Purpleland: Chapter 18

               It is hard for me to write what comes next. I will not pretend that the choices I made in the thrall of that all-consuming grief where my worst sins, but had I the power to rewrite one second of my past I would choose this one. I would shed this frail body and reach into the past with phantom hands. I would take that moment, uproot it and squeeze all life from root and branch. But it is not given to man to change the paths he has taken, no matter how he may wish it.

               The night after the funeral Shay came to me. And instead of sympathetic words she offered me love making and I took it. I suppose that somehow I was trying to make love to Alena through her sister, but you cannot find the dead among the living nor the living among the dead. She left me to my shame and grief twenty minutes after I first heard her soft step at my doorway. There was no farewell.

               I returned to my old life as heir-apparent, broken, listless, and utterly crushed. I let it get about that I was ill and did not leave my room for three weeks. And when I emerged, no better, I found new troubles. Shay was pregnant and she demanded that I marry her or she would invoke Ru-amor. I think you must know this, but perhaps growing up in the south even Ru-amor was not known to you. Our country has an ancient law: when an unmarried woman becomes pregnant she can invoke Ru-amor. Once she does that the man she accuses has three choices. First he can make her an offer of marriage; if she refuses he has still acknowledged the child as his and is expected to send support for the child. Second he can deny the charge and in that case he and the woman are brought before a court of law for the matter to be determined by evidence. Lastly, if the man does not wish to marry, members of both families can negotiate a settlement for both the woman and the child.

               The invoking of Ru-armor is very public spectacle. When a commoner accuses a nobleman no one thinks much of it, there might be a settlement, there might be a trial, no one is much bothered. But when a noble woman makes an accusation people take notice, and for me the stakes were higher. If I acknowledged Shay’s child it would have a very real claim to the throne. I could not bring myself to face my father and the court if Shay followed through with her threat, which I was sure she would, and I felt that all love was over for me now that Alena was dead. So I wrote to Shay and offered to marry her at once.

               We did. And one week later I introduced Shay to my father as my wife. He really was fading then and said little about the matter. People talked, of course, but generally they found the secret elopement thrilling and romantic. 

Purpleland: Chapter 17

When I woke I could only wish it had been death that took me. Body and soul the pain felt bottomless and endless. I grieved for Alena as a friend and as one who I loved for her own sake but at the same time there had been some small remnant of hope that Marcus would leave her a widow. After all his father had not been very old when he died, and that perhaps I could then make Alena my wife. I had even thought of abdicating in favor of you so she would not have to be queen.

I vacillated but finally decided to attend the funeral. I had Roland find peasant’s clothes for me and followed the crush of people going to see their Lady for the last time. It seemed to take an age to reach the gates of the castle square where the public funeral was to take place. As we entered the gates I saw Marcus before anything else. His face was white and his eyes hollow. His mouth had that pinched look I had seen only once before, when he had been thrown from a horse and his leg had been broken in three places. For a moment I wanted to run to him and throw my arms around the only brother I had ever know. I wished to forgive everything, to tell everything, to let our mutual grief bridge the cavern between us. Then I remembered Shay’s words “Marcus would not send you word” and all of the bitterness of the last five year enveloped me again.

Beside Marcus stood his small son, looking lost and valiantly holding back tears. Over the sounds of the crowd I could hear the wail of Alena’s tiny daughter, ensconced in some nursemaid’s arms. It took longer to pick out Shay. She was standing with her Brother’s family and she alone was crying freely. We stood as the words of departure were spoken over her cold, white body, stood as the wooden coffin was closed for the last time, and stood as Marcus placed his hand on the box that held his wife in the traditional gesture of farewell. That gesture was a sign to us that it was our turn. We sang the songs of departure as I have never heard them sung before or since. Perhaps you have not heard the songs, they are rarely sung in the south these days, cold ancient tunes for one purpose, they were made before the founders. I could wish that they be sung for me.

I felt at one with these people grieving their Lady and finally let the tears that had been building like a tidal wave flow. It was at the beginning of the third verse, when the song changes and builds in intensity, that Shay’s eyes met mine. I knew that she recognized me, but she made no sign.