Until It Works
"Have you calmed a little now?"
At the gentle voice, Laniakea nodded. Even so, the tears kept coming, and she had to keep dabbing at the corners of her eyes with her handkerchief.
Gemma turned her head a fraction and looked toward the door Hyperion had gone through.
Why, of all moments, did he have to speak as if he were browbeating her?
Gemma knew Hyperion well enough to guess the heart behind those words. Laniakea did not. Even as she wiped at her eyes again and again, the sight of him from only moments ago kept rising before her. She had thought she was growing used to the weight of his presence, yet that rigid face and those words had sounded like nothing but blame.
"I... should have... endured it better..."
She tried her best to stay composed, but she could not hide the way her words kept breaking apart.
Gemma shook her head.
"No. The fault is His Majesty's, for failing to notice before Your Majesty was driven to that, and for pressing on as he pleased."
At those words Laniakea stared at her in surprise. Guessing what had startled her, Gemma bowed politely from the waist.
"My introduction comes far too late, Your Majesty. I am Gemma Ensi. I served as His Majesty's personal physician while he was stationed on the border, and thanks to that I earned the right to run my mouth this freely even before him. I am now Chief Imperial Physician."
With that, she explained that she had already examined Laniakea.
"Fortunately, there seems to be nothing seriously amiss with your body. But is there any pain, or any discomfort, deeper inside?"
Injuries in such a place could not be known from the surface alone, so it was surer to hear it from the patient herself and examine her again. The trouble was that shame might keep her from speaking at all. Gemma had no choice but to address her in a graver voice.
"Your Majesty's person is bound up with the future of the Empire itself. Please, do not be ashamed. Think of me as a tool kept at your side so that your body may be at ease, and speak to me freely."
Then, more sternly still:
"Aside from myself, my husband who compounds the medicines, and His Majesty the Emperor, no one in the Empire will know of Your Majesty's condition."
Laniakea nodded. The voice and the manner both invited trust, and the hand that kept holding hers, gentle as a comfort, set her heart at ease. She understood now why Hyperion had set the existing imperial physicians aside and gone out of his way to summon these two from the border.
"The thing is... it still hurts a little, actually. No—not quite hurts. More of a raw, tingling feeling."
Gemma nodded as if that were exactly what she had expected.
"That will be the dull ache common after a first coupling. Most likely His Majesty tried to enter too forcefully, and the muscles inside you were startled. The inside of the body is muscle as well. When a part that has scarcely been used is suddenly put to work, pain follows."
Listening, Laniakea pressed a hand to her chest in relief. It had not quite been pain, but the persistent throbbing had frightened her—what if something was truly wrong? To hear it was only a muscle ache eased her at once. Before she knew it, the tears had stopped.
"More than that, you were badly startled, weren't you?"
"It would be a lie to say I wasn't. But more than startled, I'm only ashamed. It's something I ought to be able to do, as Empress..."
Hyperion came back to her. Before leaving the room he had looked over his shoulder at her again and again, and unlike the moment he had raised his voice to demand why she had not spoken, he had looked utterly at a loss.
His Majesty must have been embarrassed too.
Among the many stories Laniakea had heard, quite a few concerned nights when a couple could not manage the act at all. Her husband's was too small. It would not even stand. He had barely managed to raise it, only to finish within seconds. Stories of that sort. Never once, among them, a story of failing because it was too large. She had heard of women nearly dying of pleasure—but not of this.
"So it really is me who's the problem?"
The murmur slipped out before she knew it, and Gemma answered at once.
"Absolutely not. To begin with, what happened today is His Majesty's fault. But it cannot be called entirely his problem, either. After all, the two of you were brought to this all at once, with no preparation whatsoever. And so..."
Gemma smiled, just a little.
"Starting tomorrow, I mean to hold lessons—for the two of you, and for the future of the Empire."
Her voice dropped, lower and more private.
"I will spare no effort until the two of you can enjoy the night in full."
The next day, Laniakea returned to the Empress's Palace with Lucy, who had come running from the palace at dawn to wait for her. She could tell that several of the maids were stealing glances at her—the woman who had come back with the dawn.
So these girls are someone's eyes.
She knew how the Imperial Palace glittered with watching eyes. When masters changed in a frenzy like this, and the one called master had no real power, the eyes fastened upon the place would only multiply. Later they would return to their own masters and report in what state Laniakea had come back from the Main Palace.
In that case.
Her body, having fainted once already, was tired—but not so tired that she would play the fool. She deliberately caught Lucy by the shoulder and let her steps sway. When Lucy started and moved to support her, the maids' eyes shone brighter still. They would say the Empress who returned from the Main Palace had looked utterly spent, and those who heard it would let their imaginations take wing on their own.
Nothing good comes of it being known that His Majesty and I failed to manage it properly.
Among royalty and nobility alike, nothing mattered more than producing an heir. And if one failed at that? Laniakea had seen with her own eyes how thoroughly people burdened with such a rumor were scorned. If what had happened today in the Main Palace were to get out—an emperor crowned without a single solid base of support, an empress who, even after her ascent, had not received so much as a letter of congratulations from her homeland, let alone a delegation of envoys—how badly the ground would shake beneath her and Hyperion was plain enough. Those teeth, of course, would bite the Empress first. In the present situation, replacing her and turning that seat to one's own advantage was far easier, and far more profitable, than replacing the Emperor.
Back in her room, Laniakea sent Lucy away and lowered herself into the bath that had been drawn, sinking into the warm water.
"Ahh..."
As water of a pleasant heat closed around her, a soft sound escaped on its own. She washed her face a few times with the warmth, then carefully pushed herself up and sat on the rim of the tub. She hesitated a moment, set her teeth, and parted her legs just slightly. Thighs still flushed red came into view. And then...
Carefully, Laniakea reached down and touched herself there, lightly. The raw tingling remained, and so did the memory of the pain in the moment she had taken Hyperion in—sharp and perfectly clear.
He had been so terribly sorry.
Leaving the bedchamber of the Main Palace, Hyperion had caught hold of her and hesitated for a long while, unable to say a word. Then, with difficulty, he spoke.
"I am sorry. I was... too clumsy..."
There was none of his usual assurance in the man who bowed his head as he said it, and the apology startled her. She had been told that men were exceedingly sensitive about the bed, that pride would never let them admit the fault was theirs. Yet Hyperion had said at once that the problem was his, and lowered his head—when he might just as well have pressed her for failing even to endure it, and she would have had nothing to answer.
Laniakea sank into the tub again. Submerged to the crown of her head, she thought.
He told me to come back to the Main Palace in two days.
In the meantime, the Ensis had said they would prepare lessons for the two of them. Not together. Gemma would teach Laniakea, and Tamil would teach Hyperion.
And they said there would be practice.
She could not begin to imagine what that practice was, or how it would be done. Feeling her breath grow short, Laniakea rose out of the water. She wiped the streams running down her face and steadied her resolve. Whatever it turned out to be, she would give it everything she had. If she tried, surely it would work.
Please.