“When necessity demands that we appear together on formal occasions, you shall play the part of the obedient and loving wife, deferring to my judgment in all things. Otherwise, you shall not try me with your conversation or your presence. On these matters, I shall remain as rigid as the rock on which this castle stands, so save your breath and plague me not with your entreaties. Such is your lot, and you shall accept it without question. Disobey at your own peril.”
She had listened with stunned disbelief and mounting fury. Who was he to speak to her in such a manner? She was a princess of the royal house, and he merely some loutish provincial raised to the status of dukedom, even so, beneath her. And how could he know so much about her?
Informants, he had said. Spies, he meant. Spies everywhere.
She had been betrayed. Which of those servants in the palace had betrayed her? She had paid them well, the traitorous ingrates! And this was how they had repaid her kindness and largesse, by double-dealing and betrayal. If she ever found out who they were, she would have them lashed until the skin fell off their backs. Then she would string them up by their thumbs and roast their feet with coals.
She would throttle them with her own bare hands! She wanted to scream and launch herself at her new husband, to scratch his eyes out, but some instinct of self-preservation had restrained her. That was not the way.
Rebelling against Derwyn would only give him an excuse to rid himself of her-after she had borne him children.
Children! The thought of lying with him filled her with loathing now.
He was much more handsome than his father, and when Arwyn had proposed the match, she had thought she could certainly do much worse. Derwyn was attractive, and his manner seemed to suggest he would be a gentle, thoughtful lover. But now this! Somehow, somewhere, he had found a backbone. She could see his method clearly. Exert forceful control at once, the better to maintain it. Well, she would let him think he had his way.
She had wept and cast her eyes down, meekly submitting to his will, playing up to his masculine power. And she had begun to form a plan that would reverse their roles. And as she considered how she would bring that about, she became filled with delightful anticipation. If Derwyn would use masculine force, she would employ feminine cunning.
She would lull him into a false sense of security and then she would neatly turn the tables. It would take time, but she would thoroughly enjoy every moment of it.
That had been three years ago. Since then, her plan had progressed steadily and surely. She had accepted all of Derwyn’s directives without question, at first merely acting sullen and stoic about it, but gradually, she had allowed him to perceive her mood begin to alter.
This gradual warming trend she had timed to coincide exactly with the frequency of their efforts at procreation. The first time, about a week after their marriage-she could not tell if he was merely giving her time to get used to the idea or if he was working himself up to it-she had acted stiff and unresponsive initially, as if she were suffering in silence through an experience she could not avoid. But as he neared climax, s e a egun to thrust against him slightly and had allowed a small moan or two to escape her lips, as if she were enjoying it despite herself. That seemed to both please and excite him, though he had tried not to let it
show. She remembered laughing inwardly, thinking that men were so transparent.
The next time, as before, she greeted him as if what they were about to do was a trial for her, but once more, as their lovemaking progressed, she began responding, displaying a bit more excitement-but carefully, not too much. She couldn’t let him think she was enjoying the act for its own sake.
She wanted Derwyn to believe it was him she was responding to, that his male prowess was getting through to her despite her resistance. And little by little, she gave a little more, and then a little more, until eventually her entire demeanor had changed when he came to her.
After a few weeks, she greeted him with eyes meekly downcast, submissive instead of quietly defiant, but when she looked up at him, it was with hopeful anticipation. She always quickly averted her gaze whenever he noticed it, as if she did not mean for him to see how she truly felt.
And out of the corner of her eye, she would see the smug little smile on his Bps as he noticed what she had pretended to hide and she would think how easy it was.
They were really all the same. Cater to their sense of self, to their pride and illusions of power, and soon they all became putty in her hands. But with Derwyn, the game was more drawn out and considerably more elaborate, in part for its own sake, because she was bored and there was little else to do, and in part because the end result she planned for was ambitious and complex.
A month passed, and she had begun to act repentant, not saying anything outright, but letting him know through her demeanor that she regretted the
way she had behaved before. When he came to her bed, she was tender and receptive, always careful not to show too much enthusiasm, allowing him to think he was bringing out the tenderness in her, the “true woman” who had slumbered for so long, that he was making her fall in love with him.
And when he left her, she would always turn away and pretend to weep into her pillow. One night, when he hesitated, lingering by the door to her bedchamber as if he were about to offer words of comfort but managed to fight down the impulse, then she knew she had him.
Eight months into their marriage and she was still not pregnant.
Doubtless, Derwyn was starting to feel frustration at their failure, but she wasn’t pregnant because she had a supply of a special preparation, a potion she had obtained from a wizard in Anuire that would inhibit her fertility. She was not yet ready to give him a child. She had to build up his anticipation and break down his defenses. The timing had to be just right. With Arwyn, she knew, it never would have worked, but Derwyn merely thought he was as strong as his father ever was, when in truth, it wasn’t Arwyn’s strength that would have made her fail with him, but his complete indifference to anyone except himself.
A year passed, and she entered the next stage of her plan. She was, by now, playing the part of the dutiful and quietly submissive wife to the hilt, but now she added something else. She fell into a melancholy, and at times allowed him to find her weeping for no apparent reason.
She began to go to temple regularly, praying every day, until even the priests remarked upon her piety. All of this, she knew, was being reported back to Derwyn, whose manner toward her by now had changed completely.
Convinced he had brought about a change in her, Derwyn was now puzzled by her new behavior.
And one night, when she judged the time was right because he had seemed particularly tender with her, she waited until they were finished with their lovemaking and he lay upon her, spent. Then she started sobbing.
He looked up with alarm and moved to lie beside her. “What is it, Laera?” he asked, stroking her hair softly. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, everything is wrong!” she cried. “All wrong!
I am all wrong!”
“But how? Why? I don’t understand.”
Still sobbing, she shook her head and turned away from him, as if ashamed.
“Tell me,” he said. “Please.”
“I am being punished,” she said, sobbing. “Punished for the all wicked things I have done, for the selfish life I’ve led! That is why I cannot give you sons! The gods have cursed me and made me barren!”
“No,” said Derwyn, “that cannot be true.”
“I have tried to make up for my past mistakes,” she cried. “I have no other wish now than to be a wife and a mother, but no child quickens in my womb! Each day, I go to temple and pray to be forgiven, to be deemed worthy of you, to be blessed with your son, but my prayers remain unanswered, for I have been wicked! Oh, how you must hate me!
I wish I could die!”
Derwyn took her in his arms. “Hush, now, don’t say such things. We must not tempt the gods.”
“Sen
d me away, Derwyn. Send me away to Ice Haven, where I may spend the remainder of my days atoning for my sins and trouble you no more!
It is no less than I deserve!”
Inwardly, she held her breath. She thought the moment right, but if she had misjudged things, there was every possibility he would do just that.
“No, Laera,” he said. “It is not you who must ask forgiveness. It is I. When I first brought you here, I was cold to you, filled with resentment. I thought to use you as nothing more than a means to an end, so it was I who acted selfishly. You were bitter because you had been hurt by Dosiere-yes, I know about that, too-and it was your anger and your bitterness that led you to do the things you did. Yet all that is in the past. You have been a good and faithful wife. I thought I could not trust you, but now I know I was wrong. You’ve changed, Laera.
You’ve done everything I asked of you and more. From now on, things will be different. I promise, you will see. If the gods mean for our union to be fruitless, so be it. But I will not send you away. I could never do that now. I love YOU.”
She looked at him, eyes wide with feigned disbelief, as if she had just heard the words she had always longed to hear, while inwardly, she laughed with scornful victory. The change had come. The tables were reversed. Now she was in control.
“Oh, Derwyn!” she said breathily. “I love you, too!”
A month later, she was pregnant, and the midwife decreed the child would be a son.
Almost four years had passed since the War of Rebellion, and the empire was united and stronger under Michael’s rule than it had ever been before.
For the most part, the nation was at peace, but there was still work for the Army of Anuire. Peace had to be maintained with strength, and there was never any shortage of those who would not hesitate to test that doctrine.
The ogre tribes in the Seamist Mountains had grown stronger while the war had occupied the humans, and periodically the emperor launched campaigns to assist the forces of Taeghas and Brosengae in holding them at bay. To the north of the Heartland territories, tribes of goblins and gnolls who made their headquarters in the Stonecrown Mountains continued raiding farms and villages in Mhoried and herdsmen in the southern part of Markazor, where the empire was attempting to expand its frontiers. Coeranys was subject to periodic raids from demihumans in the Chimaeron, and attacks from Khinasi pirates who plied the coast during the spring and summer seasons.
Rhuobhe Manslayer still remained a strong force to be reckoned with in the Western Marches, and his mountainous, heavily forested domain made a campaign to flush him out virtually impossible. During the eight years that the war progressed, he had taken advantage of the conflict to expand his domain into the forests of Boeruine, and he had pushed his eastern boundaries into the foothills of western Alamie, sweeping down into the valleys with his renegade elves to loot and pillage extensively. At best, the empire could do little more than pursue a strategy of containment by establishing strong garrisons along the western borders of western Alamie. The Five Peaks remained a lawless region, necessitating the establishment of outposts along the northern borders of Alamie to keep the bandits from raiding at their pleasure. And there still remained the punitive expedition into Thurazor, which Michael had been forced to put off time and again because his attention had been required elsewhere.
The outer reaches of Cerilia also occupied much of the emperor’s attention. His dream was to expand the boundaries of the empire to encompass the wild territories to the far north, such as Rjuvik, Svinik, Halskapa, jankaping, and Hogunmark, bringing the Vos tribes back into the fold. Ever since the Battle of Mount Deismaar, the Vos had been a law unto themselves, and Michael wanted to reclaim those territories and restore the empire to the glory of the days before the passing of the old gods. With the Vos territories under his control, he would then be able to mount campaigns from the far northern lands against the territories ruled by the goblin princes and the awnsheghlien, such as the Realm of the White Witch, Urga-Zai, the Giantdowns and, most challenging and dangerous of all, the Gorgon’s Crown, the foreboding domain of Prince Raesene.
Beyond that, there were the territories of the Far East, made almost inaccessible by land because to reach them an army would have to pass through Chimaeron. It was the only practicable route to reach the Tarvan Waste and the lands of the Black Spear Tribes, the forests of Rheulgard, Rhuannach, and Innishiere, as well as the Northeastern Territories such as Kal Kalathor, Drachenward, Wolfgaard, Molochev, and the awnsheghlien domains of the
Raven and the Manticore. At one time, before the War of Shadow, which had culminated in the Twilight of the Gods at Deismaar, the empire had controlled almost all of Cerilia, and Michael’s dream was to reacquire those lands, drive out the brigands, civilize the savage tribes who now controlled those territories, and defeat the evil awnsheghlien once and for all.
It was an impossibly ambitious goal, thought Aedan, and accomplishing it-if, indeed, it could be accomplished-would take at least a lifetime, yet Michael seemed determined to pursue it. He talked of little else.
It was not enough for him that he had already accomplished far more than his father ever had, that the empire was reunited now and stronger than it had been in generations. He wanted to bring back the empire of the original Roele, whose name he bore, and to surpass all the accomplishments of the long line of Roeles who had preceded him.
Michael had become a driven man, and Aedan was concerned about him. He was obsessed with the idea of conquest. Despite the weariness he had professed at the end of the War of Rebellion, he could take no satisfaction in the peace he had achieved.
The war had changed him. His formative years had been spent in warfare, and despite all the hardships it imposed, war was now in Michael’s blood. He lived to lead troops into battle, and he became moody and restless when he was confined to the palace for any length of time.
That, thought Aedan, was the crux of it. Michael felt confined. The daily routine of governing the empire was something he found oppressive.
He delegated most of his responsibilities so that, in effect, Aedan ran the government while the emperor spent endless hours in planning strategies for new campaigns to expand the empire’s borders or organizing expeditions to quell raids by bandits and demihumans on the frontier. He had become, thought Aedan, what he had fought. He was a warlord. He had turned into Arwyn of Boeruine.
The people loved him for it. To them, he was a hero, the warrior-king who had saved the empire.
Under his rule, they had enjoyed more peace and prosperity than ever before. However, Aedan knew it could not last. The people of the empire hailed his expeditions to put down bandit raids and drive back invading tribes of gnolls and goblins from their borders. They cheered him in the streets when he led his army on the march, but Aedan wondered how long those cheers would last when the treasury ran dry; for it was already seriously depleted-and new and greater taxes had to be imposed to finance the continuing campaigns.
For now, farmers were pleased to contribute a portion of their crop yield to help sustain the Army of Anuire, and herdsmen uncomplainingly provided meat to feed the troops, but as the campaigns continued and the size of the army increased as it did each year, Aedan knew these attitudes would change. For the present, it was not a hardship for a farmer to contribute a tenth portion of his crops to supply the army, but what would happen when the empire demanded half? Parting with a few head of sheep or cattle did not greatly discommode a herdsman, knowing he was playing a vital part in keeping the empire secure, but when the army came and marched away with half his herd, he would be sure to feel resentment.
Michael couldn’t seem to see that. The people loved him, and he could not imagine losing their support. For now, he had it, but if he maintained his present course, things were bound to change. Over and over, Aedan had tried to make him understand this, but Michael stubbornly dismissed all his concerns.
“You worry too much, Aedan,” he’d say with a smile. “As we pacif
y our frontiers and continue to expand our borders, we shall make more land available for farming and grazing. And as we make more opportunities for farmers to expand their fields and herdsmen to broaden their range lands, our new acquisitions will attract people from the cities to the frontiers, where they will see the chance to prosper.
And when people prosper, Aedan, they do not become dissatisfied.”
“Indeed, there is truth in what you say,” Aedan had replied, “but you have neglected to take several things into account. It is not quite that simple. As we continue to expand our borders-which will cost us-it will require more of our resources to protect them. We will have to build more garrisons, create new peers to oversee the administration of the newly acquired territories, and recruit more troops to defend them.
Those troops will all need to be supplied and fed and housed, and the expense of that will counteract the growth in prosperity that you envision for a number of years, at least.
“Aside from that,” he continued, “these constant campaigns, no matter how successful they may be, continue to impose a steady drain on manpower. We have already increased the number of mercenaries in our ranks significantly, and mercenaries do not have 36?
the same impetus to fight as do men who defend their homeland. In the War of Rebellion, most of our soldiers were family men. When they returned from their campaigns, they went to spend time with their families. Mercenaries, on the other hand, have no families to support, which means they have no responsibilities. When they return from the campaigns, they go into the city in search of entertainment. They go to gaming houses, brothels, and taverns.
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