After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (31 page)

“Isn’t that nice,” said the First Minister. “So who do you think will win you, Your
Majesty: one of those dedicated knights, or perhaps a more worldly city man?”

What did it matter? Either way, she was what she was: a Rosamond. The goal, the prize,
the symbol.

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, more to the table and the list than to the First
Minister.

“Ah,” said the First Minister. “My guess is that it will probably be one of the Temple
boys again. Most suitable. It’s what they’re raised for, of course. To win, not to
question—and to make you happy, Your Majesty, of course.”

“Of course,” Roz said.

“More important, are you word perfect in your speech?”

More important than Roz’s happiness or her desires, or who would win her. The most
important thing was that she be perfect.

“That’s what everything’s based on, isn’t it?” Miri asked later, as Roz raged and
Miri brushed her hair. “For the Court. What things look like.”

“Especially,” Roz snapped, “when things look like me.”

“And when you look perfect,” said Miri. “When you stay perfectly within the rules.
When the Court proclaims you to the whole city as perfect, that’s your opening.”

Like the way Miri took an opening when Dareus was distracted.

But what opening was there if she could not stop the Trials? Roz heard the First Minister’s
voice in her head, saying,
Who do you think will win you, Your Majesty?

She was a prize to be won. She did not know how to fight that.

The first day of the Trials, the day when Tor would see her, the sky was a deep particular
blue. The color of Rosamond’s eyes, he thought, or perhaps a few shades lighter.

He was going to see her today for the first, and perhaps the last, time.

She would give her speech, and then the trainees would go through the maze below the
city, fight the monster that was kept underground, and try to work out the riddle—all
the while keeping on guard against their fellow competitors.

Only one of them would re-emerge into the light and see the queen again.

Tor might die in the Trials. He was prepared for that—to not be worthy of her, to
fail her even though he would try his best.

He would have the sight of her, once, to call up as a last image before he died.

He should try to remember every moment of this day. He should hold every second sacred.

Tor put his uniform on, not slowly—because wasting time would be letting Rosamond
down, since his every second was consigned to her—but with deliberation. He did his
last practice exercises in calm and measured movements, not listening to the whispering
all around him, the wondering and the betting on his chances.

He marched out of the temple with his head held high, in step with his brethren, a
black-clad regiment dedicated to perfect love and beauty. Ready to kill for Rosamond.

The other contestants were already ranged in the square. Tor saw his own face on the
huge screens set in the skyscrapers, reproduced a hundred times larger for the city’s
view. He was startled by the look in his own eyes, as if he were watching a tragedy,
when this was the happiest day of his life.

The cameras left him and showed a swooping view of the crowd, then the other contestants,
in their colorful disarray. Some were in restraints and some wore bruises.

Tor turned his face away, a tremor of disgust running through him at the idea that
someone would need to be forced to serve Rosamond.

His eyes fell on another crowd of contestants, among whom stood the tall flame-haired
thief of the week before. Tor’s lip curled back from his teeth, and the thief spotted
him, looked massively and spitefully delighted, and blew him a kiss.

Tor looked steadfastly away from him, and toward the dais.

It stood empty, but there was music rising in the air. She was coming. He could feel
his heart pounding in his chest like a child frantically thumping at a door to get
out.

She came shining, her dark hair like a cloud behind her.

It was almost a shock to see her, real, the size of a woman. Almost like an ordinary
woman, almost as if she were someone who could be approached without fear or reverence.

But not quite. Tor had the curve of that mouth memorized, the exact shape of her brilliant
eyes.

It should have been enough simply to behold her—real love is love that asks for nothing
and does everything; real love should not even ask for a look—but he did want her
to look at him, to
have
looked at him, just once before he died.

She gazed down as she passed the Order, her eyelashes shadows on her cheeks. Tor had
not thought about her as having eyelashes, but of course she did.

Rosamond
, he thought, and wanted to say her name just once so she would hear it.

When she reached the dais and began to speak, he stopped thinking about himself and
all the things she was in relation to him.

Sheer shock wiped away all of that.

Queen Rosamond, the eternal rose, undid the top button of her robe.

He looked at the pale hollow of her throat—he had not thought, should not think, about
Rosamond’s skin or her body—and saw her swallow, and felt not the familiar awe but
a rush of the stupid tenderness that always had him betraying himself and running
back at a cry for help.

Rosamond was a scared girl.

They did not have to beat Yvain or restrain him on the day of the Trials. He woke
up with the Nests wrapped in cloud and smoke, and went quietly down into a clear morning
below.

Fighting was no use, and he didn’t need to go through the Trials wounded already.
That would be pointless and ridiculous.

Besides, he was—curious.

He wanted to see her—Rosamond—whose face was supposed to be worth dying for. He wanted
her to see him, and see that he was not impressed. That all there was to her was gold,
and it was not worth enough.

He saw others around him who had fought against being dragged here, though. Men with
black eyes and bloody noses. Some of them gave him a friendly look, comrades in misfortune,
and some looked at him coldly as if the Trials had begun and they were enemies already.

Some of them looked as rapt as the Order Knights, waiting for the queen. There was
a thrum and a murmur in the air.
Rosamond, Rosamond,
and Yvain felt a thrill of anticipation and disgust.

He saw the knight from the rooftops standing with his regiment, eyes black and accusing,
and was grateful, for a moment. Yvain was able to laugh and blow the idiot a kiss.
He was never going to be one of the Order, trembling and waiting.

He tried to catch the knight’s eye again, but he was turned toward the dais. Yvain
gave up and looked there too.

She was just as he’d expected, more gold than girl.

What girl there was, was pretty, but also so familiar. Girls in the Nests, just like
other girls in the City, all straightened and darkened their hair, tried to make their
eyes look light, tried to look like Rosamond and the ideal of beauty. It was why Yvain
had always perversely liked curls.

He looked at Rosamond’s still, perfect face, and wished he could tell her, tried to
send the thought to her:
I’m bored.

The glitter of gold was distracting. They had done that on purpose, of course, wrapped
her up with a promise of luxury, making you think of always waking up warm and well
fed, of jewels brighter than Rosamond’s eyes.

He let himself look, and covet. If she saw him looking, he wanted her to know that
that was all he saw of her, all she was.

Gold melting, and Persie dead.

Rosamond had buttons of chased mother-of-pearl and gold, each one probably worth more
than a sovereign.

The buttons rose and fell as she breathed, and Yvain wished they would be still, that
he could look at her like the statue he’d stolen and reduced to nothing but gold.

She didn’t let him. She put up her hands to the buttons and slid them out one by one.

All the gold fell away, and there was a girl underneath.

The day of the Trials was blinding. Roz had never been outside the palace walls before,
but she had been in the gardens and the courtyards and on the balconies: she had not
thought she would be dazzled by the sun. Yet she was, and she felt almost blind every
step of the bright way to the square at the heart of the city.

Appearances were all that mattered to the Court, Miri had told her, as if it were
very important.

Roz thought about it every step of the way, and by the time she reached the square,
her vision was clear.

So this is the city they tell me is mine, she thought, and looked at the tall steel-and-silver
skyscrapers. The cobblestones of the square looked freshly washed, but there were
dark lines etched between them. Dirt or blood, Roz did not know.

She glanced behind her to see Dareus—who had taught her, against the rules, to fight
for herself—and met his steady gaze. It let her walk across the stones, blood and
all.

When she neared the dais, every screen set in the towers reflected her face. It was
like the Hall of Mirrors writ large, like all her past selves whispering their name
in her ear:
Rosamond, Rosamond, Rosamond
—the weight of their expectations, of everybody’s expectations, forming her into what
they wanted. The face on the screen, lapis lazuli eyes set in an idol’s face.

Except it didn’t matter how she felt, so she could feel any way she chose.

She tried to feel determined as she climbed the steps to the dais, her heavy golden
skirt trailing behind her.

Then she looked down upon her people, from women and children—some cheering and some
silent, some holding on to their men with white-knuckled hands—to the contestants
for the Trials.

There were men wreathed with blood and bruises and in rags, and men who seemed fine—happy,
healthy, and eager to die for her. Somebody cheered and called her name. She looked
but could not tell who it had been.

She could not quite understand why someone would cheer for her when she hadn’t done
anything.

What am I to you? she thought as she looked at the crowd. What is Rosamond to you?

Different things, she thought, looking at all the different faces. The Knights of
the Order stood in black ranks, like soldiers at a funeral, and one of them was staring
at her with the widest eyes in the crowd, large and dark and wondering.

There was worship in those eyes, and an abyss.

In the most bruised and ragged group, she saw the knight’s counterpart, the one with
the narrowest eyes in the crowd. He was looking at her appraisingly, as though she
were a gold coin he could bite down on so as to assess her worth.

Love her, hate her, blame her, worship her, whatever they felt toward her, they did
not know her. Maybe they did not care to. Maybe they thought her face was all there
was to know.

None of the other Rosamonds had known Dareus and Miri, and how they loved each other
despite being imperfect.