“And he wants me there, too?” I balk as she draws me along. “Are you sure?”
“You saw his note for yourself, did you not? It called for both of us.”
It did. My reading has progressed enough to allow me to decipher most writing for myself, though it is still a strange, disorienting thing to see my own name written, made indelible. Bring Anna, please, Ferenc’s note had read, written in a smooth, assertive hand that sprawled across the foolscap. As if to claim even the paper as his own. All has been arranged for you. Both of you shall be my honored guests.
“‘All has been arranged’ . . .” I quote nervously. “What do you think that means?”
“I haven’t the slightest.” She cocks her head pertly, considering. “But Ferenc does have a marvelous sense of occasion; it is one of his few redeeming qualities. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be acceptably diverting.”
I do not know why I allow this reassurance to allay my foreboding when I know full well what Elizabeth considers sport, and what kind of wolf peers through her husband’s eyes. And yet, when we step into the great hall to behold what Ferenc has arranged, I find that I have allowed myself to be lulled—and I am miles away from prepared for the sight that greets us.
“What—” I croak through a throat gone so dry my voice rattles in it like seeds in a gourd. “What is this?”
Ferenc lounges at the head of the table, its surface buckling with food. But at each of the four corners, there now stands a whipping post secured to the floor. Orsolya and the daydreaming cook who burned Elizabeth’s pudding are lashed to the two posts on either side of Ferenc. At the opposite end of the table are the sweet-toothed maidservant and my own poor, dear Ilona.
I can see Janos and another manservant I do not recognize, likely Ferenc’s own valet, prowling the room’s shadowy corners, their faces studiously blank. They must have been the ones to drag the poor women here, I think, awash in loathing, as if I have a leg to stand on.
As if they and I are so very different in our service.
“A gift,” Ferenc proclaims, reclining in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. He is smiling lazily, a sardonic curl that twists my insides with its heedless self-assurance. As if he does not have four helpless women strung up like carcasses on posts. “I have heard rumors that these ill-mannered wenches have displeased my lady wife in my absence—imagine my astonishment when I found them surprisingly hale. So I thought, what better gift than a reprise? A proper punishment, unencumbered by the mercy of the fairer sex.”
Unbelievably, he has the gall to tip Elizabeth a wink.
Something unfathomable passes between them then, an electric current that leaves me out. Whatever it is, it brings a gratified, almost feline smile to Elizabeth’s lips. She dips into a deep curtsy, inclining her head. “It is a lovely gift, husband,” she murmurs. “Very apt. I appreciate the thoughtful gesture, and offer you my thanks.”
“Good,” he says silkily, interlacing his fingers on the table. “I am pleased to hear we’ve ventured back to common ground. Come, sit with me. Some wine for you both? You’re looking especially peaked, Anna. A draught might serve to relax you.”
I find that my hand has drifted to my mouth, that I’ve sunk my teeth into my knuckle without noticing. “Thank you, my lord,” I manage, eking out a clumsy curtsy before following Elizabeth to our end of the table.
“Are you all right?” I whisper to Ilona as I pass by her, keeping my gaze from straying toward her. She whimpers against the post, but I hear the soft exhale of her “Yes” trailing behind me.
A maidservant fills both our goblets as soon as we sit. I drain mine in one fell swoop, nodding at her to refill it. I will need to be fortified for tonight, I think grimly. I sense already that it will test me worse than anything I’ve borne thus far.
“Look, Anna!” Elizabeth exclaims, gesturing at our plates. “What a cunning addition to the place settings!”
I glance down, my breath rasping in my throat as my gaze wanders over the switch laid to my right, beyond the knives; the paddle and bullwhip to the left, beside the forks; and the wicked little fléchette knife above the dessert spoon over my plate. An instrument of torture set for each course planned.
My vision sparkles at the edges, swimming with flecks like tiny, swarming moths. If I weren’t already sitting down, I would have fallen to my knees, lost my tenuous hold on myself.
“I thought you could join us, Anna,” Ferenc drawls, his eyes glittering maliciously. “In this more piquant feast. I am told you rarely take the pleasure of indulging in such . . . rarified pursuits yourself. I mean tonight to be a gift to you as well, for the unparalleled service you provide my lady wife.”
I glare at him, sucking shallow breaths through parted lips. The bastard clearly knows what has passed between me and his wife—though as she surmised, he does not seem to care beyond taunting me with it. He must know, too, that I have no stomach for these torments. Whoever feeds him information would also have relayed my role in tending to the victims of Elizabeth’s ire.
“Thank you for thinking of me, my lord,” I say quietly, not bothering to conceal the arch undercurrent in my tone. “It was most considerate of you.”
Ferenc gives me an appreciative nod, as if acknowledging a surprisingly worthy opponent, before transferring his gaze to Elizabeth. “Well, my lady? Shall we begin, before our entertainment falls asleep?”
Scant chance of that, I think darkly, catching Orsolya’s terrified gaze as she twitches to attention on her post.
“We shall,” Elizabeth confirms, picking up the switch, giving it an experimental slap across her palm. “They do say activity whets the appetite!”
The rest of the night unfolds like some jittering, gruesome vision of hell, a mirage beheld through the wavering smoke of an inferno.
I keep my seat when they rise, and drink glass after glass of wine in an attempt to obliterate myself, while Elizabeth and Ferenc caper like Lucifer’s own fiends, laughing and toasting each other. “To my lady wife, Beth,” Ferenc proposes first, with a wry twist to his lips. “A singular woman, truly like no other.”
“And to you, Ferenc,” she responds, tilting her shining head demurely. “The Black Knight of Magyarország—and as fearsomely spectacular a husband as he is a champion. When he is so inclined, that is.”
I can barely force a single morsel down my throat, but the two of them feast ravenously, as if the acrid reek of fear pervading the room is the finest aroma. They hold a strange, courtly conversation, him regaling her with tales of victories wrested from the Ottoman emperor’s invading troops, all while he rises to lash Orsolya’s back.
“And then the janissaries strove to harry us at our flank, can you fathom it, Beth—as if I had not executed such a stratagem myself with our own troops, only the week before!” he exclaims, bringing down the bullwhip to draw out a keening moan from Orsolya.
“What sublime arrogance,” Elizabeth breathes, watching him beat the poor woman with avid, glittering eyes. “They do not know whom they think to bedevil, do they?”
Even the steady stream of wine I swallow cannot block out her anguished cries, yet the two of them barely seem to bend an ear. They compete as if to outdo each other, playing out some struggle I cannot comprehend. For every blow he strikes, she matches him with two, until the ill-fated cook sags unseeing against the post.