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He had been required to impregnate her before the ceremony take place, as part of his requirements to become king?
The blood in her veins grew even colder. Was that what their trip away to Belshazzah had really been about, even while he had told her it was merely to get to know each other better?
For he must have known he would need to sleep with her before the coronation. The vizier would have told him.
He must have known.
Yet he hadn’t told her. He’d let her think that it didn’t matter how long it took, so long as they were married and gave the impression of sleeping together.
He’d let her think that she could take her time to get to know him.
He’d let her think she had a choice.
But he had known!
All the time he had known. She thought back to their time at Belshazzah, and to the skilfull way he had given her space and then reeled her in again, like a fisherman playing a fish. Giving it line, letting it think it was free, only to reel it back before letting it run again. He’d done the same with her, letting her think she had space, letting her walk alone, letting her make choices. But she’d been on a line all along and he’d known that all he had to do was reel her in and impregnate her.
She shuddered at the very sound of the word. It sounded so cold, formal and clinical. It sounded a million miles from what she thought they had been doing that day.
And all the time he had let her believe that it had meant something.
What had he told her? It’s never been that good for me. She had wondered then whether he was telling her the truth, wanting in her heart to believe it but so scared to.
He had wanted her to believe it too. So she would become the biddable, complicit wife he needed.
And she had wanted so much to believe him. When would she learn?
She felt sickened, physically ill, and when she gasped in air to quell the sudden unwanted surge of her stomach her father frowned across at her and she did her best to send a reassuring smile back in his direction. It would not be the done thing for a Jemeyan princess to throw up at her own husband’s coronation.
Somehow she made it through to the end of the ceremony, avoiding eye-contact as she placed her arm on his, stiff and formal, as the royal party departed.
Somehow her legs managed to carry her all the way from the ceremony to the balcony of the palace.
Somehow she even managed to smile stiffly at the crowd gathered in the square spread out below to celebrate their first sight of the new King and Queen of Al-Jirad.
Their cheers didn’t come close to touching her. The only word she heard over and over in her mind was impregnate.
‘You seem tense, Aisha.’
‘Do I?’
She had suffered through the interminable state reception, putting up with inane small-talk and diplomatic and ultimately meaningless mutterings with as much grace as she could muster. But now, as she removed one of the heavy chandelier earrings from her lobe, she could enjoy a brief respite in their suite as they changed before a formal dinner.
Or she could have enjoyed it, that was, if Zoltan hadn’t also been there. She pulled the other earring loose and dropped it to the dressing table in a clatter, just wanting the heavy weight gone from her ear, and wishing that the heavy weight on her heart could be so easily discarded.
Across the room Zoltan stopped tugging at his tie. ‘It appears the stress of becoming queen is getting to you.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘So maybe you need to relax.’
‘And what did you have in mind?’ she said, the taste of bile bitter in her throat. ‘Perhaps a little impregnation to calm me down and turn me back into your oh-so-biddable wife?’
He blinked. Slowly. His jaw set. ‘Is that what you’re upset about, the wording of the ceremony?’ He shrugged. ‘It’s ancient. It is required by the texts.’
‘As, it seems, was the need to impregnate me before the coronation.’
‘Aisha,’ he said, coming closer, putting his hands to her shoulders, ‘don’t be like this.’
‘Don’t touch me!’ she said, brushing his hands away. ‘You knew, didn’t you? You knew before we went to Belshazzah that you had to get me to sleep with you.’
‘Princess,’ he said, holding out one hand to her. ‘Aisha, what is the point of this? It is already done. Did you not enjoy it?’
Her chest heaving with indignation at his inference that everything must be all right if the sex was any good, she demanded, ‘What would have happened if you had not impregnated me before the coronation? If your answer to that question in the ceremony had been no?’
His jaw ground together, his eyes glinted. ‘I would not have been crowned king.’
‘And you knew that all the time we were at Belshazzah.’
