by Olivia Ali
He slid a tender hand down her jawline and Tristan imagined a sly smile touching the ends of the man’s lips as a single tear formed in the corner of Jenni’s eye. The man let his hand drop and a snigger escaped his hidden lips, hidden like the truths that were now slowly coming to light. The man turned, his hood slipping slightly – almost enough to let Tristan see blonde curls slipping past leafy green eyes that dared to look up at Tristan as he disappeared back down the alley. Jenni wiped her face with the back of her hand as he vanished and she turned to finish cleaning the window.
Tristan watched the space in the alley where the man he assumed was Cedric had gone, debating whether or not he should follow. How was he going to do this? It was obvious Jenni had lied to him all this time but he had to find out why. The reason why was probably not a very good one, but he had a right to know all the same. The question was should Tristan play her at her own game or just confront her outright? Perhaps he could even do both. Taking a deep breath, he stood just behind her without her even noticing there was someone behind her – Cedric’s visit had obviously shook her so much that her guard had dropped – and Tristan was going to use that to his advantage.
“What was that all about?” he asked before jumping back immediately as the bucket finally lost its balance on the window sill and crashed to the floor, murky soapy water splashing everywhere; mostly on the hem of Jenni’s red dress. “Whoops, sorry…I uh seem to be making a habit of ruining your red dresses.” He tried to hide the enormous grin now creeping onto his face; although it wasn’t his intention to embarrass her further, the look on her face right now was priceless.
“Tristan!” she exclaimed, stretching out the dress to see the full extent of the damage, dampness setting in as far as her knees. She looked up at him – she was not impressed – after all he had ruined yet another of her red dresses and lately, they seemed to be the only dresses she had.
“At this rate you’ll have nothing left to wear,” he joked, taking a step toward her as he debated toying with her affections for a while.
“It’s not funny! What do you want anyway? Can’t you see I’m trying to work?”
“Well that doesn’t usually bother you…” she turned away before he could finish but instinct told him to grab ahold of her softly and turn her back to face him. “I wanted to apologise.”
“Apologise for what?” she pulled her arm away, folding them as she had with Cedric; although this time it was in more of an impatient manner as opposed to the flirtatious notion it had seemed before.
“I uh…I’ve been avoiding you for reasons that escape me now. And I wanted to apologise; I was just so angry with what he did that I took it out on you and that was wrong.” His quickness to blame his father had certainly worked as her shoulders dropped and her face turned softer, more understanding and compassionate – perhaps even guilt ridden with the way she had acted.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to apologise. I understand…” she reached out for his hand, her touch resonating the quelled anger inside him.
“Oh you do? That’s good, it’s nice to have someone who understands me for a change…like really at least. Most people at the moment only pretend to – they pretend to care…like my father.” He had got her affection that much was clear, now it was time to toy with it before ousting her for the dirty liar she was.
“Theorryn? What’s he done?” she was playing dumb; she knew what he had done all too well.
“It turns out he’s lied to me all these years…in fact not just him but everyone in this damned city has let me believe that this is my life.” He dropped her hand and turned his back on her – trying to play on his own vulnerability.
“Lied to you? Tristan this is your life…here…here is your home…” she came up behind him and he could feel her hands grace his back as she longed to be close to him. Now, she was playing with his affections.
“No!” he broke away from her, making her jump suddenly. “You say you understand, but you don’t. Nobody does.”
“Then help me to understand.” He looked back at her through the corner of his eye.
“These three years, it’s like I’ve been living someone else’s life – I don’t know whose but it’s not mine. My life was in Dilu and Hasaghar…with her…my Dags. My life was never here, not even these last three years.” He turned around to face her. “Home is where people love you, care about you…where people don’t lie to you…” His eyes stared right into her, their seriousness making hers dart away; he had her right where he wanted her.
“Tristan I…” she begun, although he wasn’t sure what she might spin next, he wasn’t about to let her try to lie her way out of this.
“What is Cedric to you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Cedric, the man who you were talking to just now…how do you know him?”
“How did you…”
“I’m not as stupid and naïve as I look.”
“I never said you were. I met him when he came back with you three years ago…”
“Lie!”
“It’s the truth…”
“Up until now, everybody believed Cedric to be dead…”
“But…”
“He’s been looking after my daughter…whom people also believed to be dead. But you knew that didn’t you?” she didn’t answer him, she just stared at him, all the whilst her eyes trying to avoid contact with his. “You, like everybody else here who professes to care about me have been lying to me these past three years. Why would you do that…lie to me…you of all people? You’re so supposed to love me!”
“Tristan I…” she drifted off, like she didn’t even know how to deny what he was saying. All her lies were unravelling before her and there was nothing she could say to pull this all back in her favour.
“Well, I guess it’s a start that you’re not denying it. Why Jenni? Why did you lie to me all these years?”
“It was Theorryn,” she said after a while. “He made…”
“Don’t put the blame on him!” he raised a finger to her – his father had enough to answer for. “My father has enough to apologise for but your actions are not one of them. You’ve always been a feisty woman Jenni, one who was perfectly in control of her own mind…a law unto herself. No one would ever be able to make you do anything.” He paused a while, studying her pale face; the look of puzzlement upon her lips and the look of sheer panic in her eyes. To his amazement, there was no guilt, no sorrow – it was like she was past caring, like caring for him, loving him all these years had been more of a chore than a want or a need. “Answer me then! Oh, let me guess…you were jealous…”
“Jealous?” now she was denying it.
“Jealous! I chose her over you…and that made you jealous…I’m surprised you stuck around to be honest; but then maybe I’m not considering she died three years ago. Of course you’d stick around so that you could finally sink your claws into me.”
“You think I was jealous?” she asked again, her chestnut eyes now looking right into the blue of his own. She looked angry if anything, outraged that he could accuse her of such a thing.
“Well, you were…it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
“…yes, I was jealous but that’s not why I did this.” Tristan could tell she was angry; it was the way in which she referred to them as ‘this’ and now he had cracked her – now he would get the truth.
“Then why? Humour me.” Tristan folded his arms and leant casually against the pole where travellers would tie their horses to stop for a drink in the tavern.
“I did it to get back at you, to show how it made me feel that you chose her.”
“You silly girl. Anyone else would tell you to move on, I left you Jenni…I think it was pretty clear…”
“Not to me! When you left for Dilu you left me thinking you would come back to me after your Keeper training, you let me think you would come back to me and we could be together properly.”
“Oh come off it! You knew I was leav
ing to discover myself…I didn’t know what I was going to find so I left you in the hope that you would move on.”
“That’s not how it seemed. Even when you wrote to Theorryn and he would come around the town boasting of how his son was making him proud…how his son had found himself a sweetheart…someone was making an honest man out of him at last. He took great enjoyment in flaunting it in front of me.”
“You never were his first choice for me.”
“Neither was she…not after he found out what she was.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was damaged goods Tristan and you deserved more than that. When he found out he came to me, told me how he thought even a bar wench was better than some town whore.”
“How dare you!” he stood up tall – he may not have remembered everything about her yet but there was no way he was going to let her drag Dagnen’s name through the dirt. But now she was taking her turn to talk and she wasn’t going to let him get a word in edgeways.
“How dare I? What, afraid to hear the truth? I took his words and I went to Dilu to see you, to see if you really could’ve devoted yourself to one woman. I saw you in the streets with Romeo and some other men talking about this masquerade ball that was being held at the estate to celebrate the spring solstice. So, I thought I would tag along and see if I could charm you so to speak. I put on a mask and pretended to be someone else just to see if you could really resist the temptation.”
An elaborately decorated hall opened out around him; filled with people dancing hand in hand – men dressed in smart silk tunics with long coats, leather trousers and sturdy boots; women clothed in intricately stitched exotic dresses that shaped their figures beautifully – masks adorning their eyes. Tristan was stood amongst his brothers, all smartly adorned and masked, each parting the group to meet their partner at the stairs at the head of the room and join the parade of dancers. All his brothers having taken the floor, he sighed heavily – still no Dagnen – and turned to fetch another drink of beer from a flagon on the table behind where he stood.
When he turned back around, he faced a woman in a red dress. He wasn’t sure whether he recognised her or not, then again, the mask didn’t really help the matter. The ruby red dress shaped her figure beautifully; a gold entwining leaf pattern entwining her waist, giving them a rounded appearance as the dress descended covering her feet. The gold seemed to compliment the chain effect necklace. Her dark hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head and adorned with a beaded band tied loosely around it with a few curls on either side falling beside her high cheek bones. Her brown eyes were adorned by a red and black laced mask with gold beads along the edge. The arms of the dress draped to her knees, making her look somewhat shorter than she actually was just below Tristan’s shoulders. Although the look caught Tristan’s eye, the woman was far too pale for a red dress, not to mention the fact that her assets were somewhat disappointing in a dress that flaunted them so, especially at the chest where the neckline of the dress clung to the tips of her shoulders and rounded off at her cleavage.
The two made small talk for a while though; after all, even though Tristan was determined to make Dagnen his, if he wasn’t going to get her this night he might as well entertain his options. But just as he was about to give up all hope and ask the woman to dance, his eyes were caught by an emerald green tint at the top of the staircase. Following the attraction, his eyes were greeted by what was perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and her showing up here meant she was all his. Dagnen lingered at the stairs a while, waiting until she set her eyes on her waiting partner. Taking the hint, Tristan passed the woman who continued to talk as though she didn’t notice him moving away for the first moment. When she finally did though, she turned around to see Tristan was making his way toward the staircase and the woman’s face had lit up as she set eyes upon him.
As he made his way forward, his eyes remained glued to her, studying her every detail. The dress matched her eyes which twinkled in the light and the glare reflecting off the bead strung mask that decorated her face. The mask itself was further complimented by a gold jewelled necklace which coupled as a choker with matching earrings. Her chest and shoulders were left bare, the dress held in place by sleeves that joined the gold patterned bodice that draped down with a translucent fabric. The skirt of the dress bunched out slightly at the hips before flowing freely down to the floor, dragging gently behind her a little way. Her light brown hair was tied slightly behind her and flowed beautifully down her back – it wasn’t particularly long but it competed the look all the same. Despite her face being hidden from him, he knew it was Dagnen for no other gave him that feeling in his heart as though time around him had stopped and it was just them two dancing once again in the rain.
“Obviously I was wrong!” continued Jenni as Tristan’s consciousness reluctantly came back to the present. “You may have entertained the idea of getting to know a stranger, but it was clear when you kissed her hand at the stairs that your heart belonged to her.”
“So, the woman in the red dress – that was you?” he asked for reassurance. She nodded – clearly red dresses had always been her trademark however it was a shame they did nothing for such a pale complexion.
“I watched you dance with her all night and I saw in her face how hard she tried to love you better than I ever could.” Her words were said with a harshness now as her face turned hard and she spat the words in spite. “I was a fool to believe that a man couldn’t change – for the right woman they will I guess.” The way she was judging him angered Tristan; first she had the nerve to insult Dagnen and now she was judging him – how dare she? There was no redemption from this, no matter what she said. “As the evening drew to a close, the lights grew brighter and the noise of the music died. You took her away, lead her to the balcony where it could be just you and her. I followed behind you though, I didn’t want to believe that I was out of the picture. You didn’t see me standing there, but I was in the corner…watching you kiss her and it broke me.
“So, I came back here and tried to move on; the only reason I didn’t go to Shaznul where my father and brother are is because I couldn’t face the ‘I told you so’s. Then when you came back with her, I felt like you were rubbing it in my face – God help the both of you if she’d stuck around. Once she left, I heard Theorryn in the bar saying how he was wrong to have judged her and how he was happy for you and I had to listen to him boast over and over again as you left to become an Acolyte, as you married her and then had a child with her. That should’ve been me! And then when you came back in the state you were in, I saw my chance. It was never meant to last this long…”
“Oh, will you just stop playing the victim!” Tristan had lost his patience with her now, he could not believe what he was hearing; the venom in the words, the forced vulnerability in her tone – it sickened him to the bone to think that he had loved such a thing. “I can’t listen to it anymore!” he turned his back on her, unable to look at her any longer. He didn’t even know what to say to her.
“Tristan, don’t you get it?” she pleaded. “I couldn’t go through with it, I loved you too much.”
“Oh please,” He rounded back on her. “If you had loved me too much you wouldn’t have lied to me all these years, you wouldn’t have come up with this ridiculous revenge plot or whatever it is you want to call it. You never loved me!” He was right in her face now and the way he towered over Jenni obviously scared her into silence as she didn’t even deny it. “When I leave Az Lagní the day after tomorrow I won’t be leaving you behind. In fact, the moment I turn my back on you now I will never think of you again…you won’t even be a memory.”
He dropped his grip on her hand and stormed past her into the hustle and bustle of the streets, not looking back - even after her distressed calls in his name.
Chapter 11 - At the Graveside
The next morning, Tristan awoke with the sun – it was the first night in a long time he had felt like
he had actually slept. It was as though a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Hurrying down the stairs, he accepted Marcine’s offer of a bowl of porridge with honey before heading out into the bustling city square. The exotic Market was still in town and would be until the end of the week and as he passed, he admired the wares of each stall in turn – gold and silver jewellery, cloths with elaborate patterns and the sweetest smelling food you could dream of.
He passed the centre of the city down to where the performers from far and wide performed by the front gate to Az Lagní. He watched as dancers blew fire from their mouths, and paraded round each other; a man lifting a woman high into the air and a line of men kicking stocky legs donned in fur boots out into the air in some sort of brotherly performance. Taking one last look behind him as some children sped past him, he left through the city gates and headed for the church atop the hill surrounded by white gravestones. The bright sun was just rising behind it and the glimmering light gave him a sense of beauty as it shone through the stained-glass windows, casting brilliant patterns against the grassy hill.