Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
T he meeting with the lords was just after breakfast the following day. For weeks now, I had considered how to go about laying the groundwork for Rowan to be seen as something other than the average silent Clan Wife.
Aside from the obvious reasons, if she was more present in the regular dealings of the men, she was less likely to give offense when she inevitably voiced her opinions over dinner.
Probably.
Rowan lounged idly on the bed, making cooing sounds at Boris while he pressed himself against her like he hadn’t hissed at her only a few months ago. Perhaps the lords would feel the same…
If I hadn’t been able to appease them this past week, taking her today would have been out of the question. Even with the sentiment in our favor, having her observe the meeting was a gamble, but so was waiting.
“I have to act in my father’s stead at a meeting with the lords in our territory,” I told her, decision made. “It would be a good idea for you to accompany me.”
After all, this was likely to be the most straightforward assembly we would have, since I had spent all week hearing their concerns in advance.
“Are women allowed at these meetings?”
“Not generally,” I acknowledged, though I had verified extensively that there were no actual laws against it. “But this is the first one since our wedding. It might be prudent to start as we plan to go on.”
Might being the operative word, but I was relatively certain it was better than the alternative. The lords would take to her presence in the meeting even worse than the soldiers took to her presence in the sparring ring. Sword-fighting could be an odd quirk of hers, but sitting on a council where decisions were made was something else entirely for them. Something that had never been done, nor looked upon as even a remote possibility.
At least none of them were likely to mention it to my father, since they wouldn’t want to risk his judgments over mine.
“All right, then.” Rowan smiled, eyes lighting up as she climbed gracefully out of the bed. I allowed my gaze to linger on her bare, shapely form for a handful of seconds before I spun toward her closet.
She would have just enough time to get dressed as it was, without any delays on my part, no matter how tempted I might be. Appearances would matter today.
I rifled through a veritable sea of black fabric before I landed on one that would work for today. Formal enough to be taken seriously, with simple embellishments that wouldn’t stand out as overly feminine when she would already be so very other in that room.
“Wear this,” I instructed, draping it over the chair rather than the bed where Boris was still happily shedding all of his ginger fur.
Though she raised her eyebrows in a challenge, I didn’t miss the way her pupils widened. Once again, I pointedly averted my gaze.
Time. We were short on time.
But later, I intended to explore every nuance of that reaction at length.
The lords took to my wife’s presence about as well as I had expected them to, but no one outright objected, which was as much as we could hope for the first meeting.
Taras was present as my second-in-command. Though he made an admirable effort at schooling his features, he did shoot me the barest incredulous glance that I chose not to acknowledge, which had him almost imperceptibly flaring his nostrils. I hadn’t mentioned that I was considering bringing her today, at least in part because I could have guessed this would be his reaction. I could practically hear the word chaos running through his mind, but even my lemmikki could only cause so much damage by her presence alone.
Most of which had passed now that the initial shock had worn off.
One by one, the lords took their turn bringing matters to me for judgment. Only three issues in, Rowan spoke up to ask a clarifying question.
“Are those among the food stores that have already been replenished?”
Several lords pursed their lips in impatience, but it was a brief enough thing to explain. Still, a small bit of tension prickled between my shoulder blades as I responded.
“These haven’t yet received their wagons,” I told her shortly.
She nodded, satisfied. Her questions after that were rare and concise, and I felt the tension in my muscles ease as the lords grew visibly less bothered by her presence. Once I had a clearer idea of the issues she had no context for, I took a moment to explain them as I went so she wouldn’t have to field the irritable glances of the lords.
Taras offered a few explanations as well, and she nodded her appreciation.
I had almost let myself believe the gamble of bringing her had paid off by the time Lord Juto got to the first item on his list with a scowl.
“My Lord, we have a situation with three dissenting soldiers.”
I waved a hand and he continued.
“They were firstmen, ages fifteen, fifteen, and sixteen.” Though his tone was clinical, his features were pinched in annoyance. “They set fire to piles of gunpowder, frightening the ladies nearby and destroying some of the shrubberies.”
He didn’t mention any casualties, so Unclanning wasn’t necessary, though it wasn’t out of the question in cases of deliberate disobedience. Still, twenty lashes was more standard for a first offense, which I could assume was what he was looking for since Lord Juto had not mentioned anything to the contrary.
Despite Rowan’s experience with the whip—and my own, for that matter—the soldiers’ flogging would be carried out by someone trained to do it. Unpleasant enough to serve as a reminder to them and also a warning to the troops around them, but nothing that would cause any lasting damage.
As long as they hadn’t hurt anyone.
“Was anyone harmed?” I clarified.
“No, My Lord. The noise was what frightened the women.” Again, there was an edge to his tone, like they had offended him personally. Perhaps his wife or daughter had been amongst the ladies in question.
I debated briefly. Their blatant rebellion was concerning, especially with a potential war on the horizon. If they had been older, I might have thought it was intentional, a quiet rebellion against my father’s recent edicts or his support of Iiro.
That kind of disunity in the ranks was dangerous for every soldier in their battalion.
On the other hand, the crime itself had been relatively victimless, though using the powder in such close proximity to the unsuspecting women could have had far bloodier results. Given their youth, though, their idiocy was likely less out of direct disobedience than an ill-advised attempt at diversion.
An example needed to be made, but considering their ages, even Lord Juto should be satisfied with a slight reduction in punishment. Lashes, then, but fewer than they would have gotten.
My gaze slid unbidden to my wife, unease tugging at my chest.
She was by no means squeamish, having taken a number of lives herself. She had barely flinched when she watched me torture a man for information, not to mention the number of judgments she had heard stoically already this morning.
But the last time she was reminded of her flogging in the middle of a council room, she had gone visibly pale, her fingers trembling with panic. I knew that wasn’t a weakness she would want to show in front of the lords—nor one she could afford to, to be frank, but sending her out of the room would be far worse.
In any case, the several seconds I had taken to deliberate was already stretching on for too long, compared to the other issues. Rowan had been nothing but strong in front of the lords so far. I could trust her to do the same now.
“Fifteen lashes each,” I ordered.
Lord Juto nodded, approval evident in the smoothing of his pinched features. I had half a second to feel pride in the compromise that kept the lord happy, the soldiers functional, and allowed me a rare opportunity to grant a bit of mercy without appearing weak before my wife’s gasp rang out.
“What?” Her icy exclamation sucked the air out of the room, as the lords stiffened in their seats one by one.
I fought not to follow their lead because, for all that I had worried about her panic, that was not the emotion coloring her tone right now.
Taking a subtle breath, I turned slowly to face her, ostensibly responding to the question we both knew she hadn’t intended as one, while trying to convey my heartfelt need for her to control her features. I took as long as I reasonably could with the motion, both to maintain my own patience and to give her a moment to gather hers.
Something she did not appear to be making any effort to do.
Her lips were parted in disbelief, her chin raised in defiance, like she had moved me carelessly from the role of the husband she trusted back to the enemy she didn’t in a matter of seconds.
“Fifteen lashes for children playing a prank?” For all the levity she tried to inject in her tone, the words fell like the crack of Samu’s whip, searing into the tension that already permeated the space. “Surely that’s excessive.”
Condescension dripped from her voice, bleeding through the cracks in the feigned smile that didn’t come close to meeting her eyes, like perhaps I had merely failed to realize the inherent barbarism of my own carefully considered judgment.
I grappled with my own temper, willing it not to rise in conjunction with her own. Even if she had just corrected me in front of a room full of men who already resented us both for her invasion in what they considered to be their space.
Even if she was skirting perilously close to the edge of destroying all the groundwork I had painstakingly laid, both for the sake of my clan and for the sake of my lemmikki.
My jaw clenched as the word surely resounded in my head, and I resisted the urge to respond that surely , she wasn’t contradicting me now in a role I had filled for years based on the precisely zero Socairan laws she had bothered to read up on in the ample time she had spent lounging with the cat every morning.
The last thing we needed was to add fuel to the fire of all the respect I was slowly losing by having a lover’s spat in the middle of the storms-damned lords meeting.
So instead, I explained in the same efficient tone I had used for her far more reasonable interjections, hoping that she would hear the implied dismissal.
Though, I knew by now that my hope was na?ve.
“Twenty lashes is standard for disobedient soldiers, given the potential consequences.” Did she understand that people could have died? That they would, if an open rebellion were to break out? That even if neither of those things happened, lives were still at stake on the battlefield because no one would fight alongside men they didn’t trust? “The leniency is because of their age.” I emphasized the word, ensuring she understood how far off base her accusation of the punishment being excessive was.
Of course, that was apparently also too much to hope for, because an indignant huff escaped her instead, the sound far too loud against the silent backdrop of the horrified Council of Lords.
“Leniency,” she echoed, unconcerned that every word she spoke was another brick torn down in the wall I had built to protect my people.
Taras nodded, while I tried very hard not to react, even as my fists clenched under the table.
“Well, then.” Her voice was quiet, but it nonetheless resounded in the indignant hush she had incited throughout the vast room. “I suppose I can be grateful Lady Mairi was even more lenient with me.”
If my temper had been hanging by a scant few tattered threads before, she sliced through them entirely with her unfounded righteous indignation.
Having exactly no experience with flogging aside from her own, she was not only assuming that a standard punishment enacted by a trained commander would be as traumatic as her torture at the hands of Samu, but also willing to debate the finer points of her lashes here.
In front of an entire room full of lords who were currently eyeing us both with thinly veiled disdain.
Had she forgotten that she was hardly the only one who knew what it was to suffer at the whims of my stepmother’s cruelty?
Perhaps if she had watched the blood of children coat the snow—had been responsible for wielding the blade—she would give enough of a damn about the stakes to dredge up the smallest increment of self-control. But as usual, she charged on, blissfully unaware of the consequences of her impatient tongue.
It was no wonder she was defending the boys who might have gotten someone killed with their recklessness.
“I’m sure their families will appreciate the concession,” Taras cut in before I could respond, which was probably for the best. He turned to Lord Juto with a politely expectant expression, as though nothing at all had happened. “Is there anything else, Lord Juto?”
I found myself absurdly grateful that there was at least one person in this room who could be counted on for support, since my wife had no plans of filling that role any time soon.
“No,” Lord Juto responded tersely, his narrowed eyes never leaving my lemmikki.
I cleared my throat pointedly. As furious as I was with her, she was still my wife and his future Clan Wife, and he would damned well treat her with respect. His gaze returned to me, but the censure in his expression remained.
In all of their expressions.