The Axe and the Throne (15 page)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A single tallow candle burned, casting a faint but steady light upon the suite. Arms of intricate wrought iron suspended linen drapes over grandiose windows, the glass of which gleamed like obsidian against the black of night. Centered in the room was an enormous bed, standing near chest height and covered in dozens of pillows positioned with care, not a single astray.

Cassen was stirred from his slumber, unsure if he had been awoken by a noise or mere fitfulness. Suspecting the former, he threw off his blankets and pushed them, along with the small floor mat he'd been sleeping upon, underneath the bed. His suspicion proved correct.

“Apologies, Duchess. Some ladies here to see you.” The servant boy spoke loudly from beyond the door, considering the hour. Cassen nodded to himself with contentment.
A smart enough boy to place greater weight upon my instruction than upon his fear of disturbing me.

Cassen began draping himself in silks with considerable dexterity—he was no stranger to the task. Only when he had built up a large enough mass of the finery about himself did he reply. “They may enter.”

In walked three of his lady servants. Two clearly tended to the needs of the third whose head was buried in her hands as she wept. Cassen directed them to a small curved sofa where they sat the crying girl.
This looks promising.

“You may leave us.” Cassen waved off the two girls who had brought her. One began to leave, but the other was not so quick to action.

“Is there something else?” he asked Annora, the one who loitered. She was one of his Spiceland girls, made clear enough by her wavy brown hair and olive skin. Her face was stronger than most of the girls Cassen employed, but she was still quite striking in her beauty. Truth be told, she was one of his favorites in terms of appearance.
This one tempts me above the others.

“If it pleases you, we would like to stay. We may be of some assistance in comforting her, Duchess.” Annora made the request with the utmost courtesy, yet it was a dangerous border to be pushing after having been dismissed.
She is ever so forward.

Cassen gave her a coy frown. “You know I dislike it when you call me that. I am a duchess, to be sure, but I am foremost your mother and protector.”

“Yes, Mother,” replied Annora. She bowed her head in reverence.

Cassen pretended to ponder it for a time as he studied his brazen lady.
I do wonder how I only noted her appearance during her training and not her spirit. I suppose I am, after all, a man.
Although amused by the thought, he did not allow it to change his countenance.

“Yes, the two of you may stay. But…” he said with a serious furrow of the brow, “do not speak of this lest your sisters think I favor some over the others.”

The relief visible on Annora's face caught him off guard, despite his high standard when it came to the appreciation of body language and expressions. It was clearly relief not for herself but for her friend, at whom she now gazed with a look between pity and sympathy.
This one surprises me, it seems, with her every action. Perhaps I am losing my touch… Or perhaps I am merely infatuated.
Again he kept his amusement hidden.

Cassen shifted his attentions to Annora's friend who had sobered to formality in his presence. “Now, what is it that ails you, my lady daughter?”

The girl broke again into tears. Cassen, expecting no different, was quick to embrace her. As the two sat upon the sofa he comforted her, stroking her hair gently as he turned his attention to the remaining girls.
Perhaps we can expedite this normally lengthy process.

“It was her patron,” Annora said, anticipating Cassen's request for an explanation.

At last she says something thoroughly predictable.

“He has mistreated her in the gravest of fashions,” she concluded.

Oh, heavens no!
Cassen's sardonic and silent humor allowed him to survive the normal drudgery of this routine, but he found he was enjoying himself more than usual. It was progressing quickly, and he was becoming somewhat enamored with this Spiceland girl—in his own way.

“Remind me again, who is her patron?” Cassen was confident in the response, but better to be sure. He knew his girls well, but they all tended to look the same when they came in bawling and eyes puffed.

“Master Warin, Mother.”

With Cassen's newfound feelings for Annora it seemed more disconcerting than usual to be called by his requested title. The name revealed, however, was as he had hoped. Warin was a man who under normal circumstances could have never afforded the luxury of a lady servant. As the Master of The Guard he held a position of great power and even had a seat on the High Council, but all members of The Guard were paid very little for their services. It was Cassen who had suggested to Master Warin that he, and more specifically of course his wife, could benefit from such services, and that the costs were not near so much as the nobles aggrandized. Cassen had, out of sheer benevolence no less, lowered his rates substantially so they would indeed be within the master's means. Since then, Warin and his wife had been quite pleased with the services rendered by all reports.

“And he
forced
himself upon her?” Cassen asked as if the proposition was unthinkable. Annora and the other standing girl both nodded while the third, Ryiah, a girl Cassen had acquired from a poor family in Westport for a pittance, continued to sob and shake in Cassen's arms.

“This troubles me greatly. I bear no burden of greater precedence than that of keeping all my daughters safe. This violation must not go unpunished.” He extended the crying girl before him, and she stopped sobbing momentarily to hear his words. “I need you to be strong and understand what must be done in order to right this wrong. The politics of rank and nobility are complicated and perverse. If we were to accuse him of such an action it would merely be the word of a servant, lady that she may be, versus that of the highest ranking member of The Guard, the supposed Protectors of the Realm. I could not testify in support of your claims by rule of hearsay, as I did not bear witness.”

Ryiah looked as if she was about to sob again, but Cassen squeezed her arms to shush her and regain her attention. “Listen to me carefully. We will have our justice. Any man evil enough to commit such an act has secrets—secrets that would likely destroy him if they came to light. You must tell me everything you hear during your service that you think is of import, and much of what you think is not. Secrets are power, my daughters, and if you give me the power I will see that he is punished. So that he can never do such a thing again to you or anyone else.” Cassen concluded his performance by brushing some damp hair out of Ryiah's face and nodded a signal for the two girls to take the newly quieted one back to her quarters.

They moved to obey, but as the girl had been brought to her feet, Annora's dark brown eyes fixed on Cassen. “Mother, what would you have Ryiah do if her master tries again to…dishonor her?”

Girls rarely asked this question. It was assumed that they must continue to endure the abuse until secrets enough were obtained to corrupt the perpetrator. Sometimes the abuse would stop after Cassen approached the man, as he always did, and asked for favors in return for keeping the matter quiet; however, this was the exception and not the rule. It was of no real consequence to Cassen, so long as the man continued to be beholden to his demands for favors.

Cassen lowered his head in faux shame. “I cannot begin to imagine being myself in such a horrid circumstance. I see no alternative to that which has been previously done that would not invite violence and unduly endanger her, my daughter.” Practiced though he was in the art, it almost hurt Cassen to tell this lie. He himself
had
been faced with a similar circumstance when he was younger, and much to his credit he thought, had not reacted in the way he now suggested. “I can only beg her to be strong and keep ears open to the secrets that may be her salvation.”

It was clear to see how this answer troubled Annora, and Ryiah had taken again to tearing. Annora voiced her concern. “Mother, but there is an alternative. I apologize for not having told you, but I too was assaulted some time ago.”

Cassen scoured his memory to determine whom she must be speaking of. It could only be Emrel, an Adeltian wine merchant who was patron to Annora still. Cassen certainly had expected results from having planted her there within short time, but when they never came, it slipped his mind as there were no pressing favors needed from the man.

“When his wife was away with her friends touring the gardens he tried to grab at me and force off my clothes. It is ill-becoming of a lady, but I am not ashamed to say I bit him to the point of bleeding and kicked him hard between his legs.” The Spiceland accent she was so careful to suppress was revealed as she recounted the tale. “He cried out in pain, and let me be. I am now more careful when alone in his presence, but he has never since tried to attack me. Could Ryiah not do the same?”

Cassen stared blank-faced at Annora for a moment before answering with the inconclusiveness of the politician that he was, but he was moved by her formerly unexposed strength and beauty.
A lady after my own loveless heart.

 

 

 

 

 

Years Ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Ethel, you have barely touched your meal.”

Ethel peered at the glistening hunk of bone and meat upon her plate. What was the point? Every bite she took drove her that much further from the appearance she wished to have. How it was that her mother could eat seemingly whatever she fancied, never to gain an ounce, was puzzling and above all unjust. Ethel had never desired to meet her birth father for any reason but to punch him in what must have been his enormous gut—a thank you for what he'd passed down to her. And it was evermore reason to wish Alther had been her real father. The lissome frame he'd passed to Stephon could have been her own, had her mother simply waited for a proper husband. Whatever had possessed her to play the part of harlot at such a young age, Ethel could not guess, nor could she ever recall having seen that side of her mother.

“If you are trying to starve yourself into a slender figure, I assure you, that is not a proper way to do it. Do as I, and eat a bit of all that is served, stopping
before
you've had your fill. Then, if you must, allow yourself just a taste of dessert—that is your biggest issue. Perhaps skip dessert altogether if you don't have the control—”

“Mother, enough!” Ethel had heard this speech so many times she could repeat it verbatim, and each time she heard it only made her want to do the opposite that much more. And doing so was worth it, but not for the look of anger on her mother's face when Ethel labored theatrically to consume the final bite of yellow cake, declared her fullness, then kindly asked a servant for a second. No, it was her father's reaction that made her repeat the performance. Watching him struggle to hide his amusement was reward enough for any action, no matter what it may cost her.

“You should listen to Mother,” said Stephon.

Should I?
Quarreling with her brother had become a pastime, but she tried to avoid doing so at supper as it turned her father somber. Even now he had a look on his face that pleaded that she not engage her brother.

“Thank you, Stephon. Now that I have your input, I do believe I will finally heed Mother's words.”

Stephon nodded his approval while chewing the last of his second or third serving of braised oxtail, a meat so rich it coated her teeth with a disgusting film.
Yes, Stephon, by all means—I'll take advice from a boy who could eat nothing but butter and see no ill-effect.
It mystified her—not her brother's eating habits as that seemed to be the norm for boys his age—but his intelligence. Most often he would seem the dullest of knives, unable to slice through the supple irony she served him. But other times he astounded her, coming to conclusions that seemed so far from his reach, if not her own, that she made a note to analyze even his most foolish assertions in the off chance he'd stumbled blindly onto some elusory truth.

“Good,” continued Stephon, seemingly unaffected by her sarcasm as usual. “It would be a great shame for you to stop eating, given that you lost your only other friend so recently.”

He delivered the words with such utter lack of emotion Ethel paused to look at him, trying to discern whether he was truly attempting to hurt her or merely stating a fact. Stephon did not smirk, or smile. He did not even look to her for response. He had engaged a servant, asking for another plate.

Had Griffin told the other boys?
It was one thing for him to have crushed her, but it would be another for him to revel in it with others. She had to know, but she had to proceed carefully so Stephon would not know she was hurt or angry.

“
What
is
that
supposed to mean?”

Not only had she failed in self-restraint, she feared she now scowled at Stephon in the very way her mother scowled at her father—a reviling look that Ethel had resolved never to imitate.

Stephon looked at her, seeming perplexed by the fury he'd stirred.

“I just assumed the way you've been locking yourself in your room lately instead of sneaking off to the buttery with him that he'd finally told you he can't be seen with you anymore. It was bound to happen. Everyone made fun of him for it.” Stephon's plate of cake had arrived and was placed in front of him. He picked up his fork and stuffed a third of the slice into his mouth without a care.

Ethel had fantasized about running off—to where exactly she did not know. The realm seemed so small, or at least the portion of it that had the potential to be pleasant. She'd never wanted to run off quite so badly as she did now, however. In her books there was no end to the places she could escape to, the only problem being she always had to return. She would leave for good though, some day. Alone if she had to, but she would not remain here. It was unthinkable.

“I hope you choke on that cake and die.” Ethel no longer cared if she scowled like her mother. “The day the realm is passed to you will be a day mourned by all.” With that, Ethel pushed from the table and stormed off to her room, ignoring her mother's chiding.