Rosamund Hodge: Cruel Beauty

But just thinking the impiety made me feel sick. He had only been trying to save my mother. No doubt, in his desperation, he’d deluded himself into thinking the Gentle Lord would be easier to cheat; and once he knew how wrong he’d been, what could he do but try to save as much as he could?

Iphigenia had gladly let her father, Agamemnon, sacrifice her to the gods so that the Greek fleet would have good winds as they sailed to Troy. My father was asking me to die for something much better: the chance to save Arcadia.

All my life, I’d seen people driven mad by demons; I’d seen how everyone, weak or strong, rich or poor, lived in fear of them. If I carried out Father’s plan—if I trapped the Gentle Lord and freed Arcadia—nobody would ever be killed or driven mad by a demon again. No fools would make disastrous bargains with the Gentle Lord, and no innocents would pay the price for them. Our people would live free beneath the true sky.

Any one of the Resurgandi would gladly die for that chance. If I loved my people, or even just my family, I should be glad to die for it too.

“I’ll tell him the truth,” I said. “I couldn’t bear to part with my sister’s gift.”

“You should make him think you didn’t even want to have it. Tell him that you made a promise to your father.”

I couldn’t resist saying, “He bargained with you himself. Do you think he’s fool enough to believe you’d try to save me?”

His eyes widened and his jaw hardened. With a little flicker of pleasure, I realized I had finally hurt him.

This is the first way that I heard the story: Father drew me aside and said, “When I was young, I promised the Resurgandi that one of my daughters would fight the Gentle Lord and free us all. You are that daughter.”

I suppose it was a kindness that he told me that way—the first and last kindness he ever showed me. I heard the rest of the story soon enough from Aunt Telomache, and I heard it over and over again, from her, from him, from visiting members of the Resurgandi.

The story was all around me—in Aunt Telomache’s grim silences, Father’s carefully blank stares, the way their hands touched when they thought no one was looking; it was in Astraia’s overflowing toy chest, the portraits of my mother in every room, the stack of books Father gave me about every hero who had ever died for duty. I breathed that story, swam in it, felt like I would drown in it.

This is how it goes:

Once upon a time, Leonidas Triskelion was a young man, handsome and clever and brave. He was the darling of his family and the hope of the Resurgandi. And he was also the beloved of a young woman named Thisbe, and in time her husband. But as the years wore on, their joyful marriage filled with sorrow, for Thisbe could not conceive a child. No matter how Leonidas swore he loved her, she despised herself as a worthless and unlucky wife, who would cause her husband’s name to die with him because she could not give him a son. At last she fell into such despair that she tried to kill herself. For if even Leonidas’s Hermetic arts could not help her, what hope was left?

Just one.

So at last Leonidas, who had spent years studying how to defeat the Gentle Lord, went to bargain with him. And this is the bargain that the Gentle Lord struck: a son was out of the question. But Thisbe would conceive two healthy daughters by the year’s end, and the only price would be that when one of them was seventeen, she must marry the Gentle Lord himself.

“And do not think that you can cheat me,” said the Gentle Lord. “If you hide your daughters, I will find them, and after marrying one I will kill the other; but deliver one daughter to me and the other one will live free and happy all her life.”

But while the Gentle Lord always keeps his word, he always cheats at his bargains. He made Thisbe conceive and grow heavy with twins, but he did not make her able to bear them. The first daughter was born quickly enough, but the second came out crooked and covered in her mother’s blood, and though she survived, Thisbe did not.

Leonidas could not help loving Astraia, the daughter his wife had paid for so dearly. He could not help despising me, the daughter who had received her life for no cost, as he had paid nothing of his own to receive us. So Astraia grew up beloved, the living image of her mother. And I grew up knowing that my only purpose was to be my father’s vengeance incarnate.

The carriage stopped with a jolt and a bump.

I looked at Father. He looked back at me.

My throat tightened again and I swallowed. I felt sure there was something I could say—should say—if I could just think of it fast enough—

“Go with all the blessings of the gods and your father,” he said calmly.

The rote words stung more than his silence. As the driver opened the carriage door, I realized how desperately I had always wanted him to show one hint of reluctance, one suggestion that it pained him to use me as a weapon.

But why should I complain? Hadn’t I just hurt Astraia even worse?

I smiled brightly. “Surely the gods will bless such a kindly father as much as he deserves,” I said, and clambered out of the carriage without looking back. The door slammed behind me. In an instant the driver was snapping the whip at the horses, and the carriage clattered away.

I stood very still, my shoulders tight, staring at the house of my bridegroom.

They had not brought me quite to the door—nobody would go so close to the Gentle Lord’s house unless he was already mad enough to seek a bargain—but the stone tower was only a short distance up the grassy slope. It was the only whole part that remained of the ancient castle of the Arcadian kings. Beyond it, the hill was crowned with crumbling walls and revenant doorways that stood alone without any walls about them.

The wind moaned softly, ruffling the grass. The sun’s diffuse glow warmed my face, and the cool air had the warm, ripe smell of late summer. I sucked in a breath, knowing this was the last time I would stand outside.

Either I would fail, and the Gentle Lord would kill me . . . or else I would succeed, and either die in the house’s collapse or be trapped with him forever. In which case I would be lucky if he killed me.

For one moment I considered running. I could be down the hill by another path before the Gentle Lord knew I was gone, and then . . .

. . . and then he would hunt me down, take me by force, and kill Astraia.

There was only one choice I could make.

I realized I was shaking. I still wanted to run. But I was doomed in any case, so I might at least die saving the sister I had wronged. I thought about how much I hated the Gentle Lord, how much I wanted to show him that requesting a captive bride was the worst mistake he’d ever make. While that hate still flickered within me, I marched up to the wooden door of the tower and banged on it.

The door swung open silently.

I stepped through before I could change my mind, and the door promptly slammed shut. I flinched at the crash but managed to stop myself from trying to tug it open again. I wasn’t supposed to escape.

Instead I looked around. I was in a round foyer the size of my bedroom with white walls, a blue tiled floor, and a very high ceiling. Though from the outside it had looked as if there were nothing of the house but one lonely tower, this room had five mahogany doors, each carved with a different pattern of fruits and flowers. I tried them, but they were all locked.

Was that a laugh? I went still, my heart thumping. But if the noise had been real, it did not repeat. I circled the room again, this time pounding on each of the doors, but there was still no response.

“I’m here!” I shouted. “Your bride! Congratulations on your marriage!”