Chapter 17
"Welcome, Your Majesties." Saaset focused on a point between Ermessen and Sookie, where she directed her curtsey and smile. When she rose, she looked directly at Sookie and said, "I am Saaset Rog." Obviously, Ermessen already knew her.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Saaset. I've heard so much about you." Sookie returned the smile and nodded. She had to resist the urge to extend her hand, but Eric had assured her such a gesture would only be met with confusion.
"Perdigo and I are pleased to be able to offer our home to you."
"Do you have actual dungeons here?" Sookie asked, her voice taking on a tone at least half an octave high than usual. She psyched herself up in preparation for being tossed out into the sunshine. Somehow the prospect of being thrown into a prison cell was even more frightening.
Saaset looked confused for a moment, before noticing Ermessen trying to keep from laughing.
"Oh, no!" she said, a small laugh escaping before she could prevent it. "I mean, yes, we do have dungeons, and if you want to see them, I would be more than happy to give you a tour, but you will not be confined there. You are our guest and will be afforded every hospitality. An appropriate suite has been prepared for your use.
Sookie was flooded with relief. "I just assumed."
"Royalty is rarely subjected to inferior accommodations, even when they are being confined," Ermessen explained. "If you could fly, naturally more precautions would be necessary, but since you cannot, there will simply be additional guards posted at entries. You will, of course, be expected to remain within the confines of the fortress grounds."
"Of course," Sookie agreed.
"Besides," Saaset added with a grin, "I'm not sure our walls would survive if your husband heard you were being held in the dungeons."
Despite the gravity of her situation, Sookie had to laugh at that. "True, he has been known to break things when he loses his temper."
"We'll have to do everything we can to keep that from happening then," Saaset offered.
"Sookie," Ermessen said. "I can't imagine how you feel, but I must leave you. Saaset will see you to your room and help you get as comfortable as possible. I must return to my villa. I fear chaos will be reigning there, and I must do what I can to maintain calm."
"Of course," Sookie replied, her long-practiced happy waitress smile planted firmly on her face. "I'm sure I'll be fine." She was pretty sure the smile wasn't a very appropriate expression, but she was just as certain hysterics would be worse, so she stuck with the smile.
Saaset led her on a brief tour of the most often used common rooms and then to the opulently furnished suite that would be her home for the next day or two, until her trial.
Once she was alone, she took a shower and was pleasantly surprised to find a donor waiting for her when she came out. After feeding she felt a little better, but she knew she wouldn't really feel like herself again until Eric was with her. She paced the room and waited, hoping Ocella had not forbidden him to come to her.
XXXXXXX
It was a grim assemblage of vampires who arrived back at the villa. By right of age, Ocella led the procession of unhappy faces. He took them into the elevator and they exited near the grand staircase to the ballroom, where he stopped and spun around to face them.
"You!" he barked, pointing a scarred finger at Mina. "I renounce you and order you out of my presence for all eternity. Whatever it was you used to beguile my progeny has no allurement for me." His finger moved to Oliver. "You, take her away. Get her out of my sight before I am tempted to end her for her part in this."
"Majesty?" Oliver asked, looking to Eric for instruction.
"I told you to take her away!" Ocella blustered, balling his hands into fists so tight his fingers threatened to pierce his palms.
"Go back to the entrance," Eric said with an amazingly steady voice. "If I have not joined you within an hour, take her to the fortress. Leave her with Sookie and find someone to tend to your wound so there will be no impediment to your hand regenerating."
Oliver nodded and took Mina by the hand to lead her back to the elevator.
"You coddle them," Ocella complained. "You were a Viking warrior when I found you! That bitch has turned you into a nursemaid."
"The servants are Sookie's," he replied evenly. "They are accustomed to her treatment."
That brought a smile to Ocella's lips. "They will be getting over their pampering soon enough. They will be hard pressed to find another so charitable. You should leave them with Ermessen, if she will have them. She seems to not be much brighter than your faerie."
"Thank you, Ocella. I will consider your advice." Eric stood facing Ocella, displaying no emotion in either word or movement. "Might I consult Sookie, to obtain her preferences?" He was careful not to use a pet name or title when referring to her; doing so would serve only to annoy Ocella further.
"By all means!" he almost laughed. "Consult as many dead women as you please. Have a séance! Go to the fortress and spend time with your murderess, if Don Perdigo will allow it. No doubt you will receive instruction from them, but I order you not to bring any embarrassment to our line or to me. You will not damage the fortress. You will say nothing, nor will you do anything, to aid her in any escape attempt.
Visit her if you must, but return here and report to my chamber before sunrise. You will pass the overlight hours under this roof, and after the execution you will accompany me back to Italy. I am weary of Spaniards.
Eric pushed thoughts of an execution from his mind and made for the entry. From there he led Oliver and Mina to the fortress. They landed outside the portcullis, near the tree line.
"Wait here," Eric said to Mina and indicated for Oliver to follow. When they reached a distance he judged to be out of Mina's hearing, he turned to speak. "Tell what happened, Oliver, beginning with when you left the villa."
Oliver looked as if he'd been hit in the gut. Eric attributed it to his missing hand. The injury must be excruciating, yet Oliver had made no complaint.
"There is nothing of material importance I can add to my Mistress's account," he said. He met Eric's eye as he spoke, but diverted his gaze the moment he finished.
"I will decide for myself what is or is not important," Eric countered. "Speak."
Oliver told him about meeting Ermessen in the grotto. He went through a short version of Aednat's plans. "The Mistress said she knew where Alexei was holding Mina. She instructed me to carry her there. We went to ground outside the vault. We went in just after sunrise. You know the rest."
"I know nothing," Eric responded flatly. "I know what she said, which was little, and I know you did not dispute her. I do not know what happened."
"Do you doubt my Mistress's word?"
"Do you?"
"I have no doubts about what transpired in the vault," Oliver said. "My loyalty my Mistress is without question. I will not break faith with her, not even if I risk displeasing my King."
"They will execute her Oliver. You know they will. You can save her. What greater service can there be than to offer yourself for your Mistress?" There was no pleading in his voice. He was merely relaying plain facts.
Oliver knelt before his King and bowed his head. "If you believe nothing else, Majesty, believe I would offer myself for her if it was possible."
"Anything is possible, Oliver. Tell me a different account of events in the vault. Give me my Queen."
"I regret, I cannot, Majesty."
"You mean you will not," Eric's anger was beginning to seep through his facade of calm.
Though he did not stand, Oliver looked up at Eric. "Your Majesty knows I am not craven, as well as how best to interpret my words. If the Queen can be convinced to alter her story and accuse me, I will readily confess guilt."
She had forced a vow from him, Eric realized. He would never contradict her. Sookie would have to be convinced to change her story.
When they got inside the fortress, Eric left Oliver and Mina at the entry with instructions to wait there until Heller arrived.
Don Rafael came to escort Eric to Sookie. He agreed to send someone down to have a look at Oliver's arm.
"A servant is coming with a delivery for the Queen," Eric said. "When he arrives, he and Mina can be brought up."
XXXXXXX
The knock she was waiting for finally came. Sookie flung the door open and threw herself into him. "Eric!" she cried, wrapping her arms around his neck and curling around him.
His response was simply to close his eyes and encircle her in his embrace. The feeling of her clinging to him was intoxicating, especially considering that only an hour ago he wasn't sure he would ever feel it again.
He stepped inside and kicked the door closed behind him. He kissed her hair as he opened his eyes and walked them to the bed, where he sat down on the edge.
She shifted her legs for comfort, but made no effort to peel herself away from him. She needed to be close. She needed to feel their unity; to gather strength from knowing nothing could ever come between them, at least not while they both lived.
For the better part of an hour they sat, still as statues in a museum, wondering how long the memory of this embrace would have to last them.
"I have had your things brought," he whispered without loosening his hold.
She tilted her head and kissed the lobe of his ear. "You've already brought me everything I need, right here."
He required no further encouragement. His body responded at once to the touch of her lips and the slight rasp in her voice. His questions could continue waiting, for now.
His hands found her face and moved her mouth to his. As the soft wetness he found there invited him to take his fill, all else dissolved into nothing.
Sookie leaned into him and pulled her legs back so she had her knees under her. She brought her hands slowly to his shoulders, committing every muscle, every sinew to memory as she went. Gentle nudges, one, and then another, enticing him to lie back, with promises of pleasures to come. This might be her last chance to remind him of the dream that led them to what was sure to be a nightmarish end.
When he finally surrendered, relinquishing his kiss and allowing his head to fall back onto the soft mattress, she slid back until her knees touched the floor between his feet. She covered his stomach in tender kisses and watched his body twitch and ripple in response to her touch as she quickly relieved them both of their clothes.
His cock stood tall and proud when freed from its denim constraints. At least one part of him was prepared to ignore their situation and receive what she offered.
"Sookie-"
"Shhh," she responded with her lips teasing the now tightened flesh of his foreskin. To avoid the possibility of any further interruption, she took him in her mouth and caressed him with her tongue.
What may have started as something else, escaped him as an extended moan of pleasure to accompany the rolling arch of his torso.
There was what she wanted. In this moment he was hers, body and mind. She rewarded his submission with several long suckling kisses, each one taking more of him into her mouth until the entirety of his world existed in the space between her lips.
Feeling his ecstasy through their bond and in the writhing of his body beneath her, her own desires grew and began screaming demands for satisfaction. She picked up her pace and increased the pressure of her lips until she brought him to the edge of climax, before releasing him from her mouth and mounting him before he realized what was happening.
It was mere seconds before he was rocked by a hard orgasm, but he recovered quickly, as she knew he would. He slipped an arm around her and flipped them, staring down at her with a sated grin that promised to return the favor and more.
XXXXXXX
Hours later, as they lay still entwined together, Eric ended the deafening quiet between them. "Will you tell me what happened?"
"Do you want to hear me repeat what I've already said?" she responded. There was no reproach in her voice, only the wish for them to continue ignoring the enormous elephant stampeding through the room.
"Thank you, no," he said, "I have already heard Oliver repeat it. I do not need to hear the two of you harmonizing."
Alarm registered on her face, as he suspected it might. Without speaking a word she confirmed it to him. They were lying. The lie from her he could bear, but she had compelled Oliver's collusion in her lie.
"Eric," she said softly, "There is something you must do."
"At last," he replied, with an odd combination of sarcasm and genuine relief. "I have been at a loss. Please lover, tell me what it is I must do."
"You must be tolerant of Oliver. His loyalty to me has been absolute. He has served me faithfully regardless of the price to him." She held his hand tight against her chest and closed her eyes to wait for his response.
"You give him more credit than he is worthy of receiving," he said, his tone darkening to hatred. "He stops short of paying the price I asked of him. If his service were truly faithful, he would not verify your account of Alexei's death. He would insist it was he who committed the act. He would not allow you to be executed."
A tiny squeal came from the hall outside the door. Mina was waiting and she could hear their conversation, Sookie realized.
Sookie turned to face him, to stare into the wrath in his eyes. "Never doubt my love for you. No matter what happens, no matter what I say or what Ocella makes you do, I love you as I have always loved you, as I will always love you. You will survive this trial. You may be unhappy for a while, but you will survive. You have Pam and Heller and others who love you. You have hundreds of women, vampire and human, who would give anything to be close to you. Mina only has Oliver. If he dies, she is left alone. She would never survive it, Eric."
Truth is a vicious thing, and when the truth behind her lie dawned on him it was no less damaging than standing in the dawning of the sun would have been.
'Do you love her enough to allow others to outrank you in her affections without feeling your position is threatened?' Ermessen's words came crashing down on him. He felt as if he might be buried by the weight of them. 'Love her enough to give her what she needs to be herself, or she will pay the price for your conceit.'
She is going to pay the price regardless, his mind screamed. What does it matter if she dies because she killed Alexei or because she thinks she's sparing a servant girl an uncertain future?
It matters to her, he realized at last. He took no comfort in the realization, but it prevented him from pressing her any further.
As if the gods had sent a gift to rescue him from his unhappy thoughts, his phone vibrated on the bedside table. Despite Sookie pawing at his arm and whining in protest, he checked the message, then forced a smile and whispered in her ear. "I have a surprise for you."
"I don't want a surprise. I want you to stay here with me for a while longer," she said, holding his arm as if she could prevent his leaving by doing so.
"You'll want this one," he assured her, pulling his arm from her with no real effort at all. "Put some clothes on."
"I won't," she pouted, as he put his jeans on. "I know Mina is here. I heard her. I'll tend to her soon enough. Come back to bed."
It was difficult to know for certain if she meant she wouldn't want the surprise or she wouldn't get dressed. Apparently both he decided on his way to the door. "Last chance," he warned, his hand on the doorknob.
She pulled a sheet up around her neck, tucked the sides under her arms and glared at him, since he was clearly bent on opening the door to who or what ever was on the other side.
Eric opened the door, exposing Genevieve and Mina. Genevieve was smiling brightly and she ran past Eric to Sookie's bedside.
"Have they taken your clothes?" Genevieve asked and she actually sounded as if she thought they may have.
"No," Sookie said with a laugh, extending one arm for a hug and holding the sheet in place with the other. "Mina? Will you come sit with me?"
Mina had come into the room, but was not far enough in for the door to be closed without hitting her. She had the nervous look of a teenager who was afraid she was about to be caught shoplifting. She had her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her eyes didn't stay focused on anything for more than a few seconds at a time.
"The others are waiting to come in," she said, her voice quivering.
"Others?" Sookie asked. She made a mental sweep of the hall. "Karen and Shana! Come in! Come in!" Had she been dressed, she would have been happy to receive Heller as well, but even though she wasn't exposed, she knew it would only make him uncomfortable to see her now, assuming Eric would even allow him to enter the room, which was unlikely.
The two young women ran past Mina, who edged closer to the wall. "Sookie!" they shouted in unison.
Eric watched as the two women ran to Sookie, clearly thrilled to see her. And though she received them joyously, her eyes rarely left Mina for more than a few seconds. Mina was inching her way along the wall, coming closer to Sookie, but not in any kind of hurry.
Shana and Karen had a million questions, which they were firing at Sookie with blinding speed. What's going on? Who does this fantastic castle belong to? Why are you here? When was Mina turned? Where is Oliver? Eric sent a plane for us yesterday. He said it was a surprise, are you surprised?
Sookie wrapped them in hugs and smiles and answered nothing, promising to tell them everything soon. She looked up at Eric and was positively glowing with happiness. How wonderful he is, she thought. This was already planned, before Alexei died, but now it meant so much more. If only Jason was here. She kept the last thought to herself. It was too late to arrange for Jason to come and she couldn't face the prospect of making Eric think he'd failed her at the end.
Karen was untying the blue ribbon she wore on her wrist. "Not now, Karen," Sookie said with a smile. "In a little while." She looked at Mina again and extended a hand to her. "Please, Mina, won't you come and sit with me?"
She didn't say 'us', Eric noticed. Sookie asked her to come and sit with 'me', as if the others in the room only existed in shadow. Mina was her lost lamb. The other sheep would have to wait for their attention until the lamb had been brought safely back into the fold.
Eric decided to leave the shepherdess to her work, rather than lurk about playing audience to this little play. He walked to the bed and took Sookie's hand. He kissed it gently and gave her a smile. "I will bid you good evening, my love. I will return to you as soon after sundown tomorrow as I am permitted. The ladies will remain here. Someone will come in the morning to acquaint them with what is expected of them during their stay. Appropriate accommodations will be brought for Mina to pass the day."
Mina looked up at the mention of her name. "No," Sookie said firmly. "Mina will pass the day here," she placed her hand on the bed beside her. "With me. Shana would you check the wardrobe and see if you can find me a nightgown?"
"Of course, Mistress," Shana said, bouncing off the bed and heading to the wardrobe.
"Mistress!" Mina cried and bounded to the bed, flinging herself into Sookie's waiting arms.
Eric watched in awe for a few seconds as his chosen cuddled and comforted the lost and frightened orphaned baby vampire. Then he slipped unnoticed from the room.
XXXXXXX
As Eric approached the large study with Heller close on his heels, he could feel the temperature rising. Perdigo must have wood trucked in by convoys to feed the monstrous fire he kept blazing all night, he thought. There was at least one other in the room with Perdigo and they were speaking in a language Eric could not readily identify.
The other voice was female and as Eric neared, he recognized it. Pythoness had arrived. He decided not to interrupt what was obviously a private exchange, but as he turned for the stairs, she called to him.
"Join us Eric."
He instructed Heller to wait for him at the entry, and he answered the invitation of the ancients.
Entering the room was like walking into an oven. Apparently Pythoness enjoyed a crackling fire as much as Perdigo. Her face was turned toward him as he approached. He stopped within arm's reach of her, offering a deferential bow as he stared back into the glossed over eyes, which saw nothing, yet everything. "I am honored to see you again."
"Has your chosen Queen confessed to you?"
It was an odd response to his greeting. He expected to be questioned about his visit with Sookie, but he expected his inquisitor to be Ocella, not Pythoness. "She says she killed Alexei."
To Eric's surprise and horror, the oracle laughed.
"Yes, I am told she seems quite anxious to say as much to anyone who will listen. You must convince her to confess." She shifted in her seat and turned her stare into the flames.
"She has provided more than ample confession to satisfy Ocella's demand for her execution," he countered. "I will not compel her to give any further evidence against herself."
Perdigo stretched his legs out in front of him and focused his black eyes on Eric. "Sookie provided a service to our kind by ridding us of Ocella's abomination. The boy was only tolerated because Ocella invoked ancient tribal laws allowing male adulthood to be counted from as young as twelve years. He argued Alexei was fourteen at his making, and thus not in violation of our laws.
The tribunal hearing the case agreed Ocella's argument was not valid, since Russian law, which Alexei was subject to during his human life, did not allow for adulthood at such an early age, with one notable exception, ascension to the position of Tsar.
When Tsar Nicholas and his family were executed, obviously Alexei's execution had not been successful by the time Ocella got to him. He was unconscious, but not completely dead. So technically, as the heir apparent, for the few seconds between Ocella finding him and draining him, he was Tsar, and thus a legal adult.
Being technically within the law made him no easier to tolerate, it merely protected him from being summarily executed."
Eric could feel his rage building. He would not be able to continue this topic of conversation for much longer and maintain any semblance of decorum. "If I am permitted to speak to her again before she is executed for ridding you of your abomination, I will be certain to tell her how pleased you are with her service. Though I suspect she will be no more impressed than I am with your display of gratitude."
"She must confess," Pythoness said almost absently, completely ignoring everything Perdigo and Eric said.
"To what?" Eric demanded. "What do you want to hear her say?"
Pythoness looked at Eric as if he'd gone mad. Despite their blindness, her eyes were among the most expressive he'd ever seen. Her words were near unnecessary. "You will never arrive at the correct answer, despite my having given it to you, if you persist in asking the wrong question. I have no particular interest in anything she has to say to me on any topic. Go back to your own bedchamber and clear your thoughts.
And take a shower. You smell of sex. There is no reason to provoke Appius into petty castigations. What he is planning for you is enough to keep him sufficiently occupied."
Yes, he knew what Ocella had in store for him. The court would find Sookie guilty. Ocella would demand her execution as recompense for his loss, and the court would have no choice but to agree.
This would be the moment Ocella would mete out his punishment. As the injured party, Ocella would be offered the right to choose the executioner. He would turn to Eric and demand an eye for an eye. Sookie killed Ocella's second progeny, he would insist Eric kill his own second progeny in exchange. The poetry was inescapable.
"If you will excuse me," Eric said with a nod. He wanted nothing but to flee the room. His legs were going to fail him. He needed to take to the sky.
"Sit here, Eric," Pythoness said, gently patting the arm of her chair. "We will look into the flames together and I will teach you something new."
Directives from the ancients were not to be ignored, even if you felt as if you were teetering on the edge of madness. He sat beside her and stared into the fire. Perhaps she means to push me in and end my suffering? He almost found the idea comforting.
"Leaders are created, not born," Pythoness began, her voice a low droning monotone, placing no more emphasis on one word than another, thus giving each an equal value. "Your human father taught you to be a leader of men. His lessons prepared you to become a leader among our kind as well. A leader must utilize old knowledge and new together. The past does not change, it adapts to the future and where the two exist together is the present.
Remember the lessons of your youth, Norseman. Someone taught you the value of patience and how to use it."
The waves of heat pulsed against his face until he came close to feeling as though his heartbeat had miraculously returned.
He recalled a day in the deep of his eighteenth winter. He was standing with his father, on a hill not far from the home he shared with Aude. The glare of the sun on the surrounding snow was so bright it was painful to look at for more than a few seconds. Or so he told himself when tears threatened.
Aude was in the house. Several women from the village were attending her in her grief. Their first son had died; taken by a chill the boy lacked the strength to fight.
"You will be a leader, my son," his father said. "And you will father leaders, as I did before you. Be patient, Eric. This boy did not share our destiny. There will be another."
"When, Father? When will there be another? And how will I know if he is to be the one?"
"We cannot make demands of fate. Ours is but to wait as it gives and takes as it chooses. The weapon of destiny is time. Patience is our only defense against it."
The following spring, Aude birthed a fat and hearty son. Eric had refused to allow him to be named until he'd survived through two winters. Decades later, well after his turning, Eric learned it was this son who had taken his grandfather's place at the head of the table in the village great hall.
"Your father was a wise man," Pythoness said, snatching Eric away from his memories and back to now. "Like humans, we are governed by a set of agreed upon laws to help us settle our grievances against one another and maintain a tenable balance.
There are things, which always are, such as the claim of a Maker always taking precedence over the claim any other may have on a given vampire. Those things perceived as rights and privileges are contained in these laws, thus these are the laws most are familiar with and are able to draw upon quickly." Pythoness smiled and leaned back into the thick cushions of her chair. Casting her sightless eyes up as if she could see his face was her invitation for her student to speak; to demonstrate his comprehension of the lesson she was teaching.
"In order to create a balance for things which always are, there must be laws governing things which never are," Eric replied.
"One need not possess the gifts of sight or prophesy to see your strengths," she said, reaching over to give him an approving pat on the leg. "I have a gift for you."
She waved a frail hand at Perdigo and he produced a small book from his inside jacket pocket. "This is from my personal collection. I have found it most useful on many occasions," Perdigo said, handing the volume over to Eric. "May it serve you as well as it has me."
"Thank you. I will return it after reading."
"It is yours now. I will commission a copy."
"One last thing before you go." She wasn't looking at Eric any more. She was staring into the flames, stretching her hands out toward them. Her fingertips skirted so close, Eric half expected her to combust. "Law is as cruel and unforgiving as fate. When always and never both apply, never always wins."
Eric thanked them again and excused himself, clutching the small book of ancient law close to his chest as his head swam with the oracle's riddles and double talk. She was right about at least one thing. He needed to clear his head and the steady rain of a shower would go far toward helping him accomplish that immediate goal.