The Earth is Flat by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Lee, Tanith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DMR Books
Published: 2023-03-02T21:00:00+00:00

After I Killed Her

When she comes to me, when I look at her beauty, tears still fill up my eyes.

My God, if they could see that in the taverns of the north. Would they even believe it? I must be under a spell, or a curse, they would say, and perhaps—perhaps I am.

In a way, it’s only love. I’m in love with her. Not the carnal love I have known, those white women, with their sunburst hair, their thundercloud hair. Not that. And yet, it’s love. Of course, it’s love.

I remember the old man under the tower in the city, the old man they stoned, saying to us all that we were incestuous with ourselves. When the stone struck his head, he died, and the pigeon in his hands flew away.

My love; I will give you the sky, heaven, and earth. And you’ll take them.

I’ll make sure of it.

All my life, I’ve been a fighter. From the first brawls in the courts and backyards, to my training in the palace of a king. No one like me. I was proud of my body and my power. Arrogant with what I could do. But though I killed men in combat and on the field of battle, I also took them in friendship. I drank with them and went whoring, and when I wed, I was crazy for her, and my friends drained dry their cups wishing us well.

She perished inside a year. No one’s fault, a sickness. But when she was gone it seemed to me all at once I’d never known her. She was like a summer leaf I’d held in my hands, admiring it, until it crumbled. And I was left with only her grave, and there I went sometimes, and talked to her, just as I had in life, about my plans, and my dreams, my fights and conquests, and never a word from her. Alive, had she ever spoken to me, beyond the smile, the look, the words of praise, her answers always yes. And finally her little sad whisper, “It hurts me.”

So then I took myself off. I went wandering, selling my sword, as they say, which means I sold myself.

I was young and strong. I was tall and well-made. And I took credit for all of this. The death of my wife had been a blow to me, not only her loss, but the betrayal of my golden road, a pitfall the gods should not have set there, for I was lucky.

And still, I clove to people. I felt that in them was the hope of the world. I would love them for their adulation of me, as I had loved my wife, who even on her deathbed had told me I was beautiful, and must find another, she would not be jealous in the land of shadows.

Never idle, not I. When I was not in some war or contest, I assisted the farmers on their land. I laid down stones to build mansions. I filled nets with fish.

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