Luminary (17 page)
But we will not actually go to this residence. For that, I am glad. If this were a real marriage and a real honeymoon, what would we do all those days alone together? There are questions I am afraid to ask. I have an idea, but I have no one to ask whether or not my idea is right. Whatever it is that happens then will not happen with us because we will go in the opposite direction. We will go to New Hope. We will tell the people there we want to negotiate peace. Our marriage will provide proof of that.
I am sure the king will not harm the village of New Hope if it means harming Alex as well. But Alex can get to know the people. He can report back to the king that they are kind,
hardworking people who simply want to live the way they have lived for the past forty years. We can establish trade between the two cities. Peace. I pray that Gerald and his band will accept that peace, that they won’t harm Alex before they can get to know him. I don’t want to lead Alex into an ambush.
“Thalli?” Helen stands outside my door, as if she is afraid to come in.
We have spoken very little, but since the announcement of Alex’s and my engagement, she has smiled at me in passing. I hoped we would be able to talk more. I cannot see her without thinking of Peter. I wish the wedding could be theirs and not ours. I am sure they would understand what to do on a honeymoon.
“Helen.” She is so different than her brother. Not at all self-assured. She seems frightened. And sad. So sad. Even now that she knows she will not have to be killed. “Come and sit.”
“I should have come to you earlier.” Her voice is quiet, like a piano key that is barely touched. I have to lean close to hear her. “I apologize.”
“There hasn’t been much time.” I want to help her relax. She seems so tense. “I arrived, toured the city, got engaged . . .”
Helen looks at me. Her eyes are as dark as her brother’s are light. I can barely see her pupils. But her eyelashes are long like Alex’s, and her hair is just a shade darker blond than his. She is beautiful. “My father’s decisions are rash.”
There is more to that statement than just the words she has said. There is an anger behind them. Helen looks out the window. I remain quiet, let her think.
“My brother believes you can be trusted.” As she says that, I see some of the fear beginning to release its hold on her.
“I want very much to help.” I am not sure if Alex told his
sister of our plan. I do not want to say anything in case he hasn’t. Helen is older than I, but I still have a desire to protect her.
“There are things you don’t understand.” Helen’s gaze darts toward the door. She stands, looks out of it, then shuts it firmly behind her. “Alex told you our mother died?”
“Yes.”
Helen walks quietly back to the couch. She changes subjects so quickly. I wish I could see inside her brain to know how all this connects.
“Did he tell you how she died?”
“No.”
Helen takes a deep breath. “She was murdered.”
“Murdered?” I cannot imagine how that was even possible. This palace is so well guarded. “Who would kill the queen?”
“My father.”
I gasp. The king murdered his own wife? Surely that isn’t right.
“You deserve to know this.” Helen looks at me, her eyes full of compassion. “Alex agrees. You should know what you are facing—
who
you are facing.”
“Why didn’t Alex tell me?”
“Because my brother wants to protect me.” Helen looks down. She is silent.
I want to shake her, force the story out of her. But I wait because I know I need to.
“I am not the king’s daughter.”
“What?”
“Before my mother was given in marriage to my father, she was in love with another man.” Helen takes in a ragged breath.
“But her parents forced her to end that relationship. The king saw my mother, and he wanted her for his son. No one refuses the king. It is an honor to marry the prince.”
“So I’ve heard,” I say. Helen lets out a slight smile and gazes at the floor.
“She married him. But she did not love him. He was not kind.” Helen looks up sharply. “Alex is not like him. He has tried, in order to please him, to behave the way the king wants him to behave. But Alex is a good man. He will be a good husband.”
Husband. The sound of that makes my stomach hurt. “I know.”
“Our mother could not forget her first love. They met secretly. The king—prince at the time—was so busy with his training, he didn’t notice her absences. When she became pregnant, the prince assumed the child was his. When his father died and he ascended the throne, he had little time for my mother or for Alex and me. My mother was sure he would never find out. Besides, for several years my mother wasn’t even sure who the father was. It could have been the king.”
The ancient way of procreation is still confusing to me. How could she not know who the father was? “How did your mother know whose you were?”
“It was my eyes.” Helen looks at me, and I am again struck by how dark they are. “No one on either my mother’s or the king’s side has eyes this color. My mother thought little of that, but when I was six, one of the men of the city approached her. He studied science. He told her it was biologically impossible for her and my father to have a child with eyes my color. He knew of my mother’s relationship with my biological father before her marriage.”
“He guessed the truth.”
“Yes.” Helen closes her eyes. “And he made her pay him to remain quiet about it.”
“How awful.”
Helen nods. “For years she gave him whatever he asked for. But five years ago, he was arrested. One of the guards saw him with one of the palace treasures. He refused to say anything. He wouldn’t speak to the officers of the law. He insisted on having a private audience with the king.”
“He told the king about your father.”
Helen’s eyes fill with tears. “The king was so angry. He ordered my mother’s death, my father’s death, and the death of the man who told him.”
“How could he do that?” To kill his own wife—and two others—because he was angry? This is far worse than the Scientists. At least they believed they were helping the State when they chose to annihilate others.
“He is king.” Helen says this so softly, I can barely hear it. “His father taught him the king can do anything, with no consequences. He also taught him that anyone who undermines the king’s authority must be killed.”
“But his own wife?” I am sick. “The people allow him to do that?”
“The people did not know.” Helen wipes a tear from her cheek. “My mother didn’t even know it was happening until it was too late. The king had my father and the other man taken outside the city with some of the guards. They told the people they had been killed in a run-in with the people from New Hope. But Mother . . . at first, he just kept her isolated. We didn’t understand why. Alex and I weren’t allowed to see her.
Then we were told she was very sick. Doctors came in and out of her room.
“The whole city was worried about her. She was beloved. Our mother was everything Father was not: kind, generous, concerned about the welfare of others. Father knew her death could not come suddenly. Even though he believes in the sovereignty of the king, he recognizes that if the people are too unhappy, they could rebel. That would create more problems for him.”
“He poisoned her?”
“We specialize in pharmaceuticals.” Helen shrugs. “He worked with one of the developers. The developer was killed not long after Mother died.”
I want to ask her to stop. This is too horrible. Unspeakable. No wonder Helen is so sad.
“Alex and I snuck into her room one night when Father was out on a raid. She knew she was dying. She wanted us to know the truth. About everything. She was so sick. I think she was just holding on until she could see us.” Helen pauses, too emotional to continue. “She died the next day.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Helen uses her fingertips to wipe the tears from her eyes. “What
could
we do? I was fifteen; Alex was thirteen. We were so scared of the king. But at least we were allowed to grieve. And the whole city grieved with us. She had a beautiful funeral.”
“I am so sorry.”
Helen looks at me, her expression serious. “This is the family you are marrying into, Thalli. The king killed his own wife; he was willing to kill me. He is planning to kill you. And
he won’t stop unless someone stops him. Alex and I agree on most things, but on this we are divided: The king will not be persuaded into any kind of peace with New Hope. He wants to conquer it. And he will stop at nothing—nothing—in order to accomplish that goal.”
I
am standing on the most ornate transport I have ever seen. Alex called it a chariot. It is gold with huge wheels supporting a platform that is open in the back and closed in the front. A massive black horse is in front of it, with two golden ropes going from the back of the horse to my hands. I am nervous about being in control of such a large animal. I worry that he will run so fast I will topple over, the chariot crushing me.
But even that thought is more pleasant than thinking of the reason I am in this transport. It is my wedding day. The day I marry a boy I do not love to trick a king whom I fear. So much could go wrong. If Helen is right, we have to convince
those in Athens to rise up against the king. If Alex is right, the king might be willing to listen to reason if it is couched in the right terms. But either way, we have only seven days to earn the people’s trust and come up with a plan. The feast held in our honor will begin here in Athens seven days after our wedding. Seven days from today.
I have avoided thinking of the wedding. It has not been difficult, considering all the other circumstances I have been forced to consider. But standing here, wearing the gown Alex’s mother wore, surrounded by palace guards, the reality of this suddenly comes into clear view.
I am going to be married. In a matter of hours. And John says that marriage is a promise to the Designer and it is to last until one of us dies. Weeks ago, I had imagined that if I ever got married, it would be to Berk. And it would be years from now. After we had settled in New Hope, established our lives there. I had dreams of teaching music to children. Learning more from John about the Designer. Never did I have dreams of becoming the princess of a city where the ruler is a tyrannical murderer.
“It is time.” The guard beside me motions for me to slap the ropes against the horse to begin the procession.
I almost fall as the horse moves forward, taking my arms with him. I relax my arms and bend my elbows as Alex advised me. It is hard to do. The horse is so strong. But we eventually find a rhythm. I keep one foot planted in front of the other so I don’t lean forward.
“Smile at the subjects.” Another guard motions toward the people.
This is an exciting day for them. A royal wedding does not happen often. I have been reminded of that several times
this week.
“Smile at the people. Nod. Accept their praise. Keep your elbows bent.”
Sometimes I think this is a dream—induced, perhaps, by the drugs Athens is famous for. It seems even less real than the simulations I was placed under at the State with the Scientists. I want to feel the back of my head to see if a hole is there, the way I tested to see if I was under their control. But I cannot spare either hand.
I wish this were a dream. The closer this chariot takes me to the palace, the less I want to go. I am not as brave as I thought. And I am not nearly as selfless as I pretend to be.
I have hardly seen Alex the last few days. I have gone through “beauty treatments” that seem much more like torture than treatment. All sorts of oils and vegetation have been placed on all parts of my body. My hair has been curled, straightened, and curled again. Hundreds of pins hold it in a beautiful style that, combined with all the pencils and powders layered on my face, makes me look less like myself than I have ever been.
They all tell me this is part of the royal treatment so I will be beautiful on my wedding day. But beauty is not worth all of this pain. Whatever I was before is just fine with me. Will Alex even recognize me under this façade?
I look around after being prodded once again by one of the guards. People are shouting, crying, throwing flowers. Alex says this wedding tradition dates back to the ancient Athens his grandfather was so enamored with. This isn’t like the wedding John spoke of. We are not in a church. I am not in white. And the Designer has not even been mentioned.
I think of the words John showed me, about a table being
prepared in the presence of my enemies. Is this what that meant? But these people—smiling, crying, waving—they are not my enemies. Alex and Helen are certainly not enemies. It is just the king—their ruler. What would this city be like if he was removed from power? I look around at his guards. They will do whatever he says. Even kill people. Removing him from power will be impossible. He is far too protected. I close my eyes for a moment. Surely, the Designer has a plan.
“Greet your people.” The guard interrupts my prayer.
We reach the palace. Guards line each side of the entrance. Their swords are held above their heads to create a type of arch. It is an uncomfortable feeling, riding beneath these swords. What if the king instructed one of them to drop a sword on me? He could say that guard was a spy from New Hope, begin the war that way. I hold my breath until that danger is past. But the thought is there. What is to stop the king from killing me today? And what better time than now, when all the people are gathered to see it?
“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”
I feel the Designer with me, beside me. I will not fear.
The chariot stops. Alex is below me, dressed in purple from head to toe. He looks very handsome with his golden hair curling just above his shoulders and his smile directed at me. I am suddenly thankful that the king has a son my age, not twenty years older. I am sure I would not be feeling nearly so willing were that the case. He holds out his hand. He is smiling, but fear flickers in his eyes. I hand the ropes to a guard and step down, careful not to trip over the long skirt.
