Beinor 197 arrived with Princess Cara feeling too ill to rise from her bed in the consort’s spacious apartment. At the far side of the bedroom, Princess Cara installed a personal space for Lord Liam, including a modest but comfortable bed and space for many of his belongings, including some essential medical scanners and tools. Pleased at Cara’s thoughtfulness towards his rival, King Gareth transferred his sexual conquests from his bed to hers, mindful her protector would watch. As shir-or 3.5 arrived without the princess rising, Lord Healer Liam raised a medical scanner over Cara, his heart heavy at the readings. Cara opened her eyes weakly, “What does the scanner indicate, Liam?”
“You are with child, a son.”
“So much for my resistance to him! Forgive me!”
“What is there to forgive, my liege?”
“Wouldn’t you rather he be yours?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Honor. You are his majesty’s wife. But more than that, you do not love me; you never chose me with your heart. I could never be with someone who does not love me.”
“And if I asked you to – “
“You will not.”
“What makes you so sure? Can you think of a better vengeance against him?”
“Because you are honorable too. Revenge is a poor reason for anything, most of all sex.”
“I hate what he does to me, the way he uses me, forces my body to respond to him when it suits his twisted …”
“Stop feeling guilty about that, Cara! Pleasure during rape does not change the fact it is rape. Oh we clothe this in politics and rhetoric about a king’s so called rights, making excuses for his lack of concern for your desires, let alone your health. It is easier to claim that as husband, king, and liege lord he owns your body than confess the inalienable rights of each person to her or his own flesh, including and especially one’s own sexuality. But this I believe with all my heart: no one owns another, least of all another’s sexuality. Every person born in this universe is born with the right to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to every sex act experienced in that’s person’s life. Never have I heard you say ‘yes’ to him; even at your wedding, you were never asked if you agree to marry him! Any time a person has sex with either a person too young to consent or without providing explicit consent – that is rape! Nothing changes that. You are, in my heart, as if he never touched you.”
“That is not correct, Liam. On BE 5545, beinor 7 I went to his bed of my own accord.”
“Why?”
“Beinor 8 was the vote in the Great Council concerning my research findings.”
“That was not consent, Cara. As your knight protector, I looked at the security recordings from the night of beinor 7. He blackmailed you into taking your clothes off for him before commanding you to submit to him.”
“Submitting to him like a whore, you mean.”
“You are no whore, Your Highness. He forced you into that; he feels entitled to do whatever he wants.”
“What do I do?”
“Announce the pregnancy to court – after that, I do not know. But though it takes yen-ars, I shall help you escape this, Cara. I promise.”
The Lost Tales Page 11
