The Hunter's Surrender (8 page)

Then came the call of a voice muffled by the heavy, wooden door. “Your Majesty, we need to come in.”

As Maddie struggled to a sitting position, King Rochar and Santara were already on their feet.

“What’s going on?” she cried.

Santara sighed and took the king’s arm. “I told you this would happen.”

King Rochar shook him off. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“Doesn’t concern me? How can you say that?” Santara was obviously furious.

The king’s expression softened as he looked at him. “Because I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The knocking turned to the banging of a fist. “Your Highness, you must open the door.”

The king turned to Maddie. “Santara will take care of you. He’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” she said. “And don’t you dare say that it doesn’t concern me. I love you. I love you both.”

The door swung open. As a handful of palace guards swarmed into the room, one of them stepped forward. “You need to come with us, Your Majesty.”

“May I dress first?” King Rochar asked, looking down at his naked form.

The officer had the grace to blush. “Of course, Your Highness.”

“May I have a moment with my…friends?”

“We’ll wait in the corridor. You may have a few minutes to say good-bye.” The squadron left, the last man closing the door behind him.

“Make sure you get her out of here as quickly as you can,” the king said to Santara as he pulled on a pair of black leather breeches and torso armor.

At any other time, Maddie would have been delighted and probably have made a comment about him going commando, but she was too worried to give it more than a passing thought.

“I’m not going anywhere. Why are your own troops arresting you?” she asked. “You’re the king, the law.”

The king’s smile was wistful. “But I’m not above the law.”

“Tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help,” Maddie insisted.

“There’s nothing you can do. Santara will take you wherever you need to go.” With that, he turned away and headed for the door.

Maddie clambered off the bed and ran after him, but Santara grabbed her arm and held her back.

“Let him go. He’s right. There’s nothing we can do.”

They watched in silence as King Rochar opened the door and stepped out to join the guards.

Maddie rounded on Santara. “You’re going to let them take him without a fight? I don’t even understand what he’s done wrong.”

“Sit down and I’ll explain, then we’ll figure out how we’re going to rescue our lover.”

Maddie gave him a wide grin. “You had no intention of taking me anywhere, did you?”

“You belong here. You belong with us. Now listen while I tell you about the history of the kings of Tentalia.”

* * * *

The ornate chairs of the High Council members fanned out around him, the occupants solemnly taking in the proceedings. King Rochar stood quietly in the prisoner’s dock as Lord Marberry, His Majesty’s High Court Solicitor, read the charge against him.

“You, King Rochar, having reached your thirtieth year and having failed to do your duty to impregnate the woman chosen to bear the heir to the throne of Tentalia within the allotted time, are charged with treason against the Crown. The penalty for this failure is banishment from the planet Tentalia and the cessation of your line. If proven guilty, from this day forward, neither you, nor any male issue, will hold the right to be called King of Tentalia.”

“How do you answer this charge, Your Highness?” the High Court Solicitor demanded.

“Not guilty, Lord Marberry,” King Rochar responded.

The council members frowned, and he could hear whisperings and mumbling among them.

“Do you deny the fact that, although you knew that the woman in question was fertile, you took Protoron thereby thwarting any chance of achieving pregnancy with the subject?” His interrogator’s tone was skeptical.

“Maddie,” King Rochar responded.

“I beg your pardon?” came the haughty reply.

“I said, her name is Maddie, and I accept your apology,” the king replied coolly.

“My apology? I gave no apology,” the High Solicitor blustered.

“You said, ‘I beg your pardon’, and I assumed you were apologizing for referring to the woman I love as ‘the woman in question’, and ‘the subject’,” King Rochar said in a dark, broach-no-argument tone.

Subdued laughter broke out among the council members.

“I’ll rephrase the question,” the solicitor conceded. “Did you take Protoron, a substance known to prevent pregnancy in the receiving female, when you were with…Maddie?” He said her name as if it were a sour taste in his mouth.

“The Protoron was necessary,” King Rochar said.

Lord Marberry drew his eyebrows together in a scowl. “Necessary? In what way?”

“Maddie had been surreptitiously injected with an implant that allowed us to monitor her female cycle,” the king said.

The shake of his head indicated that Lord Marberry had no idea where the discussion was headed. “That’s common practice for all our ‘subjects’,” he said with a thin smile.

“Yes, that
has
always been our practice. Our scouts find suitable women then discreetly touch them, allowing the receptor implant to migrate beneath the skin and pass its information to us.”

Marberry nodded in agreement and managed a small smile.

“And up until Maddie’s arrival, I had never really thought much about it as I had few women brought to me.”

“That was before your thirtieth birthday, Your Majesty. The law states that when the monarch’s thirtieth birthday is reached, he must couple with a woman specifically chosen for her attributes and produce an heir. A suitable ‘subject’ had been vetted for you months ago, and as you had reached your thirty-year milestone last week, she was retrieved and brought here to achieve that end. After her future memory had been expunged, she should have stayed with you until the
soprac
bells rang, by which time you would have impregnated her, and she would have been taken to the satellite nursery. The implant would have ensured your sperm performed appropriately, and your presence or repeated impregnation would have been superfluous.”

King Rochar cringed at the offhand way in which the High Court Solicitor spoke of Maddie’s kidnapping for he had come to realize that was precisely what it was. But he spoke in a measured, even tone. “And that is what I had planned to do.”

The High Solicitor continued to nod and smile, obviously hopeful that his king was finally able to see the light and would therefore perform his duty.

“But I can do that no longer.”

The rumblings from the council members grew in volume.

“Whatever do you mean?” Marberry demanded.

“We send out scouts to kidnap women and bring them here so they can be impregnated.”

“As it has always been,” agreed the solicitor. “We choose women who are widows and who also have no living relatives or unattached female warriors.”

“Ah yes, I know. That’s so we can take them to the nursery satellite that revolves around Tentalia and keep them there until they deliver. Then we take them back to where we found them, wipe their memories and keep their sons. If they happen to have daughters, we arrange a marriage for the mother and change her memories and her husband’s to let them think the courtship, marriage and baby have all come about in a perfectly normal way.”

“As it has always been,” intoned Lord Marberry and the councillors.

“I think it’s time to make some changes,” King Rochar flatly stated.

“These proceedings are not about changes. They are about deciding your innocence or your guilt.” The High Solicitor’s voice was high and thin, anger fomenting below the surface.

“You don’t need a trial to decide whether I impregnated Maddie before the
soprac
bells rang. You already knew she was fertile. That was why she was brought to me at that specific time. The signal being monitored from her implant would have told you the exact moment of conception, and you know no signal was given. Your equipment must also have picked up the presence of Protoron in my sperm, telling you of the precaution I had taken. I had decided that she had a right to choose what happens to her own body.”

“So you’re admitting your guilt?” Marberry looked at the floor and shook his head.

“Oh, I’m guilty, guilty of poor judgment and the contemplation of enacting a crime against another human being,” the king replied in a defiant voice.

“What!” Marberry’s head shot up.

“From the moment we injected her with the implant, we were crossing the line into unethical, perhaps illegal conduct. Tentalian laws and rituals be damned.” King Rochar put up his hand as Lord Marberry made to argue. “I was planning to impregnate Maddie, erase her memories and turn her into a brood mare.”

“Not a brood mare, Your Majesty. She would have the honor of bearing the heir to the throne of Tentalia, the mother of a prince.” Marberry’s tone was haughty and self-righteous.

“An honor of which she would have no memory. And what about me? With her on the nursery satellite, I would share none of the joys of her carrying my child. Never see her round and fat with our offspring. Never help her rise when she asks me as she grows too large and cumbersome to do it for herself. I wouldn’t be present to help her at the birth of our baby. Never be with her and my child to share a life. What about me?” Tears streamed down the king’s face.

The High Court Solicitor and council members were silent, some of the members shifting uncomfortably in their chairs.

“Don’t any of you long for a woman’s touch, for a woman’s voice? Do none of you hunger to see the face of the women who bore your children?” He turned away, disgusted with the complacency of the men. “Maybe, I’m the only one who feels this way.”

A voice drew him back around. “She was lovely with long, dark hair and sparkling green eyes. Our son looks just like her.” One council member had stood up and stepped down from the raised dais. “I wanted to keep her with me, but I was young and afraid to go against what had been drummed into me since birth.”

“She bore me twins,” another said, moving to stand beside the first. Moisture glistened in his eyes. “Twin sons, you know. They’re fine young men. I’d like for them to know their mother, and for her to see how the boys have turned out.”

“It was difficult to raise them on my own,” someone else chimed in. “I would have liked to have shared the responsibility and the joys.”

King Rochar stood silently as the High Court Solicitor attempted to maintain order, but it was impossible. All of them had left their seats and were milling about, discussing the women who had come and gone from their lives. He realized that he had been speaking what was in their hearts as well.

“My lords, if you will sit down so we can continue the trial.” At first, no one paid Lord Marberry any attention. He raised his voice. “We need to make a decision.”

One by one, the men resumed their seats.

“I believe we’ve heard more than enough to come to a verdict.”

Rochar saw Lord Marberry’s look of confidence falter as he scanned the arc of faces.

Marberry approached the first councilman, head of the Tentalian High Council. “Lord Darkenfold? How say you?”

“Not guilty,” he announced.

“Are you certain that is how you wish to vote, my lord? King Rochar has all but admitted his guilt,” Lord Marberry said.

“Very sure,” Darkenfold asserted.

“Lord Roddenham? How say you?”

“Not guilty.”

“Despite the evidence?”

“Because of the evidence,” Roddenham said.

Around the semicircle Lord Marberry went, and man after man called out ‘not guilty’.

Turning from the final member, Lord Marberry approached the prisoner’s dock. “It appears, Your Majesty, that the council has unanimously found you innocent of the charge. You are free to go.”

“Not so fast, Lord Marberry.” It was the councilman with the twin sons. “We need the advice of King Rochar. This matter needs to be dealt with. There are obvious changes that must be made to the law. What are we going to do? Do we want the women to come back? How will we even find them? Who will be our spokesman as we try to locate the mothers of our children and tell them the truth?”