“She’s not some harlot who’d spread herself for anyone who comes along,” Thorolf snarled.
“No one is saying she is,” Astrid insisted, keeping her tone low and steady. The tension in the room was a thick presence, like the moist heat of a humid summer day. “But choosing to lay with Sir Wallace wouldn’t make her a harlot, either. Unless I’m a harlot as well.”
Thorolf said nothing, but the anger in his eyes spoke loud enough. With a sigh, Astrid powered through, “The question at the heart of this matter is whether Valda consented. Do you have reason to believe she did not consent?”
“I have no reason to believe she’d agree to lay with a…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but spat off to the side.
“She’s a woman, Thorolf. An adult woman. She can make her own decisions. Even if you disagree.” With an audible exhale, she glanced from Sir Gerard to Danelius, “It might be fastest to hear from Valda.”
Valda took the seat, her green eyes and round face inscrutable. Slender, but by no means delicate, she possessed a strength that proved she was her father’s daughter. She took but a moment to smooth her skirts, before folding her hands in her lap.
“Valda, tell us what happened between you and Sir Wallace.”
“No.” The small word landed with a huge impact.
Astrid blinked twice. “No?”
“I’m not on trial. I didn’t make an accusation.”
“Valda, a man’s life hangs in the balance. We need your testimony to get to the truth of the matter.”
She glanced around, at the angry Knights of Landis, and the stern expressions of her fellow Drakul. “Then I shall give my testimony to you, Astrid. In private.”
Outrage erupted from both sides at that request, incomprehensible shouts echoing within the mountain. Astrid slammed a hammer against the wooden table to command the attention of the room, and the thud of metal on wood reverberated against the stone walls. Bickering died down into silence. “I will speak to Valda in private, but I still intend to get to the truth.”
Astrid and Valda adjourned to an empty room, not far from the amphitheater. “What do you want from me, Astrid?”
“You’re the only one who can confirm what happened between you and Sir Wallace. We all need to hear from you.”
“Either I go out there and repeat my father’s story, to preserve his dignity and sentence an innocent man to die, or I go out there and say that Sir Wallace did nothing wrong, and humiliate my father before everyone present. Either way, they all will judge me for my choices, for an act that should have been private.”
“I’m sorry, Valda. We had to get to the truth.”
“You could have asked me,” Valda insisted, and the truth struck like a lash. Astrid remembered her own wedding night, and how he father and husband were asked about her virginity, but not her. Had she brought that dismissive attitude back to Fairtheora?
Blowing out a long breath, Astrid nodded. “You’re right. We could have; we should have.” There was a rapist in the Kingdom of Landis, a rapist Astrid wished she could punish, but it wasn’t Sir Wallace. And the guilty man might never face justice.
Valda collapsed into a chair and covered her face. “I just thought he was handsome. Now everyone will want to know if I plan to leave the mount. It’s not like I’m in love, but if I go out there and humiliate my father for him, what choice do I really have?”
“Let me discuss this with the rest of the tribunal. Maybe…” She reached for some optimism, some third option that could resolve everything neatly. But no such option existed. “We will have to come to some decision.”
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