Requiem (37)   Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires, Bad husbands of their fires, Who, when they gave thee breath, Failed to bequeath The needful sinew stark as once, The Baresark marrow to thy bones, But left a legacy of ebbing veins, Inconstant heat and nerveless reins - Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb Amid the gladiators, halt and numb… "Nikolas?" A finger lifted. His attention did not. "…Yes, I've withdrawn my challenge of the exhumation contingent on the strict understanding they wouldn't be invoking the order in the foreseeable future. The matter has been shelved, but I want to be clear on this. Without an adjudication we're in what amounts to legal limbo. Just because nothing's pending doesn't mean the issue's been resolved. As good faith gestures go, he's done what you asked. But it's up to you to make sure he doesn't change his mind. Are you okay with that?" "Nikolas?" The whole hand now, flat and cast in the general direction of her voice. Couldn't she see he was on the phone? "If I had another choice you'd tell me, right?" "Yes I would." "Thank you, Alexis." "Good luck." He terminated the connection to his aunt and transferred back overseas, to the estate attorney in Greece. "Kirie Christos, parakalo. Sas zito signomi. Milate anglika? You do? Excellent. As I said, I've been speaking to Signore Spatafore in Italy. He informs me my uncle's will, while read in Milan, was actually filed in Athens…Yes, this would be prior to the fall of 2003. I was wondering if you could fax me a copy, purely for insurance purposes. A number of his bequests to me require a transfer of title in order to maintain their policies…The whole will, yes, in its entirety…I'll hold. Yes, yes…" His fingers began to tap, his lower lip folding to a ruminative bite, as his eyes drifted down once more to the clutter of calculations now littering the surface of the desk. It had never occurred to him. But then again, why would it? His uncle's personal wealth, as meager in might against the Cassadine fortune as it was inevitably bound to be, had rarely risen to the level of a secondary issue for either one of them. What Stefan managed to earn for himself throughout the length of his professional life - his modest, monetary, nested egg - was a confidential matter and respected as such. Even if his nephew had wanted to discuss it, to pry that far into those private dealings, to press the privilege of his unconditional love just hard enough to oblige him to come up with a number, the mere voicing of the question would have proven rude in the extreme. Nikolas had always known, even when alone with his uncle, he was still the richest man in the room. How embarrassing would it have been to call attention to that fact, to throw it in the face of the very soul whose diligence, skill, and lifelong dedication were responsible for creating this vast, virtually laughable disparity? The slightest inference of comparison bore more than a passing resemblance to biting the hand that feeds. Twice it had been mentioned; twice as he recalled over the history of their acquaintance. First on the eve of his departure for Milan, when his nephew had probed reluctantly, uncomfortably, into the state of those finances to assure himself there was nothing his uncle would be forced to do without. A smile was all he'd received in response. A smile and the squeeze of a shoulder; a moment of meaningful silence before that sensitive subject was dropped. Then once again at the end, after his bungled attempt to assassinate Lorenzo Alcazar, as he thrust his uncle from him, banishing him to parts unknown. I'm cutting all ties with you. As of right now you are removed as trustee of the Cassadine Estate, you are barred from all Cassadine properties, and you no longer have access to any of the Cassadine bank accounts. You can live off your own money, if there's any left. I'm finished with you. If only he'd listened. If only he'd heard. If only his uncle had yielded to this irrevocable shift in circumstance they might have been spared the fiasco of Spencer's trial; his flight, his burns, his march off that cliff… Nikolas resisted the siren surge of an urge to stride over to the bar, to grasp a decanter in one hand, a bottomless glass in another, and relegate the rest of his afternoon to a single, unending pour. Deaden every nerve. Dam the sluicing tide of regret. Convince himself once more that his uncle deserved whatever he'd met; had authored his fate, had opened that door and, crushed by the weight of his countless sins, had had the good grace to self-settle the score. A familiar road that, and attractive to be sure, though not particularly productive. Instead he turned back to his scratchwork calculations, these best-guess figures he'd wheedled out of the Italian attorney Spatafore, and confronted for the tenth or eleventh time a truth he hadn't been prepared for - the staggering worth of his uncle on the miserable day he'd died. Goods, property and cash combined, his estate ranged upward in value to over a hundred million - closer to a hundred fifty-four. Hard enough to battle back the choke of that surprise; his soberly-stunned stupor as the commas quivered and shivered, shifting ever-restlessly left to contain this bewildering propagation of zeroes; he was nowhere near equipped to absorb the final destination of those funds - the inheritor of all those dollars, those marks, the francs, the rubles, the yen; the acres; these parcels of land and shore, the mansions in Milan and Geneva; his odd acquisition of a palatial flat off the Prospekt in St. Petersburg. What had Maximillian Cassadine done to deserve all of this? What service had he rendered? What position did he hold? As irksome as his distant cousin had become, as obstructive, as confounding, as exasperating in a manner that increased like the ceaseless feast of a migraine gnawing at his intellect's door - Nikolas was forced to agree with him on one point; to concur on one matter overall. His uncle's soundness of mind could and should be disputed; contested and confuted and scrutinized down to its very last call. It was infantile, he supposed, to resent the fact that his uncle hadn't made him the primary beneficiary of his will; that the benevolence he'd grown accustomed to hadn't extended to the distribution of his wealth - even more that it hadn't been offered up when the Cassadine Estate could have used it most. How could it have proven wiser to elicit a loan from gangsters? To fall in league with a man like Alcazar and accept the host of balloon-payments he'd withdrawn in ruthless, relentless succession from the shadow of that leather sleeve's fold? Stefan's interests had never been separate from the interests of the family, or so he'd been told. Told often enough to accept as gospel; to swear on, to guarantee. Infantile, this resonant sense of betrayal that hungered for solid proof, to see it written down in black-and-white, rooted in the type of a fax from Greece. Infantile squared to be further upset by the identity of the man upon whom those millions, perhaps not-so-rightfully his, had ostensibly been bequeathed. Yet childish as he suspected it to be, this was how he felt. Deceived. Duped. Blind-sided. Intentionally left out in the cold. And as he thought back to that initial evening of introduction, the formal exchange of a folio of sketches for dinner at the prince's board, he began to wonder if all the talk about Mayan bowls, bashkir falcons and Russian iconography hadn't been designed to lead him down this precise, disconcerting path. Why mention the will at all if it weren't where he'd been expected to go? Dangled like a carrot to a donkey; a slice of crisp green apple to a refractive Arabian foal. And with that image came the question his djinn had so boldly, so retributively interposed. Tell me, prince, are you so completely certain your uncle shared his entire life with you? No. No he hadn't, he didn't, as this Final Will and Testament exposed. Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the last, the latest, the best, the penultimate Cassadine prince, restively being drawn along by the ring through his nose. And the anger rose, the rankled pride, the indignant flood of derision. Fury festered once again at his core; hatred howling at his gate. So much so he would not recall in a minute or six, an hour or ten, that his wife had entered this room at all. Or the exact instant she'd left.   Chicken and the Egg. It's an old man's game. The game we play late at night when it occurs to us, abruptly, that we've lost at Life; that its turning points are behind us now; that we've aged right out of the roster of those heroic, heretical souls destined to make a difference - when it dawns on us that the compass of our intent has come to direct us less toward relevant destinations and more toward a corner bar, a bed, or the mindless metronome creak of some dusty, raw-boned rocking chair. Too weary in those stark, dark suicidal hours to map a next step, chart a new course, we are forced instead to content ourselves with picking over the old. It's all Chicken and the Egg, Alexander. It's the only game we know. I ask myself what came first, what started us down this perditious path? Was it the trip to France or the need for that? Was it Mercy's empty womb or my unaccountable inability to fill it? Was I not enough for her or far too much; absent yet all too persistent as a sterilizing truth to bear? Was it the move to Florida, the marriage itself, or my selection of career that had gotten us there - that had fostered such choices; made us vulnerable to the belief we might find an answer elsewhere; some exterior resolution to the bitter curse we'd been bitten by and suddenly, so wretchedly, shared? I may never arrive at an answer adequate enough to win at Chicken and the Egg, but you should know it never escapes me. The irony never escapes me. The perverse recognition that a vascular surgeon's love was resurrected by a heart broken beyond repair. We found Paris quite pleasant; its hotels, its galleries, its bistros, its cultured ambiance - all sufficiently enticing enough to smooth the furrows from our brows and soothe any pain of consequence. Once morning saw us rediscovering the art of holding hands; one quiet café brunch the ease to meet each other's eye. Conversation sailed like a clipper ship into a breezy renaissance and if, in parting, we failed to find the courage to genuinely kiss? We'd at least managed to locate the humor necessary to flout it. Mercy spent what she referred to as the treasure of her afternoons shopping, sightseeing and wandering from one splendor to the next while I attended the seminars this three-week vacation required. As luck would have it I'd struck up an acquaintance with the renowned Dr. Pantonne, the most distinguished lecturer at the conference and the American Hospital's chief of surgery at that time. Henri and I developed a friendly, contentedly reciprocal relationship based on our professional experience and our common field of endeavor - though, surgeon's pride being what it is, his role took on more of a god-like proportion while mine remained essentially, and much less argumentatively, apostolic. In light of this, it was no surprise to be invited to accompany him on his rounds; his lordly progress from room to room, chart to chart, penitent to penitent, to bestow his diagnostic benedictions. It was on one such papal peregrination that I met the woman who would change our lives. He called her "ma belle ballon" as he swept into the suite, to which she riposted, "Non, votre dirigeable massif," impatient in the way only those who are nine months pregnant can be. Pantonne tut-tutted the response while he checked her pulse and pressed a palm to her cheek. "ACD," he said to me, relaying her condition over the obstreperous breath she chuffed to blow the bangs from her eyes. "Oui, c'est m'appelle. ACD," she chided resentfully, offering her hand to thump his vanity soundly enough to compel him to introduce us. Her name was Leta. She was, as I said, nine months pregnant. Mid-twenties, attractive, astute, wealthy enough to afford both Pantonne and the suite. And she suffered from ACD, the explanation of which might prove a little complex, Alexander, so you'll have to bear with me. Atrioventricular Canal Defect is a congenital heart problem. A large hole exists in the wall between the upper and lower chambers through whose opening the oxygen-rich red blood from the left side of the heart is mistakenly shunted to the venous blue blood on the right, forcing it back through the system for a second trip. In layman's terms the heart is in effect "double-pumping" and this puts pressure not only on the muscle itself but on the lungs and all the surrounding vessels that carry the extra burden of transporting that blood. The condition is reparable and Pantonne informed me Leta had indeed had a valve reconstruction when she was seventeen. The difficulty here, if you can call it one, is that ACD sufferers automatically present with intermediate risk pregnancies. No matter what you've managed to fix some residual damage remains, whether to the heart or the lungs or the vessels, which can initiate a series of complications during the last months of gestation and delivery. Pantonne held some concerns in this regard and, as a precautionary measure, had admitted Leta to the hospital for the final month of her pregnancy - a development she was not too terribly thrilled about. I saw her several times on those rounds with Pantonne, enough to engage in a lively, if perpetually interrupted, conversation. My French was poor, her English far better and worth the effort, or so it seemed, simply to indulge in the distraction I undoubtedly presented. I don't know that I felt sorry for her - relegated to that bed, chained to the bane of hospital routine, weighted by the growing boulder of that child - as much as I felt commiserative, curious and yes, envious to a degree. Because of this, or in spite of it, I began to visit her on my own, forging justifications with a book or magazine, some small puzzle, a cup of ice cream, and it was through these means, these visits, that I managed to tease out the broader elements of her story. No small feat, as you will see. A bright mind mired for a month in boredom and monotony seeks out ways to amuse itself, and it was clear she was having some fun with me. The father of Leta's child, she claimed, was a Greek god - a substantial second-tier deity of dignified magnificence, if a somewhat sullen disposition. Stricken by a dish of poisoned ambrosia, he'd fallen to earth where she'd found him retching over a stream. Like all good shepherdesses, nymphs, and the occasional exiled queen, she took him in, strengthened him up and allowed him to play on her heart-strings. A month they had, thirty days of a bliss the likes of which the world has never seen, before duty called him back to Olympus and Destiny put an end to the dream. Stars crossed above them as he mounted his winged steed and turned to take his leave - the Fates decreeing he be ignorant of the seed he'd planted; the divine halfling he'd hatched in his month by the stream; the magical child he'd created only to abandon sight unseen. To this day he is unaware a babe will be born with his flashing eyes and his tumble of burnished hair; with only a mirror and a mother to remind him a god was once there. That was her story and she was sticking with it. It may astonish you to hear I went along. Alexander, had you been there, had you seen the pleasure it gave her to house the tale in these terms, you might have gone along with it, too. Later…well, later I regretted my failure to press for verifiable truths, but at the time accepting this version of events seemed the kindest, the most compassionate thing to do. In fact, the story so charmed me I found myself repeating it to your mother who, as you can easily predict, insisted on meeting Leta forthwith. Which she did, and I must say they got along famously. I can't tell you how often I found them laughing, heard those clever, feminine voices exclaiming over food, fashion and men before I'd even reached the door; how often the nurses would come to hush them; how they turned those nurses into allies and proceeded to laugh all the more. I was so grateful, Alexander. You will never, ever know. Your mother was coming to life again. I thought I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I thought it was beginning to grow. How fragile, the things we want to see. These things we need to show. Perinatal mortality was estimated at four percent, maternal mortality at eleven. They're decent odds and Leta managed to come through the birth with relatively few complications. A touch of hypertension, a glancing bout with endocarditis, but the outlook was good. We had only a week to wait - as the mortality risk persists for up to seven days post-partum. Mercy hunted down a church, sank to her knees and prayed. I took a seat at the end of the bed, anchored every ounce of my medical expertise and settled in to stay. As if anything might have stopped it. As if Death might have taken one look at me and run the other way. Such is the vanity of vascular surgeons. Such is our malaise. It happened on the sixth day. It will make no sense to you if I say Leta's death was caused by an abnormal elevation of the left ventricular systolic whose filling pressure precipitated massive heart failure. Nor will it help you to imagine your father's hands shadowing those of the great Dr. Henri Pantonne as we sutured vessel after collapsing vessel in a frantic race to relieve the flood of blood to her heart. I could tell you this was the first patient I'd lost and you could launch into your standard accusation that I was making this all about me. Frankly, I don't care what you think. She was my friend. That friend was gone. The rest is so much flotsam on our choppy Freudian sea. I gave no thought to the baby. The child never once crossed my mind, so consumed was I with the loss of Leta and the shocking revelation of my surgical inadequacies. Your mother fretted a bit, mounted a vigil at the nursery's glass, gave voice to the quandary of what might happen to the orphaned boy at last - but the truth was Paris had lost its sheen for us. It was difficult to watch this city, these streets, this hospital go on as it always had before; as if the loss of such a vibrant and irrepressible young woman was something it considered immaterial and could somehow arbitrarily absorb. In short, it was time for us to go. We were in the midst of packing when a knock sounded at the door. Pantonne entered our hotel room with two gentlemen he introduced as Aristede (a lawyer) and Maldebec, from the Direction de l'Action Sociale (France's Social Services Department). We were informed Leta had made certain provisions with regard to her child. Were she to die it was her desire that he be given into our care; to be raised by us, adopted as our son. As I recall, your mother and I took a moment to remove our valises from the bed, blinked at each other in silent shock and sat down with somewhat…well, more than somewhat of a sinking feeling of dread. We were not prepared for this - the offer, the concept, the very suggestion - and immediately made that clear. What about her parents? The men shook their heads. Her mother? Married now, with children of her own. Her father? He has no interest. The child's father, then, what about him? His circumstances are unknown. This is what she wanted, they told us. This was her request. You may refuse if you like and we will put the boy up for adoption. You must do what you think best. Ten days, and a mountain of documents later, we brought your brother home. He wondered how his father had dealt with Pantonne. Pantonne who lied, who, once he saw the birth certificate, definitely would have known. As sizeable contributors to his hospital, the Cassadine family was as far away as the closest working phone. Stefan would have recognized this, confronted the man, found the means to make him pay. Or watched him, followed him, ferreted out every bribe he'd taken; every last secret he'd squirreled away. It might have been as simple as the hospital's unwillingness to present its benefactor with a bastard; an embarrassment they felt he'd already gone to great lengths to renounce - his absence throughout the pregnancy and birth could be interpreted in just that manner. Or it might, considering the manipulative bent of the bloodline, have proven to be a great deal more. A tissue appeared at the crest of his shoulder. He took it, wiped the moistness from his eyes and discreetly blew his nose. "She loved him. My mother genuinely loved him." "Of course she did," Djinn asserted tartly. "Do you think he'd lie about that?" "I don't know." "By all God's grace, Zimi, how can you doubt it? Is everything up for debate then?" she snapped. "Is the truth just a wind through the wilderness? A devilish breeze you can't catch hold of; that knows no minding, that comes and goes? Is there nothing you rely on? Have you nothing solid in your life?" "Not since my father died, no," he shot back, regretting the words the instant they slipped from his mind to his mouth. She fell silent for a moment, lingering at the uppermost step of the porch, refusing to even look down on him, much less entertain the idea of descending to its boards. "I'm taking the car," she announced tersely. "Because, really Zimi, how stupid can I be? You're obviously better off alone." "That's not what I meant. Djinn…Esme, please…" His arm lifted, his hand reaching out ineffectually, before it sagged and dropped to his lap. He knew she needed to escape this; to escape him for a time. As driven as he was to confront his past - to hunt it down, shackle it up and drag it back into being irrespective of the personal cost - he was keenly aware her role as witness was taking its toll. He understood how painful it was for her to watch him suffer through such doubt; this aimless, insidious questioning of whatever it was he thought he knew, all that he'd been told. The simple fact that she hadn't put a stop to it weeks ago stood as testament not only to her loyalty but the sheer strength of her will. It was almost too much to ask of anyone, no matter the level of devotion or the stoutness of their soul. And so he let her go, hoping against hope she'd return to him. Hoping against hope the love would hold. Once upon a time he'd imagined he could do this without her. Now he just didn't know. He felt a throbbing in his jacket. He closed the journal and withdrew the phone. "Hello?" "Maxim. Emily Cassadine. I was wondering if you had a moment to talk?" "As it happens, I do. What's on your mind, Mrs. Cassadine?" "Oh no, not on the phone! I'd like to see you, if that's all right?" "Just tell me where and when." "The cottage and…now." The Jaguar rolled slowly into view, its driver waving the slim, trim, wafer-thin device she'd been talking through, acknowledging in her pert, proud little way that she'd adhered to his request of calling first. Maxim arched a brow and pushed himself up from the stairs, proffering a smile designed to look both accommodating and sincere; thinking this probably did qualify as an improvement of sorts. And the timing was amusing. Greek Translation: "Kirie Christos, parakolo. Sas zito signomi. Milate anglika?" "Mr. Christos, excuse me. I apologize. Do you speak English?" French Translation: He called her "my beautiful balloon" as he swept into the suite, to which she riposted, "No, your gigantic dirigible," impatient in the way only those who are nine months pregnant can be. Pantonne tut-tutted the response while he checked her pulse and pressed a palm to her cheek. "ACD," he said to me, relaying her condition over the obstreperous breath she chuffed to blow the bangs from her eyes. "Yes, this is my name. ACD," she chided resentfully, offering her hand to thump his vanity soundly enough to compel him to introduce us. Requiem (38) z'ama ya l-yas iz-zol willa rafig dima lkhatri… (I wonder, is despair a phantom or my companion for life…) Shame takes you to a silence. Shame takes you to a quiet place; your feet just march you there. Shame takes you apart and away, beyond anything of value, to the very small space Allah reserves for his nothings. She remembers how it was when she was five, an insular five, a secluded five; a small girl in an Islamic state; hardly more than a mouth to feed. She remembers an existence confined, her life like a tight Persian girdle; her days pinched by a custom to contain. Her hours, as they unravel at five, unravel behind walls; the walls of her home, her yard; the black linen walls of her abaaya, the ubiquitous moral walls of the matawain. Some of this was gender, culture, some was not. For more, even, than the other girls was she bound to the restriction of a sedentary strife. Lord Cardiff, as hard as it had been for him, had been forced to tie an extra tether to her ankle; had been forced to further imprison her there, married as he was to a woman uninterested in his child. His Esme - because she was no one else's; her country, her community, her faith, her mother all refused to lay claim - his Esme had been known to wander off when given access to the street. All children wander off, it's true, but very few had a parent who would simply walk on, content to accept the loss. It is Iffat he doesn't trust, but her five-year-old mind is years away from being capable of making that distinction. What she knows, what she learns, what her mother tells her with every archly unspoken word, is that she is not good enough for this world. And all the hours of all the days spent shut away in a room, in a yard, present themselves as validations. Shame is her sister at five. He sees this when he is not at the consulate, sees how his daughter has drawn inward, sees how her sister Shame has taken her to silence. It bothers him, this quiet she shows; gives his voice a harshness it never had before; gives his temper a camel's spit when she cows to her mother's intemperate scold. Once, when he thought he was watching her sleep, she heard him whisper hushed and low: Where did your smile go, little one? Tell me the name of the thief and I will have it back by morning. Morning came, nothing changed. His concerns grew a day older. She is six when he makes his bargain with the tribe; six when he resorts to a visit with those same brothers who dowered his wife. Primitive they may be, but they were also family and there is no greater bond to a Bedouin than the bond of an established consanguinity. She was blood - not pure, not whole, not indispensable - but nonetheless blood. Honor was available. Honor existed to be used as a tool in his negotiations. And she imagines him doing just this. She imagines her profoundly intelligent, profoundly aware British father driving out into the desert, trekking to the very edge of the Nedj, his long, white frame slipping through a tent-flap to join those nomadic men; to take his seat among the tribal elders and barter on behalf of his child. Two days a month is all he asks. Two days out of thirty to be spent among their women, to learn their ways, to embrace their life, to make an ally of the Bedouin fire that runs, however diluted, through her capitulating veins. And for this he will trade his influence in Riyadh, his privileged position within the government's bureaucracy to soften the registry and tariff restrictions set on the sales of their stallions and mares. Is it a foolish deal? Is he a foolish man? Her Bedouin uncles don't care. It is something for nothing; a nothing who will sit in the women's tent, of whom they will likely never be aware. When her father comes to tell her this, to reveal the bargain he's made with the tribe, she thinks: Of course. And it is well past time. Lord Cardiff was too fine a man to suffer the indignity of a misbegotten child. He did not deserve such disgrace, and she was grateful he'd found an expedient means to rectify the problem. Who couldn't see the injustice here? Who couldn't call it by her name? She loved him so, and for this very reason was selfish with her shame. She would give him no part of it. At a stubborn six, with a stubborn half-Bedouin's six-year-old mind, she fails to hear these are only visits and is completely convinced he's giving her away for the rest of his life. And she is proud of him, relieved for him, thinking nothing of her own sacrifice. In fact, it takes three visits, three dusky desert retrievals, three long months from that informing moment, to recognize he's actually coming back for her and not simply sadly indecisive about the daughter he was leaving behind. It is difficult for her initially, among so many people, amidst so many women she has been given every reason to believe will find her wanting. All these mothers, so like Iffat, were certain to mark the curse of her, to sigh over her lamentable existence in the same self-despairing way, and it shocks her when they do not. It shocks her perhaps just as much as it shocks them to discover she is in no way gawya (willful) or ghalbana (pathetic), raised as she has been in the outside world. This little urban girl, while a clear accommodation, proves not too terribly hard to bear. She is clean. She is quiet. She picks a good date. She knows how to sit in a chair. And Esme, as she sits in that chair and quietly looks around her, sees for the very first time in her life that there are mothers who do not despise their daughters; sees suddenly that there is an affection to be had and, in denying this affection to her child, Iffat was making a choice. She is eight when she becomes aware of it; eight and finally tranquil enough with the camp, the tribe and her small, all-too-delineated role inside it, to sense the birthing surge of what will quickly coalesce into a thunderously rebellious nature. It's nothing but an itch at the start, just the slightest hiss of a yearning in the silence of the night; a whispered want discerned between the tics of the snoring cousin beside her. An itch that flares to an impatient sting when she finds herself standing too long idle, when her hands are free and her feet stall fallow, awaiting a direction. Weeks it takes, a month no more, for curiosity and desire to unite inside her, churning like a sand storm, twining in a twist of youthful flame to focus - at first marginally, but then concertedly, contentiously, obsessively - on the horses she'd heard, scented and observed through the feathered crease of the corner of her eye since the day her father designed this; since the day she arrived. Later they would claim it was katablu, the luring magic some ancient djinn had practiced upon her to tease her toward the horse pens, to attach her attraction only to the most recalcitrant of stallions, to place in her palm the slice of pear, to place in her mouth the proper spell to soothe them to submission. Farouk had a hand in this, she was sure. That grizzled old goat of a horse breeder could spot a slave on sight. What matter if his next indentured servant came in the form of an eight-year-old girl? Work was work and she had the passion to give her life over to it; to pass every ounce of her rebellious energy directly on to him. Katablu, my fine Saudi Arabian ass. But the smile was back and, having witnessed that, Lord Cardiff was more than amenable to adjusting his arrangement. Esme came to travel now twice a month to the tents of her desert family, six weeks straight each burgeoning summer when the mares were in season - because as much as Farouk may have wanted to constrain her to the menial tasks of mucking, grooming and shoeing, it was true she had a way with stallions; these capricious beasts brought like herself from the alien outside world, expected like herself to commit to a duty and perform. Her secret language, spiced as it was with the verbiage of shame and estrangement, culled from these obstinate, magnificent creatures a willingness to calm, to conform, and eventually to breed. How unsettling had it proven for this sa-is, this cantankerous mule of a horseman, to find himself dependent on the wiles of a child to get his job done? Were she his right hand Esme had no doubt Farouk's pride would have driven him to cut it off. Lucky for them both his mercenary nature was stronger. As the years ticked by she was schooled to abide by the Bedouin breeding standard, instructed in the art of maintaining the strains - Kuhaylan, Saqlawi, Mu'niqi - that kept the Arabian as pure as he'd been since the time of Solomon. At twelve she could trace a bloodline back five generations merely on the merits of a marking, the slope of a shoulder, a skeletal slide. At thirteen she could counter-breed a strength to a weakness to produce a foal by any measure sublime. At fourteen, and as much as it riled him, Farouk began to seek out her assessment of a match before making his final selections. Not that it will count for anything beyond the illumination of your ignorance. His vanity, brittle as an old scarab's shell, still found its need for shining. And she gave him this, this and so much more, in trade for the treasure of fitting in; in barter for the bliss of belonging. Because as hard as this crusty old Bedu could be, as strict with his lessons, as cruel with his punishments for mediocrity, there was no other place on God's great earth apart from the circle of her father's arms where she felt so consequential, or so serenely consigned. And this is why, considering the sharpness of Zimi's rebuke and the depth of the pain he'd inspired, it does not surprise her in the least to find herself standing in the stables on Spoon Island. Some ancient, interior homing beacon had activated on his artless claim of having nothing and no one to rely on. Or perhaps it was the worry mounting day by day, her fears for him conspiring, that had made her feel just helpless enough, just ineffective enough, just as hopeless as she had been when shame had taken her to silence, to set her feet on this childhood course. So much less important the why of it, though, than the sight of it, the smell of it, the sense of it; the feeling of falling right back into this welcoming equine fold. The stallion is saddled and waiting, but it is the old mare who spies her from a distant stall; the old mare who alters her footing, twitches an ear, rolls an eye. Esme wonders if she's been neglected. Such an easy thing to do with this elegant, intemperate male preening like a god in the foreground, demanding every flicker of attention. He was praiseworthy and he knew it, his arrogance all but sued for it, so much so it offends the steed to watch her walk indifferently by, eliciting a sour, whinnied grunt at her blindness, her failure to worship; her unwillingness to comply. She clucks her tongue. "Tawaqqaf 'an il-tashakki" - stop complaining, she chides, certain as the moon will rise this night he has not an ounce of cause. Sheba. This is branded on the gate she opens but Esme needs no name; she spots the lineage immediately, recognizes the strain. A cupped palm rises to the chestnut croup, glides up the slope of the spine, then twists to comb through the coarse, brown mane. Cold to the touch, both coat and skin. Unridden, it seemed, with no plan to be. She doesn't think twice before unhitching the mare and guiding it from the stall. If no one finds the time to exercise a horse, it should be given the opportunity to do so itself. Only a fool leaves an animal indoors with a great fenced field nearby. Bad enough to be robbed of the desert, the very least this prince could offer his noble Arabian queen was a slice of bright blue sky. She releases the creature to graze, to run, to do as her instincts assign, and latches the pen with an indignant tug. How much must be abandoned in the service of denial? How many essential graces? What number of truths, of covenants, of oaths; of fiercely faithful faces; tenaciously loyal hearts? That he sees his past when he sees this horse is not the fault of the mare, and damn him for disregarding her. Damn him for casting her aside in favor of a cleaner conquest; in exchange for the ease of a less invested ride. Did all those years count for nothing? Years she was sure had been spent surrendering to his every whim - suffering his weight, bearing his choices, driving herself at the dig of a heel straight into the scorching mouth of Hell on some absurd quest to confront a demon, only to be forced to drag him back, broken and bleeding, to the cool light of day once more. Who will warm your bed at night without expecting a single satisfaction? Who will brew your tea? Wrap you tight in your sweaters? Who will save your life again and again and again? Show me my pasture, noble mare. It seems we share an affliction. I find myself forgotten, too. She re-enters the stables to examine the new, the longed-for, the desired; this bewitchment of a challenge housed inside the body of Solomon, his stallion. Her eye in this moment is limned with bitterness, critical and unkind, and she notes a Roman cast to the profile that betrays the taint of the Barb. Not a pure Arabian then, and possibly more Spanish than Moor, which marked him as the purchase of a person who had never purchased by pedigree before. Zimi's father might have gifted this steed to a friend or business associate; he would never have considered it fine enough to feed from a Cassadine trough - a twist of thought that, not-so-surprisingly, strikes a sympathetic chord. For it was doubtful, considering her own mixed heritage, the Count would have countenanced a union in any way more substantial or socially scored than the one Esme currently enjoyed with his son. The bane of katablu, she jibed wryly, to always find something in common with a horse. A swift search of the hay racks, the foaling box, the haphazardly-maintained tack room, and she located what she'd gone looking for; a burlap sack of apples. Apologies were in order, of course, and some minor tribute due. She drew the blade from the back of her belt and pierced the skin on a piece of fruit, slicing it wide and thick as Solomon stilled his roving eye and pretended not to notice. This became a little bit harder to do when she popped the treat into her mouth. His shoulders twitched in umbrage, his neck canting up. Watching a second slice follow that first, he huffed an injured snort. "So like your lord you are," Esme berated as she chewed. "The world would break before you bent to an action. Here," she relented, carving out a third section of the fruit and palming it beneath his nose. His lips parted to surround the wedge, his head rearing off in selfish satisfaction as his teeth chomped closed. "Fortune comes to those who stride to greet it," she quietly intoned, extending the last of the apple at an angle that forced his reach. "Stand apart and you're destined to suffer the luck you've always known." "Why am I not surprised to find my fortune eating out of the palm of your hand?" "Whatever you paid it was overmuch." She'd been expecting him. Even so, he'd arrived too soon. "A wedding gift from my wife." "To hear the town tell it, your wife was fortune enough," she pronounced, tossing the core of the apple to the trash and stretching an arm for a cloth. "Although she's plainly in need of a lesson in horse selection." "I'm guessing she left that to someone else." "Then a lesson in selecting someone else," she revised dispassionately, drawing the cloth down the length of her knife. "Americans so often believe profit reigns supreme. I know several Bedouin men who would choose the cheat over the dollar. Amusement, as a commodity, is frequently harder to find." "I think she did well." "If he serves your purpose…" she shrugged. The knife slipped neatly into its sheaf; once again at the back of her belt. "I came only for the horses. I hope you don't mind?" "Since it appears they're not worth stealing, I suppose I can let it slide." "I could get a pretty penny for the mare," she declared, looking directly at him for the first time; taking in the jodhpurs, the boots, the crop, that tailored riding jacket; seeming so absurdly refined. "Seasoned though she's been she'd market, if only for her lines." "Sheba won't be going anywhere." "I don't see why not. The ghost she bears has obviously thrown you from her saddle. Best to auction her off, as you've done with the rest of his things." "She was my horse." "He was your uncle. The point being…?" She marked his scowl and arched a brow, daring an illumination she wagered he wouldn't provide. A spate of silent seconds passed to prove she was right. She nodded and stepped apart. "I'll get out of your way, then. It's clear you've come to ride." "Would you care to join me?" She quirked a cunning smile. "You think it will be any easier to defeat me mounted than it has been on the ground? I breed these beasts, prince. I know what I'm about." He cocked his head and took his turn to arch a brow in challenge. She couldn't help but laugh. "Thank you, no. I fear I'm not fit for company at the moment. At least nothing beyond the idle allowance of a temperamental horse." "Then take him out yourself," he advised. Her gaze drew sharp, her eye narrowed to search for the slightest hint of a jest, but that face was open; his manner intent. "You're welcome to him, no strings attached. In fact, I'd be interested in your assessment of his performance in the field. It's my first time training a stallion. I could use an opinion or two." Simple. He was making this far too simple. Something was afoot. Yet her desire to ride, unexpressed and unimagined as an option until this instant, took root and was now beginning to grow; to encompass all the emptiness inside her. "What will you do with your demons though?" she asked, clinging to her suspicions. "I'd hate to have this courtesy cost Maxim another push from the pier, or you another midnight threat." "And here I was under the impression your warnings were a one-time deal." He strode to the side of his stallion and sunk a knee to the straw, interlacing the fingers of his hands to offer her a leg up. When she didn't move he sighed, lifted his head, caught her eye and delivered his truth in a tone that was half-pledge, half-admission. "My hell will hold, I promise you." A reluctant boot fell to his grip and she was hoisted into the saddle. He unhitched the stallion and presented the reins, then scrambled to offer her the crop. She refused, amused, and angled the horse in the direction of the door. "A Cassadine promise is a dangerous thing, Nikolai Stavrosovich. Break it and I can guarantee you'll wish the punishment was death." With this she turned, seized a breath and let out a blood-curdling cry to battle. Solomon reared combatively and hit the ground running; exploding from the paddock in a thunderous charge; launching himself into the open field. Nikolas emerged from the stable, a contemplative gaze fixed on the pair as they streaked over the pasture grass and fled to the trail, vanishing all too quickly into an outlying stand of trees. How much would she want, he wondered, for the secret of taking his skittish steed from zero to sixty in seconds like that? More, probably, than he had the coin to pay for or the favors to bestow. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask. "Do you think she'll stay for dinner?" "I don't imagine so," replied the voice behind him. "Will there be anything else, or shall I return to the house?" "The house," he responded distractedly, his gaze still pinned to the woods; to the precise spot they'd shot through; the point from which they'd for all intents and purposes miraculously disappeared. "Oh, and Mrs. Landsbury?" "Sir?" "Thanks for the heads-up." He thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket and discovered the cache of sugar cubes he'd intended for his stallion. He pulled them out, closed a fist and rattled them inside it like a brace of white dice. After a moment's thought, a modest pause of reflection, he walked to the rail of the exercise pen and called to his forgotten mare.         Requiem (39) Do not enforce the tired wolf Dragging his infected wound homeward To sit tonight with the warm children Naming the pretty kings of France… He would have kept her on the porch an hour. He would have kept her on the porch a night, next days, a string of weeks and more - another brother's lifetime to be sure - had it been at all politely possible. Just to test for the regret. Just to plumb those vapid waters for an arbitrary current of pain. Look around, look around, would have been his refrain. Remember where you left him? How he stumbled? How he strained? The roar that rumbled from his heart as the blood tumbled from his veins? The death of the husband you can hardly recall, Mr. Something What's His Name? He'd stand at the railing forever, waiting for her memory to engage, waiting for her soul to pay its penalty, to produce a tear, a grief, a rage, even as a part of him suspected forever was what it would take. But she moved too quickly up the steps, through the door, and after that he was a gentleman again. He'd offered her tea. She wanted water. He'd offered her a seat. She chose to wander 'round the house. He could hear her inspection in the creak of a board, the rustle of a page, the running of a drawer, as he entered the kitchen and set Dr. Lewis' journal on the counter - the only item he owned at the moment that might be worth hunting for. The rest of his secrets were interior and barely retrievable even by those who knew him well; a list that had grown significantly shorter in the last, lacerating year. This life like winter, shorn of all its leaves, its vibrant hue, its bewitching inconsistency. This settle to a season of loss, the brace against its delicate, damaging frost, his buckle beneath the ice whiskered over every cold capitulation; grave as the ghosts he walked among. What she would find inside him was all she'd spent a long year fleeing from. A discouraging prize, and a heavy one. One he knew she had no desire to bear. Stop searching, Mrs. Cassadine, for things you wish weren't there. It actually made him weary, and not a little depressed, to discover her twiggish arm thrust into the cubby of the sideboard when he walked back into the room. "Would you like this now," he asked her dryly, extending the glass of water, "or would you rather I go out and come in again?" She removed her hand from the wooden slot and quickly stood straight, skipping past the requisite embarrassment to launch an accusatory glare. "I know what you're thinking." "You do?" "You're thinking I came here to spy on you, but all I want is the truth." "And is it in there?" he inquired, tilting from the waist to peer at the hole. "Because I have to tell you I've been looking for that too." He passed over the water while she struggled with a response, then gestured to the sofa in suggestion that they sit. Thrown off balance by the absence of a charge, and moderately confused, she descended to take the central cushion on the couch while he moved to the hearthside chair. Discomfited by the glass, she plunked it on the table and left it there. He smiled. She squinted. He filled the silence, as it was incumbent on a host to do. "I'm surprised you didn't see Esme leaving." Because, of course, he knew she had. "I understand you've promised her a tour of the island. She'll covet the distraction. It's kind of you to take her under your wing." "She refused it, though," his visitor imparted in a swift spill of words, striving to make it perfectly plain that offer had been revoked. "As for taking her under my wing, I can't imagine we have very much in common. She knows…you know…well, everyone knows I'm married." "Yes, that diamond would be hard to miss." She fingered the ring, a comforting proof. "And I love my husband." "Is this fact in dispute?" "No. No, it isn't. And I'd just like us all to be aware of that." "Us all?" he echoed softly, beneath a pretense of mystification. "While I may doubt many things, Mrs. Cassadine, I can assure you your attachment to Nikolas is not one of them." "But it's not you I'm concerned about," she snipped in agitation. "You haven't tried to kiss me…" and here she faltered, trailing her unease. "…yet?" he supplied, making mischief. "Perish the thought." "That's not what I meant and you know it!" Defensive now, and a wee bit hurt. "If you're confident in your meaning then I suggest you stop explaining." He brushed a piece of lint from his slacks and casually crossed his legs. "Consider your boundaries sufficiently marked. Is there anything else I can do for you today? Turn out my pockets? Open a safe?" Her posture stiffened, her conviction returning as she abandoned the murk of Esme's kiss in favor of her current crusade. "You could start by being honest. You could start by telling me why you're really here and what you've got against Nikolas. And don't even try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. My husband doesn't just run around pushing people off piers. Not without a good reason. There's obviously something going on. I want to know what it is." "Perhaps you should ask him," Maxim advised, coolly meeting her righteous eye. "Are you refusing to give me an answer?" "Refusing is an over-statement, I think," he rendered compliantly. "Your husband's reasoning is his own. Surely you can see how impossible it would be for me to tell you what I don't know? I have no idea what compelled Nikolas to throw me off the pier, what he expected to gain by that, or what it was meant to prove. Nor do I have a clue in regard to the precise nature of the conflict he's facing. I suspect it would be far more productive for you, in this instance at least, to consult the source. Unless that avenue is closed?" He cocked his head and watched her mind wrestle with the query, her gaze glazed as she bounced between a convenient lie and the truth, then offered up a sympathetic sigh and took the burden from her shoulders. "Well, of course it is. You wouldn't be here otherwise. How insensitive of me to point that out." Her lips pursed, those brown eyes flashing in affronted asperity at the artless way he was maneuvering her. She would not be made a fool. "My relationship with Nikolas is none of your business!" "On this we agree. And I've told him as much, if that's any consolation." Four fingers swept down the sleeve of his shirt and took a moment to adjust the cuff, aligning it properly before he set his wrist to the upholstered arm of the chair. "Although it might have made matters a great deal easier had I come to object to the marriage. We could all stand on principle and debate the merits of a pedigreed bloodline versus a prince's right to choose. The imperial imperative is an issue everyone can sink a tooth to, as evinced so often by the razored bite of our matriarch Helena - who might still select it from the menu before the year is out. But for now?" he confirmed sadly. "Alas, Mrs. Cassadine, this is not about you." "Is there a reason you don't call me Emily?" she groused, her tone ripe with irritation. "Or are you just doing it to be obtuse?" "Honestly? I don't really like you. The formality helps me keep my antipathy at bay." Her neck arched sharply, her gaze growing slitted as her frame began to sway - appearing to his eye very much like a cobra startled from its stupored state. "This is about Maxie, isn't it? Because I chased her off that day." "It's a credit to your rigorously maintained naiveté that you could, at this age and stage of your life, sell yourself so short." "Well if it's not Maxie, then what?" she demanded. "What have I ever done to you?" She leaned forward to observe him closely, inspecting every feature of his face as she awaited his response but, apart from a faint shade of toleration pulsing behind those eyes, his expression remained unchanged. The air grew still and the silence long, yawning in the absence of an answer. Thwarted, she fell back to the cushion of the couch in a small fit of rage. "Fine. You don't want to tell me? Fine. But this proves you're keeping secrets. It proves you're afraid." He chuffed a laugh and offered up the hint of a jaundiced smile. "Yes, that must be it. I must be afraid." "Everyone who keeps a secret is afraid," she insisted primly. "It wouldn't be a secret if they weren't." "True. That's true," he concurred, bored enough now to toy with the contention and, consequently, with her. "But don't you find there's a difference between what a person works to hide and what he refuses to share? You, yourself, have asserted your relationship with Nikolas is none of my business. Does this make it a secret or simply something you're unwilling to lay bare? To have bandied about like chitchat in the common conversational air? Esme often claims there are no open books, just pages we're permitted to view. Privacy plays a part here. What I regard as too priceless to publicize may appear, however erroneously, as a sign of deception to you." She grappled with the distinction, some of which was clearly defeating her, and stretched to submit her translation of its aim. "So you're saying your reasons for not liking me are private?" "You could put it that way. Or," he added, lifting a finger as her mouth popped open to object, "or you could determine the query itself was impolitic; spur-of-the-moment, poorly thought out and perhaps even badly relayed. What have you done to me to make me dislike you? Well, nothing. You haven't done anything to me. There's your answer. Are you satisfied with that? How could you be? While a fair response to the question you asked, it's not the truth you went fishing for. That's the risk you take with inference. It begs the kindness of strangers." Her forehead creased, her lips pinching flat as she floundered through the finer points of the postulation. He'd lost her, he could see, yet in so doing had stumbled across a rather unique opportunity. He spun an effortless about-face and decided to make use of it. "I've confused you, I can tell. Very well. How about a demonstration? A game of twenty questions. I'll take ten, you take ten, all of which we'll agree to answer as honestly as we can. I think this just might illustrate what I've been attempting to explain." The wrinkle in her brow grew deeper. "I don't…wait, let me get this straight. I ask you ten questions and you'll give me ten honest answers?" "And vice versa, yes." She processed the proposal with a cautious nod, the bob of her head becoming more and more pronounced as it dawned on her, abruptly, just how much information she could gather by playing this game. It did not occur to her, even for an instant, that his prospects were the same. "Okay. Who starts?" "Ladies first," Maxim averred with the polite tip of his hand. "All right." Fired by confidence and eager to engage, she was quick to press her advantage; her enthusiasm causing her to spit the query out with little thought to how it was phrased. "What really brought you to Port Charles?" "What really brought me to Port Charles? A plane," he responded placidly. "A commuter jet from JFK. Business class; a snack, no meals, no in-flight movie. Take-off was a little rocky, but the landing was supreme." "Okay, wait. That's not what I meant." "And that's my point. The design of the question is everything. My turn?" He sat passive through the frown and the sour scrunching of her nose until she offered him a tight bounce of her head, permitting the challenge to continue. "Fine. What was your first impression of Stefan upon his return from Milan?" He watched her weigh the query, silently picking it apart, seeking to do just what he'd done and find the means to subvert it. She soon discovered this impossible and opted instead, in resentful revenge, to skewer him with brevity. "He was obsessed with business. If it didn't have something to do with improving the Cassadine finances then he didn't want to hear about it." And her mouth snapped shut. "Well, that makes sense," Maxim sustained, generously disregarding her stringency with words. "His nephew sent out an SOS. It seems natural he'd focus on solving the problem. Thank you. Would you like to go again?" "Yes," she hissed indignantly. Her eyes screwed shut to formulate her question and a leaden minute passed; a muscle at her brow twitching as she labored to grind off any potential flaws. After a brief interior review, she spoke it aloud. "Why is it necessary to dig up Stefan's grave?" "To verify his death." His chin dipped in deference. "You're a quick study. I'm impressed." He caught her victorious grin and wondered how long it would take her to recognize that, in concentrating all her attention on construction, she'd wasted another question. "And we're back to me, yes? What reason did Stefan give for opposing your marriage to Nikolas?" "He thought I was unsuitable," she replied, tripping into the rhythm of the game; following his lead in speeding straight to the point. "He said I wasn't from the right class of people, I hadn't been groomed to a life of privilege, and he didn't think I had what it took to be a proper Cassadine wife. But that was a lie. What he really meant was that I didn't come with a bank account he could plunder." She spied a slight disconcertion flickering over his face, but chose to interpret this less as something to be curious about than proof she'd acquired an edge. She hurried to make the most of it. "Okay, what was the misunderstanding you and Nikolas had on the pier?" His consternation vanished and he responded, bemused, "There was no misunderstanding." "Wait," she objected, a condemning finger rising to protest. "You promised to tell the truth." "And I have," he contended. "There was no misunderstanding. If you've been left with that impression then someone's been playing false with you. Funny, isn't it, how the answers to certain questions tell you more about other people than the person you've asked them to?" He gave her a moment to digest this, then resolutely moved on. "You claim you weren't in possession of a bank account the Cassadines could plunder, yet it's my understanding you purchased Wyndemere and gave it to Nikolas as a gift. Where did you find the money for that?" "My grandmother released the funds from my trust," she murmured distractedly, her focus diverted and discernibly diffused by his response to her last question. "So what were you and Nikolas talking about on the pier?" "A variety of topics, as I recall. The exhumation, the council's concerns, his uncle's state of mind. I believe we ended in discussing how he was treated in the final days of his life. I was trying to get a fix on the Count's perspective," he maintained. "In fact, you might be able to help me there. Of all the things you heard Stefan Cassadine say during the course of those final months, what most stands out in your mind?" Still freighted by the unwelcome implication her husband might have lied to her, Emily's defenses wavered; her vigilance drifting; her little boat pitching from side to side. She only half-cared what he was asking in that moment which was, no doubt, what brought about such a candid reply. "He came into my hospital room one night. He didn't turn on the light, just stood in the shadows watching me. He must have thought I was asleep. And he said, in that soft way he had, but very distinctly…he said, 'It would have been so much easier if you had died.'" She shivered reflexively, striving to shake the memory off. Sorrow surged to the surface for a father chained to such darkness, rising hand-in-hand with an empathy for this shallow, shallow girl that Maxim didn't fully comprehend; the spark of a genuine affinity he could neither countenance nor ignore. They were entwined in some insanely destined sort of way, not just the feelings but the people themselves. Devil to a devil, perhaps. Evil to an evil, locked in a dance - one too moral to survive, the other too oblivious to do otherwise. He'd touched her though, in that moment by the bed; made his mark, surrendered his dread. And for this reason alone, his son offered her an out. "Would you like to stop?" he prodded gently. "I think, as far as the phrasing of questions is concerned, my point's been taken." "No, not at all," she announced, shedding her distraction with a flip of her hair and the stubborn set of a shoulder. "I'm not done with you yet. How many questions have I got left?" "Six." "Six? Okay, then tell me this. What do you want from Nikolas?" "An accounting," he resolved without batting an eye, his tone stern and harder, perhaps, than it had to be. "A detailed recitation, from the first suspicion to the final, obliterating act, of his uncle's apparent descent into madness. The council and I are of a mind on this. We want to know what happened. We will not rest until we have his truth." "And if he refuses to give it to you? What will you do then?" He ignored the question. It wasn't her turn. If she wanted those answers she'd have to wait for them. "Why did you marry Zander Smith when you were clearly in love with Nikolas?" She started at the shift in direction; lost for an instant and uncomfortably aware his inquiry had veered, quite deliberately, into a much more personal domain. "I thought I was dying," she afforded him haltingly. "Nikolas was already married. He had to be. And Zander just wouldn't stop asking. I thought it would make him happy." A pensive hand rose to her throat and her countenance clouded; niggled by an absent fact. "So hang on. How could you possibly know who I was in love with at the time?" "I've talked to people who were there," he disclosed. "And did it make him happy, this marriage of yours?" "Initially, yes," she professed; more interested in other aspects of the question than the one he'd focused upon. "Who did you talk to? Who told you this?" "Ms. Karenin for one, but you're aware of that. You'll remember she gave me those photographs?" He allowed her an instant to recall this truth then continued to plow forward, unwilling to move off-point. "In the long run, though, I think it's fair to say your marriage to Zander made him anything but happy. In fact, it just might qualify as the most harrowing experience of his life, wouldn't you agree?" "I would not," she snapped back heatedly, bristling in offense. "Not in the least. Lots of other things happened to him that were infinitely worse. Like when he kidnapped me and became the target of a state-wide manhunt. Like when he testified against a mobster and was shot outside the PCPD. Like when his brother died and his father accused him of murder. Did you know he was blamed for his brother's death?" Maxim's gaze grew flinted; his voice falling flat. "And yet he lived through all of that. He didn't live through you." His eyes closed, two fingers lifting to massage the tension flaring at the bridge of his nose as he labored to keep his temper in check. "To answer your question, yes. Yes, I was aware of what happened with his brother. I'm curious, though, what he told you." "Is that a legitimate question," she taunted, "or another accusation in disguise?" "My answer first, if you don't mind." "What did he tell me? Let's see," she drawled, tweaking his need with a perverse little smile he wanted to draw back a hand and smack. "They'd gone hunting, the three of them; his father, his brother and he. They'd separated in the woods. Zander thought he saw a deer and fired off a shot. When he went to investigate he found his brother lying on the ground and his father standing over him in shock. Dr. Lewis blamed him for the death and he just couldn't live with the guilt. It's the reason he ran away from home and ended up here in Port Charles." She attempted to measure his reaction to this; a futile endeavor as there was none. If anything, her host seemed even more taciturn, even more the cipher than he had been. "Why are you so interested in my marriage to Zander?" "Because it disturbs me," he imparted grimly. "Because it was so heartless and unnecessary. Because somehow, in the midst of that mockery, his trust became dispensable and his faith obsolete. Because there came a time when his thoughts and feelings, his desires and choices, his needs, his fears, all those fragile aspirations; the essential struggle of his spirit and the conflict in his soul simply didn't matter to you anymore - and it upsets me to think that happened before he put a ring on your finger. Because your yes betrayed him. Because your vow took him to his knees, your lies bent his head, your lust for another man picked up the sword, and your infidelity slayed him. Because he was here and now he's not and in many, many ways you're responsible for that. And because, when all is said and done, you can't be bothered to own it." "Wow," she exclaimed, nonplussed by his response and not quite sure what to say - unwilling to take any of it seriously, containing as it did to her mind entirely too much wrongness to dispute. Instead she adopted a knowing air, lofted a light, long-suffering sigh and asked him, rather unwisely, "Do you feel better now?" His gaze shot up, his eyes ablaze, his rancor a fine blue fire. "I don't know. Does Alexander, do you think? Pity he's not here to ask." "Listen, I understand you're angry," she allowed - he thought absurdly - sliding to the end of the sofa to extend an audaciously presumptuous hand to balance on the crest of his knee. "I'm sure Lydia's given you plenty of reasons, and Maxie too, to a certain degree. But they don't know everything. They don't know the whole story. I think you have to take your own advice here and go directly to the source, which is me." She bent her head and looked up at him expressively, determined to push her point. "What you're really worried about is Nikolas, right? That the same thing that happened to Zander could wind up happening to him? Well, I can promise you it won't. What I have with Nikolas is nothing like what I had with Zander. It's purer. It's deeper. It's right. I love Nikolas and he loves me. Nothing and no one can touch that. So you can put those fears to rest," she encouraged, blinking ever so brightly. Maxim discovered he had no words, and wasn't sure how long it might take him to find some. One thing he knew, though. One thing was clear. He couldn't continue to sit in this chair, listen to this drivel, contend with this affair or bear another unacceptable second of her barbarically faithless, fey little hand resting atop his knee. He brushed it off peremptorily and rose from his seat, striding around the couch to strike up the stairs absent a single, solitary thought that might be classified as sane. He opened the front door and gestured through it, miming his desire that she leave. "I see. Okay," she nodded shrewdly, easing from the sofa; collecting herself, her jacket and her keys as she crossed the floor to mount the stairs. "But I want you to think about what I've said. You really should have all the facts before you go jumping to any conclusions." She joined him in the threshold of the open door, marked the coldness in his manner, and reached to touch his sleeve. "You said you were looking for the truth. I'd like to believe that, I would…" A small sedan rolled into the clearing, its appearance interrupting her thought, and coasted to rest aside the Jaguar. Emily stilled, baiting a breath, until she managed to see through the windshield and identify the driver. She waited for the car's door to open and its occupant to emerge before turning back with the smallest of smiles and lifting to her toes. She delivered a swift, intense sort of kiss he hadn't the warning to avoid, and pressed her lips to his ear. "Not everything is what it looks like, even what you see with your very own eyes." She must have left him then, he didn't know, consumed as he was with the dangerous despair he saw flickering beneath Maxie's surprise. Poetic Attributions (The opening lines): Chapter 37 - from the poem Terminus, by Ralph Waldo Emerson Chapter 38 - from a native Bedouin poem-song Chapter 39 - from the poem Prelude to an Evening, by John Crowe Ransom