Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Fable. It all belongs to Lionhead (me thinks).
They could have chosen anywhere, any testament to the beauty they had claimed as theirs: the placid mirror of the lake, the tinkling music of the forest stream or sandy bars dotted with tide pools like glittering emeralds.
But instead they withdrew to Mount Ruon. Dreary, desolate Mount Ruon. From here, the men were ants, the lakes mere slivers of glass. It might as well have been the lake for all it fed her vanity. And of course, the Knight was content to follow, partly because he wanted to hunt the dangerous mountain beasts and partly because he would was content to please the Queen.
Jack was not.
"Coming?" The Knight stood by the entrance of the cave they were in. Jack was surprised he had asked at all.
"No." Hunting was distasteful. The bloodsport yielded no beneficial results, just a disgusting, foul-smelling corpse.
"Your loss, Little Jack." The Knight laughed and was gone, leaving only silence and an irate immortal being in his place.
The Queen stared at him, her eyes – with vertical pupils like a cat's – glowing dimly. It persisted, even when he glared back. Had the Knight been present, he would have misinterpreted the stare and been jealous. She wanted something from him.
It was petty, but he could not resist this contest of pride, this show of strength.
She stepped toward him with her customary grace. Her robes flowed over her body, accentuating her every curve. The Queen had no need of a face beyond her mask; the sight of her alone was enough to seduce any mortal man's heart and sate his every whim with false promises. Her beauty was sweet venom.
"I think we should forget about Albion. I think we should concentrate on here...and us," she breathed quietly. Her voice beckoned to him.
With her, she brought a heavy, floral perfume that overwhelmed his senses and chased away his thoughts. He forgot that she was his bitter rival. He forgot the place and time, the fact that the Knight of Blades could return at any moment. His worries evaporated like smoke. All Jack knew, needed or could ever want was the intoxicating scent of the Queen.
"What should we do?" He advanced eagerly. He wanted to drink the scent in, collect it to keep.
"We can do anything we want." The passions he felt escalated into a raging whirlwind. But before he could make a move, the Queen raised her finger. "But first, I want to ask you a question."
With difficulty, Jack reined in his emotions. "Anything."
"I want to know, do you want me?"
What question was that? His whisper was heavy with lust as he answered, "Yes."
"Would you give anything – absolutely anything I want – to make me happy?"
More questions. "Yes."
"Promise me."
Jack shuddered with poorly concealed anticipation. The final, binding words perched precariously on his lips.
An agonized, beastly howl echoed through the cavern. By the time he turned to face the mouth of the cave, the Knight of Blades was already there.
"A gift," the heavily-armoured figure bowed before tossing a carcass at the Queen's feet, who was back in her original position with as cool and calm a veneer as if she had been there the entire time.
"What is it?" She asked.
"Something disgusting and foul: a gift truly fitting for you." The spell was broken. Black anger boiled inside of him at how he had swallowed her false promises like a gullible human child and almost willingly fallen into her trap.
The wild animal had been reduced to a mass of muscle and fur that was stained pink with blood. To see a great beast so helpless and undignified was pathetic. But of course, all things were ugly when dead. The eyes were closed but the mouth gaped wide open, frozen in a bellow of – what? Rage? Pain? The fight wouldn't have been a contest at all, let alone an interesting one. Jack suppressed a wave of distaste. The creature was now only wasted and useless.
"Watch your mouth." The Knight stepped towards him, his hand over the hilt of his sword.
The Queen of Blades laid a gloved hand on his arm. "I think it's beautiful. Never mind him, my knight. He's just being a sourpuss after our little talk." The warrior held Jack's furious gaze with curiosity, no doubt wondering what the "little talk" was about.
The Queen, however, had walked to the head of the dead beast. She flicked her wrist in a single, swift motion. The fan she held, cloth ribbed with thin metal strips that ended in wicked points. Those strips, sharper than any mortal blade, decapitated the carcass cleanly. With a flourish, she placed the head on a pedestal of rock like a proud hunter mounting his trophy.
"Let's call it Jack," she trilled.
She and the Knight laughed as Jack felt his fury grow.
* * *
"So what do you think about all this, Leonel?"
It was mid-afternoon and Leonel, along with his neighbour Phineas, was filling in potholes in the main road that had enlarged due to yesterday's rain. It was hard, sweaty work and it took him a full minute to understand what his fellow farmer had said.
"I don't really know what to think."
"You must have thought of something." Phineas paused to stretch his back. "You know, Jenson is saying the Court won't let his crops grow and intends to starve him. Paris is calling for blood. And Clarence thinks they'll leave us alone if we give them some of our harvest."
The atmosphere was tense in Albion. The farmers did the only thing they knew how: they went back to work, the thought of the Court heavy on their minds. It had been days now, but Leonel doubted it was an empty threat.
Leonel grunted; he was too tired to laugh. "Jenson works hard, but he's a senile old man. Paris is too impulsive and doesn't think things through. As for Clarence's idea – something tells me that people who can appear and disappear whenever they like don't want to negotiate."
Phineas frowned as he dumped a shovelful of dirt. "All you've done is criticize everyone else's opinion. What's yours?"
"I think that there's nothing we can do – not right now, when we don't know what we're dealing with. No one knows anything about these people and no one has ever met them before. The only thing we can do is wait."
* * *
The Queen stood at the mouth of the cave, her feet just touching the edge of the cliff. From here, she could just glimpse a smudge of orange light in the town. Fire. Well if they wanted fire, she would give it to them.
"Burn it."
Both Jack and the Knight looked up, but it was Jack that spoke. "What?"
"Albion is made of farmers. Farmers depend on land. So burn the land."
The Knight nodded and jumped off at once. Jack, however, lingered.
The Queen sighed. "Oh, don't be so put out, Jack. It wasn't anything personal."
"Personal?" He hissed. "How was that not personal?"
She had never seen him this mad before. It amused her slightly. "Come now, I'm no fool. I know you and I know that you're plotting something. I just happened to beat you to it with a little scheme of my own."
"One day, I will kill you. And you will never see it coming."
She turned to face the animal head, leaving her back to him. "You should leave before the Knight notices."
"Very well, my Queen." His voice was all ice.
"And Jack?"
"Yes?"
"If you ever defy me, there will be more than one Jack's head standing on the pedestal."
* * *
Thousands of miles away, someone yelled "fire" and two farmers dropped their shovels and ran towards the blaze of orange flame.