by Samuel Fort
Chapter 32 - The Rod
When Fiela walked into the bedroom that evening, she found Lilian lying on the bed in a robe reading the next day’s script.
“Hello, Sister,” she said, kicking off her shoes and moving toward the master bathroom.
“Peth,” she heard Lilian say behind her, “wait.”
Fiela stopped abruptly. That Lilian had addressed her as Peth, and not as Sister or Fiela, meant that she was speaking as a sovereign.
“Yes, Princess?” Fiela said, addressing Lilian by her proper title.
“How stands your relationship with our husband?”
Fiela wondered at the nature of the question. “We have grown close, I think. I hope.”
“Is he angry with you about what happened at dinner?”
Fiela shook her head. “No. We have made peace. I was stupid and will be more careful in the future.”
“You shall. Ben is very fond of you.”
“Perhaps he loves me.”
“If not now, soon, I think. But you have not yet consummated your marriage to him.”
Fiela dropped her gaze to the floor, humiliated by the observation. “I do not know why. Do I not please him?”
“You do, but you are too restrained.”
“Restrained?”
“You do not pursue him. He is waiting for you to make the first move. He is uncertain what our culture allows.”
“What would you have me do?”
“Present yourself to him in a way that arouses his lust. Seduce him. If he declines you, push forward. Take what is yours. Or make him take what is his. Trust me, the next day he will thank you. It will be a great relief to him to have the matter decided.”
“I do not know how to do what you ask,” replied Fiela honestly. She wanted to say she lacked Lilian’s experience in such matters but she might as well slit her own throat. “Would it not be better to wait until he desires to be with me?”
“He does desire to be with you. He is simply afraid to make the first move. You must lead the way.”
That did not sound right to Fiela. It seemed somehow wrong, in fact. Confused, she sighed in exasperation. She immediately realized her error, that it was not her sister she was addressing, but her sovereign. Lilian suddenly bore an expression that could melt ice.
“I am sorry, Princess!” Fiela gasped.
The woman’s voice was as hard as steel. “Am I annoying you, Peth?”
Fiela shuddered as the words hit her. “No, I’m sorry, truly!”
Lilian began to shake with rage. Her temper had already been tested by Barnum’s announcement that her very life depended on her marriage to Ben and that even her children would be killed if the former Ardoon divorced her or died. Yet Ben seemed to be growing further away from her each day, not closer. He was constantly angry with her for her alleged – and actual – deceptions. Now the one person who could salvage everything, who could keep the future king of the Fifth Kingdom from walking away from it all, was a Peth who was daring to sigh at her words of advice.
It was unbearable.
She said, “You need to be reminded of your place. Lay face down on the bed.”
As Fiela complied, Lilian went to a chest of drawers and after ruffling through a drawer came back to the foot of the bed. She grabbed one of Fiela’s ankles and pulled it roughly toward her and began tying it to the bedpost.
“Princess, what are you doing?” Fiela asked as innocently as possible, now thinking that the woman was interested in some kind of impromptu bondage scenario. While the Peth had not told Ben about this particular kink of Lilian’s, it was well known by almost everyone else, just as it was known that Lilian was never the submissive. Fiela had never taken part in such diversions, and prayed that the woman’s fury was merely an act. The Peth silently promised her gods that she would play the role of the penitent to the utmost of her ability, and grant Lilian whatever relief she desired, if they would only transform her sister’s fury into lust.
Lilian tied Fiela’s other foot to the opposite bedpost. The bed was massive and by the time she was done the girl’s legs were pulled so far apart that they almost formed a line. While the position caused the supremely flexible Peth no discomfort, she did not like the feeling of being bound. Her arms were free but utterly useless. She tried to look over her shoulder.
“I should thrash you until you are a foot from the underworld,” growled Lilian.
“I’m sorry-”
“Silence. I will not do so only because our husband would find you less pleasing striped.”
“Thank you, Princess,” replied Fiela, realizing this was no act. She had seen Lilian like this before, and it scared her. The woman’s temper was terrifying to behold. It had been the last thing many of her enemies had seen before their lives were slowly ended.
“Do not thank me, Peth. You will still be punished.”
Fiela felt something cold and hard slide over the sole of her foot. A stick? Something flexible, her brain told her. Something safe to step on. Bamboo?
Her stomach knotted.
Lilian said, “The Nocte Sicarius are famous for their ability to glide silently across a forest floor without breaking even a twig. Not a single dried leaf is crushed underfoot.”
“Please don’t,” begged Fiela, understanding what the woman planned.
“Yet that skill was only achieved by centuries of proper breeding. I don’t pretend to know whether a foot’s sensitivity is based on the number of nerves present, or their structure, or how the brain deals with sensations from those nerves. That is a matter for the geneticists. But I do know that your feet, like those of any night assassin, are supremely sensitive to stimuli. I’ve been told they are almost thrice as sensitive as a mere mortal’s. Does that sound right?”
“Yes, Princess,” Fiela said, wincing at the mere tap of the bamboo rod on her arch. Had her legs not been stretched apart so dramatically, she would have been writhing on the bed. “Please, I am begging you, truly. I am sorry!”
Lilian ran her hand over the girl’s foot. The skin was as soft - no, softer - than a newborn’s. “You will be more so,” she said, raising the bamboo rod into the air.
Fiela had thought she would be stronger. She had suffered hundreds of lacerations during her battles with the Maqtu, as evidence by the pink and white scars that covered her legs and stomach. She had been shot more times than she could count, the second time in the chest, which had triggered her first brief journey to the underworld. Yet never during the Nisirtu civil war had she begged for mercy or allowed a scream to cross her lips in front of her opponents.
It didn’t matter. When the rod came down with the horrible whooshing sound and struck her left foot, the pain was indescribable. It was agony on an entirely new level. Her scream was horrid and unchecked as her upper torso arched upward and she cried to the heavens.
Lilian, unseen, recoiled. The scream extinguished her fury instantly. She held the rod in one hand, as still as a statue, suddenly uncertain what to do. She had expected the rod would cause Fiela pain, but nothing like this.
Do not be weak, she told herself. Have you not spectated at marathon tortures of your enemies? Have you not laughed at their cries for mercy? Would you be alive today if you had not instilled fear in your opponents? Surely you have heard louder cries than this?
“But this is your sister,” another voice whispered to her.
No, she could not stop at one strike. To do so would amount to surrender. Fiela would know that she had not done what she set out to do. She would never be able to reassert her authority.
She raised the rod and brought it down a again on the left foot, and then, wading through a nightmarish other-world that consisted only of Fiela’s screams and sobs and tremblings, struck the girl’s right foot twice in the same manner.
The scream that resulted from the fourth strike made Lilian drop the rod and stumble backwards, her hands over her face. The girl on the bed was sobbing uncontrollably, takin
g in deep, gasping breaths as her body shook from the affects of the four blows. She was babbling something unintelligible, seemingly half out of her mind.
“You’re a sadistic monster, daughter of Sargon,” came the voice. “See what you have done to the only person who truly loves you?”
It was just four strikes, Lilian protested, and Fiela is so strong! How could I have expected this?
The voice said, “You lie! She is Nocte Sicarius - how could you not? You chose the most vulnerable part of her body to attack. Why not just thrust red-hot pokers into her eyes?”
Her hands shaking, Lilian sat down in nearby chair so that she would not do what she wanted to do, which was to fall down next to the girl and tell her how sorry she was for being such a beast. That, she could not do. It would defeat the entire point of the abominable, misguided exercise.
Instead, she waited for Fiela’s sobs to subside and then went to the bathroom and ran a rag beneath warm water. Fiela watched her with horribly fearful eyes. When the rag was ready, Lilian climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged next to Fiela’s shoulders and ran it tenderly over the girl’s face, cleaning up the spittle and tears and mucus that had collected there.
“Please no more,” gasped the Peth, saliva dripping from her mouth. “Forgive me.”
Fiela weakly reached out and took hold of one of Lilian’s exposed feet, and for a moment the woman was alarmed because she knew the Peth could, even in this sorry state, kill her effortlessly. The fear was unwarranted. The girl lowered her trembling lips and kissed Lilian’s foot in a ritual act of repentance. She kissed it repeatedly, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The woman let her because protocol required an act of contrition and because she knew the rite comforted Fiela. When Lilian finally rose, the girl’s panic reappeared.
“Shhh,” sounded the other woman, trying to sound imperious when in fact her voice was close to faltering. “I am done with the rod, Sister. I do not wish to damage the tools of your trade, not when my House depends on them. Though truly, you deserve far more than four strikes.”
“You are merciful,” said Fiela. She turned her face away and began to cry again.
“Please don’t cry,” said Lilian, distraught. “We are done.”
The girl gasped for air. “I’m sorry, I have…”
“What?” asked the woman mystified, but then she knew. At some point during the punishment, Fiela had lost control of her bladder.
“You are a witch, Lilitu! A witch! You should have been murdered with your father!”
“It is my fault,” the older woman said, hurriedly untying the girl’s legs. “I stopped you…never mind. It is easily fixed, Fiela. Stop crying, please.”
“A witch! A devil! A WHORE!”
Freed, Fiela rose to her knees on the bed and frantically tried to pull the sheets from the mattress.
“No, Sister, no!” said Lilian. “The fetches will attend to that. I will tell them that a guest brought an infant here in error. There will be no questions.”
Fiela, the wadded sheets in her arms, said, “They will know.”
“Nonsense. What will they know? Do the walls have eyes?”
“Please,” pleaded the girl, who held the sheets to her chest in a death grip. “I can wash them in the tub.”
“No,” said the other woman.
The Peth bowed her head as the tears returned.
Lilian sighed. “Oh, very well, I shall attend to the linen. Go to the bathroom and clean up.”
Fiela reluctantly released the crumpled sheets and delicately placed her feet on the floor, yet winced as if it was covered in broken glass. After only two exploratory steps she fell to her knees with a guttural sound. As the girl began to crawl forward - to crawl you wretch! - Lilian, now in tears herself, rushed over and helped her up, lifting and leading her to the toilet and there waiting on her.
Concealing her face by looking at the floor, she said throatily, “Is it very bad?”
“It is not so bad,” Fiela answered stoically, but she winced as Lilian massaged one of her feet.
“I will get you some pain killers and run you a bath.”
“Thank you, Princess.”
“Sister, Fiela.”
Several seconds passed. “Are we again sisters?” Fiela asked hopefully.
“Would your sovereign kneel before you while you relieved yourself?”
This, at last, made Fiela laugh, though it was a choking, wheezing laugh. She said, “You must not do so, though. What if Ben should see you?”
“Oh, what does he care about our ways? He would roll his eyes and mumble some useless Ardoon wisdom and go back to his precious tablets shaking his head.”
Fiela sniffled, laughed again. “You are right. But truly, I have learned my lesson.”
Before the pang of guilt could mature, Lilian said, “Good. What else can I get that will comfort you?”
“Him,” Fiela said without hesitation.
Lilian faced her at last, no longer caring if Fiela saw her remorse. She swept away the moisture from her own cheeks. “I shall bring him here and tonight you shall sleep next to him.”
The Peth looked at her doubtfully. “It is not allowed.”
“Because you are serretu? Fiela, we are our own House, and in this House, it is allowed, if I allow it.”
“And he allows it.”
“Do you really think he will be opposed to sleeping next to you?”
The girl managed a small grin that warmed Lilian’s heart. “I do not think so. I think he would like it.”
“Then so it shall be. Now, are you almost done? How much wine did you drink, woman? You have peed an ocean!”
Part 5 - September 25th - Dawn
Anu granted him the totality of all Knowledge
He saw the Secret and discovered the Hidden
He told stories from before the Flood
He went on a distant journey
Pushed himself to exhaustion
But then was brought to peace.
The Epic of Gilgamesh (1300 B.C.)
