Chapter 3,
in which the Duke whispers


     It always changes, but always stays the same.
      A mob drags her in the street. Hands everywhere. Groping. Discarding.
      She is driftwood, tossed onto the beach, but it is not a beach. It is a scaffold.
      She cries for mercy. She cries for explanation. The mob cannot understand her, and she cannot understand them.
      The hangman looks sometimes like the bloody bandit she’d seen in Sever. Sometimes he looks like nobody. Sometimes he looks like death. He slips a rope over her neck, and she can feel the itch of its twine.
      She looks for a friend in the crowd, but does not find one. ‘Must I die alone?’ she says.
      The hangman laughs.
      Bastion is beside her on the scaffold. A rope over his neck. He tries to speak, but the rope chokes him.
      Somewhere, there are hoofbeats. Always coming, never arriving.
      The hangman pulls Bastion’s lever first...

      Rhema flinched, her thoughts struggling to push away the nightmare that scattered and reformed continuously behind her mind's eye. The first time she'd dreamed it, it'd been terrible. The second and third time etched the nightmare permanently into her memories, disturbing her even when she was awake.
      She sat in Bastion's study, tracing the wood of his writing desk, the June heat perforating its skin even while the windows were shut, its texture like the steps of a scaffold.
      Think of something else!
      She hadn't told him about her dreams and hadn't yet decided if she ever intended to. Why give him that worry? She wished Jonathan were nearby. He was easy to talk to about dreams.
      The study door opened. Assuming it to be Bastion, Rhema said, “Darling, you do know how to try someone’s patience.”
     “That is why, my dear, I make it a rule to try nobody’s patience but my own,” said a vaguely familiar fast drawl of a voice. 
      The Duke of Middelwey swayed into Bastion's study with all the grace of nobility, and all the carelessness of a drunkard. The duke was not reputed to be a popular man. This was not because he was not an attractive man. For a gentleman in his forties, he had an amazingly youthful spryness and a handsome face. Only the single gray streak in his otherwise black hair betrayed his age. Nor was it because he was not smart. The duke was well known for his cunning and wit. No, the Duke of Middelwey was generally disliked because he was smarter than everyone around him and he knew it. More importantly, everyone else knew he knew it too. Then again, if one were to ask the Duke why he was disliked, he would have answered, ‘Because my father was the bastard cousin of my mother.’ This would also have been true.
      Rhema reserved judgement. “Your Grace, I did not see you there,” she said, standing and bowing her head. The duke stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked her over.
     “Then I presume you normally talk to yourself, Your Highness.” He lifted a thick, dark eyebrow.
     “I expected the prince.”
     “So did I,” said the Duke. He paced the room and clicked his tongue in thought. “Expecting him soon, I surmise?”
     “I hope so,” said Rhema. “I am sorry. I do not believe we have ever been properly introduced.”
     “Ah. That must be your way of saying that you know we have been introduced, but you do not remember my Christian name.”
     “Yes, Your Grace.”
     “Lift your head, princess. You are stations above me now. It is I who should bow to you.”  He made a quick bow and continued to pace. “First names are not important. Even my kin call me Brys.” His eye-contact wavered a moment. His hands moved on their own to grab a bottle of an unlabeled liquor from the corner cabinet next to him and poured it into a glass. “I am your husband’s second cousin once removed. He calls me ‘uncle’. You can too, if you like. It’s all just titles really.”
      He took a draught from the colorless liquor, coughed a little, and looked at the bottle. “This is good. What is this?” He turned the bottle around but found no identifying marks.
     “I would not know, sir.”
      Brys drank some more and stared at her with his great, black eyes. His eyes were more like those in Bastion's portrait than Bastion's himself, the eyes that had so transfixed her when she'd first seen it.
     “Is there something I can help you with?” Rhema asked.
     “What is that thing on the desk?” he said. His hand gestured to the desk, but his eyes remained on her.
     “This?” Rhema touched the bulbous metal instrument on the desk, her hands flickering uncertainly over the little blue bow set on top of it.
     “No, the other large piece of machinery that was not here yesterday.” The tone of his voice did not change for his sarcasm.
     “It is a present for Bastion,” said Rhema. “They call it a typer. Look, it is like a miniature printing press.” She demonstrated by pressing one of the keys on its face. It clicked and pressed a little letter C onto the blank piece of paper.
      Brys walked over to it. “Oh yes. I have heard of these. They are tedious and impractical. I’m therefore sure everyone will have one in ten years.”
      Rhema smiled faintly and clasped her hands in front of her.
     “That was a joke,” said Brys.
     “Of course, yes.” She forced a smile.
      Brys took another sip. “Are you sure you don’t want any of this?”
     “No. Thank you.”
      Brys swirled his drink and looked out the window.
     “If you don’t mind me asking, Your Grace,” Rhema started.
     “Ask. Ask. You are Her Highness now. You can ask what you like.”
     “What is your job?”
     “My job? You of all people should know that we are noble. We don’t have real jobs.”
     “What is it that you do with your day then?” said Rhema, glancing back at the door, hoping Bastion would come through it soon. The Duke's presence made the air thick and hard to breath. Bastion had the opposite effect.
     “I am chief of the Council of Dukes. That’s as good an answer as any you will get.”
     “Do they pay you for that?”
     “More than they should,” Brys said with a cruel calm.
     “So why do you do it?”
     “Did you not hear me? They pay me more than they should.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Anyway, it is not my job with which you should be concerned. It is yours.”
     “My job? What exactly do you think my job is?”
     “To make babies, of course.”
      The blood rushed to Rhema’s face. “Your Grace, that is highly inappropriate.”
     “The truth is always inappropriate.”
      While Rhema tried to get her mind around Brys’ meaning, he put a hand on his chin and looked her over once again.
     “Hmm. I wonder...” he trailed off, looking at her with an intense stillness.
     “I do not have the patience for this. What do you wonder?”
     “Where you stand.”
     “On what issue?”
      He broke his stillness and bounded across the room to the desk like a little boy preparing to show off a new toy and causing Rhema to jump. Seeing him close, Rhema noted a touch of pink in his cheeks and smelled the heavy alcohol on his breath.
      Brys unreservedly flicked the little blue bow off the typer then slowly typed a message on its keys. Rhema watched the letters form, one tortured inkblot at a time, on the white sheet of paper: D-E-M-O-C-R-A-C-Y.
     “Democracy?” said Rhema. “Like in America?”
     “Could you imagine such a thing?” whispered Brys, turning the cunning pits of his eyes on her.
      The door opened. Rhema nearly fell over herself distancing herself from the Duke's hot breath and dangerous ideas.
     “Hello,” said Bastion. Hand still on the door handle, he looked from his wife to the Duke. Rhema curtseyed quickly, which was customary for her to do when they met in the presence of others.
     “Your Highness.” Brys nodded and cleared his throat.
     “May I help you, Uncle?”
     “I hope you do not mind, but I have helped myself,” Brys said, holding up the bottle of liquor.
     “You can have it.”
     “Much obliged, Your Highness.”
     “Did you have business here?”
     “Nothing that cannot be discussed at a later time. Good day, Nephew.”
      Bastion held the door as Brys went through and shut the door behind him.
     “Did you not find that a little unusual?” said Rhema to her husband.
     “What? The duke? He is always like that.” Bastion kissed her head, but it was not enough to clear her concerns.
     “Do you see? I got you a present.” Rhema hurried over to the desk and replaced the blue bow.
      Bastion followed and ran his fingers over the machine. “Thank you. It is wonderful.” His fingers lingered on the piece of paper hanging from its top.
      Democracy.
      Bastion sighed and put an arm around Rhema.
     “You do not suppose he is planning something, do you?” Rhema said. The image of a similar piece of paper with the words “No Queen but Penelope” flashed through her mind.
     “Uncle Brys is always planning something but he means no ill by it. He is a man of many contradictions, chief among them being that he loves the king but hates the monarchy. You have nothing to fear. Brys is the kind of man who fans the flames, not starts the fire.”
     “I was more concerned for you.”
     “Me? No, he would never move against me. He’d sooner move against himself, which is what he would have to end up doing if anything ever happened to both me and Uncle Freddy. After us, he'd be third in line for the throne.”
      Rhema's forehead wrinkled with worry and confusion.
     "Don't fret, my love. He is family. You can trust him. You will see."
      That night, Rhema dreamed once again of scaffolds.