Chapter 16
Sixteen
Isolde
Mark makes good on his word, and within the hour, Lyonesse staff members are in his closet, in the bathroom, even in the kitchen, selecting knives and cutting boards and pots that are apparently preferable to whatever Tristan has in his apartment.
And then it’s done. Some things remain—a handful of tuxedos, a few folded pairs of jeans, his books—but the things he uses daily are gone.
I check the drawer on his side of the bed and see that the wedding rings from his first marriage are untouched though.
Like me, they’re a relic of a union long since robbed of breath.
I don’t go down to the hall, and I don’t call for food.
I take the small bag that I brought with me from Europe and unpack the three outfits, the toothbrush, the holy card given to me by my uncle when I first killed for the Church.
The knife Mark left at Morois in place of mine, sleek and light and sharp.
Four pairs of underwear, four pairs of socks, three bras.
The server room access chip I stole from Mark’s watch before I left, tucked into a small, clear bag.
A jumble of floor plans, article clippings, pictures, reports, all from the boxes we stole from Mark’s safe.
I put the knife and chip on top of the jumble, and I put it all in Mark’s drawer, careful not to disturb the wedding rings as I set everything on top. I’ll never know Eliot, but I feel a sort of respect for him, a kinship maybe. He too loved Mark Trevena. It’s not for the faint of heart.
And then I curl up on the bed, still in my dress, still wearing my heels. I twist my fingers into the blanket, just below where Mark’s heart would be if he were lying next to me. But he’s not, and the blanket is cold, and the sheets are cold underneath it.
I try to pray. I try to remember the words that made me feel less alone whenever I spoke them, but they come in fragments, brittle and flaking at the edges, disintegrating as soon as I murmur them aloud.
As a child, I thought loving God meant that I’d never be alone. But God has left me, either because of what I’ve done in His name or because of my doubts about what I’ve done, and my remaining family consists of two old men who care more about what I can do for them than about me as a person.
Tristan is gone. If my husband has any feelings for me left at all, it’s against his will.
So I’m alone. As I always knew I was and as I always knew I would be.
In the lonely dark of a lonely apartment, my hand still clutching at Mark’s side of the bed, I finally let myself cry.
Saturnalia comes to Lyonesse with unalloyed gusto, and if I’d hoped for a subtle return to the public life of Lyonesse, all of that is dashed the moment a submissive named Christopher is named the Saturnalicius princeps, the mock king.
The first night of the festival, I come into the hall after the festivities have begun, right after Mark makes a speech that has the crowd roaring.
My plan is to go to his usual chair and sit next to it, as if I’ve been there all evening, but I’m spotted by Christopher before I can.
“My lady!” he shouts, coming toward me at a full run and sliding to his knees just as he reaches me. “All hail my lady!”
All around us, heads turn, even from the floor above, even with the raucous crowd and the music playing, and I have no time to gather myself, to remind myself of the existential reasons I have to play the part.
It’s instinct I rely on, and the very real agonies of both pride and humiliation.
The acid vise of loneliness gripping and eating my heart.
I look down at the puckish man kneeling at my feet. Like half the people here, he’s wearing a colorful robe—his a rather short chiton, which is Greek rather than Roman, but I think even the most easily scandalized Roman wouldn’t have complained about seeing those supple thighs of his.
His red hair is tousled and already a little damp at the roots from cavorting around the hall, and the hundreds of candles catch every scarlet and gold tress and make his copper-dusted legs shimmer.
I lift a hand and cup his cheek. The barest hint of stubble, fine lines around his mouth and eyes.
He’s in his mid-thirties, and I remember now that he does some kind of botany or ecology and spends his days looking into microscopes.
An unrepentant brat , Mark had once told me about him. Perfect for the princeps of the feast.
“Stand up,” I tell him, and then for the benefit of the Saturnalians around me, I add, “my lord.”
“I am , aren’t I?” Christopher grins as he pops up. “In that case, you are my queen. And I demand a dance.”
He grabs my hand and would be yanking me enthusiastically toward the stairs if he were a taller man or I weren’t prepared.
But I am prepared, and I can keep pace with him evenly, so I look as if I’m utterly unbothered by displaying myself in such a manner.
As if it makes no difference to me whether I’m allowed to hide in a corner or if I dance in the middle of a room filled with gossiping club members who think I’m a cheating whore.
As we descend the stairs, the guests move aside, creating a sort of hole in the middle of the room.
Stillness washes through the crowd like a tide.
The music—a pastiche of lyres, lutes, horns, pipes, and drums—goes on, but the conversations, the rattle of jugs and goblets along the crescent-shaped tables, the stirrings on the low sofas and cushions, all stop.
I make the mistake of looking. Of seeing the faces, the sneers. The lewd grins and etched scowls.
And I stumble.
It’s just a catch of my sandal on the floor, a flapping of my hem, but it’s enough to summon my devil, I suppose, because when I steady myself, I see him standing at the nearest table to the dance floor.
He has chosen to wear the garb of a Roman emperor, which, like everything else, looks absurdly good on him.
A snow-white tunic, a toga of Tyrian purple trimmed in gold, and a laurel crown in his already gilded hair.
Even his bare feet in laced-up sandals look magisterial.
He hasn’t stepped forward, hasn’t broken free of the crowd enough that it’ll attract attention, but when our eyes meet, I see that he’s poised to step in. To rescue me, even if rescue would come with the coldest blue eyes and the tightest jaw I’ve ever seen.
I will do everything I can to preserve your dignity here.
As a matter of principle? As part of some mysterious strategy that I can’t see yet?
It doesn’t matter. Nothing would diminish my dignity more than my estranged husband having to rescue me from a red-haired sprite who has a fondness for ice cubes.
I remember our hand signals—the ones he taught me when we were first engaged and I was meant to pretend to be his submissive—and I press my thumb and forefinger of my free hand together.
Stop .
Mark dips his chin the smallest amount, letting me know he understands, but he doesn’t move away as Christopher sweeps me into the middle of the room and pulls me into an awful facsimile of a waltz.
I am beyond grateful for how I dressed tonight, in an indigo gown with the cut of a Roman stola, opaque and hanging to the floor.
My hair is bound up in a braided circle, and my makeup is almost nothing except for some dark blue lipstick to match my dress.
I am as serious as midnight, as solemn as the winter outside.
If I have to be stared at right now, then this is what I want them to stare at, the opposite of whatever they’ve made me in their heads.
As a PR move, it’s rather conspicuous, but it’s a mistake to think conspicuous moves don’t work as well as inconspicuous ones. Sometimes they work even better.
With the drums guiding my feet and the pipes tickling my shoulder blades, I manage to corral us into something with rhythm at least, something with a pattern. Christopher’s amber eyes meet mine with surprise after we make our first turn around the space.
“You really know how to dance,” he says.
I don’t think he dragged me down here to embarrass me, not necessarily, but I do think he wouldn’t have minded my embarrassment.
It would have been a game to him, just more chaos for the newly minted king of chaos.
But there’s a faint gleam of admiration in his gaze when he glances around the space and sees that we’ve turned a potential farce into something else.
What that something else is, I don’t know, but it’s enough to salvage my pride for the night.
Christopher spins me a final time with enough flourish that my gown twists around my feet and then lets me go with a deep bow.
I curtsy effortlessly and then rise.
Mark is gone, lost in the crowd, when I do.
The second night is the same, with a dress in a lighter shade of blue and without a waltz. Mark doesn’t sit in the nook with me, but Arjun and Evander are there and treat me with kindness, as does Dinah when she stops by.
Christopher finds me and makes me drink a toast with him.
I feel the place Tristan would normally stand behind me like the sucking, screaming vacuum of outer space, and I feel the tiredness from my fractured, nightmare-filled sleep last night hanging like cobwebs from my bones.
Below us in the hall is an excess of togas and stolas, for those who aren’t in costume, suits and lingerie, wine and flesh. Moans begin filling the hall, the whack of riding crops and paddles, shrieks of pain or delight or both.
I don’t see my husband anywhere.
The third night. The fourth night.
The same, the same.