by Samuel Fort
Chapter 69: The Sillum Attacks
Persy ran her fingers than through the water in the tub, testing its warmth. The queen’s peculiar good mood was a godsend and Persy did not intend to foul it by disappointing the woman.
She was pleased that her wounds had healed to the point that the bath salts no longer stung her. A fetch had placed a basket containing a variety of soaps and other amenities next to the tub, which Persy explored. Lilian liked the scent of a rare acacia-infused soap, but the consort didn’t see it in the basket. She sat aside an unscented variety.
She was amused, as always, to find a sealed wax envelope containing a pink “lady’s” razor, and wondered why the fetches continued to provide them. They were almost never used. Nisirtu females did not grow hair on their legs, or beneath their arms, or beneath their noses. The notion of hair growing inside her armpit made Persy wince. Disgusting slaves…
The warm water felt fine, though.
Why was Lilian being so kind, she wondered? Was it really to honor Fiela’s wishes, or because she had saved Celeste from the dance? Or was it because Lilian had been saved from execution, now that the king was alive? That was obviously worth celebrating. Would her civility continue in the weeks and months ahead, when her arguments with Ben began again?
Persipia pulled her lower lip beneath her top teeth. Violence was an aphrodisiac for Lilian. It was like a drug. One of many, in the queen’s case. Lilian would not let her rod collect dust. Persipia would contact her spy tomorrow. The young woman liked rough stuff, or so she’d told Persipia. It could be a match made in…well, perhaps not heaven.
The floor of the adjacent suite creaked. She turned her head and peered at the bathroom door, expecting Lilian to stride in. But the queen did not appear. There was another creak. Or was it her imagination?
She heard Lilian exclaim, “What?”
The woman sounded startled. Someone else was in the room with her. Someone unwelcome, Persipia thought. Acting on instinct and with surprisingly speed, the consort grabbed a long pair of scissors from a nearby shelf and spun toward the door. She was not a brave woman by any measure and she had never handled a weapon in her life. She had, however, spent two decades being indoctrinated as sereti and was trained to mindlessly fling herself at intruders in the off-chance doing so might allow her master or mistress to escape harm. If Persipia’s training had not overridden her fear the consort would have happily dropped the scissors, turned off the bathroom light, and concealed herself beneath the water in the tub.
It didn’t matter, though. She made only two steps toward martyrdom before something sent her to her knees. It wasn’t a physical blow. It was something that was said. Words had knocked her down.
Dazed, she crawled forward until she could see into the darkened bedroom.
Porazo stood there – or at least, someone wearing Porazo’s clothes, with his general build. Persipia could only see his back. Lilian was standing now, facing him, her body only inches from his. She should have been able to see Persipia but seemed to see nothing at all.
She managed to crawl forward, the scissors still clutched in one hand. “Stop” she said weakly. Neither the man nor Lilian seemed to notice. She thought she could hear the man murmuring something. She strained her ears, trying to make out the words. One of them registered. She screamed, and the man turned, and when she saw his face, or what should have been his face, Persipia screamed again.
The world flickered.
The thing that had been Porazo was gone. Lilian was gone, too. Delirious now, Persipia stumbled to her feet. She stepped forward, her eyes rapidly scanning the room. Everything was wrong. The curtains, the furniture, the ceiling, the lights, the floors – all wrong. The door was wrong. The paintings on the wall were wrong.
Everything looked old, yet new. She smelled cigarette smoke. Lots of it. Her nose led her to a bronze ashtray littered with butts on the nightstand. Next to it was an ancient black telephone, the kind she had seen in movies made in the 1920s or 1930s. Next to that was a lamp of the same era.
The world flickered again, sending Persipia back to the floor. She landed with a thud. Her head began to ache. It felt as if her brain had swollen to twice its normal size and was threatening to pop her skull open. She could hear music coming from below her. Realizing her eyes were shut, she opened them and discovered that she was lying on her side with her face just a few inches from the suite’s main entrance. A sliver of light joined the door to the hardwood floor and inside the sliver of light was a single sheet of paper that had been pushed into the room from the hallway.
The world flickered again and Persipia screamed again, throwing her hands over her ears as she assumed a familiar fetal position. She could still hear the man speaking the terrible words, though she could not see him.
“Shut up!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up!”
She found that when she yelled and screamed she could not hear the man speak, so she did both until her throat was raw. By then her face was painted with tears and mucus. Blubbering nonsense, she reached for the paper on the floor and brought it to her face, using it as a tissue.
The world flickered again and then, for her, everything went mercifully dark.
