'Sovereign Seduction'
Credit where credit is due: to Lewis Carroll, and also to Tim Burton's film, which was what inspired me to write this.
A knight comes to Court, as knights sometimes do. The Queen will concede the impression he is pretty to look at, but then, they have all been pretty. Strong, solid men, all, with beautiful eyes and stunning teeth, they are dispatched not for the good of the State, but rather with the hope that one of them will amuse the Queen. In private, she calls them her 'presents.' Iracebeth likes her presents very well.
She has always thought herself passionate – why else would she have chosen Red? It is, then, commonly known in her Court (as well in those surrounding) that the Red Queen must be kept entertained, her whims exacted, her thoughts occupied. Without a knight's plump lips on her palm, the Queen is very often bored, and her ennui does tend to give way to her fits of rage. It is in the best interest of the kingdoms to keep a man (or several) at the Queen's demand at all times. She laughs easily, and is just as easily romanced, but she is, too, overly particular. Sometimes she sees two dozen presents come to Court before settling on one, and that one will most likely bore her after a time.
A few have brought her diamonds and rubies to string round her neck, and been surprised when she did not simper like an ordinary woman might (like her sister would have done, surely). Jewels are very well, but they do not thrill. She likes jewels, but she wants a courtier's kiss lingering too long on her hand. She likes them to fawn over her, to do things she couldn't call appropriate. Intrigue is the only thing which never bores her.
This month there is a new knight who has come to serve in her Court. She does not know his name, and does not care to. If he bores her, he will not remain for long; if not, it will be her name that will be of consequence. He bows low, and she taps her fingernails against the side of her throne. Her lips tick to one side; he looks like he might give her jewels, might bore her. But there is something on his face that stops her; she cannot tell what is the matter with his eyes, so she'll keep him until she can.
She stands up in the middle of his introduction. She says: 'We'll see,' and blusters out of the room. She does not know quite what to think. She ignores him at first; she doubts she will find him to her liking. He is still new to Court, she concedes after a few restless thoughts upon the matter: her new present is a pretty one, and she will look at him until she has found a reason to do otherwise.
When she was a child in her parents' Court, Iracebeth found, to her mounting dismay, that she did not seem ever very pleasing to her father – nor, come to that, to her mother. They doted and fawned on her darling little sister, who floated up and down the halls like a pristine ghost from the day she was born. They found far more use for a girl like that than they did for their elder child, with her dark red curls and her father's temper.
Iracebeth is swift to rage, but swifter still to love. When she was young, there was no one in the world she loved as she loved her father. All the nurses called her his spitting image, but it seemed he did not notice. He was a magnificent King, almost an entity; there was something about him that seemed to glow. Everything Iracebeth did as a child, she did with the faint hope that her father might look on her with pride, but he did not. He was too occupied with her sister and those pretty little eyes of hers. Iracebeth was too impatient, too quick to lose her temper. Father did keep her taken care of, well-lodged and always dressed in lavish fineries, but she would have preferred a kind word. It was small wonder she would not keep a lover who would measure his affections by her jewels.
It had not stung so much when her mother overlooked her. Her sister took after their mother – so docile, so expressionless. Even as a young child, Iracebeth was very little bothered with either of them. Her father's indifference was a different matter entirely. She wanted his approval, and she could not have it. In her own Court, she prides herself greatly on being a very, very difficult woman to please. The Queen answers to no one and pines for no one. She shows herself to be sovereign. Still, she cannot say that she does not lie awake at night, sometimes, in wonder about men. The Queen's thoughts can be dark and terrifying at times, but her knightly presents help. When she keeps their company, she cannot be solitary enough to think such thoughts.
Her new present, despite the cold distance she takes from him, grows more persistent with each passing day. This piques the Queen's interest a little. It is, after all, not often she has seen a man so bold with her – not when he knows full well that one simple command from her lips could place him at the block should he choose to cross her. This one does not seem troubled by the threat on his life; on the contrary, it seems to her that the danger rather excites him. She can well imagine that he was the sort of child to play near the fireplace; fittingly, he has grown into the sort of man who plays near the Red Queen.
He tests her whenever he can. She has ordered men to death for less. She reminds him of this, but she has yet to order his. Oddly, his half-insolence entertains her, and she is not yet finished looking at him. She has not yet quite decided if she wants to take him to bed or to execution.
One afternoon, as she's perfectly attentive to her own royal matters, in he strides to her Court-room, unbidden as usual. She has half the mind to have him executed right then and there, but she is curious as to what he might want, and so she silences that half. 'I did not send for you,' is all she says, when he has crossed the corridor.
He drops to his knee. 'All the more reason I've come, Majesty.'
The Queen sits up straighter, on the edge of the throne she perches upon. 'I have killed men for far less insolence,' she tells him, as she does almost every day.
He bows his head at this, a sudden submission in him. 'Yes, Your Majesty,' is all he says.
'Well?' she says. She claps her hands twice and sits back, attending. 'What is it you want, any-way?' She taps her fingernails against her throne. The Queen has never been a particularly patient woman, and this is no exception.
He knows this, and so he makes his steps carefully, for one false world could ring his death-knell. 'I have something you must see,' he says, and then: 'If Your Majesty pleases,' at the slight raise of the Queen's eyebrows.
'Fine,' she says with a quick wave of her hand. 'What is it?' she demands of him.
He draws himself near to her throne, even ascending the stairs. It is far more than is proper, particularly for a knight in his standing. The Queen feels her eyes widen slightly, but she makes no objection to it. Next, he reaches into his waistcoat and draws out a single one of her own red roses. She can see well enough, he has evidently clipped the thorns from it.
'And what is this?' She asks the question she has asked so often of her courtiers, for it is the only way she knows – and, in fact, she has not given him leave to chop her beautiful red roses. Still, she does not that her tone is not quite so sharp as usual. She spends a moment wondering if she has lost her edge, and another vowing she will have it back.
She is so lost in these moments' thoughts that she is not brought back but by a rose-stem sliding down her bodice. The Queen gasps quickly, and finds that the knight has placed the rose upon her so that the bloom sits at her breast. She glances up to see his eyes linger on his work. She turns her head to one side, leaving nearly nothing to the imagination.
'Forgive my insolence, Your Majesty,' he says, his words positively dripping saccharine, 'but I believe the royal red rose should rest upon the Royal Red Rose.' At this, a slight (but not deniable) red royal flush plays over the Queen's cheeks. This knight has brought her a present she has enjoyed, something all the others had yet to do. She has been presented with rubies, emeralds, sapphires – and they have all bored her. No one has ever thought to present her with a rose, nor to call her one. It is interesting – intriguing – to be called beautiful rather than mighty. Here, from his lips, is the kind word she has sought for so long, and he has only just come to Court. He knew precisely what to do to please her, and he is therefore dangerous. She is the Queen, and as such she must not be won so easily.
'Fetch me a mirror,' she commands him. He does as he is bid, and thankfully he does not have far to look, for the Queen keeps mirrors everywhere. He brings her a silver hand-mirror encrusted with rubies, holds it up for her to look. Look she does, trailing her fingertips along her collar-bone to the edges of the rose, toying with him as he does with her. 'Yes,' she says at last. 'I like it well.' She reaches forth for the mirror. 'You may bring me another one tomorrow,' she informs him. 'In the morning.' She sets her mirror in her lap and looks at him. 'You may go.'
With a nod of his head, he is gone. The Queen commands that her musicians should play for her, and as they do, she gives heavy thought upon the matters at hand. In the end, she decides, she will not have him executed.
The Queen decides, after some thought is done, upon a dance to amuse her in the evening. Iracebeth has always loved to dance, and the day's passings have made her restless. When she finds herself so restless, there is never any cure for it but to have dance after dance until her feet wear thin beneath her. She commissions her troupe of musicians – of which there are thirty – to play into the night while she and her Court dance, only to stop when the Queen would retire.
For her dancing partner she chooses none other than the Court's newest addition, the lovely knight who dared to pluck her rose. This pleases him very much, as well it might; dancing with the Queen is a very high honour, but certainly not the highest honour she'll bestow upon him. As they dance the evening hours away, both revelling in the scrutiny of courtiers and ladies, they speak very little. The Queen still contents herself to look at him, and the knight contents himself to the will of the Queen.
They have all been pretty, true enough, but the more time she spends looking at him, the more she comes of the opinion that he is perhaps the most so. She takes glances out of the corner of her eye (the growing affections of a Queen must never be too detectible, after all), and finds that the sight of him pleases her eyes so much more than it did this morning. She might even call him magnificent, though of course not outside her own head. The rose must have been what swayed her, but the Queen has never stopped swaying since. Dangerous as it is, she finds herself smitten with her new present and his indecipherable eyes and his wild mane of black hair. She will not say so, of course. She is the Queen, after all.
She twists herself in and out of the intricate dance steps she has commanded be played for her, and she is quite pleased to see her knight keeping up with her. The Queen has an aptitude for dancing, something given her by way of her father. She remembers how it was: to keep her entitled position, the proud heir to her father's throne, she had to develop many aptitudes. She studied politic and spoke seven different tongues fluently; she raced her father's horses and placed her own nimble body to dance without flaw.
It was luck on her side that she was far more her father's child than her mother's. It was, she now supposes, all for a good end, for none of these aptitudes were required of her sister. No, all she was expected to do was blink her wide eyes, and look blank and pretty, to which she happily complied. Thusly, Iracebeth grew up resilient and caustic, where her little sister would not know how to defend her kingdom if it was seized from under her. Iracebeth would be a fool had she not known to take advantage where advantage lies, and so she had. This should not be begrudged her – she is equipped to reign in the manner a sovereign should be, where her sister's rule is careless at best.
She recalls something of a sad childhood, with her fists always clenched under the elegant sleeves of her gowns. While her sister was coddled, she gave herself to studies with the hope that she might impress her father by her talents, as she had none of her sister's complaisance. As she grew, she found that despite all sadness, there was much to be learned from her royal father. It is not to be denied that she has his ruthlessness; she delights in the thought, sometimes, that perhaps he treated her so because he saw something of himself, something of the ruler in her. She shall never know for certain, but it is a thought that does her a small comfort.
She reigns over her Court in a manner she knows without doubt would make her father proud. The Queen has many aptitudes, and she demands that all the Court follow suit. The effect is much the same as the one her father had upon herself: they live their lives according to her approval; they fall into place for her; when she is not pleased, they strive that she should be. They know all too well the consequences if their Queen is unhappy. At the Red Court, even the courtiers are rather like an army. The Queen of Hearts is proud to call her Court quite an impressive operation.
With all this fresh in her mind, she dances with her new present. She notes that his talent with foot-work comes near to match her own, which pleases her well. Of course, all the lovers she has taken since the King's sudden demise have been exceptional dancers, but none have quite rivalled the Queen herself, as this knight does. The challenge intrigues her, and that which intrigues never bores. Rather, it thrills her; she is beginning to see that he will be one she can count on to know precisely how to please her, and so her decision is made.
When this particular dance comes to its end, she beckons him come to the high table and drink with her. She settles back into her chair and regards him from the rim of her goblet. 'Where are you from?' she asks him.
'From across the sea, Your Majesty,' he replies.
She nods; she knows precisely whereof he speaks. Geography is another of her varied aptitudes. 'What lush country,' she says. 'Little surprise to me it might breed a citizen as lush as yourself.' She toys with the words in her mouth, stretching the vowels and snapping the consonants; she all but purrs every syllable she speaks to him. Without a word on the matter, she informs him that words are not all her lips carouse.
To her delight, he does not falter, but counters her. 'I have been well-trained to be of use to Your Majesty,' he tells her, his voice commanding her attention. 'I only hope to live up to my seasoning.'
This remark makes her laugh. She tilts her head back and laughs long and loud, for she has always laughed easily. 'I am quite sure I will find something to do with you.' She smiles and stands, and on the way she stoops over him, lips just beyond his ear. 'You will come to my bed tonight,' she says in a hushed tone. Quickly she straightens and walks away. She does not bother to attend his response, for she knows very well what it would be.
She informs her musicians that the Queen wishes to retire. As they bring their music to a close, she swiftly takes her leave, stopping only to seize her knight by the arm and say, again in his ear: 'One hour from now; no later.' With that, she is gone.
The Queen is seen to her chambers by three of her ladies, who all follow close at her heels. Once the door is firmly shut, she whips round to face them. 'Tonight I shall be keeping my new knight's company,' she informs them. 'You are to dress me accordingly,' she says, gesturing towards her wardrobes. After some time spent considering, she decides upon a dressing gown of crimson lace and pearls, with stockings to match. As the ladies take her out of the day's attire, her hands move quickly to catch the red rose from her bodice. She whips round quickly, facing her ladies. Her fingertips trail over the surfaces of her rose, and she holds it up in both hands. 'Is it not beautiful?' she demands.
'Yes, Your Majesty,' all three murmur, and fall into curtsies. She nods once, turns back round, and sets it just in the centre of the wood table beneath her mirror. She waves her hand once, a signal to continue dressing her. They quickly see to the work at hand, wordless, the way she likes them. Often the Queen finds the chatter of her ladies idle, and she cannot normally bother herself to hear such talk.
She sits, and they set themselves busy peeling the boots from her feet, but she asks that the jewels lacing her hair, neck, and fingers shall not be touched. She has always felt that, with her jewels on and her hair strung up, she appears more magnificent, more a Queen. Such appearances are important, particularly when unwrapping a new present.
When they finish with her, the Queen stands quickly, inspecting herself in her mirror. At once, all three ladies erupt in her praises: 'You look stunning in that colour, Your Grace!' and 'Your Majesty is magnanimously beautiful!' and so on and so forth.
The Queen brushes one finger against the side of her cheek. 'Yes,' she says. 'Yes, I am. Leave me now,' she says, with a quick swish of her hand. The ladies fall swiftly into curtsies and flitter out of the room. The Queen does not particularly care to be alone, but she despises boredom, and there is nothing more boring than whiling away time at the prattle of her ladies. Her own thoughts, curious and disturbing though they may turn, serve far better company than the words of idle, tittering women. Besides, soon she shall have company she finds much more to her taste. For her companion, therefore, she sits perfectly still at her table and waits.
She does not have to wait long. A few moments after her ladies have been sent away, she hears a knock sounding at the door of her outer chambers. The Queen has learnt, over the years, to develop an exceptionally good ear, which proves useful for avoiding assassination attempts and suchlike. The Queen sits, entertained by the noise outside her own door. Two of the frogs, who guard her door, are performing the search upon him: one has him pinned on the wall and the other crawls over all his surfaces, checking for any knives, arrows, or explosives. She knows this because she requires it of every one of her pretty presents. He is to be alone with the Queen, after all, and she can never be too wary. She was bred to mistrust, and there has been nothing since which has convinced her this was not wise.
None the less, she hears the frogs give their assent, and so she supposes he has not come to Court with any design upon her life. She is glad of that, for he is fairly exquisite. She has so enjoyed looking at him these weeks he has been there to look at, and she is so looking forth to touching him now that she has made her choice thusly. It is for the best that he should not try to kill her. Not many of her lovers have – of course, there have been the odd few of her sister's followers whose company she has made the mistake to keep for a passing while; but far more often they have been too goggle-eyed, too spell-bound to have much heart for her murder. The Queen is tempestuously beautiful, with her crackling red curls and her smouldering black eyes. Pairing that with a nature that blazes as hers does, it is a rare man who has the power to look away once the Queen has cast her eyes upon him. The ruthlessness she received from her father can be just as seductive as it is frightening. To say the least, the Red Queen's present is a highly desired post.
She hears her knight's footsteps on the floor outside her inner chamber, and she is pleased to find they do not sound nervous. Finally, the knock sounds upon her own door, firm and loud. She smiles; this should divert her attention quite well. 'Come in!' she calls, equally firm and loud.
He enters, shuts the door behind him. She waits for him to come to the centre of the room, then stands to let him take in the sight of her. 'Well?' she whispers after a moment's silence. 'What say you?'
'Oh, Majesty.' Even he, who has never faltered, seems stunned for a moment, but he recovers and takes her by the hand, spinning her slowly round to feast his eyes on every angle. When that is done, he snakes his fingers round her waist and snaps her close to him. 'You have outdone yourself,' he tells her softly. The Queen leans her head up, for a moment doing naught but blinking. She likes his forwardness. She is a little different in her own chamber than in her Court-room, and she delights to find that he understands this.
He kisses her without leave, as he does everything else. She stands up on her tiptoes to receive it. He is much larger than she is, tall and well-built. Apart from her overstated forehead and her intricately-set hair, which make her head appear large and overbearing, the Queen is really quite a tiny woman, very short and quite small of frame, though certainly not lacking in curve.
When at last they part and she comes down from her toes, she runs one crimson fingernail from his jaw all the way down his torso and says: 'I thought as much.' She takes both his hands in hers and pushes him up against the chamber wall, hands locked at his hips, inhaling him. It is a game of tricks they have begun to play, and she intends to win.
Suddenly, he has caught her by the waist and flipped her around, the back of her head slamming against the chamber wall instead. The Queen gasps; he has caught her off guard. He must have the intent to win just as well as she does. She has, of course, made full use of her lasting troupes of pretty, subservient boys – but she has never come upon a lover who matched her aptitudes, or quite matched her advances. The man in front of her matches both, and she can see where he will very likely never bore her. She gives him a kiss, the first of many rewards she will give him for pleasing her. Her kisses are delighted and fraught with ingenuity, as she cannot recall them having been since the King was alive. Tonight she discovers new ground, astonished.
She withdraws her embrace, laughing a little. He regards her strangely, but says nothing. He will learn soon enough that the Queen is given to laugh at the most curious moments, which for a long while he will find endearing. She is sure that, as he has been so meticulously trained to be hers, someone must have detailed to him her tendencies, her obscurities, her many extravagances. Evidently, though, words spoken of her make a pale comparison now that he finds himself in her arms and at her mercy. She must make a point of further acquainting him with the little half-truths that lie beneath rumours.
She draws herself back down to her feet. He searches her eyes while pretending he is not, but Iracebeth knows better. As splendid an act as he performs for her, she has taken enough freshly-dispatched courtiers to her bed to read his face without even bothering to look at it. She does well enjoy playing with him, but they have passed far sufficient time in doing so; in the end, she decides to give him a little bit of peace. She turns her face back to his, a graceful crescent smile playing on her lips. 'Sit,' she instructs him, her tone of voice unusually soft. No one ever hears her speak like that outside the secluding four walls of her inner chamber. Outside them she is imperious, conniving, incredulous, unimpressed, even amused on occasion; but she saves all her softest tones for her lovers.
Uncharacteristically obedient, he crosses the room and sits upon her bed, from which the curtains have been drawn back. She smiles at his wordless competence. When she tells him to sit, he knows precisely where she wants him. That is another thing she will always like about him: he infers; she only has to declare half her will to him, never has to explain. When she speaks, there is no one who will ever know what she means as he does. She likes this. He is direct, just as she is.
She crosses the room slowly. She stands just before him and leans down to catch his face in both her hands, but he is so exquisitely tall that she does not have far to reach. 'How beautiful you are!' she exclaims, eyes wide, and kisses him, pressing his shoulders with her delicate fingertips until she has him flat on his back. She climbs on top of him, one of her knees against either side of his ribs. She pokes him with one of her feet, playful beneath the ornate red stockings. 'Though I suppose you must know that,' she says.
Suddenly, he snaps to sit bolt upright, both hands digging hard into her waist, catching easily on the bones beneath the crimson lace of her dressing gown. The Queen gasps sharply; again, he has taken her off guard. He leans her precariously backward, so that he is the only thing keeping her from falling over the edge of her bed to crack her spine on the cold wooden floor. She looks at him for a moment, heart hammering against the chest where it's caged, but he only leans in to her, teeth grazing up and down her neck. He says, into a vein just below her ear: 'I have heard it before, Majesty.'
He presses himself closer, drawing both arms full around her. One hand on her back and the other round the back of her head, he holds her as she imagines he would a child. She simply imagines, for she herself has never held a child. When her sister was born, she was six and unimpressed. She wanted nothing to do with her, and her sentiments have not since changed. Still, she cannot deny feeling, at the least, a little touched when his arms are about her in such a manner.
Drawing on the points he holds her by, he pulls her back up until she is safe in the centre of the bed. As it is, they are both kneeling, and the Queen finds herself breathless. She tilts her head up, black eyes wide. It has been such a long time since a man has made her breathless.
'Has Your Majesty brought me here to gaze at me?' she hears him say, feels his hand come to her thigh. At once, she is filled with insatiable rage, but it is not a rage which burns without desire. She wants to make him beg at her feet, but she does not want him to leave. She takes her little hands – stronger than they look – and shoves him down on the pillows, using her own body to pin him there.
'How dare you?' Her words are shrieking at him, but her hands are quickly unbuttoning his waistcoat. When she finishes she tears it from him in one swift, furious motion. Her fingers are nimbly plucking open his blood-red doublet as she rages on to him: 'How dare you speak to me in such a way?' When she has his neck free, she descends on him like a bird. She presses hard into him, teeth against his throat, giving him a wide array of marks that will sting for days. When she is finished she does not move away, but rests her lips against the places her teeth have had their way. Breathing hard, she says to him, 'Do not forget, sir, I am still your Queen.'
Almost on cue, he takes her word and twists it to his will, twists himself up from under her grasp; suddenly it is she who is pinned on her pack at his mercy. 'Forgive me,' he says to her, tone thick with inexorable desire, 'if the Queen does not seem to delight in the way I speak.' Before she has the time to be angry with this newest allegation, he has taken hold of the edges of her dressing gown and swiftly whipped it over her head and across the room – gracefully, even, without catching it on the jewels in her hair. She thinks for a moment of commending him this, then thinks better of it.
She gives him a glance down at herself, wearing nothing save the stockings and jewellery. He sits back, stunned at the sight – as they have all been – of the contrast of her flawlessly porcelain skin and her unnaturally dark red hair. She sits up, drawing slowly near him, one crimson leg slipping easily about his waist. 'Well, sir?' she asks him simply, hands up his tunic, fingernails grazing him softly, teasing him. 'Have we brought you here to gaze?' She leans forth and gives him a kiss on his lips for courage. 'Disrobe,' she commands him, mouth brushing on his ear.
He does as he is ordered, big hands finding their way to her thighs on his way off the bed. 'As you wish, Your Majesty,' he complies to her. That is one thing she will always admire about him. He knows precisely when she will find his insolence pleasing, and precisely when it is best to follow her commands instead. A love affair with the Red Queen is a precarious game to play at, but he seems to play it well. She could bestow him with splendours the likes of which he has not yet dared to dream, or she could take away his very life; depending upon how well or ill he pleases her, and so he must make it his business to masterfully stir all her senses, one by one. She is well aware that she is the subject of his study, and she cannot say she much objects to being studied by him. He has earned the right, for he is clever. He seems to know what she means without her having to speak twice.
He removes his clothing graciously, pictorially. It is done for her benefit, as is done everything else, down to the expressions that dash across his face. Still half-amused by her wide gazing, he tosses her his tunic to keep her entertained while he does away with the rest. She catches it in both hands and again begins to laugh. He is beginning to grow accustomed to this, and so it only stops him for a moment. He observes the way she gasps when his garment falls into her hands, the curious way her fingers traverse the fabric. At this, he chuckles a little; a smirk dances on his mouth.
He misses nothing, though she tells herself he does. He watches her face while he takes his boots and trousers down. Again, she gazes up at him. Since the King's death, she has seen so many men outside their clothes, and she had thought herself far past the point of trembling at the sight. She has never seen a man who stunned her as he does. It will continue to surprise her as time wears on, but there will never be a time she will tire of looking at him.
She raises her eyes to him, throws him a glance which demands he come to her. Delicately, she sets his tunic to the side and offers him one hand. He turns it over and presses his lips to her palm, signalling his intentions. Acquiescing, she holds out her arm for her lover's mouth to carouse, palm to shoulder.
When this is done, she takes hold of both his hands and pulls him swiftly to her, both crimson legs spiralling round him, easily taking him in. Fingernails graving line after intricate line into his back and shoulders, she marvels for a moment to see his flesh against her own. He is darker than she is; his skin has an olive hue, contrasting sharply with her own alabaster white. Iracebeth has always loved contrasts.
As he works on her she is anything but quiet. She gasps and screams into his ears; she says all manner of words he had not thought to hear from the lips of a Queen. She gives him shuddering, frightening kisses on the neck and chest, contorting herself into poses he has never seen. She fights for more of him, and he takes an almost sadistic delight in this. He does not ask if the Queen is all right; he quickens his pace without concern. This fascinates her, and makes her all the more pleased with him. She contemplates a quick whisper that he is by far the best present she has ever received, but in the end suppresses a smirk and thinks better of it.
The physical stamina he shows for her exceeds all her other lovers – even the King, she thinks for a moment. It is beginning to seem, much to her surprise, that he is her match in all things, for he consumes her with the same furious appetite with which she is devouring him. It lasts for hours, leaving them both breathless and wide-eyed.
Afterwards, they lie in bed together, fever still not fully quenched. Her red hair has come tumbling down, jewels and combs in the sheets surrounding them. Her head, not looking quite so large now, is rested on his shoulder. She looks up at him, catches his eyes. He has come to please her more lavishly than any other she can recall, and so she will reward him more lavishly than ever she has. 'How would you like to be my Knave of Hearts?' she says.
'Majesty!' he exclaims, and at once kisses her lips to show appreciation. 'I am honoured to accept,' he tells her softly.
'Good,' she tells him; 'I am pleased to bestow.' She pulls one leg back up over him, trailing one fingernail straight down his chest. 'There is something I would ask you, sir,' she announces.
'What is it, Majesty?' he returns. 'Anything you require,' he tells her with his finger on her jaw.
She raises her eyes to him, boldly looking him straight in the face. 'What is the matter with your eyes?' she says.
He lets her kiss him again, then answers her: 'I am blind in one eye, Your Majesty.'
'Oh,' is all she says for a moment. She had not truly made the matter her concern, but only her curiosity. She clutches him by the shoulder and presses her lips to his chest. 'We shall have a patch made for you,' she informs him, her breath soft, and then lies flat back with a smile on her mouth. 'Go now,' she tells him. 'I cannot have you rest the night.'
He nods simply, and she does not stop smiling while she watches him redress. She still thinks him exquisite, but she will not yet use the word to him. She regards him, wordless. His hand is on the door-knob when a thought occurs, and she stops him. 'Sir!' she calls, and he turns to her. She tells him: 'Do not forget to bring me a rose in the morning.'
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