The Emperor's Bride

It happened the day before the wedding. Aryn and I were doing things we shouldn’t be doing again. My family were out helping some of the other clansfolk make the sacred grounds ready for the ceremony. Aryn had been waiting patiently since sunrise to sneak into our hut.

I was laid out naked on the furs in my corner, the circular curtains drawn around us. He was taking his kisses lower; I was not stopping him. I heard a commotion in the yard before the door to the hut banged open. Aryn grabbed a blanket from beside us and covered me with it. He was naked to the waist but, thankfully, I’d not freed him from his breeches yet. He flung the curtain aside and stood.

“Who in the hells are you?” he growled at the intruders. Guards—city guards—three of them. It took several seconds for this to sink in for me, so, I assumed Aryn had spoken before he realised who he was addressing.

“We’re here for her,” one of the guards said, pointing at me where I lay still clutching the blanket over my bare body. He was a burly man with a big red, birthmark across his neck.

“You’re not going anywhere near her,” Aryn said through gritted teeth.

The guard who had spoken lashed out, smacking Aryn in the mouth hard. He rocked on his heels at the blow, his face turning towards me, blood flying from his lips.

“Get out of the way,” the burly guard said gruffly. “Orders from the palace.”

I could hear screaming outside: a woman’s voice, crying out for her father.

“Aryn, don’t…” I called to him, wanting him to surrender but he was already spreading his arms wide to protect me.

“Get dressed Theá,” he said, but there was no time. The guard flew at Aryn and landed a firm punch right in his gut. Aryn went careening backwards. He was tall but he crumpled like a small boy after that hit. I could hear him gasping for air as the guard advanced on me. He dragged me up by the arm; the blanket almost slipped from my chest. He eyed me with something in his expression I didn’t like.

“Please?” I begged, clutching the blanket to my front tighter. The man with the birthmark showed no kindness but marched me towards the door. The other two stepped outside and my captor shoved me towards them, pointing his spear at me.

I wrapped the blanket around my naked body hastily, trying not to give the two guards much of an eyeful.

“Theá,” Aryn croaked behind me and I turned to look at him. He was still lying crumped on the floor, holding his hand to his stomach. His lips were bloodied and his bared teeth stained red. I couldn’t do anything but walk out of the door as the guard ordered me to.

A wagon with an open gate at the back stood on the dusty path. Several women were inside, weeping, huddled together. The guards marched me forward and ordered me inside the wagon. I entered, hearing Aryn crying out my name from inside the hut.

I had been about to let him touch me again. We weren’t going to break the rules completely, but we were to be married tomorrow so we thought it our right to know each other’s bodies sooner. The ceremony would have ended, we would have gone with all the other couples into the circle, and each woman would have mounted their new husband and be broken in by him. It was the tradition in our village for all women to wed their intended on the first day of summer, after their eighteenth birthday in a mass wedding.

I was twenty-two. Aryn was not my first intended. He was eighteen, but that made no difference to me. Cávros had died the week before our wedding ceremony was meant to take place. I’d been devastated when I heard the news but more because I thought I would be unwed forever and eventually cast out of the village. I didn’t love Cávros, but I did love Aryn. It was forbidden to couple before marriage by clanslaw. But young people will find ways to bend rules if not break them. We bent them with soft touches and long kisses to those ‘forbidden’ parts of each other. He never penetrated me… not in that way at least.

The last time I’d ever see Aryn was there on the floor of the hut. I was lifted clumsily by the guards into the wagon, and the gate was slammed shut. Some of the other women cried out when the wheels began to turn. We were all jostled against each other, bumping and rocking as the wagon moved along the uneven dirt track.

I didn’t weep but looked around at the other women. Most were crying but some just looked stunned.

“What is this?” I whispered to a blonde haired woman beside me. Her face was smeared with dirt, streaked with tear tracks.

“I don’t know,” she whimpered. “They just came into our hut and took me.”

“Orders from the palace,” another woman across from me said.

“Silence in there!” The driver of the wagon banged on the wooden roof. We all obeyed, listening only to the sound of the horse’s hooves and the rumbling of the wheels, the song of old wood and rusted nails grinding together noisily.

The road to the palace was long and by the time we arrived, nearly none of us could stand properly as an aftereffect of the cramped, uncomfortable, bumpy journey.

I’d never seen the palace before and didn’t get to see it then either. When we were ordered out of the wagon, we were blindfolded one after the other. I was still dressed only in the blanket which I had tucked under itself at the top to hold it in place. The air was warm on my skin. It had been near noon when the guards had come but now the sun was high in the sky. The inside of the wagon was dark, and the bright light stung my eyes for the few minutes I was permitted to see.

We were herded into a line and tethered to one another by the wrists. Then we were marched down a gravelly path. I was wearing no shoes and sharp stones beneath my feet made me stumble and cry out as they cut into my soles. I wasn’t the only one. The guards didn’t care though; they just marched us on until we entered a musty smelling hall. The echoes bouncing off the cold, dank stone certainly made it seem like a large space.

A woman with a sharp voice came in and told us all to undress.

“Don’t be meek about it, just take your clothes off immediately,” she commanded. I froze. I didn’t want to be naked and blind in some unknown place that smelled like a dungeon. What had I done to deserve this? What had any of us done? The women were people I knew from the clans of my own village and neighbouring ones. The rest of them were barely eighteen; I was the eldest.

A lash struck my legs and I yelped.

“Be quick,” the sharp voice said. “You’re already halfway there already. Look at you.” Cold hands closed around my wrists. I had my arms folded over my breasts, protecting the blanket and myself. But she was strong, this cold, awful woman. She wrenched my arms apart and yanked the blanket off me. Instantly, my skin prickled with gooseflesh and instinctively my hands covered my chest and private area. “Now you will be washed. Arms up! All of you.”

I hesitated but feared the lash again. My calves still stung from the first blow. Reluctantly, I raised my arms above my head and waited. I flinched when a wet cloth held in unknown hands began to scrub under my arms and across my chest. Then I gasped and gagged as soapy water was tipped over my head. The room was full of similar sounds and the bark of the woman in charge demanding silence from us all. The person scrubbing me went lower with the cloth, down over my belly and back, held out each arm and ran the cloth over them in turn, scrubbed my hands. Then they washed one leg and the other. I was weeping by this point but couldn’t feel my own tears; the rag over my eyes was already soaked. My skin was trembling in anticipation of being touched where no other person asides myself and Aryn had been. I was relieved when, instead, the person washing me slapped the soapy cloth into my hand and told me in a gruff, voice of indistinct gender, to wash myself below.

I did as I was told, hitching in breath after breath and trying not to whimper too loudly. I could hear other women doing the same, other orders coming from elsewhere to wash below.

When we were done, we were ordered to raise our arms again and were dressed in long, hooded robes, with great bell sleeves that covered our arms completely. Then we were marched through many winding corridors with our hoods up and our bare feet slapping against smooth stone. We were ordered to wait outside a room and shown in one by one. Those who went in didn’t come back out again.

When I was brought forward into the room, I heard the door close behind me and was told to remove my blindfold. I peeled the loathsome rag from my face, blinked my eyes and rubbed at them. The rag was still sodden and my vision was blurry. I rubbed my eyes again and saw the outline of a man in front of me. As my sight became clearer his face came into focus. It was the most beautiful face I’d ever seen.

Aryn had been a handsome lad: big grey eyes, sandy hair, a gentle mouth, long slightly large nose. This man was very different. He was dark-haired, with full eyebrows and deep blue eyes beneath thick lashes. His nose was long but neat, his face shaven, his mouth curved at the edges. He smiled at me when I looked at him but only with one side of his lips; a dimple appeared in his smooth cheek as he considered me. His hair was long, tied back in a ponytail with a piece of blue velvet ribbon. Loose strands framed his face.

“What’s your name?” he said, his voice was low, gravelly.

“Theá,” I said; my own voice came out barely above a whisper.

“I am Kasayen. I am the Emperor’s Physician.”

“P-pleased to m-meet you,” I muttered. I was cold and shivering slightly but unsure if it was the chill in the room or the title of the man that was causing it. Why would I need a physician? I wondered.

“I’m afraid, I have a duty to inspect you,” he said frankly.

“Inspect me why?”

“To ensure you are intact.”

I gulped. I knew what this meant, it was part of the ceremony that would have been happening the following day. But it would have been my husband looking between my legs and declaring me whole.

“I am,” I said.

Kasayen shook his head.

“I must look,” he said, softly. “I’m sorry if it will make you uncomfortable but it will only be for a moment. Please come and sit in this seat?” He gestured to a chair behind him. Timidly, I took a few steps towards the chair, staring at it and then glancing up at him. I sat and he told me to move so my spine was pressed against the backrest. “Just relax,” he told me and I took a deep breath. He reached to the side of the chair and lowered the back. I went with it, my eyes widening in surprise. Then Kasayen raised the armrests of the chair and told me to hook my legs over them.

“Please?” I begged fruitlessly. “Don’t make me do this?”

“I’m sorry, Theá. I must, by the Emperor’s orders.”

“But why? I was meant to be married tomorrow. Why is this happening? What am I, or any of the other women to him? Why have we been stolen from our homes like this?” I babbled.

Kasayen crouched by the side of the chair near my head.

“Theá I cannot tell you that now, all will be revealed by Ma’am after you have all been inspected. I must do this. You must permit me. You can deny me access to your body, it is your right but,” he lowered his voice and brought his face close to mine. I could see tiny dashes of silver-grey in his deep blue irises and smell mint and cloves on his breath. “Ma’am warned me that any women who refuse or resist may face consequences. I would hate for anything to happen to you, Theá.”

He said this as if we were acquaintances, not two strangers who had just met and been thrown into this awkward position. I was taken aback by the kindness in his voice, after all the terror I’d suffered that day. I reached down and hitched the end of the robe up over my knees.

“Fine, look then,” I said.

“I will be gentle, I promise,” Kasayen said, and I drew in a deep breath. He stood and went to the foot of the seat, carefully sliding the robe further up my thighs. He didn’t look down as he did this but held my gaze. His hands were soft on my skin as he slid them both up my thighs towards the crease at either end. He looked down, and, as gently as he promised, parted my lips and nodded once. He removed his hands from me and his gaze from my parts. The whole thing had lasted only a few heartbeats, but it would be imprinted on my mind forever, I feared.

Kasayen smiled kindly and lowered my robe, covering me to the shins and allowing me my modesty once more. He told me to wait a moment, and I did, watching him move to a small portable cabinet on a podium across the room. He took out a little glass bottle of some strong-smelling tincture and a round tin of ointment and tucked them into the front pocket of his apron. He plucked a dry scrap of cloth from a pile beside an empty wash bowl and jug, filled the bowl and dipped in the material. He told me to hold still while he washed my feet. His touch was very considerate of my wounded and aching soles; I was ticklish there, too, but he held each foot in a firm enough grip not to make me react. The tincture stung but the ointment soothed. He massaged it in and offered me a crooked little comforting smile again. Then he took my ankles in his hands, unhooked my legs from the armrests and placed them together.

He moved to the side of the chair and raised the back so I could sit. Then he offered a palm to me to help me up. I took it and he pulled me towards him. His other hand found the small of my back, steadying me as I wobbled a little on my sore feet. His gaze locked onto mine, and I felt something inside me squirm. This man had just looked at the most private part of me in detail, but I felt even more exposed when he looked into my eyes like that.

“Thank you,” I found myself whispering. It sounded absurd considering all he’d done, but I felt gratitude for the way he tended my wounds.

“No need to thank me,” Kasayen replied, letting me go. “I’m just doing my duty.” He showed me to a door opposite the one I’d entered through. “Until we meet again, Theá,” he added with a little bow of his head.