Betrayal

Betrayal

  A Wither the Waking World Story

  By Jonathan Techlin

  Copyright © 2013 Jonathan Techlin

  The room was dark, lit only by a fireplace full of orange coals and those few candles that hadn’t yet drowned in their own wax. The night breezes gently parted the curtains as they carried the sounds of revelry up from the castle courtyard below.

  “I told you, my dear. I promised you would have anything your heart desired.”

  “This bed is all I have desired. This bed and you with it, my lord. Nothing more.”

  Clothing and blankets covered the stone floor, boots and scarfs, a slipper and a belt. Here, the red silken bodice of a dancer. There, the golden dagger of a king. Lying among all this were numerous white teardrop tulips. Once a bouquet on a table, now they littered the floor, decorations for the disarray.

  “You wished to drink from the cup of my kingdom, and you shall drink more.”

  “All night I shall drink, my lord, until I can drink no longer.”

  On a table where this bouquet once rested, there was a glass carafe, nearly empty, with a thin circle of red wine at the bottom. Next to that, two goblets, both half-full, a bowl of ground cockburn and seraphim, dried tobacco leaves, and a dirty ashtray.

  “I must tell you that I am pleased. You will warm this bed again, and soon.”

  “My heart sings with joy to know my body brings you pleasure, my lord.”

  The air was chill, nipping at the skin wherever it touched, but it wasn’t cold enough to quench the heat that filled the bed at the center of the room, where a man and woman were locked together.

  “Rise up, my sweet lover. Allow me to look at you.”

  “Are your eyes pleased, my lord?”

  The man lay on his back among heaps of pillows and blankets, his chest heaving with the breath of physical exertion. The woman was on top of him, straddling his hips. Her naked body glistened with a film of sweat, the candlelight dancing off every delicious bronze curve.

  “My eyes are pleased, but it is my heart which compels me to confess to you, my dear.”

  “What must you confess, my lord?”

  The air was still for many moments while the man gazed upon his lover, his tongue silent with hesitation. The sounds of music and laughter drifted through the windows as he moved his hands from her legs to her waist, then back down again. She arched her back and moaned, raising a large and smoldering cigar to her lips.

  “I love you.”

  The woman inhaled slow and deep, causing the tip of her cigar to hiss orange. When she spoke, her words were raspy and full of smoke.

  “Does the mistress know of this love?”

  A tiny ember fell from the cigar, drifting down to land on the man’s bare chest. He did not flinch.

  “She knows,” he said. “As does her lover. I’m certain the knowledge does not hinder their passion.”

  The woman smiled slyly. “Then it must not hinder our’s, my lord.”

  “Let us all revel in our lust, then,” the man said. “Both master and mistress of the kingdom, but in separate beds. Thankfully.”

  “My lord,” the woman said, blowing a steaming plume of hot smoke into the night air.

  “What is it, my dear?”

  “My heart compels me,” she whispered. “I too, must confess something.”

  “What is it?”

  “The mistress and her lover plot against you, my lord.”

  The man smiled. “This is no confession of yours, my dear,” he said. “All know this. She has been plotting against me since the day we were married.”

  “I know this, my lord,” the woman said. “But now her schemes turn to action.”

  “Which scheme does she act upon?” the man laughed. “Does she cry to the chapel priest for relief from her marriage? Does she plot another false suicide for sympathy?”

  “No, my lord,” the woman replied. “None of that.”

  “Will she attempt to run away again?” the man guessed. “Is she saddling her horse as we speak? I’m certain her toy lover is helping her fit the bridle. But first, he’ll have to remove the bit from his own mouth.”

  “They are not preparing a horse for travel,” the woman answered. “They are preparing your assassination.”

  The man’s smile melted from his face.

  “Foolishness,” he said. “Such a plan will never succeed.”

  “They are not dissuaded.”

  “I will foil their plot,” the man stated. “And they will both swing from the gallows, holding hands as death takes them.”

  The woman regarded him with a face of calm amusement, her cigar poised and smoldering. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead. She shifted her hips, and he gasped.

  “You may take their lives,” she said, moving in slow circles, watching his grimace increase. “But first you must save your own.”

  “With your help, I will stop them,” he hissed, his jaw tight. “When do they plan their attack?”

  She took another deep pull of her cigar and bent down to kiss him, smoke curling from her nostrils. She whispered in his ear.

  “Tonight.”

  Then she pulled away from him, exhaling, caressing herself with her free hand.

  “Tonight?” he said. “How?”

  “They mean to poison you.”

  “How does my lover know this?” he asked, his breath coming in short bursts.

  “Your lover knows this,” she whispered, “because your lover has joined in the plot against you.”

  “You’ve joined them?” he asked incredulously. “That is absurd.”

  “Your mistress was willing to pay a great sum,” the woman said. “Coin taken from your own coffers, enough for several lifetimes of lavish living.”

  She smiled at him and smoked some more, as if this moment was nothing out of the ordinary. She rubbed his chest with her free hand and he groaned against his will, clenching his fists.

  “When should I expect to die?” he asked.

  “Right now, in this bed,” she answered, scratching the hair on his chest.

  She continued to manipulate him even as she confessed her treachery, the magic she worked on his body gradually increasing in potency.

  “You have agreed to poison me tonight,” he said. “Right now.”

  His eyes pinched tight. His mouth gaped open. No body could contain this much passion.

  “But you won’t,” he groaned. “That is why you confess.”

  His heart could not keep pace. Neither could his lungs. The need to explode stole his breath like a thief.

  “That is right,” she purred. “I will not poison you now ...”

  No matter how hard he breathed, he was denied fresh air.

  “... because I have already done the deed.”

  His eyes flared open. He stared at her in horror.

  “You are poisoned, my lord,” she smiled. “Tonight at the banquet, when you drank the wine of Dama Moor.”

  Now the man could not breathe at all, nor could he move. It was as if she had him pinned to the bed with ten times her natural weight, the majority of it on his chest.

  “It was a clever plan,” the woman explained. “Your soldiers would not discover the plot behind your death because there would be no symptoms of poison. You have consumed an elixir created and cursed by a witch who worships the Angel of Disease.”

  The man’s eyes bulged without blinking. Tears ran down his cheeks as his head slapped repeatedly against his pillow. The woman continued to make love to him against his will, continued to suck on her cigar, blowing smoke all over him.

  “The symptoms mimic a disease of the lungs,” she said. “You are a fish drowning in air. Your body is rejecting that which it most requires. Because you drank wine, not of Dama Moor, but o
f Miacnon, laced with disease, slow magical death. It is a gift to you from your loving wife, and the penalty for taking a witch into your bed.”

  Now the man lay still, no part of his body moving except his eyes, which darted around the room frantically.

  “But take comfort, my lover, for Miacnon does not wish you to die,” the woman whispered.

  “Disease is the realm of the living. You can not suffer without life.”

  She put her still-smoking cigar in the ashtray, then lay herself down, covering him with her body. She held him in a tight embrace, kissed his cheek, and whispered in his ear.

  “You graciously promised me anything my heart desired,” she said. “I wished for your bed, and you gave it to me. So I will return that favor to you. Anything your heart desires.”

  She smoothed his hair and kissed his nose.

  “The taint spreading throughout your body is alive,” she explained. “It moves at my command, does as I command. It will do anything I wish, and so it will do anything you wish. Tell me, lover. What do you wish for?”

  A slow wheezing sound emerged from his lips.

  “You may have anything your heart desires.”

  His lungs opened up, and he took his first breath in minutes, long and painful, but life-giving.

  “Anything,” she whispered.

  That first breath entered his body, and when it left, it did so in the form of a lion’s