Merrimay yet lives, despite all

The next morning, you greet the dawn with an icy feeling of pain and guilt. Did you just consign dozens of your loyal friends and companions to ****, so that you might still reign -- King in name only?

Flora, still asleep -- she'd cried herself to sleep, exhausted from the terrible day -- rests on her side in your bed. There was no lust in either of you, but many tears, and much need for the bodily comfort of another, close and warm.

Flora's little tail twitches in her sleep. You wonder if her child will bear the mark of the Beastfolk. Usually a cross breeds closer to true on one side than another. Flora must hail from a place where humans and Beastfolk have known and loved one another for many years, mixing and crossing until no one is either one nor the other. You'll have to ask her. Maybe that would be a good place to visit, even to live, if you survive the Regency. It might be a blessing for the child to have a tail or ears or clawed feet. It would free the little one from the menace of the throne, of being part of the line, possibly. Even though a child would be like as not Pinch's, or another soldier's. Flora had a greed for men, for being fucked, and you and Pinch usually took turns covering her, or even sometimes, you and Pinch were simply two of a line of three, four, or five men to mount, fuck, and spend in her of an evening.

You tiptoe out of the bedroom and perch in the little parlor in a chair facing the window, staring, wondering what to do, what can you do?

"Sire?" a voice comes from one side. You suppose someone wants your attention. If it mattered. If there were anything that mattered. There's a tug on your sleeve. That means something, you think. "King Bryce? Rex?"

That last catches your attention. "Kay?" you say. Looking round, you see sweet, moon-faced Kay, heavy with child, indeed, past due. Her dilatory confinement had saved her from the doom of the Phoenix Company, and now she and Flora were part of your household. A few other pregnant wives of the Phoenix Company were under the protection of the regiment now, or had gone back to their families. Those not with child had danced upon the air with the soldiers. Your head spins and your gorge rises. By your word, they had died, in full injustice.

"Rex?" Kay says. "There's word from the regiment."

You lift your head. The spinning stops and your stomach settles.

"They found Merrimay alive in a cart full of bodies. She's alive, and she wants to be here," Kay says. "With you."

Your shoulders twist forward and your head drops. You suck in air with a hiss and let it out with a groan, sobbing aloud. Kay comforts you as the wrenching sobs work through your body.

In the weeks since the marriage feast of the Phoenix Company, you had lain with Merrimay many times to mutual pleasure, but always using the inverse course, up the breech like a man might receive his fellow man, with her fingers playing upon her pearl. Merrimay, the noble exile, took pride in saving her virginity for the time of her own choosing, and, you had thought, had lost her life for it.

"Y-yes," you tell Kay. "Bring her here." Your brow knits, at a thought. "Ask if Lady Annette can come, the senior herald. If Merrimay will talk of her family, I wish...I wish to know her line."

The Regency Council is keen to marry you off and get heirs from you. What if the woman who had survived this cruel injustice might be worthy to be your Queen?

You, Flora, and Kay do your best to comfort Merrimay. She seems to have survived from the slightness of her body and the stubborn strength of her neck. She moves quietly, gliding like a ghost, and speaks little and with difficulty and pain from the injury of the rope. Settling into the household, she attaches herself to one of you, seeking closeness, always wanting to touch another's skin. Kay finds her work to do, but even with her hands occupied, Merrimay sits close to one of you, her slipper touching the other's foot.