Chapter 243
Cárcel had not meant to brazenly falsify anything out of shamelessness; he simply must not already be made a criminal, and so he wanted no heroic tale at all.
"Once the restoration work is complete and the consecration performed, the history of Lord Escalante staking his life alone to protect the nave and the Apostles' icons will be engraved above the Gate of Justice."
"..."
"And in the distant future, after Lord Escalante's passing, I intend to propose to His Holiness that you be canonized as a saint of Bilbao…"
"I do not wish it."
"Pardon?"
"I dare not wish it—withdraw the proposal. There is nothing by which I can be commemorated."
"But—"
Cárcel lifted a hand to cut off Archbishop Claudio's words—with the inborn hauteur of a man addressing an inferior. Until the moment before he smashed the icon he had always been devout, the sort to treat even a newly ordained young priest as if treading on sacred ground; yet before the archbishop standing here, he felt not the slightest respect.
The face steeped in all the world's splendor showed, without meaning to, a flicker of shrinkage.
They say that before a servant of God, king and vagrant are equal; but to a worldly cleric, mere earthly blood and power are rank enough. Your bodies are only shells you use for a moment on this earth, they say—yet they peddle God to fill the desires of their own shells.
"Is there not an icon you failed to protect—one left hideously destroyed?"
"Ah… and that is the irony. That the one struck down, of all things, was Anastasio, the Apostle of Resurrection… Though it was surely the scene of an unforgivable evil, the instant I beheld it my brothers and I felt, all at once, a certain destiny. That the Apostle whom God has ordained shall never fall was made to fall before our eyes—surely He meant to speak something to mankind?"
"..."
"Even my Anastasio sometimes is cast down. Strive to rise again. Awake…"
As befits a merchant's son who climbed to that station on the strength of his tongue in a high clergy where birth is everything, he was excellent at reading meanings into anything and everything.
"In that case, God worked by borrowing the hands of heathens. Not mine."
Cárcel replied indifferently.
"What on earth—"
"I understand that, to suit the old temple newly built under the archbishop's name, a new history is needed. But I will not presume to be its protagonist."
"It is not as if the tale is made of lies, is it?"
"I had no lofty intent to begin with. If it is not the name of Escalante you require, then kindly leave me out of that tale."
As if the only intent behind all that fanfare were to seek a tie with Escalante.
If he blustered as he wished, he would be made to admit openly his own vulgar character. Claudio's eyelids—delicate, at odds with his looks—trembled with agitation.
He might think he was agonizing over it, but to Cárcel's eyes the answer was already decided.
"Have yesterday's painter called here. I have something to give him before I leave."
"How is your health?"
"How do you think."
Cárcel answered offhandedly, and Emiliano lifted eyes like a lake to sweep his complexion, as if to say he understood.
"It is a relief you received treatment at last. I worried through the night…"
"You called what I was doing a sin the world must never see again, and then you went and proclaimed it nicely."
"It is indeed a sin that must never recur."
It was not censure—merely the precise truth. With a jut of his chin, Cárcel indicated the chair across from him.
"Sit."
"You're still pale. Has your wits come back a little?"
Emiliano asked as he settled cautiously into the chair. Since he was seeing with his own eyes that the man was awake and upright, the words he had wanted to ask were likely: Are you in your right mind now?
Cárcel noticed that those clear eyes of Emiliano's still regarded him as if he were a madman.
Indeed—if he had been nothing but mild and meek, he could never have gone and done that insane thing with Ines.
"I nearly came back only to leave again. Thanks to you I almost got canonized as a saint of Bilbao."
"San Carcel… it suits you. Why ever refuse?"
"I was the Satan who smashed the icon and the heathen besides—and I am also the one who defeated them? Take a prize on a lie and, later, sink into a worse hell—that the design?"
"But it is a fact you overcame it, Lord Cárcel. You did punish yourself…"
Emiliano, with utmost care and courtesy, raised a finger and indicated his injured head.
"You could have done something even madder, but you willingly stopped yourself and prevented greater harm."
"…Where did that pious fellow from yesterday go?"
"Thanks to you, I committed a sin I have never committed in my life."
"And why is that."
"Because you are Lady Ines's husband."
Emiliano answered without hesitation. As if there were no problem at all.
"…Do you remember the last thing you heard from me?"
"Ah… it was outrageous. But precisely because it was so preposterous, I forgot it at once."
The content had been impudent, but his manner and tone remained courteous. Even his clear gaze.
Propping his jaw askew on his hand, face unreadable, Cárcel seemed to feel not the least resentment toward him.
"I cannot seat a man who says he refuses at my wife's side. But our divorce does not hinge on your spurning the chance."
"..."
"As Ines wished from the start, our marriage in any case is set to end before long, and I only meant to give you the perfect chance you never had before."
"Does Lady Ines hate you so terribly?"
"No."
He answered at once, before he knew it, then let out a faint laugh, perhaps at himself.
"Ines likes me. Not the kind of love with which she loved and wanted you—but for me, it is an honor all the same. She is the first Ines Valeztena to be, after a fashion, willing about me."
"..."
"That alone is my one chance; I would never let go, not even if it killed me. No matter how much she longed for you, I'd hold her and live on as if I saw nothing."
"Why say a thing that is 'over your dead body' then."
"Because if I really die, that's a problem, isn't it?"
"..."
"Once is enough for Ines to have a husband who dies young."
Emiliano looked quietly into his eyes.
"When a man dies suddenly, there is no time to prepare for anything. Ines is still young enough for House Valeztena to 'marry her off again.' She is also unbound enough in her station for them to intervene once more in her life. She has no child of Escalante."
"..."
"If she didn't like me at all, that would be one thing—but swept up for a time by my death, left stupefied, she would be dragged by her father before she could even think how far her circumstances had run. With me, she's unexpectedly gentle."
Speaking of his own death, he sounded light as if it were nothing at all.
"In that case, it's better to go according to Ines's plan. I don't mind her remarrying another man; I just dislike it if he's not a man she wants."
"…Do you think Lady Ines still wants a divorce?"
"I don't know. But I'd rather she were wanting it."
"..."
"In truth, I wish it were all lies when she says she likes me—that she already finds living with me loathsome beyond bearing."
"..."
"If only she could forget everything that happened to her, she may forget me too—so I hope Ines has a very poor memory… and if that is already impossible, then at least she and I must part well."
"..."
"Oscar will, this time, disappear along with me. With no relation to her at all."
Cárcel smiled, neat as if nothing could be better than that.
"…In the end, you mean to separate Lady Ines from yourself?"
"It will take quite a long time. I need a few more campaigns; I need military command of Calstera; and she must be separated perfectly—from me and from Escalante's right of succession as well. Whatever I do, I cannot help but prepare for failure."
"..."
"What I wanted from you was simply to smile prettily at her side through that long time."
"Lord Cárcel."
"Not a swindle like today that makes me a saint of Bilbao."
He said it lightly, like a jest, but Emiliano still looked at him, stiff as stone.
"…If a few words could keep Lady Ines's husband from being hauled off to Del Fuego, then even with my poor gift of words I would gladly contrive them."
"Do you not at least want to meet her?"
"..."
"You said you prayed to your Apostle to 'let you remember all of this'—so that you would never again appear before Ines."
"Yes."
"And then you came to the last city where you and she had been together, and left a necklace she could not help but recognize."
"..."
"In the very year you 'died.'"
Lowering his gaze, Emiliano stared at the tabletop, his face frozen without a twitch. Watching his brow, Cárcel asked quietly:
"Even if it meant begging your Apostle for a grace like punishment—to remember it all, so that you would never again appear before her…"
"..."
"For such a man, it looked very much like you were pleading with Ines to please come and find you. 'Do you too remember all that we did? If you remember, please come find me… please, let us be together again.'"
Cárcel tugged one corner of his mouth, a laugh that mocked himself.
"Yes. That's how it looked. From the day my head finally dragged up your face."
"..."
"You could never dare to appear first, not even if it killed you—but so long as she found you, that was all right?"
"..."
"I'm leaving Bilbao soon. So answer straight."
"…I do not wish to see her."
The answer, late in coming from Emiliano, was unexpectedly firm.
"It is true I sought Lady Ines. But I never wished to meet her."
"Do you think that makes any sense?"
"Did you say 'holy union'?"
Suddenly Emiliano let out a thin laugh—as if the very word he had uttered was absurdly comical. His light-brown eyes darkened for an instant like a carriage passing through shade, then, strangely, brightened.
"Lord Cárcel. Lady Ines would not be able to endure me for even a single day."
"That can't be."
"Nor I her."
"..."
"Lady Ines and I—we would never be able to endure each other."
Cárcel knit his brows. To dare say they could not endure each other. All the patronage that kept this man here. All the protection and love lavished over and over upon Ines's life, all of it…
"At first—when I became eighteen again. My world was tranquil. Lady Ines was no longer the Crown Prince's fiancée. And I was no longer the painter's assistant headed to Pérez to paint the portrait of the future Crown Princess. By good fortune I met a kind patron I had not met before and was already in Oli García, and at last I began to think everything was going properly."
"..."
"I was relieved. That it had all become as I wanted… But the realization that the one who had come to live 'properly' was only me—that came much too late."
"..."
"I too once received a very brief 'mercy,' Lord Cárcel."
On the table, Emiliano's hands, folded meekly together, clenched each other until they blanched.
"…You mean what you had forgotten?"
"No. It was of a time I had never known—could never have known."
"..."
"As you said, it must have been the year Lady Ines turned twenty again. I lived straining not to think of the old things, but as that time drew near, I could not help but think the day I died was approaching. I had no right to conjure it, but I could not help wondering whether she was well. Whether she had at last married you. Whether she sometimes laughed…"
"..."
"So at first it felt like a punishment, simply for daring to think of her."
With a hollow breath of laughter, Emiliano lowered his face into his pale hands and then lifted it. Only then did Cárcel notice that the fairness of Emiliano's face was even whiter than those pale hands that had covered it.
"…A punishment, you say."
"I thought I was dreaming a nightmare that made no sense."
That pallor was not the look of a face worn thin by the same overwork as his, but one gone in an instant with fear and dread.
"She could never have done that. That could never have happened…"
"..."
"That Lady Ines… killed that child."