Land of the Beautiful Dead

“You couldn’t be less impressed, you mean,” she muttered, pulling the bowl of porridge to her—cooled now—with one hand and snatching at sweet rolls with the other.

“You would seem to understand that well for one who still defies me. Needlessly, I might add. You are not my slave. I will not hold you in chains and demand submission to my lustful will upon pain of torture. You have a spoon,” he remarked, watching her scoop up heaping mouthfuls of porridge on chunks of bread.

“So?”

“Use it.”

She laughed through her porridge. “Why?”

“Because I tell you to,” he said evenly. “Shall we revisit what that means?”

“Which one is mine?” she asked, eying the assortment of utensils close to her plate.

“All of them.”

“Which one am I supposed to…?”

“It doesn’t matter for today. I am content only that you make the effort. In the future…but I presume. Shall you stay?”

“I said I’d do it.”

“You did,” he agreed. “And then you attempted to starve yourself to prove how unwillingly you acquiesce. Hear me. I do not ask my concubines to pretend affection, but I see no reason I should tolerate hostility in my own house.”

He paused, perhaps waiting for her to tell him again it wasn’t his. She didn’t. She sure thought it, but all she said was, “Sorry.”

“I accept your apology. I understand this is not easy for you.” He drummed his fingers once on the tabletop. “Did you sleep well?”

She looked up, spoon in hand, puzzled.

“It is customary for the host to make polite inquiry as to the guest’s comfort,” he told her. “And for the guest to make gracious acknowledgment of the host’s hospitality. Pleasant conversation is one of your new responsibilities. Did you sleep well?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer, so she said, “Did you?”

“When last I slept, yes. But that was many months ago and is a circumstance unlikely to recur during your tenure here.”

“So what was that room you took me to last night?”

“My own. Although the bed is, I admit, mainly ornamental.”

“Will I have to sleep there?”

She didn’t particularly relish the idea and it must have showed, because he looked at her for a long time before he finally said, “I prefer to enjoy my concubines in my chamber, but if it so disturbs you, I can easily make other arrangements when we meet.”

“It isn’t that, it’s just…it’s so different from the rest of the palace. Like a prison.”

“What would you know of prisons?” he asked with a contemptuous twist of a smile.

“I’ve stayed in plenty of hostels. I mean, it’s obvious you made some changes, but was it? A prison?”

He rolled one broad shoulder in a shrugging gesture that made it clear shrugging was not natural to him. “It may well have been. My new home is old indeed, as humans measure age, and its memories are largely lost. But those who came immediately before me had no use for prisons in their home and neither have I. I shaped it to its present purpose. Perhaps when I’ve no further need of it, I’ll shape it to another. Did you sleep well?”

“You keep asking.”

“As with the training of any animal, repetition and patience are the key to success.”

The rebuke, and the tone of mild amusement with which he spoke it, brought a blush like twin slaps to her cheeks. She was suddenly too aware of how she looked—filthy and stinking at his elegant table, stuffing herself on fine foods like a starving dog. She stirred at her porridge, then pushed it away. “I slept fine.”

“You seem disappointed. You didn’t think you’d sleep at all, here in the Devil’s house, did you? But you were tired. Humans so often underestimate how erosive it is to be tired, day after day,” he mused, gazing into his cup. “Or to be hungry. Or cold. Or unwashed.”

Lan frowned, self-consciously tucking her arms closer to her body.

“You came to me believing you came prepared for an endless siege, but I tell you, you came half-surrendered. In another handful of days, you will sit at my table without hesitation. In a year, you will ask me to send to Norwood for peaches.”

“No, I won’t.”

He chuckled indulgently over his cup. “So defiant.”

“Defiance has nothing to do with it. I’ve had to eat them my whole life. I hate peaches.”

He looked at her, then laughed—a great bellow of a laugh that filled the hall and caused no small number of servants to exchange nervous glances. When the last echo had died, he raised his hands and clapped them, slowly, three times. “If you planned that, you planned it well. I find myself feeling most favorably toward you.”

Lan opened her mouth.

“Not that favorably.” He started to reach for his cup, then paused, tapping his thumbclaw against the rim as he regarded her, before finally picking it up. “Yet favorably enough to make some small concession, if you would meet me.”