Rosamund Hodge: Gilded Ashes

“Do not,” I say quietly, “presume to tell me about withholding truth.”

Then I whirl and run from his study, run from the palace, before the cold ache in my chest can turn into real anger. But though I’m calm again by the time I reach home—though I smile to Mother and whisper, He’s so sweet, though I say to Koré, I think he’s weakening —his words are still lodged like splinters beneath my skin, and I hear them again every time I move. Lydia wrote me. Lydia wrote me.

What else could I do?

I go back the next day. I must, because Koré gives me a letter and I cannot let her be angry with me. But as I creep into the palace, I feel raw and helpless and naked, like a chicken trussed up for baking. A few of the maids nod at me as I pass, and one giggles—all the servants know about my visits now—and though yesterday I ignored them, today I flinch, as if they can know about yesterday’s fight just by looking.

I can’t believe I was foolish enough to goad him. If he’s set on marrying miserably, what of it, so long as he marries Koré? If he can’t forget this Lydia, what should that be to me?

Nothing. It should be nothing. I’m the girl who never gets angry and never wants anything, and that’s why my family is still alive.

It used to be so easy. I used to huddle in the corners and think of the wallpaper and forget I even existed. Now, as I march grimly through the hallway of golden rosettes and mirrors, my body and my thoughts and my wretched, tangled emotions cling to me like sticky bread dough.

When I reach Lord Anax’s study, I pause a moment. I tell myself, You are the only one who can protect your family. Nothing else matters. Then I push open the door.

Lord Anax is sprawled back in his chair, feet on the desk and Alcibiades in his hands, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his forehead creased as he stares at the marble skull.

The moment he sees me, he flails upright, papers flying everywhere. In a moment he’s on his feet.

“Maia,” he says, and doesn’t go on, just stares at me.

“Lord Anax,” I say, and bob a curtsy, then flush because I’ve never curtsied to him before. I thrust my hand out. “I brought you another letter.”

“I really don’t care about the letters. At all. Not one bit.” He’s still staring at me with—not fear, I don’t think, but a sort of dazed caution.

“Then I have no errand here,” I say, and I mean to go—this is a relief, isn’t it, that I don’t have to face him any longer, so why this plummeting sensation in my stomach?—but my feet won’t move.

“Wait.” His hands are clenching and flexing. “I wanted—that is to say—I am sorry for speaking angrily to you yesterday.” He swallows. “I hope you will not repeat . . . anything I may have said unwisely.”

My spine stiffens. “I’m not a gossip, my lord.”

“I didn’t mean that—well, maybe I did. A little.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m no good at this. Maia-who-refuses-to-tell-me-her-family-name, will you sit down? I think you deserve to hear a story.”

His eyes flicker to me once, then focus on his desk.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, my lord.”

“I don’t,” he says. “But you wanted to know why I am determined to marry—anyone but Lydia—and you deserve to know.”

“I’ve only brought you letters, my lord.” I don’t want to keep spitting the title at him, but my tongue won’t do anything else.

His head snaps up and now he does look at me. “You have told me the truth, and Tartarus take me if I do any less for you. Sit down, woman, and do as you’re told.”

“Yes, my lord.” I sit down.

He draws a breath. “I’ve known Lydia Cosmatos since I was three years old. We were childhood playmates. We did everything together, until we were old enough that it wasn’t proper, and then we still saw each other as often as we could. Our fathers largely looked the other way, because while they never said anything, it was generally understood that we were destined to marry each other. When we were children, we thought it a very good joke. When we were older . . . Lydia was beautiful. Is beautiful. And sweet, and kind, and good. I was in love with her, or thought I was, and though she grew quieter every year, I was positive that she returned my feelings. So on my sixteenth birthday, I declared myself—told her that I loved her more than light or breath—and begged her to marry me. I thought we could be wed before the year was out.”

Then he pauses, staring at the skull. Finally he continues. “Lydia smiled and said yes. She said—I can still remember the exact words—‘I had given up hope that you felt about me the way I feel about you.’” I kissed her and kissed her and thought it was the happiest day of my life. Our fathers were delighted, though they said to wait at least a year.

“And then.” His hands clench. “Lydia and her father were guests in our house that summer. One day, they went walking in the box-hedge maze. I went after them, and I heard them talking. Lydia was—was begging her father to break the engagement. She said that she had thought she could bear to marry me because he wished it and I was a friend, but every day the thought of marrying one she regarded as a brother grew more abhorrent to her. She said that every time I kissed her, she wanted to die.

“I don’t remember how I got back to the house. I don’t really remember anything until that evening, when I cornered her in the library. I was—vile. I threatened to slander her to the entire city unless she broke the engagement herself. I wouldn’t tell her why. I had enough decency, at least, to pretend I didn’t know her secrets; I just said that I was sick of her, that I couldn’t bear to see her face again. Which was true enough. So Lydia jilted me the next morning, and her father has been plotting to reconcile us ever since.”

Finally he turns to me. “You see why I have to marry. She won’t ever be free until I do. And as much as I despise the thought of marrying a woman who smiles and lies to me, I think I can bear it if she’s not a friend.”

“You still love her,” I say quietly.

“Maybe. What does that mean, anyway?” He crosses his arms and stares over my shoulder, out the window. “I think I’d die for her if she asked it, but I couldn’t attend her birthday party. I’d have rather died than walk into that room and smile at her. What sense does that make? Frankly, I’ve gone off the idea of love.”

“It would only be sensible if you had,” I say. “But you haven’t.” I can see it in the miserable, hunched lines of his shoulders.

And yet, for all his love, he let her go. He tried his best to escape her. I had not believed that anyone could love like that.

He barks a laugh. “And you have?”

Yes, I mean to say. I have never loved. I have never wanted to be loved. In all the world, I am the only girl who doesn’t.

But then he looks at me—his mouth twisted halfway between a smile and a grimace, the skin crinkled at the corners of his dark eyes—and I can’t speak.

I’m the only girl in the world who doesn’t want love. I’m the only girl in the world who can protect people from my mother. And I am always, always alone. But the slant of his shoulders, the set of his mouth, the line of his eyebrows all say, Me too— and for one crazy, impossible moment, I believe him. I believe that someone else could understand me.

I believe that love could possibly be kind.

And then I don’t.

“I haven’t gone off love,” I say. “I never liked it to begin with.” My hands are shaking; my heart is pounding as hard as the time that Stepmother slapped me, and all I could think for an hour was, Mother, Mother, my darling mother, I love my stepmother so very much.