by Samuel Fort
Chapter 86: Some Little Thing
Ben wandered aimlessly around the hotel fortress before finally finding his way to the King’s Suite. By then it was mid-morning. Lilian sat in at the edge of the room’s small dining table, staring at the belly of the Anzu high above her.
She looked pleased when she saw Ben enter the room. “Hello, Mutu.”
Ben nodded, but didn’t return the greeting. He hobbled with his cane to a chair near her and dropped into it.
“Rough night?” his wife asked.
“We lost another Peth,” Ben said moodily.
“What happened?” asked Lilian, furrowing her brow.
“An accident at one of the western outposts. It appears the Peth stationed there got up in middle of the night to answer the call of nature and got disoriented. He fell from the platform. The drop was over a hundred feet. His neck was broken.”
“Gods!” exclaimed the queen. She meditated a moment. “Well, there are worse ways to go. You did say his neck was broken. That is a gentler death than most Peth experience.”
Ben grimaced. “Not really. There were animals in the area. Bears, we think. They, um…” He shrugged. “He was mutilated.”
“Oh, how terrible!” A few seconds later: “Was he alive? During the mutilations?”
“No way to know.”
“Oh,” replied Lilian, sounding oddly disappointed.
Ben sighed. “Yeah. Anyway…” He looked across the table. “Having breakfast a little late today, aren’t you?”
The queen dabbed at her mouth. “Am I? I lost track of the time.”
The man grunted.
Lilian lowered her napkin, moved to the nearby window seat, and pulled his hands into hers. “You’ve had it very hard since you came back, Ben. I know that. I know it’s been difficult. The changes. The attacks.”
“Yeah.”
She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “Yet you seem angry with me, also. I would rather you not be angry with me. What have I done? Truly?”
Being pulled his hands away and rubbed at his temples. That was the thing. Lilian hadn’t done anything wrong. At least, nothing that he knew of. She hadn’t killed Thal, for example. She hadn’t so much as spoken a word against her. She hadn’t confronted him about his alleged affair. The only thing she had done that he could fault her for was agreeing with Fiela and Thal that he should issue the write of probation. But if he faulted her for that, he also had to fault Fiela and Thal. All three women had kept the implications of the order a secret from him.
He doubted whether Lilian herself was actually a threat to Thal. Would his wife have really had the audacity to personally order an assassination right under his nose? Of course not. She needed “plausible deniability.” The Lilys knew that. She didn’t need to order anything to be done.
Ergo, she hadn’t, and wouldn’t.
Everything Ben held against her was speculation. The inconvenient fact was that she’d been a model of civility since he’s returned from Nebraska. She had not argued with him once, even when he tried to get an argument started just to have an excuse to release his frustrations and yell at her. She seemed to have decided on a policy of appeasement. Whatever he wanted, she agreed to, immediately and without a word of protest. She was even nice to Persipia, who seemed suddenly her best buddy.
She was beyond kind to Celeste, whom she treated like a daughter. She grieved with the girl over the loss of Eliza, played music with her, laughed with her, and fed her copious amounts of cake.
In short, Lilian seemed like a new woman, and it was difficult for Ben to be angry with her. It was also difficult for him not to be angry with her. It seemed unnatural.
It also seemed unnatural to be with her, knowing that his only true wife, in Ardoon terms, was Fiela.
“Is there anything I can do?” asked Lilian, her face riddled with concern.
Ben blew out a breath. “No.”
She put her face beneath his. “Surely there is something? Some little thing?”
He managed a smile. She was trying, at least. Shouldn’t he?
“I’m just preoccupied.” Looking for a fall guy for his foul temper, he said, “The temples. They’re everywhere. They’re all spitting out monsters by the thousands and there’s not much we can do about it right now. The Anzu will be a big help, but we’ve got finite ammunition and there are still things we don’t know about how the craft works. We don’t know its vulnerabilities.”
Lilian nodded supportively. “I know. Yet we were scripted to have it and we have the best brains on the planet examining it. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, darling. Be thankful, instead. I am. I am thankful for everything we have. Are we not blessed?”
Ben nodded. The woman was making too much damn sense. He almost longed for the Lilian of old. “In some ways.”
“Perhaps in many ways?”
“Yeah.”
Lilian slid off the window seat and into the man’s lap. She put her arms around his neck. “I thought I had lost you. You and Fiela. I thought I’d lost it all. It put things into perspective for me. What’s the point of living if you’re not with the ones you love?”
Ben closed his eyes. It was a good question. He’d been asking himself that question a lot lately. The words of the enticer echoed through his head: “…you need only call my name, and I shall be with you. It is not too late…I shall be always waiting…”
Though he had never been given it, the Ardoon king knew the entity’s name.
Lilian said, “Persy will tell you how low I fell. I lost my mind. But now you are with me and I am reborn. Don’t worry about the temples, or those horrid monsters. They shall be dealt with.”
Still holding onto his neck, she leaned back and grinned. “Truly, Ben, are they as terrible as you and Fiela let on? Or were you simply trying to terrify the nobles? If so, you succeeded.”
“They’re terrible,” said Ben. “I didn’t exaggerate.”
Lilian nodded and placed her head on the man’s shoulder. “Let me make you happy.”
Ben forced himself to kiss the woman’s head. “Not right now, okay?”
The woman laughed. “Oh? You presume I’m offering sexual favors?”
He had presumed that. Ben reared back. “Well…”
She looked up at him, fluttering her eyelashes. “Are there no other ways of making you happy?”
“Such as?”
“Good news, perhaps?”
“Good news would be…” His voice trailed off. He squinted at the woman.
“Ah,” the woman said. “The king’s mighty brain churns.”
It did.
Truly, Ben, are they as terrible as you let on?
“Shall I give you a hint?” asked Lilian.
She pulled the man’s hand to her stomach.
