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“You have nobody to blame but yourself.”
Eugenides was quiet. Not because he didn’t intend to keep whining—he did—but because their time alone was so limited. As such, he must choose his subjects for complaint very judiciously. At the breakfast table, or at formal dinners, or even in those closely scrutinized intervals following afternoon court, he could drag his feet through the relentless march of minutes, and criticize everyone and everything he saw to the heavens.
In Irene’s bed, it was different.
Every currency he had—pleas, plaints, lies, truths—was necessarily dearer here. Whatever he said in the secrecy of their true union, it was aimed at inviting her touch. He formed memories in the too-brief hours of night to carry him forward through the next lonely day in an endless string of days, when they shared a monarchy more than a marriage.
The truth of his loneliness was the only thing he could never tell her. Honesty stopped short when checked by love.
“I blame everybody but myself,” he said at last, still trying for petulance. The drills of soldiering had a way of stiffening old wounds and awakening unpleasant recollections, though he had forced himself to stay the course for hours, measuring the sun’s arc by the beads of sweat on his sparring partner’s grim face. “And especially Costis. If every round of exercises is to be as dull as this one, my brains shall weaken as my muscles strengthen, and then I’ll be no better than Dite.” He paused, then added, with the thrust of a less perilous dart of venom—“Or Teleus.”
Only a few inches away from him, Irene exhaled sharply through her nose. She was lying very still under the tangle of luxurious bedclothes, resembling, in some ways, the most beautiful of effigies.
Eugenides should not have mentioned Dite. When he reached out with a tentative hand—his only hand—through the cool night air to settle against her warm skin, she did not respond by so much as a flicker of movement.
She was angry, then. And perhaps, as always, a little worried.
“Please,” he whispered, which was a different kind of whining.
In silent acceptance of his half-spoken apology, she closed both hands over his, moving it to rest over her heart. Her chest, rising and falling, reminded him now not of a tomb marker, but of the subterranean temple of the Great Goddess beside the Aracthus: how he had sensed, through Hephastia’s drawn breath, the change between utter isolation, and the more dangerous realization that he was not alone.
“Can I kiss you?” he asked, after a moment, as if he was not her husband, but a shy country boy courting his milkmaid sweetheart.
Each night that he slipped into her chambers, unbeknownst to the world, they met first as husband and wife: desperate, wordless, clinging fast to what was real even in darkness. Then Eugenides’ irascible demons got the better of them, and they lay awake arguing. He had set this tone on their wedding night, and as Irene had rather caustically said a moment ago, he had only himself to blame. She trusted his heart, but could not always anticipate the labyrinthine paths of his mind. Their jointly agreed-upon schemes had been replaced by his perverse inceptions. By any rational account, he was defying her by his delays and private subterfuges; he could reassure her of his loyalty to her, but not to a certain future.
Not yet.
You make everything harder than it needs to be, Helen’s voice echoed in his mind. It was true: he came to Irene for comfort, then prevented her from giving it uncomplicatedly.
He paid the price for it, too—if she would not kiss him, he would not sleep.
Irene was kinder than he deserved. Eugenides felt her shift on her side, and his blood quickened. One of her hands freed itself from his and cupped his cheek. Her breath was warm, but her lips did not meet his at once.
“Eugenides,” she said, in the voice that used to make him shiver. “Why?”
“Why?” he repeated, which wasn’t fair—he knew what she was asking.
“Why do you make everything harder than it needs to be?”
If he told the truth, she’d lose faith in him. Instead he leaned forward to accept the invitation an instant before she made it and kissed her, sweet and open-mouthed and not shyly at all. She was not known for her tenderness, but Eugenides knew it—and he settled into the encircling protection of her arms until sleep took him.
The truth was that he didn’t always know.