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It wasn’t until Relius’ arrest that Gen learned how hard it could be to be right.
Usually, he took a delight in it. There was a pleasure in being cleverer than everyone else, in being able to say ‘I told you so’ with your face even if you never said it out loud. But he had known what Relius meant to his wife, he saw her expression when Teleus dragged the man in – stone to anyone who didn’t love her well enough to see the pain of betrayal flickering in her eyes – and being right hurt more than any mistake he had ever made.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, later, when they were alone. For once he meant it.
“You were right. And I needed to know.” Which was what he had known she would say, but she wouldn’t look at him. Worse than that, when he knew she had been down to observe what happened to Relius, he found it hard to look at her. He didn’t ask what happened to the ex-spymaster. His imagination told him anyway.
*
The nightmares, always present at some level when Gen tried to sleep, doubled in intensity. He woke screaming and damp with sweat, sometimes alone but often with Irene bending over him, her voice calmly talking him back to wakefulness. He told her they were sent by the gods, tried to convince himself of the same thing.
He didn’t let himself think about what she said and did when she visited Relius. When his mind strayed that way it became too easy to get caught in memory, to imagine that when he sat close to her that he could still smell the sickening stench of blood, urine and vomit mixed. For the sake of his sanity, he told himself she had been elsewhere. Perhaps for the same reasons she never spoke of it.
*
He felt no fear at all during the assassins’ attack. It wasn’t until he had time to himself, when the mob of guards, attendants and physicians had melted away and left him to rest, that the terror set in. Not because he could have died; Gen, of all people, knew that there were worse things than death. But if he died, he knew, his queen would have had Teleus executed without a second thought, and no-one would have spoken a word to say she was wrong doing so.
Gen dead, Teleus executed, and Relius in the dungeons. He could have left her more alone than she had ever been before he married her, and all by his doing. He loved her, he had meant to protect her, but not at the cost of isolating her even further.
After that, the nightmares weren’t just about what happened in the dungeons.
*
Of course he appeared in her rooms as soon as he was physically able to do so. The effort cost him dearly; it was willpower alone that stopped him from clutching at his side and revealing how much it ached as a result.
She looked at him; tousled, exhausted, but still pleased with himself for having managed the journey. Her sigh seemed to hold much in the way of exasperation, and very little in the way of surprise.
“I should call the guards to drag you back to your own rooms,” she noted.
He nodded, afraid to even take a step lest he stumble and reveal how much his legs were trembling. “You won’t, though.”
“If you ever do it again….” She let the threat hang unfinished. “Go to bed, Gen. Mine, if you can’t make it to your own.”
“No.” There was a chair within reach. He grasped it, leaning heavily against it. “You need to pardon Relius.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Did the gods tell you so?”
“No.” It would have been easy to claim that; she had grown used to a husband who had a more intimate relationship than most with his gods. But you did not offend the gods, you did not take the risk of lying in their name, particularly not when you were hoping that your latest escapade hadn’t burst stitches and wouldn’t leave you bleeding all over your wife’s floor.
Irene studied him, her lips pursed in thought, trying to decide where this new impulse had come from. “You were the one who told me I should arrest him,” she pointed out.
“Yes.” There was no wriggling out of that one. He had seen something, even now he couldn’t say what, a flicker of emotion on the other man’s face that had almost screamed to him of the lie. Acting then had seemed a matter of protecting Irene; he hadn’t seen further than that. “I knew he was lying, but not why. I should have asked why.”
“It doesn’t matter why!” She was angry now, or maybe just exasperated. “Sometimes people need to take the consequences for their actions. You cannot pardon everyone!”
“And the consequence of this one is that you would be alone!” It was unwise to shout when he wasn’t even meant to be in there, but Gen had never made a habit of being wise. “You can’t – if you execute or torture everyone you love for a single mistake, there will be no-one left!”
He saw her flinch at that, and knew it had hit home. “Pardon Relius,” he said, more quietly. “I need you to. Otherwise one day it will be me making the step too far, and doing the unforgivable.”
She came to him then, her hands cool as she laid one against his forehead, and gentler than any in her court would believe as she helped him towards her bed. Hard as he had tried to disguise the exhaustion, once he was on the bed it was almost impossible to resist the temptation to lie back, sinking into the soft pillows.
He heard the chink of a spoon against a glass, and then it was pressed into his hand. “Drink,” she said quietly, her voice as calm as it ever was. He sipped, tasted the familiar tang of lethium, and wondered for a moment why she kept it by her bed.
Perhaps he wasn’t the only one to suffer from nightmares.
“Will you pardon Relius?” He needed to know, before he finished the glass and the ability to think about it escaped him.
“Perhaps.” She stroked his hair back from his forehead. “Who told you I loved him?”
“Your face.” A yawn escaped him, despite his determination. “Your voice, your tone. As much as you love Teleus, and he loves you. You need people who love you, who aren’t me, to protect you.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” she said mildly.
“If you drug me, what do you expect?” He waved the glass at her, almost spilling the remaining contents. She steadied his hand, helping him to hold it until the last drops were gone.
“I love you.” For anyone not used to hearing them, her words would have been an indecipherable murmur, too quiet to make out.
“I know,” Gen said, his eyes already shutting, “but does that make me forgivable?”
Did she reply? She must have done, but the climb had wearied him and the lethium worked quickly – too quickly for him to hear the response. Not for several hours did Gen find the pardon tucked under his pillow, read it, and smile at the wording.
“I, Attolia Irene, here pardon my Secretary of the Archives, Relius, for his crimes and his failures, because of his many services to me and for the love I bear him.”
His queen could learn yet to forgive those she loved – and, just as important, she could learn to admit that she loved them.