Hey kids, don't break anything and enjoy yourselves~


Chapter 7: Longings

"Sire?"

Anzu touched his hand, brushing, from her seat beside him.

"Hmm?" Atemu perked to attention gruffly.

"Are you quite alright sweetheart?"

"Of course," he chuckled, squeezing her fingers and kissing the back of her palm dismissively before returning to his surveying of the court.

Zazark lifted Yugi, dazzling somehow still in the grey and black mourning frocks she had garbed herself in since the death of Atemu's father, over his head once more through the final rumble of the dance. As the sitars died down Yugi's feet touched the floor, fingers slapping the prince's shoulder, and laughing the pair of them made faces at each other Atemu guessed to the effect of some note on Zarzak's recklessness.

Laughing still, brighter this evening than Atemu had seen the witch in two months, Yugi swept back to the periphery just down from Atemu's dais raised head-table. Mana'jet passed the baby girl, her first born, over the table top laden with the evening's refreshments to Yugi. The Gem Faher swept in the child, cradled it, kissed it-repulsed Atemu turned away.

It was humiliating.

The word would not exit his temples but lingered there for long stretches of the day as if mocking Atemu.

To give his consent, his approval, to the witch's presence or meddling was heinous to Atemu's constitution at the best of times. Yet he found it perceptively worse to watch how everything simmered quietly back to a state of surreal order under the pale wasp's instruction. With the great lesser council placated by Yugi's authority, reasonable to dealing with her, the marriages had been settled, Durjah's inheritance cut up with the precision of years of experience and while tonight brought another lovely banquet tomorrow Atemu would have a precise record of the house and stable accounts from the wives.

The witch was running his house.

The witch was instructing his wife.

The witch Atemu had hoped to make invisible, less loved, less appealing and eventually annex from his sacred home was comfortably settled like a festering cancer. Worst yet she sat in control of affairs as if Atemu's father had not yet died and affects had not changed hands. The traditional progress of the house was unchanged and the great wives had their normalcy just as they had wanted it from Atemu through a marriage.

Atemu had been mocked with this whole monstrous affair. He didn't miss the implication that Yugi was effectively running his house in the stead of his wife. He didn't for a glimmer lose sight of the fact that his in-laws and siblings had effectively highlighted his wife's incompetency. They wanted to mock him with it Atemu was sure.

"Shouldn't you be with them?" Atemu grumbled to her.

"Oh but I'd rather be with you," Anzu smiled.

"Surely you would enjoy the company of more talkative friends?" He proposed but he saw in her eyes that the wives still were no exceptional friends of hers. "Or at least you could learn more?"

"I could," she agreed quietly, straining her smile, "but…"

"But what?" Atemu grunted rounding on her.

"It still, I confess, seems unsightly." Anzu posited at first. She inhaled, thought, and deciding made her motion to turn to him. "Sire don't you think we ought change things here for the better? Make things more civilized? Now you have the power-"

"Oh God," Atemu moaned into his palm, slipping his hand from Anzu.

"But, Love," she stressed, "you can convert this whole country to a great Christian nation."

"I'm sure I could," he spat turning, tired, "but currently I have more pressing problems. That is aside from the fact it would be a monumental task enough if I weren't already a laughing stock."

"Then what better way to show the people your foresight tha-" This was important to her, to him truthfully, but tonight was not the night. She'd chosen her time badly.

"The problem is not the savages in the streets," Atemu hissed coming very close and quiet to her over the armrest of the throne, "the problem is that I look a fool still for endeavouring in marrying you. Do you not understand the importance of you winning their acclaim to assist mine? Are you so lazy you'd have me drag a whole ring of them to church with my bare hands?"

"I…"

Anzu couldn't look away.

Atemu could feel the familiar sting of curious eyes more as a sixth sense but to him it seemed very physical as if the curious, bemused, glance of Yugi was singeing his skin.

"Love, I…" Anzu stuttered, backtracking, realizing her error.

"Oh never mind," Atemu groaned, "I am to bed. Do what you like!"


Anzu never did, in the next two dreadfully blistering summers, properly take the reigns. All that could be done was to make some sense of the matter and achieve some balance.

Anzu still found the business expected of the gentler sex utterly inappropriate while she understood the façade of control was necessary. She tried, at length, to maintain something of a public face upon an eventual mastery of the language and customs however tentative. Each new layer of custom only sought to revile her a little deeper however into her habits of prayer and isolation.

Yugi, though she rather officially acted on Anzu's accord, was for all purposes the great purveyor and voice of court yet again. The Queen heard her advice, her guidance, over her sewing and making use of their tentative alliance, perhaps friendship, deferred all final decision to Yugi's discretion.

The wives acclimatized themselves to the idea of thanking her, of saying things in the Lady Anzu's name, but it lacked sincerity under the veneer. They grew to have a kind of mild fondness for her but it was absent. She could, at times, be across the room from them as they stressed only to have them burst into pulsations upon Yugi's arrival from breakfast.

Nonetheless efforts were made to obscure the situation from Atemu. He wasn't wholly ignorant, of that all parties were sure, but he seemed disposed to his Lady's failings. Anzu found he, eventually surrendering however bitterly, compromised that if she could not take full helm of court then he could not begin to convert anyone and she would have to be happy with their life hence.

It didn't bother her so much now. The secret of her faith and her imaginings for a great Christian future in a land of wilderness were almost romantic to her eventually. It all became something of a self-imposed martyrdom of endurance upon her part. Especially given she'd invite none of her close kin to court still lest they too were corrupted. Atemu was a good man, a good husband and a good Christian however his temper flared and his resentment bustled. She took happiness in that and she hoped, eventually, that upon the birth of a son he might be convinced to move…

She had a world of sighs for her windows most days.

"Something wrong, milady?" Yugi supposed one leg cocked across the knee of its twin in that effortlessly perfect way of hers a sewing needle working across her lap.

Yugi had taken to joining her in her lengthy meditations with the embroidery. Anzu found she liked her demure manner and her way of smiling in silence. Occasionally some arcane gesture of hers, something eerie or another, would repulse her from Yugi briefly Atemu's accusations of witchcraft never utterly exorcized. At other times, after Yugi had ceased wearing her mourning garb of black, her general appearance being attractive and so like Anzu yet so juxtaposed and contrary would upset the Queen. For the most part however they had something of a tentative and pleasant peace amongst each other.

"I worry, you know," she confessed in English sighing again, "that God may not see fit to grant me a son or any other child."

"He's certainly been slow coming with your first," was Yugi's curt however good humoured answer. It cut Anzu without intending to and seeing that the Lady lay down her work. "You and his Majesty lay together often don't you?"

"Well that is private." Anzu cautioned.

"Not if you are queen I regret," Yugi sighed back with her own lightness and seemed to mean no ill.

"I… well, we do," she murmured softly. "Not with startling regularity because you know how these things soften but we do and I love him desperately, of course."

"Of course," the pale creature nodded, "you would have to."

"Hmm?" She snapped. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh nothing cruel," she softened the hint of how she quite evidently disliked his Majesty, "but one has to love their husband in all conditions don't they?"

"Yes, they do." Anzu agreed curtly.

"Well on the matter," Yugi laughed, "unfortunately it is one of the few things I can't help you with milady though I would love to give you such a happiness. So long as you are healthy, regular in your habits and you and his Majesty lay together often and at the right times then there's no reason to worry but to wait."

"Yes," she murmured uncomfortably, though she had no concept of whatever the lady meant by the 'right times' and was hesitant to consult her for witch's knowledge. "I suppose you are right. Patience in a cardinal virtue."

"You have that and grace in droves," Yugi assured her casually.


Anzu was waiting that evening in the bedchamber that she shared more regularly with his Majesty than they actually made use of. He shrugged in late in the evening, her at her reading still awake and finding her so had no shortage of kisses for her cheek as he sprawled himself down exhausted from the sun and sand.

"An amicable hunt I hope?" She teased. "You were gone all the day."

"Mighty," he snorted good humouredly, "caught three lions."

"Wondrous!" She laughed.

He had fallen back into some of his native habits but nothing too unsightly. She could forgive him all that given compromise had to be made if not for entertainment then for the sake of consorting happily with his kin who were amused by wild things.

"And you my dear?" he sighed slipping his hands above his head.

"Thinking of you, missing you," she answered, "but that aside the day was well. I spoke with the Gem Faher."

"How unfortunate for you," Atemu answered, yawning next into his hand with his eyes closed.

"You know my dear I find her still surprisingly kind if wily." Anzu murmured gently trying to infiltrate the idea into an unhospitable house. "She is, if a little queer, a sweet thing generally. Keen to help, inexhaustibly useful and reliable, I find her generous and I confess I see why your kin like her."

"Hmm," the Sultan murmured dazedly distant and unconvinced. "You know Love all of Satan's whores are pretty. It stands to reason you would find one who was friendly."

"Yes, well," she sighed, patient still. "I thought to myself today, you know, no one is untouchable to the word of God. If she could see the logic of heaven, well then… I am sure with her assistance I could change the tone of things. Don't you think?"

"She comes from the continent," Atemu answered, closed-eyed face impassive to her. "She knows the sermons and she's very skilled still at flouting them. If a lifetime in the cradle of Christ couldn't convert her I suspect the only word of God she still remains subject to is the fire."

"Atemu," she strained, unsettled by the violence. "Think of charity-"

"I think of crusades," he answered rolling to his side.

"I…" She shuddered, putting her book aside to lean over him. "Oh let's not quarrel. I am sorry to speak out of turn. My heart bleeds too often and my sentimentality is too dire. I am sorry Dear…"

He sighed, eventually slipping his lids apart in her observance to regard the darkened wall beyond the bed with some degree of contemplation.

"No Love, fear not," he dismissed, "I have no quarrel with you. I am just tired. I had hoped to have her gone a long time ago. It's a delicate wound."

"Then I won't touch it," she promised, leaning to kiss his cheek.

And his jaw…

And his neck…


Yugi held the elegantly crafted cup in her hands. Her hands cradled it, lap crossed beneath it, and towards the window with her hair all in tangles from the day blew gently across it as if urging on a fire.

One of Qazzadara's gifted diamonds sat stewing with the herbs as it was all she had or wanted to have of any relation to Atemu. It seemed strong enough however sitting on a few drops of her blood and against a few flowers. She had the Queen's hair, one of her needles… much stronger tokens of Anzu which should suit things better at any rate. Mana'jet, mindless of her part in Yugi's plots, had gifted the tiny brass baby spoon as a way for Yugi to always have something of one of her multiplying godchildren.

She blew across the surface of the tiny cluster of crushed up things her air filling, sparking, with the presence of a sea breeze.

It was an old trick, unreliable, but the best one could do without the Queen submitting to proper medicine or proper witchcraft.

Yugi clasped it, fingers coy, and after three thick exhalations to fill the pot settled on the next step.

She burnt the herbs, oils and blood with the Queen's hair and needle. The smell was sour, metallic, too thickened with strange blooms to be entirely pleasant. In the morning she'd have cleared it out with the windows all open.

The little brass baby spoon she, foolishly in hindsight, pocketed for herself with great tenderness.

The diamond, the soon-to-be father's proxy token, Yugi kissed and pocketing it intended to sacrifice it to the river in a few moments. She would hurl it, with her good over arm, from the girdling wall into the dark water with the crocodiles for the gods to take. They made diamonds everlasting, like themselves, so Yugi assumed they quite liked them.

Atemu still, probably until Yugi's death, would claim the Gem Faher had never done anything for him.

Yugi wouldn't have, wouldn't have wanted to, if the lazy tyrant could do anything himself and if the Lady wasn't so…

She was a kind thing, deserved a present. Yugi would give her this one free of charge just the way her mother had occasionally dealt out little niceties without permission or notice from anyone. Yugi's mother used to hold her fingers to her lips in the dark as they sat under the stars and warn Yugi not to breathe a word of it all to her father or the lovely miss or missus who had given them milk on the road and who soon would have a very abrupt turn of fortune.


The great wives by tradition were more concerned with each other and the running of the country than the foreign guests such as the courtiers and the ambassadors among whose number Atemu had once counted himself. Yugi spotted the Sultan often engaged in conversation with several of them. Yugi had sighted him that night with one such man as he made himself comfortable in the throne.

It was of some surprise when, catching her eye, Atemu beckoned for Yugi.

Their relationship had not healed over the course of the last two years. It was a sort of summer in their seven years of mutually festering dislike however. The Lady facilitated that Atemu have some use for Yugi and for Yugi to have some shield from the King.

Atemu only endured her Yugi sensed: he said pleasant things with empty smiles to give the appearance of unity, he touched Yugi when he had to, but it was all very brief and uncomfortable. On both sides the brushing of any patch of skin seemed to be as painful as sticking one's hand in a pallet of crocodile shit.

Yugi assumed she was wanted for something concerning the newest, grizzled, ambassador from Ryssia who stood pale as death itself beside the Sultan. They were exchanging pleasantries, had been for some moments and as Yugi reached the opposing side of Atemu's seat the Sultan did not turn to greet her though the foreigner glanced over rather pointedly.

Atemu's arm, without his eyes, hooked round Yugi's middle and drew her in as the King continued to speak. Yugi stiffened, viciously displeased but unable to give the appearance of as much before their guest. Atemu directed Yugi into a seat mostly on the arm of the throne and the King's strong thigh.

Yugi supposed for a moment, hoped actually, that the King had mistaken her for someone else however ridiculous that seemed.

The men of the East were affectionate as a rule with kin and cohorts. Mahado and Qazzadara had held Yugi across themselves to squeeze, pet and chuckle but Yugi had not had the pleasure of such male tenderness for since their departures. Kisara's husband and Seth would swing Yugi round, embrace her tightly, but the touch didn't linger so long.

Had it not been Atemu, had it been anyone but Atemu, Yugi may've contented herself at the absent intimacy of it.

"And who is your dashing associate?" The Ambassador diverted eventually after a tenuous moment wherein Yugi tried to school her features into calmness.

"Good Sir this is the Lady Yugi, our Gem Faher," Atemu cocked his chin arm flexing round Yugi's middle as if to remind his trapped servant to smile as the pressure of the King's arm rankled Yugi in new ways. Suddenly Atemu looked her square in the face. "Yugi may I introduce you to his lordship Sir Timaeus our new ambassador from the Tsar."

"Tis a pleasure to meet you Sir," Yugi thrust her hand out eagerly for some excuse to escape from the little nest.

"Tis all mine." Timaeus twisted the fingers to kiss the back of Yugi's palm instead. "I must say your appearance struck me across the room. Are you a lady in waiting to her Majesty perhaps?"

"Indeed but I did not come by this place that way," she answered, hand released and hip still trapped under Atemu's lazy fingers which had settled in the groove. "I was initially of service to the late Sultan Qazzadara. His Majesty has reappropriated me."

"Fascinating," Timaeus appeared genuine as he grinned. "I should suppose that there is quite a story there to tell?"

"Perhaps," Yugi shrugged mildly, of the opinion boasting was unattractive when unnecessary, "but what of you Sir? Are you enduring the heat well?"

"It is ungodly compared to my homeland," Timaeus sighed although harmlessly so, "in Ryssia the snow can swallow whole houses overnight and here I am sure there are many who have never seen such a thing as now."

"As am I," she nodded lazily, "still it's a beautiful country in the summer if I recall? Up near Roschk'ark there's a wood along a river that's all pale with daisies after the worst ends."

"Yes indeed!" The pale man laughed, evidently pleased and surprised. "Why Majesty I must confess you have a whole of array of interesting and skilled companions."

"So I've been told," the Sultan grinned, "but, my good man, might I ask you for a moment of privacy perhaps? I have just recalled what I intended to tell milady here."

"Of course Majesty," ever the courtier and trained specifically not to offend Timaeus was quick to step down and away with a courteous smile to Yugi.

As the perk of Yugi's lips peeled away her stomach dropped likewise with a kind of wet anxiety. She was naïve enough to hope, desperately, that just maybe after all this time Atemu had softened some of his vicious resolve toward her.

The King's face however, as his eyes darted sharply across Yugi's features with a pronounced focus, was not promising to that effect.

"Do you know the Queen was singing your praises to me last evening?" He began casually.

"No Majesty."

"She surprised me to be so bold," he murmured, "but you know I didn't think much of it as anything bizarre until I heard something quite odd this morning."

Yugi wouldn't bite.

"One of the Lords told me that, last night, he was certain he saw you on the outer wall throwing something into the river." Atemu snorted. "Strange isn't it? What on earth would you be doing up at such an hour? Hmm?"

Yugi's gut tightened but her features had no space left to fall given she was already quite cold from the eyes circulating outward. She sighed however eyes rolling back as she shook her head. Of course this man would find some gripe to exploit. Yugi had hoped too much for a second.

"I couldn't sleep Majesty," Yugi snorted, "I was throwing stones. It was childish. You can't honestly be concerned by that?"

"I wouldn't be if it were anyone but you," Atemu retorted curtly. "Besides something else concerns me."

"I'm sure a great number of things do." She answered coyly teetering upon an insult and sympathy which caused Atemu to frown.

"The wives haven't found you a husband in two years." The Sultan elaborated. "You ought to fix that briskly. Take Falker if you wish, any of my brothers, for all I care take the damn Ryssian but get it done."

"You know what pains me Majesty?" Yugi snapped rounding on him, one foot off the tiles, as she turned into Atemu's lap. "I have been rather distracted from marriage prospects by my tireless work trying to please you. Now I think that if all men are so ungrateful I should not even begin to consider settling in bed with one."

Yugi pushed up, Atemu grumbled, and slapping back the hand that reached for her she pounded down from the dais through the rather bemused crowd.


Yugi was so furious, so…

She lost sight of where she was until she'd reached the side of a niche where at statue of the moon goddess sat kneeling. She knew the palace so well she couldn't have been lost she simply had ceased to care where she was. It was the motion of flying fast from the grand hall that supressed or expressed some of her frustration but…

Growling, choking, she dug her nails into her scalp and curled her hands into her hair. She yanked, ached and tugged cursing viciously under her tongue until in a sudden impulse of rage she pounded her fist hard into the smooth stone wall.

Thump.

Tug.

Another vicious slew of pained, tenuous, curses flew off her teeth and whining she surrendered her weight into the wall to thump her forehead into the stone and pound her fists.

She swore, the saliva hitting her teeth and moaning into the stone she thumped her forehead again gently as the burning, gritty, sting of her gently bleeding fist started to seep into her focus.

Qazzadara who held Yugi's hands in the last days of his life not afraid to be weak before her…

Mahado who still corresponded often with her through letters and was so moderate, so temperate, in his nature that not a soul could dislike him…

Yugi recalled in that breath, so acutely, the strong boned and muscled side of Mahado's chest which she had leant into. She recalled the tenderness with which the towering, blackened, prince kissed all his friends as if they were his first born children. She recalled how Qazzadara was so sharp that even at eighty he could spin the foulest jokes at a moment's notice till they were bantering across the room harmlessly. Yugi recalled how inviting the old man could be, how willing to hear of others but how careful he was to construe the truth from the rabble.

Those were the qualities of grand kings; kings greater than any Christian tyrant in Europe. Here Yugi sat in a glorious palace, a beautiful home, with a slew of magnificent souls who loved her so relentlessly as one of their own. Noble, wealthy, lords who like Zarzak and Falker were kind and generous with everything existed here in multitudes. To every sex here there was a place and power. Everything here had beauty.

Yet Yugi stood today under the reign of an impotent wretch as incapable and snivelling as any pauper in Brittany.

Hissing she hit the side of her fist into the wall once again.

She slumped.

There was a very quiet inhale that passed through her, a great heaving exhaustion of letting go as the worst of the white hot anger faded and lushed into stillness as Yugi closed her eyes.

She could've been a mourner.

There was a guttural grunt behind her and, raising her head, Yugi cocked her chin over the yoke of her shoulder to find one of the dark six foot guards to her right. The man was armed, very broad and substantial, and he grunted round his thickened lips and his silver piercings the only way he could with his tongue removed.

Yugi tucked back her hair, turned and cradling her bleeding wrist tilted. What?

The guards had a grace to them which came from centuries of willingness and sacrifice. They were noble and this man extended his hand, pointing, towards Yugi's bleeding fist.

Yugi gave it fingers parted and unafraid as if she was showing the towering man a rather unassuming wilted flower from the river bank. The guard's sword clinked against his side as he hunched, taking Yugi's tiny hand between both of his and using his fingers to extend the smaller's. Yugi was so unworried by him because these never moving, never speaking, fixtures were such a part of the palace to see one so contemplative was mythical. The guards were as much statues here as the sphinxes.

"It will be alright," Yugi whispered.

The guard released Yugi's hand from his long, scared, fingers and standing his full height once again with that impassive, immovable, expression offered his elbow to the courtier.

Yugi laughed, felt a smile tug her and taking the guard's arm allowed herself to be led towards the temple where the candles would still be lit as the clerics and the mathematicians mapped the stars. There would be a physician awake no doubt who could bandage her scrapes in the sandalwood din of the closed space.

She lent her cheek into the man's arm.


The whole instance had been very much forgotten by all parties, excluding Atemu and Yugi, within the next three months. The great lesser council of the wives had no interest luckily in having Yugi married or finding her a suitable husband however considering they already had a target in mind. Atemu, as always, underestimated the endurance of the lesser sex.

That whole scheme would not be assisted by Yugi, mind, given she had another on her cards and was quite happy to see that come to light in her favour eventually when the Lady Queen bowed her head to her very quietly and said-

"I ought not be telling you this before his Majesty or some other, so we must keep your knowing between us till I tell them all, but I do believe we have had something for our patience."

"You're with child?" Yugi supposed of her with a tight grin as they turned into the half-darkness of the curtain's shadow.

"I do think," she nodded trying to restrain the beaming smile and the flutter of excitement.

She was so pleased with it unlike the casual way with which those here took such news. Women here had secretly advanced medicines, children were plentiful. After considering both societies Yugi had no doubt the logic of the medical sciences in the East was far superior. From that every man could afford to have three wives and six sons. The medicine here, the tradition here, insured almost that every woman could expect to fall pregnant, carry well and deliver well to live longer. The Europeans might've called their quality of life witchcraft or idolatry but Yugi had simpler suppositions of it all.

Anzu however coming from the dreary distant shore of Yugi's birth, though she had been on the continent and not the isles of Brittany, did not expect things so easily. The gentler sex had a harder time of everything in Europe, multitudes died in childbirth. To her this was something preciously gotten, easily lost and potentially ruinous to herself. It must've made her afraid and yet she was so pleased, so licked, so excited…

Yugi was glad.


1 this story is not afraid of time skips. It loves time jumps. It thinks they're sexy. So we shall all adjust because things take a long time to happen in a world without internet or cars or, ya know, indoor plumbing…
2 Well what do you know Yugi is actually a witch. Oops. I'll be damned Atemu was right!

Next Time: Timaeus attempts polite conversation- a lot- as Yugi attempts not to lose her temper at new Western 'doctors' and the father-to-be attempts not to smirk quite so widely in front of everyone. Hopefully Atemu and Yugi can manage to sit together at least without causing a scene…