Disclaimer: Phedre et all are the intellectual property of Jacqueline Carey; I'm just borrowing them for a little while.
Author's note: Written for the 2012 femslash kinkmeme.
Ysandre sat in her bedchamber alone. Her daughters were asleep, the business of the court concluded for the day. Drustan had returned to Alba weeks ago and her large bed loomed before her, empty and cold. She unlocked her jewel case and removed the Companion's Star, the glittering gem she had once given as a gift of trust and friendship to Phèdre nó Delaunay. It winked at her, mocking, as if to say her trust had been misplaced.
The queen rang for her guard. "Bring me the Comtesse de Montrève at once."
"Yes, your Majesty."
As an afterthought, she added, "See that she leaves her Cassiline companion at home."
Ysandre sat before the fire and waited, a glass of Alban uisghe in one hand and a staff of lacquered bamboo in the other. Uncle Barquiel had brought it back from his time in Khebbel-im-Akkad. "Use it in good health," he had told her with a wink. She had never had cause to use it before now. The young queen had suffered so many betrayals in her life, beginning with the murder of her mother. But no one had ever wounded her the way Phèdre had when she defiantly presented the Companion's Star, and demanded to raise Melisande Shahrizai's son as her own. Ysandre's knuckles grew white as she gripped the polished cane. She had suffered untold humiliation and indignity before the entire court that day. The queen had met out what she had thought was a sound punishment at the time, but as the months dragged on, it was not enough. Would never be enough.
A loud knock at the door. "Enter," Ysandre called.
Phèdre nó Delaunay walked hesitantly through the door of her chamber, eyes wide with concern. She gave a practiced courtesy, then asked, "Ysandre, is everything all right?"
Ysandre took one last swig of uisghe before dashing the glass into the fire. She turned slowly, cane in hand, and said, "No, I don't think it is."
The anguisette's quick dark eyes took one look at the fire in the queen's expression and the long length of wood and blushed hotly, the scarlet mote in her eye seeming to deepen. A clever reader of other people's emotions, Phèdre needed no further explanation. The woman fell to her knees and assumed the position known among adepts as abeyante. Not that Ysandre had ever patronized the Court of Night Blooming Flowers, she thought with a touch of bitterness.
"Your Majesty, is there aught that I may do to make it so?" the anguisette asked, voice even, eyes downcast.
Ysandre's voice filled the chamber in precise and sharply accented syllables. "Phèdre, you disobeyed me when you took my kinsman to Saba without my permission. You shamed me when you forced me to grant you custody of Imriel against my wishes. And you made me lose face again when I punished you for this disobedience, for many at court thought it cruel of me to prolong the Tsingano's suffering merely to spite you." The queen paused and one could have heard a pin drop. "You made me look weak."
"I am sorry, my queen. It was never my intention…" Phèdre began.
"I did not give you permission to speak," Ysandre rebuked sharply. She hefted the cane in her hand, felt its smooth, solid weight. "Your actions have gnawed at me these many months. I see now that I was too lenient on you, biased by our friendship. But such disgrace cannot be borne, wouldn't you agree, Phèdre?"
The anguisette's deep brown eyes rose to meet her violet ones. "I serve at the pleasure of my queen. I will do whatever is required to put this right between us."
Ysandre swallowed, having quite felt her mouth go dry. She would take this answer as Phèdre's consent. Elua knows half the realm suspected she had taken the anguisette as her lover for the better part of a decade. Though her grandfather Ganelon had schooled her to appear beyond reproach, was it really so horrible to be guilty of the act she had already been tried and convicted of in the court of public opinion?
Ysandre drew closer to where her friend knelt on her chamber's unforgiving marble floors, close enough to feel fear and desire radiate off Phèdre's body in thick and silent waves. The anguisette was quite at her mercy and seemed more excited than frightened at the prospect of punishment. Ysandre had put up with any number of saucy and wanton looks from Phèdre's lambent eyes over the years. She knew her friend longed to kneel at her feet, kiss the hems of her gowns and yield herself to the highest authority in the land. It had been passing difficult to deny her, yet she had done it out of love of the realm, to spare her court any unnecessary intrigues. But there was always a dissenting voice within her that mocked her self-denial as the weakest of excuses. Hypocrisy, the voice taunted in honeyed tones, that the queen of Terre d'Ange should put politics before Blessed Elua's precept.
Now that she had the opportunity before her to finally give reign to her long-neglected desires, Ysandre felt at a loss at how to proceed. Phèdre's small white hand moved to untie the laces of her gown. "Shall I undress for you, my queen?" she prompted.
Ysandre slapped her hands away, feeling Kushiel's fire blaze within her as skin met skin. She licked her lips and thought of what she wanted, of the scene she had imagined so many times before. "Remove your underthings." The anguisette did as commanded and in a matter of moments, silken drawers, petticoats and underflounces lay abandoned on the floor. "Now, walk over to my bed and hike up your skirts." Ysandre watched as Phèdre drew the hem of her fine woolen gown over her knees, then her hips, before stopping just below her buttocks. Her hesitation, probably calculated for all Ysandre knew, caused her to snap, "All the way up. Do I make myself clear?"
Phèdre pulled aside the last bit of fabric leaving the whole of her bottom exposed. The sight of creamy flesh and rounded curves and just the barest glimpse of the courtesan's marque caused the queen to flush with desire. Ysandre had never had a female lover, had never had anyone save Drustan. While she loved her husband dearly, she was D'Angeline after all. She spoke thickly, "Bend over, Phèdre. I suggest you brace yourself, because I promise this is going to hurt."
The air between them grew taught with anticipation. Ysandre gripped the cane, could have sworn she heard the pounding of bronze wings in her skull as blood rushed to her nether regions. She drew her arm back and swung, sending the cane whistling through the air until it landed on Phèdre's buttocks with a resounding smack. She rained down blow after blow on the anguisette, felt herself growing more and more aroused, drunk with the power of it, as her penitent let out cries and whimpers, her pale skin flushing from pink to red. She poured all of her pent up anger and bitterness, all of the hurt she felt at Phèdre's disobedience, into the end of that cane. "Is this what she did for you, that you agreed to raise her son as your own?" the queen asked, hardly knowing what she was saying. Smack. "Did you hunger so much for Melisande Shahrizai's cruelty that you would put the fate of the realm at stake?" Smack. Smack. Smack. "Answer me!"
"No!" Phèdre protested between blows. "No, Ysandre, it was not like that. You must believe me!"
The anguisette's backside was now entirely covered in angry red weals. But still Ysandre was not satisfied, and applied stripe after stripe to the backs of the other woman's thighs. "How could you do this to me?" Smack. Thwap. Smack. "To Terre d'Ange?" Phèdre moaned in pleasure and pain. Something snapped inside Ysandre and she let loose a flurry of blows in a maddened frenzy. "Do you still love her more than you love me?" she gasped aloud.
The question shocked the queen, brought her back to her senses. She threw aside the cane in disgust. For yes, she could flog and whip Phèdre all night and into the next morning, but it was like dropping a pebble into a bottomless well; Ysandre knew she could not come close to forcing Phèdre to give up her signale. There was perhaps but one person living that understood the means of how such a feat was accomplished. Instead she thrust her hand roughly between the anguisette's swollen nether lips, dripping with moisture. With but a few swift strokes, she brought the other woman to her release. Phèdre's cries of pleasure as she bucked and writhed against her were the sweetest music she had heard in many a year.
The bronzed fog in her mind cleared and Ysandre glanced at Phèdre, her skin raw and bleeding from the pain she herself had inflicted. A tide of shame and regret quite overtook her. How had she done such a thing to her own friend? The queen found herself crying, overcome by aching sobs from the very depths of her soul. "Phèdre, I shouldn't have…I'm so very sorry."
In a moment, the other woman hobbled over gingerly, skirts down, modesty restored. Soft, delicate fingers brushed aside her tears. "There is naught to be sorry for. I gave myself quite willingly."
Ysandre drew back stiffly, felt the queenly mask slide into place again. "I should not have taken advantage of your nature."
The anguisette's eyes lit up. "Oh, I have been longing for you to take advantage of my nature for years."
Ysandre gave a small smile. "Still. This was uncalled for. I do not know why I reacted as I did…" the queen's voice grew quiet, then broke, "Only that you are my closest friend, Phèdre. To think you might conspire against me…."
Phèdre brushed a finger across Ysandre's lips, hushing her. A strange look came into her eyes, the god-touched haze the queen remembered from the day she had returned from Saba and claimed Imriel as her son. It frightened her now as it did then. For though Ysandre ruled by divine right, the thought of an authority higher than her own made her uncomfortable. "I love you, Ysandre, as my queen and also as my friend. But, who do you wish me to be- trusted friend or obedient subject? Most days, it is no trouble to be both." Phèdre caressed Ysandre's cheek and spoke very solemnly. "I did not give up being Melisande Shahrizai's creature to become yours. I serve no master save Lord Kushiel. My will is my own."
The rebuke stung, for Ysandre was not used to being spoken to so bluntly. But she found she could not disagree. "I know."
"Do you?" Phèdre turned to her, eyes stricken. Though Ysandre knew the facts of Phèdre's adventures, she could not imagine the cost. "I love you and I love Terre d'Ange, but…ah Elua, I love Imriel, too! And after all the boy has suffered…after all I have suffered…I wish to give him every happiness." The anguisette touched her hand to the unadorned hollow of her throat, the unconscious gesture that always betrayed her. "I will not deny Blessed Elua's precept," she said firmly.
"I never wished him to be unhappy, Phèdre, but…"
"Politics, yes, I know." Phèdre drew a deep breath and looked at her quizzically. "Have you not considered that what is best for Imriel and what is best for Terre d'Ange might be one and the same?"
To that Ysandre had no answer. She let her hands slide up and down Phèdre's back, felt the pull of the other woman's tempting warmth. When her hands strayed too far south, her friend whimpered. "I suppose I should fetch you some salve for those wounds. But…"
"Yes?"
"Would you stay with me tonight? As just a friend. Drustan is so far away and I do not wish to be alone."
Phèdre placed her hands on either side of her face and drew Ysandre down for a luscious, intoxicating kiss. "I will stay. But only if you promise to follow Blessed Elua's precept with me," she said, a challenge in her blood-pricked eye.
Ysandre's heart did a little flip. "Just this once, perhaps." Her hands tangled in Phèdre's thick dark hair and she kissed the anguisette back until she moaned and grew limp and yielding in her arms.
Yes, tonight, at least, the queen would finally love as she wished.
Finis