Tempest Company

Rebellion

So tomorrow they'll execute me. I'll not give her the satisfaction of begging though. Jeanne studied the words and shivered in the cold, the actions sending the manacle on her wrist clacking and clattering. Her entire body ached and the burns from the shockprods itched. At least the cold stops some of the pain. She put the pen down and carefully touched the swelling on her face, nothing broken but she was glad she didn't have a mirror to see quite how much of a mess she looked. Shuffling painfully over to the thin mattress she lay down and tried to massage a little warmth into her limbs though it was a futile effort. The cell was just cold enough to wear a person down, not helped by the tattered grey rags which her captors had dressed her in, but not cold enough to actually harm her. It was all part of the little psychological games that Sophia had been playing since her capture. Jeanne had no idea how long ago that had been but at least the pain of it all would be over tomorrow. She looked over at the notepad on the battered desk and hoped with that at least her cousin would keep her word. A tear welled up at the thought of dying and the pain it would cause her friends but at least if the notepad reached them then they would know what had happened. Curling up despite the pain it caused in ribs which had been cracked by blows she shivered. The torturers had been able to have their fun with her whilst Sophia watched but when one had wanted to go further the Empress had expressly forbidden it. She seemed happy to have Jeanne cry and scream in pain but wasn't prepared to sign off on her being sexually assaulted. Maybe she thought it was a mercy but as the blows had rained down on her Jeanne hadn't felt like much mercy was being shown.

All this for her to try and keep the thing she stole. The thing I never wanted anyway.

The thought was bitter in her mind, but she couldn't hide from it. Sophia had learned that Jeanne was still alive from someone in the growing resistance movement against her. The secret of her existence had been exposed when she'd agreed to set foot on a resistance ship which had been transmitting an SOS call after limping into the zone. A bioscanner had registered her and shortly after the resistance command had sent a message to the Emerald Tempest asking her to come to the base that the resistance was operating from. They wanted to put her back on her father's throne it had said and, if she was honest, there had been a moments temptation. She'd spent the night with Xinga whilst she thought about it, not wanting to be alone, and in the warmth, she'd had there she made the decision to reject it. Three years of being Jeanne rather than Princess Catherine had opened her eyes to what she would have been missing out on and she'd seen enough to know that the people of the Orthodox Empire didn't actually care who sat on the throne at Versailles. So long as they were left alone and had food, drink and warmth they were mostly content. So, she'd told them no and thought that the end of it. Clearly though Sophia had held other ideas and had moved to protect what she perceived was threatened. The courier job had seemed legitimate but when they'd reached the destination a force of Inquisition and soldiers loyal to Sophia had managed to stun her and drag her away before the rest of Tempest Company could react. At least they were safe though. Sophia had been annoyed about that and Jeanne knew she had no talent for acting. She'd been dragged to wherever she was now, and Sophia had come in to oversee the questioning personally.

'You'll die here either way cousin. Telling me where the traitors are based will make the process much less painful for you though.' Jeanne had told her repeatedly that she had no idea and the probes hooked up to her confirmed that she wasn't lying. For Sophia though that wasn't enough. She couldn't accept that Jeanne would walk away from a fight to obtain the thing that Sophia had so long coveted. Several retainers had been present and watched as Jeanne was electrocuted, whipped and beaten without a word. The recognition that these were people whom she had known hurt in ways the blows couldn't. Jeanne had held nothing back when the sobs subsided and had answered every question asked of her. Robin had told her that everyone breaks when tortured but if the person doesn't have anything useful to say then the process is ultimately futile. All that had happened and all she'd seen poured from her. She looked up at a noise in the corridor, but it passed, and she thought back to the endless rounds of torture. The revelation of her relationship with Xinga had resulted in particularly heavy beatings; Jeanne had forgotten that her cousin was, in many ways, a bigot. At one point she had wanted to call a priest to beat the sin from Jeanne but had stopped when it was pointed out that there were none available. As she shuddered and wept on the floor Jeanne had locked eyes with Sophia and for the first time actually seen what her cousin had become. They'd never been close when she'd been growing up; the older Sophia had never been a playmate of the heirs and had instead tried to ingratiate herself into the wider society that made up the ruling elite. Jeanne had always been a little afraid and in awe of her; her looks were far more striking and beautiful than what she perceived in herself. The boundless self-confidence she expressed was worlds away from what she herself felt whenever she did one of the duties she had to carry out as an heir to the throne Now though, in that moment, despite the pain ravaging her and the blood and tears streaking her version she had seen her cousin truly for the first time. Yes, she was beautiful but that was just a mask hiding a drive, bitterness and cruelty that her younger self had misread as confidence.