“I left the letters with lawyers in Preia,” Maria said, grimacing. “Dozens of them. With instructions to send them, at a certain date in the very near future, to a diverse variety of gossips, rebels, columnists, and various enemies of my husband.”
Lady Norr blinked, and for a brief instant, she might have looked almost amused. “And can’t you just write the lawyers, and ask them not to follow through? We can send messages from here, you know.”
But Maria was grimacing again, shaking her head. “No. I did it all in disguise, under a false name. And even if they did suspect who I was, I also instructed them not to change the plan under any circumstances, at any request. Unless it was from me, in person.”
The amusement had faded from Lady Norr’s eyes, her head cocking sideways. “And what did all these letters say, exactly?”
What did they say. Maria’s words were failing her again, vanished, and she dragged in a gulping breath, her gaze angling, reflexively, toward Simon. Simon, who was still looking straight back at her, his eyes dark, clouded, grim. Knowing her words, before she even spoke them.
“These were your vengeance, ach?” he said, his voice very steady. “They heaped shame upon this husband. They sought to disgust him, and mock him, by spreading this truth across the realm. His pretty duchess wife, eagerly bouncing upon a fat orc-prick. Sucking foul orc-seed into empty womb. Bearing disgusting orcspawn.”
He almost spat out the last word, and it felt like he’d kicked her in the stomach, the nausea surging and roiling. Because as usual, he was right. That had been exactly Maria’s intention. The letters had been sordid, scandalous, shocking. They’d been meant to humiliate her husband. To destroy him.
But instead, it was Maria being destroyed, her hands rubbing painfully at her face, her eyes welling with prickling heat. “I didn’t want to — to give my husband more cause for the war he wanted so much,” she choked out. “So — yes. I went for —scandal, instead. Explicit. Obscene. As much fodder for the gossips as possible.”
And gods, she couldn’t even look at Simon, couldn’t bear to face the brunt of his judgement — but Lady Norr, thank the gods, still bore no judgement in her eyes. No shame.
“So you didn’t actually accuse us of kidnapping?” she asked, her voice thoughtful. “Or any kind of force, or aggression, against you?”
Maria shook her head, quick and desperate, and heard herself make a sound that might have been a laugh. “I cast myself as an eager, willing accomplice,” she said, her voice cracking. “As someone whose husband was so fucking disappointing, that an orc was a welcome change.”
A lord, in the prime of his life, cuckolded by an orc.
And gods, how had Maria thought such things. How had she written such things. And no wonder Simon was angry, because she’d meant it as an insult. As mockery. Asjudgement.
The room had fallen utterly silent, and Maria forced out the rest of it, please the last of it, please gods,please. “I wanted to deny my husband his war,” she croaked, “by framing it as my choice. But if he already thinks I’ve been kidnapped, and he’s set a bounty on me, and sent men here, and made all this public — those letters will only be fuel on the fire in this war, right? They’ll be more shit in a horrible mess of it, he’ll say I was seduced, he’ll say you made me write those things, he’ll say I’m foolish, irrational,hysterical. And I mean, he was always going to say that anyway, but —”
But gods, she’d been sostupid. Of course this had been the stupidest possible plan. Of course her husband would sniff it out, twist it to suit himself, justify his awful war. And of course Maria would be left like this, alone, miserable, broken. Defeated.
“Well,” Lady Norr said, in a bracing voice. “That’s a lot to unpack, I must say. I’d like to go run it by Grimarr, if you don’t mind, and perhaps a few others as well. But” — her hand carefully reached out, and squeezed Maria’s — “you’re still welcome to stay here, Maria, as long as you like. I know what a piece of work Duke Warmisham is, and I’m impressed you escaped his clutches at all — let alone set up such a clever plan to defeat him. Gods, I wish I’d thought to do that against my own vile husband.”
She again smiled at Maria, wry, genuine — and Maria couldn’t even smile back. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything, but for the flat, certain dread of an orc’s judgement, boring into her from across the room.
“Look, why don’t I leave you two for tonight,” Lady Norr continued, with another pat at Maria’s hand that was surely meant to be reassuring. “And we’ll reconvene in the morning to talk through our options. All right?”
Maria somehow managed a nod, blank, empty. And then Lady Norr was gone, and it was only Maria, and the orc she’d betrayed. The orc she’d used, for her revenge. The orc who’d known the truth, from the start.
And he’d lied, too. He’d pretended he hadn’t known. He’d signed that fucking contract. He’d dragged her into this deadly game with his clan, his enemy. He’d put her at risk. He’d gotten her pregnant, when he’d known their son would be at risk, too. He’d let her think this war wasn’t a threat. He’d let her think Ulfarr wasn’t a threat. He’d let her think — oh gods, he’d let her think —
Maria raised her face toward him, toward the truth of that contempt flashing in those eyes, that judgement. And it had been so long since he’d looked at her like that, she’d fought so fiercely to obey him, to honour him, to please him. And he had been pleased, he had been, thathadto still be true…
But he kept glaring at her, his disapproval a visceral living thing between them. And in the desolation, Maria somehow… smiled back at him. Wan, weak, worthless.
“So are you going to Enforce me now?” she asked, brittle, wretched. “Or am I even worth that to you, anymore?”
The contempt flashed higher, so painful and so familiar in his beautiful black eyes, and Maria smiled again, forcibly shoving back the misery, the anguish. “Or was I ever worth that to you at all,” she whispered. “Or was that a lie, too?”
Simon’s growl was instant, harsh, deep, his body huge and taut in the doorway. “No,” he bit back, clipped. “And you shall stop this, woman.”
Something flailed in Maria’s stomach, and she gripped at the bed beneath her. “Stop what,” she choked. “Being so gullible? So stupid?Hysterical?”
Simon snarled, the sound shivering down Maria’s back. “No. You ken what I mean.”
The helplessness was flailing, crashing against the disbelief, the gods-damned injustice of it all. “No, I don’t know what you mean!” she shot back, her voice shrill. “I don’t know anything anymore. I can’t trust anything you say anymore. I feel like I don’t evenknowyou anymore!”
She was hurling the words at Simon, perhaps wanting something,anything, to break that dark, cold judgement in those watching eyes. But it only seemed to flare, to sharpen, as he came a slow, deliberate step closer.
“No,” he said again, the word a heavy thud in the small-feeling room. “You know me. And I knowyou, woman.”
