“Twenty. He was a few months younger than me.” Lennox moves away slightly from Elise and I see her hand reach out for him.
I shake my head, look at her. She knows because I see the guilty look.
You’re fucking my brother.
You promised you’d never hurt him.
You’ll eat his heart.
She smiles.
“He did well in the army. He’s decorated.” Lennox’s mouth curves, that wide beautiful grin that loves the world and never fears it. “Saved lives. He’ll be good working for you.”
For me. Not for the rest of us. Ben has been assigned to me, replacing my old head of security, Micky, who’s been with me for years, since I was nineteen and at university. He knew all of my habits and foibles, the places I’d hide, the bars I’d go to be normal, the boys I’d bring back to my apartment. He was discreet, never judged and nor did I when I found him with his lovers, always off duty.
If Micky’s eyes wandered to a young man in a club and lingered there, his knuckles would clench and I knew exactly what he’d want to do to him later. The depravity. The sins. The golden moment when pure pleasure streamed through veins and gave more life than oxygen. I’d seen it and felt it, touching a life I could never own in the cold light of reality.
“Micky may come back.”
Lennox nods. “He needs his knee surgery. Then something more strategic while he recovers. Dad’s happy with Ben. And that he knows us.”
Our life. Our complicated little life that never belonged to us. Not truly.
I stand up, stretch, look to the clouds and then the earth. “I’m going to head back. It’s three hours and I have dinner with Leah McClaren tonight.”
“The black widow.” Lennox smiles. “How many husbands?”
“Sensible woman.”
He shakes his head and then his attention is drawn to Elise, her dark hair now loose about her shoulders, draped over her chest. I pretend to ignore them as I pack up my rubbish and stick it in Lennox’s rucksack.
He eyes me and says nothing.
Without the weight on my back I can gallop home, feel the air strike my skin and hear nothing but the sound of the breeze as it whispers around me and the echo of hooves and their rhythmic prayer to the land.
I climb on my horse, make a click and she whinnies, her feet busy. We’re ready.
We always are.
Sixteen years ago.
There is a maze. Hedges and shrubs and flowers run in straight lines the turn at right angles, corner after corner, turning left, right, a crossroads, a decision. A choice. I get to choose each time because there’s no one with me to say no or to advise or to strongly suggest.
Just me.
I run, feeling the muted wind because the height of the trees keeps me sheltered. Somewhere above me there will be a drone, should I get lost or fall or there is someone there who wishes me harm, but I’m not thinking about that, instead I’m thinking about where to go, where to find the centre and what will be there when I find it.
The maze has been out of bounds forever until now. My grandad left it to grow over, never seeing the point of it being tended and preferring to leave it to curl back into the dense forests that crowded the castle. My father has changed it, employing a new gardener, one with ideas and knowledge and a passion for the land or so my mother says.
There’s another corner and a cross roads and I’m sure I’m going in circles but it doesn’t matter because I have weeks of being free from school and work and the teachers who want to drill our heads full of facts and science and I don’t know what else because I’ve forgotten it all.
I’m not thinking about school or my dormitory or Elise and her new best friend. I’m thinking about the hare I can see, skittering through a hole in the shrubbery and the woodpecker I can hear tapping and the hush. The hush of no voices.
There’s a rustle and I stop.
I should be here alone because I know the gardener is on the other side of the palace with his team, tending the flowerbeds for a garden party I might not have to attend.
Again. Leaves whisper too rushed. Too boldly.
