Remembrances

A Story by TheCrazyCynic

He watches her, somehow loving her best when she is like this: all hard lines and angles, determination in her eyes. There is steel in her bones, and he envies how straight she sits as she prepares for her wedding.

He forgets many things these days, as it is a penchant of old age. However, there are some things he will never forget.

What he will always remember is every single moment that they ever shared together, and every little detail of those few, tragic moments.

On his deathbed, he remembers.

…..

She sits in front of her oval mirror, a shaky hand running a maple-carved brush through her hair. A lavender robe of silk is falling from her thin, white shoulders, and she tugs on it occasionally to cover them up again.

He watches her, somehow loving her best when she is like this: all hard lines and angles, determination in her eyes. There is steel in her bones, and he envies how straight she sits as she prepares for her wedding. To him, it is more beautiful than when she is pliable and yielding to his touch, with soft sighs escaping her lips.

“You don’t have to do this,” he tells her, from his position on her yellow, satin sheets.

“Yes, I do,” she replies shortly, as she begins to plait a white ribbon in her hair. It is meant to be a symbol of her virginity before becoming one with her husband.

“He is a tyrant. He killed his previous wives and he will kill you too.” He feels his voice shake with restrained anger and worry, though he leashes it for her sake.

“I know that. But I vowed that I would marry him for the safety of my people, just as you swore fealty to him for yours.”

He stands up and approaches her, kneeling behind her where she sits on a cushioned stool. Running his lips gently down the back of her neck, he murmurs, “That was before I met you.”

She shivers, but forces her small hands to push him away. “If we run away together, my family—yours as well—is as good as dead.” She is resigned to her fate, and he knows that he will never make this stubborn woman change her mind.

There are padded footsteps outside the door, and a light knocking. She gives him a pleading look. “I would rather have you alive than caught and dead,” she whispers, begging him to leave her.

He sighs, but catches her hand and kisses her palm in farewell. “I know not when we will meet again. Remember that I love you.”

Suddenly finding herself unable to speak, she only nods. He nods back, attempting a smile. “Be strong,” he says. Before she can reply, or cry out for him not to go, he is already gone.

…..

She is married for over a year before he sees her again.

They are in a corridor, lined with long windows that are hung with lace curtains. Sunlight streams in, bathing the lone pair in light. They are a few paces away from each other, but they refuse to move any closer, for the sake of their own sanity. Her arms are wrapped protectively around herself, as if they will guard her from the overwhelming emotions he brings into the room with him.

“I am with child,” she begins, breaking the silence.

“So I have heard from your husband. He is very proud of it,” he says stiffly.

She doesn’t know how to reply, so she simply says, “Yes, he is.”

Finally, his voice sounding pained, he asks her, “Is he good to you? Kind?”

“Yes. He is good, kind, and patient with me,” she lies, as the bruises along her hips and thighs would attest to. She won’t let him know that though. The truth would cause him too much agony, which is the last thing she wants.

“Then I am glad. If that monster that I was forced to turn you over to mistreated you, I could never forgive myself.” A combination of relief and remorse fill every syllable.

She smiles weakly, and their hands slowly move closer, aching for contact. Then they hear her husband call her name, and the spell is broken; they tear their eyes away, looking instead out of the long windows at the wilting garden, dying as winter descends upon it.

…..

He remembers her funeral, a few months later.

“She died in childbirth,” her husband tells him gruffly when he arrives for the ceremony. But he has already heard the gossip of her maids. She died of some secret heartache, they told him, when he had asked. She wouldn’t take any sustenance for a month or so, until it killed her and her child both. She died with some man’s name on her lips, she did. It wasn’t her husband’s neither. One servant in particular had given him a cold, knowing stare, so he gave them each a coin for their future silence.

He blames himself for her death, naturally.

Gazing at her bier, and the cold corpse upon it, he feels strangely empty. It isn’t the anger he felt at her wedding, or the sadness when he saw her for the last time. This is worse, and somehow better. With her soul gone, his has fled as well. It didn’t have a reason to be there anymore.

He tosses a single white rose upon the now burning bier and walks away, without turning back.

…..

Now, on his deathbed, he remembers.