Chapter 5: Trial by Combat

The king, with some help and egging on, decides how to handle the stranger. Lavender tries to speak up for him, and is ordered to be punished.

 It didn’t work out that way at all, and breakfast was a nightmare.  Bolton and Simon were also eating at the royal table, to discuss the matter of the prisoner.  I was sitting right next to my father, but still had to struggle to hear what was said over the whispers and giggles of my half sisters on my other side.

 “Braxon said he was covered in hair,” Bella, the youngest said.

 “Not just that bit on his face.  But his arms, his chest...” said Lacey, the oldest.

 Then Pinvey, the middle half sister and one of my worst enemies, spoke.  “I don’t care about that.”  The other two followed her constantly, sucking up to her.  She was the prettiest.  Perhaps the prettiest girl in the kingdom.  Her hair was silken blond, and of course her wings were perfectly transparent.  I couldn’t look at her without becoming enraged with jealousy, especially when I saw how she treated men.  They were nothing but toys to her, and she made sure they knew and accepted that before they were allowed near her.  She would use and humiliate them any way she could, and still they flocked to her, just because she was the prettiest...  “Did he really smell like an animal?” she asked.

 The other two looked at each other.  Pinvey laughed, winning one of her petty power games.  “Oh, of course, Braxon didn’t get close to him.  Well, Simon said he did.  He told me his skin was wet, and that it smelled.”  Simon was the one exception to Pinvey’s rule on men, probably just because they shared the same mean spirit.  They often dallied together, when they weren’t busy finding some way to torment someone.

 “What else did Simon say?” whispered Bella, playing into her game.

 I tried again to ignore them and listen to my father speak with Bolton, though it was Simon doing most of the talking.  Simon wanted to find some way, any way, to make Lumenovus suffer.  The chamberlain, my father’s advisor, merely wanted justice for the sake of the court.  My father just wanted done with the whole business.

 “Sire, if we do cut his hand off, we will be maiming him, possibly killing him,” the chamberlain said.  “That is not our punishment for stealing.  I say again, it may be best to simply let him go.”

 I closed my eyes, wishing for my father to mumble some agreement so it could all be over.  Instead, he said, “That may have been suitable, Chamberlain, if not for the fact that these two idiots dragged him across a parade line in front of everybody.  I should charge him for interrupting the ceremony, as well...   Well, never mind that.  Still, he was accused of stealing publicly, he must be suitably punished, publicly.  Then he may go.”

 “How about we flog him?” Simon said with a sadistic smile.

 “No, sire, that creates the same problem.  If his wounds do not heal we may be killing him,” the chamberlain put in.

 “The stocks?” Bolton suggested.

 Father laughed.  “Unless human anatomy is far more different than ours than I am aware of, Bolton, may I remind you that he is not a woman?”

 “Just cut his hand off anyway, and send him on his way,” Simon said.  “What matter if he wanders off and dies somewhere in the wilderness?”

 “Away from the public eye,” my father mused, and I could tell he was seriously considering it.

 “No!” I cried, and regretted it immediately.  I had clearly annoyed my father, and a gleam in Simon’s eyes told me that he now knew I cared about the stranger.

 “You object, Princess?” Simon said, mocking me.

 “Father,” I said, and turned to face him fully.  I spoke quietly, and held his hand.  “As king, isn’t your first job to be fair to all in your realm?  If you hurt him so that you know he’s going to die, isn’t that just a facade of justice?  You’re better than that.”

 “Someone may discover the corpse,” the chamberlain added, not to be on my side, but out of practicality.

 “I’ll chase him away myself,” Simon said.  “No one will find him.”

 “No!” my father said, his annoyance growing.  “No, it must be something else.”

 The table lapsed into silence, the men staring at their food and thinking.  Except for Simon, who was smiling at me and thinking.

 I averted my gaze.  He knew I didn’t want to see the human hurt.  “Sire?  How about trial by combat?  In the training arena.”  He suggested it while still looking right at me.

 I interrupted my father as he was about to speak.  “He’ll be killed there, too!”

 “Lavender!  Hush!” Father yelled.  He raised his hand and I cringed, but he didn’t hit me.  “You are not part of this conversation anyway,” he hissed at me.  “Know your place, girl!”

 Simon continued to sell his idea.  “Sure, he’ll die, sire.  But you will be able to say you gave him a fair chance.  Surely, if he is innocent then the gods will see him through it?”

 “How is pitting a mortal our size against a bladed fairy, in any sense, justice?” I said, mostly to myself.

 Father turned to face me slowly, threateningly.  “Lavender, I am trying to figure this out.  If you interrupt me once more, you will end up in the stocks yourself.”

 At this mention of the word ‘stocks’, Simon and I looked at each other instantly.  He grinned, and my hand tightened around my fork.  He licked his lips.  I looked down in silent fury, determined to hold my tongue.  I would not give him the satisfaction.

 “Chamberlain? Your opinion?”

 “It is a relatively obscure law, sire.  I would have to refresh myself on its finer points at any rate, but as with his hand, I’m also not sure how his mortality would figure into things.  Such fragile creatures, humans...  Picture the first match alone.  Say they each score five or so cuts, and by some miracle the fairy yields.  The next match starts, and there’s the human, already with five cuts, still bleeding.  Unimaginable, but so.”

 Trial by combat...  I had seen one once, so long ago I could barely remember.  I was still a child, my mother was still alive.  It took weeks to complete.  I don’t know what the man’s crime was, I don’t think I knew then either.  I just saw him fight for around an hour a day.  He and a member of the army would face off in the arena cutting each other until one yelled ‘yield’.  Every day he had to face as many soldiers as would fight him, the soldiers being rewarded with extra food, or a special consort for the night.  The arena was always offering entertainment, but it was usually those soldiers who were picked as performing poorest during drills that fought for our amusement.  It kept the troops training hard, for though we healed instantly, getting cut still hurt all the same.  How many years must it have been since a criminal was in the arena...

 Chamberlain was right.  With even every small cut counting against the stranger, he was at an enormous disadvantage.  How could he be expected to stand up to the whole army, one after another?  I wanted to cry out, but Simon’s greedy eyes on my body clenched my jaw for me.

 “I’ll hack him to pieces myself, just to have done with all this,” he said in a slow, measured tone, trying to egg me on.

 “Enough, Simon,” my father said, lost in thought.  “Trial by combat...  We’d have to come up with some sort of explanation as to why he’s being treated differently.  Can you do that, Chamberlain?”

 “I believe so, sire.  I’ve a basic idea already, in fact.”

 “One less human in the world,” Father said as he sipped some wine.  “I like it.  Even being nearly our size they’re filthy animals, they’re just...  Filthy.  That cut on his arm!  Bleeding and bleeding.”

 “He can’t bleed forever.  He’ll run out of blood,” Simon said, still looking at me.

 The matter seemed settled, so I didn’t think I would be interrupting at this point.  “Father,” I begged.  “You gave up the idea of taking his hand, agreeing it would only be a facade of justice.  Yet you admit to knowing this idea is also killing him outright.  All he did was take food when he was hungry, he doesn’t deserve...”

 He backhanded me so fast I didn’t have time to blink, sending my half sisters into another fit of giggling.  “I said I wanted to hear nothing more from you,” he told me.  “This is a court matter, it doesn’t concern a woman at all.  I said to know your place.  Clearly, you don’t.  I will show it to you.  Guards!  Put her in the stocks, for a full turn of the earth!”

 I made sure not to look at Simon or Pinvey as I was taken away.  Their eyes would be filled with a gleeful malice that I did not want to be the last thing I saw before being locked up.  I was sure I would see Simon later, anyway.  Yet, even that was not what troubled me the most.  I realized that being locked up for a day would prevent me from keeping my promise to visit the stranger that morning.  That was the only reason I cried as they led me away.

Reviews

[Sarah]

Wow. I really enjoyed this chapter. It leaves you feeling very sympathetic for Lavender, yet curious to know what will happen with Lumenovus. Will he be upset? Angry? or will he be understanding of the situation? I like how Simon is portrayed so menacingly as he provokes Lavender, knowing it will upset her. I think his characterization is absolutely perfect. This really is a time when women had no say and it's clear that their opinions are not valued in the slightest. Overall, good chapter that left me wanting to read the next one. Well done!