More than one took up the call. In seconds, nearly the entire crowd was chanting her name rhythmically, pumping their fists in time with the cadence. " Ker-ree-TAH-nee-MAH! " the crowd shouted in unison, clamoring forward against the guards there to keep them from the base of the platform.
She had no idea why they were doing it. She stared at them in genuine surprise and dismay, staring down at thousands of faces fervently chanting her name. Why would they do such a thing? They should be afraid of her, afraid of her being able to withstand a punishment that would put the hardiest man on his knees. But there they were, chanting her name, surging forward against the guards in an attempt to get closer to her. Why, for the gods' sake? Why?
Then it hit her. These were the common people, the masses which had struggled under the heel of her father's oppressive rule. The people who had to endure the crushing taxes, the long hours of labor for noble-owned companies, the people who saw their children go hungry in order to pay the crown its fair share of their bounty. The backbone of their nation. And they saw her as something of a heroine. The defiant daughter of the king, who wasn't as bratty as she pretended to be all those years, who was willing to stand up to his punishments and his power, to spit in his face and do the one thing that all of them wanted to do.
To tell Damon Eram to go piss up a flagpole.
She may not be their savior, but at least her defiance gave them a feeling of satisfaction, and that was why they were chanting her name. They knew that Damon Eram would be livid that he had failed to break his daughter, and the people took great satisfaction from that simple truth.
"Well then," Keritanima said lightly to the witness over the din. "Now that we've entertained the people, I think I'd like to go home now."
The royal servant stared at the chanting people in surprise, then looked at Keritanima and nodded solemnly. "Bring up a coach!" he shouted to one of the guards.
"No," Keritanima said, trying to keep her knees from wobbling. "I walked here, I'll walk back, and I'll be damned if I give my father an excuse to say that I didn't accept his punishment."
Keritanima found herself surrounded by guards, who were themselves surrounded by a throng of accompanying citizens, escorting the princess home as they shouted her name and called to her. Keritanima tried to ignore them, focusing all her concentration on fighting off the pain and retaining the Illusion that her back resembled ground meat more than a living body. She put one foot in front of the other, repeating it over and over again, letting the guards guide her home. Those guards didn't wander around as they escorted the princess back home. The shouting crowd caused them to turn straight up the Boulevard, the fastest way back to the Palace. She was drained, exhausted, in considerable pain-but a great deal less than if she'd really been whipped!-and had to struggle to maintain the Illusion. But she made it back to the Palace, leaving the crowd behind, escorted right back to the door to her apartment.
Back in Market Square, those who watched the flogging talked about it to each other the rest of the day. Some of the more daring rushed onto the Block and collected up tufts of Keritanima's bloody fur, rushing away with them. Word spread throughout the city about the Crown Princess, how she had stood on the Block, naked as the day she was born, and took one hundred lashes without fainting. How she had stood in defiance to the King by refusing to fall to the whip, then had bravely refused to be carried home, deciding instead to finish her father's punishment by walking back to the Palace. Her statements also were recanted over and over, about how a father could possible order his own child flogged, and dimming the already dark opinion the people had for their King. Damon Eram was notorious for his ruthlessness and viciousness, and his crushing taxes and oppressive laws made more than a few of his subjects grumble and mutter when his name was spoken.
To them, Keritanima's display of outright defiance was bolstering, was heartening. It told the people that at least one person in Wikuna wasn't afraid to stand up to Damon Eram.
Keritanima gasped and flinched from the cold cloth soaked with vinegar placed on her back. Binter seemed unimpressed by her display, continuing to very gently wash out the cuts that Keritanima had inflicted upon herself during the flogging. She lay on her belly on her bed, a pillow under her chest and propped up on her elbows, holding as still as she could to get it overwith. Kalina, Azakar, and Miranda attended her, Azakar keeping his back turned modestly and making a show out of watching the bedroom door. Keritanima was still nude.
"Ow!" Keritanima barked. "Binter, you don't have to be so rough!"
"I barely touched you, Highness," Binter chided in his deep voice. "Hold still. I don't see how this can hurt more than what I see here."
"The wine stings, you blockhead!" she snapped. "Why did you soak it in wine?"
"Vinegar," he corrected. "It cleanses the wound and prevents infection."
"It's going to kill me!" she declared in a woeful voice, flattening the bridge of her muzzle on the bed and hissing as he applied the cloth again.
"What possessed you to let them whip you, Keritanima?" Kalina asked curiously.
"I didn't let them whip me," she said in a hissing voice. "But I had to make it believable. I had to make sure they believed they were whipping me."
"So what are these? Love bites?"
"Slashes," Binter said. "Done by something like a razor, from the neatness of the wounds."
"Something like that," Keritanima winced. "I used Sorcery to do that."
"You cut yourself?" Kalina asked in shock.
"It was the knife or the whip," she replied bluntly, sucking in her breath and flinching against the cloth. "If I'd have chosen the whip, I'd be ten times worse off."
"Keritanima used her magic to make it appear that they were flogging her," Miranda explained. "The loss of her fur and the blood were vital to making that performance look real."
"I can understand that, but to cut yourself up," Kalina said with a shudder. "You're a better man than me, Keritanima."
"Thanks," she drawled.
"Why don't you just heal yourself, like you did for Miranda?"
"I can't heal myself," she grunted. "Believe me, if I could, I'd be doing it right now. Sorcerers can't use their magic on themselves."
"Why?"
"Do you really want the explanation?" Keritanima asked pointedly.
"Uh, no, nevermind," Kalina said. "I'll take your word for it."
"Good. Ow!" she gasped, flinching from the cloth as Binter placed it on her buttocks.
"I've been bitten there, but never cut," Kalina remarked absently.
"I'm sure my world would have ended if you wouldn't have told me that," Keritanima snapped waspishly.
"I think you should go before you upset her Highness," Binter suggested to the fox Wikuni.
"She already has!" Keritanima said with a hiss.
"I'll go now," Kalina noted calmly, then scurried out.
"Fine!" Keritanima snapped. "Ow! Binter!"
"Hold still," he said adamantly, putting a huge hand on her shoulder and pushing her down into the mattress. "The more you move, the more this will hurt, and the longer it will take."
"I saw the crowd from the window," Miranda mused. "What was that all about?"
"Beats the bloody hell out of me," Keritanima replied in a curiousy amazed voice. "They were cheering me at the end. I think it's because they're starting to get very unhappy about the new taxes and the rough treatment they're getting from my father. I think they saw me as a rallying point to voice their displeasure."
"That's good for us."
Keritanima nodded. "It'll give my father something else to worry about."