“Vironet,” Esmene called. Vironet was her Lady of the Bath, in charge of all matters relating to Esmene’s health and person, and had documented every one of Esmene’s monthly courses for the last four years. Her Lady of the Chamber documented the dates of Bastin’s visits. For an Empress, everything, no matter how intimate, was a matter of state.
“Leave me,” she said when these records were provided. She waited until she was alone in her bedchamber to open the thick books, a bedchamber from which every mirror hadrecently been removed. She already suspected what she would find.
As she matched up date after date, Esmene felt a heat rising to her head, a rage she had never felt before.
Not just with him, callous and manipulative, so determined to deny her that he would put her through unbearable torment forfour years.Esmene was livid that she hadn’t detected it sooner. She could remember that damned Celestial Sister explaining fertility, delivering Ospret’s sacred revelations in the same way she might have chanted asegarde.Esmene had listened and nodded and never dreamed that the Emperor woulddeny himself an heirrather than submit.
It was unthinkable.
It was blasphemous.
It was the duty of the House of Agnephus to replace itself. That was the Covenant of Stars, and the reason the House of Agnephus lived in such luxury and splendor. They had always been few in number, producing a child or two per generation when most women could have a dozen. He was theEmperor.Hemustmake an heir.
But every single one of his visits corresponded with her periods of lowest fertility.
From now on, she would have to endure the additional humiliation ofcheckingto ensure he seeded her.
What could she do? Surely this deliberate, calculated refusal would not be permitted by the Temple. Marriage sanctioned the creation of children. It was the tree that sheltered those future babes. And it was a sacred duty of the Divine House of Agnephus toendure.
“Vironet!” she called again, thrusting aside the records. “Summon a cleric, and send a message to my father. Say—”
But there she stopped.
Saywhat?
Was she going to put the sexual behavior of the Emperor on trial before the Empire? There were decent odds that she would win; he could not deny the Empire its heir, and she was his wife. She was the only one with the right to bear his divine children.
But to put him on trial was to put herself on trial right beside him. And he would divulgeeverything.The blackmailed consummation. The pain. The gifts. The wine. The oils.
The scanty silk clothing.
Esmene scrambled to her feet and vomited in her chamber pot.
She could not blot that vision of herself from her mind. She would have paid any price to rip it out. She had been raised to be an Empress from the day Bastin was born. She had never known an ungraceful moment in her life. She had never known such humiliation.Except with him.
Slumping to the floor, she wiped her mouth, trembling.
Stars, would he do it? Would Bastin go that far?
Your efforts are most gratifying.
Her stomach heaved.
Her pain gratified him. Her humiliation would please him. Oh, how he must have relished all of it, how she had humbled herself and chased after him and abased her own dignity to please him. If she insisted on making this part of their lives public, he would makeallof it public. She would suffer for it far worse than he. He would absolutely go that far.
For the first time, as she crouched on the cold tile floor with the taste of vomit sour in her mouth, Esmene felt a chill of the same implacable hatred she had seen in her husband’s eyes for four miserable years.
Then she would go even farther.
***
Year 827 of the Divine House of Agnephus
It was fortunate that the Duchess of Andelin was wealthy enough to be regarded as eccentric.
Crouched between three burly masons by the hearth of the solar, she was a ludicrous little figure with her skirts dragging in the ashes as they explained the mechanics of a hearth. Behind her, the fourth mason sketched industriously at the table, a rough schematic of the fireplace venting system for the main house.
And she was wearing such anelegantdress!
