Land of the Beautiful Dead

“Mmm.”

“I seduced her,” Solveig confided, coming round again to smile at Lan. “I was a month seducing her, in fact. Little glances, little smiles. Love notes, you know the sort…your eyes, your lips, your creamy bosom in the crude grip of a monster. She flitted about the palace, meeting me in shadowed rooms, stealing cold kisses before going to his bed.”

“Father was so confused,” Batuuli said. “He simply could not understand how she could seem to seek his company so eagerly, yet endure his embrace so reluctantly.”

“But of course, it was my company she was after,” Solveig said with a modest bow. “And I made sure to seldom be found save in my father’s presence, so the more I won her to my side, the more Father would think he was winning her to his. And she had to let him think so, for fear he’d put her aside.”

“And you,” Batuuli said with smiling rebuke. “You let her think you so conflicted!”

“How could I betray my loving father with his own courtesan?” Solveig demanded, then tipped a wink at Lan. “Half the fun of seducing her was making her think she was seducing me.”

Batuuli tsked. “And you let her.”

“Of course I let her! I waylaid her on her unhappy walk to my father’s chambers and, overcome with furious passion, whisked her away to my own. She trusted me,” he said, laughing. “Ah, blind, stupid love! She had no fear. The apparatuses we of the masculine gender are forced to use to mock the procreative act can be so intimidating—”

“And deadly,” Batuuli interrupted.

“And deadly,” he agreed. “Especially those of my collection, but she had no fear. Like you,” he told Lan, reaching up to tickle her chin. “But I broke her, piece by piece. By the end, she wasn’t even crying. She just lay there, letting me pose her however I pleased, and waited for it to be over. I left her, bound and splayed, and let Father know where he could find her.”

“What happened to her?” Lan asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. Father cleaned her up and got rid of her, I suppose. And if you’re wondering, no, he never said anything about it to me.” He tried for a dramatic scowl, but there was too much real frustration in it to pull off the cavalier attitude he affected. “There is no punishment quite so effective as his enduring forgiveness. Ah, well. Dear sister! Another delightful visit, as ever.” He went over to clasp her hands and kiss her in a distinctly unbrotherly fashion.

That they were playing up to make Lan uncomfortable was obvious, but it was also successful. She found herself staring at the wallpaper and shutting her ears to the wet sounds they were making, reminding herself that they probably weren’t really related. And anyway, they were dead. The dead had their own idea of morality.

“And you.” Solveig returned to pat Lan’s hip and gave her ass a friendly squeeze. “Adieu for now, but you came here as my property, dear thing, and I will be exercising my rights of ownership just as soon as I decide when and how I want him to find you.”

With that, he left, which Lan knew mostly by the sound of the door opening and closing. When she looked back, Batuuli had draped herself—or had been draped—across a settee and was gazing up at the ceiling. The top of her flowing gown had been pulled astray, exposing her left breast. The nipple was small and pointed and still wet from Solveig’s mouth. She looked like a painting of herself, the kind that ought to have a peacock in the window behind her or maybe a panther lying at her feet.

Minutes passed, uninterrupted by anything but the occasional low moan from a pikeman.

“What do you want me to do?” Lan asked finally.

Batuuli lay a hand over her eyes and delicately massaged.

Lan’s temper slipped a notch. “You know, this may shock you, but I don’t want to be here either.”

“Then go. I shan’t chase after you. Go to my father just as you are. Do you think he will have you anyway? Honestly now, do you think he should?” Batuuli waited, then sat up suddenly and said, “Do you?” in a voice like steel. “Do you think, because he is what he is, that he deserves no better than a filthy bag of rags like you?”

“No.”

“But that is just what you say when you offer up your unwashed body to him, who is lord over all the living and the dead. You say he is not deserving of even the smallest effort or consideration. You say it is you who condescends to rut with him, to grace his bed with your presence, and he should be grateful. Isn’t that so?”

“No.”

“No? No, did you say? But you don’t want to be here! And certainly, you don’t have to be here, so get out, warmblood! Get out and go to him!”