The fault

…dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

- Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare, 1599

That evening, after a long, brilliant sunset, it had begun to rain… and thunder had followed the rain, and wind, roaring as steadily as breakers rolling up a beach. Everyone had gone to bed early and Helena and Ursula had stayed up talking in the upstairs parlor. Beatha sat with them, embroidering by the lamp, but hardly aware of what she was doing.

Beatha hated thunder. Only a handful of people knew, and Helena wasn't one of them. Beatha listened, every muscle tense, as the rumbling rolled steadily nearer, and the wind ripped leaves from the trees. She wanted to go to bed, but there was only one lamp lit in the room, and it would look very odd to light another one just to go two doors down. It was intensely embarrassing to be so irrationally afraid, even more embarrassing to be afraid in front of Helena, who thought of her as nearly invincible. Beatha hid it as best she could and replied sensibly when Helena asked her opinion about wedding clothes.

There came a lull in the thunder and Beatha finally felt brave enough to strike off into the darkness by herself. She bade them both goodnight and went down the corridor to her room. She went through the motions of preparing for bed, deliberately making herself do each thing slowly and carefully. The thunder rumbled on, low and angry in the distance. Slowly, she poured water from her jug into the basin. Slowly she dipped her hands and watched droplets fall and flash in the firelight.

She found she had no cloth to dry her face and went into the corridor to get one from the linen closet. She could have done without it, but in times like these she often forced herself to do painful things just to prove to herself that she could. The linen closet did as all linen closets do, and dumped towels and sheets down on top of her in the dark. She floundered around trying to refold things in the pitch blackness, thinking about how angry the maids would be with her in the morning.

She heard the voices of Helena and Ursula in the corridor, opened her mouth to call them in to help, then closed it again. A towel hung forgotten in her hand.

"…Claude believes that if we mention in her hearing that King Edmund is dying of his love for her, then she would have a softening of heart," Helena was saying. "It is such a marvelous plan, but he says the High King won't have it."

"But are you sure that King Edmund loves her so entirely?" Ursula asked.

"The High King seems to think so, and Lord Peridan, too, or so Claude says."

"And your cousin?" Ursula continued, "How do you suppose your cousin feels in return? She does not behave like a lady in love."

"No heart is made of prouder stuff than Beatha's," Helena replied, "If she did love, I don't think she would admit it. I think she fancies herself as indestructible as obsidian."

"If he loves her, it is probably better if she does not know," Ursula replied. "She will only laugh at him and make it a whip to flog him with."

Beatha crouched in the blackness of the linen closet, not daring to move or even breathe. From where she knelt, she could see the yellow sparkle of a lamp in the corridor and the shadow of Helena's dark hair. Presently Helena and Ursula bade each other good night, then the lamp glided away, trailing an ethereal streamer of light that melted into the darkness. All was quiet.

~o*o~

Edmund had dodged the dancing and gone into the library after dinner. He had been there all evening, watching the light turn gold, then orange, then blood red, and shadows move blue across the page of his book. Slowly the sun sank, slowly the wind began to rise. He looked up when rain began to pelt against the window glass and stirred himself enough to light a lamp.

Another hour passed, or two… time flies when reading Philosophy; he had sailed through Ethics, Law, Logic and Metaphilosophy… and the fire began to die down. He pulled logs out of the wood box and piled them on the coals, blowing the flames back into life, lifting them with the poker so air could go under them. He had just prodded at the fire again when he heard a step in the corridor, the groaning of the door and then-

"Oh!"

"Don't let my presence trouble you," he said without looking up. He had memorized the cadence of that tread. He knew Beatha was standing in the doorway.

By the creak of the floorboards, he knew she hesitated. She could not with any decency leave now- it would make her look petty and small- So she came into the room and closed the door.

"Do you wish me to go?" he asked.

"By no means!" she exclaimed. "You have as much right to be here as any. No doubt the room already has moths and beetles to its credit; one more does no harm."

"Are you searching for a book?" he asked as he watched her wander around the room aimlessly. If he was a beetle, she was a moth.

"You are wonderous shrewd."

"I know of old you did not like thunderstorms."

She shook her head and shuddered.

He used to sing to her when it thundered, great long ballads about ships at sea, or wandering minstrels, or knights seeking their fortune. It always washed the fear away and made her laugh. He would not sing to her now.

She came to stand in front of the fire, wrapped in her shawl. She gazed into it, and he roused himself enough to bid her move away before an ember fell on her bare feet. She looked at him haughtily, but she stepped back.

He returned to his book and did his best to forget she was there.

"I have been unkind to you," she said suddenly, "I would not have treated a grave robber as I have treated you."

"No," he said, "You would not."

"If not friends, I would like us not to be so much enemies as we have been."

"Hm."

She looked around at him with eyes flashing. He resolutely refused to look up from his book.

"You are the most unendurable man I have ever had the misfortune to know!"

"That is very likely true," he agreed.

"You are an unforgiving wretch!"

"Verily."

"I would not speak of the past-" she began in a fury.

"That policy is beyond reproach," he interjected before she went any further.

She was silenced. She stood staring at him angrily and he began to regret his flippant words. He realized that in all the time he had fancied himself cool and collected he had been angry still, wounded still. The sense of betrayal he had felt that night in the garden was as strong, or stronger now than it had ever been then. Time had done absolutely nothing to heal the wound. The poets were all liars.

"Why did you never come?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "Why did you never speak to me?"

"You said you never wished to hear my voice," he replied evenly, "nor see my face again."

"I found a few hours later that I did not mean it," she said softly.

"I am an unforgiving wretch," he reminded her.

"What happened that night?"

He looked up at her, "A fair lady was assaulting a palace guard. When you happened along, I had just become her next victim."

There. Two sentences had dispelled the entire misunderstanding.

"Oh," Beatha said. She sat down suddenly. "Well, that is that."

He returned to his book, but he wasn't looking at it, he was looking over it at her. With great solemnity, she had picked up a book that lay beside her and was reading it, a picture of serenity.

"I hope, now," she said presently, "That we can be indifferent friends. That we can put it all behind us. That we can now laugh at the fools that we have been."

"Indeed," Edmund said; he knew that she felt at that moment as much turmoil as he did, and was only trying not to show it.

He put down his book.

"For which of my bad parts did you fall in love with me?" he asked directly. If they were going to pretend to be indifferent, then it didn't matter what they spoke of.

She stiffened. She had not turned a page for some time.

"For all of them together. They were such a combination of evil that any good part was immediately stifled," she paused, "But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?"

Edmund laughed. "I did suffer love, for I loved you against my will."

"In spite of your heart, I think. Poor heart… how it must have suffered the indignity."

"Now where do we stand?" he asked. "Do you not love me?

"Why, no," she replied coolly.

"Both our brothers swore you did; they said you were almost sick for me."

"What jackdaws relations are," she said lightly, then paused, "Do you not love me? Because not ten minutes ago my cousin and Ursula declared you were well-nigh dead for me."

"I am beginning to believe we are both guilty of eavesdropping," Edmund remarked. "Which in the realms of justice is evidence that must be thrown out because of its illegality."

"I was trapped in the linen closet," Beatha said defensively. "I couldn't help it."

Edmund laughed, and a hint of seriousness slipped into his voice, "Then you do not love me?"

"No, truly, but in friendly way, as one might love a small rabbit, or a duckling."

Edmund sighed. The conversation had accomplished exactly nothing. There had been too many dodged answers and double negatives. He no longer knew where he stood with her, which was decidedly worse than where he had stood before. A rabbit, he supposed, was marginally superior to a lobster.

"Perhaps it is better for both of us that it has finished in this way," she said quietly and seriously. "We would have quarreled endlessly and made life a misery for each other. Look at what fine enemies we made."

"As you say," Edmund replied.

"For my own part, I have resolved never to marry," she said.

"I am of a similar mind."

"I would be a curse upon a husband."

"And I, a blight upon a wife."

Beatha started to laugh; her eyes were merry in a way he had not seen in a long time. Her mouth had softened. "What a pair we make," she said. "I hope you will not take it too hard if I still tease you now and again. I am so fond of the habit I fear it would break my heart to give it up."

"I have no wish to break your heart," he said gently.

She smiled again, then she stood and wrapped her shawl more closely around her. "The thunder has lessened considerably. I think I will go to bed. You should do the same; we are not a bat, you know."

"Good night."

Then she was gone. He listened for her footsteps in the corridor until they faded to silence beyond the door. She had left it ajar, and the drafts were whispering like ghosts.

For three years he had cultivated resentment like a rare and precious plant. He had had it to comfort him in the face of what he saw as her betrayal. The next time they met it would be as perfect, indifferent strangers. They did not even have the cord of mutual resentment to bind them together. He had lost her in every possible way. He felt desolate.

Author's Note: I'm heartily sorry I left this story for four months, I'd grown a bit disheartened, because I was under the impression that no one was reading it (and also the viewership stats haven't worked for months?). Anyway, thank you to the two guest reviewers for your comments. You are very kind, and I hope you continue to enjoy the story!