I Married the Emperor to Kill Him novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Morning Gift
Cassien remembers a guard on a rainy roof, takes the blame for the dagger in front of the court to save his cousin from the whip, wins the right to see the forty hostages, and receives a note: poison for tonight's feast.
Cassien remembered the roof.
It came back all at once.
It was the parley pavilion at Haldermere, three springs ago, with rain drumming on the slates.
He had climbed out a window to get away from the envoys.
An imperial guard was already up there, sitting with his back against a chimney, a big quiet man with a scarf over his face.
Cassien had made the guard share his bottle and had talked for three hours.
He had said he was never going to marry, and that he wanted to see the sea.
He had said that if the Emperor ever came for Lisvaine, he would kill him himself.
The guard had answered, "He'd let you."
Cassien had laughed so hard he nearly slid off the roof.
"No," he said now.
"Yes," said Isandor.
"That guard had a voice like a gravel cart."
"I had a cold."
"You never told me who you were."
"You would have pushed me off the roof." Isandor looked at the dagger against his chest. "You might still."
Cassien pressed the point in until it dimpled the black silk.
Isandor let him.
He was so close that Cassien felt his breath on his mouth.
"You knew," Cassien said. "When they wrote the treaty, you knew it was me."
"I knew."
"And you said yes."
"I said yes."
Cassien wanted to push the blade through him.
He wanted to put his mouth on Isandor's, just to bite it.
He could not tell which one was making his hand shake.
Isandor saw it.
His eyes dropped to Cassien's mouth and stayed there for one long second, then came back up.
"Goodnight, Cassien," he said.
He stepped back off the point and walked to the inner door.
"Where are you going?"
"To your rooms. You can have the big bed. I gave my word in front of three hundred people."
"I'm not going to ask you for anything."
Isandor opened the door.
"Then you'll sleep very well," he said, and shut it behind him.
Cassien did not sleep at all.
The bed was far too big and smelled of cedar.
He lay on his back in the dark in his white wedding robes, furious.
He was also hard, and had been since the cord went around his wrist.
He tried to ignore it, and it did not go away.
He kept feeling Isandor's thumb on his pulse.
He kept seeing Isandor's mouth a hand's width from his own.
"Damn him," he whispered.
He pushed the robes aside and took himself in his hand.
His cock was hot and heavy and already wet at the tip.
He stroked it slowly at first, glaring at the canopy.
Then he thought about the big hands that had held him so easily, and his hips jerked off the mattress.
He thought about Isandor pushing him down onto this bed.
He thought about that deep, amused voice saying his name in his ear.
He bit his lip and stroked faster.
It was shameful, and it felt so good that he made a low sound in his throat.
His other hand slid up under his shirt and pinched his nipple, hard, because he wanted something rough.
The picture in his head was Isandor kneeling over him, taking his wrists in one fist and pinning them to the pillow.
Cassien came with a choked cry, spilling hot over his own fist and his stomach.
He lay there shaking, with his heart hammering.
It had not been enough.
He knew it had not been enough, and he hated that most of all.
Isandor was one wall away, and he had not said the words.
Cassien wiped his hand on the sheet, rolled over, and did not sleep.
The morning audience was held in the throne room.
Cassien stood on the step below the throne in Lisvaine blue, because they had burned the white robes.
The court filed past to look at the consort who had tried to cut the Emperor's throat.
Maelis stood behind him.
Corvain came forward with his steward at his elbow, a thin pockmarked man in grey.
"Majesty, the court asks a simple question," Corvain said, in a voice as soft as butter. "How did a blade get into the Hall of Lamps? My own steward searched the consort and found nothing."
The steward bowed.
"So someone must have passed it to him afterward."
Corvain turned his rings toward Maelis.
"His woman dressed him. Twenty lashes would teach Lisvaine women to keep their hands empty."
Maelis went white.
Her husband had died on the citadel wall, and she had come south with Cassien anyway.
"Nobody touches her," Cassien said.
"The consort speaks." Corvain smiled. "How charming. In Valdrecht, Highness, the guilty do not give orders."
Cassien unbuttoned his left cuff and pushed the blue sleeve up to the elbow.
He held his arm out to the whole throne room.
The inside of his forearm still had red marks where the stitches had rubbed for three hundred miles.
"I sewed that blade in myself, in Lisvaine," he said.
"Your steward patted me down like a man hoping not to find anything."
The steward's eyes slid to his master.
Somebody in the court laughed and then stopped.
"If you want to whip someone for the knife, Chancellor, whip me."
"Gladly," said Corvain.
"No," said a woman's voice.
She came down the side aisle with a black cane she did not lean on.
She was tall and straight, with black hair streaked with silver and rings on every finger.
The court bowed.
"My aunt," Isandor said from the throne, sounding pleased. "The Grand Duchess Ilvessa."
Ilvessa stopped in front of Cassien and looked at his arm.
"Three hundred miles," she said. "Did it chafe?"
"Every mile, Highness."
"Was it heavy?"
"It was my brother's."
"That isn't an answer."
"It got heavier."
She studied him for a long moment, then looked at Corvain.
"Nobody is whipping anyone at my nephew's wedding breakfast," she said. "It's vulgar."
Corvain bowed, and his eyes promised Cassien something unpleasant.
Isandor stood.
"The consort's morning gift," he told the court. "Custom says I give him whatever he asks for."
He looked down at Cassien.
"Ask."
The whole room waited for Cassien to say something stupid, like Isandor's head.
"The forty," Cassien said. "The citadel guard. I want to see them."
Something moved in Isandor's face.
"Granted. At any hour you like."
Cassien went that hour.
The old barracks behind the practice yard smelled of damp and old soup.
Forty knights of the citadel guard got to their feet when he walked in.
They were thin, thinner than men who had been prisoners for five months should be.
Their captain had been Severen's friend.
He knelt, and Cassien pulled him up.
"How long have they cut your bread?" Cassien asked.
"Since the Chancellor took the barracks keys, Highness. Half rations."
Cassien turned around to find someone to shout at.
Maelis caught his sleeve in the doorway.
She pressed a folded paper into his palm and closed his fingers over it.
"From the kitchens," she whispered. "From home."
It was sealed with blue wax and a moonstone bell, his brother Severen's seal.
Cassien broke it in the shadow of the door.
"Nightbell, the poison, is in the kitchens. The First Pouring is tonight. You pour his cup."
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