Actually, it had been right after we'd rescued him from Queen Louisa, the former ruler of this land. She'd been a little pissed at having to give up her territory to me. But I didn't bother to correct Dontaine's assumption. No need to get into the details of when and how it had happened. Just that it had.
"I understand, my Queen." He smiled ruefully. "You are young, the need for a child is not yet that strong, and your bed is not as empty as I thought." The light smile he'd forced upon his face dropped away. "But my offer will stand open to you..."
Indefinitely. For as long as I must wait, were the words he did not say. And that scared me. That offer, that yearning for me. I didn't want it or desire it. Too many men had been willing to wait for me - first Amber, then my Demon Prince - and still I did not know why. Why they desired me, a woman common in looks, less than average in build, and of mixed mongrel blood. Life was too short to have to wait for such a tenuous possibility, even among the long-lived Monere, whose lives could stretch three centuries long. But just because you could live that long, didn't mean you did. Look at Gryphon.
"Don't wait for me," I told Dontaine, looking up into that handsome patrician face. "You can have any woman you want. Go to them. Be with them instead."
His eyes lowered and he bowed and stepped back, face impassive, body held stiffly with sudden tension. As if I'd struck him a literal blow. "As my Queen commands," he said, his voice as blank as his face, both carefully wiped clean of all expression.
He turned to leave, and I had a horrible feeling that something was amiss. I almost let him leave. But my instincts were crying out that something was wrong, that his reaction was too strong just to be from my rebuff alone.
"Dontaine, wait please," I said, reluctantly prolonging the agony for both of us. "You said 'As my Queen commands.' You meant that as a formality, right?"
"I am not certain what you are asking, milady."
I struggled for the proper words. "You used that as a polite phrase, like the English would say, 'Long live the king.' Not as an actual command, right?"
"You mean," Dontaine said carefully, "that it wasn't? A command, that is?" He looked up, his green eyes lovely and unsure, an odd look to see in that usual arrogant face.
"Good God, no! Did you think it was?"
"Yes," he said to my shock.
"Oh," I said faintly. "Well, good thing I stopped you then. What... uh, exactly did you think I was telling you to do?"
"To go sleep with our unmarried women. Impregnate them."
Some of it was starting to make horrible sense to me. "Because you told me that you come from a fertile line."
He nodded.
"And you thought I'd use that information to increase our population." And the wealth of my territory. It wasn't just monetary income that counted as prosperity here. It was also in the number of women, usually far outnumbered by males. And in the rare female offspring, of which his line had proven capable of generating.
"You thought I was putting you out to stud," I said with shocked dismay, and had a sudden horrible thought. "Is that what your old Queen, Mona Louisa, did to you?"
"No. She wanted me for herself, even though no child came from our union." He smiled grimly. "Then it became a forked prong for her. She dared not put me out to stud then, as you called it, though it would have profited her to do so. If I proved fertile with other women, it would only prove her barrenness. But with you... you do not desire me in your bed. It would have made sense to use me elsewhere."
"Like putting out a stallion, or using a prize bull to service all the available female stock." I shook my head at the thought. "It's not as easy as that, surely. Handsome though you are, some women would have affections, desires elsewhere. Not every woman would have wanted or accepted you."
"It would not have mattered," he said simply. "If I had been ordered to service them, none of us would have had any choice in the matter."
"That's barbaric," I said, aghast.
"In the human value system you were raised up in, perhaps. But our women are brought up expecting no say in their choice of mates."
"You're kidding," I said. "Who decides then, their fathers?"
"No, our Queens. Access to a woman is usually granted as a reward to our Queen's most loyal men or for special feats of service, though some men are given bedding privileges if they come from a fertile line."
"God," I whispered. "And I thought it was just the men who had it bad here." Warriors who grew too powerful were usually killed by their Queens. "That's horrible," I said, "to have no say in whom you marry."
"I made no mention of marriage, milady. Very few are granted that privilege. Most unions decided by the Queen are temporary, lasting only several full moons. Only couples paired for breeding purposes are usually granted several seasons together to try and bear a child. Or, if one came from a proven richly fertile line, such as I, he would be designated to a group of women to lie with during that time, not just one."
I was appalled. "Is... is that what everyone is expecting me to do, to tell which men to go to which woman's bed?"
"Yes."
"Jesus Christ."
His eyes fixed upon me intently. "Do you not mean to follow that tradition?"
"Hell, no."
"Then what will you do?"
"Let them choose among themselves whom they would like to" - I flapped my hand - "sleep with, marry, whatever. As long as both parties desire it," I tacked on hastily. Best to make things crystal clear among these archaic people. "No raping allowed."
"A very liberal concept, milady," Dontaine murmured, his face and eyes inscrutable so that I did not know if he approved of the idea or not. But it didn't really matter if he did. That was what I was going to do.
"Please let everyone know this. That it is my wish for them to seek out their own lovers, spouses, their own happiness. God, I'd hate to be responsible for that."
"Freedom of choice, and happiness." He murmured it like it was something foreign to him. "A very human idea."
I gave a short laugh. "Well, no surprise there. I'm partly human." And I was clinging to my human ways quite fiercely.
"That applies to you, too," I said more quietly. "That's what I meant before. Go find a woman you like and be with her. But only if you wish to. It's the same thing I told my guards before we came here." And their surprise then should have given me a clue. I was still learning the ropes of being a Queen, of being Monere. And still finding some of those ropes hard and rough to grasp.