Land of the Beautiful Dead (21 page)

“Now she’s shy,” said Batuuli with a careless shrug. “But she was bold enough when you sent her to me. She stood right where you’re sitting now and shouted it. It might have been an act, I suppose. Or perhaps she’s acting for us now. How easy it is to hide one’s true heart in a world where even God goes masked.” She turned her smile on Azrael again. “But you unmasked for her, or so I was told. And she fled in tears.”

“I did not!” Lan snapped.

“You needn’t be embarrassed. Many of his concubines have hysterics the first time.”

“I didn’t have hysterics and I wasn’t crying!”

“But you did flee.”

“He threw me out!”

The instant she said it, she regretted it, but there was no calling it back.

Batuuli’s smile spread like honey, golden and slow. “Oh, that’s interesting.”

Lan looked to Azrael for any kind of clue as to how to cut her way free of this mess, but he only continued to watch his daughter’s performance with detached indifference.

“Was he impotent?” Batuuli purred. “Tell me, could he not be a man in his own bed?”

Lan knew any answer was the wrong one, but silence seemed so damning. “He was plenty potent,” she mumbled.

“Hardly an enthusiastic testimonial.”

“He was fine.”

“One wonders what constitutes ‘fine’ in the wilds of Norwood.” Batuuli picked up her tea, considering her. “But if so, then you must have done something. Oh, he’s had plenty of playthings run from him, but Father has never,
ever
hurled one out into the hall. I’m not sure whether you ought to be ashamed of that or proud, but it’s worth mentioning. What did you do?”

“Nothing,” said Lan, and felt her stomach clench, as if in echo of that cold/hot moment when he’d been inside her and she’d been…somewhere and someone else.

“I’m told the gown was beyond repair,” Batuuli was saying. “At the time, I assumed it was due to Father’s usual exuberance, but did he actually attack you? Did you scream when you saw his true face bearing down on you?”

“No.”

Batuuli laughed at first, the sort of mocking laughter that meant she thought she’d caught Lan in an inventive lie, but then looked at her father, then at Lan again. “You know, I think I believe you,” she said, sounding mildly surprised, not by Lan’s statement as much as by her own acceptance of it. “In fact, one could almost imagine you wanted to see his face, that it was you who insisted he unmask.” She looked at Azrael. “Did she?”

He did not answer, not with a word or with any change of expression.

“She did,” Batuuli breathed and turned her round, wondering eyes on Lan. “You
deviant
!”

“You are hardly one to throw that particular stone,” Azrael said.

“Well, aren’t you the sullen beast this morning?” Batuuli buttered a point of toast and bit it off. “Do you expect me to apologize for arranging my little entertainment last night? I rather enjoyed the way the performance ended, unexpected as it was. I was magnificent, in fact. You should have stayed to watch.”

“I might have done, had there been anything worthwhile to see, but as always, I found your taste questionable, your theme unoriginal and your execution crude.” Azrael ate a bite of sausage and washed it down with wine. “You may award yourself all the accolades you please, daughter, but from what I saw, your ‘entertainment’ was, like yourself, disappointing.”

“How very hurtful,” Batuuli said after a moment. She turned. “Lan—”

“This is nothing to do with her,” Azrael said sharply. “Leave her be.”

Batuuli gave that a beat, then put out her hand and said in an exaggerated way, “Lan, dear, please pass the sugar.”

Azrael’s eyes narrowed.

Lan found the bowl next to her untouched coffee and passed it under his withering stare.

Batuuli spooned some into her tea and stirred. “Honestly.”

He uttered an unconvinced grunt in the back of his throat and picked up his cup.

“But you’re oddly protective for someone who threw his whore—”

Bang
, went the cup. “You will not call her that!”

“I am sorry, we never settled on a word. His dolly,” she amended with an apologetic nod in Lan’s direction. “Threw his dolly naked into the hall mere minutes after bringing her into his chamber. If she didn’t please you, Father, why did you not have her thrown over the wall to her hungry Eaters?”

Lan looked at him. He ignored her.

“If she did,” Batuuli went on, stirring her tea, “why did you leave her in her tower? Why set the guard that kept my brother at bay? Why feed her from the royal kitchens? Why—”

“I feel no pressing urge to defend myself to you.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, it isn’t an attack! It’s just odd. Even she thinks so.” Batuuli turned to Lan. “Don’t you think so?”

“This is nothing to do with her.”

“Nonsense, it’s everything to do with her! Don’t you find her attractive?”

Azrael did not reply.

“Well, never mind,” said Batuuli, giving Lan’s hand a comforting pat. “Looks aren’t everything. Although I am quite astonished you didn’t at least visit her last night. Poor thing. The play quite affected her.”

“It was intended to,” Azrael said in a hard voice.

“I was fine.”

Batuuli smirked at her. “Yes, we all saw how ‘fine’ you were. Anyone would think it really had been your mother. And you, you unfeeling brute, you sent her to her room alone.”

Azrael put his silverware down too hard and pushed his plate away. “What is the point of this game?”

“Conversation! Really, now! Other daughters have breakfast with their father’s whores without all this hostility!”

“Call her so again at your peril, daughter. I will not have her insulted for your pleasure.”

“Are you insulted?” Batuuli asked, turning to Lan.

“I don’t care what you call me.”

“You see? She doesn’t care.”

“I do.”

“Well then, let’s be clear. I’m insulting
you
for my pleasure. It is the only pleasure I take in your company, dear, dear Father.” Batuuli paused, her smile fading. “When did that happen?”

He did not answer.

Batuuli took a slice of poppy cake and offered the tray to Azrael. “I wish things were different between us. I do. Truthfully, I cannot say I would ever try to make them different…but I wish they were.”

He stared at her without forgiveness a long time, but when she only continued to hold the cakes, he ultimately took one.

“Do eat something,” Batuuli urged, affecting a little pout as she offered the cakes to Lan. “I’ve gone to such trouble.”

“Why?” Azrael asked.

“Why not? It’s something to do. And she does have a certain rough charm.” Batuuli set the cakes down in front of Lan and poured herself some more tea. “We talked the other day, you know. When you sent her to me. I thought that might have been why you did it, because while I can’t say I enjoyed our conversation, I did think for some time afterward how long it had been since I last had one. A real one, I mean. And I thought of you, Father.”

“Me.”

“Oh, my courtiers talk. That’s why you gave them to me, isn’t it? To be my companions.” Batuuli affected a sigh. “But they say only what they have heard me say, reflecting my moods like so many mirrors. I am tired of seeing my own face.”

Some of the hard light in Azrael’s eyes dimmed.

“But your little plaything has no fear. She speaks her mind and genuinely does not care what happens to her. Look!” Batuuli turned to Lan. “What do you think of me?”

“I think you’re very unhappy.”

“And I am!” said Batuuli, turning wide eyes back on Azrael.

“But you don’t want to say so, so you say you’re bored instead.”

Batuuli waved at her. “That’s enough.”

“And you try to alleviate your boredom by being sadistic and hateful.”

“I said, enough!”

“And you’ve gotten so good at it that you can’t help but realize you
are
sadistic and hateful, which only makes you more unhappy,” she concluded, refusing to drop her eyes.

Batuuli glared at her for some time, but then suddenly seemed to throw it off. Plucking up her cup, she gestured toward Lan with it. “You see what I mean? Maddening, but one sees the appeal. And I can’t help but wonder…if I can feel this way after, what? Twenty years? Thirty? What must you feel, Father? How long has it been since anyone has dared to contradict you? Not out of hate, as I do, but simply because—” She spread her arms, smiling. “—you’re wrong?”

Azrael ate his cake, faceless behind his mask.

“And did it excite you to hear it? Infuriate, yes, of course, how dare she and so forth, but was it not thrilling all the same to hear her speak to you as if you were just another man?” Batuuli looked at him, then reached across the table and laid her hand over his. “Did she look at you, your naked face, and see…just another man?”

Azrael did not answer.

Batuuli’s gaze dropped to her hand on his. Her fingers slipped up his arm and down again in an unmistakable caress. “Did she touch you the same way?”

“Stop it,” said Lan.

Batuuli glanced at her, then gave her a longer, more thoughtful stare. “Tell me,” she said, pulling her hand back from Azrael to rest her chin on it. “Have you ever whored yourself before you came here?”

“Of course I have. Everyone has.”

Azrael glanced at her, frowning.

Batuuli raised one delicate eyebrow. “Every woman a whore in Norwood?”

“Every woman, every man. Sex is a commodity. Everyone sells it.”

Batuuli returned her sweet smile to Azrael. “Is that why you sent her away, Father? Did she make you remember she was a whore? Or did she make you forget?”

“Your morning conversation leaves much to be desired, but you rouse me to some curiosity, daughter.” His head tipped, as if to prove it. “Which of those possibilities did you imagine would hurt me?”

“Oh, I have far better ways to hurt you. When it happens, you won’t have to ask.” Batuuli snapped her fingers. One of her handmaidens rushed up to pour her a glass of water with ice, mint leaves and a wedge of some yellow fruit. Batuuli picked the fruit out, started to set it aside, then glanced at Lan…and instead squeezed it so its juice squirted out in a narrow stream. Lan ducked, but she wasn’t the target. The pikeman hanging over her let out a raspy scream, pale juice trickling down his flayed chest and soaking into his many open wounds. “You taught me so well how to hurt others,” Batuuli went on, studying the pikeman’s restrained contortions. “I can only presume it must make you happy to see me follow in your wake.”

“And does it make you happy?” Azrael asked, holding out his own cup to be filled. He paid the pikeman in his agony no more attention than he paid the handmaiden who poured his wine. “I have only ever desired my Children to be happy.”

“The only happiness I feel comes from knowing you will always remember how much I hated you.”

“How unfortunate for you.”

“Unfortunate only that I didn’t always, as your new toy was good enough to remind me, but if I must suffer the knowledge that you will always remember that once I looked on you with innocent love, at least I have the satisfaction of knowing you also saw it die.” Batuuli tried to smile. “When was that, Father? Tell me. I want to know the day, the hour, that I knew you for what you were.”

“What am I?”

“You are a jackal. You are the lord of carrion and a thief of bones.”

“And you are my daughter.”

“Your daughter?” She laughed—a sound as sharp and venomous as a snake-bite. “I would not be your child if I were given any choice.”

“What child chooses to be born?”

“I was not born. I died. And you, you jackal, you dug me up and dragged me to your den and expected me to love you for it. ”

“And you did,” he said. “If only briefly.”

“I hope that memory warms you, Father.” Batuuli paused, then laughed and relaxed into the high back of her chair. “It fact, it should be all but burning in you by now. Do you feel it yet?”

Confused, Lan looked at Azrael, but he did not look back at her. He continued to gaze, silent, impassive, at his daughter as seconds stretched out, measured only by the pikeman’s groans and weakening struggles. When he moved at last, it was merely to set down his cup and stand.

“Yes, you should be going,” Batuuli said, manufacturing a frown even as her eyes danced with pleasure. “You’ll want privacy for what’s about to happen. It wouldn’t do to have your fawning subjects see their glorious lord purge himself in public.”

“Lan,” said Azrael. “Get out.”

She got up so fast, she bumped the impaled pikeman; he groaned, fresh blood and clear drops of juice drooling from a dozen wounds. Stammering apologies, Lan fled for the door.

“It is a pity you didn’t eat anything,” Batuuli called after her. “It’s all poisoned.”

Lan swung around.

Batuuli shrugged one round shoulder, indifferent to her gape or Azrael’s burning stare. “I thought it would be amusing to watch you die. And then, of course, to see you come back. I’m quite sure he’d raise you up, even though you are rather plain…but then you’d only hate him for it with such an honest hate that he might actually let you die.” Batuuli drank, smiling around her glass. “And that would be amusing, too.”