Beyond The Stone

Chapter 9

Tristava spotted Brantly standing near the seat of power. They collectively glared at him as they were shoved to their knees a short distance away.

The tubby, weathered man seated before them seemed tired.

'He hath no crown. He wears only a sash of authority and a chain of office. 'Tis to our benefit,' Tristan noted with a little exhale.

'He looks exhausted,' Ava noted.

'Aye. His authority wears heavily on him after so many years,' Tristan agreed.

"On the charge of evading arrest, indecent exposure, and... pleasuring himself in public, this man was arrested and sentenced to trial," someone announced.

'Zootkins' Tristan hissed under his breath.

Ava was finding his exclamations entertaining, despite the seeming desperateness of their situation. She tried not to grin.

''Tis no laughing matter,' he growled, 'I cannot deny that charge.'

"What have you to say on the matter?" the magistrate standing next to the throne-type chair asked wearily.

Tristan opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Even now with his life in the balance in a foreign place, he could not go against his oath and lie his way out of it.

"If he shall behave as an animal, let him serve as one. Have him stripped of all possessions and let him serve six months of serfdom," the man on the chair determined. "Next!"

"Wait, what?" Ava asked in disbelief as the guards grabbed her arms.

'Shut it!' Tristan growled. 'Six months be a light sentence.'

"What about your promise? What about saving your damned life?" Ava growled at Brantly's smug face as she was dragged past it.

He looked a little rattled by her decision to speak out in court. He tried to pretend that he was unaffected.

'Shut it woman, before we get the noose!' Tristan hissed.

"Oh don't pretend honor now. What reward is there in tricking in an injured man out of his sword belt to have him arrested!" she shouted angrily.

Brantly looked visibly irked by her frank confession of his wrongs in public. He swallowed hard and shuffled his feet. The man in the chair eyed him studiously. He seemed mildly entertained by the drama unraveling at his feet. Tristava was almost at the door when the enthroned man put up a hand and everything in the room seemed to stop. Ava could sense Tristan's anxiety spike. She swallowed hard.

"Explain your meaning," the man invited.

"Your royal grace, Duke Kensington," Brantly protested.

Kensington silenced him with a wave of his hand. Ava turned and looked at the duke. Tristan forced their eyes to the ground with a respectful bow of the head. 'He is brother to the king,' Tristan informed her nervously.

"Your honor," Ava began, thinking of the court trials she'd watched on TV.

"...is impugnable, thy royal grace," Tristan finished nervously.

'Wrong title?' Ava queried.

'What dost thou think? Be quiet, woman!' Tristan hissed.

Before Ava could make a second attempt at defending them, a disheveled looking old warrior approached the duke's chair and handed him a note with a bow. He held up a hand to halt the proceedings, then opened the note and read it in silence.

"This is most disconcerting, Sir Rowan," he noted when he finished.

He was speaking to the man who had delivered the note.