Chapter 7: Satisfaction Demanded
The peace Kerr had wrestled from the night did not last beyond the noon bell. It dissolved in the great hall, amidst the chaotic warmth of a belated victory celebration. Servants scurried with trays of ale and roast fowl. Men-at-arms, still nursing bruises from the training yard, laughed too loudly. The air was thick with woodsmoke, spilled beer, and the easy joy of a household relieved its young lord had returned not only alive, but triumphant.
Kerr sat at the high table, picking at a plate of food he didn’t taste. Cain, his massive Mabari war hound, lay pressed against his leg like a living, breathing blanket. The dog’s deep, contented sigh vibrated through the floor. Someone slapped Kerr on the back, congratulating him again on his performance in Denerim. He managed a thin smile. The memory of Sanga’s chambers felt distant here, blurred by Nan’s lavender soap and the simple, draining comfort he’d found in her bed. He was clean. He was empty. For now, it was enough.
Then he saw Oren.
The boy was a streak of frantic motion through the crowd, his small face pale, his usual bright-eyed curiosity utterly erased by panic. He dodged around a serving girl, nearly tripped over a hound, and made a beeline for the high table. His wooden sword was absent. That, more than anything, set off a low alarm in Kerr’s chest.
“Uncle Kerr!” Oren’s voice was a high, tight wire. He skidded to a halt, his small hands gripping the edge of the table. “You have to come. It’s Mother. She’s… she’s crying.”
The ambient noise of the hall seemed to recede. Kerr was on his feet before the boy finished speaking. “Crying? Where?”
“In her solar. She locked the door but I heard through the keyhole. She’s weeping.”
No hesitation. Kerr came around the table, swept Oren up under one arm like a sack of grain, and broke into a full sprint. He moved through the crowded hall like a ship cutting through a choppy sea, men and servants parting instinctively before his urgent, wide-shouldered charge. Cain let out a sharp woof and bounded after them, nails clicking on the flagstones.
Through the archway, into the colder, quieter corridors of the family quarters. Their footsteps and the dog’s panting were the only sounds. Oren, jostled but reassured by the sheer force of his uncle’s response, clung to his tunic.
At Oriana’s door, Kerr set Oren down. He could hear it now—a muffled, heartbroken sound from within. Not the delicate sniffles of a minor upset, but the deep, ragged sobs of something shattered.
“Oriana!” He hammered a fist on the heavy oak. “It’s Kerr. Open the door.”
A pause, a hitched breath. Then the sound of a bolt sliding back. The door opened a crack, revealing a sliver of her face. Her eyes, usually so serene and observant, were swollen and red, her cheeks slick. She saw him, saw Oren peering fearfully from behind his leg, and her composure crumpled anew. She opened the door fully and turned away, one hand covering her mouth as her shoulders shook.
Kerr stepped inside, filling the sunlit solar. Cain padded in after and went straight to Oriana, nudging her hand with his blunt head. Oren darted to her side, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Don’t cry, Mama.”
“Oren, go with Cain to the kitchens,” Kerr said, his voice low but firm. “Get some of those honeycakes. Guard them with your life.”
The boy looked at his mother, then at Kerr’s unyielding expression. He nodded, a little soldier accepting an order. “Come on, Cain.” The hound gave a soft whine but followed the boy out. Kerr closed the door.
“Oriana.” He approached her, not as her bawdy, flirtatious brother-by-marriage, but as the standing authority in the castle. “Look at me. What happened?”
She tried to speak, but another sob wracked her. She gestured weakly to a piece of parchment, heavy with a formal seal, lying crumpled on her embroidery table. Kerr picked it up, smoothing it out. The script was flowing, ornate, and utterly merciless. He read it. Then he read it again, the words arranging themselves into a cold, legalistic blade aimed at the heart of her life here.
It was a formal challenge. From one Don Alejandro de Leon y Valdez of Antiva. It cited an antiquated marital contract, signed by Oriana’s father when she was seven years old, pledging her hand to the Don’s nephew. With her father now dead, the Don was invoking it, declaring her marriage to Fergus illegitimate under Antivan familial law. The challenge was for her hand, to be settled by single combat. The recipient, as her legal husband, was Fergus.
The date for the duel was set for three days hence.
“They knew,” Oriana choked out, finally finding her voice. It was raw, scraped hollow. “They knew Fergus and your father were away at the border talks. A messenger could never reach them and return in time. They sent this now so there could be no answer. So I would be…” She broke off, swallowing hard. “They think I am property. A debt to be collected.”
Kerr let the parchment fall. The quiet in the room was absolute, pressed down by the weight of her despair. He stepped closer. With a calloused thumb, he gently wiped a tear from her cheek. The gesture was startlingly tender.
“A challenge like this,” Kerr said, his voice calm, a bedrock in the tremor of her world. “The challenged party can name a champion. Yes?”
She blinked, looking up at him as if he’d spoken in a foreign tongue. “What? Kerr, no, you don’t—”
“So choose me,” he said, simple and final as a stone dropping.
“This isn’t a tourney mêlée!” Her words burst out, frayed with fear for him. “It’s not axes and shields! It’s an Antivan duel. Rapier and dagger. It’s… it’s finesse. It’s speed. They’ll send a master duelist. You’ve never even held a rapier!”
Kerr didn’t flinch. He held her gaze, and the mischievous glint in his eye was gone, replaced by something older, colder, and absolute. It was the same certainty that had lived behind his eyes in the quiet after Sanga’s chambers, now focused, honed to a point.
“Oriana,” he said, the name a quiet vow. “Listen to me. There is not a Maker-made man, from here to the Anderfels, who can best me in single combat. Rapier, dagger, axe, spoon, I don’t care. He will break on me. Do you understand?”
She stared up at him, searching his face. She saw no boast, no bravado. Only the granite truth of it. He was 6’7” and 265 pounds of hardened muscle and recent, vicious experience. He was the younger son who had just gone to a grand tourney and come back with a champion’s purse and ghosts in his eyes. He was the man who, last night, had somehow shed a weight the castle had felt but not understood. The man before her was not a boy playing at war. He was a weapon, and he was offering himself to her.