Page 9 of The Tsarina's Favorite
The assembled laughed, including the tsarina, and his cheeks puffed out, red and furious.
“There’s my Mikhail,” the tsarina said.
“But he—” the courtier spluttered.
“Did exactly as I asked,” the tsarina cut him off.“Now, now, Mikhail.A joke or a tale, else you might earn yourself a beating when I am not here to defend you.”
“I have only my bitterness, ma’am.You have stolen my humor from me.”
“My word,” she feigned surprise, “was it that easy?Very well.Something easier then.Any suggestions?”
Laughter again traveled around the grouping with various ideas being offered.Singing, dancing, juggling all given as possibilities.I paid them no mind as I waited for the tsarina’s instruction.The tsarina sipped at her kvass, listening but unmoved by any of the traditional suggestions.
“I know,” she said when the group found silence again.“Squawk for us!”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.Squawk.”She leveled a malicious glare at me.“And flap your arms.”
My heart refused to stop beating.My lungs refused to stop filling with air.If humiliation could kill, I should have been dead many times over by now.But I was alive and at another crossroads.
Complying would be the easiest course of action.Painful, humiliating, degrading, and ridiculous though it might be, the tsarina might leave me alone afterward if I satisfied her request.And to be forgotten sounded like the most merciful fate in my current circumstances.Complying might inspire others to seek the same torturous amusements from me in the future though, but if I failed to be as entertaining the second, third, fourth time, would they still try to provoke me?
Disobeying would be amusing to me for a whole half minute until the tsarina found another novel torment with which to burden me.
And all because I could not bring myself to become her lover again.
No one said no to the tsarina.
A deeply unsettling noise, both shrill and guttural, issued forth from my throat.My arms made wild arcs in the air at my sides to accompany the horrendous shrieks.
The tsarina threw her head back and laughed and laughed and laughed.And so too did the group around her.No one noticed when I stopped, too caught up in the hilarity to pay any attention to the object of their amusement.
The tsarina’s paroxysm finally subsided, and she discarded her empty cup before rising from her seat.She paused in front of me, taking me in again before smiling up at me.“I am never going to let you go, you realize.”She reached up and patted my cheek, her palm sliding over the straps of the beak mask.“Return to your nest, Mikhail.I will see that someone comes out to feed you.”She slid her hand down and patted the chest of the pillowed costume.“No one will ever want you now.”
“Except you,” I whispered.“What does that make you?”
“Have a good night, Mikhail,” she said, her voice ice.“Tomorrow, I am fitting you with a collar.”
