Chapter 13 #3
He was a tall man with regal bearing, a golden crown, arched and studded with jewels big as the ripest summer berries, and his face hidden behind a boar’s mask. A hush fell that was unmistakable—unlike the church, here I was glaringly noticed.
Every eye was turned to me, sharp and whetted behind their fine masks, feathers and diamond headpieces. A long table set with gold platters and silver plates and suckling pig had been laid right there, but they only had eyes for me.
Bewildered, I mumbled an apology in French and then in German and Latin. No language seemed to register. I curtseyed, but when I went to grasp my dress, I was astonished to find it had again changed.
Someone tittered.
Dress was a gracious word for what I wore.
From my throat to my ankle and wrists, I was clad in a finely twisted silk scarlet netting.
Small diamonds were sewn into the intricate patterns, but it was cut so tight against my naked skin that it pinched my flesh.
There was no backing, no shift, no stockings, no second layer.
No wonder every eye was turned—I was a spectacle, trussed up like meat for roasting.
I started to retreat, but there was nowhere to go.
The door had disappeared and only a wall stood behind me.
“Mademoiselle écarlate,” the man who I thought must be a king or an emperor said, standing from the table. “Nous vous attendons.” Attendants pulled back his chair just as he seemed to move, and he rounded the long table toward me, hand outstretched.
I thought maybe I would find him, up close, to be Lord Death, so I did not panic, only took his hand.
But it was not him. I did not know where I was or who any of these people were.
If I could have remembered who I was outside those rooms, I would have been frightened, but I could not, and so I stood there confused as he took my hand and spun me into his orbit.
I stumbled to follow his dance, my ankles caught in the red netting, my bare feet sticking to the wood floor.
“Regardez ca,” he said to the crowd in dulcet tones, turning me one way. “Succulente.” And he spun me the other way, hand flowing elegantly down the line of my exposed body.
Fear pricked at the edges of my skin, but in a way that I could feel the bite of the scarlet threads, the cut of each diamond, and even the whisper of his hand across my puckered flesh.
I closed my eyes on the people watching me, watching us, and for a moment let myself feel both the fear and the pleasure.
His breath came to my neck, smelling of sandalwood and something rich and warm.
“Maintenant se régaler,” he breathed, teeth nipping just at the edge of the scarlet netting.
Opening my eyes, I startled.
I was not in the Emperor’s hands, but between two of his attendees. They were dressed in silk livery, and instead of wearing masks, they were blindfolded with creamy silk that matched their tunics. One took my wrists and the other my ankles, lifting me between them.
Stupidly, I didn’t think to fight or flee, for I had been too well trained in acquiescence. Too aware of the watching crowd of fine ladies and gentlemen. The men moved me to the table toward two poles and it wasn’t until they lowered me that I realized.
I was the suckling pig.
I gasped in pain as the hooks caught the netting, pulling it tight.
Diamonds on my wrists and ankles popped off onto the dinner plates of the ladies and men closest. They laughed and picked them up, marveling for a moment, then brushing them away.
I screamed and twisted, trying to rock myself off the spit, but the men lashed me tighter with a red silk ribbon.
I called for Lord Death, though I only knew him by that name and none other, and so it simply sounded like I cried for Death.
I cried for him to rescue me until they shoved a red apple into my mouth, and I choked on my tongue and the apple’s hard flesh.
A bell rang, clear and true, and everyone stilled, then lifted their glasses toward me.
I kept screaming, kept twisting, but I had become invisible once again.
No one seemed to hear or care. I heard the mad old woman in the woods telling me to mind my borders, that I was leaking something out of me, but I did not know what she meant.
Myself? My magic? The Emperor was giving some kind of speech, but I could not hear it.
I gave up fighting, my sobs a low animal bleat for Death.
Surely he must hear me. Surely he would return.
But no one came. The bell rang again. The Emperor rose toward me. A large knife glinted in the light, hovering over my flesh.
I begged for him to stop. Pled to stay his hand. But he laughed and turned the blade up, slicing through the netting to let my flesh fall free. He prepared the cut.
I don’t know how I escaped, how I made it off the table.
I came to awareness only as my scream was knocked out of my chest and I struck the stone floor, hard.
Quick and desperate, I pushed off the ground, running into the dark with the frayed ribbons streaming from my wrists and ankles and the tinkling of diamonds in my wake.
I found the door behind the tapestry and fell through it naked and desperate only to escape.
Tumbling back into the quiet hallways of the chateau, I fell onto my hands and knees on the blue flowered carpet, dragging in a ragged breath of the perfume of incense and smoke on stone.
At first, I was relieved. I thought only of my waiting fire and clothes and bed. I stumbled down the hall, diamonds popping off the netting that still bound my knees. After a few feet my body faltered, and I dropped to the floor. It hit me then—
I had lost the keys.
“Ma petite chou,” his voice came softly when he found me, the cool leather of his gloves sliding across my bare and burning skin.
I forced my eyes open and found his dark gaze piercing through the haze, bringing me back to earth.
I couldn’t help but choke back a laugh, which sounded more like a sob.
He might have been Death, but he was my savior.