Dill expelled a harsh breath of disgust. “Need you ask? Jaelen. He requires proper humility of his subjects. Anyone in his presence whose head is above the level of his knee--if they are common folk--or above the level of his waist--if they are nobles--will find themselves without one.”
Simon’s lips tightened.
“As for the weeping, and wailing, and shouts of joy--that was purely for you. They do not let out a peep, you may be certain, when Jaelen passes, not only because they hate him as enthusiastically as they love you, but also because they are terrified of drawing his notice.”
Simon nodded. “It is no wonder our plans are no secret,” he said dryly. “I begin to think there is no one who did not know and anticipate our arrival.”
Dill shrugged. “The commoners have a nose for these things, but you may be absolutely certain that, whatever they may have culled from watchfulness, they would never betray you. Some slimy bastard of a spy has infiltrated us. I swear to you on my father’s soul that no one, with the exception of the courier, whom I trust completely, had full knowledge of the plan save Montdragon, Ravenwing, Sardovf, and I. And I can not believe that it was any one of them, and I know gods bedamned well that it was not I!”
Simon rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “It is done now and not worth weeping over. We will simply have to do the best we can with what we have to work with.”
Dill frowned. “You do not think that it would be best to march ‘round Schalome and attack from another vantage?”
Simon shook his head. “I have considered that, but we will certainly have no better element of surprise and we can not dismiss the effects that it would have on the men. They would be weary from the forced march, and dispirited, very likely--neither situation, of which, would be to our benefit.”
Dill was silent for several moments. “We heard word that you had diverted to Maiden Prime on your way home ….?”
“Aye. I spoke with their minister at length.”
“And?”
“They have agreed to remain neutral.”
“That is so very helpful of them,” Dill retorted with disgust.
Simon smiled faintly. “I accomplished what I set out to do. It is all that I was interested in--making certain that they would not intervene on Jaelen’s behalf.”
Dill sent him a startled glance. “I had not thought about that. You did not detect any sign that they have chosen to side with him?”
“They are lovers of peace. They will never interfere unless they feel that it is necessary to keep peace. In this instance, they are no happier with Jaelen’s rule that we are. I have their blessing to--remove him from power, but they prefer to merely observe and allow us to make our own mistakes, and clean up our own mess.”
Dill nodded, but he still seemed unhappy. “It would have evened the odds for us a bit if they had been willing to furnish us with some of their weapons,” he growled irritably. “I will not complain overmuch--for I far prefer our own weapons, crude as they might consider them, but in this instance ….”
“In this instance, we will triumph with draconian might,” Simon said coolly.
Again, Dill nodded. “The gods have always favored you, Simon Pater-Draken.”
Simon smiled thinly. “Let us hope they do not favor me as they have in the past,” he said dryly.
Chapter Eighteen
Raina stared at the two men who’d entered her cell, keeping her expression as carefully blank as possible. She recognized one of the two as the man who’d examined her with such malicious glee when she’d first woken, though, and it took an effort to stifle the shivers that kept trying to creep up her backbone.
His manner of dress was almost absurdly elaborate. Although he wore trousers and a shirt and boots, much like everyone else, his boots were not black, but bright red and topped with a cuff of fur. Bright gold tassels swung from the top, as well, and a colorful design had been stitched into the leather all over. His trousers were gold. Made of some glossy material, an elaborate design followed the outer seams from knee to waist--a sort of trailing vine with buds and blossoms. There was an obscene bulge in his crotch that she would’ve been willing to bet had been formed from some sort of hard cup-like devise, maybe something like sports figures would wear to protect their genitals. But she doubted that was the purpose. The purpose seemed to be to make him appear to have monstrous genitals.
The shirt he wore was of a paler gold color, but seemed to be made of the same glossy material as the pants. It was open to the waist, displaying pale skin completely devoid of any hair and an expanse of chest that, while still fairly impressive, seemed soft.
He had a definite paunch--not big, but a soft bulge instead of a flat belly, as if he was fond of foods that tended to collect around the waist--either that or he just didn’t get much exercise. She guessed both. He just seemed like the sort of man to overindulge himself.
“You are Petra-Draken’s whore?” the second man, obviously brought as an interpreter, demanded for the second time.
Raina merely stared at the man, trying to decide if they were just trying to get a rise out of her or if they expected her to answer that. They couldn’t be in any doubt that she’d been Simon’s bedmate for months--not considering who it was that had taken her. “Is that supposed to be a question?” she asked finally.
The other man flung a string of furious words at her.
“The emperor will not tolerate your insolence, wench!” the translator snarled. “Answer the question!”
Fear pricked at her, but Raina pursed her lips in irritation. “I didn’t understand the fucking question.”
Prissy the emperor might be, but he moved like lightening and struck like a rattlesnake, backhanding her across the face so hard her head jerked sideways and she rolled off the cot and onto the floor. Raina spat out the blood that filled her mouth from her cut lip and struggled to stop her brain from reeling.
“You carry Petra-Draken’s bastard, yes?”
The shock receded, allowing pain to wash over her. Ignoring the throbbing, she pushed herself up to look at them, wondering if she would be better off to ignore her pride and rebelliousness and blubber and cringe instead. She could. She’d never had a problem using whatever worked. It went against the grain, though. “I don’t know who the fuck Petra-Draken is,” she muttered, “but I’ll have you to know I’m not pregnant! I can’t help if I’m fat, can I?”
The interpreter grabbed her by her hair and pulled her to her feet, using it to slam her against the wall behind her several times. “Then it will not kill the babe if I plant my fist in your belly, wench?”
Raina wrapped her arms around her stomach protectively, instantly losing every ounce of bravado. “I’m pregnant,” she admitted, swallowing against the urge to burst into tears. “He said his name was Rick.”
To her relief, the man let go of her and the two men settled into a discussion. Raina sidled back to the bunk and pulled her knees up as tightly to her chest as she could, locking her arms around her calves. It wasn’t much protection for the baby, but it was all she could think of to do.
“Simon Petra-Draken,” the man said finally. “The deposed monarch of Schalome--you know nothing about this man?”
Raina flinched in spite of all she could do at his name. Her heart seemed to cringe in her chest at the discovery that he was, had been, the king--or the emperor, she supposed since the guy had referred to the prick as emperor--but she studied her toes studiously. “I worked for a guy named Simon Draken,” she said finally. They knew everything. They had to. Why the hell were they questioning her?
It dawned on her after a moment that they didn’t trust Green. If they had, they wouldn’t have seen any reason to question her.
“You fuck him, yes?”
She wanted to protect Simon. She knew once they were certain that she’d meant something to Simon that they were going to try to use her against him, but she also realized they were cold blooded fuckers. She knew the type--malicious and sadistic. If
they had no use for her, she and the baby were dead.
She had to protect the baby.
“Yes,” she said reluctantly. “I was his favorite fuck. He’s going to be really pissed off when he finds out y’all have been so hateful.”
“The bastard you carry is his?”
She sent the man a sullen look. “He seemed to think so,” she lied.
To her relief, they seemed satisfied and left the cell again. Her shoulders sagged. The terror she’d been holding at bay by sheer willpower flowed over her like a tidal wave. For an endless time she stared blankly at the door, shivering uncontrollably. After a while, her muscles began to relax because she just didn’t have the strength to hold them taut any longer and shortly after that weariness overtook her and allowed her to escape for a while.
* * * *
A scraping noise woke her. Raina stared at the glob of food in the bowl by the door without much interest and finally got up to get it before the rodents that shared her cell with her tried to beat her to it. So far, the nasty looking things had seemed fairly timid, but the food drew them out. More importantly, she couldn’t afford not to eat, however disgusting the food was. She couldn’t afford to get weak--although eating a glob of mush once a day wasn’t doing much to keep her strength up--and she couldn’t afford to ignore her baby’s needs.
It took all she could do to hold the mess down once she’d managed to swallow it. When she was sure it wasn’t going to come right back up again, she got off the bunk and moved to stand over the latrine, trying to catch water in her mouth and swallow it without gagging on the stench emanating from below her and throwing up her food.
As jails went, this was the worst she’d ever been thrown in, and she’d seen the inside of more of them than she’d ever wanted to. When she’d first run away, it had seemed that she’d ended up in one every time she turned around, mostly for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, being poor, and being homeless--and she was usually charged with prostitution even though she’d never been one--which was really ironic considering she’d spent most of her first years on the street running from pimps who wanted to add her to their stable. The cops didn’t care. As far as they were concerned, if you looked guilty, you were guilty. And guilty in their book was any female who loitered on the street. They didn’t give a shit if you didn’t have anywhere to go.
As familiar as she’d become with such places, though, she wasn’t familiar with the concept of trying to escape. It had never occurred to her to try before. Once she’d gotten over her initial shock and terror, though, she’d thought of little else. She wasn’t going to serve a little time and get turned out on the street. No one was going to bail her out--not that anybody ever had, but there’d been that option before anyway.
No one, except the bastard that had taken her, even knew she was here.
Thoughts of escape didn’t make a route miraculously appear, unfortunately. The place had no venting ducts. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all stone. The cell had a door, not bars and she’d already tried reaching the latch from the outside. She could barely reach the fucking window, let alone get her arm out of it. There was no dragging the cot over for a lift up. It was bolted to the floor.
God, she fucking hated being so damned short!
The latrine was the only way out. It had still taken a while to get up her nerve to consider it, but she’d had to dismiss the notion fairly quickly. Given the choice of life or death, she thought she might have been able to contain her disgust about crawling through shit, but it wasn’t an option. If she hadn’t been pregnant, it might have been. The hole wasn’t big, but it was obvious they hadn’t ever had a prisoner her size in here. If she hadn’t been pregnant, a few days or weeks of their food would’ve reduced her enough to fit. She was pregnant, though, and she had only to take one look to know her belly wasn’t going to make it, and it was getting bigger--she thought. It was hard to say. She was losing weight, she knew. Maybe it only seemed to be getting bigger really fast because the rest of her was getting small really fast from starvation.
She tried not to think about how that might effect her baby. She couldn’t do anything about that anymore than she’d been able to prevent that bastard from drugging her and keeping her in that case god only knew how long in a drug induced coma. She knew it was probably going to be a miracle if the baby survived, let alone was born strong and healthy, but she could only do what she could do.
Which was pretty much nothing.
* * * *
If she considered that she was fed one meal per day, and Raina was pretty sure that was as regularly as she got fed, if it was even that often, she’d spent four fun-filled weeks in Schalome’s answer to criminal rehabilitation when the door of her cell opened and a guard strode into the room and grabbed her. She was too stunned to even attempt to struggle, which was just as well since it wouldn’t have done her a bit of good. She might have gotten loose from him, but she had no idea how to get out of the place and she would almost certainly have run afoul of a dozen more soldiers before she’d gotten far.
It was actually very fortunate for her that he’d surprised her because once she’d gathered her scattered wits she realized her docile behavior coupled with her size, which probably wasn’t half his in weight, had disarmed the man. It had led him to believe she wouldn’t be any trouble to him and it was the only advantage she had that she could see. He led her by one arm, forcing her to keep pace with him, which was difficult for her given that she was at least a foot shorter and trying to keep herself decently covered with the ratty blanket. She tried to use the time to best advantage, staring at her surroundings, trying to remember every turn and stair, but all the while her mind was busy sorting possible reasons for removing her from the cell.
They’d only questioned her once since her arrival and except for the infrequent feedings, no one had come near her since.
As miserable as her incarceration had been, she was fully aware that it could have much worse. More questionings and more beatings, or rape. Given those possibilities, being left freezing, and naked, and half starved weren’t bad at all.
It made her wonder, though, what the sudden interest in her was, and it wasn’t hard to figure out. The time had come when they were going to do whatever it was they’d brought her here for.
She arrived at that realization about the time the man dragging her carried her through a huge doorway and she found herself outside. A cold tide of terror washed over her as ‘outside’ and ‘execution’ collided in her mind. She was still trying to convince herself that she was allowing her imagination to run away with her when they stepped outside.
Instantly, she was blinded by the bright sunlight and bombarded by a rumble of mingled noises that sounded like the distant roar of a coliseum full of football fans--caught in the middle of a thunderstorm. Smoke filled the air, as well, as if they were in the midst of a fourth of July fireworks display. The explosions preceded the light, though, she realized as her eyes began to adjust to the bright light, and the crowd she heard wasn’t cheering and roaring with pleasure.
The roars she heard were all from the throats of men--of challenge, of excursion, and pain and death.
And then she saw the scaffold.
Her mind went blank, but she’d seen the sadistic glint in Jaelen’s eyes the first time she’d met him, and the second meeting had reinforced that impression, not dispelled it. The setting was so like medieval movies she’d seen of public execution and torture that, as much as she wanted to disbelieve, she accepted that her wild thoughts weren’t wild at all.
There was a battle going on some where nearby and Jaelen had decided the best way to use her.
Incongruously with the almost medieval setting, there was a huge video display screen erected in the distance, near what appeared to be a drop off. She hadn’t had time until that moment to realize that they must be on top of a mountain. The view beyond that screen made her stomach go weightless.
As she dragged her gaze
back, she saw herself on the screen. She stumbled. The guard’s hand tightened, alerting her to the fact that he’d grown so certain she wouldn’t present a problem to him than he’d relaxed his grip. She focused on his hold when she righted herself. It was firm, but not tight.
If Simon was anywhere around, and she thought he must be--figured the screen made it pretty obvious he was too far away to fully appreciate what they were going to do to her--he couldn’t help her. She was going to have to save herself and her baby because no white knight was going to come charging to her rescue.
Dragging her gaze from the horrible things set up on the scaffold with an effort, she scanned the area, looking for any possibilities. There were soldiers around, but most of them were focused on watching whatever was going on below them--a battle obviously. No doubt once the fun started with her, she’d have their full attention, but at the moment, except for the man dragging her out for her execution, she was almost unguarded.
Places to hide--places to climb--there would be no running. The cliff wasn’t something she was willing to jump off of, although it did occur to her that it would probably be a lot quicker and less painful than what they had in mind.
It looked like the ‘drawing and quartering’ thing she’d seen in a movie--close enough at any rate, she didn’t want to find out how close it was.
The scaffold was a raised platform, maybe eighteen inches above the leveled stone plateau where it had been built. She was fairly certain she could get under it, despite her belly, and they couldn’t, but where to go then?
Could she take cover there until the ‘calvary’ arrived? Had the execution been scheduled because they thought Simon’s side was about to win and they hoped to demoralize him? Or were they already in trouble and Jaelen figured this would finish things off nicely? Distract Simon at a crucial moment?
She didn’t know, but she realized she didn’t have any options. There was nothing else. The scaffold was built on the very edge of the cliff. If she scrambled under it and they came after her, she supposed she was going to have to find out how good she was at rock climbing.
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