Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

Interlude X: City of Water II

“Queen of the Seas, guide of sailors, fortune of merchants. Protectress of the Bay, Lady of Gadir. Queen of the Seas, guide of sailors, fortune of merchants. Protectress of the Bay, Lady of Gadir.”

She had known it the very first time that she had looked into those eyes, only to see the lifeless features of a carved statue gazing back at her. She had known it when the ears became deaf, when the answers were there no more, when the flames had not risen from the embers in spite of her best efforts, and dark clouds of smoke clouded the air instead of flying towards the high heaven. She had known it in her deepest, innermost of hearts, and still she had remained there, her knees a terrible agony, her every breath a struggle against suffocation, and prayed.

“You need to rest, my lady”, her attendants said to her, so many times that she could not even count them anymore.

“What are you trying to accomplish?” her husband asked, in growing confusion.

The impossible, she thought, with a deep shiver of dread.

*     *     *     *     *

Melkyelid stood up from her seat. The heavy silver necklace that she was wearing made a clinking noise, and she remembered her father´s hands, turning it thrice around her neck.

“You are my pride. Even as you sit in your brilliant palace at the end of the world, never forget your blood.”

Her mother, patiently tying the seventy thin braids of her hair with silver bands.

“You are my pride. Even as you watch the sun die in front of your eyes, never forget your blood.”

Her elder sisters, who stole looks of mingled jealousy and admiration while they painted her fingernails with diminutive figures of purple, and arranged the folds of blue silk spun in silver of her dress.

“You are our pride. Even as you bear long-lived children with the eyes of gods, never forget your blood.”

Never forget your blood.

That blood was thrumming through her veins now, under the golden skin that covered the hands with which she had written her letters, the belly which had carried her beloved son, the breasts which had fed him. Bearer of the King, she had explained to her husband once. This was the meaning of her name.

That blood ran in him, too, in a body which had once been a part of hers. She had been nothing but a bridge of blood, which now suddenly stood between enemy territories, joining what could never be joined anymore. For all bridges had to be destroyed, so it said in the books of military strategy which he had always been so eager to read. If the enemy remained undefeated, they presented dangerous openings for an attack, but if it had been defeated, they became bridges to nowhere.

A bridge to nowhere, she thought, almost unconsciously testing the words in her lips to see how they sounded. The gold and ivory features before her, which had remained vacant for days, seemed to be suddenly animated by a spark of awareness, but it was probably nothing but a trick of the smoke, which was thick around her eyes.

And then, she felt it. Pain, not dull and persistent as the ache in her knees, but like a white-hot explosion of agony in her chest. Her limbs became rigid, and her features were twisted in a grotesque, gaping grimace as she tried to scream, but no sound would come to her lips. Realizing belatedly that she would be seen in this undignified pose, she abandoned her attempts, and willed herself to withstand the pain with bravery.

I accept it, she thought. I will take it. I am the sacrifice, and I am willing.

But she was not. She had wanted to see him. She had so wanted to see him again.

Please, forgive me, she said, to him, to them, to her, to all the wronged souls, high and low, mortal and divine. Forgive me.

Melkyelid fell.