Chapter 168 - Doomed and Disgraced

General Doukas stared at the maiden in front of him and wasn't able to see beyond what his eyes wanted to see.

The tingling and burning of the slash she had just taken in her hand had shaken her already confused spirit, split between giving in for the good of all, and fighting to protect herself.

"M-my general… We shouldn't start our wedding this way…"

"HA! It's impossible not to like you! A slippery little priest of death, isn't he? I know your family's secret, after all I am the emperor's brother. It wasn't a problem for me that the Dallassenos worshiped barbarian gods of death as long as they were faithful to the living men they should be ... You shouldn't look at me with such hatred. Your brother should have remembered that your family serves mine. Michalis had it coming… And you…" the hand holding the belt lowered and he touched his own groin in a mixture of pleasure and discomfort, to Alexa's horror, before continuing, "it's getting more beautiful…"

The maiden felt like she was going to throw up the only thing she ate all day.

"The Empress Dowager and Empress Eirene announce their desire to see General Doukas!" a monotonous voice announced from the other side of the door, paralyzing them both. 

For a moment Alexa had hope. The Empress was interfering!

With just a wave Doukas sent the guard to open the door, and the Empresses entered with their personal guard, and a Priest.

"What do I owe the visit to?" the general asked after bowing the least deference to his own mother, and making an even smaller gesture to his sister-in-law. He was as astonished as Alexa with the presence of the Priest, who represented the Church.

"The Emperor has ordered us to attend the intercourse," said the old lady, with a hard look. There was no affection in her expression, impossible to read.

"What?!" Doukas raised his tone, and Alexa cowered even more in the corner where she was.

The empress spoke, in a monotone voice, without looking at the maiden,

"Doukas, my brother-in-law, the Emperor does not want any doubts hanging over what will happen here tonight. If you are going to take this woman, what state did you find her in, and especially, if there is a boy under those clothes!"

"In this case, the punishment will be the death of the Dallassenos, starting with the impostor," said the Empress Dowager, this time with absolute abhorrence in her voice.

For a moment the general stood, looking at the two women, and then nodded.

"Yes! This is the moment! My accusation must be proven, or I will marry Bryennios's daughter!" his heavy hand fell over Alexa's shoulder like a tong, and pulled her forward.

"What do we have here, oh v.i.r.g.i.n of the Dallassenos?!" Doukas pushed her robes harshly. Impatient, he tore the fabric in the way, while Alexa tried to protect herself with her hands, without success.

The Empress took a step forward, but the Empress Dowager held her wrist,

"Don't interfere, she will become his wife tonight. We are witnesses here."

In a few moments she had the last piece of clothing ripped off, and it was impossible to deny the nature of her feminine attributes. Doukas held a piece of fabric with an incredulous expression, while the maiden covered her n.a.k.e.dness as she could.

Alexa expected a miracle or divine justice falling at that moment on that monster and the inert witnesses, but nothing happened. The cold Alexa felt was not because of her exposed skin, like never before. It was the cold in her heart.

A deafening silence fell over the room, until the old woman's voice was heard,

"Doukas, now take this woman. If she meets all the requirements, then she will be your wife, as you promised your brother and emperor."

Alexa dared to look at the face of her future husband, despite the fear and disgust she felt. 

'Oh powers above and below, punish this man with everything he fears most; let his name be cursed and then forgotten, and let his crawling existence not repeat itself on earth, 'she wished with all her heart, but she knew that the validity of a curse began when the breath of life was used. Her voice still could not utter all the curses she wished to that man. He glared at her with hatred and something else, something that Alexa could only call insanity and fear.

But that was brief, and the general pulled her roughly by the arm, with such truculence that the young maiden lost her balance and stumbled. Still, almost falling and n.a.k.e.d, Alexa was dragged to the general's bed.

"No ..." she barely whispered. He grabbed her by the wrist of her injured hand, and pulling the curtains aside, tossed her in the middle of the cushions like an object.

Falling with her face in the middle of the soft pillows, Alexa felt his weight on her, and instinctively tried to escape, even though she knew she should stay. She didn't have the strength to take him off her, and felt the general's strong fingers grab the back of her neck and force her head onto the bed's covers, to the point that Alexa was suffocating.

"Don't come any closer!" he ordered, and even the columns in the room would have obeyed his imperative tone. Alexa couldn't hear anything more than her own heartbeat, and her labored breathing, in addition to Doukas' clumsy grunts. Alexa was just concerned with breathing, and keep alive. 

She felt her legs being rudely spread, and the general positioned himself between them.

But nothing happened.

No matter how much he was nearly suffocatingly killing her, squeezing, twisting and pulling her body so that her bones and flesh ached, only something unpleasant and soft touched her thighs and the middle of her legs.

"Doukas?" the old Empress Dowager asked, and her tone showed concern and distrust.

Doukas turned Alexa on the mattress, making her entire body ache when he placed her facing him. His face and red eyes emanated a hatred that Alexa never imagined that someone could direct her, and that certainly did not believe to be deserving. Again a huge hand wrapped around her neck and squeezed, squeezed… Fighting for breath, she barely noticed that his body was humping onto hers rhythmically, animalistically, in a grotesque parody of a mating. But he wasn't inside her. She struggled for some air, while her tears-filled eyes saw nothing in front of her.

Suddenly everything stopped, and he turned to the side, with a loud growl of satisfaction, releasing her neck at least…

Alexa turned to the other side and crawled to the edge of the bed, or where she thought the edge of the huge bed was, coughing. She certainly couldn't see anything in front of her. She coughed and vomited, unable to contain herself.

Gradually, the air returned to her lungs and her mind. Her vision was still blurred and aching. She cried without knowing, but her mind struggle to understand. What was that? He assuredly wasn't inside her. He didn't even touch her properly down there.

He was not able, perhaps his hatred and frustration was so much that he had not been able... And he had to stage the consummation in front of his mother, the elder and the empress.

The witnesses seemed satisfied.

"General Doukas, I will be pleased to inform the emperor that the marriage has been consummated and we are only awaiting the official rites and celebration. The Emperor will be very happy," said the Empress, followed by Doukas's mother.

"It's done. I didn't see any lack in the girl. She acted like a maiden all the time, and I'm sure the sheets will prove what we saw tomorrow. Come on, we must not disturb the night they will have together."

Alexa wanted to maniacally laugh in denial to what was happening there, all that macabre staging where she almost died. She felt the breath of the great death beast on her back, sniffing, all the time.

And it wasn't gone yet, it just retired to the shadows. Doukas was still lying on his back, looking at the canopy of the luxurious and huge bed, totally ignoring what Alexa was doing huddled at the other end of the bed.

People withdrew, and Alexa felt the empress look for her for a moment. The woman's look seemed to ask for strength and patience ... But Alexa shattered emotions at that moment wouldn't allow her to do anything other than seeing them leave the room without any kind of protest or request. Nor did she have the strength, in a last suicidal moment of courage and vindication, to raise her voice and tell them that everything they watched was nothing more than an act ...

Maybe everyone there knew, after all.

"You ... What kind of demon are you?" she listened his voice directed at her, and Doukas hissed next,

"You are not a person… You did this to make fun of me! Damn you! What profane depths did you come out of? Did your father practice the evil magic of the Persians and the Jews? Ottoman's and Egyptian's? The Chaldean's? And did him invoke this chimera as his child? And brought something like you into the world? How can you metamorphose yourself like this? Were you born just to make fun of my l.u.s.t for you, and drive me crazy?"

Alexa was not sure if she was understanding what the man growled so vehemently. None of that made sense. Doukas was insane and was upset by hate and shame. 

The maiden rubbed her aching neck and continued to cough sporadically, breathing hard. Knowing that she would die next, on a Douka's whim or rage fit, she hissed,

"You will never know. From now on, driving you crazy ... and denying you a good death ... will be my last pleasure."

Doukas sat on the bed, stunned by her words and came towards him, hands outstretched to strangle her again. This time, to her death, Alexa was sure. 

With a thunderous crash, the entire room shook. Alexa smelled the saltpeper and gunpowder in the air before understanding the origin of the smoke.