Chapter Seventy: Untold Cruelty of the Countess
1439 Words
Leon Tagen
The carriage’s rattle was dull, before him a black-haired woman sleeping soundly next to her maroon haired companion.
It was odd; each time the carriage moved, the streetlights would peer inside and reflect a calmness he was not sure he was supposed to feel, so rather than unpack that, he turned his gaze outside.
The snow in the mountains blew painfully against his skin. So much so that he could, with great detail, recall how their first excursion in Clay felt.
He had been so amazed that such a small island had individual ecosystems in its poles.
Still, his crew had been lagging poorly behind.
If it wasn’t that none of them packed their own feed because they had not expected such intensity of training, it was that some sneaked booze with them and were now dealing with the repercussions of drinking in a dead cold region.
There was hardly any life, save for the crafty Memorians. But even they were too cunning to be caught.
When they spent their last day in the jungle before heading to the snowy mountainous region, his knights and he all discussed how simple the Countess’s idea of training would be. That she was simply a noble in over her head in what would be deemed challenging for them. But they were wrong.
He, at the time, knew they were all wrong because he had an ability they did not possess.
A secret ability passed to only the male children of the Tagen household.
The ability to read minds.
The first time he met her in the library, he could not read the Countess; it was as if she genuinely held no thoughts.
Their second meeting, on the other hand, was chaotic.
Regina held simplistic thoughts, non-too excessively showing greed, and none too judgmental.
So he loved her thoughts.
They always went from: ‘I wonder if they serve ice cream for dessert’, ‘I like tarts’, ‘I like cinnamon’, ‘I like that dress’, ‘I love Étienne’ ‘I love you’ ‘why is the first prince angry? I wonder if I can help?’
Such softness, such simplicity.
But to be honest, the first time Regina thought, ‘I love Étienne’, He found himself over a toilet bowl hurling his guts out.
It was then that he knew he could no longer deny that he loved her.
A truth too painful to confess or bear.
So he avoided her and let the bitterness in his heart mellow, only, it never did.
He dreamed of her more than he wished to admit to this day.
At first, he was upset when the Empress carelessly pointed him to Regina’s sister.
The source of her trauma.
He thought their thought patterns would be alike; hence he was certain he would be able to show her a thing or two about bullying the woman of his dreams.
But, he was far from the truth, too far for comfort.
‘Should I kill him? Should I kill him? Should I kill him? How will I kill him? How do I kill him? Can I kill him? Perhaps not? I can try? I will kill him? How do I kill him? The Empress gifted him; he is a spy. Should I sell him? Ambush him? Give him up in a trade deal? Who do I trade with?’
It was overwhelming, to say the least.
Not because all the thoughts were pointed towards him, but because the frequency the Countess thought in was inhuman.
None but those chased by a predator could think in such a fashion, yet nothing changed, even as he grew settled in Clay.
She was in no way what the Empress described her to be, and he hated that.
She was not frivolous or flirtatious with men casually; she was not poor with money and easy with the booze. Instead, she was a terrifying beast that could study full-sized maps in ten minutes and no longer need them for reference. She was cold, calculative and cruel.
During the excursion, some of the men were joking around. Their laughter caused an avalanche that buried half of them.
The Countess aided only the slaves.
“Countess! My men are buried as well!”
He had said to her when she proceeded with the role call.
“Grown knights? Sir Tagen, you have two minutes to collect yourself and proceed with the track. Save grown knights? Hah!”
Her answer frightened his men and killed their morale.
But it was nothing compared to her thoughts.
‘I hope you all die buried in the snow.’
Such wickedness! And from a woman at that!
Then and there, he swore to save as many lives as possible. He would live, if only to increase the misery in her life.
“Your people were calling for you, or do you not consider us part of Clay?”
He called her out a second time, this time at night.
His men were settled in caves while she and the slaves had tents and firewood.
“You are free to do as you wish, please, send me your resignation letters.”
“You know we cannot do that, your lordship. We have families that depend on our pay.”
“If the knights die, their families will be paid handsomely. You know, life insurance.”
“What?”
He knew she thought that, but he never assumed she would ever say the words aloud.
“I said, if you die, your families get life insurance.”
“Countess, you cannot replace the role of a person in their family with money!”
“HAH! Do you mean the role of an abuser? The role of a drunk? The role of an affair? A gambler, an alcoholic, a r****t? Grow up, Tagen. Clay will be better off without them, especially if they have no military skills to back them.”
At that point, his fear of the Countess grew.
The records of his men were private, sealed by the royal family the moment they were inducted into knighthood. Unless she had followed their story from every newspaper available before they were recalled, it was unlikely she could dig such information.
So rather than deny it, he appealed to her feminine side.
Women carry life, so they know its preciousness more than men.
“How can you say that Clay would be better off without us? Without the men? Matters have changed. They are not the same as they were before.”
“Gods…you are just so…”
She had placed her soup bowl aside, then stood and stalked to him.
The warmth of the firewood was so tempting that he took a step toward her.
She had managed to hunt a bear and share its meat with the slaves while they had done nothing on their end. Instead, they waited for him to get food. For him, to feed them and keep them alive.
“Listen to me, and listen well. I do not need you. The faster you die, the faster you are replaced by the Knight Quarters. Perhaps this time, I will get knights that actually do their jobs, instead of wearing uselessness on their sleaves and crying, ‘save me’ at every godforsaken turn.”
“Have you eaten, sir Tagen?”
He shook his head.
“Are any of your men hunting, or are they waiting for you to provide the feed?”
They were waiting, but he would not say that aloud, so he kept quiet.
“Good. I hope they starve during tomorrow's conquest.”
With that, the flaps of the Countess’s tent closed, leaving him freezing in the minus zero degrees snowfall.
He should squirm, be upset, and be livid at her audacity, at her cruelness!
But he wasn’t.
If he went back to the cave they decided to hole in, they would ask him questions and complain over the unfairness of the situation.
So he found another place to stay.
When morning came, seven of his crew sleeping in the caves were devoured by Memorians.
He had none to blame, so he worked himself tirelessly to ensure none more died.
In the end, he found himself wondering if knights were supposed to be this burdensome.
His answer was received during the war, a war that lasted no longer than two months due to the poorness of theocratic weapons.
Even then, twenty knights died, and thirteen fled.
Plus him, there remained only fourteen knights.
Again he turned his gaze to the woman stirring opposite him.
‘What the hell are you, Countess?’
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