Why did that wistful expression of his tug at her heart? Why did she long to hold those clumsy hands, long to try to ease the burden that rested on those stooped shoulders?
“I am another man’s wife,” she reminded herself. “Samah’s wife.” They had loved each other, she supposed. She’d borne him children, they must have . . . once.
But she remembered the image Alfred had conjured for her, an image of two people loving each other fiercely, passionately, because this night was all they had, because all they had was each other. No, she realized sadly. She’d never truly loved.
She felt no pain inside her, no ache, nothing. Only spacious, large emptiness, defined by cool, straight lines, supported by upright columns. What furniture existed was neat, orderly, occasionally shifting position, but never actually rearranged. Until those too-large feet and those wistful, searching eyes and those clumsy hands blundered into her and threw everything into wild disarray.
“Samah would say that it is a mothering instinct, that since I am past my childbearing years, I have the need to mother something. Odd, but I can’t remember mothering my own child. I suppose I did. I suppose I must have. All I seem to remember is wandering about this empty house, dusting the furniture.”
Her feelings for Alfred weren’t motherly, however. Orla remembered his awkward hands, his timid caresses, and blushed hotly. No, not motherly at all.
“What is there about him?” she wondered aloud.
Certainly nothing visible on the surface: balding head, stooped shoulders, feet that seemed intent on carrying their owner to disaster, mild blue eyes, shabby mensch clothes that he refused to change. Orla thought of Samah: strong, self-possessed, powerful. Yet Samah had never made her feel compassion, never made her cry for someone else’s sorrow, never made her love someone for the sake of loving.
“There is a power in Alfred,” Orla told the straight and uncaring furniture.
“A power that is all the more powerful because he is not aware of it. If you accused him of it, in fact”—she smiled fondly—“he would get that bewildered, astonished look on his face and stammer and stutter and . . . I’m falling in love with him. This is impossible. I’m falling in love with him.” And he’s falling in love with you.
“No,” she protested, but her protest was soft and her smile did not fade. Sartan did not fall in love with other people’s spouses. Sartan remained faithful to their marriage vows. This love was hopeless and could come only to grief. Orla knew this. She knew she would have to remove the smiles and tears from her being, straighten it up, return it to its straight lines and empty dustiness. But for a short time, for this one moment, she could recall the warmth of his hand gently stroking her skin, she could cry in his arms for another woman’s baby, she could feel.
It occurred to her that she’d been away from him an interminable length of time.
“He’ll think I’m angry at him,” she realized, remorseful, remembering how she’d stalked off the terrace. “I must have hurt him. I’ll go explain and . . . and then I’ll tell him that he has to leave this house. It won’t be wise for us to see each other anymore, except on Council business. I can manage that. Yes, I can definitely manage that.”
But her heart was beating far too rapidly for comfort, and she was forced to repeat a calming mantra before she was relaxed enough to look firm and resolved. She smoothed her hair and wiped away any lingering traces of tears, tried a cool, calm smile on her face, studied herself anxiously in a mirror to see if the smile looked as strained and borrowed as it felt. Then she had to pause to try to think how to bring the subject into conversation.
“Alfred, I know you love me . . .”
No, that sounded conceited.
“Alfred, I love you . . .”
No, that would certainly never do! After another moment’s reflection, she decided that it would be best to be swift and merciless, like one of those horrid mensch surgeons, chopping off a diseased limb.
“Alfred, you and the dog must leave my house this night.” Yes, that would be best. Sighing, not holding out much hope that this would work, she returned to the terrace.
Alfred wasn’t there.
“He’s gone to the library.”
Orla knew it as well as if she could look across the miles and peer through the walls and see him inside. He’d found a way to enter that wouldn’t alert anyone to his presence. And she knew that he would find what he sought.
“He won’t understand. He wasn’t there. I must try to make him see my images!” Orla whispered the runes, traced the magic with her hands, and departed on its wings.
The dog growled, warningly, and jumped to its feet. Alfred looked up from his reading. A figure clad in white was approaching, coming from the back of the library. He couldn’t see who it was: Samah, Ramu? . . .
Alfred didn’t particularly care. He wasn’t nervous, wasn’t assailed by guilt, wasn’t afraid. He was appalled and shocked and sickened and he was, he was startled to discover, glad to be able to confront someone.
He rose to his feet, his body trembling, not with fear, but with his anger. The figure stepped into the light he had magically created to read by. The two stared at each other. Quick indrawn breaths slipped to sighs, eyes silently exchanged words of the heart that could never be spoken.
“You know,” said Orla.
“Yes,” answered Alfred, lowering his gaze, flustered. He’d been expecting Samah. He could be angry with Samah. He felt a need to be angry, to release his anger that bubbled inside him like Abarrach’s hot lava sea. But how could he vent his anger on her, when what he truly wanted to do was take her in his arms? . . .
“I’m sorry,” Orla said. “It makes things very difficult.”
“Difficult!” Fury and indignation struck Alfred a blow that left him reeling, addled his brain. “Difficult! That’s all you can say?” He gestured wildly to the scroll[32] lying open on the table before him. “What you did . . . When you knew . . . This records everything, the arguments in the Council. The fact that certain Sartan were beginning to believe in a higher power. How could you . . . Lies, all lies! The horror, the destruction, the deaths . . . Unnecessary! And you knew—”
“No, we didn’t!” Orla cried.
She strode forward, came to stand before him, her hand on the table, the scroll, that separated them. The dog sat back on its haunches, looking at each with its intelligent eyes.
“We didn’t know! Not for certain! And the Patryns were growing in strength, in power. And against their might, what did we have? Vague feelings, nothing that could ever be defined.”
“Vague feelings!” repeated Alfred. “Vague feelings! I’ve known those feelings. They were ... it was . . . the most wonderful experience! The Chamber of the Damned, they called it. But I knew it as the Chamber of the Blessed. I understood the reason for my being. I was given to know I could change things for the better. I was told that if I had faith, all would be well. I didn’t want to leave that wonderful place—”
“But you did leave!” Orla reminded him. “You couldn’t stay, could you? And what happened in Abarrach when you left?”
Alfred, troubled, drew back from her. He looked down at the scroll, though he wasn’t seeing it; his hand toyed with its edges.
“You doubted,” she told him. “You didn’t believe what you’d seen. You questioned your own feelings. You came back to a world that was dark and frightening, and if you had caught a glimpse of a greater good, a power vaster and more wondrous than your own, then where was it? You even wondered if it was a trick. . . .”
Alfred saw Jonathon, the young nobleman he’d met on Abarrach, murdered, torn apart by the hands of a once-loving wife. Jonathon had believed, he’d had faith, and he’d died horribly because of it. Now, he was probably one of those tormented living dead, the lazar.
32
Why, if Samah feared the scroll’s discovery, didn’t he burn it?
“I believe,” writes Alfred, in an addendum to this section, “that Samah had an innate regard for the truth. He tried to deny it, attempted to suppress it, but he could not bring himself to destroy it.”