Ekleipsis (Fantasy Romance - LGBT, manXman)

3.8.

The trial was set for two weeks hence. Chevalier Ahayrre was under guard the entire time. He wept and pleaded to see his lover, but the King remained implacable: there would be no meeting as long as Ithildin persisted in his refusal to tell the truth. The elf rejected a meeting anyway, claiming that he would not be able to look Alva in the face.

In the end, the King had decided to go along with whatever the elf was playing at. He had augmented Alva's guard, on the pretence of fearing the Enqins's retribution (though all five Enqins from the prince's retinue had been arrested within half an hour of Chevalier Ahayrre). Anybody who wished to visit Alva was free to do so, and then they could go on and gossip left and right about the horrible state of despair he was in over his precious elf's infidelity.

It pained King Daroghi Dancennou to see his favorite so suffer, but Alva might as well look truly stricken. The King only thanked heaven that the happy-go-lucky poet never fancied suicide, and hoped that all the suffering wouldn't be for nothing. Lastly, the King set two trusty servants to watch Rennarte day and night, ostensibly out of concern for his life. The Chancellor was peeved, but did not dare protest.

One day the Essanti chieftain Kintaro had a private audience with the King, after which he suddenly ceased inquiring about the prison layout and its number of guards.

At first, the trial proceeded smoothly. Reza Rennarte was dignified, as befitted a Chancellor, and stirred considerable sympathy holding forth about his love for the Enqin prince Fairiz, and the self-sacrificing way in which he arranged Fairiz's dalliance with Ithildin. Apparently, said elf and Prince Fairiz have long burned with suppressed passion for one another, and only the elf's innocence in matters of the heart and his lover's jealous watch forestalled a rapturous union.

The crowd booed. They could not believe that anyone having the gorgeous Chevalier Ahayrre for a lover would contemplate screwing around.

Alva was composed, but so pale, that freckles, usually invisible, stood out on his face. He kept looking at Ithildin, but Ithildin refused to notice. Chevalier Ahayrre repeated more or less the same story he already told the King, but refrained from direct accusations. His speech was tempered with the "it seemed to me," "I thought that," and "it appeared ..."

The hall grew noisier with the obvious disapproval of Alva's fickle lover. They thought Alva was defending Ithildin, and the traitorous elf wasn't worth it.

Then a few other witnesses were called, and spoke to leave no doubt that Ithildin had been straining at the leash to cheat on Alva and had carried out his intentions in a most calculated fashion. The courtroom roiled. Anyone would feel the wave of hatred directed at the elf, even without the benefit of the elven sensitivity. Not one person here was on Ithildin's side. Everyone thought him fully responsible for what had happened, while Chevalier Ahayrre had been the victim of circumstances and deceit. The other victim – the dead Fairiz ­– was almost completely forgotten.

King Dancennou could privately admit to hoping to see this reaction, even wishing for it. It gave him a chance to hand down a milder sentence than was warranted, even if the elf never told the truth. Ithildin was called to witness last, due to his race and lower rank. (There had even been times when elves were not allowed in human courtrooms, though that was long before the founding of Creede).

When Ithildin stood on the dais, everyone fell silent. Clear-eyed, slim and impossibly lovely he was as sin clothed in innocence, as the legendary Helean, who had ignited heroes of antiquity to strife, had been.

His testimony was so scandalous, that Trianess remembered it for a good ten years.

In the most refined Common tongue, he asserted that Chancellor Reza Rennarte had induced him, the elf Ithildin, to sleep with his lover Prince Fairiz, by threatening to kill Chevalier Alva Ahayrre if Ithildin did not comply.