by Cheri Lasota
“What did Padre mean earlier when he said you’d quarreled?” Tristan said.
“Please don’t,” she whispered. “I have made my decision.”
“What decision?” he said. When she tried to shake her head, he took her by the shoulders. “Would you have secrets between us even now?”
She let out a deep breath, feeling weary. “Padre says that we must renounce the myths if we are to reconcile ourselves to the church.”
Tristan withdrew with a frown. “How can he say this still? After all his own brother went through, how can he not believe?”
“I said as much,” she whispered.
“Yet still he admonishes us for our beliefs as he did his own brother. I understand now why you quarreled. And your decision?”
She touched his cheek with her fingers. “It is not plain to your eyes?”
MISTS OF LIGHT RAIN BRUSHED ARETHUSA’S FACE. She sat at the cave’s portal, entranced by a blustering sea stained with the blood of kelp. She could almost feel Tristan’s embrace, but nothing surrounded her save the sharp sting of the wind and the ghostly, scattered light of the newly risen moon, hidden amid the dusk-clouds.
Tristan had gone to Angra to book their passage to Massachusetts but had not yet returned. Arethusa expected him back at any time and hoped he’d see her note to meet her at the cave. She was certain of Tristan’s love and her own was beyond question, but she still feared the fragility of their circumstances. How could she love a man when both God and Artemis did not approve her choice? Even Padre Salvador did not truly support them, though he had given them his blessing. And Diogo. Would he try to take her now that nothing, except Tristan, barred his way?
Arethusa breathed a deep sigh into the wind, but the rain drowned its life before it ever reached the sea. She had gone down to the cave to retrieve her things from the trunk one last time, despite the danger of encountering Diogo there. Behind her, the old journals and books lay in a bundled cloth, but, in her hand, she held Diogo’s stone. She rubbed it absently, knowing she should leave it. But she could not. She squeezed the stone tight, wishing her anger could shatter it as it had shattered her.
Closing her eyes, Arethusa breathed in the sea’s pungent fragrance. Those waters were full of life and energy, so unlike the hard, dead thing she held in her hand. She squeezed it once more and then slipped it into her pocket.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a face in the dark.
Before she could back away, he grabbed her arms and yanked her out of the cave, scraping her legs against the sharp rocks. The steel-like arms, unmoved by her struggle, pulled her tight against a pocked bare chest.
Oh Goddess, he’s found me.
A husky voice tinged with soured cerveja came to her ear. “What’s the matter, Arethusa? Not happy to see me?” She tried to wring free of Diogo’s grasp, but he flung her around to face him as his grip winched tighter and tighter.
“Deixa-me!” she mouthed.
“What was that?” Diogo jeered. “You’ll need to speak up, querida. I can’t quite hear you.”
Her anger unhinged. She beat her fists against his chest, but he was much too strong. She wanted to kill him, but she felt like a ragdoll in his arms.
Diogo shook her hard, and Arethusa fell against his body as the world spun around her head in sickening circles. The rank foulness of his breath and the smell of his perspiring skin suffocated her.
“Ah, has my promised wife finally come to me willingly?” The cold amusement in his voice terrified her. “The chase is over, little nymph. You are mine now.”
“I am Tristan’s!” she mouthed, shaking her head with what little strength she had left. He backhanded her jaw, and the force of it made her bite her tongue. She had to spit out the blood rising in her mouth before she vomited. Stunned, she kept her eyes on the water, trying to steady the dizziness in her head. Though within footsteps, those waves seemed another world away on the other side of a dream.
“Say that name again and I will kill him.” He smiled. “Kill him and make you watch.”
Arethusa stood dead still. Would Tristan see her note? Would he come to find her?
How can I warn you away, love?
She pushed against Diogo’s chest, her desperation reaching its breaking point. She would not underestimate Diogo’s cruelty and malice. He wouldn’t stop until Tristan was dead. She must fight her way back to him. She must warn him to save him.
Arethusa did the first thing that came to her mind. Standing on her toes, she stretched her mouth up to his neck and bit him as hard as she could. He cried out and she tasted again the sweetness of blood on her tongue. His right hand went to his neck, and she sensed an avenue of escape. She jerked and twisted her body and fought her way free of his grasp. Then she took off in a flat run, her cloak whipping behind her.
The sound of his boots scraping over the rocks spurred her on. She tried to keep her head clear, focusing on the ladder that she knew lay in wait around the next towering cliff.
Her skirt snagged on a sharp outcropping of rock, and she lurched to her knees on the sand. Before she could catch a breath or jump to her feet, a searing pain rent her right shoulder blade. Her mouth opened in a scream she could not utter.
Diogo held the bloody knife blade up to her eyes. “A scar for a scar, eh?” His arms imprisoned her, and she grimaced at the burning fire of pain spreading across the whole of her back and neck.
“If you do not submit,” he said, laying the bloody blade flat against her cheek, “I will cut you piece by piece until you scream for mercy.”
Tristan... But the name died out as Diogo grabbed her wounded shoulder and forced her to face him.
“Go ahead and scream. No one will hear you now.” He shoved her down on her back against the hard, wet sand. She shut her eyes against him when his weight bore down on her. His words echoed in her mind like a death knell.
No one will hear you now. No one. No one. No one.
She opened her eyes and looking up into the parting clouds, she saw the outline of the gibbous moon.
Artemis, have mercy. But Diogo’s perspiring forehead filled her vision. His tongue pushed into her mouth, his hands ripped the buttons from her mourning dress. She pursed her lips against him, but his mouth was at her ear again, dripping words of warning.
“I won’t ask you again, Arethusa.”
I am sworn to Tristan, body and soul. If I choose life, am I consenting? Certainly it is better to die now. She knew which she desired more, but her mind would not consent to death, so she loosened her tongue to her disgust.
She had one last thin and desperate thought of hope as Diogo’s mouth drew down to the top of her chemise. It was a hope suffocated with doubt.
Please, God. Help me! I beg you. Have mercy. Have Mercy...
Her mind filled with that same calmness she had felt just before her father breathed his last. But the quiet soon faded as reality came crashing back in. Diogo reached down to the bottom of her skirts and wrested them up. The last of her faith collapsed.
“Arethusa!”
Before she could even turn to see where the voice had come from, Diogo’s body was heaved up by a heavy boot. He grunted in surprise and landed beside her. Familiar, sad eyes came to hover above her as tears washed through her own. Graças a Deus.
A shriek of pure madness resounded in her ears as Diogo struggled to regain his feet.
“Bastardo!” Tristan shouted. Without breaking his gaze, he took hold of Arethusa’s hand and lifted her up. But when his other hand reached to clutch her shoulder, she recoiled from the pain. Taken off-guard, Tristan brought his hand forward and saw with astonishment that it was covered in her blood. Realization dawned on his face and his features took on the same color of rage as Diogo.
“You cut her.” He pulled Arethusa farther behind him and spun to face Diogo.
Diogo stepped toward them. “And I will do the same to you before this night is over.”
“What have you become?” Tristan asked
.
“I am what I’ve always been.”
“You will never touch her again.”
“What will you do, be her great protector? Like you were at the orphanage?”
Tristan did not blink. “I’ll give my life for her.”
“Prove it then. Either way, I will have her.”
“By God, you will not,” Tristan said, his voice now calm and deliberate. With the flick of his wrist, he dismissed Arethusa and the nod of his head toward the cliffs told her to run. It took her a moment, but she gathered her strength and stepped back, keeping her eyes on Diogo.
How can I leave him when he fights for me here? Yet if she came between them, she could make it worse. The ladder. She would climb the ladder and find help. She continued to back away, trying not to draw Diogo’s attention.
His black eyes flashed fire. “Yes, you would have to call upon your God to save you now.” He laughed. “You are no fighter, Tristan. We’ve all seen you in the bullring. I will be the victor here. And I’ll take what I want from her at my leisure.”
Tristan threw up his hands. “What do you want from her?”
“Have you forgotten her name? And yours?” Diogo scoffed. “I am Alpheus. I am her fate and she is mine. You should have taken Isabel when you had the chance.”
Tristan hesitated, as if he were struggling with Diogo’s words. Then his demeanor changed altogether. A resolute strength lifted his shoulders, and his voice grew deathly quiet. “You are not Alpheus. You are a mindless pawn in a game you don’t understand.”
His words stilled her. Did that mean Tristan believed himself to be Alpheus at last?
Without warning, Diogo rushed forward and lunged at Tristan with the long knife. Caught unawares, he gasped as Diogo stabbed the blade into his upper right arm. When Tristan fell to his knees, the knife was ripped from Diogo’s hand.
Arethusa forgot the danger and rushed to his side.
But Tristan pushed her away. “Run!” he shouted.
Arethusa jolted in fear, spun around, and ran straight for the ladder. When she reached it, she glanced back at Tristan. He was stumbling behind Diogo, clutching his arm.
“Don’t look back,” Tristan commanded. They locked eyes for a moment, and she felt him willing his strength into her.
She bit her lip and turned for the ladder. Though the rain had stopped, the rungs were slick with the sweat of the sea as she climbed up the cliff face. It was slow work. The cut in her shoulder made it impossible to raise her arm higher than one rung at a time. The ladder heaved when Diogo swung onto it below her, the rungs quivering as he gripped them.
Her lungs burned and her shoulder was on fire when she reached the cliff’s midpoint. She risked a glance back at Tristan. He had stopped short of the ladder and had his hand on the knife that jutted out of his arm. With a violent groan, he yanked the knife from his body. He teetered and almost fell as the blood rushed down, soaking the thin fabric of his shirt, but he stayed his ground.
For an agonizing moment, he stared up at her. She saw defeat written in his eyes. Tristan saw her fear, and, as if steeling himself against his own, he slowly rose to his full height.
“Go. I will follow.”
The sudden strength in his voice brought her to her senses. Arethusa forced herself on. Diogo grabbed Arethusa’s ankle and yanked down, but her hand caught a rung before she plummeted to the rocks below. She kicked at his hand with her free foot, but the strength of his grip did not waver.
Diogo screamed, and when she looked down to see Tristan hanging onto the ladder below them, his hand still clutched the knife that he had stabbed into Diogo’s leg. Diogo loosened his grip as he struggled with Tristan for possession of the knife. She scrambled up the last two slippery rungs and heaved her body out onto the cliffside.
Arethusa looked everywhere in the gathering darkness for signs of life, but she heard no welcome clip-clop of horse hooves or the whistling of an old farmer tending his cows. The road was deserted and the fields were empty in the gathering darkness. No one would save them now.
A deep shadow rose behind the cliff wall like a monster rising from the deep. Diogo clenched the knife between his teeth. Blood dripped from its jagged blade down his scarred lip and chin. She held her breath, knowing that their lives swung between this madman like weights on a pendulum. She felt Tristan’s nearness, his distance, his pain.
Diogo rose to his feet with a set jaw and clenched fists. Hatred burned in his black eyes, but Artemis had illuminated a deeper darkness. He had lost all appearance of humanity. For Arethusa, he was the embodiment of evil.
She ached to look away, but his mesmeric eyes held her motionless. She remembered the stone in her pocket. Diogo’s stone. She brought it forward, raising it high.
“Throw the stone, Arethusa,” Diogo said. “It won’t save you, but you will have your small revenge.” He spoke as if he were playing a game with a child. She felt her anger rising out of the past. A fifteen-year-old girl reached back with a stone in her hand, gaining momentum for a vengeance she would now take. She saw the stone fly in her mind, saw her anger flying with it, but a clear and familiar voice rang out before the rock left her hand.
“Let it go, Arethusa.” Tristan now stood behind Diogo, hidden in his shadow.
Arethusa fell to her knees, feeling the heaviness of the stone bearing down on her as she cradled it in her lap. Hate. It lay inside the stone she had put in her heart. Pai’s own words came to her. Aufer a me, Domine, cor lapideum. Hesitating, she slipped the stone back in her pocket and rose.
Diogo’s rage was complete. He turned on Tristan with a fury, pushing him to the ground. She ran forward as they struggled at the cliff-edge, fighting for the knife. She tried to pull Diogo off Tristan, but it only made his attacks more violent. He pinned Tristan beneath him, inching the knife toward his throat. Tristan braced himself as he held back Diogo’s wrist with his weak arm, but Diogo’s strength began to overwhelm him.
Recognizing a chance to distract Diogo, she kicked his injured leg. The diversion worked. Diogo faltered, which gave Tristan enough leeway to knock the knife out of Diogo’s hand. They rolled and Tristan was pinned again.
Diogo dashed Tristan’s head against the hard ground again and again. He cried out but Diogo was unrelenting. She grabbed his arm to pull him off Tristan, but his grip was a vice. He laughed as he shoved her to the ground.
At last, Tristan moaned and lay limp, and Diogo leaned back and stood up. She couldn’t see Tristan’s eyes clearly, but she knew he was struggling for consciousness. His strong hand sprawled out close by, motionless but beautiful in the pale light.
Arethusa’s body told her to flee, but she knelt at Tristan’s side, aching to be near him as long as she could before Diogo took her away. She blocked Diogo out of her mind and reached for Tristan’s hand. It felt cold to the touch. With a kiss she brought it to her cheek to warm it.
But Tristan suddenly jerked his hand away and kicked Diogo hard in the stomach. With a bellow, Diogo slid over the cliff-edge. She scrambled over on her knees to see if he had fallen, but he dangled from a crevice a meter below the cliff. His fingers grasped a clump of grass and rock, and, for a moment, he and Arethusa stared at each other.
Triumph crossed his face, as if he were gloating that she still had not managed to foil him. “You cannot kill me,” he said, adjusting his grip to a sturdier rock. “I am Alpheus.”
Arethusa felt a powerful need to speak. She would hardly muster a loud whisper above the wind and waves. But it would be enough. It had to be.
His strong arms dangled from the precipice of hell, and a certainty swept through her. It was pity. Pity that Diogo would never know love or kindness or joy. That he would never be able to make amends or to forgive. She had not forgotten what his father had done to him. And to end his life here, still seeking her destruction... would God take him in, or even the Goddess?
She leaned down as far as she dared and looked into his black eyes. “If you ever loved me, Dio
go, then let me go. Let us both go, so we might at last live.”
She knew at once that Diogo had heard her. A long moment stood still as Arethusa pierced him with her eyes and his own beat out a rhythm of fire and shadow.
Diogo’s bloody face twisted and his scar reared up. “You have not defeated me,” he hissed. He reached up to her but the rocks shifted beneath his hand, and he slipped from the edge. A silent scream filled his mouth but no sound reached her ears.
She reached out to him without thinking, but it was too late. His body hit the rocks thirty meters below, and she heard the breaking of his bones, saw the shadow of his blood splatter against the rocks. With a shiver, Arethusa turned away.
Her soul willed her to Tristan’s side. With closed eyes, he looked as though he slept in sweet repose, but the blood seeping from his arm and the puddle of blood that cradled his head splintered the image instantly.
How can I live if he dies?
She felt for a pulse at his neck. For a breathless moment, she couldn’t find it, but then she saw his chest rise and fall with shallow breaths and knew that he lived.
Arethusa used a sharp rock to tear holes in the heavy fabric of her skirt. She had learned of tourniquets from Tristan himself, but she was frightened she might do him more harm. She brought the cloth around his arm and pulled it tight, anxious Tristan would cry out. He did not even wake, though her own shoulder began to burn like fire. She touched his hand. It was pale and cold.
Tristan jerked violently when she tightened the bandage around his head, but he lay still afterward. Unclasping her Beguine cloak from her shoulders, she brought it around to cover Tristan’s long body. As gently as her shaking hands would allow, she brought his head to her lap. The sticky, congealing blood from his matted hair soaked into her skirt. The night air was cold, but Tristan’s head was fevered and hot, burning his warmth into her legs.
She realized now that her vision of the duelists had come to pass. She hadn’t understood the vision’s meaning until now. And the eyes—one blue, one black—signified Alpheus and Tristan, Diogo and Tristão. And now that it was over, what would happen? Would Tristan die, then, to save her? What purpose would her life serve if she lost him?