If you weren’t a servant,” asks Lord Anax, “what would you do?”
It’s the sixth day of my strange mission; Lord Anax is wrinkling today’s letter between his hands.
“My lady wrote that,” I say wearily.
“I know,” he says. “I asked you a question.”
“Oh.” I pause and think it over. “What does it matter?”
“Well, I told you what I’d do, if I weren’t my father’s son. What would you do, if you weren’t a servant?”
He should ask: if I weren’t my mother’s daughter, or if my mother had not loved me quite so much. But no matter how I enjoy telling him the truth, that is not something I dare say to him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It will never happen.”
Ghosts are laid to rest when injustices are righted, when their duties are fulfilled. But my mother’s duty is to make me happy as long as I live. So there is no rest for her, and no escape for me. I will be happy and happy until it kills me.
“Pretend it does matter,” says Lord Anax. “Pretend that tomorrow you were set free and could do anything you liked. What would it be?”
I open my mouth to tell him he’s a fool, but then I remember he does not know I am a slave to my mother’s love. He imagines I have only living masters to fear. And it’s true, if I succeed in getting him to marry Koré, if all my stepfamily leaves the house, there will be nobody alive to rule me. I realize that while I have dared to dream of such freedom, I have not yet dared to imagine what could come after.
“I think,” I say slowly, “I would like a kitchen where I was mistress and I could decide what I cooked. And I would like . . .” As I speak the words, the desire unfurls like a crocus blossom. “I would like to have a great fluffy orange cat that would sit by the fireplace and purr.”
I’ve surprised him; I can see that in the tilt of his eyebrows. “Is that all?”
“It’s more than I have.”
“You’re not a timid girl,” he says. “You don’t lack imagination either. You walked into this palace and commanded me to marry your mistress. Why do you dare to dream so little for yourself?”
“Do you imagine everyone is so fortunate as you are?” I demand. “I’m already dreaming more than I ought, and far more than I’ll likely ever have a chance to get. And you, in what way are you better?”
I see his face stiffen; then he swallows and looks at his desk, shoulders slouched and hands in his pockets, a careless posture that I know is a lie.
“You are heir to the Duke of Sardis—in ten or twenty years, you’ll be the most powerful man in Arcadia—but you can’t imagine anything better for yourself than choosing at random a wife you despise and pitying yourself to the end of your days because you broke your own heart.”
He lets out a breath, nostrils flaring. I should stop. But I’m drunk on truth, and though my body is shaking in anticipation of his anger, my mouth won’t stop.
“Why don’t you tell your father that you don’t want to marry?” I say. “He may want you to secure an heir, but he can’t force you—a firstborn son has rights—and if he does find a way to disown you, you’re not helpless. You’re a man, you’re wellborn, you’ve been to the university, and you have contacts in the Resurgandi; you can find a way to support yourself.” I think of the way Thea goes over the accounting books, late at night when Stepmother isn’t there to tell her it isn’t ladylike. “Why are you carrying on with this madcap plan? Why are you trying to marry anyone?”
He turns on me, and all pretense of lordly boredom is shattered by the raw, helpless fury in his face. “Because she asked me to.”
Even though I’d been expecting it, his anger rocks me back a step. “Who?”
“Lydia wrote me. Said she knew I despised her, but if I had any pity, I’d bestow my name on someone else so that her father would let her accept suitors and not doom her to spinsterhood.” His voice drops as he looks away, running a hand through his hair. “I’d taken everything else away from her. What else could I do?”
I stare at him. “But you said—that first day, you said you didn’t care—”
“Yes, yes, I said! I am the duke’s son and I often lie, my lady. Despite my exalted position, there are freedoms you have and I do not, and the truth, I regret to inform you, is one of them.”
My body stiffens, a thousand memories icing over my skin: smiling when Stepmother tells me I’m a stupid little girl, and afterward whispering, Mother, it’s so funny how she pretends not to love me. Koré saying I’m useless and slow and she can’t imagine why they feed me. Mother, I feel so sorry for Koré when she’s cross. Thea trying to make peace and only bringing down more punishment on my head because she’s too stupid and spoiled to think through the consequences of her words. Mother, Thea is so good to me.
“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.
“Well, you are a lucky girl, then, to swear off love so gladly. Just be sure Aphrodite doesn’t punish you as she did Hippolytus.”
That startles a real laugh out of me. “I don’t think even the gods could make my stepmother fall in love with me.”
“So you’ve a stepmother,” he says thoughtfully, “and you’re well educated. Likely wellborn, too. There aren’t even many nobles who know the story of Hippolytus—let alone servants, who usually only want stories about the hedge-gods.”
I wouldn’t know about Hippolytus either, except that one winter Thea got the idea that she should educate me, and she trailed after me reading plays aloud until Stepmother locked her in her room.
“Actually,” I say, “most servants here in Sardis won’t have anything to do with the hedge-gods. Too rustic and uncouth.” My voice falls into the cadences of our old cook’s voice. “That sort of rubbish is only for weak-willed jennies who wish they were back on the farm with dirt beneath their fingernails.”
“Really? My late mother would have been delighted; she was always trying to organize new programs of improvement for the servants.”
“So said our old cook. Mind you, she wasn’t above throwing midsummer cakes on the fire, though she tried to hide it.” I smile, remembering the way she scolded me when I asked her what she was doing. None of your business, little Miss Nosy.
The memory stabs me straight between the ribs. A week after that scolding, something happened that left her hands shaking, that made her hide beneath her apron at every loud noise. For the next month she burned soups and dropped pots; then Stepmother dismissed her.
I don’t think it was my fault. I laughed at the scolding, and she smiled at me a moment after. If she’d actually met a demon, she’d have died or gone insane. But I can’t be sure. I can never, ever be sure, and that’s when I realized it was better not to make friends with the servants. After her, none of them stayed more than a month, anyway. They always realized the house was haunted and fled.
“You’re like a chameleon, do you know that?” Lord Anax is staring at me now with his eyebrows drawn together thoughtfully, his mouth crooked up in a faint smile. “One moment you have vowels that could put my mother to shame, the next you’re talking like the scullery maid. You dress in rags and you know thousand-year-old plays.”
I am the most perfect chameleon he’s ever known, and he can’t know me. He can marry Koré if he wants. He can even marry Lydia. I’ll smile and pour out wine to the gods in thanks. But he can’t get to know me any better or Mother will notice him and he’ll be trapped in my fate and I would rather die.
I’d rather die, I think, and realize that I mean it.
“I’m also a messenger,” I say. My body feels cold and stiff. “Here’s your letter for today.” I hold it out.
“Maia—”
“Good day, my lord.” I throw the letter at him and flee.
I try not to think it as I sweep the floors, scrub the pots, cook the meals. I try, but everywhere I turn, the thought drums along with my heartbeat: I’d rather die. I’d rather die. I’d rather die.
I can’t love him. I don’t. This feeling is not the selfish, grasping need that I’ve seen tear apart my family, writhing through their hearts like worms through rotten apples.
What sense does that make? Lord Anax demanded when telling me about the girl he didn’t love but would die for. The girl who he was wise and kind enough to leave. Perhaps, I finally admit to myself, perhaps for him there’s a way to love that’s sane and happy, that isn’t cruel. The gods know he deserves it.
For me, there has always only been this desperate, heart’s-blood determination not to destroy.
“I think he’ll marry Koré, Mother,” I whisper into the steam rising from the stewpot. Her touch shivers against my neck. “He’ll be so happy.”
He’ll take Koré away to his gilded palace, let her hold Alcibiades, and smile at her words. She’ll run her fingers through his hair and speak the truth to him until he’s comforted, until he forgets both Lydia and the strange little serving girl who delivered letters, until he’s happy. I’ll stay in the dusty, dim house of demons and broken shutters, and I’ll know that he is safe. I can’t ask more than that, want more than that. I won’t.
The next two days, I bring him letters. We don’t talk of Koré, or Lydia, or who I am. He tells me about his studies, his plans for when he is duke, and I tell him exactly what I think. I stare at the lace on his cuffs, the tendons in his hands, and try to memorize him for the day when I’m alone.
I don’t love him. But I take a treacherous delight in him.