At His Majesty's Pleasure Ch. 02

With dread growing in her stomach, she could hear his footfalls approaching her carriage. As her door was unlocked and opened, his shadow fell upon the interior and he extended a hand, with mocking decorum. "Come, Your Highness," he said. His smile was now distinctly malicious, and his expression had taken on a dangerous quality that was utterly divorced from that of the pleasant Duke she'd spoken to in the gardens - he might as well have been a different person entirely. "Do you not owe it to brave Ser Emile to see him off?"

This was his form of vengeance, she understood - vengeance for alerting the knight and defying him. She knew it could not have come without consequence, but this?

She sat unflinchingly, siphoning up every small fiber of willpower and cognitive dissonance, but where she once might have embraced the sight of the open carriage, she now had to be dragged out. She didn't want to see this; she didn't want to see this, and resistance, however little it did, was her only way to struggle against him.

As she was pulled from the carriage, her eyes grew wide and pained as they were forced to witness what had been done to poor Ser Emile. A thick cord of rope had been fastened around each of the knight's wrists and ankles, and the other ends secured to four horses, big and stalwart. The riders were already mounted, facing opposite of each other with the man strung between them. It was a foregone conclusion that the Duke intended for him to be ripped apart.

And still Ser Emile shouted with defiance: "You dare besmirch this land with your vile treachery!" He wormed about in his bounds, as though the arrow wounds were not hurting him. "The Gods will burn you for this! This is nothing compared to what is in store! Ha-ha!"

Then the Duke snapped his fingers.

At once, the horses were spurred on in their opposite trajectories, and gone immediately was the derisive laughter. The words which came after were less comprehensible. Alais blanched, lowering her eyes to the mundane ground directly by her feet. Boring ground, pleasant grass, and simple dirt, where no one was being drawn to death.

"...I thought you were pressed for time," she muttered acidly. Something in her voice shook before she could finish her remark, her vision already blurring with tears. This time, she didn't fight them. It wasn't as though she had never beheld a broken body before... in the context of cadavers and science... inanimate things without a soul. And not while the body still clung onto the shreds of life.

"Oh, I am," the Duke said. "Trust me, it could be worse." He sounded like he was remarking on some sporting event, and unlike her, his tone remained quite sedate.

Ser Emile resisted the agony bravely at first, shouting (still chivalrous) insults at the soldiers wrestling with his limbs. How vigorously he'd kicked at them, in spite of the arrows pierced through his plate and muscle. Cursing for the rest of the term, but throwing in an honorable yet scarcely sensible oath to the princess that all would be well, but she mustn't look. She could not say which smarted more, the empty reassurances, or the howls of bodily torment which followed soon after.

A few of the soldiers averted their eyes; most did not. Giving every credence to the Obsivian reputation for barbarity, they filled the clearing with laughter and jeering comments about the dying man - everything from his honor to his duchess to the impotence of his baguettes. Had they been louder, they might have even drowned out the horrible screams that they so mocked. But of course, this should have not have been a surprise - were not the Obsivians renowned for their bloodsports and their savage gladiator games? This must be common to them.

A look of grotesque satisfaction was writ on the Duke's face, as if he were some kind of demon that had been sated by this show of violence and suffering. Indeed, as he turned back to her, it seemed that his good mood had been restored, though his pleasantness was almost eerie for its origin.

Alais saw it - despite her tears, she saw it all. What had she done to have fallen in the clutches of this monster? Who was he, to be so cruel? To presume he even had the right? She didn't recognize the man who snapped his fingers, who wore the skin of that pleasant duke of that one ill-fated night. How could she have been so blind? Just how long was this going to last? Alais would not give him the satisfaction of begging him to stop, even as she wanted to scream for them to kill him, just kill him already.

She averted her gaze and shut her eyes when blood red sinew began to show in full. It couldn't be long now. How much blood could a man lose before his famished brain could take no more? Not long at all...

Finally, that horrid groaning slowed to a stop.

The four horses were led into the river so that the red splatters might wash away; the white mare especially bore prominent stains against so unblemished a canvass. The pieces of Emile's body remained unburied, a gruesome surprise for whatever traveler next ventured into these dense woods.

"Now," said Adrien, "I do have to keep my promise."

He tied her himself, taking her wrists in one hand - his fingers strong and calloused - and a thick rope in another (chains had apparently been something of an artistic flair). She felt the warmth of his touch, its invasiveness, her small hands squirming unsuccessfully in his iron grip. The contact was oddly intimate for their closeness and meaning; as the rope tightened against her skin, she felt further and further constrained, her ease of movement so casually deprived by his doing. And with each knot, it felt like he was asserting his dominion over her - letting her see just what consequences befell resistance.

He took his time with the rope, though it was evident he was familiar with tying people up; his fingers worked dexterously. Before long, she was helplessly trussed before him, hands tied behind her and ankles joined together. She could not take so much as a step, much less bang out a commotion in the carriage - the most she could probably do now would be to writhe around inside, which was probably not useful to anyone.

This was more degradation than Alais had known in her lifetime, and she was struck by the vivid hallucination of bashing even her constricted feet into his nose. Joined together like this, she had the idea that they would actually carry more momentum - thereby allowing for harder and probably more violent kicking. Perhaps she might even break the cartilage, in this absurd fantasy of hers. But she willed her indignation not to bubble out of control when it would accomplish nothing, and so it slowly seethed and built inside of her unexpressed.

That was not the last trespass. Before she could protest, he teased the sash out from her dress - and had the audacity to look rather roguish, considering what the move usually might have been a preamble to. Indignantly, her hands strained against their bindings anew, but he only set the silken fabric over her mouth and encircled it about her head. When he knotted it, the silk tightened against her skin and slipped between her teeth, effectively gagging her. Another time he wound the sash about, and then another, layering so that it entirely covered her lips so as to swallow all sound.

"There there," said the Duke, spying the remnants of tear stains on her face. He touched a finger to her cheek, under the pretense of wiping it away. With her limbs fastened tightly together, there was nothing she could do to stop him; he could do whatever he wished, and this casual motion seemed calculated to let her understand exactly that. "It was doubtless the pride of Ser Emile's life that his princess shed tears for him. I daresay he could not have wished for a more glorious death - or more fitting martyrdom."

He tilted her chin up, the gesture as intrusive as the rest, and let his thumb brush over the gag. "But know that you brought this upon yourself, by defying me. Let this not be a lesson easily forgotten."

She tried to speak, but it only came out as a muffled, indistinct noise.

He chuckled. "Shh. I've no need for you to speak, princess."

Without giving so much as a warning, he picked her up, carrying her back to the carriage and depositing her in her prison. The door closed and locked behind her, sealing her in - only now she had to squirm and struggle to sit properly as the carriage jostled into motion.

******

The rest of the journey was mercifully short, and when they stopped, she even recognized the infrastructure that rose up above them. The River Fort was a sturdy, towering feat of engineering, and, as its namesake would suggest, it straddled an expansive waterway. The building was more bridge than fort, really, but a useful one, for there were but few crossings along the monstrous river, and several untimely accidents had marked attempts at building replicas.

It was also mournfully familiar to her, not the least because Prince Edmure used to control it as part of his domain. That was, before Obsivian forces had utterly overrun its walls and wrested control away. The memories that stuck to this place were not the only things that brought her unease - that they were now firmly out of Vvarian territory also did not bode well.

Bound as she was, with so little range to so much as wiggle, she said nothing, breathed into the gag - the stale taste of it lingering against her tongue - and waited. There was a great deal of commotion outside her carriage, and for a few long minutes, it almost seemed as if she had been forgotten. But eventually, the door to her prison opened, and as before, it was the Duke who retrieved her.

Her eyes were fixed dispassionately forward. There was no recognition, no acknowledgment to being hoisted into his arms.

As he set her down - quite gently, actually - he looked her over anew. "Welcome to the River Fort," he told her, as if she were a guest that he had thus far been nothing but hospitable towards.

Seeing as she could not turn without hopping or hobbling in some way, her feet being tied as they were, she gave no response.

"Shall I remove that gag, or will there be more screaming and thrashing if I do?" he asked, with a touch of a smirk.

The sound she finally made then, in polite response to his question, was nothing short of a muddled, unintelligible, "Nnmhm."

He was not, apparently, above finding amusement in this. "Come again?" he said, as if she were the one being unreasonable in this exchange. "You can nod or shake your head," he added, as if this might not have occurred to her.

"Nnmhm," said Alais again, almost verbatim - syllable for syllable, if they could be counted as such. Spite prevented her from complying.

He stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "Pity. I do enjoy your conversation. But have it your way, then," he said, loosely. "You can remain silent a little longer, for your troubles."

He gestured over some servants and gave them his instructions, before departing and leaving her in their hands. The bonds between her ankles were loosened, enough to permit walking (though not running) so that she could hobble along as they guided her forward. The hobbling, of course, was not without its precarious near-trips and almost-falls on top of one unsuspecting servant or another.

They passed through the towering doors of the fort, and into its hollow halls and narrow stairs. The sight of the structures sent shivers down her spine, for their distorted familiarity and the memories they stirred. She remembered playing in this shrouded nook here, or climbing up that tower there, the faded recollections constricting the air in her chest. Her eyes strained from the compulsion to dampen again, prompting her to blink rapidly here and there, to keep these childish and weak tears at bay. Eventually, she was shown to the dining hall, which was currently empty - bereft of both meal and fellow guests. There they pressed her down to one of the seats, the one adjacent to the head of the table (marked by a particularly high-backed chair) and affixed her there by tying her bound wrists to its back.

This mission accomplished, the servants filed away, leaving her under the watchful eye of the half a dozen guards who were already stationed inside the room.

Time passed. She flexed her limbs as much as she could, uncomfortable as ever, but was still outwardly cool enough not to sound off complaint. Muffled or otherwise.

At length, plates were delivered before her. The table and its surroundings were rather spartan, but the dishes that soon graced it were of the finest quality. There was plenty of variety, though perhaps it wasn't surprising that the Obsivian diet tended to be more carnivorous; most of the flavors gleaming at her were meaty and sizzling, roasted to a pleasant, plump sheen. The plate set next to her was of a Vvarian trout, freshly caught from the river above which they were situated.

What was slightly more interesting than the plates were the means by which they were carried - two slaves scurried to and fro, balancing several dishes at a time, and keeping their eyes at all times trained to the ground (or somewhere close - the practicalities of walking was a limiting factor). As was standard practice, their heads were entirely shaved, and their necks encircled with heavy iron collars. They had probably been prominent Estrian noblemen in their time - perhaps they had even overseen this very fort - but now they were reduced to little more than the furnishings in the room; they had just as many rights.

Though slavery had been largely abandoned in most of the civilized world, the trade remained healthily alive in Obsivia, the last bastion of barbaric traditions. In modern days especially - King Alexander had done his part in revitalizing much of the savage culture of Obsivian past (some of which had relinquished even by his countrymen), and was a particularly generous source when it came to churning out products for the slave market. As whole countries were brought to their knees, so too were their people subjugated and put to use for their new masters. It was said that the King himself liked to claim former royalty for his personal service, that much better to enjoy their degradation firsthand.

Were it not for her sheer determination to stare listlessly (uselessly) at the inanimate plates, dishes, and table before her, her eye might have been drawn toward these unhappily enslaved in morbid curiosity. She was not among them, and yet there was some odd solace to be grasped in the logical conclusion that His Grace couldn't have gone through so much trouble to acquire a solitary royal slave.

Finally, her captor showed himself. The guards bowed accordingly, and the center chair was pulled for him; he settled into it lazily, lounging back into such a comfortable position that it was almost rude. He had clearly washed and changed, as well, a privilege that had not been bestowed on her, and the make and style of his clothing was more rich than before.

In contrast, she was unwashed, unchanged, and uncomfortable, her shoulders restlessly terse in comparison. And, of course, she was affixed to the chair, and rendered silent by the gag. She had another fantasy of sending the assortment of entrées and appetizers crashing to the ground with a well-placed kick from beneath the table. Perhaps the messy ones would land on him, after all the trouble he took to clean himself.

"How are you settling in?" he asked. Apparently, he was not above amusing himself with these one-sided conversations.

"Nnmhm," said Alais.

"Good, good," he replied, pleasantly, as if she had indeed given him an answer.

She wanted to kick him again.

There was a full set of different forks and spoons and other utensils laid out before them, like different brushes for an artist. For his part, savage or not, the Duke looked fairly comfortable amidst the finery and navigated through layers of etiquette to pick out the right knife and fork. Pulling a dish toward him, he began slicing a thin strip.

"Are you hungry?"

Silence. (No "nnmhm" this time.) The trip had been tiresome, even in her idle constraints, and bereft of full and luxuriant meals as these, but she was much too resentful, angry, and humiliated to acknowledge her hunger.

He may have been easy on the eyes - because of course, even now, she could not help noticing how handsome he looked in the styling of his new clothes - but she was never going to forget what he was, what he had done, and that there was a murderous, vindictive savage buried beneath that skin.

"That's too bad," he said, as he brought the strip up and plopped it into his mouth. To the chef's credit, it smelled delicious.

She knew he was doing this on purpose, intentionally highlighting the disparity between their positions - lounging there, eating comfortably, while she was bound and gagged and utterly at his disposal. To what end? Some kind of power play? Or did he simply take pleasure or even amusement in asserting his control so explicitly?

He seemed on the verge of saying something else, but then paused, as if something had only just occurred to him. "Oh," he said. He glanced about the dining room, and then back to her. "This belonged to Estria before, didn't it? I suppose I needn't have introduced it after all. You are probably familiar."

Do not cry. Do not cry. Do not cry, she repeated to herself, drowning out all other thoughts and physical aches with the mantra. After days of being fed, and sometimes force-fed, tasteless swill (it wasn't honestly wasn't that bad, but for the psychological effect of being kidnapped), she managed to coax herself against the risings of any appetite. The pungent aroma of meat and the grease dripping from them made her faintly nauseous. Unfortunate as it were, she actually enjoyed the taste of meat.

More slicing. This time, he went so far as to actually serve her, placing a modest portion on her plate. Then he poured drinks for them both. This was all accomplished with a vaguely satirical air, though his demeanor remained pleasant.

His gaze flickered to her face, studying her, and she willed herself to look askance, again overcome by the impulse to blink the gathering tears away. It was entirely possible that taunts might escape his lips next, but he remained silent, almost thoughtful. Reaching for a goblet, he took a steady sip of the wine there.

No mockery, really? Was he showing restraint? After what he did to poor Ser Emile? She didn't understand his boundaries at all.

But no, nothing. "I'm sure you're wondering why I have done as I have done," he said, evidently leaving the topic of Edmure behind without comment. "And now that we are safe from your would-be rescuers, I think we're ready to have the discussion."

Make no sound and do not cry. In fact, the persisting silence and lack of a notable reaction, in spite of the almost-crying which could have been for...other reasons not having to do with him, might have suggested she hadn't been paying attention at all. Even if her family was aware of what had happened by now, she couldn't rely on them. She needed to be strong - to take every advantage, somehow, in spite of her fears. How was she going to manage.

He nodded to someone behind her, and her gag was carefully untied, knot by knot, until she was freed of the obstruction. So too were the ropes at her wrist cut.

Her first free breath was just shy of audible, her chest heaving. With hours since the gag was loosened to graciously force a waterskin between her lips, her mouth felt dry. Her liberated, trembling hands eventually found their way to her lap, where they flexed at the wrists and rested for a moment. A few uncertain moments later, they settled - tentatively - around the stem of the goblet he had kindly prepared for her.