Chapter 4 #2
I didn’t know the group of men. They were newcomers, youths — a mismatched conglomerate of sons, military upstarts, and those who married into court life. None of them would have ever been worth my notice. And they knew it.
“You have a surprising bite for a chicken,” said the one who seemed to lead the group, a fair-haired man who wore a moustache and a military uniform, a young officer in Her Majesty’s guards. “I think you’ve forgotten how a chicken acts.”
“Have I? Why don’t you demonstrate? I would appreciate seeing a more accurate portrayal.”
“He thinks he’s funny, Krintova,” one of them said to the leader.
“I’m a jester now,” I said. “I have to at least try.”
“We can find ways for you to amuse us,” Krintova said.
Two men approached me, one from either side.
Maybe I could have fought. I probably could have successfully fought off one. Maybe two. Although my lack of energy and will to live had reduced me to nothing but a shell of myself, I did not want to try it.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Get out of the basket.”
I obeyed, standing and then stepping out of the nest.
One of the two men grabbed my wrists and began binding them behind my back. Once they were bound, the man lifted them, twisting my arms painfully so that he could fasten the other end of the binding around my neck. Trussed up, I could only wait to see their plan.
“Now those are proper wings!” One of them pointed to my elbows as I fought to give my wrists some release from the awkward position.
“You’re already a better chicken than you were a few moments ago.”
“Don’t you usually look down at chickens?”
“It matters not how tall I am. Everyone looks down at me now,” I assured them.
“Is that why you had to get a Varnasian wife? Was she a whore who couldn’t do any better?”
That undid my self-restraint. I kicked the drunkard between his legs, and he hit the floor with a yowl and a gratifying thud.
The rest of them set upon me, bringing me down easily with my arms already bound. They bound my ankles too and attached them to my wrists, trapping me in a position from which I could not shift without pulling on something else.
The man I tried to castrate came over holding his crotch. He spat on me. Several others followed his lead.
“You haven’t learned your place yet,” Krintova said.
Someone from behind shoved me forward so that I fell face-first into the floor. The padding of the costume and the leather beak cushioned my fall, but I still landed eye-level with the officer’s boot. He landed a kick into the bridge of my nose. Blood poured into the mask.
“I need another drink,” one of them said over me.
“Should we release him?”
“Leave him,” the officer said, withdrawing and leading his group with him. “He can think on his haughtiness for a night just like that.”
Alone, I contemplated how best to right myself. But even with solitude, quiet, and logical effort applied to the situation, I only struggled against the costume and the bindings, unable to pry myself off the floor.
Hours passed. I dozed a little, not for long when I did manage because of how the binding pulled on the collar. Those peaceful darkened hours of quiet transformed into a nightmare as I lost feeling in my arms and legs.
The clicking of heels on tile finally offered hope as I strained my neck to glance in the sound’s direction. The clicking neared.
What exactly did I shout out to get someone’s attention? Help? More like they would come over to gape and laugh and walk away to find others they could show.
My debate about eliciting aid died when the clicking stopped. Then it came loud and fast as the person hurried over. My bindings loosened, my legs and then my arms, until the cord was removed from around the collar. I could barely move as my limbs regained circulation.
“Oh, merciful Kind and Fair,” she breathed, “what is that?”
I found myself staring into the face of Princess Alaina sitting on the floor beside me.
I turned away and tried instead to concentrate on rising.
I drew my arms under my chest and pushed myself up on my forearms until I could sit back on my legs.
A poor idea. I shifted instead to sitting directly on the floor and twisted my neck to try and loosen it as much as possible in the confines of the collar.
I grabbed one of the formerly-white sleeves and dabbed my face inside the beak mask to clean the dried blood.
“It’s blood,” I told my rescuer. When she continued to stare at me, I asked slightly more defensively than the situation merited, “What? Have you never seen a chicken with a broken nose before?”
“Someone did that to you,” she said.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“But it does!”
“The tsarina has done worse, and I’m expected to be quiet about that. So tell me, Your Highness, what does it matter what anyone else does to me?”
“It’s cruel,” she insisted.
“Welcome to Ilyichia.” I stretched again, this time focusing on my shoulders and my back. Every joint and muscle screamed in pain. “I thought you might have been here long enough to figure that out.”
“That’s why I am here this early,” she said. “I hate it here, and I want to go home. She’s usually in a better temper in the mornings to hear petitions.”
“I hope she hears you,” I said, trying to be slightly more gracious to someone who had just so recently come to my aid.
“She hears me, but she never grants it. This will be my thirty-second petition in two years.”
“Then I hope it is different this time.”
She stared at her hands folded in her lap in an attitude of defeat.
“Thank you for your assistance,” I said when she seemed disinclined to continue our conversation. “But for your sake and the sake of your petition, you may not wish to be seen speaking with me. I am not her favorite person.”
“I had no idea,” she said, an almost-secret smile touching the corners of her mouth.
Noises echoed outside the chamber. The princess’s smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she scrambled to her feet, putting as much distance as she could between us.
I retreated to use the chamber pot and to wash off as much blood and food as I could.
The former was much needed, and the latter lamentably did little.
I did not have time to shave though, and I returned to the chamber feeling only marginally better than when I had left it.
Only petitioners had gathered when I took my place in the basket.
The tsarina arrived a short while later, a sea of bobbing heads and bowing forms preceding her. She made her way through the room and headed straight to her chair. Once there, she surveyed her gathering per usual and stopped her examination when she saw me.
“Whatever happened to you? You look appalling.”
“Nothing, ma’am.”
“He was beaten,” Princess Alaina said at my refusal to disclose details.
The tsarina glanced at her niece-by-law and then back at me. “I warned you. Let it be a lesson to you to mind that mouth.” She then returned her attention to the princess. “And what have you to say today?”
“I came to formally ask if I could return to Altania.”
“No. Next!”
The princess curtsied deeply and withdrew, having been summarily dismissed.
She gathered her skirts and walked to my side of the room so that she could make her escape.
She sought me out with her eyes and held my gaze when she found it.
She mouthed no words and made no gestures, but for that tenuous moment of connection, I understood her perfectly.
I might have been in a costume and she might have been in a gown, but we were both prisoners of the tsarina and therefore exactly the same.