Chapter 13, Broken Promises

The thirteenth chapter of "Wilde Horses Couldn't Stop Me!"

XXVI

The King of Atlantis pushed through the crowd.  They glared at him and many people started to whisper.  Nearly everyone in Atlantis was there.  The ballroom was completely packed.  He saw Kida sitting on the throne, smiling and stalling the officials.  The throne beside her was painfully empty.  It was clear she had spotted Milo, because she had immediately dropped her fake smile.  She stood up and attempted to smile again as she waited for him to make his way up to the royal platform.  Milo awkwardly climbed the steps and tried to stand beside her as if he was right on time.  Everyone was staring at the awkward couple, whispering.

“Come with me,” she whispered.  Then she raised her voice to speak to her subjects, “Attention, my beloved guests!  I must excuse myself and King Milo for a moment.  Please continue to enjoy yourselves!”

They walked silently until they were alone in an unoccupied sitting room.  Right after she closed the doors, she slapped him in the face.  Hard.

For a minute the only noise was an echo of the sound of the slap.  Milo stared at her, open-mouthed.  His face stung.

“How could you?” she whispered, horrified and full of hate.

“I’m so sorry!” he said.

“It is our anniversary.  The public celebration.  And you came late!”

“I’m sorry!”

“As King, you can’t come late to any public celebration.  But you chose to come late,” her voice grew icier, “to our anniversary.  Now I truly know how much this marriage means to you!”

“Kida, I love you,” Milo pleaded.

“No, you don’t,” she screamed, “you love Beatrice!”

“That’s not true.  Kida, you’re the only one I love.”

“How can you tell me such a lie?  I’ve already been embarrassed by you enough.  And what were you doing that made you late?  You were probably with Beatrice, weren’t you?”

“No!” he said, but then he realized he was actually with Beatrice, “Yes.”

Kida smirked bitterly, “Of course.  Who else would you be with?  It’s not like you have a wife.”

“But we weren’t...  I was just giving her some books.”

“A likely story.”

“And now I know that giving Beatrice some of your books is much more important than our meaningless anniversary.”

“No, it isn’t.  I’m sorry.  I’m so, so sorry,” Milo got down on his knees, “Please forgive me.”

She stared at him for a while with a strange expression on her face, “I was once in love with you.  I had no idea how empty your love would prove to be.  I will never forgive you.”

“Kida...” he pleaded.

“Don’t talk to me.  Besides, we can’t ignore our guests,” her voice was cold and emotionless, “You will not talk to me until the end of the evening.  We can engage in trivial chatter, but I will not discuss anything that we have just discussed.  We will pretend to be happy and in love.  In exchange, I will give you a chance to redeem yourself.  I will speak with you in our royal chambers right after the celebration is over.”

“I guess that’s fair,” Milo said.

“It’s more than fair,” Kida said, “Now let’s go pretend we’re happy.”

After dinner, which had already started when Milo arrived, Kida invited a guest speaker to the stage to perform a speech.

“After this lovely meal, I would like to announce with great joy that the speech-maker for our anniversary will be a famous Atlantean writer.  Probably one of the most eloquent Atlanteans, he will share with us his thoughts on love.”

Milo noticed that she said the word “love” with a sarcastic tone of voice.  He knew he would have to do a lot to win her back.

“Please welcome... Moby Walereon!”

Moby Walereon was a skinny man in his sixties or seventies.  He had short salt-and-pepper hair and a short white beard.  His eyes were squinted and strained to see the numerous people in front of him.  Dressed in a well-worn blue toga, he looked happy and cheery.

“Hello everyone!  How are you doing?”

They all cheered.

“I am infinitely happy to be speaking at the royal anniversary.  I remember when Milo first came here.  We all hated the outsiders.  It turns out we had good reason because the man called Rourke wanted to steal the crystal.  But we were mistaken with Milo and his friends.  Milo ended up saving Atlantis from the evil man on his team.  We were mistrusting and fearful of the outsiders, while Kida led them right to us at great personal risk.  She had much more faith and trust than any of us and, more importantly, love.  This brings me to my main topic.  Love.  Love isn’t just romantic love.  Love is about family, friends, people you care about and share things with.  It doesn’t even have to be about people.  It can be about things you are passionate about, like writing, for me.  I love to write!  Milo was passionate about Atlantis.”

He looked back to smile at Milo, who smiled back at him.

“But presumably everyone loves their husband or wife and children the most.  Their family.  This I cannot deny,” he said, looking directly at his wife who was sitting in the audience.

“I think there are four things that make up what we call love: passion, respect, trust and honesty.”

Milo suddenly noticed Beatrice was now in the audience.  He flashed her a subtle smile that Kida didn’t notice.  Beatrice smiled back.  She was wearing a purple dress that made her almost glow.  Beatrice was gold amongst the pyrite that night.  It was hard for him to focus on Moby’s speech.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of her until her heard the next part of the speech.

“And then there is honesty,” Milo turned to the speaker suddenly, “The most important component of love.  You need honesty in order to have a trusting relationship.  How can you trust someone who lies to you?  If you want a loving relationship you need to have the courage to tell your spouse everything.  No secrets.  If you’re a murderer, an adulterer, a violent person, no matter how horrible your secret is, you have to tell her.  If you don’t it will just get worse and worse.  If you continue to tell the truth, someone will come along who will love you no matter what.  So what if you once stole money from your grandparents?  At least you were honest.  Without honesty, you can’t have trust.  And without trust you can’t have love.”

“At least you were honest,” the words repeated constantly in Milo’s head.

“I need to be honest,” he thought to himself.

“I’ll admit something right now to show how much I love all of you.  Something I have only told my wife, my true love.”

He paused to think, “Ah yes.  I used to really like dressing up as a woman.  In fact, I still do it sometimes.”

The audience stifled their laughter.

“Go ahead... laugh!  I don’t care.”

They all started to laugh and he started laughing with them.

“All of you!  Every single one of you has a secret.  Is anyone brave enough to admit it?”

Suddenly a teenaged girl stood up and screamed, “I’m not a virgin!”

Her mother, who was sitting beside her looked angry, and she was about to have a word with her daughter outside when Moby looked at her and said, “What about you?  What’s your dirty secret?”

“I... steal shiny things.”

A large amount of silverware from dinner came tumbling out of her dress as she stood up.  The royal guards were about to arrest her when the leader said, “I hate my job.  I wish I had a job as a chef.  It’s my dream.”

“I’m attracted to men,” said a man in the back.

“I really can’t predict the future,” said a soothsayer.

The chef stood up from his table, “A lot of this food was accidentally dropped on the floor.”

“I cheated on my wife,” said a man in the middle of the room.

Milo smiled, encouraged by the man’s confession.

“I killed my son,” said an old woman at the front of the room.  The people in her vicinity moved away from her nervously.

“I kissed Beatrice!” Milo yelled.  He put his hand on his mouth immediately after.

The loud and boisterous room gasped and fell silent.  Beatrice looked worried.  Some children snickered.  The speaker’s smile dissipated and he turned to Milo and Kida.  Kida was frozen in disbelief.

“Is this true?”

“Yes, but I was only trying to wake her up.  I swear.  And it was only once.  I might as well tell everyone the rest,” he sighed.

“I moved Beatrice from the hospital wing to a room in the royal chamber because I found out that while she was in the hospital, several men raped her.  They bribed the--” suddenly his voice became even more shaky because at the back of the room he could see the man who had taken the bribes, “night-time guard.”

He noticed the man was leaving.  Was he going to kill him?  After he had finally confessed to Kida?

“And that’s it.  I feel stupid for leaving it so long.  I’m sorry, Kida.”

He tried to give her a hug but she dodged it and he fell to the ground.  He drew back.

“I’ve told you everything and I’ve apologized but you still hate me?”

“Yes,” she said bitterly, “Milo, I think you should go.”

“What?”

“Get out!” she yelled.

Milo left the room quickly, knowing arguing was no good.

Kida stared at a space full of silent, stunned guests.

“Well, why are you all still here?” her voice was sad and defeated, “You are dismissed!”

With that she stormed out of the room.  Where could she go?  Who could she talk to?  Her parents were dead.  Her husband was with another woman.  But she still had her sister.  She went to her sister’s wing in the palace.

Meanwhile Beatrice tried to follow Milo but he was quite far ahead of her amidst the crowded dark corridor of the candlelit common herd.  There were hundreds of people trying to talk to Milo.  Milo just ran faster to try to avoid them and their probing questions.  Soon neither Beatrice nor the flock of curious Atlanteans could find Milo.  Beatrice went back to her room, running away from her own annoying flock of curious Atlanteans.

XXVII

The king looked all around his royal chambers, but Kida was not there.  He didn’t dare ask anyone where she was or they would begin to ask him their horrible questions, so he started to discreetly look around the city for his wife.

He didn’t make it out of the royal wing before he was punched in the gut.  As he fell to the floor, clutching his stomach, he met the face of his attacker.  It was the hospital security guard.  Milo was dragged into his own royal chamber and the guard locked all the doors.  He bent down to meet Milo’s face again.  His face was so close to Milo’s they were almost touching and he looked angry.  Angry yet calm and collected.  Milo could smell rotted fish on the man’s breath.

“We had a deal.”

Milo swallowed, “But I had to tell Ki--”

He smacked Milo across the face so hard that he almost fainted.

“We had a deal.  You think I’m an imbecile?”

“No!” he gasped.

The guard slapped Milo again, “You think I’m an idiot?”

“No!  Please stop!” he was pleading now, shielding his head with his arms.

“I never forget when people break their promises!”

He punched Milo in the nose, which thrusted the young man to the ground.  Blood leaked rapidly from his nose and onto his clothing.  The guard drew a revolver and aimed it between Milo’s eyes.  Milo heard an ominous click and froze, absolutely terrified.

“What do you want?” he squeaked.  His voice was distorted by tears, “Please don’t kill them.”

“I love these devices,” the man laughed ruthlessly, “Point it at anyone and they will promise everything they own.  I just want one thing.  You have to tell everyone that you were mentally unwell yesterday and that everything you confessed except the kiss were the ravings of a very deranged man.  And you will never mention what happened to Beatrice again, especially to her.  You will personally tell her that it never happened.”

The king started, “But that’s not fair to--” but the guard cut him off by shoving the revolver into Milo’s mouth.

“Now I’m going to tell you again.  You were crazy today, and you will never mention what I did in the hospital again.”

“What did you do in the hospital?” Milo weakly indulged the guard.

“Exactly.”

The corrupt security guard seemed satisfied.

“Where did you get that revolver?” Milo was suspicious.

“Oh, this?” he aimed it at Milo casually, making the young man jump back in shock, “Your leader Rourke accidentally left some behind.”

Milo scowled, thinking of Rourke and his ruthless agenda.  Chuckling, the guard abruptly grabbed Milo’s arms to lift him up.  Then he pushed him down the hallway.

“Get out of here, before I really use this gun.”

Milo scampered away, in pain, but too terrified to let it slow him down.

XXVIII

It was midnight and Beatrice had retreated to her room.  She heard a knock at her door.  Suspicious it was someone who wanted to ask her about Milo, she asked, “Who is it?”

There was a weak noise on the other side of the door.  She just barely heard it, “It’s Milo.”

“Oh my goodness!” she rushed to open the door.  After a few steps, Milo collapsed into Beatrice’s arms, covered in his own blood, eyes half open.

“What happened?  Who did this to you?” the king tried to lift himself up but he was too weak, “On second thought, maybe I’ll just rest a while.”

“You’re going to rest for a lot longer than that if someone doesn’t look at those bruises.”

Using all of her strength Beatrice dragged Milo over to her bed and lifted him onto it so he was lying down face-up.  She left to get a healer and came back five minutes later.

“A nurse is on her way here.  Or do they call them healers now?”

“Yeah, they do,” Milo smiled, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Your hospitality.”

“Oh.  Not at all,” she dabbed at the blood coming from his mouth and nose, “I’m useless except for wiping away blood.  I hope that healer arrives soon.”

“Beatrice.”

“Yes?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you what happened, but I have to, because it wouldn’t be fair otherwise.  But I’m not going to tell anyone else or I’ll be...” he paused, searching for the right phrase, “in trouble.  Can you promise that you won’t tell anyone else?”

“You can trust me.  After all, I kept your first promise.”

“You certainly did,” he sighed, “I really hope Kida will forgive me.”

“She has to.  But what happened?”

“Okay.  I’m going to tell the healer something different if she asks, but several men... had sex with you while you were asleep.”

Beatrice’s eyes started to water a bit, “I had hoped it wasn’t true.”

She wanted to look down.  She wanted to find out what had been done to her.  Beatrice didn’t feel different, but she wanted to kill those despicable b******s.  

“How could they?” she whispered, “How could they do it?”

“Beatrice, I’m so sorry.  I wish I’d known about it sooner.  That was why I put your room in the royal chambers and I fired that corrupt guard.”

“Thank you for that, at least.  But what does that have to do with your injuries?”

“The guard was there when I...” he winced, “confessed.  So he tracked me down and beat me up and then he made me promise to say that my confession was raving, except for... the kiss and to never tell anyone about his crimes again.  And now here I am.”

He looked frightened, “I have no idea what to say to the healer.”

“That’s terrible,” she concluded, “I wish I could give him a nice swift kick in the gonads, pardon my french.  Why do people do such horrible things?”

“I have no idea.  It makes me mad, but I’m going to do as he says.”

“But then he’ll get away with what he did!”

“Exactly.  But he’ll kill me if I reveal him.”

Suddenly they heard a knock at their door.