Rain fell. It was the kind of sudden downpour common in summer. That day’s rain grew fiercer around sunset.
Gene came in through the north gate, soaked through. When he left Daylight at the stable, the grooms fussed, saying they would bring a palanquin, but he refused and walked alone to his quarters. In the courtyard, where even the passing palace servants had vanished, only the sounds of wind and rain howled. Falling so noisily, when it was time to reach his door, the rain stopped as abruptly as though it had never fallen.
Palace servants ran out and helped him take off his wet outer clothes. After changing into dry clothes, he went into the bedchamber. Someone was waiting there. As though the servants knew, they set down a lamp and a porcelain vessel and withdrew.
Gene sat in a chair without a word and drank water. Shadows stretched long. In the silent room, only light, shallow breathing could be heard.
“Why have you come?”
When Gene opened his mouth, Thea started violently. Her heart seemed to thump so loudly she could hear it.
“To become… your wife.”
Gene looked back. Thea’s head was bowed so deeply he could not see her face.
“You are already my consort.”
“I… while you were away on the expedition… I, that happened… so now…”
A strange silence passed. Gene was wordlessly chewing his lip. Thea’s breathing quickened, and she finished her final words.
“To become your true wife.”
As silence fell again, he could feel Thea’s unease. The deep night shadows, with only one lamp lit, hid their expressions from each other. After a while, Gene spoke.
“Who was it?”
“Pardon?”
“Who taught you? To tell such a lie.”
Gene rose. Thea lifted her head. For the first time, he saw her expression. She was so frightened that her eyes seemed twice their size. Seeing that made it even harder to bear. Why had she been made to do something that frightened her so much?
“Thea, I thought at least you would not be tainted by the lies of the palace.”
When Gene stood before Thea, she could not meet his eyes. Her trembling shoulders looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment. In the past, when Thea cried, sometimes Gene comforted her and sometimes he did not. What sort of day would today be? Gene moved to place a hand on Thea’s shoulder, hesitated, then withdrew it. It felt as though he must not touch her that way. Not because of her, but because of himself.
“What do you think it was about you that I valued? I know thousands of people who try to please me with elaborate lies. But you were not like that. Though you were awkward, hesitant, and slow, you never lied. Yet it seems you too were not something that would last forever. Because you too must become an adult. Is that it? Is that how it is?”
The words came out almost of their own accord. What fault did Thea have? Did he truly not know why Thea had come here and said such things while trembling? If what had happened yesterday had not happened, Thea would still have been Thea. Yet he, who had made her like that, was blaming her.
“Now that you have become an adult, I too must treat you as an adult. Stand.”
After a while, Thea rose and faced Gene. Unexpectedly, she had still not cried. Only the corners of her eyes were swollen red. Seeing her lips pressed tightly together, Gene felt both suffocated and relieved.
Just as he rested his hand at her waist, he felt something unfamiliar between her skirts. Taking it out without thinking, he found a sachet. A suspicious smell struck him. Gene knew what it was. It was the mandragora and daffodil incense prostitutes used when enticing wealthy men. He had smelled it while prowling the back alleys with his gladiator master. How utterly it did not suit Thea. Snatching the sachet away, Gene flung it out the window.
“Never do something like this again. Do you understand?”
Leaving Thea standing, Gene lay down on the bed. The more he thought, the more his anger rose, and at the same time he found himself ridiculous for growing angry. Several times he considered getting up and comforting Thea, but that itself seemed hypocritical, and in the end he could not do it.
Thea sat quietly. Gene did not call her. After a while, Gene fell asleep. Having ridden all afternoon, he was exhausted in both body and mind.
When his breathing grew even, Thea rose. Approaching the head of the bed, she looked down at the sleeping Gene. She reached out to brush back his hair, then hesitated. In the end, without touching him, she only drew a thin blanket over him.
When had Gene last held Thea? It was the night he visited her quarters before leaving on the expedition. Gene gave her a farewell kiss, but Thea had stiffened like a stick. Terrified by the mere thought of Gene going to war, she had suffered a nightmare the night before. In the dream, Gene’s body was brought back, and she watched from a distance, unable even to go near. She had wanted to hold him back and tell him not to go, but knew she must not. Struggling to restrain herself, she had not even been able to say goodbye properly. Gene left, saying, “It is like kissing a doll.”
The events she had seen in her dream had not happened. Gene rendered great service and returned in triumph amid people’s praise. And he lay with another woman. That night, Thea could not sleep at all. Pallasos’s words circled at her ears. A young, weak wife to a man like a lion, like a hawk. What had gone wrong? How could she grow strong?
Today, Thea had come to Gene’s quarters by her own will alone. The moment she heard Gene’s words, tears had risen, but she held them back. It was the first time. How fiercely she had resolved to stand beside Gene, to grow strong, so that even when he grew angry, she neither ran away nor cried.
If she backed down now, she felt even the fact that she had endured would be in vain. Having come this far, she could not return to the beginning again. Thea decided to wait until morning. Perhaps after sleeping, Gene too might think differently.
Night deepened layer by layer. It was a night as deep as being sunk in a well. Other than Gene sometimes turning over, there was not even the cry of a nightingale. Thea sat motionless, looking at the sleeping Gene, then at the window. When the direction of the moonlight slowly changed and shone into the depths of the room, Thea saw something familiar beneath the bed. It was a box.
Thea knew that box. Long ago, when the two had first entered this room, she had seen it, but never again afterward. Though she had gone in and out countless times, she had never stayed, and so had never had reason to look under the bed. She had not known the box was still there.
Thea quietly approached, crouched on the floor, and reached out. The box was clean, as though someone had dusted it. It was not locked either. For a moment, Thea smiled with anticipation. Would it still be there? She opened the lid.
It was there. A doll made from old clothes and cotton. One of the two dolls Gene had taken from the box when Thea burst into tears on their first night, at twelve and seven. A boy doll wearing a blue cap and a green tunic. The other had been a girl doll in a red cap and a white skirt.
Having left home at seven, undergone a baffling ceremony, and sat trembling opposite an unfamiliar boy, Thea had barely calmed when the boy offered a doll, and they had played dolls for a long while. Looking back, how bored Gene must have been. Yet Gene patiently held the boy doll and played the other part for Thea. He even took out cups, books, and trays from nearby. She remembered that when Thea smiled for the first time, Gene chuckled too. At last, when Thea began to nod off, he put the doll in her arms and told her they should play with them again next time.
Thea kept that doll for a long time. She made it several outfits too. In truth, the two never had another opportunity to play with dolls together. Playing with dolls where the court ladies could see would have been embarrassing for a twelve-year-old boy. And Thea lacked the courage to bring up the dolls first. Later, when Gene saw that Thea had the doll, he told her not to say that he had given it to her. Perhaps he thought it was not a fitting thing for a boy to have done. Thea kept her word.
The girl doll was gone now. Nimea had taken it away and cut it with scissors. But the boy doll remained here. Smiling, Thea thought that when Gene woke, she would ask why he had not kept his promise. This liar.
When the moon hid behind the clouds, the room grew dark again. Clutching the doll and curled up, Thea drifted into a light sleep. Gene appeared, fighting on a battlefield. It was a scene she had heard of countless times, yet could never imagine. Gene easily drove back countless savages without a single drop of blood. If the fight were like that, Thea felt she could jump in and help him too. But suddenly, she saw an enemy approach from behind him. In that instant, Thea bravely ran forward and embraced the enemy from behind. Then Gene turned. The instant their eyes met, a sudden chill went through her, and Thea opened her eyes.
While dream and reality mingled in a haze, Thea saw a shadow approaching. Without noticing Thea curled up beside the bed, the shadow looked down at Gene, then lifted something. As though bewitched, Thea rose and embraced the shadow.
The shadow was no dream. Nor was it weak like the enemy in her dream. A force beyond anything she had imagined shoved Thea back. When her back struck the wall, she could not breathe. Thea held on. She felt she need only not let go with her hands. Her interlaced fingers seemed to catch fire. Her body seemed to twist, then her neck grew cold.
The instant Gene opened his eyes, he saw the intruder cutting Thea’s throat with a dagger. It was like some strange shadow play. Without even thinking of taking down the sword hanging on the wall, Gene rushed forward and seized the man’s hand. The dagger fell, and Thea fell too. Gene strangled the intruder with his bare hands. Perhaps he should not have, but in his fury, he could not control his hands. After several suffocating seconds, the intruder’s body went limp.
“Thea!”
With her throat cut nearly halfway through, Thea lay in a sea of blood. Gene moved on his knees and took Thea’s hand. Thea could say nothing. Her lips barely moved, but no sound came. Her eyes watched Gene. Gene pressed his lips to the back of Thea’s hand. It tasted of iron. Her pulse leaped madly. Once, twice, Thea’s eyes lost focus.
It grew quiet.
Servants came running in from outside, but Gene heard nothing. Her head hanging at a strange angle, Thea looked like a doll with a broken neck. Beside her lay a real doll. The moment he picked it up, a strange smell stung his nose. It was a stench he had never smelled in his life. It was neither the smell of a corpse nor the smell of blood. He had cut down countless enemies on the battlefield, but there had never been a smell like this. He could not breathe. And at the same time, he felt as though he had seen this scene somewhere before. Though that should have been impossible, Gene struggled to gather his wits and thought. Where had it been? Where had he seen it?
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