by A. C. Cobble
“What shall I tell the marquess, m’lady?” asked her maid.
“Let him in,” replied Lannia, steeling herself for another painful appointment.
She felt her eyes well with tears, more at the thought of how many more such meetings she’d need to take rather than sadness at the loss of her father. She made no effort to wipe away the tears. It was expected of someone in her state to show emotion, and Lannia had spent her entire life doing as expected.
She would miss her father. He’d been a kind man, thoughtful of his only daughter’s needs, even if he’d never understood them. That had been their relationship, cheerful and warm, but always they were strangers.
A man cleared his throat, jarring her out of her reverie, and she looked up to see Marquess Bartholomew Surrey standing in the doorway of her sitting room.
“Apologies, m’lord,” she murmured. “It has been a terrible day, and I’m afraid I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I appreciate your concern, and your condolences are welcome.”
“I haven’t offered them yet,” remarked the man.
Tall, thin, black hair swept away from his narrow face, he had the look of a sharp-tongued tailor rather than a peer. His clothes, several months out of fashion, were the only thing that spoiled the image.
She offered him a wan smile. “I thought you had. I’ve taken appointments from so many men these last two days… Can I offer you something to drink? Tea?”
The man’s lips curled up at the corners and he shook his head. “You need offer me nothing, m’lady. May I pour you a glass of wine?”
“Wine?” she replied. “It’s a bit—”
“A bit early, yes, unless one is dealing with a terrible loss,” he interjected. “In such circumstances, I’ve found a small drink is the best way to soothe one’s nerves.”
Without further comment, he strode to the side of her sitting room and selected a green glass bottle off of a mirrored cart. He poured two glasses to the brim.
He offered her one and sipped the other himself. “A bit sweet to my palette.”
“In a lady’s sitting room, one should expect to find sweet-tasting wines,” she retorted, pausing to gulp her wine in unladylike fashion. She watched him sit across from her, and remarked dryly, “Please, sit and join me.”
“The famous Wellesley wit,” said Marquess Surrey. He crossed his legs and cradled his wine in his lap. “Known for your wit almost as well as your beauty and your penchant for sharing it. But I imagine with your father gone, it will be your inherited wealth your callers are interested in. Funny, isn’t it? As if William would have found other causes to contribute to had he lived longer. His wealth was always destined for your hands. Why should his passing make any difference to a suitor?”
Lannia frowned at the man.
“I’ve not come to court you, Lannia,” he admitted, “though you are worthy of such attention.”
“I do not believe I know you well, m’lord,” stated Lannia, staring at the man in consternation. “Not nearly so well that you may feel free to speak bluntly to me.”
“You are right. We do not know each other well,” agreed the man. “In fact, I believe we’ve only met two or three times, and then only briefly. It’s so hard to find time for real conversation in the midst of a party. But while I do not know you well, and I daresay you do not know me at all, I knew your father.”
Lannia blinked at the man and sipped her wine.
“I respected William greatly,” continued Bartholomew, slowly turning his wine glass but not drinking from it. “Not because of his role as prime minister and not because of his qualities as a father.”
“Why, then?” she asked, unsure if the man was intriguing or annoying. She was on the verge of demanding he stand and leave, and then telling her uncle, the king, about how rude the marquess had been, but it was that thought that stopped her. The man must know she could complain to her family and have him ostracized, yet he had said what he had said.
“Do you know what your father did in his free time?” asked the marquess.
“I didn’t know that he had any,” she retorted.
The man smirked. “Fair enough. William was a busy man, but not all of it was in service of the Crown. Not in the way he spoke about publicly, at least.”
“What are you saying?” asked Lannia.
“Would you like to know how your father died?” inquired Bartholomew.
She gaped at him, unsure how to respond.
The man waited patiently, politely.
“I know how he died,” she whispered. “A hunting accident. He fell.”
“Is that so?” drawled the marquess. “Common was it, that your father would go hunting in the environs near here? Didn’t you say he rarely had free time?”
“My cousin saw the accident,” responded Lannia.
“Perhaps he did,” acknowledged Marquess Surrey. “Oliver, right, the Duke of Northundon? Is he also an avid hunter?”
“Stop toying with me and say what you came to say,” demanded Lannia.
“That’s a girl,” replied Bartholomew. “Wit and steel. You are a true Wellesley, and a true Wellesley does not stop until they have answers.”
“Answers? I don’t even have questions,” said Lannia. “Do you think it wise to accuse my family of lying?”
“No, it is probably not,” agreed the marquess. “You and I have a common interest, though. We can help each other.”
“What interest is that?”
“We both want to know what happened to your father,” explained Bartholomew. “I am so interested, in fact, that I’d like to ask him, and I need your help to do it.”
Three giant braziers were set around the circular, stone room, each one roaring with two-yard high flames. It lit the space with a bright orange glow. Brighter than she preferred for these circumstances, but at least the light of the fires gave her some warmth, some sense of safety.
In front of her was the black, silk-clad back of Marquess Bartholomew Surrey. The peer, impolite and direct, but sincere, had finally convinced her over the course of too many glasses of sweet Finavian wine to agree to his bold scheme.
During the preparations for the ritual, she had sobered, but she was still curious. The attire, the symbolism, and the explanation of the rite all felt familiar yet strange. She’d performed similar activities in service to the Feet of Seheht. She had risen in that society from acolyte to priestess. She’d witnessed the workings of the upper echelon and participated in rituals that were secret even from other priestesses of her rank. She’d flung herself whole-heartedly into mastering the arcane practices and knowledge, but at no time had she thought it was real. At no time had she expected their midnight frolics to actually accomplish anything.
Her involvement was the result of abject boredom and a jaded disregard for the usual entertainments of the incredibly wealthy. By her twentieth winter, she’d reveled and rebelled, and grown tired of it. She had been raised in a palace with everything provided for her but nothing for her to do. At her fingertips, she’d had access to any entertainment the city had to offer. She’d been courted, wooed, and fawned over by most of the eligible men in the nation of Enhover, and no small number of ineligible ones. There’d been nothing out of reach for her, nothing her father or uncle could not provide. Nothing for her ever to work for, to be proud of. Nothing except the forbidden teachings of the Feet of Seheht and half-a-dozen other societies that she’d breezed through. Knowing the society’s activities were banned by the Church, frowned upon by her father and uncle, had excited the young baroness.
She’d known it was theatre, though. She’d always known it was theatre.
Marquess Bartholomew Surrey, on the other hand, seemed entirely earnest in his plan to contact the spirit of her father. The man spoke with such certainty, such intense need, that’d she’d begun to believe him.
The marquess turned, his bright eyes burning like cold counters to the open flames in the room. Those eyes were the only part of h
im visible beneath his jet-black robes and mask.
Behind her, six similarly attired priests spread out around the circle of the stone room, taking places in between the flames of the braziers. They moved silently, and so far, only the marquess had spoken. She had no idea who the other participants were.
“Before we begin,” intoned the marquess, assuming a practiced baritone that was as common in practitioners of secret ceremonies as it was on the stage, “I want to ensure you understand what we will do tonight, what you are agreeing to.”
“You will not tell me it is too late to change my mind?” she asked, glancing back behind her to the unlit hallway they’d walked through on the way to the chamber. In the tunnel, she’d heard the heavy steel gate slam shut. She’d heard the clank of a lock as one of the society members had sealed them within the chamber. It had sent a trill of fear and excitement down her spine, knowing they’d trapped her inside.
“Would you prefer there be no choice?” asked Bartholomew.
The marquess moved to the altar in the center of the room. It was a rectangular table, waist-high to the men and draped in black silk that was stitched with silver thread depicting the symbol of Seshim. A spirit she was only passingly familiar with, but she knew the spirit was allied with Seheht. Two legs of the dark trinity, she’d been told long ago.
“If you’d rather,” continued the marquess. He pulled up a corner of the silk sheet. Beneath it, she saw an iron manacle dangling from a stout length of chain.
She studied the restraint then looked to Bartholomew. “That is not necessary.”
He shrugged. “Some prefer it that way. If you are ready, then disrobe.”
Trying to hide her shaking, Lannia unclasped the black silk she was clothed in and let it fall to the floor. She felt the warmth from the fires on her bare skin, and following Marquess Surrey’s direction, she climbed onto the altar, his hand on her back, helping her up. She lay down, her bare skin sliding across the smooth silk, the flickering fires caressing her with their warmth.
Bartholomew took a place beside the altar at her head, and the other six robed and masked figures stepped forward and surrounded her.
The seven men let out a low, sonorous hum. Motionless, they continued the sound. So far below the streets of Southundon, the crackling of the fire and the steady buzz of the men’s humming were only noises in the stone chamber. The echoes rolled back and forth, bouncing off the walls as the men continued their wordless chant.
She felt her body begin to respond to the warmth of the fire, to the seven men looking down at her nakedness, to the hums from their throats that seemed to course through her, washing over her body in waves. Her heart beat faster, her breath came in expectant bursts, and she shifted, parting her legs slightly.
The men around her stayed motionless, humming.
Bartholomew moved, and she followed him with her eyes as he collected a silver thurible. Swinging the censer from three thin chains, he waved it in a circle, and fragrant clouds of incense trailed after it, drifting down over her face and her shoulders.
She breathed deeply, inhaling the scent and feeling its comfort.
Bartholomew began to pace around the backs of the other participants, swinging the thurible, his low-voiced chant overlaying their humming. He spoke words she could not understand in a muddled drone that never seemed to break.
She did not know the meaning of his intonation, but she began to move on the altar, her excitement rising, looking into the eyes of the men surrounding her, feeling the hums from their throats penetrating her. The smoke from the incense covered the altar and began to fill the room, undulating tendrils moving along with the rise and the fall of Bartholomew’s low, strange incantation.
There was something in the incense, something other than herbs burned for their scent, something that was intoxicating her, but she did not care. The thrill of the ritual, the fear that it would not work, and the panic that it would work, all raced through her. She wondered about tomorrow, when they emerged into the bright light of morning, what she would feel, what she would think, but she forced the thought away. There was no tomorrow, no tonight even. There was only now.
Bartholomew continued his slow rotation around the room, spreading the smoke from the thurible and filling the stone chamber with echoes of his chanting. It was familiar and strange, like she’d heard it long before, but she did not know when.
Beside her, the two men closest to her head shifted. One produced a long strip of black silk. The other placed soft hands below her head, lifting it slightly, letting the first man wrap the silk around her, blindfolding her.
Her sight gone, she dove into her other senses, smelling the fragrant smoke, listening to the deep hums and chanting. She felt warmth from the palm of the man’s hand against her cheek. She twisted her head so that the first man could tie the blindfold behind her. Her lips pressed against the second man’s palm, and she parted them, breathing heavily on his skin.
The first man finished tying the blindfold, but the other let his hands linger. Who was he? Did she know him? The man did not move away from her, and in the haze brought by the incense, it took her a moment to realize Bartholomew’s chanting had stopped. She felt him, or someone, by her feet, climbing atop the altar. Atop her.
One by one, the men’s humming ended, and they took up Bartholomew’s chant, rotating around the circle. One man uttered the strange commands, the others repeating him in lower voices. Hands — some soft and maintained with lotions and oils, some harsh like that of a laborer — began to stroke her body. She twisted, writhing in trepidation and anticipation.
Her legs were pushed apart. Bartholomew, or one of the others, scooted awkwardly between her thighs.
She opened her mouth to speak, to ask what would happen next, but the man beside her head put his fingers into her mouth, his palm on her jaw. She closed her lips around his fingers, silent as the other men circled and touched her, cupping her breasts, pulling her nipples, and closing fingers around her neck before releasing her.
The man between her legs entered her. She could feel his silk robes hiked up around his waist, and she could feel the trembling in his body as he pressed against her, in her.
The others groped her, teased her, and hurt her with their hands.
Between her legs, the man thrust vigorously, frantic with a need more primal than the ritual they were conducting. She let him take his pleasure and felt the moment when it was complete. Then, another took his place, eager with the same drive as the first man, the same drive that every man had. Out of pace with their slow, deliberate incantation, the men could not hold back, perhaps intoxicated by the same mixture in the incense that had overtaken her.
Despite herself, she felt her hips rising and falling with the second man’s plunging thrusts. She felt her body responding, her need mirroring his. Blindfolded, the scent of the incense, the sound of the men’s chanting, and the feel of their hands and bodies filled her mind with intense sensation.
When her second suitor finished, hands rolled her to her stomach, gently, insistent. She did not fight, and as a third man took his place behind her, she arched her back, accepting what was happening, swimming the current of the ritual along with them.
They kept their hands on her, kept joining her on the altar, and her pleasure and pain rose in cascading waves. As each man finished, she crested another wave, and her mind swirled with quivering ecstasy and harsh torment as the men’s fever grew.
They spun her, turned her, and entered her again and again. They grew impatient and no longer waited their turn. They used her in every way that they could. Had it been seven? Had they begun anew? She thought they had, but she’d lost count. Lost track of time. Of where they were. Who they were. She only knew what she could feel them doing.
Then, she was rolled onto her back and held there with a hand around her neck. Other hands clamped down on her shoulders and legs. A man pushed his way between her legs, entering her quickly and violently. Her blindfold wa
s torn away and she blinked in the stabbing light cast by the fires. She lay on her back, looking up at the masked face hovering above her.
She struggled, uncertain now what was happening, hearing guttural shouts instead of the low chanting. The humming had stopped. All of the men were holding her down and shouting. She tried to speak, to ask for acknowledgement that she was present, a participant as well as them, but a man’s hand closed over her mouth, the tough callouses of a workman pressing hard against her lips.
Her heart hammered but no longer with passion, instead with fear.
Above her, the man rode her like a beast, releasing short, breathless grunts as he sped his attack, his eyes hard as his gaze met hers. They were the only thing she could see, the only thing not covered by his mask. He held her gaze, thrusting into her, his companions holding her down. Then, he glanced up and nodded at another man, his body tensing, a low cry escaping his hidden lips.
Steel flashed across her field of vision, and the hands moved away from her. Terrible pain bloomed across her neck. Her throat. They were cutting her throat.
Hot blood squirted. She felt it on her bare chest and shoulders. She tasted drops of it on her lips as she gasped futilely for air. She opened her mouth to scream, to shout, but she couldn’t. She could only cough, liquid expelling from between her lips, her mouth filling with the taste of her own blood.
It spilled over her skin, dousing her upper body in bright crimson. Cold began to fill her, originating from between her legs, her most sacred place, where the men had spilled their seed. Cold crept through her slowly and then fast. Unable to speak, unable to shout, she watched as the men stood around her, silent now, as the cold spread from her core to her extremities.
A man, masked but otherwise naked, took his place at her head.
“By the blood of your daughter, we call to you!” he thundered. “By the strength of her pleasure, we seek you! By the desecration of her body, we bind you!”
Cold. Bitter, painful cold. She felt herself slipping, sliding from her body, but to nowhere else. Nowhere she knew. She was dying. She was dying, and her soul was fleeing her body.
