Chapter Thirteen The Villainess’s Honour Is Defended #2
The Emperor continued, “The question of virtue interests me not at all. The question of murder I find very interesting. Remind me of aristocratic customs, my ministers. If someone casts aspersions on the honour of my betrothed, I can demand a duel, right? That sounds like fun. Who wants to duel me?”
Nobody answered. The Emperor grinned with no sign of humour or surprise, and stretched in his throne like a lazy cat.
Commander General Nemeth observed, “Every lady must make certain her reputation is spotless, so that no question about the succession will arise.”
“Sure,” murmured Rae. “If a test existed that identified the father of a child without a doubt, everyone would stop being weird about women.”
At the same time, Pio glared at Nemeth. “I think the commander general means that given Lady Rahela’s comparatively mature years, we should consider the question of heirs. She is almost thirty.”
“I’m twenty-four!” exclaimed Rae. “How old are you?”
She was twenty, actually, but Lady Rahela’s body was twenty-four. She was the same age as Key, and he would never know.
It didn’t bother Rae. In her own world, she hadn’t expected to live past twenty. If stories said the ideal was for a woman to freeze at age nineteen, Rae understood better than anyone what it meant to stop at that age. Who cared if people thought she was too old? She wasn’t dying young.
“I consider only the question of heirs. I don’t personally find anyone under thirty remotely appealing. You’re like a mass of maggots, always writhing around making a fuss, while everyone else wishes you would grow up and fly away. And I’m forty-two,” Pio informed Rae sourly.
Rae lifted her eyebrows. “Forty-two? I guess you might as well be dead.”
“I have no ambition to marry the Emperor,” Pio muttered.
Rae leaned forward in her throne of bone.
The prime minister might be telling the truth – at least Pio was single – but she knew many of the ministers currently judging her as inferior breeding stock had married teen brides.
“Have you heard sperm declines at an alarming rate after forty? Everybody’s always yapping about how a woman’s womb withers at the stroke of midnight, but when does anyone ever talk about that? ”
The ministers’ murmurs indicated they had no idea what unholy thing sperm might be – perhaps a sort of sea creature – and they wished she would not use peculiar prophetic language when they held court.
“What I mean is…” Rae tried to think of a more dignified, soothsaying approach. “Manly humours deplete drastically with age.”
Commander General Nemeth muttered, “The Harlot in the Tower has great expertise in manly humours.”
The Harlot in the Tower. The name echoed from the golden doors of the throne room to the arched windows overlooking the abyss. People in the Palace on the Edge had pinned the scarlet name on Rae a hundred times. No matter how little their judgement mattered, sometimes the venom stung.
It was one cut among a thousand cuts. Her pain didn’t matter. She had learned that in a different world long ago.
A ghoul hurled itself bodily at the general, rotting flesh and bone becoming a missile. Two more of the dead piled on the old soldier as soon as he struck the ground. Pio gave a shout of genuine terror.
Rae screamed, “Don’t kill him!” and the whole court tensed in expectation of blood hitting the walls.
Nobody expected a ghoul to produce a knife and spin the weapon in its hand, moving with easy grace Rae had never seen in the dead, but recognized as Key’s fluid way with a blade.
It drove bony fingers into the commander general’s mouth and clutched his tongue.
As blade met flesh, the ghouls’ eyes fixed with resentful hunger on the splash of blood on gold.
Every single ghoul strained hard on the leash of the Emperor’s will.
Rae remembered a line from the books: Monsters are always hungry.
The Emperor’s will held. The ghouls did not feed, even when Nemeth’s tongue lay upon the gleaming tiles at his feet.
The Emperor ordered: “Crawl to beg my lady’s forgiveness.”
The commander general’s hand clamped to his mouth, blood seeping between his fingers. Over his hand, Nemeth’s eyes burned as hatefully as the dead.
The Emperor continued, relentless. “Your tongue soiled my lady’s name. So I cut it out. Crawl to your queen. Kiss her feet. And beg.”
Crawl to your queen… The Emperor said these exact words in the scene where he killed his treacherous lady, and half the ministers at court.
Rae tried to speak, but found her mouth dry with fear, tongue as useless as Nemeth’s.
The proud commander general staggered to his feet, with his hand clamped to his mouth.
Then, stiff and slow, as though his joints had rusted, he sank down on his knees.
The Emperor slanted a look his way, dark as a window opened to night, a window which horror might crawl through.
Nemeth dragged himself forward on his hands and knees.
He left a trail of blood up the steps to the throne, giving a low, wordless animal whine as he crawled to Rae’s feet.
Rae felt carved from marble, petrified and cold, unable to move.
The Emperor touched her wrist to get her attention. His fingers rested against her skin very lightly, a sweet little sting.
If he closed his gauntleted hand hard around her wrist, he could take her hand off.
“They whispered insults behind your back and hurled worse in your face. Every day. You had to bear it. I had to listen to it. Not any more. Nobody will ever insult you again.”
Give a bitch a bad name, and you could kick her all over town. In both worlds, Rae knew how that worked.
Everyone had grown accustomed to insulting the Harlot in the Tower. They never truly thought they would face consequences for it. Everyone knew she didn’t matter.
For a moment, for the first time in years, Rae believed she mattered to someone else.
For a moment, revenge tasted sweet, but the thought of Nemeth’s children made a bitter flavour creep in.
Friendly, fashionable Fabianus, the twin Horrors, and Tycho, who was a kid.
Nemeth was a devoted father. There weren’t many devoted fathers around in any world.
“Your Imperial Majesty,” she whispered. “My love. Stop.”
The Emperor’s eyes narrowed, as red as the door to hell closing, with Rae on the wrong side.
“Have I failed to please you?”
Rae’s voice cracked. “No! I’m happy! You did exactly what I wanted.”
Her nerve almost broke under his long stare. Once, Key would have believed what she told him, trusting they were on the same side. Now he knew she was a liar, and she knew he was the Emperor.
Eventually, Key waved a summons. “Let the commander general be escorted to his chambers, and have healers sent to him. If the peace talks with Tagar fail, we may need someone to command our living army.”
The undead guards dragged out the limp commander general, tall shining doors falling shut as the Emperor finished speaking.
It was over that quickly. As swift as the change from Rae wanting to laugh as the Emperor defended her, to terror as his defence turned vicious.
Pio wrenched his gaze from the blood smeared across the gold mosaics.
“Sire, I have one more thing to say. I sent messengers summoning a holy military order dedicated to the Great God, your father. When they arrive, the Divine Order can turn the tide of war in our favour.” The prime minister warned, “We must play for time. Before the order arrives, the peace talks cannot fail.”