their protocol, but one of them echoed quietly, "Accepted." With a wide smile, the writer bowed again, backed up three steps, then turned and left the chamber. The board went back to their paperwork.
"Next."

A female prisoner was led in, her wrists bound in front of her. A member stood and posed the question to her. She spat on the floor in defiant response.

"Madam," the member stated, "you have been found guilty of being a cut-purse and a drunken trollop and have had a total of five children out of wedlock. Is that not correct?"

"And what if it is?" she shot back, her head held high, in spite of the
situation.

The member sighed, then said, "It is painfully apparent that you are unable to support your many children by legal means and yet you persist in bringing more children into the world. Why is that, pray?"

"I can have as many babes as I see fit," the woman replied with a sneer.

"Ah, but the problem is, madam, you are not 'fit' to have and raise these children."

"Says who?" she snapped in anger. "A bunch of old men who have nothing better to do than pass judgement on people that be just trying to survive?"

"You are surviving, madam, at the expense of others and your children are suffering as a result of your inability to care for them properly," another member stated.

She spat on the floor again. "Where be me babes?"

"They have been placed in the local orphanage, where they will be raised according to the laws of the realm."

"But, they be not orphans!" she cried, her eyes suddenly wide with fear.

"They indeed shall be, very soon," the first member stated, quietly. He bent to whisper with his fellows for a moment, then straightened up and said, "Disposal."