I had to stay present. What had happened on the field couldn’t blow back on Sigrid and Godwin. I breathed the way Wulfstan had taught me, slow and controlled, allowing each exhale to release some of the terror, wishing my father would breathe some of it in.
My father was seated at a long table surrounded by advisors. His throne room looked much the same as it always had, cold and austere, with few decorations but an overall sense of power from the high ceiling and dark stone walls. It reminded me of the man himself, who dressed himself in expensive dark fabrics and a crown bedecked in jewels. He wore it like he was trying to make a point. Perhaps it would’ve been heavy on another head, but his divinely ordained neck was made to carry such wealth with ease.
With a glance at Elric and a flick of his wrist, he dismissed his advisors, but not the pretty maid who was standing next to him while holding a tray of sweetmeats. The courtiers scurriedpast us, but I focused on the king, waiting for him to deign to acknowledge at me.
His dark hair had some grey at the temples, but besides that, he’d aged very little in the time I’d been gone. He still commanded the room with only a gesture, still made me feel small without even glancing at me. Or maybe it wasbecausehe wasn’t looking at me, like I was beneath his notice.
“What now?” he drawled to Elric with a frown.
Elric bowed, then stood at attention. “The prince killed a soldier at training, Your Majesty.”
No mention of the man’s attack, but no mention of Godwin either, so he’d chosen a sort of compromise, the bare minimum truth that neither absolved me nor condemned my allies.
The king finally let his eyes slide up the filth of my uniform to the bruise that was surely blooming on my cheek from Sigrid’s backhand. With a look of distaste, he commanded, “Explain yourself, boy.”
I bit back what I really wanted to say. “The man shot an arrow at my wife’s back. He attempted to murder a member of the royal family.”
At that, he raised an eyebrow and turned back to Elric like that was all he wanted to hear from me. “But he missed?”
A line formed between Elric’s brows. “He wouldn’t have, Majesty. But the Viking caught the arrow.”
“Caught it?” he asked skeptically. “With her shield?”
“No, Majesty. With her bare hand.”
The king processed that piece of information with a bemused expression. “So she was no longer in imminent danger when you retaliated, but you still chose to execute a Saxon subject without so much as a trial?”
I tried to keep feeling out of my tone, lest he hear that the only remorse I had was that I killed the bastard too quickly. “Hewas guilty. Everyone saw. He was a danger to my wife, and the killing was justified.”
He was a danger to her solely because she would’ve disemboweled him with her bare hands and faced the consequences.
Anger sparked in the king’s eyes, revealing something of the viciousness that lay beneath his regal exterior. “And what was your wife doing in the training ring to begin with?”
I didn’t look directly at Elric, but I still saw the tension snap tighter in his shoulders. This was the moment. The moment when I could try to build some trust with my enemy or instead throw him to the wolves and hope my father’s wrath ended up being concentrated on him.
The temptation to point out that Elric had insisted on her participation nearly won out, but he’d held his tongue about Godwin, so I could compromise too. But how to explain it without giving away my feelings for her?
“She’s a warrior, Father. You never expressly forbade her from training with the men. It seemed better to keep her where I could watch her.”
The king rounded on Elric. “And you allowed it?”
“Aye, Majesty. I thought the men might be motivated to train harder if they saw what they might one day be facing on the battlefield. I underestimated how it would provoke them.”
Had he underestimated it, or had he been the one to instigate the attack? His face gave away nothing.
The king looked at the ceiling, then flicked his wrist to dismiss Elric. The captain gave me an unreadable look before marching out of the throne room, leaving only the stone-faced maid standing next to my father.
The king dropped all pretense of civility. “The men think you’re a coward, none of them trust you, and your answer is to knife one of them in the chest on your first day of training?I didn’t bring you home to have you divide the kingdom even further!”
At this shout, the maid jerked her hand that held the tray, spilling sweetmeats onto the floor.
It was easier for me to weather his tirade than his quiet anger. His calm was like boarding an innocent-looking ship, only to have a well-trained crew ambush you from the hold. At least this let me see what I was really dealing with. “Why did youbring me home, Father? Why make this deal with the Vikings?”
The maid scrambled to the ground to clean up the mess she’d made. He kicked at her, and she scurried back. He glared. “If you can’t clean it up properly, you’ll have to clean it up like the dogs.”
She blinked at him with huge terrified eyes. “My lord?”
“Go on,” he snapped. “Clean it up like the dogs would.”
