Chapter Eight: Neither Conquest nor Concubine

Aya allowed Carnen to take her arm and drag her along at an annoyingly quick pace, down the stairs and through the halls. She watched with faint bemusement as Carnen sent Arianna running off to fetch him a proper jacket to be worn over the fine white silk of his current shirt. That too-tight shirt was way too transparent. It gave far too clear and she suspected purposeful view of Carnen’s muscled chest and back, and it was a merciful reprieve she insisted when Arianna came running back down the hall with a gold embroidered jacket of military fashion in her hands. Carnen shrugged it on without ever breaking stride, and Aya was finally freed of having to stare at his back. Though the jacket stayed open at the front, and the V cut of his collar… “There was little point in bothering to rip your shirt off earlier,” she noted airily. “You show so much skin regardless, such a desperate effort to hold attention. I half expected you to strip right here in the hall and flash all your bits while you donned entirely new trousers to pair with that jacket.”

“Yes, I know you must be fantasizing about such sights, but I promised a dark room and an intimate setting before presenting such delights, remember?”

“Is it that small?” He stopped dead in his tracks. “You only take it out in the pitch black, but the ladies can still feel the scale of it, you know--”

“It is not small! It’s...! You’ll feel it yourself and...” He seemed to realize that floundering denial in no way saved his dignity in this moment. He grabbed her arm and resumed their rapid march. “You are a shrewish little mocking bird, and I have no desire to hear you natter any further!”

It was so easy to rile him up, making that fair skin red with rage. Aya should not have made that joke however. She was supposed to be acting as Charlotte, and Charlotte never would have said that. Even the thought of such things would set her to stammering, but Aya was finding it hard to control her own wicked tongue. She enjoyed teasing this peacock of a prince far too much to refrain.

One look at his expression, and she could feel bubbles of laughter fighting their way up through her chest. They escaped, and Carnen’s fingers dug all the more forcefully into her forearm. “Do not laugh at me. Don’t you dare. Not in there.” It was an earnest plea, and her smile instantly faded, eyes making an even more intent study of his face. Embarrassment had been scoured away into a slate of granite, cold eyes and raised chin, but those last quiet words… They had the sound of nervous dread. Was he truly afraid of his own father? “Come to think of it, you really should not speak at all,” he declared, with eyes fixed straight ahead on the doors of the dining hall on which his long, brisk strides were rapidly closing in on. “You will curtsy, then sit, and you will hold your tongue unless asked directly a question. Is that clear?”

Aya felt the rage rising at that arrogant command, but all she murmured meekly was, “Yes, my prince.”

“Good girl.”

She wanted to rip back her arm and strike him, but she settled for envisioning his disembowelment, his death and that of the man seated at the end of the long table in the hall opening up right before her. Yuri looked quite similar to his son, the same strong jaw and pale blond hair, though his long locks were matched by a full beard, neatly kept in dual braids, stretching right to his chest. His eyes were different though. They were the exact same ice-blue color as Carnen’s, and they leered at her just as openly, but there was genuine menace in his intimidating stare.

“Good morning, father,” Carnen greeted, pulling her through the doors at his side. “This is the Lady Charlotte.”

Carnen released her arm, and she gave the expected curtsy. Carnen’s insulting order that she remain silent was of course not something she was going to respect though. “Your majesty. My father in all his wisdom has consented to this engagement--”

“That schemer’s consent does not matter. Now be silent,” Yuri ordered, far more harshly than his son. Aya kept her cover and lowered her eyes, trying to project the air of penitent insecurity that the true Charlotte displayed when they had played too rowdily and broken her father’s antiques.

Yuri’s awful gaze shifted to his son. “At least she looks healthy, fit to bear heirs. Had I not already taken a queen, I might be taking her off your hands.” Carnen flushed. “Now that I consider it, even a married king should have a well-bred concubine or two to better populate the royal line, and making her a mistress is better treatment for the child of that arrogant duke than giving her station by wedding her to one of my sons.”

“What high praise, your majesty,” Aya instantly replied, the second those horrid words escaped his mouth, “but surely you would not humiliate your eldest son by stealing from him his much anticipated prize. Especially with the wedding announcement already proclaimed and the invitations sent.”

“Yet again she speaks, and yet you do not strike her.” His eyes burned into his son with clear rebuke within his gaze, but Carnen raised his chin, holding his stare with what Aya felt as forced bravado.

“Why bruise that pretty face before our wedding? She gives rather sage council, father, and she has said nothing impolite.”

“Yes, I suppose. I permit Clara to speak, but her words are a delight, unlike this sour eyed brat.”

“Where is her majesty?” Aya pressed, eyes searching the line of empty chairs at the loaded table of sausages and fruit platters before them. “I was told she would be dining with us.”

“My queen is feeling a bit under the weather this morning. She will not be joining us.”

Aya turned cold. She was picturing already the horrible beating that may have left Clara too broken or unpresentable to fake her way through breakfast. She should kill this brute now. Drive a steak knife into his eye and go storming up the steps to the royal bed chambers to rescue the queen. Such a course of action would bring the guards down on her by the dozen however. The black-armored knights were standing right there inside both sets of doors in this hall, eyeing her like a piece of meat, not the butcher she was. None of these men saw her as a threat, but they would learn the danger of that mistake in an instant, once it was time.

“What grave news.” Aya sighed. “Do tell my dear aunt that I wish her all the best and a speedy recovery.”

She took her seat at Carnen’s right hand, and the meal passed with dreadful slowness. Yuri never stopped talking. He blustered about his armies, and the expansion of this kingdom, and gave crude advice to his son about how to better train Charlotte without ever speaking to Aya directly or respecting her presence right there at the table.

Aya gave repeated, bold interjection regardless, but kept her tone meek and polite, and her eyes lowered in what she hoped the brute would perceive to be fear of reprisal. If she looked at him directly after all, she was going to start glaring. She found herself looking at Carnen instead, and thinking on Arianna’s claims that he was actually a good man, that he would be a good king.

Not with the way he was echoing all his father’s behavior, pulling her right over into his lap at one point, as he lied that he had already made her his woman in the most important way, and his father gave proud congratulations.

He and his father were both beastly narcissists, devoid of self control. She would track down Clara this very day, she swore, and kill Carnen and Yuri with no remorse.