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 25733

A mare is dead, apparently killed by her only son, whose life now hangs in the balance. Twelve mares sit in judgment — life is in their hooves, but death is on their minds!

The jury, those twelve mares selected by lots to choose his fate, largely ignored the young pony in the grey jumpsuit. Was he waiting for someone? If so, no one came. No one cared. It didn’t matter any more, because time was up. One by one they stepped out the door, and then all at once the jury box was empty.

What happened that night? Would this young colt, a displaced refugee from a bloody civil war, really kill his own mother? After all, the Everfree terrorists no older than this colt had done worse things to better ponies. Had he? Between passion and prejudice, it certainly seems so — but one mare disagrees.

Though Twelve Angry Mares stands alone, it is probably best enjoyed as a sequel, of sorts, to a previous story of mine, Blackacre. You don't need to have read it to appreciate this — certainly the styles and tones struck are vastly different — but it does contextualize some of the prejudice and gut reactions of our cast of characters.
For those of my faithful readers coming from Blackacre: this is not a straight sequel, so if you come at it like one you'll probably be a bit disappointed. There's no sequel proper . . . not yet.

In 1957, Reginald Rose wrote a screenplay about a murder trial. It has since been adapted many times, and the story you're about to read draws from many of those adaptations. Twelve Angry Mares is, however, something entirely different, located in a different world, with different concerns. Though similar on the surface, you are about to read a very different story than the one with which you might be familiar.
And yet — there is a resonance here that goes beyond space and time, beyond one story or another. You are about to read a pony fanfic, but there's more here than just that. The basic elements of this story are ones that should be familiar to all, for this isn't a story about ponies. It's a story about me. About you. About the very heart of the notion of justice, of fairness, of what is right.
I greatly enjoyed telling this story, and sincerely hope you enjoy experiencing it.

Published 2015-09-14 00:50:03 UTC
Last updated 2015-09-27 22:25:58 UTC

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.

Act II

“Who did it?” demanded Ten again. “We have a right to know!”

“Excuse me,” said Eleven, rising to her feet next to the earth pony. “This was a secret ballot. We all agreed on that. Now, if the mare wants to remain anonymous —”

“Anonymous?” exclaimed Three, also on her feet. “What do you mean anonymous? There are no secrets in a jury room. I know who it was.” She slipped neatly around Four to stand, hawklike, directly next to Five. “Sister, you really are something. You sit here, vote guilty like the rest of us, then some golden-voiced apologist comes in, tearing your heart out about this underprivileged colt who just couldn’t help becoming a murderer, and you change your vote!”

Five had pressed herself as far away from the slightly twitching Three as she could, but to her credit made no overt reaction.

“If that isn’t the most sickening,” sputtered Three. “Why don’t you drop two bits in the charity box!” she roared, turning away in disgust.

“Wait a minute,” said Five, coming to her feet. “You can’t talk to me like that.” Three waved her off but Five pressed on, maneuvering around to face her. “No, who do you think you are?”

“Calm down, calm down,” said Four, waving a hoof at her. “It doesn’t matter —”

“Who does she think she is?”

“She’s very excitable. Forget it; it doesn’t matter.”

“Excitable!” shouted Three, spinning around to face the table. “You bet I’m excitable! We’re trying to send a guilty colt off to be banished where he belongs!” She chopped at the air. “Somepony starts telling us fairy tales, and we’re listening!”

“Okay,” said Four, more on principle than anything else. “Come on.”

Three of course ignored her, instead taking a pointed step towards Five. “When we let him back out onto the street, should we just give the colt his dagger back, make it even easier for him to kill again?” she demanded, backing Five against a window. “What made you change your vote?”

“She didn’t change her vote,” came a voice. “I did.”

As one, the room turned towards Nine.

“Oh, that’s just fine.”

“Would you like me to tell you why?” asked Nine, unable to keep a hint of smugness out of her voice.

“No, I wouldn’t like you to tell me why,” said Seven, glancing at the wall clock with an air of defeat.

“Well I’d like to make it clear anyway, if you don’t mind,” continued the aged pegasus.

Ten gave a prodigious roll of the eyes. “Do we have to listen to this?”

“The mare wants to talk,” said Six sharply.

“Thank you,” said Nine, rising slowly to her hooves. She extended a hoof to Eight, who had the pleasantly confused look of one who had won something but didn’t quite know why.

“This gentlemare has been standing alone against us,” started Nine. “Now she doesn’t say the colt is not guilty; she just isn’t sure. Well it’s not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others. So she gambled for support, and I gave it to her. I respect her motives. The colt at trial is probably guilty. But . . . but I want to hear more.”

Seven tried to reason it, gave up, and pushed back from the table.

“The vote is ten to two,” continued Nine as the other pegasus stomped over to the washroom. “I’m talking here!” she called after Seven, leveling an accusatory hoof at her back. “You have no right . . .”

“She can’t hear you,” said Eight gently. “She never will. Let’s sit down.”

Nine eased back into her chair, though with a bitter expression. For a moment the table was again silent.

“Shall we continue?” prompted Four.

“Well,” ventured the forepony, “I think we ought to take a break. One mare’s inside there,” she said with a gesture to the washroom. “I think we ought to wait for her.”

Without hesitation easily half the table stood up, stretching wings or going for the water cooler. Some went for the windows, straining to catch a glimpse of the evening sky through increasingly darker clouds. The forepony took the opportunity to pull the tagged dagger out of the table and look it over. Twelve simply leaned back, kicked her hooves up on the table, and flipped to a new page in her notepad.

“Looks like we’re really hung up here, eh?” she commented to Eleven, who nodded absently. “That thing with the old mare, that was unexpected. Wish I could figure out some way to break it up.”

She chortled. “You know, in advertising — I told you I worked at an agency, right?”

“Mmhmm,” said Eleven, resigned to her fate.

“Well, there are some pretty strange ponies there. Well, not strange, but they just have, ah, peculiar ways of expressing themselves, know what I mean?” She shrugged. “Well, I guess it’s the same in your business, too. What do you do?”

“I’m a potionmaker,” she said with a frosty smile.

“Really? Well, I imagine you make for the finest potionmakers in the world.”

The zebra bowed slightly.

“Anyway, I was telling you, in an agency, when we reach a point like this — I’m talking about,” said Twelve to the forepony, who had consigned the dagger back to the bailiff, “in an ad agency, when a point like this is reached? There’s always some character ready with an idea, see.

“And it just kills me,” she said, pushing back on the chair and popping up, “it’s the weirdest thing in the world, the way, sometimes, the way they precede their idea with a little phrase. Like —” and here she hopped up on the chair with a little pose “— some account executive will get up and say, ah, ‘Okay, here’s an idea: let’s run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes it!’” She smacked her hooves together and laughed. “It’s idiotic, but hey, it’s funny, huh?”

On the other side of the table, Three was paying her no attention.

“I, uh,” she was saying to Five, “I got a little excited back there. Didn’t . . . didn’t mean to get nasty.” She paused for a moment, searching for words. “Glad you’re not one of them lets these emotional appeals get to them . . . .”

Five paused, said nothing, then pointedly walked to her chair and sat down. Three watched her pass, a look of slight confusion on her face. Over at the sink next to the door to the washroom, Seven was taking a moment to splash a bit of water on her face, humming to herself. Eight came over, thinking much the same thing; Seven shifted aside to face the window, idly scanning the dim world outside.

“Say, are you a salespony?” she asked, dripping slightly.

Eight ran her hooves under the pleasantly cool water. “I’m an architect.”

Seven accepted the information with a nod. “You know what the soft sell is? Well, you’ve got it.”

Eight arched an eyebrow between splashes.

“Me, I’ve got a different technique. Laughs, drinks, jokes. Tricks. You know?” She glanced back outside, taking in the town with a wave of the hoof. “Hit them where they live, that’s my motto. I made twenty-seven grand last year selling marmalade.” She shrugged to the evening air. “That’s not bad, you know. Considering it’s marmalade.”

Seven turned back to the washbasin as the unicorn finished up.

“Hey, what are you getting out of this? Kicks? Or someone kicked you one time and you haven’t gotten over it.”

“Maybe.” Eight dried her hooves with a slight laugh.

“Know, you do-gooders are all alike. Wasting time on a lost cause.” She fluttered up, slightly angrily. “What are you wasting our time for? Donate a few bits to the shelters, maybe it’ll make you feel better.”

Eight continued drying her hooves.

“He’s guilty, pal,” said Seven quietly. “Plain as the muzzle on your face. So why don’t we stop wasting our time here so we don’t all get sore throats?”

“What difference does it make whether you get one here or at the game?”

“No difference,” said Seven with a shrug, hovering away. “No difference at all.”

Eight stepped over to take the pegasus’ place at the window as another pony came up to the washbasin. The cold water was nice, but the room wasn’t quite as hot as it had been before — now it was just muggy. The weather guaranteed rain, but it hadn’t broken yet. The whole town had closed up shop for the evening, and they were all now just holding their breaths, waiting for it.

“Nice bunch of mares,” commented Six in a friendly tone.

“I guess they’re the same as any,” said Eight.

“What a murderous day,” said the earth pony, splashing about. “You think we’ll be here much longer?”

“I don’t know,” she said, vaguely.

“Ah, he’s guilty for sure, not a doubt in the whole world. We should have been done already.” Six turned off the water and started wringing her mane. “Oh, I don’t mind,” she added. “This sure beats working.”

The town outside might be content to wait, but Eight wasn’t. She turned from the window back towards the fray.

“You think he’s not guilty, then?” asked Six, with a tone of genuine curiosity.

“I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“I don’t know you, but I’m betting you’ve never been wronger in your life,” she said, but without malice. “Better wrap it up; you’re wasting your time.”

“Supposing you were the one on trial,” asked Eight bluntly.

“Well,” said Six, with an air of contemplation. “I’m not used to supposing. I’m just a working mare; my boss does the supposing. But — I’ll try one.” She raised an eyebrow. “Supposing you talk us all out of this, and the colt really did stab his mother?”

Six headed back to the table, clapping Eight on the shoulder as she passed. Eight stood alone at the window for a few moments, not quite sure how to respond, the last sparkle of twilight reflecting in her eyes as the clouds took a distinct velvet hue. For this was the problem which was tormenting her: she didn’t know. She never would. But — what if?

“All right, gentlemares, let’s take our seats,” called the forepony, taking a quick tally.

“Looks like we’ll be here for dinner, huh?” asked Two quickly, sneaking in before the others could come to order. Nopony paid her much attention, not even the forepony right next to her.

“Okay, let’s get back to business. Who wants to start us off?”

“I would,” said Three.

“Okay, go.”

“You, down there,” she said, pointing a hoof at Eight, the only mare who hadn’t sat down yet. “The old nag who lived downstairs. Says she heard the colt yell out, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’ Split second later, she heard the body hit the floor.

“Now, she ran to the door, and she saw the colt galloping down the stairs and out of the building.” She sat back slightly. “What does that all mean to you?”

“Well, I was wondering how clearly the old mare could have heard the colt’s voice through the ceiling,” countered Eight.

“She didn’t hear it through the ceiling; the window was open,” shot back Three. “Her window was open and so was the window upstairs. It was a hot night, remember?”

“It’s another apartment,” Eight said. “It’s not that easy to identify a voice, particularly a shouting voice.”

“She identified it in court!” said the forepony, unable to restrain herself. “She picked the colt’s out of five others, blindfolded.”

“That’s right,” said Twelve, “and don’t forget the old stallion across the street; he looked right in the open window and saw the colt stab his mother; isn’t that enough for you?”

Eight shook her head. “No it isn’t.”

“Well, how do you like that?” asked Seven, hopping up and pacing around. “Like talking to a tree.”

“The stallion saw the killing through the windows of a moving train,” said Three, laying things out as if for a yearling. “The train had six cars, and he saw it through the windows of the last two cars. The wind was strong, the steam blew upwards, the tracks were clear. He remembered the most insignificant details! I don’t see how you can argue with that!”

“Has anypony here any idea,” said Eight with an air of extreme patience, “how long it takes a train at full speed to —”

She cut off mid-sentence and stalked to the other end of the table — would have teleported, but the jury room was of course under a dampening field — to rip the notepad out of Twelve’s hooves.

“This isn’t a game,” she growled, ripping off the top sheet and letting it fall to the floor, tic-tac-toe grid plainly visible.

Three slowly rose to her hooves, stunned. “Did you see her?” she asked. “The nerve!”

Twelve made soothing sounds, succeeding only in making Three louder. “The absolute nerve!”

“All right, take it easy . . .”

“Come on now, sit down . . .”

“Who does she think she is!” roared Three.

“Does anypony have any idea,” called Eight, cutting through the babble, “how long it takes a train, going at medium speed on the elevated tracks, to pass any given point?”

“What has that to do with anything?” asked Four.

“How long,” snapped Eight. “Take a guess.”

“I wouldn’t have the slightest idea.”

Eight ignored Four and turned to Five. “What do you think.”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Ten, twelve seconds?”

“I think that’s a pretty good guess,” nodded Eight, pacing around the table. “Anypony else?”

“That sounds right to me,” said Eleven, but next to her Ten simply scoffed.

“Come on, what’s the guessing game for?”

Eight stopped next to Two, tapping her on the shoulder. “What do you say?”

“Ten seconds is about right,” said the pegasus enthusiastically.

“All right, say ten seconds,” said Four. “What are you getting at?”

“This,” said Eight, slowly running her hooves down her face. “It takes a six-car passenger train ten seconds to pass a given point. Now let’s say that given point is the open window of the room where the killing took place.” She was standing but hunched over the table, plotting places out on the wood with her hooves: track here, window there. “You can reach out of that window and almost touch the tracks, right? Now let me ask you this: Has anypony here ever lived near a set of tracks?”

“Well,” said Six, “I just finished painting an apartment that overlooked the Canterlot line; I was there for three days.”

“What was it like?” asked Eight intently. “Noisy?”

“Oh, sister,” said Six with a laugh. “Noisy isn’t the half of it. But it doesn’t matter. In my business, we’re all punchy anyway.”

“I lived in a second-floor apartment next to the Vanhoover line once,” said Eight, looking from face to face, desperately holding on to what attention she could get. “When the window’s open and the train goes by, the noise is almost unbearable; you can hardly hear yourself think.”

“Okay, you can’t hear yourself think.” Three rolled her eyes. “Will you get to the point!”

“I will; now just a minute.” Eight closed her eyes, thinking furiously. “Let’s take two pieces of testimony and try to put them together. First. The old nag in the apartment downstairs. She says she heard the colt say ‘I’m going to kill you,’ and a split second later heard the body hit the floor. One second later, right?”

“That’s right!” chimed in an eager Two.

“Second. The stallion in the apartment swore positively he looked out the window and saw the killing through the last two cars of the passing train. Right? The last two cars.”

Three didn’t get it. “Well what are you giving us here?”

“Just a minute,” said Eight, dismissing her. “We’ve agreed it takes ten seconds for a train to pass a given point. Since the stallion saw the killing through the last two cars, we can assume the body hit the floor just as the train went by. Therefore, the train had been roaring by the old nag’s window a full ten seconds before the body hit the floor.”

Her face was intense now, staring Three down. “The old nag, by her own testimony — ‘I’m going to kill you,’ body hitting the floor a split second later — would have had to hear the colt make that statement with the train roaring past her muzzle! It’s not possible she could have heard it!”

“That’s idiotic; of course she could have heard it,” said Three flatly.

“Do you think she could have heard it?”

“She said the colt yelled it out at the top of his voice; that’s good enough for me.”

“Even if she heard something she still couldn’t have identified it,” pressed Eight, undaunted. “Not with the train roaring by.”

“You’re talking about a matter of seconds!” howled Three. “Nopony can be that accurate!”

“Testimony that could banish a colt forever should be that accurate!”

Eight’s outburst drew for the first time some thoughtful nods. Three of course paid her no attention, but around the table some of the other jurors were muttering at each other.

“I don’t think she could have heard it,” said Five to Six.

“Yeah,” agreed Six with a nod. “Maybe she didn’t hear it. I mean, with the train noise . . .”

“Oh, what are you ponies talking about,” cut in Three, her voice tinged with sarcasm.

“Well it stands to reason she couldn’t have heard it!” countered Six.

“Why should she lie?” offered Three. “What does she have to gain?”

“Attention, maybe,” said Nine thoughtfully.

“You keep coming in with these bright sayings,” shouted Three, patience running on fumes at best, “why don’t you send them in to the Herald! They pay three bits a piece!”

Six shook her head at that, hopping up and taking a few steps towards Three. “What are you talking to her like that for?” she demanded. “Anypony who talks like that to an old mare really ought to get stepped on, you know?” Six took a step forward and took Three firmly by the arm. “You’ve got have more respect, ma’am.”

“Get your hooves off me.”

“You say stuff like that to her again,” said Six in a low voice, “I’m gonna lay you out.” She released her a moment later; Three shook off the arm and turned away as Six calmly walked back to her seat.

“Now you go ahead,” she said gently to Nine. “You say anything you like. Why do you think the old mare might lie?”

“Oh, it was just that I looked at her for a very long time,” said Nine, not particularly acknowledging the disturbance on the other side of the table. “Seemed her jacket was split, under the hindquarters. Did you notice that? I mean, to come into court like that. She was —”

Ten coughed. Nine shot her a dirty look.

“She was a very old mare with a torn jacket, and she walked very slowly to the stand. She was dragging her right hind leg and was trying to hide it. Because she was ashamed.” Nine furrowed her brow. “I think I know this mare better than anyone here. This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant old mare, who has been nothing all her life. Who has never had recognition. Her name in the newspapers.

“Nopony knows her. Nopony quotes her. Nopony seeks her advice, after seventy-five years.” She looked back and forth. “Gentlemares, that’s a very sad thing, to be nothing. A mare like this needs to be quoted, to be listened to. To matter just once. Very important to her. It would be so hard for her to recede into the background when there’s a chance . . .”

“Now, wait just a minute,” interrupted Seven. “Are you trying to tell us she’d lie, just so she could matter, just this once?”

“No,” said Nine, shaking her head slowly, “no, she wouldn’t really lie. But — perhaps she made herself believe she heard those words, and recognized the colt’s face.”

“That’s the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard,” growled Ten. “How can you make up a thing like that. What do you know about it?”

Nine stared at her for a moment, then at the table, shaking her head in the tense silence that followed. At the other end of the table, Two popped up and made a beeline for her jacket.

“Does does anypony want a cough drop?”

“I’ll take one,” said Eight; Two hurried over to her.

“Say what you like,” said Twelve, “I still don’t see how anypony can think he’s not guilty.”

“There’s something else I’d like to talk about for a minute,” said Eight, taking the proffered cough drop. “Thanks. I think we’ve proved that the old mare couldn’t have heard the colt say ‘I’m going to kill you,’ but supposing —”

“What do you mean, proved?” asked Ten. “You didn’t prove it at all!”

“Wait a minute. Supposing she really did hear it. This phrase: how many times have all of us used it? Probably thousands. ‘I could kill you for that, honey.’ ‘If you do that once more, little lady, I’m going to kill you.’ ‘Come on, Rocky, get in there and kill him!’

“We say it every day,” said Eight, shaking her head. “Doesn’t mean we’re going to kill someone.”

“Wait a minute, what are you trying to give us here?” asked Three. “The phrase was, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ and the colt yelled it at the top of his lungs — don’t tell me he didn’t mean it!” She stabbed a hoof out. “Anypony says a thing like that the way he said it, they mean it!”

“Well, gee,” said Two from behind Eight, “I don’t know. I remember I was arguing with the pony I work next to at the bank a couple weeks ago . . . she called me an idiot, so I yelled at her.”

“Now listen, this mare’s trying to make you believe things that aren’t so. The colt said he was going to kill her and he did kill her!”

“Let me ask you this,” said Eight. “Do you really think the colt would shout out a thing like that so the whole neighborhood could hear him? I don’t think so. He’s too bright for that.”

“Bright?” scoffed Ten. “He’s a common ignorant slob. Don’t even speak good Equestrian.”

“Doesn’t,” said Eleven, unable to keep the thinnest of grins off her face, “speak good Equestrian.”

“Madam Forepony,” said Five after a moment’s pause. “I’d like to change my vote to not guilty.”

“You what?” spat Three.

“You heard me.”

“Are you sure?” asked the forepony softly.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“The vote is nine to three,” said the forepony, making a tick on her notepad with an air of the resigned, “favor of guilty.”

“Well if this isn’t the living end,” grumbled Seven. “What are you basing it on? Stories this mare made up? She should write for Maretropolis Mystery Monthly; she’d make a fortune.

“For crying out loud, the colt’s own lawyer knew he didn’t stand a chance from the beginning.” Seven crossed over to the water cooler, filling a little paper cone with supreme disregard for the gravity of the situation. “Right from the beginning! His own lawyer knew. You could see it.

“Boy oh boy, this mare here is really something.” The cooler burbled, and Seven snorted. “Listen, the colt had a lawyer, didn’t he? He presented his case, not you. How come you got so much to say?”

“Lawyers aren’t infallible, you know,” chimed in Five.

“Come on, Hayseed. Please.”

“He was court-appointed,” said Eight.

“Now what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Could mean a lot of things,” said Eight. “Could mean he resented the case, resented being appointed. It’s the kind of case that brings him nothing. No money, no glory, not even much chance of winning. That’s not a very promising situation for a young lawyer.”

She shook her head, suddenly and uncomfortably aware that the room was hot again, the splash of cool water a memory at best. “He’d really have to believe in his client to put up any kind of a fight, and, as you pointed out a minute ago, obviously he didn’t!”

“Of course he didn’t,” shrugged Seven. “Who in Equestria could? Except Celestia or somepony —” Her eye caught on the clock. “Oh, would you look at the time; come on already!”

“Pardon me,” said Eleven, hesitating to stand and hold out a notepad. “I have made some notes here.”

“Notes,” grumbled Ten.

“I would like to please say something,” she continued, undaunted. “I have been listening very . . . carefully, and it seems to me that this mare,” she said, gesturing a pencil at Eight, “has some very good points to make. From what was presented at trial, the colt looks guilty, on the surface, but maybe if we go deeper . . .”

“Come on, will you?” said Ten, mopping a sticky brow.

“There is a question, one I would like to ask,” continued the zebra. “Let us assume that the colt really did commit the murder. Now, this happened at ten minutes after twelve. Now, how was he caught by the police? He came back home at . . . three o’clock or so, and was captured by two detectives in the hallway of his apartment.

“My question is, if he really had killed his mother — why would he come back home three hours later? Wouldn’t he be afraid of being caught?” Piece said, Eleven sat.

“Came home to get his dagger,” said Twelve. “It’s not nice to leave daggers sticking around in ponies’ chests.”

“Yeah,” added Seven, “’specially relatives.”

“I don’t see anything funny about it,” cut in Four. “The colt knew the dagger could be identified as the one he had bought. He had to get it before the police did.”

“But if he knew the dagger could be identified,” asked Eleven, “why did he leave it in the first place?”

“Well I think we can assume the colt ran out in a state of panic after having just killed his mother, and when he finally calmed down, realized he left his dagger.”

“Ah,” said Eleven, waggling a hoof, “this then depends on your definition of panic. He would have had to have been calm enough to see that there were no stray hoofprints or hairs on the dagger. Now, where does this panic start and where did it end?”

Three frowned. “Look, you voted guilty; which side are you on?”

Eleven returned the frown with one of her own. “I don’t believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other. I’m simply asking questions.”

“This is just off the top of my head,” said Twelve, taking off her glasses, “but if I were the colt, and had done the stabbing and everything, I’d take a chance and go back for the dagger. I’ll bet he figured that nopony had seen him running out, that the body wouldn’t be discovered until the next day. After all, it was the middle of the night.” She shrugged. “He probably figured nopony would find it until the next day.”

“Pardon,” said Eleven, raising a hoof, “this is my whole point. The stallion across the street testified that the moment he saw the killing — that is, the moment after the train went by — he screamed, and then went to call for the police. Now, the colt must certainly have heard the scream. So he knew that somepony saw something.” She thought for a moment. “I just don’t think he would have gone back.”

“Two points,” declared Four. “One. In his state of panic he may not have heard the scream; perhaps it wasn’t very loud. Two. If he did hear it he may not have connected it with his own act. Remember he lived in a neighborhood where screams were fairly common.”

“There’s your answer,” said Three, as if laying it out.

“Maybe,” said Eight, joining the discussion. “Maybe the colt did stab his mother, didn’t hear the stallion’s scream, did run out in a panic, did calm down three hours later and come back to get the dagger, risk being caught by the police, maybe all those things did happen, but maybe they didn’t!”

She shook a triumphant hoof. “I think there’s enough doubt that we can wonder whether he was there at all at the time when the killing took place.”

“What do you mean, doubt?” asked Ten, perplexed. “Didn’t the old nag see him running out of the house? She’s twisting the facts, I’m telling you!” She turned to Eleven. “Did or didn’t the old nag see him running out of the house at twelve-ten. Well? Did or didn’t she?”

“She says she did,” said the zebra.

“Says she did!” Ten snorted and turned away. “Boy, how do you like that!”

“Witnesses can make mistakes,” declared Five.

“Sure,” said Ten, whirling on her, “when you want them to they do! When she wants them to they do!”

“Hey!” shouted the forepony, “let’s hold the yelling down!”

“Oh, you keep saying that — maybe what we need is a little yelling!” Ten came up alongside the forepony, who was now hovering at eye level with her. “Did hear the scream, didn’t hear the scream, what difference does it make! You ponies are talking only about the little details; you’re forgetting the important stuff! I mean all of a sudden —”

“I’d like to call for another vote,” announced Eight.

“I’m talking here!” shouted Ten, stomping back over to her. “You —”

“There’s another vote called for!” declared the forepony, her voice cutting over Ten’s protestations. “Now let’s take our seats.”

Over by the water cooler, Seven did so; Ten considered the request and a few seconds acquiesced, trudging back to her chair.

“Never seen so much time spent on nothing,” muttered Three.

Two shook her head at that. “It only takes a second.”

“Okay,” said the forepony, wary of losing the room again, “I guess the fastest way is to find out who’s voting not guilty. All those for not guilty, please raise your hooves.”

Five, Eight, and nine did so; the forepony skimmed the room and counted them up.

“Still the same,” she declared, “one, two, three, not guilty. Nine guilty.”

“So now where are we?” snarked Seven, hopping back up on her hooves. “I’m telling you, we can yak until next Tuesday; where’s it getting us?”

“Pardon,” said Eleven, turning to the forepony. She slowly raised a hoof. “I vote not guilty.”

Eleven and Eight exchanged smiles as half the room burst into moans.

“What are you talking about,” said Three, “I mean, we’re all going crazy in here or something. The colt is guilty; why don’t you listen to the facts!”

She stood, gesturing to Four as she moved to the windows. “Tell them, why don’t you. This is getting to be a joke!”

“The vote is eight to four,” announced the forepony. “Favor of guilty.”

“I mean what is this!” exclaimed Three. “Love Your Underprivileged Pony week or something?” She took three broad paces to the other side of the table, straight at zebra. “I want to you tell me why you changed your vote. Come on now, give me reasons.”

“I don’t have to defend my decision to you,” said Eleven, taking umbrage. “There is a reasonable doubt in my mind about the matter.”

“What reasonable doubt; that’s nothing but words.” Three leaned over Nine to grab the dagger from where it still stood point-first in the table. “Here, look at this.” She held the dagger out to Eleven, hilt first, hoof grasped firmly around the handle. “The colt you just decided wasn’t guilty was seen ramming this into his mother!

“Now what about that, Miss Reasonable Doubt?”

Nine tapped her on the arm. “That’s . . . not the dagger, remember?”

Three realized it was missing an evidence tag, rolled her eyes and tossed it back on the table.

“Oh,” she declared gustily. “Brilliant.”

“I’m telling you,” cut in Seven from where she had been leaning against a wall, “this is crazy. I mean, what are we supposed to believe? I mean, you’re sitting in here, pulling stories out of thin air. What’re we supposed to believe?”

She turned to the table, gesturing to Eight and appealing to the others. “I’m telling you, a mare like this, if she here’s sitting ringside on the Mane, she’s telling us it landed safe and sound!” She snorted and turned to face Eight directly. “Look, now what about the old nag? We supposed to believe she didn’t get up, run to her door, and see the colt tearing down the stairs fifteen seconds after the killing? She’s just saying so to be important? I mean, what’s the point of the whole thing.”

“Hold a second,” said Five.

“Oh, and the Hayseed rooter speaks up. Championship trophies popping up wherever we look —”

“Now wait up, wait a second now,” said Five, grabbing Seven by the arm. “Did the old mare say she ran to the door?”

“Ran, walked, what’s the difference? She got there; I don’t —”

“Now wait a second —”

“She said she ran,” said Six, nodding, “at least I think she did.”

“I don’t remember what he said,” said Five intently, “but I don’t see how she could have run.”

“She said she went from the bedroom to the front door,” clarified Four. “Now isn’t that enough.”

“Where was the bedroom?” asked Eight.

“Was down the hall somewhere,” said Five, catching her eye.

“I thought you remembered everything,” bit Ten sharply. “Don’t you remember that?”

“No,” said Eight quietly. “Madam Forepony, I’d like to see a diagram of the apartment.”

Seven threw up her hooves. “Why don’t we just have them run the whole trial all over again so you can get everything straight!”

“How come you’re the only one in this room wants to see exhibits all the time?” demanded Ten, now uncomfortably close to Eight.

“I want to see this one too,” said Five, crossing over and nodding at the forepony, who went for the door.

“And I’d like to stop wasting time,” said Three.

“If we’re going to start wading through all that nonsense about where the body was found,” started Four.

“We’re not,” said Eight firmly. “Not unless somepony else wants to. But I want to find out if an old mare with a gimp leg from the war can get from her bedroom to her front door in fifteen seconds.”

“She said twenty seconds,” muttered Three.

“She said fifteen!”

“She said twenty seconds; what’re you trying to distort —”

“She said fifteen,” cut in Twelve, and suddenly Three’s face turned pink.

“How does she know how long fifteen seconds is!” she exploded. “You can’t judge a thing like that!”

“She said fifteen seconds,” said Eleven, “she was very positive about it.”

“She was an old nag!” countered Three. “You saw her! Half the time she was confused; how could she be positive about anything!”

And as she turned away the look on her face froze as she realized just what she had said. Eight couldn’t help but smile, careful to make sure Eleven couldn’t see as she just gaped at Three.

Eventually, it was Four who broke the silence.

“I don’t see what you’re going to prove here,” she said, raising an eyebrow over her glasses. “The mare said she saw the colt galloping out.”

“Well let’s see if the details bear her out,” said Eight, running down the order of things. “She said as soon as the body hit the floor she heard hoofsteps, upstairs, running towards the front door. Heard the upstairs door open and hoofsteps start down the stairs. Said she got to her own front door as fast as she could, and it couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds. Now if the killer began running immediately —”

“But maybe he didn’t,” cut in Twelve.

“The old mare said he did,” countered Eight.

“You ought to be down in Baltimare at that hair-splitter’s convention,” shot Seven lazily from one side of the room.

“Listen, ball-game,” said Six, taking a step towards the pegasus who had spoken, “why don’t you stop making smart remarks all the time?”

“Oh, my friend, for your three bits a day you listen to everything,” she said, but still retreated, past the forepony who had just reentered with a fairly large chart. The apartment it displayed was not particularly noteworthy, with a series of rooms off a long hall and a big red X marking one spot in the front room.

“Here’s the apartment where the killing took place,” said Eight, propping the diagram up at the head of the table, “the old mare’s apartment was directly beneath and exactly the same. Here’s the tracks, bedroom and living room, kitchen; here’s the hall, there’s the stairs.”

The jurors had seen plenty of that posterboard over the past few days, but were still drawn to it like moths to a flame, with even the most recalcitrant leaning in for the discussion.

“The old mare was in her bedroom right here. Says she got out of bed, walked down the hall, and opened the door just in time to see the colt racing down the stairs. Am I right so far?”

“That’s the story,” grumbled Three, “for the nineteenth time.”

“Fifteen seconds after the body hit the floor.”

“Correct,” nodded Eleven.

“Now let’s see,” said Eight, reading the markings on the chart. “It’s four meters from the bed to the bedroom door. The length of the hall is thirteen and one quarter meters. She would have had to walk four meters, open the bedroom door, walk thirteen meters down, open the front door, and all in fifteen seconds.” She looked up. “Think she could have done it?”

“Sure she could have done it,” snorted Ten.

“She can walk only very slowly,” said Eleven. “They had to help her into the witness chair!”

“You make it sound like a long walk,” drawled Three. “It’s not.”

“For an old mare with an old wound it is a long walk,” insisted Eleven.

Eight left them for the other end of the table, and started pushing chairs around.

“What are you doing?” demanded Ten.

“I’m going to try it,” she said, placing a chair just so. “See how long it took her.”

“What do you mean, you want to try?” called Three. “If it’s so important why didn’t the colt’s lawyer bring it up?”

Five nodded at the chair approvingly. “Well maybe he just didn’t think about it.”

“What do you mean, didn’t think of it?” asked Ten. “You think the stallion’s an idiot or something? It’s an obvious thing!”

“Did you think of it?” asked Five pointedly.

“Listen, miss, it don’t matter whether I thought of it; he didn’t bring it up because he knew it would hurt his case, what do you think of that?”

“He didn’t bring it up,” said Eight, “because it would have meant bullying and badgering a helpless old mare. You know that doesn’t sit well with a jury; most lawyers avoid it if they can.”

“So what kind of a bum is he?” asked Seven, who found herself in the front row of the impromptu demonstration.

“That’s what I’ve been asking, sister. Pass me that chair, will you?” She set up the offered furniture towards a corner of the room. “Those two chairs are the old mare’s bed; I just paced off four meters across the room; this’ll be the bedroom door.”

“Oh, that’s crazy,” said Three from one of the windows where she was perched, leaning upon the sill, “you can’t recreate a thing like that.”

“I would like to see it,” commented Eleven.

“The hall was thirteen meters,” pressed Eight, “so I’ll pace to that wall and back.”

And so she did, carefully placing one hoof in front of another.

“Look, this is absolutely insane,” said Ten, coming up in front of her and walking backwards. “What’re you wasting everypony’s time in here for?”

“According to you it’ll only take fifteen seconds,” shot Five. “We can spare them.”

Back by the chairs-turned-bed Seven started whistling to herself, but Two didn’t much take to that.

“Come on, knock it off.”

“Okay,” she said, “okay, chief. Whatever you want.”

Eight completed her circuit and turned to Four. “Would you stand there and mark the front door?” she asked. “It was chain-locked according to the testimony, remember? Does anypony have a watch on them with a second hand?”

“I have,” said Two eagerly.

“All right, when you want me to start, stamp your hoof, that’ll be the body falling.” Eight sat down on the chairs, lay back, and nodded. “You can time me from there.”

For a moment nothing happened.

“Come on,” said Ten, “what are we waiting for?”

“I’m waiting until the second hand reaches sixty,” said Two, pointing at the pocketwatch. And then she stamped her hoof, the sound echoing off the worn floorboards. Eight rose to a sitting position, swinging off. She pushed to a standing position, then walked towards Four, dragging her left hind leg against the floor.

“Come on, speed it up,” said Ten. “She walked twice as fast as that.”

“That is, I think,” observed Eleven, “even more quickly than the old mare walked in the courtroom.”

“If you think I should go faster,” said Eight, halfway to the far wall, “I will.”

And she sped up, still dragging her hoof. She reached the wall, tapped it like a swimmer, and turned back around, making the long march back. Once at the chair she reached up, miming the chain that would have been on the door.

“Lock, door, stop.”

“Right!” said Two. “That’s . . . exactly . . . forty-two seconds.”

Again a wave of voices rolled through the room, and again Eight cut through it, making her pitch in close quarters to the ponies pressing in on all sides.

“Here’s what I think happened,” she said. “The old mare heard the fight between the colt and his mother a few hours earlier. Then when she was lying in her bed she heard the body hit the floor in the colt’s apartment, heard the stallion scream from across the street, got to her front door as fast as she could, heard somepony racing down the stairs, and assumed it was the colt!”

“I think that’s possible,” nodded Six.

“Assumed?” called Three from her perch on the window sill, the only pony not clustered around the chairs. She laughed derisively. “Sister, I’ve seen all kinds of dishonesty in my day, but this little display takes the cake.” She pushed off the ledge and took a few steps towards the group.

“You come in here with your hearts bleeding all over the floor about refugees and injustice, you listen to some fairy tales,” and here she nodded at Eight, “suddenly you start getting through to these old nags in here. Well, you’re not getting through to me; I’ve had enough. What’s the matter with you!” she bellowed. “You know he’s guilty; he’s got to go; you’re letting him slip through our hooves!”

“Slip through our hooves?” echoed Eight, aghast. “Are you his banisher?”

“I’m one of them,” declared Three, face contorted with rage. Eight just stared back, noticing out of the corner of her eye that most of the others were distancing themselves from Three.

“Perhaps you’d like to teleport him yourself,” she said acridly.

“If I could, I would,” shot back Three, tapping her bare forehead without a moment’s hesitation. “For this colt you bet I would.”

“I feel sorry for you,” said Eight, suddenly conscious of her own grey horn, “what it must feel like to want to send him away, out of this world, forever.” Her eyes narrowed. “Ever since you walked into this room you’ve been acting like a self-appointed public avenger. You want to see this colt gone because you personally want it, not because of the facts.”

Three’s face was twitching; she could barely control her rage in the face of such insults, and yet not a single pony stood in her defense. Eight’s voice was hard as steel. “You’re a sadist,” she declared — and that was the straw that broke the pony’s back.

Three sputtered something and rushed forward, hooves out to wring Eight’s throat, but for the half-dozen ponies who jumped to hold her back. “Let go of me!” she roared, barely coherent with rage. “Let go of me, Celestia damn you! I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her!”

Eight didn’t move a muscle as the earth pony strained against her captors, but she was unable to keep a gleam out of her eye.

“You don’t really mean you’ll kill me, do you?” she said softly.

Act III

Three stopped in her tracks, more out of confusion than anything else. It took a few seconds for the words to process, but once they did she came back to life, shaking the others off and pinning Eight with a bitter glare.

There came a clatter at the door.

“Anything wrong, gentlemares?” asked the bailiff, poking his head in. “I heard some noise.”

“Oh, no,” said the forepony, flapping over, “everything’s all right. Just having a friendly little argument, that’s . . . .” she trailed off, not quite sure she could pull it off. “Listen, we’re through with that diagram, if you want it back?”

She grabbed the posterboard, passing it to the bailiff, happy of an excuse to get the bailiff out of the room. There was an awkward silence as the other jurors milled about the room. Three, for her part, simply went back to the window, ostensibly taking in some fresh air. After a few moments she turned around, realizing that there were eleven pairs of eyes fixed on her.

“What’re you looking at,” she muttered, turning back towards the windows.

The others, slightly embarrassed for her, glanced away. Some took their seats, though most weren’t back where they started.

“Suppose somepony has to start it off again,” ventured Twelve, forcing a fair bit more enthusiasm into her voice than any of them felt.

“It’s getting late,” said Two with a glance towards the window. Outside the bank of windows a pair of streetlights flickered on, but they didn’t do much good in the room, which had by now darkened perceptibly. “Do you suppose they take us out to a restaurant for supper?”

“How would I know?” said the forepony, resigned to engage with Two’s conversation.

“I wonder if they can let us go home if we don’t finish tonight,” she continued, entirely oblivious. “I’ve got a yearling with the pox. Poor filly looks like Nicanter Khru—”

“Beg pardon,” started Eleven, with the resolve of one who had come to a conclusion and wanted to act on it before the moment passed, “I would like to say something.” Two happily waved her on.

“You beg pardon,” snorted Ten, “what are you so polite about?”

Eleven blinked at her. “For the same reason you are not,” she cut back. “It was the way I was brought up.”

The room was again quiet, the moment broken only by the sound of shuffling chairs.

“This fighting,” started Eleven, “that’s not why we are here, to fight. We have a responsibility. This I have always thought is a remarkable thing about Equestria, that we are — what is the word? Notified? — that we are notified to come down to this place and decide on the guilt or innocence of a pony we have never heard of before.

“We have nothing to gain, or to lose, by our verdict. This is one of the reasons why together we are strong.” She halted now, uncomfortable with the attention. “We should not make it a personal thing,” she finished lamely, rubbing the back of her neck.

There was no response. Eleven shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and in the silence Twelve leaned forward.

“Well, if nopony else has an idea, I might have a cutie here,” she ventured. “I mean, I haven’t put much thought into it. Anyway, let’s throw it out on the stoop, see if the cat licks it up. I —”

“The cat licks it up?” wondered the forepony idly. She laughed, and for that one moment all the tension eased out of the room as everypony found their own brand of humor in it. Even Twelve forced a snicker or two at her own expense.

“Well, it wasn’t much of an idea,” she said dismissively.

“Boy, look how dark it’s getting out there,” said Seven, who was wandering about by the windows. “We’re going to have a storm.”

“It’s really hot,” muttered Five in agreement. Next to her, Four merely raised an eyebrow, mane supremely unruffled.

“Pardon me,” said Five, unable to contain herself, “but . . . don’t you ever sweat?”

“No.” Four lowered the eyebrow with impeccable precision. “I don’t.”

“Uh, listen,” said Six, “I was wondering if maybe . . . maybe we should take another vote.”

“Oh, great,” said Seven, hovering over her and back to her chair. “Maybe we can follow this one up with dancing and refreshments, huh?”

“Madam Forepony?” asked Six.

“Well that’s okay with me,” said the forepony. “Anypony doesn’t want to vote?” No one answered for a moment. “All right.”

“I think we ought to have an open ballot,” said Three, attempting to buy her way back into the room’s good graces. “You know, call out our votes. See who stands where.”

“Well, that sounds fair to me. Anypony object?” Again there was silence. “Okay then. I’ll call off your jury numbers. One?” She paused, then chuckled. “Oh, that’s me. I vote guilty. Two?”

“Not guilty,” said the pegasus with a thoughtful air.

“Number Three?”

“Guilty,” she declared, the word almost a challenge.

“Number Four?”

“Guilty,” in clipped tones.

“Number Five?”

“Not guilty,” resting her head upon a hoof.

“Number Six?”

“Not guilty,” after a moment’s hesitation.

“Number Seven?”

“Guilty,” as if reading it off a page.

“Number Eight.”

“Not guilty.”

“Number Nine?”

“Not guilty,” quick off the gun.

“Number Ten?”

“Guilty,” with a grim tone.

“Number Eleven?”

“Not guilty,” face unreadable.

“Number Twelve?”

A pause.

“Number Twelve?”

“Guilty,” she said with slight irritation.

The forepony tallied them up again. “The vote is now six to six,” she declared.

“Ah, and that’s the sound of overtime,” said Seven, shaking her head. “That’s what you get.”

“Six to six,” spat Ten. “I’m telling you, some of you must be out of your minds. A colt like that!”

“I don’t think the kind of colt he is has anything to do with it,” observed Nine. “The facts are supposed to determine the case.”

“Don’t give me that,” snapped Ten. “I’m sick and tired of facts. You can twist them any way you like, know what I mean?”

“That’s exactly the point this gentlemare has been making!” said Nine, rising unsteadily to her hooves, waving one of them at Eight. “I mean, you keep shouting at the top of your lungs!”

Ten turned away, ostensibly in a fit of coughing, but she didn’t turn back. Nine sputtered to a halt as Eight placed a hoof on her shoulder, shaking her head.

“Why, I’d like to be a few years younger. That mare gets on my . . . .” She sank back into her chair, suddenly overwhelmed. “My, it’s awfully hot in here.”

“Want a drink of water?” asked Eight quickly.

“No, thanks,” she said, waving the offer away.

But Nine was right; it somehow had managed to become warmer. Perhaps it was simply because the room was oppressively still, all trace of an outside breeze a memory at best. Over by the water cooler, Seven and Two were in various stages of trying to draw a decent drink into one of the little paper cones.

“It’s going to rain,” observed Two in an attempt at small talk.

“No!” said Seven. “How’d you figure that, blue-eyes?” She snorted at the dark masses in the sky. “How come you switched?”

“Well, it just seemed to me there was room for doubt,” said Two, almost cheery.

“You haven’t got a hoof to stand on,” said Seven. “You know that, I hope?”

“Oh, I don’t feel that way,” she countered, engaged. “There were a lot of details that never came out.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Oh, come on,” said Ten, dropping in on the conversation, “you’re like everypony else. You think too much, you get mixed up.” She downed a paper cone’s worth of water, barely sufficient to wet the lips. “Know what I mean?”

“Listen, I don’t think you have any right . . . .” but it was too late; Ten had walked away. Two scuffed a hoof at the floorboards. “Loudmouth,” she said softly.

Back at the table it was quieter and darker than before. Most were seated, but nopony was about to start anything. They could barely hear themselves think over the sound of silence —

And suddenly it came, water pouring from the heavens, a thousand chitterings of blissful raindrops over the distant roll of thunder. A few jurors jumped up to close the windows a fraction lest the water come in; they ended up soaked to the elbows, but it wasn’t an entirely unwelcome sensation.

Outside, lightning flashed; inside, the ceiling lights flickered on in response, stabilizing to a harsh white light. Though the windows were closed enough so the rain didn’t come in, there was still enough space to stick one’s forehooves out and get a solid splashing of cool rain. A number of jurors did just that, taking advantage of the impromptu break.

“Boy,” said the forepony, shaking her head idly, “would you look at that. Think it’ll cool things off?”

“Hope so,” said Eight sagely.

“You know, it reminds me of a storm we had November of . . . oh, a few years ago. I was down in Saddaloo City, just in the middle of a game.” Her eyes glazed over in memory. “We were up, just starting to make real progress with the ball. Had this foal, he must have had some bison in him. Unstoppable once he got up to speed, you know?”

“Yeah?” said Eight in that tone that prompted the other pony to go on, yet didn’t quite convey full apprehension of what was being said.

“Oh,” said the forepony, realizing her mistake. “I was coach down there at Memorial High. Went for a few years during the reconstruction, you know? Back up here now, but I miss those foals.”

“Ah,” murmured Eight. “Mmhmm.”

“So anyway, we’re moving real nice. I’m telling you, this bison! And all of a sudden it starts to come down cats and dogs, just like this. Whoosh, right down.” She sighed. “Well, it was murder. I swear, I almost bawled. Couldn’t go nowhere.”

“Mmm.”

A slight exclamation came from the wall opposite them. “Hey!” cried Seven, gesturing triumphantly to the wall-mounted fan, which had just started chugging along. “Would you look at that. Must have been on the same switch as the lights. Well, things are looking up here, wouldn’t you say.”

Nopony responded.

“Yeah,” she echoed to herself. “Looking up.”

Over by the washroom door, Four was leaning against a wall, enjoying what cool air she could. Three came over to take advantage of a paper towel to dry off her forehooves.

“Pardon me,” said Four, shifting slightly so Three could get at the small stack next to the washbasin.

“How do you like it,” asked Three, grabbing a hooffull of towels and mopping herself dry. “Even-steven. Kind of surprising, isn’t it.”

Four glanced out the window.

“Yes.”

Three crumpled the paper towels into the wastebin. “You know, that business before,” she said quietly, moving closer, “where that tall mare, what’s-her-horn, was trying to bait me, that doesn't prove anything.

“Listen, I’m a very excitable pony. So where does she get off calling me a public avenger, a sadist, everything? Anypony in her right mind would blow her stack, wouldn’t she?” She shook her head dismissively. “She was just trying to bait me.”

Four gave a curt nod. “She did an excellent job.”

As Four walked away, Three’s face again curled into a grimace. How many more betrayals could she take? One by one the other ponies were coming back to the table. How much would she have to do to convince them of what was right?

Off on one side of the table, Ten was well and truly fed up with it all.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” she declared to the room, “we’re going nowhere here. I’m ready to walk into court right now and declare a hung jury. There’s no point in this thing going on any more.”

“Yeah, I’d go for that too,” said Seven quickly. “Let’s take it in to the judge, let the colt take his chances with twelve other ponies.”

“I don’t think the court would accept a hung jury,” said Eight with a frown. “We haven’t been in here very long.”

Seven made a broad gesture. “Well let’s find out!”

“I am not in favor of that,” said Eleven.

“Listen,” said Seven, “this colt wouldn’t stand a chance with another jury and you know it. C’mon, we’re hung! Nopony’s gonna change her vote. Let’s take it inside.”

“You still don’t think there’s any room for reasonable doubt?” asked Five, leaning forward.

“No, I don’t,” she said quickly.

“Pardon,” offered Eleven, “Maybe you don’t fully understand the term ‘reasonable doubt.’”

“What do you mean, I don’t understand?” asked Seven sharply. “How’d you like this mare? I’m telling you, they’re all alike. They come to Equestria, running for their lives, and before they can even take a deep breath they’re telling us how to run the show? The arrogance of this mare!”

“You mean you’re calling her arrogant because she wasn’t born here?” asked Five pointedly. “Fine. I’m calling you arrogant because you were. How’s that?”

“Please, please,” said Eleven, though her expression had darkened considerably. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Look, sister,” said Seven, “nopony around here’s going to tell me what words I understand and what words I don’t. And it don’t matter if they were born over wherever she came from, or right here in real Equestria, or down there in the forest trenches —”

“Hey all right!” said the forepony quickly as Five tensed up. “Let’s stop arguing for about two minutes in here! Now who’s got something constructive to say?”

“I’d like to go over something,” said Eight, “if you gentlemares don’t mind. An important point for the Crown was the fact that, after the colt claimed he was at the theatre during the hours the killing took place, he couldn’t remember the name of the show he saw or the leading actors in it.” She indicated Four. “This mare has repeated that point in here several times.”

“That’s correct,” said Four, glad to meet Eight’s discussion with an argument based on logic and fact. “It was the only alibi the colt offered, and he himself couldn’t back it up with any detail at all.”

“Putting yourself in the colt’s place, do you think you could remember details of a performance that occurred after an upsetting experience such as being slapped in the face by your own mother?”

“I think so,” she said levelly. “If there were any special details to remember. He couldn’t remember the play at the theatre that night because he wasn’t there.”

“According to the police testimony in court the colt was questioned by the detectives in the kitchen of his own apartment while the body of his mother was lying on the floor of the front room of the apartment.” Eight cocked her head. “You think you could remember details under such circumstances?”

“I do.” No hesitation.

“Under great emotional stress?”

“Under great emotional stress.”

“He remembered it correctly in court, he named it, named the actors who played in it.”

“Yes,” said Four with the faintest hint of sarcasm, “his lawyer took great pains to bring that out. His lawyer had three months from the date of the murder to figure out which traveling troupe was in town and have his client memorize the show, the actors, their names, their appearances.” She shook her head slightly. “I’ll take the testimony of the policemare who interrogated him right after the murder, when he couldn’t remember a thing about the play, great emotional stress or not.”

“I’d like to ask you a personal question,” said Eight, changing tack.

“Go ahead.”

“Where were you last night?”

“I was home.”

“How about the night before that?”

“Come on,” said Ten, “what is this . . .”

“It’s perfectly all right,” said Four, quelling her with a hoof. “I went from court to my office, where I stayed until eight-thirty. Then I went home and straight to bed.”

“The night before that,” pressed Eight.

“That was . . . Tuesday night? The night of the scopa tournament. I play scopa.”

“And Monday night?”

“When you get to winter solstice of ’69 you let me know.” called Seven.

“Monday night,” prompted Eight, ignoring her.

“Monday night,” echoed Four, glancing to one side. “Monday night . . . my husband and I went to the theatre.”

“What did you see?”

“Ten Little Buffalo,” she said quickly, “a very clever who-done-it.”

“Then who did it?”

“The crooked judge,” said Four, appreciating the irony.

“Who played him?”

“Mister . . . Walt . . . Walter . . . Stable. Walter Stable.”

“Who played opposite?”

“Robert . . . ah. Robert. Robert Gilly.”

“I saw that!” cried Two. “It was Robert Goings.”

Four paused for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, Robert Goings. I think that’s right.”

“The female lead,” demanded Eight, as a single bead of sweat formed on Four’s forehead.

“It was . . . Agate . . . Agate . . . Canter . . . Canter, or something else . . .”

“Who else.”

“Well, I’d never heard of them before,” she said quietly, pressing on for the sake of getting words out there if nothing else. “It was a new troupe . . . new to town, with . . . with unknown . . . .”

She stumbled to a halt.

“And you weren’t under any emotional stress, were you,” said Eight, the words falling into place like slabs of granite.

“No,” she said quietly, reaching up a hoofkerchief to pad the single bead of sweat away. “I wasn’t.”

Eight nodded to herself and sat.

“I think the point is made,” trumpeted Nine.

“Big point,” scoffed Ten, suppressing a cough. “You can talk until your tongue is dragging on the floor, the colt is guilty, period. Know what I mean, my friend?” She cleared her throat again and glanced at Two. “Who’s got those cough drops?”

“They’re all gone, my friend,” said Two, meeting her gaze levelly.

Ten, not used to being contradicted, much less by Two, blinked twice and snorted at the whole situation.

“Look at it come down out there,” said Twelve idly, head resting on her hooves. “There goes your ball game,” she said in Seven’s direction.

“It’s always shot,” grumbled Seven. “With our sort of coverage.”

“Say,” piped up Two, perhaps emboldened by her staredown of the large Ten, “could I see that dagger a minute?”

Eight picked it up and walked it down to the pegasus. As she did, the forepony glanced at the clock.

“Well, we’re still tied up six to six. Who’s got a suggestion?”

“I have,” said Twelve, “it’s five after six; let’s get some dinner.”

“Why don’t we wait until seven?” said Five. “Give it another hour.”

“Okay with me,” shrugged Twelve.

“Ah,” said Two, rising slowly, “there’s something I’d like to say. I mean, it’s been bothering me a little, and as long as we’re stuck . . . .” Her reedy voice carried through the room, absent anything else to drown it out. “There was this whole business about the stab wound and how it was made. The angle of it, you know?”

Three shook her head at that. “Don’t tell me we’re going to start with that again. They went over and over it.”

“Well I know they did, but I don’t go along with it,” said Two. “The colt was young, and strong enough, but his mother was a full-grown mare with a full-grown mare’s muscles. It’s a very awkward thing to stab a combat dagger a full six inches into an adult pony’s chest.”

“Give me that,” commanded Three, grabbing the dagger from Two’s hoof as she rose to her feet. “I’ll demonstrate. Somepony stand up.”

With Three gripping the hilt of the dagger, nopony did — but Eight was already up, standing to one side a few paces from Two, where she had deposited the dagger in the first place. Their eyes met, and by silent agreement Three walked over.

“Okay. Now watch this. I don’t want to have to do it again.” Three placed herself directly in front of Eight, holding the dagger firmly in her right hoof. “I’m younger than you, weaker than you, but you aren’t expecting it. Right?”

“Right,” said Eight.

“Okay.”

For a moment, she said nothing. Then in one swift motion Three curled her hoof around the dagger and pulled it back, ready in an instant to plunge it deep —

“Look out!” shouted Two as half the room jumped forward in Eight’s defense. Eight herself remained silent.

“Huh,” grunted Three, holding the dagger back but not doing anything more with it. “Nopony’s hurt. Right.”

“No,” agreed Eight, more for the benefit of the others, several of whom were still standing. “Nopony’s hurt.”

With painful slowness Three inched the dagger forward, until it rested a few hairs from Eight’s chest.

“Now that’s how I’d stab a mare bigger and older than I was. Straight in, no hesitation. Wouldn’t pull my punch at all. Straight in.” She dropped the dagger into Eight’s hoof and walked off. “Now tell me I’m wrong.”

Twelve crossed over to Eight, took the dagger, and mimicked the action, stabbing straight in.

“Straight in,” she said, eyeballing the motions experimentally. “Guess there’s no doubt.”

“That’s how they taught us in the Army,” said Six with a nod. And so did Ten, for once agreeing with something.

“Straight in, pokes right through the armor.” Ten gave a grim nod. “That’s how I did it.”

“Straight in,” murmured Five, then jumped to her feet. “Wait a minute. Give me that.”

Twelve gladly handed over the dagger; Five accepted it gingerly, weighing it, feeling the blade.

“I hate these things,” she said offhoofedly. “Spares from the war? Grew up with them.” She grasped the weapon firmly now, almost familiarly. “You ever train with one of these?”

Eight shook her head.

“You?”

“No,” said Twelve.

“Anypony here ever train with a B—” she started, then caught herself. “An Everfree combat dagger?”

The table replied with vague negative mutterings.

“Well, I have,” said Five quietly. “Too many times. In the camps, in my backyard. Keeps you alive, where I’m from. Heck, they come with the land where I’m from.” She laughed. “Funny I never thought of it before. Guess you try to forget these things.”

“How do you use one of them?” prompted Eight.

“Well,” said Five, holding the dagger up so the rest could see, “it’s a double-edged dagger, but only one side’s straight. That’s your cutting edge. The other side is serrated. That’s your killing edge.

“You would never use it like this,” she said, making as to stab straight forward and pull straight back. “Doesn’t make the most of the weapon. Here’s how,” she said, stabbing forward and then pulling up and back, letting the serrations pull through the hapless imaginary target. “You saw through whatever’s in your way.”

She made the gesture again, stabbing in and then ripping the dagger back up. It took no great stretch of the imagination to think what such a motion would have done to unarmored ponyflesh. “Like that. Nopony who’s ever used an Everfree dagger would handle it any other way.”

“Are you sure?” asked Eight.

“I’m sure,” she nodded. “That’s why one blade’s serrated. Won’t work as well against armor, but the serrations’ll save your life against a wild animal. Plenty of those in the forest.”

“The colt was pretty handy with a dagger,” said Eight. “Think he would have made the kind of wound that killed his mother?”

“Nu-uh,” said Five, turning to address the rest of the jurors. “Not with the experience he had with these things. He’d have pulled up. That’s how he learned, that’s how he’d do it.”

“How do you know?” demanded Three, jerking her chin at her. “Were you in the room when his mother was killed?”

“No, and neither was anypony else,” said Five, passing the dagger back to Twelve.

“Then what are you giving us all this mumbo-jumbo for?” she cried. “I don’t believe it!”

Four also shook her head. “I don’t think you can determine what type of wound this colt might or might not have made simply because he learned to use a dagger one way instead of another.”

Twelve held the dagger, making experimental thrusts at the air.

“What do you think?” asked Eight.

She thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” demanded Three.

Twelve looked the dagger over one last time before sticking it back in the table where it had come from. “I just don’t know!”

Eight paced down the table and glanced at Seven, who looked particularly disgruntled. “What about you?”

“I don’t know about the rest of them,” she said with a determined air, “but I’m sick of this whole yapping back and forth already. It’s getting us nowhere. So I guess I’ll have to break it up.” She glanced at the forepony. “I change my vote to not guilty.”

It took Three a moment to process, but once the words came through they did so with a vengeance.

“You what?”

“You heard me, I . . . I’ve had enough.”

“What do you mean — you’ve had enough? That’s no answer!”

“Hey listen, you just, just take care of yourself. You know?”

“He’s right,” chimed in Eleven. “That’s not an answer. What kind of a pony are you? You have sat here and voted guilty along with everypony else because there are some tickets burning a hole in your purse? And now you have changed your vote because you say you’re sick of all the talking here?”

Seven was on her feet with a flap of the wing. “Hey, listen, sister —”

“Who tells you that you have the right to play like this with a pony’s freedom?” demanded Eleven, advancing towards her. “Don’t you care?”

“Now wait a minute! You can’t talk like that to me!”

“I can talk like that to you,” said the zebra through clenched teeth. “If you want to vote not guilty, then do it because you’re convinced the colt is not guilty, not because you’ve had enough. And if you think he is guilty, then vote that way. Or — don’t you have the guts to do what you think is right?”

“Now listen —”

“Guilty or not guilty?” demanded Eleven.

“I told you,” said Seven, affronted. “Not guilty.”

“Why?”

Seven came up short for a moment. “Look,” she blustered on, “I don’t have to —”

“But you do have to!” she said, a fury in her eyes. “Say it! Why?”

“I, uh, I don’t think he’s guilty.”

Eleven fixed her with a piercing gaze for a long, hard second. Then she turned away, disgusted. The pegasus stood, defeated.

“I want another vote,” said Eight, quietly.

“Okay, there’s another vote called for. Guess the quickest way is a show of hooves. Anypony object?” Nopony did, and the forepony droned on. “Okay, all those voting not guilty, raise your hooves.”

Two’s shot up. So did Five, Six, Eight, Nine, and Eleven’s. After a moment’s hesitation, so did Seven’s. And then, after a moment more, so did Twelve’s.

“That makes eight,” said the forepony. She stopped counting, looked around the table, and, almost embarrassed, raised her own hoof. “Nine.”

She lowered it quickly.

“All those voting guilty.”

Three, Four, and Ten.

“Nine to three, favor of not guilty,” declared the forepony.

Ten sprang up from her chair like a starter’s pistol had gone off. “I don’t understand you ponies!” she hollered. “I mean, all these picky little points you keep bringing up. They don’t mean nothing! You saw this colt just like I did. You’re not going to tell me you believe that phony story about losing the dagger and being at the theatre?”

Three nodded along, but nevertheless stood and paced over to the window.

“You know how those people lie! It’s born in them!” she crowed, fully worked up now. “I mean, by the Princess, I don’t have to tell you! They don’t know what the truth is! Now let me tell you, they don’t need any real big reason to kill somepony either! No ma’am, they proved that in the war all right.”

Five slammed a hoof on the table, bit off a sharp retort, and walked away.

“No ma’am, they get drunk. Oh, they’re real big drinkers, all of them. Forest moonshine, you know that. And bang, somepony’s lying in the trenches. Well nopony’s blaming them for it; that’s the way they are. By nature. Violent!”

Nine slowly rose to join Five in a corner, carefully keeping her head away from Ten’s invective.

“Where are you going? Equestrian life doesn’t mean as much to them as it does to us!”

On the other side of her, Eleven mirrored Nine’s motions, shuffling away.

“Look — they’re mushing it up and fighting all the time! They did it against us and when they lost they did it against themselves! If somepony gets killed, they don’t care! Oh, sure, there are some good things about them too, I’m the first one to say it. I’ve known a couple who were okay, but that’s the exception!”

Eight’s chair squeaked slightly as she pushed back and went to stand by the windows.

“Know what I mean? Most of them have no feelings; they can do anything!”

Two slipped out of her chair. Towards the other end of the table, so did Six.

“What’s going on here? I’m — I’m trying to tell you, you’re making a big mistake. This colt’s a liar. I know all about them.”

The forepony rose with a silent beat of her wings, drifting off.

“Listen to me. They’re no good. There’s not one of them who’s any good. I mean — what’s happening in here? I speak my piece, and you —”

Twelve rose, staring pointedly at one of the windows.

“We — we’re — this colt on trial, his kind. Well, don’t you know about them? Refugees, coming in. There’s a danger here . . . .”

Seven, who was balanced precariously on the edge of her chair, hopped out of it.

“These ponies are dangerous. They’re wild, just like their land. Covered in magic, dangerous. Even the plants’ll eat you. Killing to survive. They’re wild . . . absolutely wild . . . .”

Ten realized that the only pony still sitting — indeed, the only pony still at the table in any way, shape, or form — was Four.

“Listen to me,” she begged.

“I have,” said Four, her voice a whip. “Now sit down and don’t open your mouth again.”

Ten started to say something, but Four’s hawk-eyed gaze stared her down and shut her up. Slowly, she tottered away from her place at the table, settling into a corner, her back to the others, where she could do no harm to anypony.

A few ponies came back to their seats, but most remained standing, staring off into space or out a window. All did their best to ignore the hollow-eyed pony in the corner. They were above such displays. Surely they were?

Eight was the first to break the silence.

“It’s very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this,” she said, head bowed slightly. “And wherever you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth. I don’t really know what the truth is. Don’t suppose anypony will ever really know.”

Though her voice was quiet, it carried throughout the room, above the steady sound of the rain outside.

“Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we’re just gambling on probabilities. Maybe we’re wrong. Maybe we’re trying to let a guilty pony go free. I don’t know. Nopony can. But,” she said, raising her head again to glance at each of the ponies in turn, most of whom were now back in their seats, “we have a reasonable doubt. And that’s something that’s . . . very valuable in our system. No jury can declare a pony guilty unless it’s sure.

“We nine,” she said, sweeping the bulk of the table, “can’t understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us.”

“I’ll try,” said Four curtly, eager for any opportunity to move on from the pony in the corner. “You’ve made some excellent points, but I still believe the colt is guilty of murder, and I have two reasons. One, the evidence given by the stallion across the street, who actually saw the murder committed.”

“As far as I’m concerned, that’s the most important testimony,” said Three sagely. Four focused on Eight instead.

“And two, the fact that he described the stabbing by saying he saw the colt make a single motion, in and out, plunging the blade into his mother’s chest. Not to a side. Straight in. He saw him do it — the wrong way.”

“That’s absolutely right!” affirmed Three.

Four’s lips thinned at Three’s voice, but she continued on despite her erstwhile comrade. “Now, let’s talk about this stallion for a moment. He said that he went to bed about eleven o’clock that night. His bed was next to the window, and he could look out, while lying down, and see directly into the colt’s window across the street. He tossed and turned for over an hour, unable to fall asleep.

“Finally, he turned towards the window at about ten minutes past twelve, and as he looked out he saw the killing through the windows of a passing train. He says the lights went out immediately after the killing, but he got a good look at the colt in the act of stabbing his mother.” She folded her hooves on the table in front of her. “As far as I can see, this is unshakeable testimony.”

Three gave a broad shrug. “Well that’s the whole case.”

Four raised an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

Eight remained silent. What could she say? She was thinking as hard as she could, but to no avail. She just didn’t know.

“What about you?” asked Four, glancing at Twelve. “What do you think?”

Startled, Twelve put on her glasses, using the motion to buy another precious second.

“Well — I don’t know,” she said. “So much evidence to sift. This is a pretty complicated business.”

“Frankly, I don’t see how you can vote for acquittal,” said Four firmly.

“Well, it’s not easy to arrange the evidence in order.”

“You can throw out all the other evidence!” cried Three. “The stallion saw him do it! What else do you want!”

“Well, maybe . . .” started Twelve, flustered.

“Let’s vote on it,” declared Three.

“Okay,” said the forepony, “there’s another vote called for. Anypony object?”

Twelve ran a tongue along her teeth. “All right, I’m changing my vote. He’s guilty.”

Three stood at once. “Anypony else? The vote is eight to four.”

“Why is this such a personal triumph for you?” asked Eleven gently. “This one vote.”

“Okay, I say we’re a hung jury,” said Three, a grim look on her face. “I say we take it to the judge. How about it. I want to hear arguments.” Finding no immediate takers, she jerked her chin at Eight. “You. You’re the leader of the cause. How about it?”

Eight looked up slowly, then back down, in thought.

“Let’s go over it again.”

Three hissed slightly. “We’ve been over it again!” she belted. “The mare with the notepad here is bouncing backwards and forwards like a tennis ball.”

Twelve met her eyes but kept a poker face.

“There’s no point in getting nasty,” said Four, distinctly uncomfortable with her neighbor. “Or in trying to turn this into a contest.”

With great effort, Three sat.

“Okay.”

“Maybe we can talk about setting some sort of time limit,” suggested Four.

“Yeah,” said Seven. “Once around for the dealer, huh?”

Four glanced at the wall clock, removed her glasses, and rubbed her muzzle in a supreme display of frustration. “Somepony before mentioned seven o’clock. I think that might be the point at which we begin to discuss whether we’re a hung jury or not.”

Nine stared at her. “Don’t you feel well?” asked the old mare in a curious tone.

“I feel perfectly fine,” said Four, irritated. “As I was saying, seven o’clock might be a reasonable time —”

“The reason I ask was that you were rubbing your muzzle like . . . oh,” said Nine, entirely oblivious, “I’m sorry for interrupting. But you made a gesture that reminded me of something.”

“I’m trying to settle something here. Do you mind?”

“Well I think this is important.”

Four glanced at the ceiling in resignation. “Very well.”

“Thank you,” said Nine, just a hint too eager. “I’m sure you’ll pardon me for this, but I was wondering why you were rubbing your muzzle like that.”

“Are we really doing this?” shot Seven.

“Oh come on, will you?” asked Three.

“Right now I happen to be talking to this mare sitting next to you,” said Nine, voice suddenly loud. “Now — why were you rubbing your muzzle?”

“Well if it’s any of your business,” said Four, accepting the need to mollify the old mare to get on to matters of import, “I was rubbing it because it bothers me a little.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” said Nine, and whether her tone was sincere or not was anypony’s guess. “Is it because of your eyeglasses?”

“It is,” said Four, humoring her. “Now, can we get on to something else?”

“Your eyeglasses made two deep impressions on the side of your muzzle,” pressed the old pegasus, ignoring her entirely. “I hadn’t noticed that before. That must be annoying.”

“It is very annoying.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Nine, flexing a spindly wing. “Pegasus eyes are pretty good. I’ve never worn glasses.”

“Listen,” said Seven, “would you come on already with the optometrist bit. We got a thing here.”

Nine glanced at her, then back to Four.

“The stallion who testified that he saw the killing,” she said, a smile on her face, “had those same marks on the sides of his muzzle.”

There was a chorus of sound as conversations broke out left and right.

“Please,” continued Nine, “just a minute and I’ll be finished. I don’t know if anypony else noticed that about him. I didn’t think about it then, but . . . I’ve been going over his face in my mind. He had those same marks. Kept rubbing them in court.”

“She’s right,” exclaimed Five. “He did do that a lot!”

“This stallion was a combat veteran of the war,” said Nine. “Past his prime, but making a tremendous effort to look back in his prime for a public appearance. Fresh crew cut on his mane. Cultivated stubble. Brand-new tailored suit that should have been worn by a younger pony. No glasses. See if you can get a mental picture of him.”

“What do you mean, no glasses?” demanded Three. “You don’t know if he was wearing glasses. Just because he was rubbing his nose . . .”

“He had those marks,” said Five. “I saw them.”

“Well, so what? What do you think that means?”

“Listen,” said Six, jumping to her feet, “I’m getting’ so sick of your yelling —”

“Come on,” said Five, holding her down with a hoof. “Calm down, okay?”

“Hey listen!” exclaimed the forepony, “I saw them too! She’s right. I was the closest one to him.” The pegasus lifted a hoof to her muzzle, which was of course devoid of marks. “He had those deep things, what do you call them . . . uh, you know . . .”

“Well what point are you making here?” exclaimed Three. “He had a fresh cut, new suit, and marks on his nose; what does that mean?”

“Could those marks have been made by anything,” queried Nine with a hoof to her mouth, “other than eyeglasses?”

The elder pegasus was grinning like an idiot but Four couldn’t in good conscience lie to her. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “They couldn’t.”

“I didn’t see any marks!”

“I did,” said Four, turning to face Three. “Strange, but I didn’t think about it before.”

“Well what about the lawyer?” cried Three. “Why didn’t he say something?”

“There are twelve ponies in here concentrating on the case,” Eight pointed out, “and eleven of us didn’t think of it either.” She clapped Nine’s shoulder with pride.

“Well okay, Clara Darhoe, what about the Crown prosecutor? You think he’d pull a trick like that? Have him testify without his glasses?”

“Did you ever see a pony who had to wear glasses but didn’t want to because it made him look old? Feeble? Less a stallion?”

“That’s my husband,” snorted Six. “I’m telling you, the moment we walk out of the house . . . .”

“Okay,” said Three, eyes almost closed in frustration, “he had marks on his nose. I’m giving you this. From glasses. Right? He didn’t want to wear them out of the house so people would see the vet wasn’t as young as he once was.” Her eyes snapped open and she stabbed a hoof forward. “But when he saw this colt kill his mother, he was in his house. Alone! That’s all.”

Eight responded by catching Four’s attention.

“Do you wear glasses when you go to bed?”

“No. I don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Nopony wears glasses to bed.”

“It’s logical to assume that he wasn’t wearing them when he was in bed, tossing and turning when he was trying to fall asleep.”

“How do you know?” shot Three.

“I don’t know; I’m guessing! I’m also guessing that he probably didn’t put his glasses on when he casually turned to look out the window, and he testified that the killing took place just as he looked out, the lights went out a split second later, he didn’t have time to put them on.”

“Wait a second —”

“Here’s another guess — maybe he honestly thought he saw the colt kill his mother; I say he only saw a blur.”

“How do you know what he saw!” Three demanded, turning to the other ponies as if they would give her support. “How does she know all these things! You don’t know what kind of glasses he wore. Maybe he was farsighted! Maybe they were sunglasses! What do you know about it!”

“I only know the stallion’s eyesight is in question now,” said Eight, loud but resolute.

Eleven leaned forward. “He had to be able to identify a pony twenty meters away, at night, without glasses.”

“You can’t send someone off forever on evidence like that,” said Two.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” said Three dismissively.

“Don’t you think the stallion might have made a mistake?” asked Eight.

“No.”

“It’s not possible?” she asked incredulously.

“It’s not possible!”

Quick as a flash, Eight was up and at Twelve’s side.

“Is it possible?”

Twelve glanced at her and nodded.

“Not guilty.”

Eight took two more steps, towards the pony in the corner, and lightly rested a hoof on her shoulder.

“Do you think he’s guilty?”

Ten’s head wavered, then shook twice.

“I think he’s guilty,” ventured Three, but Eight walked past her.

“You?”

Slowly, Four rotated to face her, seeing eye to eye.

“No,” she said plainly. “I’m convinced. Not guilty.”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I have a reasonable doubt now.”

“Eleven to one!” crowed Nine.

“Well what about all that other evidence? What about — all that stuff; the dagger? The whole business!”

“You said we could throw out all the other evidence,” Two pointed out.

Three sputtered.

“Well,” said Seven, “what do we do now?”

Eight had circled back around to her place, but she remained the only pony standing.

“You’re alone,” she said after a pause.

“I don’t care whether I’m alone or not,” said Three, surly. “It’s my right.”

“It’s your right,” agreed Eight, nodding sadly.

Three glanced from face to face. Eleven still fixed her with an intent stare. Twelve was waiting. Five was serious, Six placid, Seven frustrated.

“Well what do you want? I say he’s guilty.”

Eight let it sink in for a moment, drowned beneath the steady pouring of rain outside.

“We want to hear your arguments.”

“I gave you my arguments.”

“We’re not convinced. We want to hear them again.” Slowly, deliberately, she sat. “We have as much time as it takes.”

Three blinked furiously, glancing back and forth before fixating back on Eight.

“Everything. Every single thing that took place in that courtroom, I mean everything says he’s guilty. What do you think, I’m an idiot or something?” She rose, paced to the window, and whirled back around. “Why don’t you take that stuff about the old mare, the old mare who lived there and heard everything? Or this business about the dagger? What, ‘cause she found another one exactly like it? The old nag saw him! Right there on the stairs! What’s the difference how many seconds it was!”

She turned back to the window. It was dark now, the faint lights outside showing nothing but the rain.

“Every single thing,” she continued slowly. “The dagger falling through a hole in his saddlebag.” Then, she roared. “You can’t prove she didn’t get to the door! Sure, you can take all the time, hobble around the room, but you can’t prove it!

“And what about this business with the train? And the theatre! There’s a phony deal if I ever heard one.” She stabbed a hoof out. “I bet you five thousand bits I’d remember the play I saw. I’m telling you every thing that’s gone on has been twisted!” She waggled a hoof at Eight. “And turned!

“This business with the glasses?” Her arms were sweeping left and right now, encompassing swaths of room. “How do you know he didn’t have them on? This stallion testified in open court! And what about hearing the colt yell!

“I’m telling you I’ve got the facts here,” she thundered, ripping open her purse and rifling through it. “Here!” she said again, throwing down a notepad and a spray of other items — but along with the notepad came a photograph.

She spat, turned away. “Well that’s it; that’s the whole case.” Back at the window she rubbed her neck twice, then turned back to eleven pairs of eyes.

“Well?”

The room was silent, save for the rain.

“Say something!”

Nopony did. Three approached the table again, shaking her head and muttering under her breath.

“You lousy bunch of bleeding hearts,” she said through gritted teeth. “You’re not going to intimidate me. I’m entitled to my opinion.”

Her gaze strayed to the table, where the photograph still lay on top of the purse’s contents. It was small, it was worn, but it was recognizable: a mother and her son. Both were happy.

“Rotten colts,” she hissed, barely in control of her words much less her emotions, “you work your life out and they go off and get —”

She grabbed at the photograph, ripped it in half, then again, again, again.

“I’m the only one that sees,” she said through bleary eyes, tearing at the memory. “I can feel the dagger going in . . . .”

She ripped, she tore, until she could barely hold on, barely see clearly through the tears in her eyes. Slowly the pieces of paper fell from her hooves, and she buried her face in her elbow.

“No,” she half-sobbed. Her body shook and she collapsed into the chair.

“Not guilty,” she said, the words barely more than a ragged whisper.

“Not guilty.”

Epilogue

Deliberately the forepony stood, went to the door, and rapped twice. She exchanged a few words with the bailiff, then stepped out. Behind her came Twelve, a grave look on her face, and Seven, eager to get out by any means necessary.

One at a time they left. Nine tottered to her hooves, exiting under her own power. Five hurried, glad to leave the room and all those in it. Behind her came Four, even-tempered and purposeful, not a hair out of place in her mane, despite the humidity, the rain, the past deliberations.

Two came next, glad the process was over and somewhat looking forward to what came after. Six grabbed her jacket and clapped Two on the back. Ten slipped out past them, her face a mask of displeasure, but what the mask hid nopony could tell. Eleven followed, her coat standing out from the others almost as much as her jacket did.

Three remained at the table, head tucked away in an elbow, her body still.

Eight waited until the others had left before going for her own coat, a plain purple affair. After a moment’s hesitation she took the only coat left hanging, slowly walking it over to the table. She offered it, and Three accepted wordlessly.

Slowly, the older earth pony got to her feet, somewhat unsteady but not above accepting assistance. Eight helped her into the jacket, one arm at a time. For now, the rain beat steady, giving no sign of letting up, but it didn’t have to. That too would pass.

Three stumbled off, and as Eight followed her out the door she took one last look back at the room. It felt small, small and crowded as ever, even when empty. The fan still hummed to itself, the windows still quivered with the rain, but what was done was done. She turned and left.

In the room there was a table, and on that table there was the detritus of twelve angry mares. And at the end of it there stood a dagger, its hilt green and black, its point sunk into the table. And next to the dagger lay a little slip of paper, its ragged edges framing two words in gently flowing script: not guilty.

And outside the courthouse, life went on.

Author's Note

I don’t usually do author’s notes. I generally believe that a work should stand or fall on its own, and that author’s notes are either irrelevant in the long run (a quick “next chapter coming in a week!” makes no sense two years later) or should be within the main story itself.

And yet, here I am, with too many thoughts to stuff into the story description yet too few to let slip by entirely.

Twelve Angry Mares is, as one might suspect from the title, a fairly straight adaptation of Twelve Angry Men, the 1954 screenplay by Reginald Rose, perhaps best known for its 1957 film incarnation starring Henry Fonda. The present adaptation draws heavily from the film, but is also influenced by the original screenplay’s presentation and act structure. And, of course, there are some things that are just different.

Chief among the differences is that Twelve Angry Men is, for all its dramatic structure, no longer an accurate reflection of the American legal system, if indeed it ever was. To offer one prominent example, while much of the drama in Twelve Angry Men is premised on the jurors’ knowledge that a guilty verdict means the death penalty, that’s not quite how things work: in almost all circumstances, the jury cannot know the possible sentencing range, and even informing the jury of a potential sentence may be grounds for a mistrial.

I have changed a few things here and there to bring Twelve Angry Mares in line with the legal system as it currently stands, but at the end of the day I’ve had to let a lot go. Describing the differences between Twelve Angry Men and the contemporary criminal trial process is not a new exercise, and I will not bore you with repeating it here.

I will, however, note that modern juries are given extensive instruction on what they must do; many states have standardized jury instructions, pre-determined forms that provide the appropriate amount of information so that no jury works in the blind. The value of these instructions is a subject of not insignificant scholarly debate, but they exist. Obviously, what the jury does with their instructions is another question entirely, but no jury would ever go into deliberations ‘blind.’ The core story told, this tug-of-war between logic and prejudice, is replayed on a daily basis around the world — maybe with different characters, elements, and plots, but it’s the same story nevertheless.

About a year ago, I found myself killing some time in a jury room. Located on the nineteenth floor of a big city skyscraper, it had a beautiful view of the city below and water beyond, of the countless people going about their daily lives on a sunny afternoon. The room itself was modern in design and furnishing, but one of our angry men would have felt right at home: the room had a long, rectangular conference table, twelve chairs, a bank of windows, a little washroom, a small water fountain. All the elements of fifty years ago — with one addition. The walls weren’t bare, but instead had two little framed quotations, one on either side of the big room. The frames were small, and couldn’t have been more than eight or ten inches across, but the words were legible enough: Juror Eight’s speech on emotion, and Juror Eleven’s monologue on justice.

Twelve Angry Men is a powerful story, and its basic elements have a resonance that goes beyond space and time, for it strikes at the heart of notion of justice, fairness, and what is right. I greatly enjoyed telling this story once again, this time with ponies, and sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

Prologue

Outside the courthouse, life went on. From trading goods at the local market to pleasantries in the shade of the oak trees, ponies went about their business without too much worry. Every so often a herd of foals would come thundering past on one game or other, but most had long since migrated to the closest river or lake to beat the summer heat. The happy shouts and general bustle found their way to every corner of the town, save for an imposing and utilitarian building tucked away behind the town hall, a place where even the birds seemed to keep a respectful quiet.

The granite of the courthouse halls muted the sounds of the outside world to a faint hum, a constant reminder to those inside that this was a place of gravity. Businessmares discussed strategies over sheaves of documents; clerks accepted and dispensed papers; families gathered in their best attire around one of their own to offer back-slapping congratulations — or savor those last few moments of freedom.

But the hot and muggy air of the courtroom absorbed any remnants of the outside world, leaving only the droning of the judge, accompanied by an occasional creak as the attorneys shifted in their seats, attorneys who had heard the admonishment a hundred times before. The jury, however, had not, and sat, stock-still, with the rapt attention of one who isn’t quite sure what is going on but knows she ought to pay very close attention.

By contrast, the accused virtually ignored the judge, spending his last few minutes of the trial watching the jury, those twelve mares selected by lots to choose his own fate. They, in turn, largely ignored the young pony in the grey jumpsuit. They had seen enough of him already, and there wasn’t much else to look at in that direction: behind him stretched three or four long rows of empty benches. The pony had turned to look back at the benches several times over the past few days. Was he waiting for someone? No one came. No one cared. It didn’t matter any more, because time was up.

With a symphonic shuffling of hooves and scraping of chairs the jury stood as one, following the bailiff out of the courtroom. Some glanced back for a last look at the accused, but none held his gaze for more than a moment. One by one they stepped out the door, and then all at once the jury box was empty.