At His Majesty's Pleasure Ch. 02

"I'm afraid I have been a little disingenuous with you, for which I apologize. Circumstances are what they are." He was speaking in a tone of civility, though he sounded more amused than sincere. Cordiality had returned, not kindness. "But now that - "

She didn't even spare the time to think, or react to the fact that he'd begun to address her again. In one sweeping gesture, she snatched her chalice from the table and splashed its purple contents into his face. Then she threw the cup at him, hard, an erratic torrent flashing in her storm grey eyes. The chalice itself bounced inconsequentially off his arm, but the wine splashed and stuck, leaving his face dripping with it and his clothes stained with the residue.

The conflagration of her outrage died as quickly as it had burst, and within the next instant she'd already turned back to her idle motions of settling both hands down onto her lap.

At first, the only emotion that registered on the Duke's face was surprise. He peered down at the fallen goblet and then down at himself, as if affirming to himself that the incident had really occurred. Then he stared back at her.

She regretted none of it. Besides, he did lie to her. Stabbed into her arm (which still ached dully as a reminder). Poisoned her. Murdered a witless knight because she wanted to liberate herself from being abducted against her will. Bound and gagged her. No, this was completely, inarguably fair.

A tense silence followed, holding longer than it should have.

Then he laughed. He continued laughing as he picked up a napkin (offered by a particularly uneasy-looking slave) and wiped off the most severe splatters on his face and person. "Your Highness is more excitable than wise," said he.

There were still no regrets, but a chilling draft shuddered through her frame. It was his laughter, his laughter which she developed the instinct to trust less than his smiles.

And she was right not to trust it, for no sooner had it died that, without warning, his hand lashed out and ensnared her wrist, quick as a snake; she fought the instinct to wince, as it was the same area that had been freshly bandaged. "But I would have thought you'd learned your lesson: there are consequences to angering your captors."

Without any concern for whether she might fall or be dislodged from her chair, he gave a vicious pull - eliciting her gasp in the process - so that her trapped hand was just before him. The chair whined unhappily for the pithy distance it was, a sharp, brief, and cringe-inducing noise before she was forced out of it.

She pushed herself downwards as the only means to narrowly avoid crashing directly into him from the momentum. Her knees collided painfully against the ground, but still she managed to put as much distance between them as possible - what with her wrist still caught in his grip. And if that meant the end result of her stumble was to be settled in a kneel before him, so be it.

"Or perhaps, crafty as you are, you've deduced that you're safe," he continued slyly, "since I took such trouble to transport you here. You're right, of course - to a degree. I won't kill you. But that doesn't mean I can't hurt you." He shifted the grip on her bandaged wrist, so that his thumb rested directly over her wound. A slow smile stole over his features. "As I've already shown."

She tried, instinctively, to pull back, but her strength was laughably insignificant next to his; he didn't even budge.

He picked up the knife he'd just used to slice their meat, the silvery sharp gleam taking on a new meaning in his grip. "I usually take the tongue of those who are impertinent," he informed her. "But since the offending instrument was your hand..." He lowered the blade, running its edge lightly over her palm. "Perhaps a finger or two would be more consistent. What do you think?"

Her pulse hammered in her ears though she still felt very cold. Spitefully, regret still hadn't come, but something like dread blossomed in her stomach. If he was bluffing, there was no indication of it. On the contrary, he looked every bit the capable and willing maimer.

"But - " she started, barely above a whisper. The first discernable word she had spoken in days, somehow managing to sound clear and lilting for everything working against it. Her eyes were fixed on an invisible point below her wrist, even as the blade's greasy edge ghosted over her skin. She did not want to meet his eyes, did not want to look up. It wasn't inconceivable that two of her fingers could be shipped to Vvaria without the rest of her. Alais was close to being beside herself, but she still had a sense of what she could and could not afford.

Her words were still quiet and foreign to her ears from the lack of use and, by some stroke of manipulation, managed to sound more awestruck than frightened. "You still haven't told me who you really are. I don't know who I'm offending." He had yet to announce himself explicitly, and neither had Alais given any irrefutable indication that she'd concluded his identity was very much in doubt. Her tantrum could have been attributed to any number of factors. Captor or not, she was still very well justified in her reactions if they were against, supposedly, a duke - or any transgressor posing as a duke. Far likelier the latter than anything, really.

"Does the title of your maimer make a difference?" he asked, hand and knife still poised. He looked sincerely amused - in that moment, the expression was remarkably similar to the easy way he'd laughed with her in the gardens. It felt like a year ago when she had been so carefree, and affected by only pleasant curiosity towards him. Now those times were far behind. "Is the cut of a marquess more painful than the cut of a prince?"

"It might make it more or less justified," she posed, with an impossibly airy tone as those wide, grey eyes remained fixed upon her wrist.

He raised an eyebrow at this perspective, a slight smirk tinging his lips. He looked passingly pleased, for some reason. "Hmm. What a sly way to elicit my identity." He shook his head. "You'll find that here, I'm the only justice," he told her. "Something that you'd do well to understand, while you remain in my possession."

His thumb still rested over her wound, separated only by the gauzy layers of the bandage. He let it brush lightly over the linen, a casual threat, and there it lingered like the invasive thing it was. His head tilted, as if to better catch her expression, voice tainted with mild condescension. "You do understand, don't you?"

For the first several seconds that ticked by she responded as though she hardly heard him at all, her thoughts turning inward like some defense mechanism she wasn't entirely aware of. More than a full day had passed since she'd walked the gardens of her palace, but her reality had taken on a hallucinatory quality. If she did not acknowledge him, in her mind's world, perhaps she might will him out of existence.

He made a tsking sound of disapproval, when she did not respond. Without warning, his thumb suddenly dug into her wrist, at once sharp enough to inflame the still-healing wound and send shocks of pain darting through her arm. This pulled a whimper from her lips, and her head bowed ever lower as the connecting fingers flinched in his grasp.

"Oh, my apologies," said the Duke. A cruel smile slowly claimed his lips. "Did that hurt?"

What did he want, an answer? Unfortunately, Alais found that she was void of such a capability. The pain, it seemed, had eaten up most of her focus. Spots of fresh blood, red and damp, blossomed into the linen where he pressed.

He eyed her. She was struck with the odd awareness that he was deriving some pleasure - or amusement - from her pain, and it made her feel no better. He brought the knife to her chin, using it to tilt her head up. "Look at me," he demanded, quietly.

And when there was no defying a knifepoint, the metal teasing her skin, her eyes steadily and painstakingly rose from the neutrality of the ground to gaze listlessly upon...some point around his chin. That was still technically looking at him, wasn't it?

"I can do anything I wish with you, princess. Anything at all. I'd prefer to keep you whole - I think it would be a terrible waste otherwise." The knife slipped up, cold and sharp to the touch, and traced lightly over her cheek. That same look crossed his expression - that which resembled a strange kind of - admiration? No, that couldn't be it. "But - if you try to force my hand with such fervor...Well, I am not immune to my temptations." Temptations. It sounded almost benign, but could only mean something repugnant. "Do you understand?"

"...Yes?" affirmed Alais, echoing even his quizzical tone. Her voice was barely above a murmur.

"Yes, you understand?" he prompted, unsatisfied.

She kept her gaze fixed to his chin. What stiff bristles he had. She wondered when was the last time he shaved. It did not, to her mild unsettlement, cast an unpleasant shade to his looks - but rather the opposite. And in all her mindless wanderings coupled with what she could not help but regard as his being wholly unreasonable, some semblance of a foolhardy courage alighted her eyes.

Her tone was still soft, when she said, "I don't know... I think my behavior has been reasonable. Considering my treatment at your hands." Were it not for the precariousness of her situation, it might have come across as a perfectly sensible appeal to his logic.

His grip over her wrist tightened again, like a vice, and this time held its place. "Oh, so throwing goblets at those who exercise jurisdiction over your life is reasonable to you, is it?" he asked, patronizingly. The grip constricted yet further, eliciting an unwilling cry from her. "Come, you're far too clever for these games. I didn't ask for an assessment of reasonableness from your perspective. I asked you a very simple question. Do you understand your situation?"

There were fresh tears brimming in her eyes from the hot pain of his grip. A silly voice in her head yearned to protest further, but it was the pain which begged her to fold. What could be accomplished by giving voice to her foolhardy (reasonable, rational, diplomatic) complaints? He wasn't - this wasn't right. He had no right. But yet, he had every control, and she had no power here to claim otherwise.

"Yes," said Alais sullenly, agony laced into the whisper. She felt he was intentionally making her compromise her pride - to what end? More mind games? It wasn't worth it. She would find a way to resist him that was less costly.

He smiled, as if to say "was that so hard?" in that maddeningly smug way. But, at least, his grip was slowly easing from her wrist - not enough to release her, but the pain was dulling away into a bearable numbness once more.

"Very good. Then, I suppose I'll take the least useful finger," he said, magnanimously - his smile widening when panic lit in her eyes. He lowered the knife slowly, very slowly, to her smallest digit, and turned it, as if he really was about to make an incision.

Instinct and self preservation bade her to flinch, pull, or tug away - anew - but even this (relatively) relaxed grip would not be shaken so easily. If her hand trembled, it did so only very marginally from the residual pain of that aggravated wound, the faintest of ticks flickering in and out of motion, and only when her nerves could no longer stand the fear-driven petrification. It was actually a numbing kind of horror, the sort which came with its own macabre clarity. Her most prominent thoughts involved reflections like: if he had to do it, let him do it quickly. And: what use did she have for her little finger anyway.

The Duke's eyes studied her all the while, and only at the last second did he abruptly withdraw the knife back, releasing her wrist at the same time. "Ah, I jest," he said, and actually glanced at her, as if sharing the joke. "You can keep your fingers for now. After all, what was that you said - you don't know who you're offending? I suppose you're right. You don't. So I will forgive you just this once."

The cool whisper of air could be felt about her wrist again, and she drew it tentatively to her lap. Her other hand curled defensively about it. There were no breaks in the skin where the knife lingered over, but she absentmindedly rubbed away the residual oils from the meat from there and from her cheek, somehow finding that bit of uncleanliness most disconcerting of all. Her hand then came to rest over the linen dressings, bloodied and throbbing anew, with a shudder and a wince.

But evidently, that wasn't enough. He waved over a servant, indicating the chair behind her. "Take that away," he ordered. "The princess looks more comfortable on her knees." His smile turned idly cruel, observing her on the ground.

But kneeling on the floor wasn't so bad, if she ignored the symbolism. Symbolism meant nothing to her; in these wretched confines, neither did the pettier facets of pride. This way, she was even further away from sitting eye level with him. The mundanity of the finely sculpted table leg, in fact, made for a comparatively therapeutic view. And she was more directly removed from the food she had no desire to put in her mouth (so she insisted to herself), not with him posturing at the table. As feeble as her appetite had been, he'd managed to destroy it in one fell swoop with that last act. Starving herself out of spite suddenly felt like a deliriously ingenious strategy, leaping off the implication that her life still held value in this. Did it?

The Duke reached out for the wine bottle, refilling her glass as if she had simply spilled it by accident before. He seemed to be utterly calm again, resuming his cordial demeanor from before without any deviation - it was almost unsettling how quickly his moods shifted from moment to moment, and she remained tense and untrusting. She couldn't predict him. At all.

Finally, he spoke again. "But yes, you have not offended a duke," he told her. He leaned back, laying his hands upon the armrests. "Nor a prince. I would say a King, but..." He looked amused, as if recollecting something, his gaze turning to hers to observe her reaction.

"I believe it was you who styled me an Emperor."

Where she was sullen and quiet before, now even her heartbeat seemed to freeze utterly. What?

What.

How strange. The shock of this revelation had a numbing effect on her thought process, and she still couldn't quite comprehend the reality. This not-Duke seemed to be confessing that he was King Alexander, but...how? Why? All these...methods...seemed a touch too cumbersome for acquiring even a royal hostage, not to mention the spontaneity. For it had to have been a hostage ploy, as senseless as it felt, everything else made even less sense.

But it did make sense, in a horrifying way. Even if she could no longer trust him by his word, she had his cruelty and the blood on her arm to rely on for credence. Either way, it would not be wise to giggle in his face - and that joke had to come back and bite her in the rear.

Only after a heavy pause was she able to muster enough clarity of thought to speak again. The other half of her did fancy laughing dubiously, as if this were some foul-humored prank. In her confused state, the first thing she thought to say was neither here nor there. "I remember your brother. He would not be happy with this," she whispered.

He had seemed complacent at first with her reaction, but after she spoke... For the first time, the Duke - no, the King, if he was who he said he was - looked genuinely irritated, and his smile turned false and unsettling. "How fortunate that he is no longer King, and I am," he returned - but the icy tone in his voice cautioning against further venturing into this topic.

Alais felt this itch to venture. Obsivia was not always as fearsome as it was now.

But that cold dread resettled into the pit of her stomach again, stifling any paths to dangerous impertinence. Now was not the past. Now, with a firsthand awareness of the pain he was willing to inflict, she was kneeling before The Conquerer. The Usurper. Alexander the Cruel. The man who had killed Edmure and conquered his people - among many, many others."For the Black King, heartless cold, his treachery all behold." Being captured by a careless duke was utterly different from being captured by a king. That king. The sheer resources at his disposal, not to mention his reputation for military genius - it made thoughts of a rescue, small as they were, recede even further into the distance.

And - this, this was the man whose arm she held willingly, that she played cards with - and she had liked him then (if pressed to decide the one thing which smarted the most, that would be it). How could she have known?

The King was quiet for a few moments. When he spoke again, he seemed to have accepted her silence, and resumed his explanation. "Yes, the bland peacock you saw at the masquerade was not the King. To openly attend an event like that would tempt injury. I have many enemies. And my intent was to gather information. Little can be learned from simpering nobles all on their best behavior."

It did make sense. It all made sense, in retrospect. Of course it was widely known that the King of Obsivia was a brutal man, and most had accepted the fop who'd attended in his name out of a mixture of courtesy and wishful thinking. And the Duke - his entitlement, his ruthlessness, his violent tendencies - no longer was it bewildering, but perfectly aligned with his reputation.

"Am I a hostage?" Her curiosity being the one element that could convince her to look him in the eyes again, her gaze rose.

The King didn't answer her immediately, turning his attention back to his meal. Unlike her, his appetite did not seem the least bit hindered. Considering the hard riding and mediocre rations, it was perhaps not surprising; he sliced, impaled, and chewed with gusto. This didn't mean he was so preoccupied as to not notice her own restraint.

"Eat," he said, taking her plate and lowering it to her. "I insist," he added, smilingly, as if she were some particularly modest dinner guest. It was difficult to tell whether he really was concerned that she might starve herself to death, or that ordering people around was simply what came instinctively to him. At least, with his identity resolved, there was a reasonable context for his easy presumption and natural forwardness.

Only after she reluctantly lifted her fork did he address her hypothesis. "No, you aren't a hostage. Not exactly."

Not exactly a hostage. The notion puzzled her. That he expected her voice to hold any diplomatic strength after being kidnapped, and bereft of all counsel, left her utterly bewildered. What weight could her compliance hold, her promises made under duress?

The King took his time with the wine, his leisure almost rude when it came at the expense of offering such vital explanation. At length, he sat back, goblet returned to table. "If I go to war, both your family and country will come to ruin. They would...suffer." This sounded like an understatement, and given his reputation, there was hardly the need to parade his past war crimes in detail; he wasn't known for leaving loose ends. As for the rest, it came off less prediction than fact, as if he were speaking of a future certain.

"I don't mean that as a slight, of course. I admire your family's resourcefulness and ability to cultivate alliances. The war would be costly and time-consuming for me." His eyes met hers, the humor gone from them. "But I would win. I've crushed enough civilizations to understand the science behind it, and I've calculated exactly how and when Vvaria would fall."