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Rodan must have heard a certain tone in her voice for he abruptly straightened, the mild curiosity transforming to intense interest. “Continue. I'm listening.”
Anhuset exhaled slowly, choosing her words carefully on that long, drawn out breath. “I know for a fact the accusations made by Bryzant the steward are false and motivated by envy, greed, and the desire to rise by any means necessary. Chamtivos's interest in Lord Pangion was only the money his death would bring him, money promised to him by Bryzant. The warlord told me so himself. For Bryzant, the margrave was simply an obstacle to be removed and Chamtivos the tool to do it. Such a man who'll betray his liege puts no value on loyalty and will betray anyone.” She let that last word linger in the air for a moment. “But as you say, I'm not objective in this matter. Bryzant wanted all of us dead. No witnesses.”
She had set the framework of her argument, and in that moment she desperately wished Brishen were here to make it instead of her. He'd do so with ease and a naturalness that didn't come to her without immense struggle. The perspiration beaded on her back now trickled down the valley of her spine. “I believe wholeheartedly in Lord Pangion's innocence. I will stake my life on it.” Rodan's eyes narrowed, and she saw within his face a hint of burgeoning understanding for what she was about to say. “Beladine law states the accused may prove his innocence by choosing a champion to fight for him in judicial combat. If the champion wins, the accused will be acquitted and allowed to go free.”
An image of Brishen's ashy face, with his mouth thinned in worry, and his eye a yellow paler than an early autumn moon as he stood by her horse to see her off, rose in her mind. “Win that combat, cousin. Paint the city red with your opponent's blood if you have to, but win that fight and come back to us alive.”
Rodan steepled his fingers together and peered at her over their tips. “I'm familiar with our laws, Kai woman.” A small frown stitched a line across his brow. “You realize this would be a fight to the death? You lose, you die, and so does the margrave. And there may not be anyone to accept your challenge; therefore, no fight.”
That very thing had been Brishen's greatest fear while they hatched this plan. Anhuset had a reason, a motivation, to lay down her challenge, but there had to be one of equal importance for an opponent to accept it and step inside the arena with her knowing they might well die there.
“Someone always accepts, Your Majesty, if the prize is great enough.”
A grim smile darkened the king's face, and his expression turned flinty. “I sense the Khaskem cleverness in all of this. What prize do you think is worthy enough to lure someone into the arena and risk their life to fight a Kai warrior?”
Brishen's voice echoed in her ears. “Will this steward face you in the arena if he was offered something of immense value? High Salure itself? Serovek controls it because it's his family's demesne, not because he's a margrave. This steward could be offered the holdings and let the king appoint a margrave to handle the actual governing.”
Anhuset had laughed at the suggestion. “From what I saw of Bryzant, he's a milksop who pays others to spill blood for him. The last time I saw him he practically wet himself while standing on a kitchen table to avoid a loose scarpatine. He wouldn't come near me.”
But Brishen's idea had merit with some alterations, and she presented it to Rodan now. “High Salure is a jewel in your crown, Your Majesty. It belongs to the Pangion family, which has no heirs except his lordship to claim it. While it may lie at your far borders, it's wealthy and strategically important. There are other brave, fighting men among your nobles who'd surely be tempted to make High Salure theirs.” Thank the gods Serovek wasn't in the same room to hear her say those words. He'd try to strangle her.
“This gets more interesting by the moment,” Rodan said. “Approval of judicial combat is at my discretion according to those same laws. You winning doesn't mean Serovek is absolved; he only earns his freedom to cause trouble for me at a later date.” Jealousy, envy, and poisonous suspicion which had turned the king against one of his most loyal subjects, practically radiated from his body. Anhuset inwardly flinched. Brishen's predictions had been dead accurate so far regarding Rodan's every move and the motivation behind them.
“It's why I submit my second proposal, Your Majesty.” How in the gods' name she managed to keep her voice this calm so far, she'd never know. “Should you agree to a trial by combat and I emerge the victor, then I will extend an offer of marriage to Lord Pangion. A union of Kai and Beladine human made in good faith.”
When Brishen first made such a suggestion to her, she had no doubt she'd looked at him the same way Rodan was looking at her now—speechless from shock.
“Don't look at me as if I've lost my senses,” her cousin had said with a humorless chuckle. “I assure you I haven't. The greatest dangers to Serovek are his reputation and his standing. He's a prime catch for every Beladine noble family with a marriageable daughter, powerful noblemen with large estates who can field personal armies and make alliances. You can win a dozen judicial combats and Rodan will find a way to have Serovek arrested again, and I fear the next time he'll resort to torture to wring an untrue confession out of our friend.”
Anhuset's stomach had plummeted not only at Brishen's words but at the shadow of memory behind his eye. If anyone knew the horrors of torture, it was him. His reasoning lay heavy on her shoulders, layers upon layers of hard choices that would directly affect the rest of her life in great and small ways if she followed the line of his thinking and agreed to it. “He's no longer a prime catch if he marries someone like me.” A bastard Kai woman who couldn't bear him children, was neither Beladine nor recognized as noble, who lost her magic and couldn't tie a hair ribbon properly, who knew much of war and little of feminine graces, who would never be a sought-after widow or gain an inheritance. A woman of no value at all to a Beladine nobleman seeking to rise in power.
Brishen had nodded. “Not someone like you. You specifically. Such a marriage would only be tolerated if Serovek remained a margrave. The Beladine people will never accept a Kai queen consort, even if she were the wife of a popular usurper.”
She had instantly accepted the risks and dangers of acting as Serovek's champion in a fight to the death. Done so without a second thought. But a marriage...
Brishen had encouraged her to take an entire day to consider it before she gave him her answer, and she'd used the entire day to ponder over her choices. She had never stooped to coyness and loathed it in others. She'd faced death without looking away many times. Facing life and doing the same was much harder, but she didn't turn from truth, and the truth was she'd fallen in love with a handsome-ugly human man of immense courage and unwavering integrity. If Serovek was worth dying for, he was certainly worth marrying, and once past the upheaval of her own heart and thoughts at the realization her life would irrevocably change if she became his wife, she embraced the idea. Only the question remained if he'd embrace it as well.
“Of the many things I might have expected you to say, I didn't expect that,” Rodan said. “Let me ask you this first. Why would you want to marry Serovek? Surely, the Khaskem wouldn't approve of such a match between hisshaand one of my noblemen?”
The words stuck in her throat for a moment, but she forced them out and past her lips. “I would no longer be hissha, nor will I be allowed to remain in the Kai army.”
His frown deepened. “Surely you'd give up more than that. Are you not third in line for the throne after the queen regnant and the Khaskem?”
The question surprised and sent a spike of unease through her. How had he known she was related to Brishen through his father's line? Even most of the Kai only thought of her as hissha, nothing more, and those who knew otherwise didn't discuss it, especially with humans. “I'm not in any line, Your Majesty. I'mgameza, a bastard; the daughter of King Djedor's sister and a stablehand.” She described her heritage without embarrassment. She didn't place her personal value on her bloodlines. “Kai inheritance laws bargamezasfrom succession of any kind.”
“Interesting.” Rodan's face had soured even more with her explanation. Anhuset prayed it wasn't because he didn't believe her but because he suffered from the same prejudices against bastards many of noble birth possessed. Disdain in this instance was of no importance. Disbelief was a problem. “Why,” he said, “would a high-ranking Beladine like Serovek choose to bind himself to you? Granted, his debt to you for saving him should you win the trial would be immense, but such debt can be satisfied with payment, and he's a wealthy man.”
Disdain it was, and Anhuset almost fell to her knees to thank the gods for Rodan's prejudiced haughtiness. “I believe he desires such a bond as I do, Your Majesty,” she told him with a shrug. “And what is the harm in asking? If he says no, I still offer myself as his champion.”
And for your sake, you better say yes, Stallion,she thought.
The king stared at her for so long, she began to wonder if he'd fallen asleep on the throne with his eyes open. Did humans sometimes sleep that way? She hadn't witnessed such a thing before, but those strange eyes did things no Kai eyes did. With any luck, he was still wide awake and concluding what she and Brishen had hoped to impart: that with a Kai wife destroying any chances of Serovek pursuing the throne, it would benefit Rodan more to keep his capable margrave alive and governing the hinterlands.
Finally, he spoke. “Fascinating. I'll consider your words and take council with my advisors regarding the request for trial by combat as well as a marriage.” He tilted his head to the side, regarding her with the intensity of a man trying to figure out a baffling puzzle. “I'm undecided, sha-Anhuset, if you're very brave or very reckless.”
“One can be both, Your Majesty.”
For the first time in this unending audience, Rodan gave up a small huff of amusement. “Very true. You're welcome to take lodgings in the palace if you wish it.”
