The Cogsmith's Daughter (Desertera #1)(37)
When Aya’s eyes landed on the girl’s other side, her heart leaped. Seated next to the childish redhead was Willem. He was fussing with his hair, which kept flopping defiantly over one eye. As he did so, the top hat resting in his lap threatened to fall to the floor, and he had to scramble to grab it before it fell. Aya pressed her lips together and repressed a giggle. He was adorable when he was flustered.
As much as Aya would have loved to watch Willem for the rest of the trial, her attention was taken away by a sudden silence. King Archon had stopped laughing, and now that he had decided to compose himself, he had done it so fiercely and quickly that his laughter still echoed throughout the court as he delivered his judgment.
“So your argument, Lady Jauntley, is that you are not truly married to your husband because he refuses to bed you?”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Lady Jauntley replied.
King Archon raised his eyebrows. “And therefore, your bedding of Lord Pottsmore is innocent?”
Lady Jauntley gathered her long, black hair between her hands and fidgeted with it. “I never said that we—”
King Archon held up his hand. “But you implied it. Whether you did or not, you have led me to believe that you have had a sexual affair.”
Lord Pottsmore stood up. The sun from the skylight glinted against his bald head. “Your Majesty, I swear to you that Lady Jauntley’s honor is intact.”
King Archon glowered at the interruption. “Lord Pottsmore, did I address you?”
Lord Pottsmore fell silent.
“Lady Jauntley,” King Archon continued, “intercourse or no, under our divine law, you are your husband’s property, as he is yours. I believe that you were too impatient to wait for your husband to exercise your bodily rights and turned to fulfill your lustful desires elsewhere. I sentence you to execution.”
If Aya hadn’t been sitting, her knees would have buckled right alongside Lady Jauntley’s. The lady fell to the floor, weeping. Lord Pottsmore bent down and held her in his arms.
“And there is my proof,” King Archon declared, pointing at the distraught couple. “Lord Pottsmore, your loving actions support my suspicions. I charge you with aiding Lady Jauntley in her adultery and sentence you to execution.”
Somewhere at the surface of her consciousness, Aya felt her mouth hanging open and her head shaking slowly back and forth—but her mind no longer lingered in the courtroom. King Archon’s pronouncements had sent her back to that day with her father, when Prince Lionel had said the words that would end her father’s life. Her vision blurred, and she could not tell whether she merely cried or was about to faint. She heard the prince’s words echo in her head, over and over. We execute them.
And that was just the past. What would happen to her if she took a misstep with the king? Would he execute her for merely flirting with him? How far would Queen Zedara let their flirtation go before she accused Aya of attempting adultery? Aya imagined herself in Lady Jauntley’s place, giving a one-sentence plea before the king snapped his fingers and sent her out the door to execution.
Lord Varick shook Aya’s shoulder, and she felt herself lurch back into reality. Aya quickly became aware of two facts: her hand was clutched around her neck, and someone in the courtroom was screaming. Aya released her grip and looked down. The guards had returned, and they were attempting to separate Lady Jauntley and Lord Pottsmore. The couple clung to each other. As the guards ripped them apart, their fingernails left slender, red trails on each other’s pale arms. Aya could not make out the words they shouted to each other, but she understood completely. She, too, had said such words.
When the guards finally dragged the couple out separate doors, the courtroom once again fell silent. Lord Jauntley still stood behind his table, staring at the doorway through which his wife had vanished. Aya could guess his thoughts. Lord Jauntley was imagining his wife’s head being lopped off by the executioner, seeing it flop to the floor, watching the blood spurt from her open neck. Aya did not think a noble could go a year without intercourse, and she wondered if perhaps Lord Jauntley were as guilty as his wife, only choosing a more devious route to secure his innocence. From his furrowed brow and agape mouth, Aya could not tell whether Lord Jauntley faced the gravity of what he had done to two people or the gravity of his newfound freedom.
King Archon broke the silence. “Lord Jauntley.” The soon-to-be widower turned to the king, holding out his hands as if he carried a body draped over his arms. “I proclaim you innocent. However, I strongly advise you to put your pecker in your next wife the moment you get her home from the wedding.”
Lord Jauntley nodded, his eyes looking past the king into another space. King Archon returned the gesture with a curt nod of his own before rising from his throne and striding out of the courtroom. With the king departed, the nobles began to file out of the benches, chattering about the excitement of the trial. Aya and Lord Varick stayed seated, the nobles parting around them like a sand slide slipping around an unmovable boulder.
Aya had no words for what had just transpired. She knew now what her father’s trial must have been like—Prince Lionel standing at the right-hand table, saying one sentence to condemn the cogsmith, and her father standing at the other, speaking to deaf ears. Part of her wished she would have been there to support her father, but the smarter part knew that her young mouth probably would have gotten her executed alongside him. No, it was better this way. Aya needed to see this trial now so it would be sharp in her mind, so the memory would still throb like a fresh wound the next time she saw the king, so it would keep her from stepping out of line and losing her own head.