Chapter 7 - The Punishment
Ismena rushed up from her bed.
No.
But the knock came again and this time, there was no denying it.
The Punishers were here.
"Let them in," she said and Lowie opened the door.
Three women stepped in, dressed in long black robes and a rectangular-shaped cap that covered their faces. They bowed.
"Your Majesty."
Ismena's insides trembled as she walked towards them, but she managed to remain composed externally. "Deliver."
The woman in front of the trio pulled open the scroll that she held firmly against her.
"On the order of the King—-"
Ismena laughed, cutting them off. The sound reached her ears before she even knew that she was doing it. "You cannot be here," she said more to herself than to them. "Tonight was different. He wouldn't do this to me tonight." Rage sparked in her, and for once, she wasn't able to quickly put it out. Instead, she continued to speak, her voice trembling slightly. "He was Haron for a while and I did everything right. He wouldn't have sent you to me tonight. Not tonight. You are mistaken, Punishers!"
The room fell deadly silent. She could feel her handmaidens behind her, she could feel their pity.
She hated it.
"Shall we deliver, your Majesty?" The Punishers spoke in unison.
Ismena's hands balled into fists beside her, but she managed to suppress them all and offer a gentle smile. It was a shame that she had even slipped in the first place.
Everything felt wrong with her tonight.
"Continue."
"You shall be punished to clear every possibility of pity for the monsters in future."
"I did not pity them," the words slipped past her lips. Fear rushed into her lungs when she thought of the moment in the hall when she had been distracted. "He knows… he asked him and I told him that I did not." She paused slightly. "Possibility? I am being punished for what I haven't even done? Again?"
It wasn't the first time, but the last time he had done this, he said he would never do it again.
Besides, they were dead! They were all dead, including the night creature that had attacked them.
He was dead.
How could her pity even—-
A hand slip into hers from behind. It was Meryl's. It lacked the callousness of Lowie's hands.
Ismena pulled away. She couldn't afford to look weak. The Punishers would report back to the King. As it was, she was already losing control. She had to focus. She had to be Queen.
"You shall also be punished for the possibility of jealousy against the whores. You are Queen, above them all. You must remember this."
This time, she laughed again. "Possibility of jealousy against the whores?" Tears glimmered in her eyes. She grabbed the scroll from the Head Punisher, and indeed it was in Haron's handwriting, with a royal stamp at the end of it.
That meant that he was done. Done ruffling in the sheets with his other women and he was now plagued with guilt. But he couldn't be the one at fault because the King was never wrong, so it had to be her. She had to be punished once again because of the overwhelming guilt of his infidelity.
"Permit us to execute, your majesty."
She gulped, and nodded, tucking the scroll back into her hand. "I am not jealous of his other women and I will never be. I know my place as Queen. Tell him that."
Then she turned to her handmaidens. "Leave. You must be tired."
"My lady…" Meryl began to say, her voice trembling with tears.
"Take her away, Lowie."
"Yes, your Majesty."
Lowie pulled Meryl away from the room and closed the door firmly behind them.
"Please, follow me, your Majesty." The Head Punisher led the way to her bathroom.
Ismena stepped into the lower part of the bathroom. She stripped and when she felt the cold water being splashed roughly against her skin, she shivered.
Everything was colder at night. Everything hurt even more at this time.
She fell to her knees because she knew how this went. A punisher knelt some distance away in front of her, where the floor was higher, where the water couldn't reach. This way the paintings she held in her hand were at Ismena's eye level.
The paintings of different horrible things that the werewolves had done to humans.
Gruesome.
A creeping fear went through her veins when she felt the chains being fastened around her wrists.
She was usually brave and used to it but it had been six months since she had been made to be visited by the punishers. She knew that when he would arrive, it would happen again but she had not expected it so soon, but with how tonight had gone, not with how hard she had tried to be perfect.
The chains were anchored to opposite sides of the bathroom and a ache went through her arms due to the uncomfortable position they had been placed in.
A punisher next to her began to chant. "The beasts deserve no pity. The enemies of the Sun are our enemies."
"The beasts deserve no pity. The enemies of the Sun are our enemies. They kill us, ruin us, they deserve no pity." Ismena repeated after her, trying to ready herself.
Yet, when it came, she still wasn't prepared.
She heard the whips before she felt them. Her body hardened with pain, she let out a gasp of agony and although she was supposed to keep her focus ahead, the pain was too much that she had looked at the bathroom floor.
"Eyes forward." The Punisher hitting her commanded and she kept her eyes fixed on the paintings that kept showing more and more gruesome images, the chants never left her mouth.
Soon enough, the chants sounded nothing like her, but a hoarse voice crying with pain.
Then the whips stopped and she would have collapsed to the floor but the chains would not let her.
She could hear the head Punisher walk away and whip the whips. She could see the other punisher in front of her take a new set of paintings, likely the ones showing how she was queen and above all other women. The chants also changed.
"You are Queen. Above all, jealousy is beneath you."
She raised her head and stared at the painting but her tears had fogged her sight so much that she couldn't see it. Her voice was hoarse with pain when she repeated the chant.
"I am Queen. Above all, jealousy is beneath me."
The whips slashed through the air and sounded wet against her back.
For some reason, she was certain that the wet sound wasn't a result of the water she had been drenched in. She could feel the leather drag through her skin as she rose to an extent of pain that was nothing but numbness.
This hurt, truly. But nothing had hurt her heart as much as it had.
This was betrayal.
For a while now he had sent the punishers to her as King but tonight he sent them to her as Haron. There was no side of him that she was safe with, she had almost forgotten that. Perhaps it was the weakness of love. To have grown so hard at heart but to break at the instance of the other's vulnerability.
She would never do this again.
She would never allow herself to be hurt by him again. He could have her body and do to it as he liked, but her heart must be stone so she could survive in this castle. King? Haron? It didn't matter. He was the same and she couldn't allow herself to forget that.
The punishment was over. After what felt like forever. They freed her from her chains. Cleaned her blood, treated her wounds and laid her on her bed. She could feel the soft mattress pressed against her front as the Head Punisher stood by her side.
"Shall I rely on your gratitude to the King, your Majesty?" Her voice was cold, empty.
Just following orders.
"You shall."
"Goodnight, your Majesty." They all said in unison and they left the room.
She would cry but she had no more tears to give. She just stared ahead blankly. Her body hurt but her heart hurt even more.
Lowie was right. He would hurt the child too. There was a time she wanted to have his child. It went on for two years after their marriage and with each failure, she made herself believe that her childlessness was the reason he found comfort in the arms of other women.
At least his seeds did something with them. They had children, beautiful girls who looked like him. And she had none.
So he found more and more reasons to punish her, and she tried harder and harder to give him a son, because then he would be kinder. With each failure, she punished herself, and cursed her womb for bearing no fruit. But she realised by the third year that he uwould not be any kinder because of a child. That his crimes were always hers to be punished for and as long as he hurt her and felt guilty for it, he would always punish her.
He claimed to love her so much, claimed that he would love their child too. If his love would be what they both shared, then his actions toward them wouldn't be any different.
Lowie had been with her the longest to experience and understand this. Meryl was young, naive and hopeful. She lived through both of them vicariously. Until she was dragged into her own body in moments like this.
Rage knotted in her belly.
Haron should have died in that war. She would have been happier.