Hello Grandmother,

I really don’t believe that the person representing Kelly Burke in her trial is who he says he is, but at this point, I’m having trouble disputing it. You see, he claims to be Richard the III, former king of England. Richard is one of England’s most reviled rulers, scorned through the ages by Shakespeare and other great writers as child killer and pretender to the English crown who was quickly dethroned. But the real Richard was a human being, caught in a web of dangerous times, and not necessarily the monster he’s been portrayed as. Not to mention the fact that his death in battle is well documented. I find it hard to believe that the vampire attorney is in fact an undead English Monarch.

Whoever he is, he’s voluntarily chosen to take on an unenviable task. To defend a killer to a court that’s already decided her guilt. And in vampire court, you must prove innocence before you know all the evidence against you. So Richard will be up first, defending against a litany of bizarre and macabre charges that have complex and unclear explanations. According to reports that have come out of the trial, his opening argument focused less on forming an alibi than on painting the Ministries in a bad light, detailing how they have persecuted a religious minority. Not necessarily the most winning strategy in Ministry dominated proceedings. But winning may not be his aim. He may simply have flown all this way to prove a point, to set up his own insurgency towards the Ministries. Because calling yourself Richard III is not something you do out of humility, and it’s not something that you do unless you’re looking to make a point.

-1159

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