by K.N. Lee
“Minerva,” Drake reached out, choking. “Is it really you? My little red rose?” There was a quiet longing in his eyes as he draped his cloak around my shoulders. He seemed lost in his own fantasy. I could work with that.
I held my hand up to the sunlight. “Oh. I broke a nail. Drake, Sweety, can I borrow your little knife to trim it?” He hesitated and I peeled off my sweaty clothes and stretched in the warm sunlight, craning my neck. His little red rose! Such a delight to have long hair again. I laughed as the split ends tickled my butt.
Drake smiled and unbuttoned his shirt, sliding it off his shoulders and flinging it away. He grinned and passed me his belt knife.
Men! I trimmed my nails. Then I moved behind him, coyly, wrapping one hand around his waist while the knife hovered in the other. I pressed my breasts against his back and moaned. His throat, his spine, his kidneys were all there, quivering, waiting. I raised the knife. My grandfather's stories had taught me well. I paused three seconds: one for form, one for poise, and one deep breath. Then I cracked the back of his skull with the pommel.
I eased Drake to the ground and checked his breathing. This man had meant something to G'fa once. He betrayed that friendship. Spat on the regiment. Death was too good for the likes of him.
I stripped the rest of his clothes and strapped him naked to the chair. I worried about positioning his legs as I strapped his ankles, but the helpful Black Guards had shortened the seat and heavily chambfered the leading edge. The resulting wooden ramp led me right to them. I swiped my finger, mimicking the path of the blade. Perfect. I spent time lovingly selecting the dullest, most serrated blade from the brazier. Then I sighed, put it back, and found a sharp one. Torturers lingered over their victims. This was . . . surgery.
“I'm not your little red rose,” I berated the man as I made a swift cut between his legs. He grunted, but did not wake even when I pressed the flat of the blade and singed his wound. “I'm not even the hero. I'm just the mage's daughter. That could have been my mother you bastards were torturing in these cells. Now you'll think twice the next time your stooges strap someone else into one of these chairs, eh?” I tossed his testicles on the brazier. They sizzled and the stench of burnt pork filled the little room.
Drake moaned again.
I patted his cheek. “G'fa was right. You should have never left the army.”
8
KELSA, YEAR 198
I dithered as Drake sat there blissfully unconscious. What to do? What to do? Nobody coming for now, but that happy state wouldn't last for long. I felt the major's pips sitting in my pocket, jabbing my thigh, and began to assemble a plan in my mind. I unstrapped and put Sir Corbin's sweaty pants on Drake's body to hide the wound, situated him back in the chair, and dressed myself in the Black Guard's clean uniform. He's a short man and I'm a tall woman, but the fit still required a few tucks and folds to look like something approaching a real uniform. I put the ring on Drake and turned away as he transformed. Then I balled up the cloak and threw it in the corner. That dark velvet pattern was distinctive. Someone might recognize it.
The Black Guards had little metal tabs sewn into the collars of their doublets and I adjusted the magnetized major's pips. Then I tied my hair back in a fierce, tight bun I had seen other female guards wear. I really needed a cap to complete the outfit. I stood outside door, hands clasped behind my back, legs splayed, waited for the Crow to come back for Sir Corbin. One more loose end. One more loose . . . by the five, where is he? Had the man time to brag how he escorted the Hero of Jerkum Pass to a torture chamber? That might complicate things.
Finally, Private Crow came sauntering down the hallway. I smelled him before I could see him. My eyes focused on the cap he wore at a jaunty angle. “You're late, Private. I have better things to than guard your prisoner. Straighten that cap. Tuck in that shirt.”
He read my tabs and blanched as his shaky fingers rose to salute. “Yes, Major. Please excuse me.”
“Been bragging to your fellows how you dragged the great Sir Corbin through the building, were you?” How many loose ends have you left trailing behind you, Private Crow?
“No, Major.”
“You've told no one of the task Major Drake entrusted you?”
He shook his head. “Not a soul.”
“You're more discreet than I gave you credit.” I nodded and stepped aside, waving him into the room. “Please, after you, Private. The stupid old man still has some fight in him. I leave the remainder of his questioning to you.”
The Crow smiled, rubbing his greasy hands together as he entered the chamber. I closed the door behind us. I drew my knife. The Crow was too preoccupied trying to slap the corpse awake to notice. May the five gods forgive me, I may have lingered and twisted the knife in his kidneys a few times while killing him.
I removed the ring from Drake, pocketing it as his body restored itself. I held the knife next to his lips and his breath fogged the blade. Good. He would likely wake up in a few hours. I rescued the cap from The Crow and surveyed the scene. I had to hurry. Someone was going to miss Drake or come for Maven . . . or both. Private Crow? I spat on his corpse. Just another low rank torturer. Nobody would miss that steaming pile of dragon shit.
I walked down the hallway, casually. The Black Guards stationed outside the cells all saluted as I passed. The uniform seemed to pass inspection.
“Sure is cold today, right fellows?” a sniveling voice asked further down the corridor. A familiar voice. Who had been a guest in my house. Who might also find my face and hair very familiar. I forced myself to continue walking. Damn, I had forgotten about Sir Nortus.
I scanned ahead, picking the burliest, most hairy private in the lot and balled my fist. I walked past him, swaying my hips. His head craned ever so slightly as I passed. Poor sap. I turned and scowled. “Did you just leer at me, Private?” I screamed, making certain everyone had turned towards the fracas before gut punching the man. If Nortus could see my face from that far away, then the coward had eagle eyes.
The hulking private coughed and bent double, clutching his stomach, face paling as he read my collar tabs. “No, Major, I never,” the guard wheezed.
I pulled the man close and whispered in his ear, “I gelded the last gentleman who coveted my body and he outranked me. What do you think I'm going to do to you?”
“Sorry Major.” The man straightened painfully, looked down at me, and saluted.
“You are sorry,” I said. “Don't you dare look down at me, Private. Staring at my pretty eyes, no doubt. Do you think I have pretty eyes?”
The man's face quivered as his brain struggled to catch up with his ears. “The Major's eyes are the Major's business, Ma'am . . . Sir.”
“Ma'am will do unless you've suddenly forgotten my rank. Back straight. Eyes front. When you salute, the only thing touching your forehead better be the tip of your thumbnail.” I nodded as he tried saluting again. “Good form, soldier. I won't report you . . . this time.”
“Yes, Major. Thank you, Major.”
I continued my journey, glaring up and down the hallway, daring the rest of the Black Guards to twitch. None of them, including Sir Nortus, even glanced in my direction. Perfect.
I stopped when I reached Maven's cell and glanced at the guard. He was clean-shaven and young. “I need a few moments with your prisoner, alone. Run and fetch Sir Corbin to help with my inquiries.”
“Sir Corbin, Major?” The private gaped.
“Yes, haven't you heard the latest news? Sir Corbin was a spy all along. His assistance has been invaluable punishing the traitors and smiting the wicked.”
“But we threw him in this cell.” The Black Guard pointed over his shoulder. “Someone just came for him this morning. The empress seemed ready to kill the man . . . ”
I held up my hands. “Rest easy, Private. All part of some greater plan cooked up between Major Drake and the Hero of Jerkum Pass. Drake told me so himself. That entire raid was nothing more than an elaborate charade to ingratiate
Sir Corbin with the mages. A consummate actress, our empress. I admit, I was impressed.”
“You mean, empressed, Major?” The man grinned.
I chuckled dryly. “Yes, very witty.” I shooed him away. “Now go find Sir Corbin.”
“Where might he be, Major?”
“You want me to do your job for you?” I growled. “Are you so incompetent? Why, the man could be right under your nose and you'd still miss him. Scram!”
“Yes, Major.” The man saluted and started jogging down the hallway.
I entered the cell and closed the door behind me.
Maven blinked at me in the gloom. “Who's there? What do you want? Where's Corbin?”
I smiled, removing my cap and pulling the bun, letting my dark blonde hair spill over my shoulders. The old woman gasped and backed away.
“Hello, Maven. It's like looking into a distorted mirror, isn't it? Familiar, yet strange, like a ghost coming back to haunt you.”
“Minerva?” the old woman sobbed.
“No.” I eased myself to the floor and patted the spot next to me. “Why don't we sit down and talk about that.”
She gulped. “That face . . . but the voice isn't right. Who are you? No, don't tell me.” The witch held up her hands and pushed me away. “You've got an ugly birthmark on your butt. You're that damn spy. First you disguise yourself as my ex lover and now it's my dead sister? Did the five gods give you no shame?”
“Maven, I want you to tell me a story. What really happened in the last battle of the dragon warriors and the hero against the evil wizard?”
She snorted. “Why? Real history is boring and messy. Stick with your clean, bright fantasy. Besides, it was ages ago.” She shrugged. “Who cares?”
“I care. Every story I've ever heard about that heroic adventure, the reason they still celebrate Sir Corbin all these years later, was a bald-faced lie. You're the only one left alive who knows the truth, Maven.”
“What is the truth worth to a spy?” she chuckled.
“Maven, the story,” I groused. “You may not be alive to tell it much longer.”
“You are an odd spy. Very well. It's the least I can do after you asked me a question that doesn't involve betraying friends of chopping off fingers.”
“Hurry it up, old woman.” I glanced at the cell door. “They'll be coming for you next. You don't have much time.”
“What do you mean, 'They'll be coming'?” Maven asked, eyes narrowing as she glared at my uniform.
“I'm not what I seem,” I said, plucking the black uniform and rubbing the fabric between my fingers.
“Obviously,” Maven snorted, sidling next me. She poked my ribs with her bony elbow. “I liked you better when you were pretending to be Sir Corbin.”
9
KELSA, YEAR 198
Maven sat across from me in the hot, cramped cell. We both had a hard time finding space on the floor between puddles. The walls dripped slime and other putrid things glistening on the stones. She wiped the sweat off her forehead as I reached up to run a finger through the snarls in my hair. To have long tresses again only to be cursed with this humidity. This was the gods' punishment for killing that rumpled private. I glanced at the door and left the snarls alone. There was worse retribution waiting out there somewhere.
“Where to begin the story of the rings?” she asked the ceiling. “I know how it ends. The story ends with two girls and the boy they both loved more than each other. But it begins with two identical golden rings crafted at birth for two female twins. They only looked alike on the outside and as they grew up, they took different paths so that if you met them in a dark room, you would hardly know they were sisters, much less identical twins.” Maven laughed. “If we had met Corbin in a dark room, none of this would have happened. But he enters the story later. Back to the twins. I was the favored daughter: the budding mage, the prodigy. Minerva was the scrapper, the trouble maker. But it was all a lie.”
“She was the trouble maker?” I interrupted. “Drake called her 'Sweet Minerva: the red rose of the army' and she was . . .”
“Lies. I knew my sister better than any man ever could,” Maven hissed. “They only saw the face she presented to the rest of the world. I knew what lusts and desires lurked behind those eyes. They were my eyes, too. My lusts. My desires. We were always less different at the core than either of us ever wanted to admit. We clung to all the scant little differences we could find that made us unique. You had to do that, looking at your own face perched another person's shoulders day after day, thinking the same thoughts, or go mad imagining one of you is merely a poor reflection of the other. I wasn't really a prodigy any more than she was really a hooligan. She could have easily become the mage or I the soldier. They were parts we played. You know something of that, right, spy?”
I nodded, bending my legs like a little podium, and resting my chin on my knees. “So, not content with those little differences, you invented big ones to make yourselves feel special?”
“Like splitting two halves of one log. We set that wedge ourselves and swung the axe gleefully. Then we built a stage from the pieces and became actresses in our own lives.” She wiped the sweat off her forehead. “So draining to dig through these memories after so many years. Where was I, spy?”
I smiled. “Growing up. Actresses in your own lives. The fake favored daughter and the fake hooligan.”
“One little difference you must understand,” Maven said. “I could never deny my sister anything. That was not a flaw we shared. She chose those roles for us. I got the hard path of scholarship. Minerva gave herself the easy, relaxing life . . . or so she thought.”
“Was what she thought she wanted not what she really wanted?” I asked.
“I've often asked that myself,” Maven sighed.“Was her self-scripted path not enough of a challenge? Was I to blame, yielding to her every desire?”
I leaned forward. “So what happened?”
“As the play dragged on through the years, sister dear grew unsatisfied with her role as the mischievous tomboy. I already had such a better role. How could I deny my sister a few simple requests? She had but to ask and I would say yes. When she moved away from our quiet country life into the bustling city, Minerva crooked her finger and I followed like a dog and the rings came with us. When she badgered me to join the army with her, I acquiesced, although it went against our pattern of wedging ourselves apart.”
“And the boy who has yet to enter the story?” I asked. “That would be the gallant Sir Corbin?”
“Gallant? Feh.”
I quirked one eyebrow and waited. Spiteful old woman, maligning my G'fa. Was she jealous of his heroism? A woman whose life was steeped in lies hateful of a good, honest man?
“Yes,” she growled. “The boy was Corbin. A very taunt-muscled, slick-talking boy. When I noticed how she looked at him on the training field, I stepped aside. Been doing it all my life. But this time was . . . different. All that time crafting fake differences and here comes a genuine split. Hard to cope. We both loved Corbin, but he only loved one of us. He improvised his way into our little play. He went off script from my sister's plans.” She hugged herself and smiled. “It was glorious.”
“He loved you?” I guessed.
“Oh yes. Not that the red rose of the army noticed our lives deviating at first. My sister always had to have whatever she wanted. And she wanted Corbin. She got him. Every bit except his heart. I think he liked her. I hope he enjoyed her company. But love? The sweaty, raging passion between two hearts pressed side by side? That was our little secret from sister dear.”
“She never suspected your duplicity?” I asked.
“My sweet sister, the army's darling, suspect her good little dog of straying? She didn't have a clue . . . until I got pregnant. Poof,” Maven spread her hands and grimaced. “No more secret. Suddenly the key players in Minerva's life weren't following her script. It shattered her. My sister began to court death like a princess seeking her dark prince. She
died.”
“Just like that?” I asked, snapping my fingers.
“No girl, nothing ever happens just like that. Corbin had joined our little troupe of liars, but that damn storyteller always tangled his lies with truth and nobody could ever separate them. After she discovered I was pregnant and threatened to tell the world, Corbin ran to Minerva and told her he had only been trying to make her jealous by sleeping with me, insisting that she was his one true love. As proof, he stole my ring while I slept. He brought it to my sister as a gift. Oh how the bitch strutted after that hateful night. But some part of her always doubted. I know because I always doubted, waiting for Corbin to return to me.”
“And?” I whispered.
“You know the rest. My sister died in the battle with the evil wizard wearing both our rings. Corbin took those rings as a memento of the only woman he ever loved. But who received his love and who received his lies? I'm certain he adored one of us and betrayed the other. I've always wondered all these long years, which one was I?”
“And your baby?”
“I cast aside the baby. Corbin took that away along with the rings at my behest. I didn't want the world to know of my sister's shame . . . of my shame. He said it was vital to protect my reputation. Maybe he just cared about preserving my sister's good name.”
That baby was my mother, witch. By the five gods, there was a time I almost pitied you. I bit my lip and forced myself to remain calm.
“It's the only gallant thing he ever did,” the old woman muttered.
“But he saved you both from the evil wizard,” I said, refusing to believe my grandfather was this vain, horrible person the old woman persisted in describing. Maybe her poor dead sister wasn't such a horrible person, either.