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He blinked, obviously taken by surprise at her question. “What?” He shook his head. “That's of no importance.”
“It's of every importance, Your Highness.” She wielded the most formal of addresses to impress upon him the importance of his approval, how it went against everything she'd adhered to as asha. He was her cousin, yes, but he was her liege.
Brishen sighed. “Of course you have it. I leave all but one choice in this matter up to you.” Her stomach somersaulted as relief washed through her, though she held her breath waiting to hear what the one choice was. “When you go, you go as Anhuset, not sha-Anhuset. You will not stand before Rodan as the second of the Khaskem, as an ambassador for the queen regnant or a representative of Bast-Haradis. You go as a Kai woman who just so happens to be a friend of Serovek and a witness to his actions during the journey to the Nazim monastery in the Lobak valley. Anything else will look like the meddling of a foreign power in the affairs of the Beladine nation, and that has all the elements for inciting a war.” His features saddened. “Serovek Pangion is my friend and my battle brother, but Bast-Haradis has sacrificed enough, suffered enough. I won't send it into a war for one man, not even him. It's on you alone, Anhuset.”
Why he thought she might balk at such restrictions or the heavy weight of such a responsibility, she didn't know and groaned inwardly when he said, “One more thing, and this will be your greatest challenge in this endeavor.”
As if facing King Rodan and winning a fight to the death while in a human kingdom wasn't challenge enough.
“A victory in an arena will guarantee a single reprieve for a single instance. I doubt Rodan believes a word Bryzant has told him about Serovek allying himself with an insurrectionist like Chamtivos. He could raise a rebellion of his own at any time if he wanted to without help from a backwater cur like that. Bryzant gave Rodan what he was looking for: an excuse to get rid of a perceived threat that wouldn't outrage his people over the execution of a man who'd helped save them all.”
Dread darkened her hope. “If I win, the king will simply find another way to arrest him again. There will be no trial. No second chances.” It was a grim consideration, one she couldn't dwell on. Her purpose was to just help him survive this imprisonment and pray another wasn't forthcoming later.
Brishen nodded. “Serovek is a threat because he's a viable usurper who could win support among Rodan's restless nobles. He's from a respected Beladine family; he's wealthy, and he's proven himself an exceptional fighter. His rise would raise benefit other powerful families through popularity, money, and heirs. He's the stuff bards weave tales from when they speak of heroes. Men of great place.”
“He doesn't want any of that.”
“We know it, but we're not the ones who need convincing. Serovek has to be diminished, become lesser in the eyes of the Beladine people and therefore no longer a threat to their king.” Brishen paused, frowning as if searching for the right words. His hesitation tightened the knot of trepidation in Anhuset's belly. “The Anhuset who left Saggara to journey with Serovek Pangion isn't the same Anhuset who returned. Ildiko saw it. So did I. You love the margrave enough to willingly—eagerly—act his champion in a fight to the death. Do you love him enough to marry him?”
Chapter Sixteen
Popularity had its pitfalls.
The prison knownas the Zela housed every manner of criminal, from the debtor to the murderer, the thief and the traitor alike. It wasn't the crime that determined where in the Zela one was incarcerated but the status of the criminal. A troop of palace guards had turned Serovek over to the warden and his men with instructions that he be put in a cell on the topmost floor.
This one lacked the comforts most Beladine nobility was accustomed to, but it had a chair and table and a bed that looked free of fleas. The sliver of window set high in the wall allowed in a small bit of light and a great deal of cold wind. There were no tapestries or rugs to warm the cell, and the blankets folded on the bed looked threadbare. Serovek was thankful he wore heavy clothing to ward off the worst of the chill.
The warden blew on his fingers before tucking his hands under his arms. He peered at Serovek from the other side of the cell bars. “Never thought to have the margrave of High Salure as my guest here at the Zela,” he said. There was genuine puzzlement in his voice instead of mockery, and even a touch of disappointment.
“Home it is not,” Serovek replied, keeping his answers noncommittal. Everything he to anyone in this place would be immediately reported back to the king. He didn't believe a word of Rodan's statement that he would take time to consider Serovek's guilt or innocence. It didn't matter which he was. What mattered to Rodan was the possibility of his margrave usurping his throne and how best to neutralize that threat. This little interlude of hospitality was just his way of making Serovek stew, to increase his fear and panic. At the moment, all it did was stir the deep-seated fury burning hot enough inside him to make him sweat despite the cold. Too bad his steward wasn't in here with him right now. Serovek would cheerfully tear off Bryzant's arms and beat him to death with both.
“Prisoners are given dinner in an hour,” the warden said. “And being who you are, you can have visitors, though they stay on this side of the bars. Is there anyone you want to see?”
Serovek almost declined, then changed his mind. “A king's chronicler,” he said. “There's one I've spoken with before. Jahna Uhlfrida. If she isn't available, then another will do.”
He'd manage to find a way out of this disaster with his head still attached to his shoulders and High Salure returned to him. Serovek had watched Rodan's expressions while he read Bryzant's letter. Mocking disbelief, contempt—each expression flickering across the king's face as he read aloud. If there was to be a true trial, then it wouldn't be so much a matter of convincing the king of his innocence but of convincing him of his loyalty and disinterest in the throne. By his estimation, he had three days at most to plan what he'd say. In that time, he'd make use of the Archives and their purpose in chronicling major events in the Beladine kingdom to recount his journey to the Lobak valley and the death of Chamtivos.
The idea hadn't occurred to him until he considered how he might get a message to Anhuset. Not a plea for rescue but a note of reassurance that he was still alive, not to worry, and to take care of Magas. Serovek smiled as he imaged her scoffing at reading such pap. He could only assume she and Erostis had successfully made it to Saggara and warned Brishen. As Serovek Pangion, his death would be meaningless, just another criminal put to death at the king's pleasure. As margrave of High Salure though, his death would have an impact on the stability of the hinterlands and Bast-Haradis that bordered them. He had no doubt both King Rodan and the Khaskem were very aware of that and likely why Rodan had been quick to arrest but slow to condemn him.
As the warden had noted earlier when he first arrived, a prison guard brought dinner, sliding the tray through a narrow slot at floor level that didn't require opening the cell door to hand him his meal. The cell bars themselves were narrow, allowing a half hand's span of room between them but that was all. While the bars offered no privacy, Serovek was glad they weren't the doors set into the stone walls, with only a spyhole in the wood for a guard to check on a prisoner, if they even remembered to do so. Those were tombs.
His meal was plain, tasteless fare, and an hour later he remembered nothing about it. Other less hardy noblemen incarcerated like him might complain, but he'd had worse and less. At least, based on the fact he was still standing and not writhing on the floor in pain and foaming at the mouth, it wasn't poisoned.
He'd just shoved the empty tray back through the slot to be retrieved by another guard or servant when approaching footsteps—one in heavy boots, the other, soft shoes—alerted him that he had another visitor. When they finally came into view, he was surprised to see an old woman of queenly bearing accompanying a guard. At Serovek's cell, the guard bowed to her and retreated to a spot where he could see—and hear—the visitor.
Serovek didn't know her, but he recognized the insignia on her heavy cloak and the concealing headdress that covered her from the top of her head to her shoulders, leaving only her lined face bare. Her sunken cheeks were ruddy with the cold and her eyes as sharp as any hawk's. A dame of the Archives.
She stood close to the bars, watching him in silence as he came toward her, her gaze measuring as it swept him from head to food. “Lord Pangion,” she said. “I am Dame Stalt. A messenger arrived at the Archives. We don't usually receive requests for an audience from the Zela.”
He offered a brief salute. “Madam, I expected a chronicler, not one of the exalted dames herself.”
One faded eyebrow rose and her lips twitched at the corners. “I admit to the failing of too much curiosity, though it's a necessary one considering what I do. Of the nobles who've passed the hours in this place, I never expected to find one of the men who fought thegalladoing so.”
The warden had said something similar. At least people acted surprised instead of expectant to find him here. “A remark I imagine I'll hear many times over the next few days. I'm sure I'll echo the refrain of every person in the Zela when I say I'm innocent of the charges.” He gestured to the bars. “I'd invite you in and order wine or ale, but as you see, there are restrictions.”
Her expression told him she was aware of his attempt at charm and utterly immune to it. In a small way she reminded him of Anhuset. “How may I be of service to you, Lord Pangion?”
“While I recognize the honor of your presence here, I asked for Jahna Uhlfrida.”
