Blood-Red Wine
"How could that possibly be?"
The man hunched his massive shoulders and arranged his face into an exaggerated mask of fear.
"How could I dare such a thing against the man destined to rule the East?"
Barcas regarded him in silence, then wordlessly brought his cup to his lips. When he failed to rise to the bait, some of the heat seemed to drain from the man.
The playful expression vanished. He spoke in a growl.
"Still, I am a little curious. What on earth possessed Your Grace to betray the First Princess and take the imperial family's headache onto your own shoulders?"
A heavy silence settled over the hall.
Barcas swept his gaze alone across the faces of the nobles arrayed along either side of the long table. The loyal retainers of the Seorkan family who lived in Kalmor, the heart of the East, and had long served as the house's hands and feet, wore expressions of open displeasure. The provincial lords, however, watched his reaction with appraising eyes, as if weighing whether the Grand Duchy's young heir was a man to whom the East's future could safely be entrusted.
He swirled the wine in his cup, let a measured pause stretch, and slowly opened his mouth.
"Betrayal is rather strong language. As everyone knows, my betrothal to her was forged by political interest. When circumstances reverse, the terms may change as well."
"And what, exactly, has changed?"
The veins stood out on the man's forehead.
"Are a few words from His Imperial Majesty so grave as to shatter a promise of many years?"
"Then do you consider a command from the ruler of the Empire a light matter?"
Barcas tilted his head and countered. For a moment the man seemed struck speechless; his thick lips pressed shut. Then, his face flushing red beneath its cover of black beard, he glared at Barcas and sneered loudly.
"What magnificent loyalty! A wretch like me could never hope to match it!"
"Lord Gutban, you seem rather overwrought."
A middle-aged noble seated across from him interjected carefully. But the man paid him no heed. He snatched up a goblet brimming with wine, drained it in a single draught, wiped his mouth roughly on his sleeve, and pressed on.
"But one day even our great Emperor will step down from the throne. Then His Highness the Crown Prince will become the master of this Empire. What do you intend to do then? Will His Highness truly receive the East's loyalty with a willing heart?"
"This marriage is a matter to which His Highness the Crown Prince has also given his consent."
Barcas, who had been tilting his cup to study his reflection in the red liquid, continued at a deliberate pace.
"No. Later on, he pushed for it even more actively."
"What on earth do you mean by—"
"I will say only that this marriage held a certain advantage for His Highness as well."
He cut himself off coldly.
"One can hardly go about airing the imperial family's private shame at will."
Suspicion flickered across the nobles' faces. The words could be read to mean that he held some leverage over the Crown Prince. Barcas watched them exchange glances, then spoke in a lighter tone, as if to clear the air.
"If that settles some of your doubts, let us bring this delightful conversation to a close."
He raised his cup and slowly surveyed the company.
"Come, everyone—drink. As Gutban says, this is the wine the East's next Grand Duke received in reward for a full seventeen years of loyalty."
A smile curved Barcas's lips as he brought the cup near his face, savoring the aroma, and added with easy leisure:
"When will any of you taste a delicacy like this again?"
The nobles, who had been rolling their eyes as if unsure how to respond, soon raised their cups with awkward laughter. It was plain that all of them wished to end the war of words there.
But the man seemed to have no intention of backing down. He slammed a fist like a steel hammer onto the table and roared.
"How can anyone believe such a claim! Every subject of the Empire knows how deeply His Highness the Crown Prince cherishes the First Princess. A man like that would never make a decision that tramples her honor!"
Barcas wiped the smile from his lips. His patience with this man who simply would not listen was beginning to run dry. He leaned his head back against the chair and gave a chin-jerk that said, go on. The man needed no further invitation.
"Do you know what rumors are circulating? That even the heir of the East has fallen to the witch of the Taren family—that just as His Imperial Majesty was deceived by that viper of a woman and betrayed the Empress, so too has the next Grand Duke Seorkan been bewitched by her daughter and betrayed the virtuous First Princess! Those words are spreading across the entire Empire!"
The last words were little short of a shout. His booming voice filled the hall.
"If Her Highness the First Princess should follow in Empress Bernadette's footsteps, how do you intend to atone for that crime!"
"I've heard quite enough!"
Daren Dru Seorkan, who could bear it no longer, cut into the exchange.
"Alec Gutban, you are a vassal of the Grand Ducal house! Do you imagine that such conduct toward the heir of the Grand Duchy will be tolerated in this Laedgo Castle?"
"When a leader strays onto the wrong path, raising a voice of criticism is also a vassal's duty!"
Having shouted boldly at Daren, the man turned his eyes back to Barcas.
"Your Grace could have made the First Princess—admired by the entire Empire—the mistress of the East! Instead you brought home as your bride some wicked creature of bastard birth. How can such a state of affairs be quietly—"
The shouting man suddenly stopped mid-sentence. Barcas, who had been looking down at him with the air of someone watching a farcical play, also went rigid.
A small figure, hood pulled down to the crown of the head, had come up behind the bearlike man and tipped a wine bottle over his massive skull, pouring a blood-red flood of liquid in a gushing stream.
Sharp intakes of breath rose from every corner of the hall at the sudden spectacle.
The victim himself seemed too stunned to react at once. He sat dazed beneath the drenching cascade, and only when the bottle ran empty did he surge to his feet. His enormous frame—nearly seven feet tall—loomed darkly over the uninvited guest whose whole body was swathed in a robe.
"What madman would dare such a—"
He seized the stranger's wrist and tore the hood from her head. Long hair that had been tucked into the folds of the garment cascaded down like a golden waterfall, flooding the eye.
His body froze mid-motion, fist raised as if to strike her face at once.
Through the disheveled strands the woman shot him a venomous look.
As if struck by that fierce gaze, the man trembled faintly and swallowed hard. His tar-black pupils slid stickily over her face.
Barcas, who had been crushing his goblet in his grip, rose from his seat at once. He came up behind her and drew her slender frame into his arms—and the man, as if unwilling to let her go, unconsciously tightened his hold on her wrist.
Something stirred in Barcas's gut. He looked down with darkened eyes at the black hand still gripping her.
The man was still licking over every corner of her face with dazed eyes. A chill crawled up Barcas's spine. A strange coldness settled at the base of his skull, and he narrowed his eyes—when suddenly a sound cracked out like a whip striking a horse.
The man stared down at the woman with a blank, uncomprehending look, as if he could not grasp what had just happened.
She raised her arm and struck his wine-soaked face a second time.
"How dare you lay those filthy hands on me."
Only then did the man come to his senses. He released her wrist and stepped back.