Making Amends 12

Author's Note: Welcome back, drear audience. On this fine (whatever time of day you happen to be reading this) I am pleased to present what I (and others) consider to be my finest work to date. Be forewarned, this story features dubious consent/blackmail/extortion (and probably some other less than reputable behavior). Rape is wrong. Don't do it. Everyone knows this. If you don't enjoy stories with this kind of content, don't read them and don't whine about them in the comments. Also, all characters who engage in sexual conduct are of age. Now, on with the show.

***

On most days the throne room of Silverwing Keep, seat of House Terracroix and capital of the Leithien Duchy, rang with music, the dulcet tones of some traveling minstrel or another and his accompanying lyre or harp weaving amidst its marble columns to lend the stately hall an air of detached levity. On most days, however, Lady Sienna Terracroix, third child and eldest daughter of Duke Theovaire, had not brought her homeland to the brink of disaster. So as she stood before her lord father it was little surprise that there was no musical backdrop to be heard, only the steely voice of an enraged sovereign.

"How could you be such a fool!" the aging monarch spat out, the struggle required to suppress his royal fury readily apparent to each and every onlooker. Her father's anger was a spectacle entirely unlike anything Sienna had ever witnessed before, and that in itself was a fitting testament to the gravity of her recent error. Nonetheless, she stood before him with her back straight as a rod and her chin held high, for in addition to being a lady of high birth she was also a knight of the realm and would carry herself with the dignity which befit her station, come what may.

"Have you taken leave of your senses entirely?" the Duke thundered on, giving his daughter precious little opening to actually respond to any of his questions. It had been nearly a quarter of an hour already since Lady Sienna had been summoned before her lord father to give her own account of the day's events, not that he had given her much chance to do so before erupting. He seemed to be calming down at last, though, enough at least that the chastised knight hoped she might soon be able to say a few words in her own defense. "Assaulting an emissary of Etraskia... I should expect such ill-judgment from your brothers, but never from one who acclaims herself the paragon of wisdom!"

Sienna gave the slightest of winces at that last charge, a more visible reaction than any of her father's previous rebukes had drawn out of her. She could weather a great deal of abuse without wavering, particularly when she knew she deserved it, but being compared to her brothers always made the proud knight bristle. While she spent her days training for combat and serving the realm, they wiled away their hours throwing lavish feasts and bedding every simpering chambermaid who caught one of their eyes. Yet it would be one of those indolent brats who would be chosen to inherit the throne on the day their mutual father passed, not her. Never her.

Of course, in light of the catastrophe Sienna had just inflicted on them all, it may well come to pass that none of her father's children would have a chance to claim their birthright. Their duchy was but a minor player on the world stage, after all, just one more petty nation among the many which cowered before the mighty Etraskian Empire. The same mighty Etraskian Empire which loved few things more than an excuse to put its vast armies to work and whose ambassador she and her knights had attacked that very morning, killing two of the man's escorts and injuring him in the process. Never before had their vengeful imperial neighbour been gifted such a magnificent pretext to invade the Terracroix's lands. By all rights, the Empire would be perfectly justified in pillaging and conquering their homeland until there was nothing at all left to inherit.

"Father, I," the young knight tried to cut in, biting her tongue the instant the words left her mouth as she caught her mistake. But it was too late.

"You will address me as your lord sovereign, girl!" the duke roared, his thunderous bellow reverberating throughout the hall. Sienna should have known better, did, in fact, know better. In private she could get away with such familiarity, but when acting as a knight of the realm, particularly as one who had earned her lord's ire, propriety dictated she demonstrate proper respect at all times. The fact that her misstep had come just as her lord father was running out of steam was... unfortunate.

"My apologies, sire." Sienna almost stopped herself there, well aware that her freshly aggrieved father would be in no mood for any attempt at justification after she had demonstrated such disrespect, but having already spoken up she had little choice. Backing down and failing to defend herself after such a rebuke would only make her look as weak in the eyes of the court as she already seemed foolish. So she pushed on. "I only meant to ask what course you would have had me take. The ambassador's men comported themselves in a belligerent fashion befitting the bandits my company was tasked to hunt and the man had raised his staff against us. I and my knights adjudged him to be a mage, so I struck him down. Was I to wait and see whether he meant to call lightning down upon my knights? To tear the ground beneath our horses asunder?"

"I most assuredly would not have had you strike down an ambassador of the Empire!" the duke seethed, his eyes glinting with barely restrained fury.

"But he did not identify himself!" No sooner had Sienna said the words than she wished she could take them back. Such was an impossible task, though, so instead she was left to merely hope they sounded less like the whine of a spoiled little girl to the rest of her father's court than they did to her own ears. Already too many of the assembled lords and dignitaries, including her brothers, thought her little more than a jumped up brat who needed to be put in her place. A number which was already likely to grow now that her lapse in judgment had brought the executioner's axe to the neck of everyone present.

"And how exactly was he to do so when your company approached with blades drawn and struck before allowing the man to speak?" Her father bellowed back, holding his glare for several seconds before slumping back into his throne and lifting one hand to grip at his forehead.

"I... I understand." As much as she might have wished otherwise, it was the truth. Whatever justifications she might have had for her conduct, the young knight knew as well as anyone present how little they would mean in the end. The damage had been done, and the finer details of the incident would matter little to her victim or his master. In matters of state, truth and justice all too often paled next to the raw reality of power, if they even mattered at all. When she spoke again Sienna's voice was somber. "I have failed you. I have failed the realm. I will accept whatever consequences you deem fit, my lord."

For what felt an age Duke Theovaire sat silent on the throne, head cradled in his fingers. The great hall was so quiet his chastised daughter imagined she could hear the beat of her own heart, perhaps even those of the fellow knights and retainers around her. Finally, her father straightened up and cast his eyes across the room, the heavy weight of his crown readily apparent to all who looked on.

"Leave us."

Not one among the gathered courtiers proved reluctant to depart. Even Sienna's brothers, ever keen to be seen at their father's side on any occasion of note, for once seemed eager to escape the throne room. Still, the hall was large and the assembled crowd took long enough filing out for the guilt-wracked knight to once more run her mind through the events of the day.

That morning she had departed around dawn at the head of a troop of five knights charged with investigating reports that several companies of unusually well-equipped bandits had recently crossed into the duchy. An hour or so before midday they had come across a group of travelers near the imperial border who seemed to match the descriptions they had been given. There were seven in total, six of them clearly equipped for a fight and at their head a man wearing plain but well made traveling garb in the imperial style and carrying an ornate staff.

Suspecting that the strangers before them belonged to the bandit troop they had been tasked with hunting down, Sienna and her knights had approached with their weapons unsheathed and at the ready. They rode in tight battle formation, drawing up just short of the Etraskian delegation which had hastily formed up around their leader. The escorts had rushed to bare their own weapons and one stepped forward, demanding in the foreign tongue that her knights back off. Unfortunately, when the man decided to throw in a crass insult after his demand Sienna's pride had gotten the better of her and she urged her horse forward.

One of her men, she hadn't even been sure which at the time, had then shouted that the leader was trying to cast a spell. When she turned towards him, all the young knight saw was his ornate staff lifted in her direction and his face twisted into an expression of outraged fury. Operating on pure instinct, she made a snap decision to swing her weapon, bringing the flat of her blade to bear against the side of the diplomat's head. When the man crumpled to the ground his companions had leapt to his defense and all hell broke loose.

The ensuing skirmish was quick but bloody, leaving two of the foreigners dead and several more men on each side wounded. The emissary had yet to regain consciousness by the time he and his escorts were delivered to the dungeons of Silverwing Keep and Sienna accompanied her knights back to the barracks thinking their mission a success. It wasn't until late afternoon that one of her men, his face pale as the dead, tracked her down in the training yard and told her of their mistake. Immediately she rushed to her father's study in the hopes of a private word with him, but the chamberlain had turned her away and gravely instructed her to prepare for an audience in the throne room an hour later.

As her father's final retainers filtered out of the great hall Lady Sienna was at last left alone with the Duke. His dark eyes bored into her own as they stared at one another until the chamber's heavy doors had slammed shut. He looked tired, in more ways than one, and the loyal daughter felt a deep sense of shame at the position her mistake had put him in. "I am sorry, father." Her voice was still crisp when she spoke, but not as stiffly formal as it had been before.

"I know you are, Sienna," the old man answered with a heavy sigh. "Just as you know how little that matters."

"I do."

"His Excellency is being treated by my personal physician as we speak." Duke Theovaire's tone was also more casual than it had been, but there was an odd stiffness to the old monarch as his gaze strayed to the stained glass windows lining one side of the hall. Sienna realized the day's strain must have been wearing on him even more than she had thought and again she wished she could take it all back. "Thankfully," he eventually continued, "I am told the wounds you granted our guest seem relatively minor and he is expected to make a full and swift recovery."

"I am glad to hear it." That wasn't a lie. While their encounter hadn't exactly left Sienna with a high opinion of her victim, a lack of serious injury to the ambassador meant there was at least a chance of the incident being passed off as an accident and her home spared from imperial retribution. The two men-at-arms her knights had slain would complicate matters, true, but in the grand game of politics the lives of commoners were of far less import than the wellbeing of a highborn diplomat.

"Indeed." The Duke at last shifted his gaze back to Sienna, locking his eyes on his daughter's. "Presently he is resting in the guest wing. Tonight you will go to him and make amends, ensure that when he leaves here he will have no thought of bringing his master's wrath down upon us all."

The young knight went stiff at her father's words, a lump suddenly forming in her throat. "To... Tonight? Surely... you do not mean..." her voice faltered, unable to so much as bring the words into existence.

"You will do whatever is required to prevent the destruction of this realm of ours, daughter." The Duke's voice was firm, his will absolute as he held Sienna's wavering gaze. "Am I understood?"

The maiden knight felt weak at the knees and in the stomach, her heart suddenly pounding beneath one breast. But as she looked into her lord father's eyes she could tell there would be no swaying his decision. And as much as she wanted to scream out her refusal, to slap him across the face for even suggesting such an affront to her honour, she knew that he loved her far too much to make such a demand of her had he even a single alternative. Worse, in her heart she knew it was... fair. It had been her mistake and no one else's which had brought the executioner's blade to his neck and that of each and every one of his subjects. Should the Empire invade they would be helpless to resist its might. Hundreds, maybe thousands, would die and countless more suffer under the callous rule for which their powerful neighbour was known. The misery of so many would be her responsibility. Thus, if it was within her power to forestall such a dismal fate for those she had sworn to protect, by whatever means, then duty demanded nothing less of her.

"I... I understand, father." Sienna could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, father and daughter each knowing what would be demanded of her. What she was agreeing to.

"Then go. Prepare yourself. I must make another visit with the doctors soon."

Sienna wanted nothing more than to flee from the hall, hell, from the entire Duchy. But she was a lady and a knight. So she would do no such thing. Instead she turned in place, striding from the hall with a steady, even pace and her chin held high even as she dreaded what the night before her held in store.

* That Evening *

By the time Lady Sienna found herself standing before the door to Silverwing Keep's finest guest chamber, one currently assigned to a certain imperial visitor, a nearly full moon had risen high in the night sky. That bright evening jewel bathed the castle corridor around the young noblewoman in a blanket of silvery light which seemed to ebb and flow like the tides. But then, perhaps such a perception was caused by nothing more than the pounding of her own heart and a fear that within each and every shadow lurked a witness to her hesitant advance.

Had any such witnesses truly been present they would have been treated to a rare sight indeed as no longer did Sienna look the part of a valiant knight. Instead of the polished armour which usually obscured her feminine figure, the unusually shy maiden was adorned only in nightclothes befitting a lady of her stature. A loose chemise trimmed with delicate lace hung from her shoulders, its pale pink silk opaque around her breasts but tantalizingly sheer everywhere below. Visible beneath it was yet more lace in the form of her frilliest knickers, a truly impractical garment which clung uncomfortably tight around her hips. Where her long tresses of golden blonde hair were usually bound up in a simple braid or bun they too had been altered, left instead to fall in unfettered waves which reached her shoulders and beyond. Perhaps most stunningly of all, the scent of fresh wildflowers hung heavy in the air around her, both soaked up from the bath in which she had recently washed away the day's grit and grime as well as emanating from a large pink bloom delicately tucked into her hair above one ear.

Steeling herself with one last deep breath, lovely Sienna reached out to rap her knuckles twice on the stout oak door before her, the resulting sound echoing away down the otherwise silent corridor in which she stood.

"Enter," the emissary's unfamiliar voice called back, carrying through the door and into the hallway with ease. It was the first time his assailant had actually heard him speak, she realized with a blush, and that voice alone made clear why the man had been selected to represent his sovereign. With no more than a single word his tone had managed to convey both an unflinching sense of authority and the self-assured confidence of an adult casually dismissing an unduly precocious child.

Instinctively ducking her head in the face of such a powerful presence, Sienna reached out to open the old wooden door. Its hinges made barely a whisper of protest as she slipped through and swiftly sealed that barrier behind herself once more, only then turning to survey her new surroundings. The chamber was largely unremarkable, a modestly-sized if well-appointed space dominated by a massive four poster bed. To one side of that centerpiece lurked a night table covered in an assortment of little bottles, no doubt various tonics and cures which had been offered up to the wounded guest. A large armoire, a pair of overstuffed leather chairs, and a well-stocked writing desk completed the room's furnishings, the last positioned beneath its sole window.

It was over that desk that the Etraskian emissary stood when his guest entered, his back to the chamber's entrance as he looked over a few scattered documents. In a way Sienna was rather impressed that the man retained enough confidence to leave himself so casually vulnerable despite the events of the day. No doubt he was as aware as she that some less scrupulous courts might respond to the situation her father's found itself in by arranging for his disappearance and hoping the Emperor would believe that his servant had been waylayed by bandits or met some such unsavoury fate.

Unsure what greeting could possibly be appropriate for such an encounter as that in which she found herself engaged, Sienna opted to simply announce herself with nothing more than a demure cough and then wait with her hands folded formally behind her back until the ambassador was ready to address her. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes and then hours as he finished reading over whatever document held his attention until at last he set it aside and turned to face his visitor.

Once the diplomat's eyes finally fell on her, Sienna's already rosy cheeks darkened further at the way his gaze slowly swept down her body and back up again. Taking the chance to examine him in turn, the young knight realized for the first time that her victim was actually rather handsome himself. He looked to be in his thirties, or perhaps a little past forty, and was of average height and a slightly stocky build. While clearly no warrior, he had at least avoided the prodigious gut which many men in his position earned by dint of attending a few too many feasts. Above the shoulders his face looked naturally stern, the lower portion dominated by a thick but close-cropped beard of bristly, coal black hairs while the upper was home to a large pair of piercing green eyes. When her gaze inevitably drifted to the large bump visible above one of the man's ears, Sienna tried, and failed, to suppress a guilty shiver.

Eventually, the wounded ambassador addressed his visitor directly, but much to her surprise he did so with a voice as light and casual as if he were greeting a friend he encountered every day. "Lady Sienna, what a delight it is to see you once more. I had begun to wonder whether your father was mistaken in suggesting that you might come calling this eve."

Tremendous effort was required for the disarmed knight to prevent herself from visibly flinching at the mention of whatever her father may or may not have discussed with the man standing before her. It had been several hours since her audience in the throne room, time enough and then some for Sienna to have mulled over that particular encounter in more detail than could be entirely healthy. She had no way of knowing which of the two men involved had first conceived of the ordeal which lay before her, whether her virtue had been a bargaining chip desperately offered up by her own father or a callous demand he had only reluctantly been pressured into complying with. Nor could she know just how overtly the matter had been discussed. In public her father could play the great game as well as any other lord, but in private he had always been a blunt man. The ambassador she knew little of, but unless her initial impressions proved wildly inaccurate she suspected he was much the same sort. In the end it mattered little, she supposed, but that knowledge had hardly stopped her from imagining a dozen ways or more in which the scene might have played out. Naturally, not one of those variations had involved herself as a party to the deal. When men haggled over a prize-winning mare, after all, they seldom sought the horse's input on what her price should be.