Trusted (31 page)

“I confess to the same thing. If someone had told me I would fall madly in love with a country girl who would have me wrapped around her finger I would have laughed them out of the castle. But sometimes we don’t know what is best for us until we find it on our own. I was overdue for an heir…and for a connection with someone other than passing fancy.”

“You would have had me be a passing fancy had I not held on to my morals I think,” she said.

“Untrue. I would have been hard pressed to get you out of my system even if you had given in to me.”

“I guess we’ll never know.”

“I do know,” he said with conviction. “Remember? I loved you the moment I met you.”

“Yes, but would you have realized it?”

“I would have. The same as I have now. I could not let you go…no matter what.”

“I am glad. Because to let you go would have broken my heart.”

“Let us not think of it then. Let us be content in what we have with each other. We are trumates, and nothing can tear that apart.”

Sarea smiled.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Tyron’s trial was a public event. It was done out in the open so that anyone could witness justice being done. Every day of the trial Tyron was brought out into the city square to the jeering of the crowd. Then the council would be seated and the king and queen would arrive to preside over the proceedings.

Almost every member of Tyron’s household testified to what they had seen and heard, to the plots Tyron and his daughter had hatched against the queen and king. About the plots with the Umam that would have seen all of the southlands overrun by their enemies.

To say the crowd hated Tyron by the end of the proceedings was a heavy understatement. Tyron was faced with all of this evidence, standing in chains, with nothing to say for himself until the very end of the trial. When the council judged him to be guilty of his crimes and that he should be put to death, he shouted out.

“I challenge superscedence!”

The crowd gasped in a collective breath…then held it. They looked up at the king and waited for his next move.

“You no longer have the right to challenge superscedence,” Garrick said. “All of your rights have been stripped of you by your guilt.”

“Are you afraid then?” Tyron growled. “The mighty king Garrick, afraid of a challenge to his throne? I am more king than you will ever be and I challenge you so I may prove it!”

“I would rather die than hand my kingdom over to the likes of you,” Garrick said. “If it’s a challenge you want then a challenge you shall have. But this fight will be to the death, Tyron. I will not leave you alive to challenge me again.”

“It is I who will not be leaving you alive! And once I kill you I will see to it your bitch never whelps your kit…just in case it grows up and wants to challenge me in the future.”

Sarea reached out and clutched an anxious hand around Garrick’s cuff on his left hand. He caught up her hand and soothed it with a stroke.

“He cannot win,” he said softly.

“Your shoulder,” she said worriedly.

“It is mostly healed,” he said. “It has been a full misra since the injury.” To Tyron he said. “Will you meet me as man or in truform?”

“Truform!” Tyron called out, shocking the crowd. Everyone knew that the king was the largest horta lion in the history of the Vena. Tyron could not possibly measure up.

Garrick stood up and unlaced the cuffs of his shirt. His breath clouded on the air as the crowd pushed back and formed a ring around the center of the city square. The ground was cold and muddied from all of the feet trampling the snow, but that did not faze Garrick. He slowly, methodically, undressed. He nodded his head to the guard and they uncuffed Tyron’s manacles, allowing him to remove his soiled clothing.

Tyron was not an old man. He was not gone to fat, though he was visibly not as fit a man as the king was. As he stood naked, his flaccid cock hung unimpressively. His knees were knobby and sores from his living conditions in the dungeons the past two shona showed on his legs and arms.

Garrick stood impressive and strong. The crowd agreed Tyron must have gone mad to challenge such a man. But nothing about Tyron’s plans had smacked of sense or sanity.

With on large leap from the dais and into the square, Garrick changed in mid-air, landing on all fours as the massive horta lion. He shook out his great black mane and roared. The crowd exploded into cheers.

Tyron leapt down as well, changing on the fly and landing in the shape of a large duro jaguar. The crowd drew a breath to see the close match in size to the king. Close, but not quite. Sarea was on the edge of her seat, her hands clenched into anxious fists, one pressed to her belly over where her child lay nesting.

Tyron screamed, the sound chilling Sarea’s spine. Garrick roared again. Then, quick as a flash, the cats ran at each other. They connected with the sound of flesh and bone meeting flesh and bone. Claws and teeth were bared. Garrick bit down on Tyron’s shoulder, dug in his feet and used the powerful muscles of his neck to shake his opponent. Tyron reached out and swiped both front paws across Garrick’s hide, leaving rent flesh in his wake.

It was all Sarea could do to keep from screaming as she saw Garrick’s blood dripping into the slush and mud. The cats separated, each wounded. But Tyron was limping, his shoulder torn. Suddenly he lunged, going for Garrick’s throat, and this time Sarea did scream. She could not help herself. But Garrick sprang out of the way, leaving Tyron to charge into the crowd. As a whole the crowd shoved him back into the ring with the king.

This time it was Garrick’s turn to lunge. The cats connected in a loud crack of sound and they scrambled around each other, clawing and biting in the mud. Finally Garrick came out on top, pinning Tyron down and clamping his jaws down on Tyron’s jugular vein. Then, with a mighty shake of his head, Garrick rent the vein in two, laying open Tyron’s throat, blood spraying on Garrick, the ground and the crowd. The crowd exclaimed as a whole as Tyron fell down in the mud, the life oozing out of him with every pumping of his heart.

Garrick left him in the mud to die. He leapt back up onto the dais, changing form as soon as he was near his queen. Sarea gasped to see him badly wounded, claw marks and bite marks all over his body. But he kept her away from himself and dressed in spite of his wounds. Blood immediately seeped through his clothing. Garrick stood at the edge of the dais and, as was tradition asked, “Does anyone else challenge superscedence?”

There was silence from the crowd as everyone waited to see if anyone else was insane enough to challenge the king.

There was no one.

“Tomorrow we start the trial of the traitoress Gersa. Hopefully she will confess and we will be able to spare her life. As it is I now deed all of Tyron’s lands and holdings to my unborn son.”

The crowd cheered wildly as Garrick placed a hand on Sarea’s belly. They had not announced the pregnancy officially…until now. Now everyone knew she was to bear the king's heir.

“Sarea! Sarea!” the crowd chanted.

“Come wife, it is cold and dismal today. A day of death. Let us go celebrate life together.”

“Yes, my king.” She said, knowing already what he intended to do. But before she would let him tend his plants and flowers, she would see to it that he saw a medic. She would not lose her husband to a festering wound.

When they entered the castle, she steered him toward the medic. As he sat on the medic’s table with his shirt off, a needle and thread flying through his skin she said, “You should not have given him the right to do this. He was a traitor. Found guilty.”

“I had to accept the challenge. In front of a crowd like that? I would not have anyone saying I do not deserve the crown I bear.”

“You have nothing to prove. Everyone knows that you are the rightful king.”

“I need to be sure of that. If we are to war with the Umam, they need to have total confidence in their king. Now they do. And they know there is an heir to come, solidifying my line’s hold on the throne. The people will be well pleased today.”

“Of course they will. They got to see bloodsport,” Sarea said bitterly.

“That is simply the way of things, wife.”

“Well I wish it were not so.” She leaned in and kissed his mouth, trying not to get in the medic’s way.

Sarea felt Garrick’s hand caressing her rump and she squirmed away in embarrassment.

“What? Cannot a man touch his wife?” he asked, laughing.

“A man can…in private!”

“And here I thought you liked it in public,” he said devilishly.

“Garrick!” she squealed, her face flaming red.

“Come now wife. After the medic is done with his infernal stitching I will take you into privacy.”

“You should not strain the injuries lest the stitches rip,” the medic said with amusement.

“So she must promise to go easy on me then. Do you so promise, wife?”

“Oh! You are incorrigible!”

“I’ll take that as a no,” Garrick said. “Very well, if the stitches rip we know who to blame.”

“If you keep it up there will be entirely new wounds to mend,” Sarea threatened.

“Traitor! To threaten the well-being of the king!” he cried.

“The king threatens his own well-being constantly. It is the queen who attempts to keep him alive and in good health,” Sarea said. “Come then, are you done? Off to bed with you. You will rest or have me to deal with.”

“I like dealing with you,” he said, his hands roaming her body lasciviously as they left the medic’s chamber.

“Enough!” she cried breathlessly. “Is there nothing that can cool your ardor?”

“For you? Never. I will want you even when I am old and decrepit.”

“Ah, but will I want you when you are old and decrepit?”

“I hope so. What do you think?”

She thought about it a very long moment.

“I suppose so,” she relented at last.

He breathed a sigh of exaggerated relief.

“All right then. Come. Let us to bed. But remember you promised to be mindful of my stitches.”

“I promise, I will be as gentle as a lamb,” she said with a chuckle. Then she stopped him in the hall, pulled him close and kissed him slowly. “As long as you promise no more challenges.”

“Believe me, I will avoid them whenever possible.”

“All right then. Come, let me take care of you.”

“That is all a man could ever want or ask for. A pretty wife to take care of him…even when he is old and decrepit.”

“You have my word,” she said. “I will always take care of you. As long as you always have a care for me in return.”

“Love, there is nothing in this world that will ever give me greater pleasure.”