Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me
Eine Kleine Space Opera
Caia was not paying attention to the attendant bending to remove Caia’s shoes. As the slavegirl undid Caia’s auburn hair, slipped off Caia’s dress, Caia concentrated on making an escape plan. She had made careful observation of every detail that could possibly matter: the layout of the enemy space station--what she had seen of it, at least: the distance to the throne room, the escape pods which punctuated the corridors. She considered the armed eunuchs who guarded the women’s quarters. She tried to calculate the odds that her ragtag band of unlikely allies would be able to defeat them--if they managed to even find her. She had faith they would be looking, somehow had a special faith in the young man who annoyed her the most...The slavegirl had to repeat herself twice, softly asking Caia to step into the warm, scented water.
The water was as dense with magnesium as the famous hot springs of Caia’s home planet. She began to allow herself to relax. The girl’s gentle hands washing her hair were as soothing as the water, but the biggest relief of all was being out of the presence of Lord Mrithax. At least until the bath was over, there was no point in wasting her energy on wariness. She began to feel hopeful. Of course her ragtag band of allies could prevail. They were on the side of good.
The girl draped a steamed towel over Caia’s face, scented with some alien botanical. She breathed it in. Then she couldn’t. There was a pressure around her neck--her hands scrabbled to loosen it--but the other girl’s hands, so gentle til now, were suddenly, unexpectedly strong--Caia fought back blindly, thrashing in the water--
A minute later she was gasping for breath as two of the eunuch guards pinned the slavegirl to the floor, a knee on her back, a weapon pressed against her temple. For maybe the first time, Caia focuses on the other woman. She can’t see her face through the long, curling silver hair spread across the tile. The hair only tells Caia that her attempted assassin is a member of an oppressed ethnic minority, from a planet that the Beilix empire has raided for centuries. But most of the harem women are.
Lord Mrithax sweeps in and asks exactly the question that Caia would ask if she could catch her breath: “What the hell is going on?”
One of the guards holds up a piece of tissue paper. Written on it, in kohl eyeliner and unfamiliar handwriting: “I prefer my virtue to my life.”
Lord Mrithax scans it and turns to the slave girl. “Did the captive bribe you to help her die? But she fought back--who put you up to this?”
One cheek still pressed against the floor, the slavegirl looks up at Mrithax beseechingly, but silently.
He asks again: “Who are you doing this for?”
Pinioned like this, she can barely get the words out. “For my child.”
At a gesture from Lord Mrithax, the eunuchs loosen their grip. The girl remains prostrate, only sliding one hand to cradle her belly, snaking the other forward to touch Mrithax’s foot. Though the guards still have their weapons trained on her, there’s no fear on her face, only calm jubilation. Even when he had fucked her, the emperor had never paid this much attention to her before. Lord Mrithax removed the black mask which had been a mark of imperial office since time immemorial. His long, narrow face was damp with the steam of the baths. Very few people had seen this face--and even fewer had seen it as it looked now, perplexed, off-kilter, not totally in command of the situation. Caia noted with unwarranted surprise that the emperor shared the slavegirl’s silver hair and sharp features. Millennia of breeding with captive concubines will do that to a dynasty.
“My lord,” said the bath-attendant. “I know you have killed people for less. But in recompense for any comfort you may have received from the many times I bathed you, I beg of you two boons. First, take this child from me and plant it in a surrogate, rear him up & let him fight in the brother wars for the inheritance of this empire--for I know he will be a son, and I know he will be as ruthless as you. Then, when you do kill me, let it be by your own hands.”
“He will be ruthless indeed, with such a mother,” said Lord Mrithax. He sounded impressed. “Yet also reckless. Did you not expect to be caught?”
“You never caught me before,” said the girl.
Mrithax turned to the eunuchs. He wanted records. Any harem deaths since this girl had entered the harem. Suicides especially. With video.
“The harem girls were mere toys,” he said. “I hardly notice losing one. But this woman, this rebel--” He gestured at Caia, without looking at her. “Her information matters to my plans. Your jealousy could easily have undone me.”
“Then interrogate her, but don’t fuck her.” The bath-attendant had slowly crept up into the traditional position of supplication, one hand on his knee, the other grasping the front of his robe. Rarely had the posture expressed such a sense of slowly growing triumph; Caia noticed that the girl was boldly asking for more and more, and the emperor, intriqued, seemed more and more inclined to listen. “Or if you must fuck her, kill her after. Don’t give other women sons. That is the only thing you could do that I will oppose you in.”
The Emperor laughed. “I like your ways very much,” he said. “But I like variety.”
“Then you had better take me from these quarters and install me in your own chambers. I don’t need to stay here and be guarded--the last thing I want to do is leave you. Your other women need to be guarded from me.”
The emperor and the slavegirl had their burning gazes locked together. At this point the guards thought it was best that they and Caia discreetly withdraw. Their timing was good--they softly shut the doors on Mrithax drawing his concubine up into a kiss.
It’s pretty classic for an evil emperor who has captured the beautiful rebel to be distracted by planning a sumptuous wedding. Caia had just kind of expected it to be about her. It was a little deflating, but it certainly made things easier. In her cell that night, Caia woke up to a soft noise and saw that the door to her cell was open. She rejoined her allies. The fight continued.
Caia never did learn what the slavegirl had been named. But soon everyone knew her new name: Maharega, first empress of the Beilix Empire.
And last empress. Yes, Caia’s side wins in the end. The Beilix Empire had been stable for millennia with its system of emperors ruling alone, begetting sons with the harem of slaves, and letting the sons fight for supremacy during bloody interregnums. Obviously the “one and only one legitimate wife producing the only legitimate heirs” thing can also work for a monarchy. Mrithax wasn’t really doing either system. He was willing to change the structure of the empire for her, but not willing to control himself. This introduced a single area of misalignment between Mrithax and Maharega.
If only Maharega had been just a little hotter. I mean, she was hot. She was seductive. But....it wasn’t her comparative advantage. She was just not a standout in the harem, sexually speaking. Her comparative advantage was psychopathy. Mrithax clearly liked her will to power and Machiavellianism, he wanted sons like her. But he just wasn’t viscerally attracted to her Machiavellianism the way that she was to his.
Tragic! If Maharega could have trusted him around other women, she would not have, for instance, let Caia get away, rejoin the rebels, and get back into gear as a classic trope-y space opera where the good guys inevitably win.