Chapter Twelve
Chained
I gazed out at the banquet hall in some astonishment. Just whose captive was I?
I knew little of Cronian government structure, but Artaxis must be extremely high up in it. The unwanted thought came to me that I should probably kill him. The loss of such an important official, if not royalty, would deal the Cronian war effort a savage blow, but it wasn’t within me to be a murderer. I had done so once in anger, but never again.
Besides all that, I liked the man and found him very easy to get along with. He was talking, “So you are not a Philanthian by birth?”
“I shook my head, “No, I’m from Smirnaz.”
“And there you come from a family of high standing?” he asked probingly.
The man liked directness so, looking him straight in the eye, I said, “I’m the bastard offspring of a Rollanic raider and a Smirnaz woman, lower than the dirt in terms of importance.”
Instead of being put off, Artaxis leaned closer and said, “Fascinating! Such a humble beginning and yet look at you now, one of the highest knights of the realm and a personal friend to the strongest of the seven Kingdomer Nations.”
Smoothly I interjected, “Odd how you picked the strongest of the seven Kingdomer Nations to go to war with. The odds are far from being in your favor. Philanthia’s army must be twice the size of Crona’s. I can only wonder why you have gone to war with them in such an unprovoked fashion?”
Artaxis shook his head good-naturedly and said, “You don’t give up, do you my friend.”
I smiled and then began sampling the excellent food that was arrayed out before me in an endless buffet. Leaning forward from my seated back rest of pillows I claimed a tray of food that had the best tasting creations of meat combined with other delicacies that I had ever sampled in my life.
The culture of these people was far different than any I had ever encountered before. It was far more relaxed and it displayed opulence in almost everything.
I had never tasted better food, seen such bright hues of silk, or seen so many beautiful women arrayed in practically nothing. I really tried to not let my eyes wander, but it was impossible not to notice the exotic beauty of the women.
Within this lavish banquet hall there was anywhere from 2 to 7 or more women in attendance at every head of state's side. I took most of the women to be slaves, but I wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps they were wives. The Nicationers did such things.
I still couldn’t fathom how I, a prisoner, was here at this banquet, let alone as the guest of honor. It made no sense to treat a prisoner so, even a highly respected one.
I was downing a scrumptious bite of something that had the flavor of summer decadence with a hint of spicy warmth when Artaxis almost made me choke on it by saying, “For your information, Philanthia’s army is more than three times the size of ours.”
Swallowing, I looked at him in surprise. Why would he tell me, a prisoner, such vital information as that?
Artaxis wasn’t done yet though. He gestured to the banquet hall before us and said, “All this you see before you will be wiped out should Philanthia decide to invade, but then it was never intended that we should win the war. It leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth to know one has lost from the beginning of a conflict. Drink up, great warrior, before all the warmth and life is drained out of Ayenathurim and what we are left with is a wasteland of shattered dreams and roving monsters!” Artaxis picked up his cup of wine and drank heavily from it.
I looked back out upon the banquet hall full of bright lights and the glitter of jewels draped against the warm skin of beautiful women. There were easy smiles and laughs from almost everyone enjoying the performance of a jester in the banquet hall’s center floor.
Suddenly it seemed, at the words of Artaxis, that I too saw the doomed future that my companion beside me did. All of what I saw before me was going to leave and be no more.
If Artaxis could see all that, then what was keeping him from drawing the most obvious conclusion of what should be done? What could be causing these people to enact such insanity upon themselves by attacking the strongest of the seven Kingdomer Nations?
I began to see the room full of guests in a different light. These were people who were celebrating while there was still time to celebrate and enjoy life. In fact they seemed to be desperately trying to have a good time. Why were they trying so hard to pretend nothing was wrong? The mystery of Urtholan’s words came back to me, ‘the only thing that still retains innocence’.”
Artaxis’s hand slapping the back of my shoulder jarred me from my melancholy study of the people in the room. Peering forward to look at my face he said, “Such concern I see on your face for the intent of trying to discover the truth of the puzzle that lays before you. A puzzle which you seek to solve on behalf of that of an enemy! You are a rare man to sit here and be concerned for our fate. Truly you exhibit the precepts of your Kingdomer faith far better than most full blood Kingdomer’s do! I wish we had met under better circumstances, as it is we have to make the best of this while we still can. Now, enough of this grim speculation over the future! I have something in mind that I think you will enjoy,” with that said, he clapped his hands loudly and the jester disappeared from the banquet hall’s center floor, even as a row of curtains parted on a stage that lay above it and directly across from where I and Artaxis sat.
Hypnotic music, with a beat of its own, came to life from some unseen corner of the banquet hall as a group of dancers, whose fluid movements were even more hypnotic than the music, came down the stairs of the stage to the center floor of the banquet hall.
The food before me, the war, even my captivity was all forgotten. I stared as if in a trance at the woman before me. She wasn’t the only woman performing the moves of the dance on the floor, but it was as if she and I were the only ones in the room.
I acknowledged, in some deep recess of my mind that could still perform cognitive thought, that as a whole I had completely lost it. Never before in life had I witnessed any woman who could compare with the lead dancer of the group, whom it seemed to me was performing just for me.
She wasn’t shy about it and yet she wasn’t overt about it either. Watching her watch me, I beheld a confusing mix of feminine curiosity and bold confidence. She spun and twirled and moved fluidly with the dance, but her eyes always came back to mine.
It felt to me that she had even assumed control of my heartbeat so complete was her erotic entrapment of me and my senses. I blinked and tried to look away, but it was impossible.
She was the most beautiful woman I had ever met and she was looking at me and performing before me, as if she was in the presence of her King. My mouth dry and my eyes in rapt focus upon every smooth curved line of her form, I watched until the dance at long last was over.
She gazed up at me over the tops of her folded hands, poised in the final move of the dance with such a look of confident pride in the achievement of her enslavement of me that I felt at a loss as to what to do. She turned then and glided away with the grace and dignity of a Queen to the heavy applause of all those within the room.
The curtain closed after her and I knew a moment of swift depression the likes of which I had never known. It was as if I’d been drugged and then had the source of my contentment ripped from me. I felt embarrassed by it all and glancing to the side I caught Artaxis watching me closely.
Thickly I said, “They were very good. I doubt they have their equal anywhere else in the world.”
Artaxis smiled knowingly and said with obvious implication, “Yes, she is very good. Finish your meal and then I wish for you to tell me the entire story of how a boy born in the least of all the seven kingdoms rises to be the right hand man of the strongest King of the seven.”
“It’s a long story,” I said uncomfortably.
He shrugged, “We have nothing but time my friend.”
Not wanting to begrudge his hospitality I did as he asked and told him of my whole journey through life, leaving nothing out.
*****
“I would very much like to meet this friend of yours, Kuri. Perhaps one day I shall. To become such a man as you, your teacher must be quite the man as well.”
I nodded in complete agreement and said with absolute honesty, “I wouldn’t be the man that I am today if it weren’t for him.”
Artaxis nodded his head before looking around at the mellowing atmosphere of the banquet that was drawing to a close for the night. “Come, my valiant knight. The night is young and yet full of excitement to be had!”
Reluctantly I followed my benefactor from the banquet, even as I mentally girded myself against my fear of what was coming next. I wasn’t to be disappointed.
We entered into a suite of rooms of opulence the likes of which I had never seen. Up ahead I heard the sound of feminine laughter ring out gaily and I braced myself for what I had been dreading.
We passed through the last entryway and entered into a large room that contained a crystal-clear pool at its center. Beautiful women were gathered about the room lying on cushions, while others stood and even a few swam within the pool. Everything I had heard in the barracks of Philanthia about these far western lands was correct if not even more so.
Artaxis came to a halt within the room of smiling and utterly beguiling women and broadly gestured to one and all of them, “Choose any that you wish and as many as you want and they are yours to enjoy.”
I’d known what he’d been going to say, but the answer I had to deliver was hard to utter as I stared at temptations around me too numerous to count. In this moment, more than any other, I felt in need of the art of diplomacy. What would Kuri say?
I turned my eyes from the women so freely offered to me, to Artaxis and said, “You are a man of great hospitality to offer me, a prisoner in your court, your own wives for my enjoyment. I must, however, decline your offer. Not because I do not wish to enjoy what you have offered, but rather because I am bound by the words of my teacher to share my body with only one woman. A woman who will be mine and certainly not the wife of another. These are your wives and they should have no man other than you as a lover. “
There was silence within the room and I briefly wondered how far I was from getting my head chopped off.
Artaxis raised his hand and pointed to me as if witnessing before a larger audience than just the 30 or so women within the room, “Now I believe your God is real! No man without true conviction of faith would have the strength to turn away from the tempting delights held within this room that I so freely offered to you. Likewise, even a man of conviction, who was at heart a coward, would not have turned my offer down out of the fear of offending me. Truly you are no coward just as you are a man of faith! Come! You shall have your reward!”
Artaxis took my hand and led me back out the way we had come and to my surprise we were soon at the door of my room. Pushing the door wide, Artaxis ushered me in with a shove to my back and my breath left me as the lead dancer from the banquet hall rose from the bed to stand on the floor barefoot, even as she had danced.
“She, who you longed for most, is now yours as is fitting for the greatest man I have yet to have ever met!”
I started to object, but found myself quite speechless as the woman of my desire approached to stand before me. Her gaze was direct and her voice compelling as she asked, “Can it be that you do not want me Master?”
The only way out of that question was to lie. To lie was something I’d pledged myself against ever doing. “Yes, I want you, but…….”
“It’s settled then! Chain her to him!” Artaxis said jovially.
In complete consternation I turned to see two servants quietly enter the room with chains in tow. They fixed a manacle around my left wrist, which had a light chain attached to it of about 4 feet in length. Incredibly, I watched the two servants lock a much wider manacle about the waste of my dancer.
The end of my chain was linked to the polished iron ring that encircled her bare waist. My manacle wasn’t tight and neither was hers, but neither of them were coming off. I turned to protest to Artaxis, but he was already holding up a hand, forestalling me.
“I have no doubt that our Western ways are strange to you, but this is not a matter of any custom of ours. The chains are quite simply a necessity on my part to keep you within this room for the night. I have no doubt you could overpower any guard I set against you or that you would risk your life to climb down the face of the cliff beyond that window to the city below. Just as I am sure of that, I know you would not risk the life of this woman by either fighting guards or trying to climb down with her attached to you.”
Tongue tied for lack of an answer to such logic, I watched as Artaxis stepped forward towards my chained companion only to lean his forehead against hers in a movement that reflected great emotional connection. To my surprise, I saw a tear slip down the woman’s face only to be quickly wiped away by one of Artaxis’s fingers.
They both closed their eyes and then, both drawing apart, I heard Artaxis say, “This is for the best Susori.”
She nodded quickly and the vulnerable side of this woman that I’d just gotten a glimpse at disappeared, to be replaced with the persona of confidence that I’d seen on the dance floor earlier tonight.
Drawing back from her further, Artaxis looked toward the door, then quickly went through it and disappeared from view. The guards closed the door and I was left alone within the darkened room, my sole companion being the girl chained to me.
This was all too much to take in! I felt the need to sit and gather some semblance of order to the situation as the world seemed to be spinning beneath my feet. I saw a chair and stepped out toward it.
Almost immediately I was brought up short by the chain about my wrist. “I’m sorry!” I said in embarrassment, as I turned to the vision of beauty standing quietly in the room behind me.
She, however, was already stepping out toward me and, for lack of knowing anything better to do, I completed my path to the chair and sat down. She moved so quietly that I was startled to feel her hands begin to knead my shoulders.
I sat there awkwardly, as her skillful fingers squeezed first at my shoulders before then moving to my neck and rhythmically working on the tension she found there in great supply. Through it all she was silent and yet my breathing sounded loud in the room as my desperation mounted.
I was trapped! El Elyon, what am I supposed to do?
Any resistance that I could mount against this woman was shaky at best from the start, but I found even more of my resolve draining away at the touch of her fingers working away at the tension that her presence caused.
I caught her one hand with my unshackled hand and said, “Please stop.”
She stopped.
Time passed as I stared at the graceful fingers of the hand I had captured. This amazing woman was mine for the taking. This was not the way I had wanted this day to come, but in my heart I knew she was the one. I’d known it from the first moment I’d seen her and yet now, here in this setting, all seemed drowned out by my physical desire for her, but if she truly was the one, then she deserved so much more than just the weakest part of me in our first interactions together.
I let go of her hand and it disappeared back over my shoulder and to my surprise her hands once again began to knead rhythmically.
“You don’t have to do that, but it feels good and I thank you,” I spoke out huskily.
Her hands stopped briefly, but then started up again, only this time she started running the tips of her fingers through my hair in a massage of my head that felt overwhelmingly good.
“Your name is Susori?”
“Yes,” she said, and even on that one word her voice echoed with all the rich sensuality that there was to her as a whole.
Trying to find the words I asked, “Do you want to be here Susori? I need to know, so please answer me honestly.”
There was a telling pause before she spoke, “I think my master has given me to a good man. You are a good man, are you not?”
I’d never really had the question posed to me in this way before and it caused me to go into an honest self-analysis. To do so could be to reach a flawed outcome however. What would my friends say of me?
Armed with the confidence of what I knew they would say and what I thought of myself, I said, “I always try to be, but I’ve known only one truly good man in my life and I’m not him.”
“I am glad to be yours,” came her words in reply and I could only marvel as to how one could surrender one’s entire life to a stranger with so little to go on, but her words echoed of honesty.
I needed to confirm something but found myself not wanting to ask for fear of the truth, “Were you one of Artaxis’s wives?”
“No,” came her soft response as her fingers massaged my scalp.
She was making it very hard to think. The feel of her hands was amazing and I almost came out of my skin at the feel of her lips lightly grazing against my ear as she spoke softly, “I have never known a man.”
Firmly gripping the sides of the chair, I nodded. She’d certainly cleared that question up and with it she’d made my torment all the greater.
Strangely, in the darkened room I could sense that she was smiling. I hadn’t seen her smile yet, but I wanted to.
“Your hands must be getting tired.”
“They are. Do you wish me to stop?”
To say yes was to lie. Her hands didn’t stop and feeling compelled to be noble I rose to my feet and her hands slid off me.
I didn’t know what to do!
“What do I do, El Elyon?” I spoke out loud without really meaning to.
Softly she spoke out from behind me, her voice tinged with curiosity, “Your God speaks to you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s He saying to you?”
“I don’t know what He’s saying. I fear I crave a certain answer too greatly in order to hear Him at all, for fear He may say no to my desire.”
“This God of yours, has He ever said no to your desires?”
“Well…… no.”
“This desire that you speak of, is it me?”
“You know it is!” I said with passion, as I turned to face the woman.
She was smiling with her head tilted to the side as she regarded me as if I was a curious puzzle to be taken apart. The smile, just plain everything about her was perfect. I turned back to the window feeling sweat pop out of every pore on my body.
“Does your God look down upon the physical union between men and women?”
Bringing a shaking hand to my forehead I wiped at the sweat there, as my fireside conversation with Kuri years before came vividly to mind, “No, He created it.”
“Then why are you resisting your desire for me?” came the response that echoed now of real humor. The woman was deliberately tormenting me!
Just then there was a scream beyond the window in the city below and I hurried over to it dragging her along after me. It sounded like the wail of a mother expressing the ultimate grief over a lost one.
I looked down towards the city, but night had fallen and there was little to be seen. I heard the cries of a sobbing child and then utter and complete silence as if someone had just dropped a veil over the whole city.
That moment of silence was split apart by a noise of such utterly dark origin that it sounded as if it was a combination of enraged bull and thunder all rolled into one. The cry chilled me to the bone and with its sounding on the midnight air came a gasp from Susori who rushed up and pressed against my back as if seeking shelter from a storm.
I half turned and pulled her around into my arms and hers immediately latched around my middle tightly. There was another cry of rage out in the night and I thought Susori was going to fall apart from fear in my arms.
I already knew Susori to be a brave woman, but the fear of whatever monster lurked on the streets below had completely unhinged her. I held her face to me and rubbed at her back and eventually she stopped shaking.
I watched her face by moonlight as she tipped it back to look at me. She stared at me deeply for a long moment. I’d never felt so intensely studied by another person, other than Kuri.
She broke the silence by asking slowly, “Can your God do anything against such evil?”
“Yes!” I said unequivocably and with my answer I felt the tension drain out of her, until it was just her and me again.
With bodies pressed up together in a way that seemed designed to fit naturally, it wasn’t any great surprise that I found myself completing the picture by lowering my head until my lips were kissing hers. The kiss went on and on and I made a decision. A binding one.
The events of this night were crazy. The situation of this city and of this land was deplorable, but right now all my desire was engaged by this woman in a way that I had never experienced before.
No words were said as she pulled away from me and led me to the bed. I was surprised to see a light flare up as she lit several candles which quickly illuminated the room in a soft glow.
“Why did you do that?” I asked softly.
She smiled, as she turned back to me and started to take off what little clothing she did wear. “I thought you might like to see.”
“Susori I....... you’re beautiful!”
Still smiling she said, “I know.” She began to pull in the chain that linked us together and I went willingly.