Читать книгу Reforming Hell - Marilyn "Mattie" Brahen - Страница 10

CHAPTER 7

Leianna Raises Hell

Bael kept protesting as they turned right, the brass doors and the harem’s wardens guarding them visible at the end of the passage. “You don’t have to do this, Leigh Ann. I can arrange a meeting between you and Sharlan later, privately. This will only upset the other women!”

“Your other women!” She stole a quick glance to her left as they passed the elaborate double doors to his private apartments, perhaps also guarded by the harem wardens, well within their sight, standing their vigil up ahead. The doors to Bael’s quarters were adorned with inlaid ivory sculptures in bas relief; she had no time to study their subject matter as she continued on. There would be time enough to explore his chambers after she straightened out the neighbors.

The guards looked confused as they watched her and Bael approach. Both men were dressed in the same pseudo-Roman style worn by the guards on the balcony. The one on her right, seeming older than the other, turned his broad face to Bael. “My Lord?”

Leianna walked over to him. “I see Rome hasn’t fallen here yet,” she quipped.

She felt Bael’s hand on her shoulder. “Leigh Ann.” He kept his voice low.

She didn’t turn around. “Why do you keep addressing me by my mortal name?”

“To remind you that you are mortal and should not be flippantly interfering in Hell as if you owned the place.”

This only brought her hackles up. She said to the older guard, “The Lady Affaeteres bids you give me entrance to this harem. I am to see the Lady Sharlan.”

The warden glanced worriedly from her to Bael. She continued: “I am not one of his concubines, by the way.”

The man visibly blanched. “Oh, no, my lady! I would never think that!”

Bael edged to her right, facing her at any angle. “He knows who you are, Leianna,” he said, voice thick with exaggerated patience and male exasperation.

The younger guard, dark-eyed and dark-haired, cracked a minus­cule smile. The older guard appealed again to Bael. “My Lord?”

Bael flung his right hand outward, waving at the doors. “Let her in then. Maybe she’ll want to stay!”

Leianna laughed, her laugh not amused but incredulous. “In your dreams.”

“No, my dear,” Bael countered, “yours. After all, you are astrally projected.”

The guards were beginning to enjoy her and Bael’s verbal sparring a bit too much. Leianna could feel Bael’s increasing ire, as if it were his honor on the line and not hers. Well, his male pride would just have to heal. “Open the doors, please,” she told the wardens.

They turned to obey her, but before they could touch the brass handles on either side, both doors swung slowly inward, creaking loudly. Leianna couldn’t see who labored to open the heavy doors wide enough to comfortably permit her and Bael’s entrance. She suspected the concubines themselves from the slow pace, but Shar­lan herself stood a few yards back from the doorway, tall and proud in a diaphanous, nearly see-through white negligee and golden-heeled sandals.

The doors continued to protest audibly before their movement finally ceased. Leianna stared, perturbed, at Sharlan, then at the confused wardens, who obviously couldn’t decide who was trump­ing whom and who wouldn’t dare bet on a favorite.

Leianna drew herself up as regally as her petite frame allowed, hands on her hips, and eyed both guards. “You really have to oil those hinges, guys.” So saying, she lowered her hands from her hips, her fists still curled into balls, and strode into the harem foyer, past Sharlan without looking at her, and into what appeared to be a large, main room with couches and chairs on both the lower floor and two raised floor levels, each three steps up on either side. The levels were circular and decorated in red and gold. “My goodness,” Leianna said as she reached the room’s center and turned around to face Sharlan and Bael, the wardens, and a set of two women each on either side of the partially opened brass doors. “Look at this. You’ve built the main room to resemble the three lowest levels of Hell.”

Sharlan approached her, her gait relaxed, and stopped halfway. “I see Bael gave you a geography lesson at dinner.” She turned to the guards.” You really don’t have to protect us. Those hinges screech so loudly that an intruder might as well carry a loudspeaker and announce his intentions.”

The younger guard knelt on one knee. “My pardon, my lady, my Lord. We will report it immediately to the head palace custodian as soon as we are off duty.”

Bael walked to a point between Leianna and Sharlan. “Sharlan, you know they cannot leave their posts until their replacements arrive. And I do not believe those doors creaked before tonight.” He eyed Leianna. “At least, I have not heard such.”

Leianna waved her hand nonchalantly. “He hasn’t been around here lately, you know. He’s been commuting these last seven years . . . to Earth and to Heaven.” She glanced at the other women, the four near the doors and eight more lounging in various other areas of the room, besides Sharlan, all in attractive and revealing lingerie. “Well, I must thank you all for dressing up for my visit to your harem.”

“Lord Baelzebub’s harem,” a short, blonde girl, much thinner than Leianna, in a conspicuous, genie-type costume, drawled. “And we ain’t dressed for you!”

“Well, that’s what I came to talk to you about, actually. You don’t have to lower yourselves in this manner. No woman should be subjugated by a man. Not even in Hell and certainly not by my betrothed. I’m going to make him free you, and then you can go off and live your lives fully. There’s going to be changes in Hell, and this is the first.” She swiveled toward Bael, watching his reaction.

He pointed to the wardens. “Leave and close the doors.” They quickly complied, the hinges protesting. “And get those damned things oiled!”

“Yes, my Lord,” they each said and pulled the doors harder until both closed with a resounding clang. “Now,” Bael said. He covered the distance between him and Leianna. She backed up an inch or two. “Who do you think you are, telling them what to do?”

“Your future wife!”

He sighed theatrically and turned in a half circle, grinning to his concubines. “I’m surprised that she still wants to marry me, now that she’s met you, my lovelies.” And to her, “Leianna, things cannot be changed overnight.”

“This can.”

The skinny blonde inched closer. “Tell her to leave, Lord. We love you and won’t speak back to you.”

A tall, fiery redhead, her hair styled much like Sharlan’s, in a black, silky nightgown, folded her arms defiantly. “Yes, Lord. We take your demands. We do not make them on you.”

Leianna addressed them quizzically. “Don’t you understand? He doesn’t love you. Not really. If you dared to be yourselves, outside of your sexual subordination, to challenge him for your rights, would he still find you lovely?”

“Leianna,” he said. She could almost see his muscles tensing.

“Well, would you?”

The little blonde came right up to her. “We don’t wanta challenge him. We wanta please him. He fucks real good! I bet you just lay there like a wet piece of spaghetti.” She giggled. “Bet your tits are flabby and floppy!”

Leianna, mouth opened in dumbfounded amazement, just stared at her. Another blonde, this one with ringlets and a girl-next-door smile, sauntered over, her baby-doll nightie of silk and lace showing her long legs and pert curves. “Yes, we love serving Lord Baelzebub. He’s a stallion. Freedom is overrated when you have a stud that good.”

“So,” Leianna said, her tone measured, “he never leaves you lonely and you’re planning a large family to perpetuate your love.”

The baby-doll blonde’s innocent smile twisted into a snarl so nasty, Leianna almost felt it as a physical slap. “The great Leianna!” The girl’s voice now held a razor-sharp sneer. “The woman whose memory haunted him. So considerate, so kind and loving was she! But now she’s a haughty little bitch who reminds the women who comforted him that they can’t conceive!”

“Yeh, that’s right,” the skinny blonde put in. “Maybe you’re barren, too, all shriveled up inside your cunt!”

“Enough!” Surprisingly, the reprimand did not come from Bael, but from Sharlan, her voice firm and resonant.

The tall redhead moved toward her. “But, Sharlan, you, out of all of us, should hate her.”

“Yeh, the tiny blonde muttered, “after what he did to your . . .” She stopped herself, mid-sentence.

Bael pinned her with his gaze. “What did I do, Sally Louise?”

She was obviously frightened. Leianna wondered what additional beans the girl had almost spilled. The little mealy-mouth struggled to apologize now. “You know me, Lord. Sally the sassy!” She laughed weakly, shooting a glance at Leianna. “None of her business, I suppose.”

Sharlan came over and, laying her hand on Sally Louise’s nearly flat chest, shoved her back brusquely, away from Leianna. “It is her business. It’s none of yours to tell it, something you heard secondhand, for I never shared my true memories with the likes of you. Now go. Return to your room and stay there until you are summoned.” When the girl hesitated, lifting her blue eyes timidly to Bael in appeal, Sharlan reiterated in a tone of absolute command. “Go!” The girl fled up and out the three levels and through a hallway leading beyond the harem’s common room.

Sharlan came closer to Leianna and spoke in a much softer voice, as if shielding her words. “Please restrain yourself, Leianna. Let the others alone for now. There’ll be time enough for change after you and I have talked.”

Leianna opened her mouth, a question forming, then shut it, complying.

Sharlan asked Bael, “May I meet with Leianna alone?”

Bael shook his head. “She is in Hell, and while I may trust you, I do not trust others. She is under my protection until I bring her home.”

Sharlan nodded. “Will you come back to my quarters?” she asked Leianna, who also nodded. She followed the tall woman, Bael trailing behind her, up the two levels, past them into the hallway, then down it into an open entrance only blocked with strings of colorful beads.

The beads made a clicking noise as they pushed through them into another small but lavish sitting room. Beyond it, Leianna could see two exits, one toward the right that led to a short, shaded hall, and another on the left leading directly to a dining room and, behind that, what seemed to be a small kitchen. Sharlan ushered them into the dining room, sweeping her hand at the highly polished cherry wood table and chairs, the latter cushioned with up­holstery embroidered with red roses. “Please be seated while I make some refreshments. Do you take tea, coffee or cocoa, Leianna?”

Leianna sat on one of the beautiful chairs, very much admiring Sharlan’s taste, despite her disgruntlement. “Coffee, please.”

Sharlan did not ask Bael. She went into the kitchen, and re­turned carrying a black tray with white china with more roses adorning them upon it, and set filled cups on saucers before all three of them. Bael’s and Sharlan’s held a fragrant tea.

Sharlan took a sip and set down her cup. “You may ask your questions now, Leianna. I’ll do my best to answer them.”

Leianna sighed and lifted her cup to her lips. The coffee was rich, expertly brewed. She wondered if Sharlan had been expecting them, not just listening behind the brass doors and sending some­one to prepare refreshments in anticipation. “I don’t know where to start. Is it true that every woman in this harem is barren?”

“Yes, all are now. At one point, I was not.”

“You had a child? With Bael?” She tried to keep the disapproval out of her voice and failed.

Sharlan opened her mouth to speak, but Bael spoke first. “I do not wish this to be discussed right now, Sharlan.” He seemed extremely uncomfortable with the subject matter.

She hesitated, then murmured. “It will have to be told, sooner or later. You’d do well to get it out into the open between the three of us now and spend the later days trying to heal the damage. What you mother said was true. You shouldn’t have waited this long. But I will let you make this decision.”

He didn’t respond.

“Sharlan, how do you know what Affaeteres said?” Leianna asked.

Sharlan stared at her. “Bael’s mother has recently discussed this with us.”

“Oh. I thought you had somehow listened in on my and Bael’s meeting earlier tonight with his mother.”

Her rival’s quizzical look remained. “We can sometimes read thoughts and expressions accurately, but long distance eavesdropping? No.”

Leianna wasn’t convinced. “And you seemed to foresee my visit to you tonight. This coffee is brewed.”

“I anticipated your visit and Affaeteres’s determination to reveal the truth to you.”

“She wants me to end the harem system.”

“Yes.”

“And apparently there’s some truth still yet to be bared.”

Sharlan nodded. “Borne, Leianna; it will have to be borne, if Bael will forgive me for I mean no pun. But it is a burden we bear. And it will affect the way you see Bael. That is why he fears it so much, your knowledge of it.”

Leianna watched Bael lift just his eyes, wide with alarm, to Sharlan, who shook her head, as if to comfort him.

Leianna sighed. “Why should he fear me knowing that you two had a child? I’m divorced with an eight-year-old son named Daniel on Earth. If we weren’t together—Bael and I—when you bore his child, why should I hold this against the two of you?” She sat up straighter, not quite looking at either of them. “So. Am I going to meet this child or is that to remain a mystery, too?”

Sharlan said nothing. Leianna waited, puzzled again. Finally Bael spoke. “You can’t meet him.”

“Why not?”

“He’s dead.”

Now the silence thickened. She could feel the pain radiating from Sharlan and Bael, the heartbreak, and something else.A silent scream hung in the air.

Leianna felt heartsick at the thought of losing a child. Her empathy came out in a low, nearly nonverbal moan. “Ohh . . .” She wanted to hug them both, to tell them that she understood why they had been reluctant to tell her all of this.

Then Bael spoke again, his voice lower than normal, nearly a whisper. “I killed him.”

At first, Leianna thought she hadn’t heard right. Then she knew she had, and there was no going back, she would have to hear the whole story and live with it, hate it, reconcile it, heal it.

Because she still loved him. “Tell me,” she said to him. “I’ll find a way to forgive you and save you from your own pain and suffering. But tell me.”