Page 20 of The Traitor's Curse
A moment later, Benedict’s assigned guard stepped into the room, stopped before my desk, and bowed smartly before assuming a parade rest.
“Your Grace,” he said, the first words he’d spoken to me. “I’m afraid you won’t be able to eat until General Rathenas is able to attend you. Strict orders from the General, Your Grace.”
I stared at him, so tired and hungry that my anger stirred slowly, creeping up on me. General Rathenas. No one called Benedict that but his veteran soldiers, everyone at court using the proper Lord General Rathenas or, more familiarly, Lord Benedict.
This man was no palace guard; I knew all of them, at least by sight if not by name and a few words of conversation here and there. And I thought I’d have met all of the army’s officers, particularly those in the city, but I’d heard his men calling him Captain Venet. Wherever he’d come from, I doubted any palace guard or city guard or common soldier under his command would be likely to dare to disobey him, given his tall, heavy build and hard expression.
If he thought he could command me too, he’d be disappointed.
That said…I couldn’t countermand Benedict’s orders. Notwhen he’d supposedly given them with my blessing and in my name. Besides which, no matter how much it stung to wait on Benedict’s pleasure to have my meager luncheon, this was precisely what I’d “paid” him to do when I bent over the side of his bed and allowed him to use me: check my food, appoint guards who could actually be trusted to be vigilant, and see to it that I didn’t die an ignominious death at the figurative hands of tainted ham and watercress. Gods, how would that look in the history books?Duke Lucian, reigned less than three years, killed by a sandwich. He is barely remembered for lowering taxes on shellfish. What an epitaph.
I leaned back in my chair and raised my eyebrows at Benedict’s insolent officer.
“Do you really think I need Lord Benedict’s orders quoted back to me? Your job is to inform him that his attendance is required within the next ten minutes, not to attempt to enforce orders thatIcommandedyourcommander to give. You’re dismissed.”
He leveled me with a disturbingly shrewd gaze out of sharp dark eyes. “I’ve already sent a page to fetch General Rathenas, Your Grace. In the meantime, I’ll ensure that your orders are obeyed, and keep the coffee tray safely outside your door until the General arrives.”
He bowed smartly and backed up to the door in the most approved courtly style, slipping neatly out of the room with far more grace than some big, ungainly soldier ought to be able to do and leaving me seething with suppressed annoyance—also in the most approved courtly style.
No, definitely not a common soldier. It shouldn’t surprise me that Benedict had surrounded himself with men as irritating and contradictory as he was himself.
A few minutes later, a small hubbub in the corridor announced the arrival of my coffee, Mattia’s voice risingindignantly above the guards’ admonishments.
My stomach growled ferociously, nearly drowning out the argument—the increasing argument, as Mattia clearly didn’t think the guards’ orders outweighed his. Fascinating, if I’d been in the mood to ponder it, how court power struggles played out at every level: between me and my council, between my guards and my secretary, and probably between the kitchen maids, too, if they had time in between ignoring poisoners skulking through the pantry. Something about the proximity to or possibility of power. It made people lose their bloody minds.
“You’re not fit to touch His Grace’s sandwiches!” Mattia shouted.
Well, case in point. Great gods. At this point, I didn’t care if everyone, including the palace poisoners, had touched my fucking sandwiches. I simply needed them in my rumbling stomach! And my thrice-damned coffee!
But Benedict had buggered off to only Ennolu knew where, I couldn’t intervene in the squabble outside the study without losing any dignity I had left, and besides, I might yield to temptation and have them all executed if I did.
The study had a second entrance, a discreet little door opening into a passage that would take me to a private suite near my throne room. My equerry, Gerfred, would be waiting there with my state robes, the smaller crown I wore on less formal court occasions, and a list of everyone who’d be harassing me with their problems.
The clock ticked its way around, marking off another minute.
Fuck it. Only ten minutes remained before Chancellor Zettine would smugly take over for me in court, putting another nail in the coffin of public opinion. It was very unlikely that anyone would murder me on the short walk if I went alone, and honestly, I was too tired to care either way.
Of course, that wasn’t the only thing I had to fear. But if I allowed myself to be ruled by what might or might not anger Benedict…
That settled it.
Leaving Mattia, the guards, and my rapidly cooling coffee to all irritate one another, I slipped quietly out through the side door, my heart pounding unevenly as I shut it behind me with a quiet click.
What the hell had delayed Benedict, anyway, after all his fine talk of not letting me out of his sight?Business to attend to. Business more important than my life? Bugger the armory’s inventory and his buggering soldiers.
My soldiers, I supposed.
But bugger them all, anyway, whomever they might belong to.
Righteous anger carried me along the passage, quickening my steps and surely accounting for the rapidity of my heartbeat and breaths as well.
Benedict had no authority over me, no matter how imposingly he might loom over me as he tried to insist otherwise.
And no matter how effortlessly authoritative he’d been as he held me up off the ground by my hips, my legs spread, forcing me to come on his cock like a slut.
He didn’t frighten me. What could he do to me, anyway? Scold me? Bah.
That confidence lasted me all the way through dressing in my robes, skimming the list of petitioners, and striding into the throne room, nodding regally at Lord Zettine where he hovered to the side of the throne’s dais attempting to appear deferential rather than impatient for me to make some stupid mistake he could exploit.
