Unruly Summon Chapter 20: Punishment (Patreon)

Stephanie's head sprung forward, suddenly released from the grip I had on her hair.

Not that I'd let go; her hair was still firmly in my hand.

"Whu?" she gasped, feeling at her head. "My hair? You cut off my hair?"

I didn't answer, keeping a close eye on her face, and so I didn't miss the moment her confusion briefly gave way to a smirk before she schooled her expression back into something flat and emotionless. The smirk of someone who had been proven right. Well, tough for her; she was celebrating prematurely. However small and fleeting it had been, that smirk had sealed her fate.

"Yes. As I said, I understand your reasons. As far as I'm concerned, taking the hair you have such pride in is punishment enough for what you did to me."

"Then..."

"Ah, but there's still the question of what you did to Mary," I continued, without giving the princess a chance to speak. The obvious thing to do was to give Mary a chance at demanding restitution, but I couldn't do that to the poor girl. A slave, pronouncing judgement on a princess, in front of the king and queen? Putting aside any brainwashing, even a completely normal person would be far too terrified to do anything but feign forgiveness. No, she'd suffered enough. I needed to respond myself, but that just put me straight back into Stephanie's trap... The thought of demanding her life, whatever she had done, sickened me. Particularly since I wasn't convinced it had been her.

"You insist that you're the one that came up with the plan? The mastermind behind all this?"

"I swear on this kingdom that the decision to have Mary killed came from me."

Then, lying or not, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't exactly insist on punishing the king without any evidence. Conversely, I wasn't going to punish her with something I couldn't take back if new evidence did come to light. Something reversible, yet easily verifiable and far harsher than she was banking on. The answer was obvious enough, and, as Stephanie herself had pointed out, rather poetic.

"Very well. Luckily for you, as willing as you are to take a life, I'm too soft for that sort of thing. Let's go with your other suggestion: enslavement. You can spend your life working alongside the girl you tried to kill."

Stephanie paled.

"If... If that's what you demand..." she stuttered.

"Oh? You're not trying to back out?"

"Of course not!" she denied, shaking her head.

"Interesting. You might actually win a little of my respect back after all, then. I was expecting you to come up with some excuse when I didn't pick the punishment the three of you expected me to."

"As if I'd dare to lie to you again after today's farce! Yes, I was almost certain that you wouldn't, but even if you'd demanded public execution, I wouldn't have backed out. I'd have gone out with my head held high, knowing that I was doing my duty for the kingdom."

"An assertion that will never be put to the test, but if you're being honest, I respect that, too."

"We'll take care of the arrangements," said Queen Victoria. "Please be aware that there's an acclimatisation period involved of up to half a season, so if you're expecting her to turn up tomorrow collared and ready to work, you'll need to temper those expectations. You can ask Mary about it, since she's been through the process, but you'll need to ask Wendy for the full details of what it involves."

"I will," I agreed. It was about damn time I found out what they were doing to their own citizens.

"As... As a father, I must..." started King Edward.

"Father! Don't!" snapped Princess Stephanie.

"But... You..." he stammered, clutching his head. "Very well. If it's what you want, I won't say anything further."

He took a bell from an alcove in the throne and rang it.

"Your majesty?" called the knight who had guided us here, stepping into the throne room.

"Please guide Thomas back to his room. Hopefully, you'll find Christine and Wendy still there. Tell them that the situation has been resolved amicably, and that they should resume Thomas's lessons with a focus on combating monsters rather than demons. Also inform them that we'll be sending an expedition into the corrupted lands as soon as logistics permit, with a view to purification, and that I require an audience later."

"Yes, your majesty," agreed the knight, bowing politely.

"We'll need to see about new, more appropriate quarters, too. We'll have something arranged by the time you return from the first expedition," he continued to me.

"It's not like I need carpet, but I wouldn't say no to some less scratchy clothing. Mary commented that the maids in this section of the castle had better uniforms than her, too."

"That can certainly be rectified easily enough," he nodded.

"Ha. Then perhaps you could consider giving her an actual salary, too. Any other lies or deceptions anyone would like to get off their chests before I leave?" I asked.

"No."

"Then I'll be off. And if you can actually be honest for a bit, perhaps we can make this work."

"You have my thanks for your understanding."

The audience over, we left the throne room. "That went better than expected," I commented as we followed the knight. I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting, charging in like that. I'd been rather cross at the time. Whatever it was, though, I hadn't expected something so anticlimactic.

Not that the princess would consider it as such. She obviously didn't consider her punishment a light one. An acclimatisation process that, depending how long a season was, was probably over a month in length? I was almost afraid to ask what it entailed.

"What was that about an acclimatisation process?" I asked Mary.

"They had us serve pretend masters for a while," she answered. "It was really boring at the start, and a bit odd in the middle, but I got used to it quickly. They were always asking us lots of questions about how we felt about things."

That didn't sound too bad, except that I had my suspicions about the reason it had grown less boring.

"Umm... Maybe this is an insensitive question, but you do know that collar is messing with your head, right?"

"Of course! It's not a secret. Although... mine doesn't seem to be working right recently. I wonder if it's broken?"

"As far as I'm concerned, you're doing your job perfectly. You don't need something like that to help you."

"Thank you, Master," she beamed, her walk turning into more of a skip for half a corridor as she bounced along in happiness.

Whatever I'd done to her obviously had some impact, but I wasn't convinced she was 'fixed'. Then again, even without her head being messed with by magic, the fact that her superiors tried to murder her would be pretty mind-breaking. Especially since she needed to continue working with them. The fact that she was happily skipping along behind us rather than cowering in a corner somewhere was enough that I didn't want to ask too many questions, lest she recover fully and realise the horror of her position.

"Wendy and Christine were mid-fight when I left. I hope they can both still work together."

"Miss Wendy better have won!" exclaimed Mary, pouting. "Mistress Christine is mean."

"I'm afraid that in an enclosed space, in a one-on-one fight, Lady Wendy would not stand a chance against Lady Christine," said our guide-knight.

Mary stopped skipping and started running.

"Don't worry," I reassured her. "I doubt they had a serious fight. Like me and the knights upstairs, they both had too much to lose if things escalated that far. All Christine was doing was stopping Wendy from interfering with the knights who carried me upstairs."

Mary slowed back down, and indeed, once we re-entered the room, we found the pair still there, doing nothing more than glaring daggers at each other, with no sign of the six knights who'd stayed behind.

"Looks like this is your victory," said Christine, who was facing toward the door, and hence was the first to spot me.

"Huh?" asked Wendy.

Christine just pointed.

"You expect me to fall for that? As if I'm going to take my eyes off you!"

"Ummm... Wendy?" I called. "It's fine."

At the sound of my voice, Wendy did spin around.

"If you escaped, why in the hells did you come back?" she gasped.

"It's not like I have anywhere else to go," I shrugged. "I had a nice chat with your king, who admitted giving the order to have Mary killed, but he was very apologetic about all the deception. We came to the mutual agreement that I wouldn't involve myself in your war but would focus on using Miraculum to reclaim corrupted land instead."

"What?" asked Mary, peering at me in confusion.

"I am surprised you forgave him so easily," said Christine.

"But it wasn't him?" said Mary.

"Yes, it was. I wasn't certain earlier, but Christine was nice enough to confirm it for me."

Mary's mouth opened and closed comically as she processed that. "They lied? Again?"

"At this point, I suspect it's pathological," I sighed. "I'm not sure they can stop. Still, you saw the king. Stephanie's punishment was painful for him, too."

"Uh... Sorry, but what's going on?" asked Wendy. "More lies? Punishment? What did those fools do this time?"

"King Edward didn't actually apologise at all. Stephanie claimed it was all her idea, that no-one else was involved, and that she should be the only one who was punished for it."

Christine grit her teeth, realising she'd just spoilt the royal family's latest plot.

"Hah. So what was she punished with?" continued Wendy.

"Enslavement."

Christine's mouth dropped open.

"Wow. Harsh," grinned Wendy. "I'd make a snide remark like 'let's see how she likes being on the other side', but the problem is that by the end, she will. Those people are good at what they do."

"I think it's about time you explained to me what it is that they do," I commented. "But first, this poor knight is waiting patiently to pass on a message, and we're just standing around chatting."

The knight passed on his message.

"Well, that's it. I am officially depressed," declared Wendy.

"Why?" I asked, that not quite being the response I expected.

"Let's see. Reason one: I need to continue working with that overly loyal bitch."

"Language!" complained Mary.

"Oh? I think calling her a female dog is perfectly apt. She's nothing more than a big, loyal watchdog, unable to think for herself, and she doesn't even have your excuse that her ability to think for herself was carefully excised."

"Better than betraying my country at the drop of a hat just because I don't agree with a decision made by a superior," snapped back Christine.

"Please save the bickering for later," I sighed.

"Fine. Reason two: I have spent my entire life searching for a way to purify our corrupted land. Admittedly, I'm still young, but even so, it was a task deemed so important that the fact our kingdom was at war was deliberately kept from me, so that I wouldn't be distracted. You have no idea how many groups are working on the problem, official or clandestine, or some of the methods that are tolerated towards that end. And now you and your hero bullshit found a way to do it by accident. A problem that the best minds on the continent have failed to solve for centuries, and you did it without even trying. And I've been ordered to help you. Even worse, I've not been ordered to help with the purification, or anything scientific. They just want me to teach you magic to defend yourself against monsters."

"Okay, yes, I can see how that's a little demeaning," I agreed. "On the other hand, remember that nothing has been confirmed yet. We've not tried to use the spell on corrupted ground. It might do nothing, or it might purify a single square yard."

"Oh, no. Don't you dare. After all this, it damn well better work, whether it demeans my existence or not."

"That's enough chatting," sighed Christine. "Our time pressure has not changed. Let's move to the courtyard and do some training."

"Workaholic," complained Wendy.

"... You aren't one to talk, miss didn't-notice-there-was-a-war-on."

"Touché"

"Besides... I want to see how he managed to overcome four royal knights while in a state of such extreme mana deprivation."

Uh... Was it my imagination, or did Christine suddenly look hungry?

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"That went better than expected," commented Queen Victoria once Thomas had left the throne room. "Stephanie's plan was a complete success."

"A success?!" exclaimed Stephanie. "You call that a success?! No way! Please, you have to get me out of it! I don't want to be turned into a mindless puppet! Anything would be better than that!"

"Oh? What happened to going out with your head held high?"

"I'd have preferred that! At least it would be over quickly. I wouldn't have to worry about whatever small part of me was left watching what I'd become and being happy about it. Father, you were about to ask him to reconsider! Why did you stop?!"

"Because you told me to?" he answered uncertainly.

"Of course I did! I had to, to keep up appearances! That doesn't mean I wanted you to listen!"

"That's enough," declared the queen. "Your father was fully prepared to take responsibility. You were the one who came to us. You quite rightfully pointed out that it would be far less disruptive to the kingdom if you took the blame, and you were more likely to be able to calm down Thomas in a way that would leave him willing to work for us. You weren't correct about his reaction, but that was a risk you knowingly took. You can't back out now. You will leave the castle tomorrow. I suggest you take the rest of the day to say farewell to your siblings and servants."

The distraught princess stared in shock at her mother, before turning to her father with just a hint of hope in her despairing eyes.

"Perhaps we can delay things until it's proven Thomas can purify corrupted land?" he suggested.

"We'll discuss it," stated the queen, making it clear the princess was dismissed.

"I told you it was too risky! This is all because you didn't listen to me!" she yelled before storming off in tears.

"That was too harsh. There must be something we can do?" said the king, once the princess had left the chamber.

"You're overreacting," sighed the queen. "In the worst case, we need only keep it up until Thomas returns home, but I doubt her 'punishment' will last even that long. Weren't you paying attention to Mary in that audience?"

"Of course. I didn't think it strange that Thomas would want to keep her close, after what happened, and I didn't miss her outburst when she thought Thomas was about to slit Stephanie's throat. She was horrified. She's still under orders to treat him as a submaster, so in theory she can't be horrified by his actions; to her, everything he does or says should be perfect. Combine that incongruity with the report from my guard, and it's clear her conditioning has at least partially been undone. But what does that have to do with anything? It's not as if Thomas will be casting that spell on Stephanie."

"Are you sure? He obviously still doesn't know what the process entails, and he didn't know Mary before her enslavement, so he has no idea of the extent of the change. Once he finds out, and sees what he's done to Stephanie—especially if she tries to resist, or we order her acclimatisation to be deliberately rushed—I suspect he'll find himself unable to bear the guilt. It's in our interests to have Stephanie turn back up in front of Thomas as soon as possible as a perfect, compliant doll. I imagine he'll question her—and she'll happily spill her guts to him of all that she knows—then, with such a convenient method of reversing her conditioning at his fingertips, he'll 'cure' her. Think of it as nothing more than her taking a short vacation, and a means of feeding Thomas a controlled amount of information in a way he won't suspect."

"... I see. Doubtless he's still suspicious he's been lied to about the cause of the war, and other such details. Hearing what he's already been told from an enslaved Stephanie should assuage his concerns. It's fortunate we never told her the truth, then, and I imagine that's why you didn't offer her any reassurance that her 'punishment' would be temporary."

"Indeed; it wouldn't look good if she told him she started her slave training expecting to be freed. She was right about one thing, though; that hero is too damn perceptive. We can't risk another false flag operation."

"No. No we can not," replied the king. "And yet, despite the hopes of our daughter, it's far too premature to assume this new spell can be used to reclaim land. Is there really no way to get him to fight?"

He stroked his chin thoughtfully as, inside his mind, gears spun relentlessly.