Lud-in-the-Mist · Chapter
XIV: Dead in the Eye of the Law explained
Master Nathaniel wakes in a foul mood after the previous night's humiliation, but remains undaunted.
What happens
Master Nathaniel wakes in a foul mood after the previous night's humiliation, but remains undaunted. He prepares a bold speech for the Senate, openly naming the Fairies and calling for the death penalty for anyone who brings fairy fruit into Dorimare. To his shock, his speech is met with cold silence. Master Polydore Vigil then rises and has the clerk read an ancient legal fiction: a mayor deemed 'dead in the eye of the Law' may be replaced if his colleagues judge him feeble or treacherous.
Themes in this chapter
Reality vs. Delusion
Nathaniel urges the Senate to look facts in the face even if they resemble dreams, and to abandon 'flimsy legal fictions'—but is met with silence and a counter-legal fiction.
Law and Justice
The chapter revolves around legal fictions: Nathaniel calls for the death penalty under the law, while Polydore invokes an ancient statute that could legally depose the mayor.
Fatherhood and Responsibility
Nathaniel frames his plea in terms of fathers and citizens, arguing that the menace must be uprooted to bequeath security to children.
Characters to notice
- Master Nathaniel Chanticleer
Wakes late and irritable after the previous night's humiliation, but composes a fiery speech to the Senate naming the Fairies and demanding harsh penalties for fairy fruit.
- Dame Marigold Chanticleer
Complains to Nathaniel about the smell of green shag, though he denies smoking it; her shrewish tone is softened by a playful gesture.
- Master Ambrose Honeysuckle
The only senator to audibly support Nathaniel's speech with defiant 'Bravos!'
- Master Polydore Vigil
Rises after Nathaniel's speech to have the clerk read an ancient legal fiction that could be used to remove the mayor from office.
- Duke Aubrey
His portrait in the Senate chamber is described as faintly smiling, a mocking presence throughout the proceedings.
Key passages
“Senators of Dorimare! I am going to ask you this morning to awake. We have been asleep for many centuries, and the Law has sung us lullabies.”
Nathaniel calls on the Senate to rouse themselves from complacency, accusing the Law of having lulled them into a false sense of security.
Opening of Nathaniel's speech, setting a tone of urgent awakening.
“Let us call things by their names—not grograine or tuftaffity, but fairy fruit. And if it be proved that any man has brought such merchandise into Dorimare, let him hang by his neck till he be dead.”
Nathaniel demands that the Senate stop using euphemisms and openly name fairy fruit, and that anyone caught importing it be executed.
Nathaniel's bold call for direct language and capital punishment.
“Further, we ordain that nothing but death alone shall have power to dismiss the Mayor of Lud-in-the-Mist and High Seneschal of Dorimare before the five years of his term of office shall fully have expired. But, the dead, being dumb, feeble, treacherous and given to vanities, if any Mayor at a time of menace to the safety of the Dorimarites be held by his colleagues to be any of these things, then let him be accounted dead in the eye of the Law, and let another be elected in his stead.”
The ancient statute states that a mayor cannot be removed before his term ends except by death, but if colleagues deem him 'dead in the eye of the Law,' they can replace him.
The legal fiction read by the clerk, which Polydore uses to counter Nathaniel.