As Bane was escorting Clara to the banquet, Barsad waited until the wing of the house where Clara's room was cleared out before picking the lock and soundlessly slipping inside.
He took a few deep inhales as he ran his hands over Clara's neatly made bed linen, tracing his fingertips on the smooth surface of her pillow.
Barsad reached into his pocket and raised the blown glass, fuchsia parrot to his lips and exhaled long and low on its cold surface. He rubbed the glass bird against the front of his shirt until it shined even within the shadows and nestled it in the center of her pillow, it dented the stiff pillowcase.
Clara couldn't help but gasp at the beauty of the banquet table and the splendor of the fine linens and every attention to detail.
Fabiana turned towards Clara, her small hand perched on Bane's massive forearm.
"Darling, you look lovely, please," Fabiana cooed as she swooped in and plucked Clara away from Bane, she became a tigress, insatiable in her appetite for blood as she ripped Clara away from the other hungry apex predator within Bane.
Bane watched Clara be dragged away by Fabiana where the gloriously beautiful supermodel poured Clara a full crystal glass of potent red wine and led her to the gated pastures where the Crimson King's invasive species of pigs milled about.
The pigs were kept healthy and robust, their diet rife with food scraps, whatever they could rut from the earth and the heads, hearts and bodies of people who stood in the way of anything the Crimson King wanted done.
A single voice of dissension against the Crimson King or the luscious Fabiana Fyre was taking one's life in their hands.
A life that ended up being trampled under cloven hooves.
An existence that would be extinguished in the jaws of the 450-pound boars.
A life that would be cut short by the 300 psi of the tusked mandibles of the wild hogs.
"They're glorious creatures aren't they?" Fabiana purred as she reached out and scratched the head of one of the swine that poked its head through the fence, the juvenile male eagerly sucking the bits of carrot and apple chunks from Fabiana's long fingers.
Clara set her wine glass on a post before squatting down, bringing her face level with one the matriarch of the boars, a close to five-hundred-pound sow that had had seven litters.
Fabiana felt her heart swell and knew in that moment that she had misread much about the political socialite when Clara stuck her hand through the fence and stroked the nose of the large, fat-bodied hog. Clara whispered to the hog in gibberish before leaning close and pressing her nose against the pig's pink, moist snout.
Clara looked up when Fabiana settled a hand on the rounded cap of her shoulder, the beautiful woman's expression unreadable.
"Leonora has never walked right up to a stranger, I'm truly glad you're here darling," Fabiana murmured as she looked between Clara and Leonora's faces.
Clara reached up and laid her hand over Fabiana's, "they're more honest than people," she chuckled as she rose to her feet.
"Come, let's go enjoy dinner," Fabiana said as she slid her hand down the length of Clara's arm and grasped her hand, pulling her towards the banquet table and brightly lit celebratory courtyard.
Bane watched from afar as Fabiana and Clara returned to the banquet table.
He didn't care for large gatherings, those indulging in excess.
He found gluttony and overconsumption repugnant.
Bane hung back from the milling activity as people began to sit at the table, all sitting according to where their name was printed on ivory white cards with embossed onyx letters.
"I don't care for parties either."
Bane looked over to where the Crimson King had suddenly appeared.
He nodded and looked back to where Fabiana and Clara settled next to each other, Talia and Barsad snagged the two seats directly across from them.
"Darling," Fabiana called after she scanned the area, her eyes landing on her husband.
"Well, I've been summoned, we mustn't loiter further," the Crimson King said with a chuckle, adding as he gestured to a chess board set up under a floral pergola, a modicum of privacy amidst the activity.
"A game once dinner is over?"
Bane nodded, instantly agreeable to moving away from the crowd and already planning where he'd sit so he could have his privacy playing chess and visually eating cake as he could watch Clara.
Bane stayed at the rear of the courtyard; his presence was not missed.
His digestive process was complicated and performed in the privacy of his room with a locked and dead-bolted door.
Bane settled on a low, cement bench as the Crimson King took his place at the head of the table and held up a glass of scotch with a single ice cube floating in the amber alcohol.
"My wife asked me to give this toast but she's the one that should be speaking," the Crimson King began as he reached out for Fabiana's hand. "She's the one that chose the food you'll nourish yourself with," he added as he held his glass up towards her.
Fabiana was glorious, a demoness draped in satin elegance as she clutched her husband's hand and listened to him continue to address others at the table.
"And Miss Leroux," he said, "I welcome you and want you to feel as though you're at home, please tell me personally if there is anything I can do to ensure you're comfortable."
Clara felt a wave of embarrassment spill over her but smiled as she did in the face of any awkward comment or statement from the press and sipped deeply from her glass when everyone else did.
She eagerly accepted a refill and drank in celebration with every person the Crimson King toasted.
By the time dinner was being served, Clara was feeling pleasantly warm and gently buzzed.
She didn't notice how Barsad's gaze lingered.
Clara didn't feel his eyes crawling over her body, memorizing her exposed skin down to the very pore.
Talia noticed where Barsad's eyes were looking.
Fabiana also noticed where Barsad was staring, but she also noticed Bane's eyes from where he sat in the near shadows, the single dimly lit area within the bright courtyard.
Talia didn't register Bane's attention to every one of Clara's inhalations and pinot scented exhalations.
As everyone finished clearing their plates and refilling their glasses, the Crimson King excused himself and settled in the floral and ivy-covered pergola with Bane, the chess pieces were hand formed from obsidian and pearl encrusted titanium.
The two men remained absorbed in the game as the party continued just past the lush vines pregnant with hearty blossoms chock full of pollen.
At the table, Talia's lips pulled into a wicked smile as she rose to her feet.
"Listen to that music, let's go dance," she said.
Clara didn't really want to but knew that anything other than dancing was the right answer.
She drained her glass in two scorching swallows and followed Talia and Fabiana to the tiled dance area.
Clara thought it was going to be moving in time with the music and didn't have the ability to even stammer a rebuttal when Talia nudged her into Barsad's arms. "You two look great together in those matching colors, even better dancing," Talia stated, her tone hot, charged and without an invitation for compromise.
Clara wanted to dance with Barsad even less but had danced with hundreds of world leaders and dignitaries that she wanted to be no part of. She plastered on her television smile and moved to the music with Barsad.
She'd been wary of the man with the sparkling blue eyes.
He was always there, skulking around corners, a breath away it seemed, more than coincidental even that his dress shirt matched her gown.
Clara kept her head held high, her neck long, swanlike as she moved with liquid grace across the dance floor.
She was thankful to any manmade god when the song ended.
"Thank you," she murmured with a nod of her head and then made a beeline back to the table.
She'd been able to take advantage of Fabiana and Talia being deep in conversation and made it past their unpredictable gauntlet.
Clara looked around the crowded courtyard, narrowing her gaze at the floral entwined pergola that nearly obscured Bane and the Crimson King from view.
She walked carefully to where the men were hidden by the wall of flowers and variegated green leaves, instantly intrigued when she found them playing chess.
It didn't take long for Clara to ascertain that Bane was stuck in the Crimson King's crosshairs and didn't see his one way out.
The Crimson King glanced up and caught Clara squinting at the chess board.
"Do you have any salient advice dear?
Clara smirked, "perhaps."
He laughed, the sound a harsh bark, "well, by all means, why don't you whisper your knowledge into his ear," the Crimson King invited with a wide sweep of his drunken arm, certain Clara knew nothing of the world of chess and strategy.
Clara looked over and found Bane's eyes already on hers.
"Shall I tell you?" she murmured, struggling to keep her balance in the tall heels.
"Yes," Bane stated, his single syllable strained.
Clara stepped out of her heels before closing the distance between them, leaning down to whisper against the scarred cartilage of his ear. Her words were delivered on a hot exhale that ignited the 86 billion neurons in his brain and stimulated a flood of energy to his 164 trillion synapses.
"I'd take his dark knight," she breathed against his ear before rising back to her full height, his eyes moved from hers to the chessboard before taking the dark knight.
The Crimson King rose to his feet before holding out a hand first to Bane and then Clara, "excellent Miss Leroux," he said boisterously before leaving the two of them alone when Fabiana's voice called out for him.
Bane stared at Clara a beat as she bent over to pick up her shoes, mesmerized for a moment at the view of Clara's exposed skin as the dress shifted with her movements.
"Allow me to escort you back to you room," Bane stated as he held out his arm towards Clara.
She reached out for the Crimson King's forgotten glass and drained the alcoholic dregs before looping her arm through his, her balance further compromised with her inability to not drink more as her nerves rose.
"How long has chess been a hobby?" Bane asked as they returned to her room, he purposely steered her the long way, any effort to prolong their time together.
Clara chuckled, "that's what kids with politician parents do," she started. "Any time we went to any embassy or benefit, all the kids get dumped together in a room. We don't know how to talk to each other but there was always a chess board around," she added with a shrug.