Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Kalion opened his mouth to speak as he saw Erna was silent and frowning. “What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Me?” she retorted, “What are you going to do, might I ask?”
The two were always bickering. Only in public did the two use their formal titles to refer to each other respectfully. But away from other people’s eyes, they were always informal and somewhat rude to each other. Because of this, talking felt familiar rather than awkward. They never used each other’s names, they made up insulting names to throw at each other. It made them feel a little bit closer to each other in this time of distress. Kalion stood up from his seat, his eyes haunted by chaos, like it used to be in the past.
“Let me tell you this, I have no intention of giving up my position here and going back to that hellhole,” he said, vehemently, “And I know that it is the same for you. Am I wrong?”
“You aren’t wrong,” she said, “I have no intention of going back to Haband.”
“Your magical skills and your army of wizards,” he said, “with my soldiers and my skills with weapons is still not enough to fight the armies of the two powerful kingdoms, if they combine. We have only one way.” Kalion stopped. He, then sighed. “We need to produce an heir.” He shook his head as though it was unthinkable.
“We need to do it as soon as possible,” he said, cautiously, “The letter said that we have to give them some form of news within a year. I heard it takes two months for a pregnancy to be confirmed.” He looked at her questioningly.
“Probably,” she said, “I don’t know for sure either. But the changes in the body start manifesting at that time. They say the magic makes it certain.”
“So, minus two months,” he said, pacing, “It means we will have to produce an heir within ten months.”
Pausing for a while, he stared at Erna while tapping his fingers on the table. “I don’t want this to drag on for too long. Before winter comes, I intend to complete a new order of knights that I am forming now. I might postpone it, but after seeing a few married couples around, there are many cases where having children doesn’t go as planned.”
Erna, listening to Kalion, was a bit surprised. She had thought him indifferent to any matrimonial lifestyle but it seemed he had been observing ‘couples’ and the probability of ‘children’.
“So, what do you propose?” asked Erna.
“So we should get started quickly like I said. If possible…” He spoke in an indifferent tone as though he was looking through a food menu. But that wasn’t fooling anyone. “From today, if that is alright with you,” he said.
*
Erna let out a few exhausted sighs, immersed in warm water in the tub. What am I supposed to do now? she lamented.
She had almost retorted with ‘are you mad?’ when Kalion had laid out his proposal for today. But she realized it would have been uncalled for, seeing as they didn’t have much of a choice. So she had said ‘alright’ to his questioning stare. She had informed him that she would meet him today in the Couple’s room an hour before midnight.
She let out a frustrated sigh. She felt disturbed and helpless at the prospect. Kalion had looked very calm. But she knew him. He was disguising his own distress. No matter what situation they had both been forced into, she took comfort in the fact that she wouldn’t be the only one suffering this disgrace.
“Well, it’s not a big deal to men,” blurted Erna aloud, flicking the surface of the bathwater with her finger. With the exception of Hessenguard, men in most kingdoms on the continent could have multiple wives. Therefore, it was standard for royals in Haband to have anywhere from two to five wives. The same went for Kalion’s hometown of the Kingdom of Aether.
Kalion must be familiar with the way things were as well. To make a successor was a duty and a virtue. Men of royalty took many wives and planted many seeds to make sure that there wasn’t a shortage of heir when needed. Men didn’t have to carry the child inside them and raise them, so what did they care who they planted their seeds in? Shameless pests!
Erna recalled the plans she had set for this year. Just as Kalion was making all-out efforts to form his knights, Erna was also doing everything in her power to increase the number of wizards under her command. She had dedicated her every waking hour to learn more magic and to make her group stronger.
As was evident from today’s letter, the grand-ducal was something that the kingdoms could bring down if they wanted, so they needed more power to defend themselves than the position of the grand-ducal.
“I was also going to try to bring people together and teach them at the end of the year.”
The whole plan was expected to fall apart. In a rush of irritation again, Erna desperately tried to calm herself.
“Alright,” she muttered, “Might as well get done with it.”
She hadn’t wanted things to go this way ever in her life, but one doesn’t get everything one wanted in life. Erna hadn’t forgotten their promise. Their position would be secured if they did this. If they produced a child, no one would dare to order them to step down from their position ever again. Erna stood up from the tub and approached the mirror on the wall.
“You can do it,” she mumbled to her reflection, covered in a bathrobe. “You are not scared.” She stood in front of the mirror for a long while, whispering assurances and trying to convince herself that she was brave, bold and beautiful. That this was nothing.
*
Ding!
At the sound of the grandfather clock, Erna lifted her eyes from the documents in front of her. The hour hand was now pointing to 11. Time to fulfill her promise. Standing half-dead like a cow being dragged to a slaughterhouse, she looked in the mirror one last time.
Usually she wore pajama pants in the comfort of her room. But today, she wore a dress. It wasn’t because of any intention to look pretty, though. She thought that in the face of what they had planned to do, a dress would be better accessible to the other party.
She now stood at the front of the couple’s bedroom. She sighed, frustrated. Her sighs never seemed to end today. Erna’s trembling hand gripped the doorknob and turned it. In the past ten years, not once had she come to this room. This particular bedroom had all her traumas and nightmares encompassed in its walls.
She had had plenty of nightmares after that disgraceful night in this particular room with Kalion. The nightmares were always about a maid poking a cold, metal tool around her insides, with her legs forced apart. She would sometimes see herself wandering these hallways, people staring at her as though she was naked and exposed. The marriage bed and herself with Kalion on it.
Erna shuddered with her hands on the doorknob. Don’t think of anything, she told herself. Sweat rolled down the back of her neck. Should I just turn away? She hesitated at the door. What if she turned away from here, walked back to her room, studied the document, sipped some warm tea, practiced a bit of magic, and went to sleep. What if she forgot all this as just a bad dream?
Most probably, Kalion would storm up to her room and demand why she hadn’t kept her promise. Kalion hated her as much as she hated him. The first night of their marriage had left this deep-seated hatred for each other, and with good reason. Giving him more reason to hate her, although an enticing prospect, wouldn’t make it easier for them to do what needed to be done. It would not solve their problems. She cannot brush this off with ‘I am tired today’ because it will be the same the day after and so on.
There was no choice. There remained the disgusting task of making a successor. Erna summoned all her courage and opened the door.
This particular door had been closed for ten long years, obviously the hinges were rusty. She closed her eyes and stepped inside, and was surprised that the room felt warm as her own. She opened her eyes to a blazing fireplace, decanter and glasses on the table, and Kalion leaning back on a sofa.
“You’re here,” he said and stood up from his perch.
He walked towards her. Erna swallowed hard as he reached her and stood before her. The only thing she noticed was how big he was. She knew that he was tall and well-built. As was she. She had always had a well-built physique, delicate wasn’t the word she liked or associated with. But the closeness felt like a dash of ice water as she realized that he indeed looked huge when compared to her. She tried not to look at his forearms, which looked muscular, huge and sturdy.
The air lingered with the smell of alcohol. She shifted her gaze to the decanter and glasses on the table. She was stunned. Kalion never touched alcohol, much less drank it. He always left his wine untouched at meals. She had also heard from the knights he travelled with, that he never touched beer at inns as well. From the smell alone, she could guess that the alcohol on the table was quite a strong one.
Her eyebrows shot up. This was a day full of shocks for her, one after the other. Liquid courage, she thought. It put her mind a little at ease that Kalion didn’t know what he was doing, too. That he was as nervous and anxious as her. The idea of doing this together was so preposterous for both of them that Kalion couldn’t even bear to think of it sober.