6. 5
Iwaited on the doorstep of the treasurer’s house, a grand stone building with a pillared porch reminiscent of our temples.
The perfectly pruned trees standing guard in regimented lines within the open fence gate signalled both an insistence on order and an over-flowing purse.
Lifting the knocker with its brass bull’s head, I let it fall, already regretting my decision.
The door was pulled open moments later, and I inhaled sharply.
But it was only the butler.
An older gentleman with thinning hair and a thinner build.
He appraised my outfit. I had modelled myself as close to a goddess of the Ten as feasibly possible.
My saffron-yellow peplos fell perfectly, pinned with bronze at my shoulders.
My hair was expertly curled and pinned. Only my shoes, and the abominable dust, gave me away.
He looked at them, and then returned his watery eyes to my face.
“Do you have an appointment?” he asked.
I opened my mouth only for it to dry in a moment when another face appeared behind the butler.
The man was nearly the same age as his butler, but taller and wider. His face was jowly and his skin far too red, like a boiled ham. “Who is this?”
The butler cleared his throat. “I had not—”
“Who are you?” he said to me directly.
His clothes were finely tailored, and he wore a purple velvet hat. From his belt a number of flat bronze disks the size of my palm hung against his hip, signalling his status on the Mayor’s council. Clearly, he was about to leave.
“I am here to call on your son, my lord,” I started after swallowing past the desert of my throat. This man would have been my father, had Ekris not put that curse on his son. “My name is A—”
“I don’t give a fig’s pit what your name or your mother’s name was,” he interrupted. “I won’t be entertaining another of my son’s whores at my door.”
I hissed in a breath. “I am not… That is to say—”
I paused, realising that I couldn’t quite defend myself well against his accusation.
I was, to all common reasoning, presently a whore.
Before, when I was at the House of Love, he had still paid for me.
The word alone did not offend. Talia had taught us to guard our hearts and minds against words that were only factual; to learn the countenance to weather attempts to insult us.
What I was not prepared for, was the word ‘another’.
Ion peered at me. “You’re not with child, are you?”
“I—”
Ion reached into the bulging velvet coin purse hanging from his belt and pulled out two coins.
He gave them to the butler, and didn’t look at me again. “Give her these and get rid of her. If the babe is born it won’t be claimed as any bastard of ours,” he said. “I need to go speak with my son.”
Dytho’s treasurer disappeared back into the house.
I was entirely frozen on the doorstep.
The butler opened his hand, showing the two silver coins. “As he said. Take these and begone.”
I stared at the silver. Would taking the coin be an implicit acceptance of all of their incorrect opinions about me? Ion had already left, but would my taking of it be reported back? Would any of it come back to Robar?
Gods, if I could only speak to him. He would see me, dressed as beautifully as I could be outside of the Ekrissian House.
I would say the right things, and he would know my heart was true.
We would promenade together, and he would learn to love me as he had before.
He had told me he had fallen in love the first time we met.
To him, this could have been the first time once more.
It was rotten luck to meet his father, instead.
I snapped out of my longing stupor, collecting the two coins with shaking fingers, and walked with a blood-drained pace until I had rounded the corner. I wasn’t in a position to be turning down a coin, and I doubted Ion would even think of me again.
At least I had something to show for my burning shame.
Then I ran. I ran as fast as I could, until my lungs threatened to explode. I ran until the tears blurred the looks from the passersby.
The grass of Taberna Park was yellow and dried.
The summer had been relentless, and yet still, citizens promenaded as if it were the middle of spring.
I sat on a bench in the exact shaded window of a cypress tree.
My right hand was the only part of my flesh exposed, resting on the armrest of the bench.
Ahead, a marble pavilion stood. Within, a statue of the God of Merriment.
He was depicted as a heavy-set man with open arms and a ready grin, and hair long and strewn with carved ribbons.
He wore the traditional himation, which looked demure when hewn from stone, but was usually painted in every colour known to the world when depicted in oils.
Robar had told me of this park and this pavilion.
He described it in admirable detail, and imagined a future where we might stroll here together.
After our first year away from society, of course, when enough time had passed that his father would accept his decision.
He told me we would grow old walking around this park.
I never told him that I had visited Taberna Park many times.
From the start, he was of the impression that I was not permitted to leave the House of Love except on days of religious significance.
It was charming to hear how enamoured he was with the idea of liberating me from the physical walls of my home, and I did not have the heart to correct him.
He would cite the story of fair Gillifren, and the God Zeonal’s blessed soldier, Polimus.
Polimus freed Gillifren from the serpent sister of the Goddess of the Sea, Pleiidus.
He helped her escape from her bubble cage, and swam with her to the surface.
Polimus blinded the serpent sister in the process, which is why we still have the freak storms that even Pleiidus cannot control, as her sister roams the oceans without knowing her course, leaving havoc in her path.
I never learnt how Gillifren came to be in the bubble. Myths and legends weren’t part of Talia’s teaching: nothing impractical ever was. Robar didn’t know that part, either. But of Polimus and his great warship, Robar would tell me every detail.
I wouldn’t have minded being trapped in Robar’s bubble forever, I thought.
Often, he described places I had never been.
Tavernas, secretive spots, or the inside of beautiful ballrooms. I would not have wanted him to believe me any more worldly.
I liked the way he described the world: full of possibilities he wanted to uncover.
The city was a treasure trove to plunder, and I was his greatest treasure of all.
Deep in a broken part of me, I still believed that Ekris had marked me out of pity.
He had taken in a lost soul, and shown her the love she had never known from her family.
Robar was different. When he proposed, he had chosen me.
He was a noble of good stock; he could have chosen any woman in Craetos. He wanted me.
I couldn’t throw that aside. I couldn’t desert him now. The version of him who had loved me would want to love me again. I had to try.
Shade covered my right hand.
On instinct alone, I looked up.
My heart leapt at the sight of a looming figure. Then, just as quickly and for no good reason, the fear dispelled when I recognised him.
The mask looked darker today, in the shade of his hood and without the sun or lamps bouncing off it. He must have been boiling, with his thick black cloak and tight black tunic and trousers underneath. There was nothing loose about his outfit or his posture.
Why was Davian here?
I frowned at him. “Are you following me?”
Davian raised an eyebrow. “Not this time.”
Great. Very reassuring.
He stepped around to sit on the bench next to me, and the sun bore down on his back. I shuffled further against the edge, and my right shoulder caught the afternoon heat. Davian pretended not to notice my retreat.
We both sat there in silence.
I couldn’t think of anything but how close his cloak was to my skirts. I tried not to watch as he placed his hands unnaturally on his knees. He had completely interrupted my reflections on my betrothed.
He leaned back. “It’s not very beautiful this time of year, is it?”
“Why are you here, then?” I asked, with a snap.
“I was visiting my father’s grave.”
I looked at him, my face draining in mortification as I tried to discover the lie in his words and check his face for insincerity.
I wished I still had Ekris’ full gift, that instant ability to tell a lie.
Now, I had only the patterns. Before it was almost a spoken thing, as if the fibber had whispered ‘lie’ after his words.
That was gone. But over the years, I had learnt those things that so often accompanied the lies.
The quirks in tone, facial expression, the direction of the eyes, the twitches and tells and fidgeting.
I hadn’t gotten used to the loss of Ekris’ gifts, but I still knew what to look for.
I was sure he was telling the truth.
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He stared at me. “Why?”
I pressed my lips together. It wasn’t an admonishment, but it felt like one. “I’m sorry for being rude to you when you came here to grieve. And for your loss."
Davian only hummed, and looked back to his knees, as if considering my answer. I was about to ask permission to leave his company, when he pushed himself to his feet. I followed suit out of propriety.
He offered his arm to me, like he was a proper gentleman and I, a proper lady. “Would you like to walk?”
I looked at the arm, and then up to his face. “We can walk.”
I didn’t take his offered limb, and he seemed to understand that I didn’t intend to. He started walking, and I matched his slow pace along the path through the gardens.