Trinian

by Elizabeth Russell

  “No!” she startled him with her adamancy. “I must not, because that’s not enough! It won’t make it go away. Don’t you see? I can’t wipe out my offenses….And neither can you.” Her eyes wild and her voice risen to a despairing pitch, she ran from the room and Afias let her go, unsure how to help her.

  * * *

  She did not run to her room. The last time she had run there when she was upset, terrible things had happened. She did not run to the gardens around the palace: they were full of workers and people she did not want to see, people she had betrayed. She ran instead across the courtyard, out of the palace, and as fast and as far as she could go, into the desolate wilds of South Drian.

  54

  As She Buries the Uncountable Dead

  She did not stop running until she was miles from the palace and she tripped over something and sprawled face first in the dust. She pulled herself up and looked back – it was a dead body. Decaying over the past three months, it lay in the middle of the dirt road just as it had fallen. There had been no one left to bury it.

  She stood up and saw a barn and house – this had been a farm, and she had tripped over the farmer. Three more bodies were near the home – the mother and two small children. The stench of rot was overpowering and she gagged, but then she breathed it in hard, telling herself that this is what she could have brought on her world – this fate for all the rest of Minecerva. She gritted her teeth and stomped over to the barn, and returning thence with a shovel, she spent the next three hours digging and burying the unknown, forsaken family. With each plunge of the trowel, she stabbed the god of Karaka, and with each throw of dirt, she buried him deep and helpless in the earth. Then she prayed to Death to escort the family’s souls peacefully from Minecerva to the Fields of Rest. She cried over their souls, anger and vengeance rising in her breast against the god, against his monstrous minions, and most of all, against herself.

  * * *

  Adrea buried many bodies after that, wandering the wasteland that was once South Drian. Her hands bled, her knees were red and cracked, and her lips blistered in the dry sun, but with the shovel clenched tight in her arms, she wandered from road to town to farm, digging, burying, and praying over the lost. She wept until her eyes were red and dry; weeping over the numbers of the dead, marveling that so many could fall. But evil, it seems, is relentless. One evil man could murder ten innocents, and his prey would die because they did not know how to fight back. One army of a hundred could murder a thousand because none of those thousands had the weapons and blood-thirst of those few hundred.

  After burying the entire population of one town in a deep hole, covering them by pushing hard against a boulder at the top of a hill and blanketing them in a rockslide, she tried to push on, but her legs at last gave out in the center of the town, and she fainted.

  * * *

  She awoke as the sun was just kissing the earth, shedding an eerie red glow over the brick buildings and cobblestone streets. She pulled herself up, her nostrils newly assaulted by the smell of death. It had not ceased to haunt her, clinging still to every building, every road, every body, a reminder of the lives no longer lived.

  Beside the well sat a forgotten jar of wine. Unlike the water, it was sealed and protected from the slow decay of death all around, so she popped the stopper and drank it down, finding strength in its rich red flavor; then she pushed on back into the wilderness, fleeing the souls of those left behind, praying to Death to lead them all to paradise.

  But suddenly, stranded in the middle of the road, fleeing death, sin, and darkness, and plunging anew into its never-ending wake, she stopped still, her legs wide, her hair wild, and her head thrown back to the sky. Her words ceased to pray to Death and began, instead, to upbraid him.

  “How could you? Are we nothing to you? How could you?” Her voice, cracked and dry, shrieked like a witch from her throat, soaring like a harpy to the vast, empty blue above. “Are we nothing to you? Why do you take and take, and leave us nothing? Do you see? Do you hear us? With all your powers and graces, are you impotent?” She collapsed to her hands and knees, and as her bloodied hands hit the ground, she cried out in pain, and wept. “We are less than you, but we are. When a horse cries out in pain, I relieve it – can I be less than a horse to you?” She was not only speaking to Death, but to all the heavenly host. She shuddered and wept at their neglect, and dug her fists into the earth.

  “Just tell me there’s a plan! Tell me it has to be, but tell me there’s a purpose. If only there’s a purpose, I can go on. If only there’s a reason…but you sit on your heavenly thrones and move us like pawns, and when one – when one steps up to rule us…” her voice broke. She could say nothing more as the pain of her demonic possession crashed over her in a wave of torment, and she screamed. She screamed her pain, guilt, agony, and grief into the desert, leaning forward on her hands and knees, letting the cries reverberate from stone to stone, begging primal earth to rise up and swallow her into her bosom: into blissful oblivion, into peaceful embryo, into trustful innocence. She pushed hard against the dirt, and felt that it was a futile action. She could not fight the dust. She could not fight the death.

  Then with racking breast, she stretched out, weeping quietly, and fell asleep.

  55

  Garden of Knowledge and Tears

  Adrea awoke on a bed of soft grass, pillowed comfortably on a cushion of ground which seemed much softer than that upon which she had fallen asleep. Golden sunlight so suffused the morning that it pierced even through her closed eyelids, and she opened them to see an older woman sitting comfortably on a rock before her. The woman was clad in a simple blue work dress, with her hair pulled back in a yellow bandanna and her work-hardened hands clasped in her lap, and she smiled in a motherly way upon the young woman asleep on the grass.

  “Rested, are you?” Her voice, though young, was as soft and motherly as her appearance.

  Adrea blinked and sat up. She looked all around and saw a small cottage nestled in the trees in the distance.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Adrea looked back at the woman. “Yes, I am.”

  The woman rose and started toward the house. “Come along then. Let’s get you some breakfast.”

  The interior of the cottage was as bright and comfortable as the woman herself, and smelled fresh, like clipped grass and dandelions. Breakfast was berries and milk with sweetbread, which was comfortable food and made her stomach, hot and empty as it was from all her weeping and digging, feel satisfied and full.

  When they finished eating, they went out into the garden where the lady of the house fell to pulling up weeds in her garden. Adrea knelt beside her, but the woman would not let her help, sitting her instead upon a bench against the outer wall. “You’ve clearly had a hard time of it, and you are not to strain yourself on my doorstep. Look at those lovely hands, full of raw blisters. Why have you done this to yourself? Here is some honey – spread it all over and then hold them still. It will help the healing and take away the sting.”

  Adrea sat silent; she had said very little since waking, and watched her new friend industriously dig up the nefarious plants that threatened the well-being of her many flowers and herbs. The activity of digging was too similar to her own recent actions, and after a little while, the lady of Drian found herself weeping again. The gardener came over and took her tenderly in her arms.

  “There, there now, just cry it out. That’s right, darling. It’s a terrible business, it is, and there’s nothing to do but cry. Nothing at all else. Is there?”

  “But I did!” she sobbed. “I tried. I buried them…but there’s always more to bury. It is a sea of blood, and I am drowning in it!”

  The woman nodded, soothing Adrea’s tussled, messy black hair. “Yes. You can always bury more dead. That you can. But what to do about the living?”

  Adrea’s sobs grew quieter, calmer. “The living?”

  “They are the living, darling. There’s still them….And you are one of
them, though you might like to forget it.”

  “I should!…I do! I ought to be dead. I have no right amongst the living.”

  “Why?”

  “I forfeited it. You wouldn’t understand, I can’t tell you – it’s too awful. But I can’t go back. I must pay for it….And don’t tell me I mustn’t, because I know it’s so, even though I can never make it up.”

  The gardener went on holding her quietly for some time, rocking gently, patting her head and rubbing her back. “Sh, sh, my darling,” she said over and again, and presently, Adrea’s tears were all spent.

  “That’s right, my dear. Now we’ll talk.”

  “What more is there to say?”

  “Well, clearly you plan to keep making your way across the country burying the dead until you have earthed the last one, or else joined them yourself.”

  Adrea was silent, and hung her head.

  “And what else, you ask yourself, is there to do? You cannot return to the palace with this stain upon your soul, and yet nothing will ever wash it clean; so you figure, you are as good as dead, and must only keep like company.” She smiled at the poor, tormented girl. “And I tell you, you are right.”

  Adrea looked up in surprise.

  “Yes. The sin was grave and the consequences severe. And you know, they could have been far worse. You are the one who ought to pay for them, but…you can’t. Not in full.” She held Adrea’s round face in her work-hardened hands. “And that’s all right. My child, no person can atone for their own sin, it is an ability only of the gods. And even they,” she added, as if to herself, “cannot atone for their own offenses. After all, the crime is not against them.” She looked back at the poor, beautiful girl. “It is not your place to punish yourself, my darling.”

  “But then, whose place is it? Don’t I deserve punishment?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t explain it all. I don’t know all the answers myself. But suffice it to say that if you kill yourself in this pursuit, then nothing good will ever come of it. Live for the living, live a good life, and then, at least, when you die at last, you will have left a light behind you. That is the best way to atone.”

  Adrea leaned forward. “Then should I not bury the dead? Isn’t that the commandment of civilization? We must respect the dead.”

  “Yes, you should. But you did not kill them, and it is not only your responsibility to care for them. Man is a social creature, meant to help bear one another’s burdens. Let others help you.”

  Adrea sighed. She wanted to believe the words, but her hard heart struggled to accept it. “That’s not easy for me,” she said at last.

  Her new friend laughed. “Then that should make you happy. After all, don’t you want a difficult task? Go home, my darling; there you have a friend eager and willing to help you. Live. For others – and for the sake of your own soul.”

  Adrea nodded and smiled at her own stubbornness – perhaps, accepting help would be the biggest sacrifice she could make. Determining that she would begin her life anew, she looked up to speak, and blinked in astonishment.

  She found that the beautiful, fresh-smelling cottage, the small, colorful blossoms of the garden, the stoop upon which she sat, and the motherly woman who had taken her whole-heartedly into her arms and home, had vanished clean into the air. She sat only upon a moss-covered log in a thicket of trees.

  56

  Intimacy at Last

  Afias flew down the main staircase to intercept Adrea as she crossed the flagstones of the main hall. Her servant Faring had already met her at the gate and was ushering her ladyship to her chambers.

  “Where have you been?” he cried. “Were you kidnapped? You look terrible. Half the soldiers of the kingdom have been out searching for you.”

  And she did look terrible. Her hair was a tangled, blowsy mess, her dress only a muddy rag, her face sun-burned and blistered, and her hands raw and bleeding.

  “Oh, I didn’t think about that,” she moaned, practically fainting against Faring. “I made you deplete resources.” She was in no state to talk, and without another word, Afias picked her up and tenderly carried her up the stairs, through the corridors, and to her bedroom.

  She submitted without a fight, and as she leaned into his powerful frame, it occurred to her that he was strong, wise, and caring. “I must think better of him from now on,” she told herself. “I must think of his goodness instead of my weakness.”

  Faring trotted behind, ordering as she ran that hot water be brought immediately to her ladyship’s chambers. Afias surrendered her ladyship to the care of her handmaid, but could not tear himself far away, and found himself pacing the hallways around her chambers.

  He was a man wrecked with guilt. Adrea was his charge, Trinian and Astren had entrusted her to him, and he blamed himself for her current state. He felt he should have helped her more with her nightmares, been more amicable with her when they first arrived, become friends with her while still in Drian. He traced every step of their relationship and found himself cool, removed, and stubborn along the way. A man of deep feeling, he did not remember the times when he sought to build bridges and she had remained aloof. He blamed himself entirely for Power’s near victory.

  The memory of that moment tormented him, almost as much as it did Adrea. Remembering it now, seeing it play out in his mind, feeling the cold darkness that had descended into the meeting room, he pulled at his dark hair and leaned, gasping and hot, against the cold walls of the hall. He could not forget when the god tried to suck Adrea’s breathe from her body, and he wanted to keel over in horror. He wanted to rescue her from it. To take the blame upon himself and shoulder the burden. Surely, his own efforts could heal her, and together, they could restore South Drian. He clung to that hope with stubborn persistence.

  But he, poor prince, would never truly understand the depths of shame in her heart. He saw only the repentance and struggle, and he felt there must be some way, some path, to heal her – but he was inadequate, and in the deepest parts of himself, he knew it. They needed something greater, stronger, better than they. He pushed away from the wall and paced again.

  At last, Faring came and said Adrea was asking for him.

  She looked far better, wrapped in a sheep blanket and reclining on the couch in her room. Her hair was wet, brushed and braided to the side, her hands were wrapped in bandages, and her face wiped of the signs of her misery. Now, only the darkness beneath her eyes spoke of her weariness. But there was a new light in them too. A new hope, and she smiled when he entered.

  “You can leave us Faring,” Adrea told her. “I’ll ring if I need you.”

  The faithful servant looked at her ladyship doubtfully as she moved toward the wooden door that led to her own side chamber. “It’s alright,” the prince reassured the faithful servant. “I’ll take care of her.” Faring did not look pleased, but she left them alone.

  Afias pulled up an ottoman beside the couch and sat before her. “Are you well enough to tell me?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to. I can come back if you need to sleep first.”

  His look of concern for her was so strong that she put out her hand to cover his reassuringly, but she paused when she saw the bandages. “No, please. I want to tell you. I’m very broken, you know,” she said with a small smile, looking over his shoulder at a point in the air beside his head.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I am not.” She looked back at him, and fumbling for the right words, tried to explain herself. “I have always been very proud. Very proper, too. And now look where we are because of it. I could not trust anyone but myself, could not accept that I might be wrong. I lacked empathy and…love. I was so afraid to show weakness, that I bottled all my emotion and tried to act with impartiality. I was wrong, and it took this – this awful, terrible thing – to make me see it. And I am so very sorry.” Her voice shook with a sob, but she did not cry. She had wept so much on her journey that her tears were all spent.


  “You know I don’t hold any of it against you.”

  “But you should! I don’t know why you don’t. I am responsible.”

  “Yes, for some of it, you were. But so was I.”

  “Don’t say that! Of course you weren’t. I don’t know how you could say that. You were stubborn and willful and moody,” she laughed suddenly; it felt so nice to tell him his faults aloud, and when she did, they were suddenly so small that she had to laugh. “You’re thick-skulled, and slow, and bumbling sometimes,” he laughed with her, glad that she felt comfortable enough now to speak openly to him. “Yes,” she continued, “I admit those are your faults. But nothing worse. It was my pride – a fault you entirely lack – that caused me to push so hard against you; to fear for the future; and to despair of the present. The god needed to possess me to get to you…because I was worse than you.”

  Afias had tears in his eyes. At long last, he accepted that it was not his fault. He accepted that she had sinned against him, entirely and willfully. He could not excuse her actions as blind or provoked or misguided, and that was very hard to his generous, idealistic heart. But since he had already forgiven her, he continued to do so, and he looked at her honestly.

  “We cannot live in the past. I want to move forward.”

  She smiled with a sob of relief. “Ok, yes. That’s what I want too.”

  He smiled too. “Good.”

  “But Afias! We need to make up for the past. We have to make amends as we move forward.”

  She was calm and direct, and he could tell she had something specific in mind. Warmth spread through his chest and arms: he was a man of intimacy, and the sharing of ideas fueled excitement and purpose within him. Despite all their shared misery, he was happy in this moment. “By doing what?” he asked.

  “We have to bury the bodies. The dead, all across South Drian. We can’t leave them there, and they deserve to be buried. We can’t ignore the dead anymore than we can ignore the living. Please, can we?”