Honath's guards resumed picking their pine-cones. During the disturbance, Honath realized Charl the Reader had been brought in quietly from the same side of the glade. He now sat opposite Alaskon, looking apathetically down at the vine-web, his shoulders hunched forward. He exuded despair; even to look at him made Honath feel a renewed shudder. From the High Seat, the Spokesman said: "Honath the Pursemaker, Alaskon the Navigator, Charl the Reader, Seth the Needlesmith Mathild the Forager, you are called to answer to justice." "Justice!" Seth shouted, springing free of his captors with a tremendous bound and bringing up with a jerk on the end of his tether. "This is no justice! I have nothing to do with--" The guards caught up with him and clamped brown hands firmly over his mouth. The Spokesman watched with amused malice. "The accusations are three," the Spokesman said. "The first, the telling of lies to children. Second, the casting into doubt of the divine order among men. Third, the denial of the Book of Laws. Each of you may speak in order of age. Honath the Pursemaker, your plea may be heard." Honath stood up, trembling a little, but feeling a surprisingly renewed surge of his old independence. "Your charges," he said, "all rest upon the denial of the Book of Laws. I have taught nothing else that is contrary to what we all believe, and called nothing else into doubt. And I deny the charge." The Spokesman looked down at him with disbelief. "Many men and women have said that you do not believe in the Giants, pursemaker," he said. "You will not win mercy by piling up more lies." "I deny the charge," Honath insisted. "I believe in the Book of Laws as a whole, and I believe in the Giants. I have taught only that the Giants were not real in the sense that we are real. I have taught that they were intended as symbols of some higher reality and were not meant to be taken as literal persons." "What higher reality is this?" the Spokesman demanded. "Describe it." "You ask me to do something the writers of the Book of Laws themselves couldn't do," Honath said hotly. "If they had to embody the reality in symbols rather than writing it down directly, how could a mere pursemaker do better?" "This doctrine is wind," the Spokesman said. "And it is plainly intended to undercut authority and the order established by the Book. Tell me, pursemaker: if men need not fear the Giants, why should they fear the law?"