The men, who had been smug about having taken her down, suddenly didn’t seem so smug. They glanced nervously at one another.
“But Excellency,” one of them said, “The two men who failed you paid with their lives. The three of us stopped her. We didn’t let her escape.”
“I am the one who stopped her,” he said through barely restrained rage. “I stopped her with the collar she wears around her neck.” He considered them silently for a moment, letting his flash of rage calm down a little. “But I am called Jagang the Just for good reason. I will allow you three to live for the time being, but let this be a lesson to you. I warned you that she was dangerous. Now, perhaps, you can see that I know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, Excellency,” the three said over one another.
Jagang clasped his hands behind his back. “Release her.”
He passed a withering glare over each man before taking Kahlan’s arm and leading her back toward the opening of the tent. She was still reeling from the shock of the collar. Her joints ached, her legs and arms burned from inside.
She had wondered if Jagang had been telling the truth that he could use the collar without the Sisters needing to be present. Now she knew. Without that collar she might have stood a good chance of breaking free; with it, she didn’t. She dared not take Jagang’s ability lightly from now on. At least now she knew. Sometimes, it was worse to wonder if something would have been possible.
“I want you three to guard outside my tent tonight. If she comes out without me, you had better stop her.”
The three soldiers bowed. “Yes, Excellency.”
They no longer looked at all smug. They looked like what they were—men who had just escaped a death sentence.
As the men took up their posts, Jagang turned a grim look on Kahlan. “The last time you only went for a walk among the men. It was a short walk. You saw only a small sampling of my army. Tomorrow, you are going to have a much better chance to see a great many more of my men. And a lot more of those men are bound to see you.
“I don’t know what the anomaly is that Ulicia spoke of, or its cause, but it doesn’t really matter to me. What matters is that, like in all things, I intend to use it to my advantage. I intend to see to it that you are well guarded. You will ride again tomorrow and we will take a tour through the troops, but you are going to do it without your clothes. In that way, you will help find us a goodly supply of new special guards. It should be quite an exciting day.”
Kahlan didn’t offer an argument—none would have done any good. She could tell by the careful way in which he explained it that he meant for it to make her uncomfortable. She suspected that her humiliation was only just beginning.
Emperor Jagang ushered her in through the opening of his tent as if she were royalty. He was mocking her, she knew. As she moved inside she could feel the power of the collar release its grip on her. She could at last move her feet and arms on her own. The pain, thankfully, began to fade as well.
Inside the tent it was nearly dark, lit only by candles. They gave the tent a warm glow, making it feel cozy and safe, almost like a sacred place. It was anything but.
She felt as if she were being led to her execution.
Chapter 47
The slaves who had prepared a late-night sampling of light foods for the emperor were all dismissed. At seeing the look in his eyes, and after having heard the screams of dying men, everyone was only too happy to leave when he growled at them to get out.
He watched as they all rushed out and then, with a thick finger pressed into the center of her back, Jagang silently steered Kahlan past the table with mugs of wine, platters of meats, loaves of dark bread, bowls of nuts, and arrangements of fruits and sweets, escorting her beyond another tapestry hanging before an opening into an inner bedroom within the tent.
The bedroom was isolated from the rest of the tent and from the outside by what looked to be padded panels, probably to make it quieter. The walls were also covered with hides and fabric hangings of material woven into muted patterns. The room was warmly decorated with exquisite carpets, a few small pieces of fine furniture, glass-fronted bookcases filled with books, and ornate silver and gold lamps. The bed, covered in furs and satin, had spiraled, dark wooden posts at each corner.
Kahlan hid her trembling fingers behind her back as she watched Jagang cross the room and remove his lamb’s-wool vest. He tossed it over a chair at a small writing desk. His naked chest and back were covered in dark, curly hair. He looked like a bear of a man in more ways than one. He looked like anything but a man who would have satin bed coverings. She suspected that he didn’t really appreciate such things, but wanted them as a mark of his station. She guessed that he must have forgotten that no one was supposed to be better than anyone else in the Order. She guessed that he never considered whether or not the men out in the grimy tents had satin blankets to sleep under.
Jagang looked up at her. “Well, woman, take off your clothes. Or would you rather I tear them off you. Your choice.”
“Whether I take them off, or you rip them off, it is still rape.”
He straightened and peered at her for a time in the silence within the tent. The camp outside had quieted down considerably, leaving only the muted sounds of distant words to melt together into a dull hum. The men were tired from the day’s long march, as well as the excitement of the Ja’La games, and Jagang had decreed that each day’s march would be equally swift until they reached the People’s Palace, so most of the men were no doubt in their tents sleeping.
The only one not quieted down for the night was Jagang. If he was in an excited state after the games, then after her killing the four men he was on the edge of a rampage. Kahlan didn’t really care. If he beat her senseless, then she wouldn’t have to be conscious for what else he was going to do to her.
“You are mine, now,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “You belong to me—to no one else. To me alone. I can do whatever I wish with you. If I choose to cut your throat, then it is your duty to bleed to death for me. If I give you to those three men who can see you, then you will submit to them, whether you like it or not, whether you do so willingly or not.
“You belong to me, now. Your fate is what I choose for you. You have no choice in what happens to you. None. Everything that happens to you is by my choice alone.”
“It’s still rape.”
He crossed the room in three angry strides and backhanded her, knocking her sprawling. He pulled her up by the hair and heaved her at the bed. The world spun as Kahlan tumbled through the air. She only missed the wooden post by inches.
“Of course it’s rape! That’s what I want it to be! That’s what you have coming!”
He charged to the bed like an enraged bull. His black eyes were filled with wild storms of shapes. Before she knew it, he was above her. Kahlan had it all planned out. She wasn’t going to try to stop him, to give him the satisfaction of having to use force to have her. But with him right there, on top of her, straddling her hips, those thoughts were lost in the sudden panic of events that she desperately didn’t want to happen. She forgot all her plans and desperately tried to push his hands away, but in such a mood there was no stopping him. She had no strength to begin to match him. He didn’t even bother to slap her to make her stop resisting. With one yank, he ripped her shirt open.
Kahlan went still as he stopped, her chest heaving from the effort. He stared down at her breasts.
She used the sudden quiet to school herself. She had just killed four brutes. She could do this. This was nothing compared with having a collar around her neck, having her memory stripped away from her, losing her identity, losing who she was, becoming the helpless slave to Sisters of the Dark and an emperor of a mob of thugs.
This was nothing. She was better than to fight him in such a foolish manner, like a schoolgirl trying to slap away the hands of a bully. She didn’t fight like that. She wouldn’t. She knew better. Yes, she was terrified, but she didn’t have to
surrender to panic. She was afraid when she’d killed those four men, but she had controlled her fear and acted.
She was better than he was. He was only stronger. He could only have her by force. That knowledge gave her a thread of power over him, and he knew it. He could never have her willingly because she was better than he was, and she deserved better by far. He could never have a woman like her except by force because he was weak and worthless as a man.
“Is your prize of prizes satisfactory, Excellency?” she mocked.
“Oh, yes.” Jagang’s wicked smile widened. “Now take off those traveling pants.”
When she made no move to comply, he did it for her, opening the buttons one at time as if opening something valuable. She lay with her hands at her sides. He hooked his fingers over the waist of her pants, drew them down her legs, and pulled them inside out getting them off over her feet. He threw them aside as he paused to take in the length of her nearly bare body.
Kahlan silently bit the inside of her cheek to keep from pushing his hand away in a panic as he glided his hand up her leg, feeling the softness of her thigh. Kahlan fought back her tears. She would have given anything not to be there, to be anywhere else but at the mercy of this monster.
“Now, the rest of it,” he said in a thick whisper. “Take off those underthings.”
She could tell that pulling her clothes off had only excited him even more, so she did as he told her to do, trying to make it look anything but seductive as she did so.
As he watched her following his orders, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. He dropped his pants and kicked them off. As sickened as she was terrified by the sight of him naked, Kahlan gave in to weakness and turned her eyes away from him.
She wondered how she would ever be able to fall in love and let a man touch her after this. She reproached herself. She was never going to have the chance to fall in love. She was fretting over a problem she would never have.
The bed moved under his weight as he climbed up beside her and lay down. He paused to stare at her, to run his hand over her belly. She’d expected it to be a rough touch, a harsh grabbing of her, but instead it was a furtive touch, a slow, measured evaluation of something quite valuable. She didn’t expect his gentle approach to last much longer.
“You really are quite extraordinary,” he said in a husky voice, almost more to himself than to her. “Perceiving you through the eyes of others just wasn’t the same—I can see that now.”
His tone had changed. The anger had melted away under the heat of his desire for her. He was on the brink of surrendering to uninhibited lust.
“It’s not at all the same . . . I always knew you were exceptional, but now that I see you, like this . . . you are a remarkable creature. Just . . . remarkable.”
Kahlan wondered what he meant when he’d said that he had perceived her through the eyes of others. She wondered if he meant that he had watched her through the eyes of the Sisters. She was struck by an unexpected thought that rattled her: it was the thought of him having watched her undressing when she had thought that only a Sister was there. It filled her with an icy rage at such a violation.
He had been there, then, watching her, planning this. But at the same time she got the feeling that he was talking about something else, too. There was more to his words, more meaning in them, something hidden. Something in the way he’d said it made her think that he was talking about something in her life before the Sisters, back before she had lost who she was. She was angry thinking about him watching her through the Sisters, but thinking about him seeing her before, in her life that she couldn’t remember, rattled her.
He abruptly rolled over onto her. “You can’t imagine how long I’ve waited to do this to you.”
Her breathing, and her heartbeat, had only just started to settle down. Now, it was happening too fast. Her heart was again thumping against her ribs. She wanted to slow him down, to give herself time to think of a way to prevent him from doing this to her. At the feel of his flesh against hers, though, her mind went blank. She couldn’t think of any way to stop him. She could only fixate on how badly she didn’t want him to do this.
She reminded herself of the promises she had made to herself. She was better than him; she should act like it.
She said nothing. She stared past him up at the roof of the tent illuminated softly in the lamplight.
“You can’t imagine how much I’ve wanted to do this to you,” he said in a suddenly menacing voice. “You can’t imagine how much you have this coming to you.”
She shifted her gaze to meet his nightmare eyes. “No, I can’t. So just get on with it and spare me a speech that means nothing to me, since I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She turned her eyes away to stare off once more. She wanted to show him only indifference. She freed her mind to wander. It wasn’t easy with him pressing against her, about to have his way with her, but she did her best to ignore him, to think about other things. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a struggle she would only lose. She thought about the Ja’La game, not because it was something she wished to think about, but because it was fresh enough in her mind to be easy to recall in detail.
He abruptly hooked his arms behind her knees and pulled her legs up almost to her chest. It was hard to breathe. It hurt her hip joints to be bent like that, with her legs spread that way, but she swallowed back the scream and tried to ignore the way he was trying to control her, to dominate her as he took her.
“If he knew . . . this would kill him.”
Kahlan’s eyes turned to him. She could only pull in half a breath against the weight of him. “Who are you talking about?”
She thought that maybe it was her father—a father she didn’t remember. Perhaps she had a father who was a commander in the army, and that was why she seemed to know how to fight with a knife. She couldn’t imagine who else he could be talking about.
She wanted to say something to deflate him, but she thought better of it and remained silent, indifferent.
Jagang’s mouth was on her ear. His rough stubble scraped painfully against her cheek and neck. His breathing was fast and ragged. He was lost to the lust he was about to unleash on her.
“If only you knew . . . this would kill you,” he said, obviously and profoundly pleased with the thought.
Even more puzzled, she remained silent, her worry building about what he could possibly mean.
She thought he was about to resume his obviously lecherous need, but he rested there, holding her legs open, staring down at her. The length of his hairy body pressed against her, on the brink of his intent. With his weight on her, she could hardly get a breath, but she knew that any protest would only be met with disinterest in what discomfort he might be causing her.
In a way, she wished he would just hurry up and get it over with. The waiting was making her crazy. She wanted to scream, but she refused to allow herself to. She couldn’t help dreading how much he would hurt her, how long it might last—how it would undoubtedly be repeated not just this night but in the nights to come. Had not his bull-weight been pressing her down into the bed she would have been trembling in terrible anticipation.
“No,” he said to himself. “No, this is not what I want.”
Kahlan was bewildered. She wasn’t sure she had heard what she thought she’d heard.
He let go of her legs, letting them slip down onto the bed as he pushed himself up on his hands. She wished he weren’t lying between her legs so that she could draw them together.
“No,” he repeated. “Not like this. You don’t want this, but it would only be onerous. You would not like it, but nothing more.
“I want you to know who you are when I do this. I want you to know what I mean to you when I do this. I want you to hate this more than you have ever hated anything in your entire life. I want to be the one to do this to you both. I want to plant the memory of what it means to you in your mind when I plant my seed in yo
u. I want that memory to haunt you for however long you might live, to haunt him forever, every time he looks at you. I want him to learn to hate you for it, to hate what you have come to represent to him. To hate your child, the child that I will give you.
“To do that, you have to know who you are, first. If I do this to you now, it will only dull you to it, spoil the exquisite suffering it would cause you if you knew who you were when it happens to you.”
“So then tell me,” she said, almost willing to endure rape to know.
A slow, sly smile came to him. “Telling you is no good. Words would be hollow, without meaning, without emotion. You have to know. You have to remember who you are, you have to know everything, if this is to truly be rape . . . and I intend it to be the worst rape you can suffer, a rape that will give you a child that he will see as a reminder, as a monster.”
Staring down at her, he slowly shook his head with the self-satisfaction of the dimension of his intent. “To be that, you have to be fully aware of who you are, and everything this will mean to you, everything it will touch, everything it will harm, everything it will taint for all time.”
He abruptly rolled off her to the side. Kahlan drew in a breath that was almost a gasp.
He gritted his teeth, and his big hand seized her right breast. “Don’t think you’ve escaped anything, darlin. You’ll not be going anywhere. I’m only seeing to it that it’s a lot worse for you than this would have been, tonight.” He chuckled as he squeezed her breast. “Worse for him as well.”
Kahlan could not imagine how anything could make it worse than it would have been. She could only imagine that to him, rape cast guilt on the victim. That was the way he thought, the way the Order thought, that the victim was to blame.
He abruptly shoved her out of the bed. She landed painfully on the floor, but at least her fall was broken by somewhat soft carpets.
He looked down at her. “You will sleep on the floor, right there, beside the bed. Later, I will have you in my bed.” He grinned. “When your memory returns, when this will destroy you. Then I will give you what you deserve, what only I can give you, what only I can do to ruin your life . . . and his.”
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