The term clinical was, in its most colloquial use, perfectly apt to describe what had happened. Moreso than any 'clinical' military strike which caused the deaths of tens of innocents, the attackers had gotten in and out with minimal impact. And yet, the savagery of these deaths were most of all the exemplification of certain clinical realities, a certain human fragility.
Mary had adapted to the splint in the way she balanced, held herself, even in how she navigated opening the door. She was all so horribly fragile. I had asked her about Chella out of simple concern, but the pause was enough for me to know that she hadn't been expecting it. The lack of an answer was answer enough, but that made it feel as if I was manipulating her. I was fishing for information, maybe hinting that by extension, I cared about her too. I suppose I was, consciously or not. Her dress was rumpled from sitting in one position for too long, riding up slightly. Her one good arm was weak enough that snapping it would've been trivial. If I was manipulating her, then what was I trying to get from her? In a world where killing was on the table and our engagement already announced, there was remarkably little that she could do.
She hadn't even recovered by the time I had my hand around her wrist. I was tall. Tall enough that no amount of surprise tactics or underhanded tricks would have meant anything in the face of my leverage and weight. Mary was silent instead. The door clicked closed behind her and then the silence resumed. Her best option was to simply let me do whatever I had planned. Fighting back meant that further violence was inevitable.
I led her to the condemned part of the mansion. Cobwebs draped where curtains sagged, stained with a fading gradient where the sunlight crossed over them. The sound of small legs skittering through walls and other places unseen reached us and then was damped by the softness of decay. I pulled her through an extra sitting room and past a set of pieces that had been forgotten in the rain once and then were abandoned here. Here at least, her hitched breathing and her struggle to stay on her feet was basically radiating vigor in comparison.
The guest bedroom probably hadn't seen use in years, but it was so deep in the condemned section of the mansion that it hadn't become a dumping ground for trash either. It also meant that it was unlikely to be infested with pests like some of the closer sections were. Even with all the curtains drawn, enough sunlight still seeped through that it wasn't difficult to see. The bed was pristine for all that it was covered by a thin layer of dust. I could see that Mary was doing her best not to sneeze and draw attention to herself, but she was fighting a losing battle. I let go of her wrist. The redness wasn't pronounced enough to draw attention, but it wasn't so slight that it wouldn't be noticed.
I shook out the covers of their dust and watched it cloud up, some settling elsewhere and some carrying with a slight breeze. I wasn't sure where the breeze came from, but it was yet another reminder of why this place had been condemned. The dust finally provoked a sneezing fit out of Mary. What had started as disheveled had morphed. Her skin glinted with sweat and now some bits of the dust and webs clung to her. I sat down on the bed and watched as Mary recovered her poise. It was a last defense only given to those born of high standing. A sort of mutually assured destruction, the threat that a whole social hierarchy would come down on the transgressor. At the same time, it would confirm her as used. Worthless trash to be thrown out.
***
The hospital room felt so empty now that there was no tricks left for me to play on myself. The doctors were confident that I wasn't yet at the point where I was in imminent danger of expiring. They assured me that there were still chances that a new advancement could be had. It had happened before and it would happen again. Inevitably when those advancements did occur, there would be some patient that it was just in time to save. It was also a fact that when tracking any particular terminal patient, the chance that the necessary advancements for them to survive were made was astronomically low.
Self-improvement was the path that my doctors advocated for. In the case that I was the lucky one, if I hadn't done anything at all then I would be hopelessly far behind in school. It would then snowball and the rest of my life would be an unpleasant one just because I hadn't made an unlikely bet. I had given that approach a shot early on, but it was a soul crushing kind of bet. There was no point in letting it be a game of Russian roulette. Most of the time I die, but sometimes I come out the other side slightly worse off than everyone else.
I preferred the path of least resistance. Trying to enjoy whatever time I had left in whatever way I could. The bucket list had never been very long, but the simple idea of giving me something to look forward to was something that the doctors encouraged. At first I had wanted to try extreme things like skydiving and cage diving, but even jogging normally had quickly become too difficult. One too many falls had meant that the doctors struck extreme sports from the list.
The doctors tried suggesting that I reach out to celebrities and see if any would be willing to take time out of their schedules to meet me, but it felt more like an exercise in resisting condescending pity than anything fun. I did end up seeing how long I could stay up playing games before I passed out and other similarly unhealthy things that I had never been able to get away with before, but they were always followed by miserable days or even weeks of recovery.
By the time I discovered that my parents wouldn't ever be coming back to visit, the list had withered down to crimes and the most flagrant ways of wasting money imaginable. Having sex was the one thing left that I had any possible chance of. The problem of course, was that I didn't ever leave the hospital any more.
***
"Why did you drag me all the way here?" Mary asked.
"Would you believe me if I said that everywhere else has been trashed and this is the most presentable spot left?" I tried. I wasn't entirely sure why I had done this either, but hearing myself give a reason made it feel more reasonable. Some part of me, the part still busy rationalizing everything and anything that I did was really earning its keep. The fragility was still there, but the temptation was bleeding away. In its place there was the shifting morass of guilt. Guilt because I had done nothing that fell outside the bounds of the law. Guilt that there would be no punishment impending. Guilt that I couldn't bring myself to call what I had done wrong.
"It was that bad?" she asked. The guardedness was still there, but it was less. The more that she tacitly accepted things, the worse the guilt grew. Still, the question itself wasn't one that I was expected to answer. We were still dueling with rhetoric then. Exchanging information not for the sake of sharing anything new, more to extract something for oneself. Maybe the reason I had been acting this way was because I was suffering from withdrawal. It had been some time now. It eased the guilt a little bit. The rationalization machine was spinning at full tilt.
"I talked with Jezbeth yesterday."
I tensed at the mention. It felt like the game again. She was always interfering, always finding some way to put up another barrier. Even when I wasn't the protagonist anymore, she had her fingers worming into things.
"She wanted to know whether House Masler was still firm in its position in opposition to a war in the west."
"And why is she asking where I am on that?" I asked, the suspicion slipping into my tone.
"You must not have been following very closely, but House Finer recently delivered what is effectively an ultimatum that they would unilaterally use their office of the prime minister to strike down any proposal made by any house that votes in favor of declaring war. House Finer is interested in finding allies who might do something similar." Mary sat down on the bed, obviously making sure to put some space between us.
"I won't be changing House Masler's stance on the issue, but I very much doubt that any alliance is forthcoming. Jezbeth doesn't usually let go of grudges," I said.
"She's too pragmatic for that to matter here. She wants to push through a series of reforms aimed at giving commoners a version of what we already have with noble trials. That way there isn't as much room for abuse by the nobles who are currently enforcing the law in their territories. Your father's trial was hushed up, so the news of it didn't spread very far. If you could be used as an example of noble accountability, then it would buy a lot of trust from the people where the reforms might otherwise be seen as just another way for the nobility to squeeze them," Mary explained.
She was distracting herself too. Away from the room we sat in and to a place where she had real power. I was happy to oblige. "If I was to agree to this, would you also be pushing for this? I'd rather not jump into this alone and with no idea of what's going on."
"I think it's the right thing to do. It might even give us the momentum to start putting up other nobles in real trials instead of letting the inquisition use their discretion," she said. It was clear that she felt strongly about the issue and it was fairly good cover for what I wanted to do. Too much relied on the inquisition giving up, so any way to take that power away from them was as good a plan as any.
"Then we're in this together."
Mary shifted slightly farther away, "Yeah."
