But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
I ought to marvel more at the rich lavishness of the Ieshan estate, but wherever my eyes glance Adonai's words echo. You see that tower? They say that a cursed prince lives in it. Do you believe that? That is what the firstborn son had said against a backdrop of blue bush daisy and sprawling, high-boughed trees. I might answer differently now, having seen the tower, wrought with an opulent eye. Everything is luxurious; splendid; full to tasteful bursting. Around me swirls the organized chaos of the festivities: visitors and servants, art and drink. The colors accent one another; a tapestry is woven not only of thread, but gleaming metallic string. Everywhere I look is glittering crystal and ornate details.
Yet the simple fact remains that a prison, regardless of how grand, remains a prison to those enraptured there. The ostentatious nature of the estate is one I cannot grow accustomed to; beneath the roof of this single household rests more wealth than I had witnessed in the whole of Oresziah. The only building we had that might rival the lavish corridors and high-ceiling rooms of the Ieshan's estate was, perhaps, our church; and that only compared due to the artisans who slaved for years upon the stained glass windows at each wall. Even that, however, was a building erected with island stones and timber, and had no room for gold or anything aside from flickering lamplight and hardwood pews.
I should not remain so transfixed, I know; I had been there long enough the evening is beginning to die down and smolder. There are fewer guests, and less activity to hide my presence behind. I begin to wander deeper into the estate, in the tower of imprisoned princes. The light is dimmer the deeper I go; and the aura of wealth only extends. I wonder what secrets lay behind the Ieshan doors; on one hand, I would like to know. And on the other, I have an itching feeling the truth is not so far beneath the surface. Eventually, I find myself on a balcony overlooking the distant sea. Heavy foliage in stucco pots adorns the marble railing; some of the planted trees bear luscious, blushing fruit. The air smells sweet, and dry, and despite the cold of winter it feels as if I am in a dream.
I know, however, that my journey through the house did not go unnoticed. I am not alone and ask, into the dark, "May I help you?"
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "MADE WITH BLOOD, WITH COLORED / DIRT, WITH SMOKE, NOT MEANT / to be seen but to remain / there hidden, potent / in the dark, the link between / the buried will and the upper / world of sun and green feeding, / chase and the hungry kill / drawn by a hand hard / even to imagine."
How tiresome.
Pilate would make one of his pretty drinks poisonous, wouldn’t he? Since the first case I stumbled upon, a girl bent-double and vomiting, insisting that she had barely drunk a sip, I have been working all evening. It’s nothing deadly. When I finally plucked one of the drinks from the tray of a passing waiter (and wholly disregarded the way his lips turned up into a smirk; amusement, I’m sure, at the thought of the middle Ieshan daughter shouldering sickness) and attempted to discern what, exactly, was causing the symptoms, I discerned that it must be something very mild. My brother can be as cruel as, the Solterrans would say, a snake. Ishak would say that they are wrong; he would surely remark on Pilate’s malevolence, the way that he laughs so easily at the misfortune of others.
I would say: none of you know the mind of a snake. How would you know the reason why it bites?
At any rate, I cannot help but wonder at Pilate’s rationale. I’m sure that this will do nothing for the rumors about Adonai’s condition; but that is beside the point, and no concern of mine. I am barely Ieshan, and, if the misfortune that has overtaken my house ever brings it to its knees entire, I were ever anything else, I could certainly survive it. I have been working long hours since I was barely anything more than a child, spent countless hours poring over textbook after textbook with a focus that my mentors deemed “unnatural.”
Most nights, now, when I walk the gilded hallways of my family’s manor, I can’t help but feel faintly disgusted by the extravagant paintings and marble statues. I try not to look at them.
I only follow the man out onto the balcony. I had escaped the party of my own initiative after dealing with another sickly young woman, who shouldn’t have been drinking anything at all. It was only when I saw the dark glint of his horns in the moonlight when I decided to approach him.
Ishak might be nearby. He might be somewhere else, deeper in the manor, almost certainly sticking his nose into something I wouldn’t care for; it doesn’t matter. I have seen this man earlier, talking to Adonai. (If I have been paying more attention to my gilded brother than usual tonight – that is no one’s business but my own.) I can’t help but wonder why he is here. I can’t even say that I’m sure this area is open to guests, but I also can’t say that I care. This is only a matter of obligation.
He notices me before I can speak. May I help you?
I emerge slowly, step out onto the balcony alongside him. He is taller than I am by measures; threateningly tall, even, and built like a warrior. If I am at all concerned by being isolated with him on the balcony, I give no sign of it. “No,” I say, flatly. “Rather – I think that I should be asking you that. May I help you with anything, guest?” Why are you so deep in the manor? goes entirely unspoken.
But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
If I close my eyes, I can feel the desert breeze tease at the hair falling across my brow. The physicality of the sensation grounds me; I glance out over desert dunes bathed in moonlight, and might have wondered at him, had my youth not drained me of all wonderment. Instead, I observe them with a cool, analytic eye. Even detached, I can admit the scene is beautiful; and if I were more creative, I could paint a story out for myself of a life I had never lived, a foreign prince of endless sand--
The reprieve, if it may be called such, does not last long. It is simply too outrageous a fantasy, to imagine myself without an ocean, without black rocks and austere cliffs, without seagulls feasting on rotten flesh and rain all months of the year but one. I turn to look at the desert princess, then, as with understated words she reveals herself as a hostess of the party.
I do not answer immediately; I simply regard her with quiet, inexpressive eyes. I find myself looking down at her, although I do not make it a habit to make others feel small; it seems unavoidable. She is not what I would expect of one of Adonai’s siblings; everything about her is understated and bland, dark like the earth is after a rain. Nevertheless, she belongs to the desert, and wears the same austere face as the dunes beyond, only darker, only even more impassive.
“You can tell me which sister you are,” I answer at last, quietly, and with a smile that is not a smile at all, but a mere suggestion of movement at the edge of my mouth. Brief, flitting; a shadow over the moon.
Then we remain eye-to-eye, the desert breeze teasing with lover’s fingers at our hair. It is obscenely quiet this deep within the estate, and this far from the party. I do not feel a need to explain myself, not yet. I only watch her, and wonder if Pilate is a serpent, Adonai a bird, what is she?
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
He looms over me. I notice. This is not the same as feeling small.
There is one flaw that all three of my brothers share, and this is a certain preoccupation with how they are perceived. I have never had such a luxury; I am the plainest member of my household by far, and perhaps the only one with nothing special to my name. In some ways, it is a virtue. I have known for my entire life that it would be useless to attempt to compete with my siblings over anything – I will always be the one found lacking, in the end. (In some ways, too, it is a virtue that I cannot be troubled too deeply over this fact. I will never be the most loved, or liked, or noticed, or admired. I will probably never be the most deeply loathed, either.)
My sisters do not compete – with each other. They fester, mostly quietly, but for Delilah. My brothers are not quite the same. Pilate is simultaneously deeply insecure and convinced of his own superiority; I think that the latter is the cause of the former. He has always desired the best of everything, and, much like his twin, has a troubling need to be the center of attention. I am sometimes convinced that nothing less than being considered divine would satisfy his vainglory urges. Corradh has always felt like he is the least of the three – the least striking, least blessed, perhaps even least beloved. I think that is why he has always been attention-seeking, though his needs grew far more caustic after our parents died, more bloody. It is no mystery why he is always seeking out lovers; it is the same reason why he is always seeking a fight. And Adonai - I think that Adonai would quite like to be a martyr, if you gave him the chance. He has always been one of the more romantic members of my family, if not the most, with his polished, plucking lyre and his quiet, golden elegance. Never mind, of course, that my brother has never suffered a day in his life but for his own illness; never mind that I have seen men sicker than him forced to toil and labor beneath the desert sun to keep their children fed the next day.
My brothers have always cared far too much about what people think of them. It has prevented them from taking note of far more valuable things; it has prevented them from reaching certain understandings. The man is taller than I am, and bulkier, and flashier. Certainly, he is imposing; you might even call him threatening, though his stance is nothing but. This is barely investigation - mostly, it is simple conversation.
If he troubles me, his head will hang over the gates outside of the manor – or, better, the city – when dawn breaks tomorrow morning; and, perhaps worse, I have seen the way that he looks at my brother. (I have seen the way my brother looks at him.)
I am not my brothers.
Why should I ever feel small in a situation where I hold all the cards? You can tell me which sister you are, he says, his voice largely emotionless; his lips do not quite twist up into a smile, but for a suggestion of movement. Mine remain at a businesslike, neutral angle.
I watch him, unblinking. I have heard people describe my stare as unnerving, when I am not trying to guise it; my dull golden eyes, which are so charming on my siblings, look like the sickly glow of a harvest moon on me. “I am Ruth,” I answer, simply, “the third daughter.” I do not know yet if that means anything to him; I do not know if I will. Still, I know that he will have my family’s teeth in him soon, whether he likes it or not, because Adonai likes him, and Pilate has never been able to stand him liking anything without trying to ruin it – or, else, take it for himself.
I think that I might pity him, if I cared. (I don’t care.)
My stare is still trained on him when I say, without any particular warmth, “And you are one of Adonai’s guests.” I say it like an observation; like I might say that the sky is blue, or the dunes of the Mors are gold. It is ostensibly a question, though I cannot say that there is any curiosity in my dull tone.
My kohl-lined eyes never leave his own.
But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
Regarding her, with her uncanny eyes and indifferent expression, I cannot help but let my mind fall victim to rumour. After my first encounter with Adonai, I had asked about the family: I had listened to the talk on the streets. They claimed the Ieshan matriarch created her children rather than birthed them. That, I suppose, is the origin story of the Ieshans; it is the noble myth they were born into, regardless of if they as individuals choose to believe it.
The fact seems startling to me, as the first stories of “origin” that reached me were ones of conquest. I learned the cities my great great great grandfathers conquered long before becoming trapped in Oresziah. Beneath me, the entire estate takes on the aura of the transient, of a thing that might succumb to sand and fire.
This knowledge is, perhaps, the only meritable thing I inherited from my father. Everything will burn, if brought to kneel by war. The villages beg for mercy; the women, too, no matter what regalia they don. It washes over me now as I regard her, one of the Ieshan princesses, belonging to an estate worth more than the whole of the island where I had been raised.
None of it, the wealth, the circumstance, means anything at all.
One day, perhaps, I will not view life through such a caustic lens: perhaps I will move past war and conquest to view one as others ought to, in times of peace and prosperity. I wish to see the beauty, to perhaps engage her in witty conversation. But how badly do I wish that, I ask myself. How badly? Not badly enough, because no matter how hard I try to act the part of another man, first and foremost I can only see how all that they are is built upon the false guise of eternity.
This is where I differ so intrinsically from them; it is the reason I am drawn to Adonai like a moth to flame, perhaps.
I want to remind them nothing is eternal; that even the most beautiful things will burn, if brought the right flame. (I have seen a little of that reflected in him, I think; it is his martyrdom).
I am Ruth. The third daughter. Her answer is so simple, so understated, that I do not feel the urge to respond to it. She has yet to show a flicker of emotion; but her eyes remain unwavering. I do not look away. I do nothing but let the breeze tease my hair. It is strange to realise I cannot smell the sea.
“I am,” I answer just as simply. And then with faux innocence ask, “He is allowed them, isn’t he?”
There is nothing snide in my tone; only the impression of doe-eyed ignorance.
I mimic her tone when I state, “You are not hosting,” as if commenting upon an unremarkable feature of the weather, the time, the year. If she will look away, neither will I: and in that stare I find my answer. I have never once met a snake: but I begin to wonder if the Ieshan estate is a nest of them, all in different forms.
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
Here is what I know: there are situations, when facing down a dangerous creature, that it is best to run, best to fight, and best to remain perfectly still.
The Solterran nobility is full of dangerous creatures. (Solterra is full of dangerous creatures.) My household is full of dangerous creatures. I have been looking over my shoulder twice since Adonai fell ill, though I know that I am the last member of my household that anyone, even from within, would want to target.
My old tutors used to say that it was polite to keep eye contact with people when you were speaking to them. I keep my eyes trained on him, and I know, though I am not good at such social courtesies, that nothing of this gesture is the same. I am, he says, confirming what I already know; his tone is perfectly innocent. (No proper Solterran would trust perfect innocence.) He is allowed them, isn’t he? “Did you think,” I say, expressionless, “that he isn’t?” It is less of a question than it is a refusal to answer. I am not my siblings; I do not go about disclosing private matters to any dazzling stranger who catches their eye. (And besides that - I am hardly dazzled.) I keep my gaze trained on him, and I wonder what he has noticed. I wonder what he thinks of my brother; I wonder what he thinks of the way that my brother is treated. I wonder what Adonai has said to him.
I wonder what he imagines, when he looks at us. I probably know the truth; but I don’t care to speak it. I don’t even care to think of it. You are not hosting. He does not say it in a way that means anything; and, though I have the distinct feeling that I am being mimicked, I only continue to stare him down. I could play the hostess, if he wanted me to. I learned how to smile eventually, and most of the time I do not forget when and how to do it to be polite. I am not normal. There is something wrong with me, inherently, down to the bone - but sometimes I can pretend to be, when I feel like trying.
I am a hostess in name. I am an Ieshan in name. But - unlike most of my siblings, I can say with confidence that I am something other than Ieshan.
I don’t bother to entertain him with a courteous smile. I have not yet; I will not do it now. “Pilate is the head of the house, and most of my siblings are exceptional socialites,” comes my response, utterly collected, “but I am only a doctor.” I wonder if he expects the answer; I doubt it. People expect a doctor to be kind, and to be warm, and I am cold and hard like the edge of a surgical blade.
I was never in line to inherit any portion of our household, but I was unwilling to be idle, too, like my other siblings who were skipped over in matters of rank - and besides, I have always been fascinated by taking things apart and putting them together again, and medicine, I know, is good. (When I was younger and more foolish, I used to think that my profession could make me good, too, but that was futile. There are some things that cannot be set straight, no matter how hard you try to fix them.)
But am I - only a doctor? There is nothing of pride in my voice, and nothing of interest; but there is nothing, either, that suggests that I am belittling my position, beyond my words themselves.
(I don’t care enough to explain it.)
But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
Did you think that he isn’t? I cannot help the way my brow quirks, just so in response, as if to imply any number of things. “I find it difficult to believe Prince Adonai has much opportunity to invite guests at his leisure, not due to a lack of means but rather of opportunity.” My tone is cool, bordering even on noncommittal. I recognise I am using a dozen words where it might be more economic to use only a few: Yes, he may invite guests. But where is he supposed to meet them?
It is her gaze that reminds me most of the women from my homeland: more specifically, she reminds me unnervingly of my mother. They share no similarities in appearance. No, my mother had looked much like me, if only more demure, if only less vibrant. Yet my mother had a way of stripping men of their intentions; of flaying them to the bone. She understood all that my father was; and rather than be dominated by him, or made lesser, she simply adapted. Beneath the outer facade of my family, it was my mother who ruled us, in her own astounding way.
That said, I have learned the art of exposing nothing of myself to women of such nature. In this aspect, I would never be as weak as my father had been. I listen to what she says: Pilate’s name in her mouth, socialites, a doctor. She reveals herself to be pragmatic not only in disposition, but occupation.
Nevertheless, I remain unimpressed. A rich girl decides to play at doctor: out of boredom, or curiosity? I cannot imagine this cool woman to do it out of empathy.
I wonder if she plays at it well; if she saves lives, or treats them with the scientific apathy of a child dissecting a worm. I find myself beginning to believe the Ieshans cannot understand suffering as the rest of the world does; only through the veil of the circumstances to which they were born. Magic; wealth; competition.
Yet, she intrigues me enough to ask: “And why become a doctor, Ruth?” At last, I break eye contact; but the gesture is not a defeat. I lean against the balcony railing with complete nonchalance. To any uninformed looking upon the scene, they might assume the balcony--and at that, the estate--belonged to me rather than to her.
But, I realise, it doesn’t. I am the third daughter. No, I am sure. Nothing belongs to her at all. Perhaps that answers my question more fully than whatever she may say.
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
There is a quirk of his brow. And then: I find it difficult to believe Prince Adonai has much opportunity to invite guests at his leisure, not due to a lack of means but rather of opportunity. Of course, he isn’t wrong. Adonai has been kept isolated; far more isolated than I would have ever allowed him to be, given his symptoms.
(But, then, I am not in charge of his symptoms, although I am likely the most qualified doctor in Solterra. I do not say that, either.) “Perhaps, then,” I say, simply, “you should come and visit him in the manor sometime.” It doesn’t mean anything, but I am a doctor. I cannot say that I care for Adonai in the way that a sister should (and, besides – he has never been a particularly kind brother to me, much as I’m sure that he would rather be perceived as one), but it would be better for his health to have more visitors. “I am sure that more company would be good for his health.”
That might be the most genuine remark that I have given him. It is certainly the only one that indicates I might have the barest implication of a heart buried somewhere beneath my stone-mottled skin.
I do not allude to what I know of my brother’s health, of course. I do not allude to the poison; I do not allude either to what it has done to his mind. I do not allude to the way that paranoia and ill-temperedness fester in isolation, and neither do I allude to the way that he has slowly been abandoned by most everyone else in his life. Let him draw his own conclusions. His comment has told me enough that I know he will make them – and perhaps they will even be true, or something like it.
(I do not allude, either, to my interest in finding my brother after the party – once I know that no one will be looking, or listening too hard.)
He asks me why become a doctor, Ruth? It is not the first time I have heard that question; I doubt it will be the last. I certainly don't need to be one. My family is too wealthy for me to ever have any need to work, and my work is messy and difficult and all-consuming besides.
He is standing on the edge of the balcony, now, his eyes turned away from mine; and I remain near the door, without approaching the railing. “Because,” I say, “the same quality of mine that makes for a rather poor socialite makes me a very good doctor.” That is not a matter of pride; it is a matter of fact. Solterra does not have many doctors, and, among them, I am almost certainly the best – and I spend my days sweating and bloodsoaked in the emergency ward, in the hospice ward, left to deal with the most difficult and dangerous cases. Solterra is dangerous. It is no exaggeration to say that I save lives daily-
-I can still smell the scent of blood and rotting, venom-eroded flesh from a beggar they dragged in this morning, when I close my eyes; I spent hours cleaning off his dead flesh, dousing him in antiseptic, staunching his wounds. Once, he nearly slipped away from me, but I did not let him go. They do not call me much of an angel, save for when they are in a delirious haze, from blood loss or from one drug or another, like I have heard them call one of the doctors from Terrastella, but I-
I know at the core of me that the reason why I can say them is something evil. I know that I can only save lives because I do not care if my patients live or die; I know that the only reason why I am so good at my job is because I do not panic under pressure, that I do not break if something goes wrong.
I tell myself that it is fine, because I know that I am doing right.
(Is it?)
Regardless: what else could I tell him? Because – there is something wrong with me? Because, no matter how much I have spent my life begging to anyone or anything or any god that will listen to fix me, there is some part of me that will never be quite right.
I could say the third daughter of House Ieshan is a sociopath, in the purest sense of the word, or even I am a sociopath, but – those are not words for polite company or strangers.
(They are probably not even words for family.)
But the walls stay, the roof remains strong and immovable, and we can only pray that if these rooms have memories, they are not ours.
If I were younger (and in being younger, sharper, less prone to biting my tongue) I might have asked her what kind of doctor she was, to allow her brother's condition to go undiagnosed. I might have asked her what kind of sister she was, to recommend such an "alleviation" to his condition and yet--
I suppose I do not have all the information. I suppose that I cannot make such intense conclusions from so little knowledge, but I nearly ask what other suggestions she has for his health. Instead, I say nothing. My silence, I imagine, conveys more than my words would ever be able to: seething disapproval. For all the contempt I feel for my sisters--
I must stop myself there.
I have no relationship with them to speak of. So how can I make comparisons? Perhaps even in this context Ruth exceeds me as a sibling. At last, I remark, simply: "Perhaps." Already, I am unnerved by the eyes and ears the manor possesses; even in solitude, I do not feel alone. It makes me ask myself if I will ever return at all.
She answers my question in a noncommittal way, that says very little about herself. "And what quality is that?" I inquire further, but do not sound any more interested than before.
What I would like to say: Where I am from, women are nothing.
They are not doctors, or politicians, queens, or priestesses. They are at most mothers or sisters to great men. In my world, she would not even seem to quantify as that: when I regard her again, after that long glance over the balcony to the desert below, it is with that thought: war would strip of her all that she is.
That thought in mind, her qualities do not matter. For this, I want to hate her.
Instead, I only feel dryly disinterested; instead, I only feel further from home and all that I have ever known. I did not expect that meeting one of Adonai's sisters would leave me with such a feeling of disconnection, of distance: nothing is as it ought to be, in the desert city.
☼ RUTH OF HOUSE IESHAN ☼רות "O YOU MISUNDERSTAND, / a game is not a law, / this dance is not a whim, / this kill is not a rival. / I crackle through your pastures / I make no profit / like the sun / I burn and burn, this tongue / licks through your body also."
I am more than familiar with disdainful silence.
It is hard, I think, for most people to resent me properly. It is hard for them to even get angry with me - I am rarely offensive enough for that. But it is not difficult for them to tell me that I do not belong, that I have transgressed, that I am distasteful. I don’t care, or maybe sometimes I do. Maybe sometimes I feel like I used to, when my brothers (yes, brothers) would mock my plain coloration and dull personality, remind me for themselves that I would never quite belong in our house. Maybe sometimes it reminds me of the way that Pilate only sighs despairingly at me, never bothers to scold; or the way that Adonai has always been content to keep his eyes turned away from mine, to never speak to me unless spoken to; or the way that Hagar trusts me implicitly but does not especially like me. The only one of them that has ever been apt to care for me is Miriam, and she cares for all of us.
Mother preferred not to look at me. (She was like Adonai, in that.) I saw nearly nothing of Father. They let me have my way, and I suppose it was enough. I’m not convinced that warmth would have done a thing for a creature like me, much less approval, but-
I gave up on being anything but disappointing years ago.
His drawn-out quiet tells me exactly what he thinks of my treatment of my brother. (I don’t care. He doesn’t know a thing; not of what is really wrong with my brother and certainly not of what it means.) Perhaps, he says, finally, his tone noncommittal.
I don’t know if he believes me or not, or what he thinks of my intentions - but I suppose that it doesn’t matter. I am rarely believed anyways. And what quality is that? he asks, and I look at him again. I am tempted to say guess, or evade the question entirely; but I offered it to him, so I don’t snatch it back now. Instead, I look away, at the sea, and I wonder how I should put it. How I should phrase it. How could anyone but me even make sense of it?
(How could they know how desperately I long to be normal? How could they ever possibly understand what it means to have some part of myself simply absent, to know what is normal only by the act of comparison-?) “There are certain things," I say, finally, “that I cannot feel, and, because I do not feel them - I never panic when someone is dying in front of me. I can work on the most difficult and dangerous cases without being troubled, or afraid.” I pause, then, and lick the taste of sand and desert winter off my lips. “I can never remember when to smile at parties, though.”
