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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