Page 37 of Bitter Burn
I suddenly wish for another swill of his drink. “And why are you moving downstairs?” I ask.
“We are presenting the image of a fractured partnership, Isolde. The more fractured it appears, the more time we buy back from your uncle’s impatience.”
I am careful not to move too much, to keep my face the way I want it—a mannequin, a portrait of a queen who seems to display whatever emotion or quality the viewer wants her to display. “Is that all it is, Mark? A presentation? An appearance?”
“Are you asking if our marriage is fractured for real?” His voice could be made of the Potomac in December for how much warmth there is in it. “Or would you like to know if there’s a point to repairing it?”
I look at him, the scar near his temple, the slightly uneven bridge of his nose. The mouth that can do more damage than anything else in this island shrine to sadism and pain. “I won’t beg,” I tell him. “I know how this works. We’ve done it before, the night you took my virginity, remember?”
He glances away and finishes his drink. “If that’s how you like to think of it.”
“And if we’re doing this all over again, then what? Am I still expected to sit with you in the hall? Am I supposed to perform contrition? Present myself for spanking at every turn, knowing you detest me? What, Mark?”
“All you have to perform is whatever will give your uncle the idea that it’s better not to have you killed for the time being. Do the spankings or not, Isolde, it’s your choice, but at least apportion your antipathy in equal measure, not forgetting your uncle or yourself.” He cuts me a look. “But you’ll need to be better about performing contrition if you expect any of the serpents of Lyonesse to believe it.”
“So that’s it,” I exhale. “You lied to me for years, manipulated me, used me against my uncle, and somehow it’s my job to convince your serpents that I’m so very, very sorry. Somehow I have to stand here and listen to you imply that I’ve broken our marriage with the sin of…of what? Discovering the truth? Refusing to kill you for it like I should have? Daring to love the same man you do?”
His eyes narrow, his mouth pressing together, and he angles toward me, leaning in, all tailored clothes and muscled threat.
And then he stops. His eyes are caught on my braid, on the flurries netting my hair, and then he drags his gaze up to mine.
“Our marriage should have never existed in the first place,” says Mark. “Broken is all it ever was. And you should go inside. The snow has stopped melting in your hair.”
He leaves without another word and also without a sound, the noiseless tread of a killer. The damp footprints and the sting of whisky in my throat are the only proof that he was here at all.
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.
