Jilliard and the Queen

          “My lady Queen…” Jilliard gave her a graceful bow.
          “What are you doing here?” the Queen Sevilla demanded in a harsh rasping voice. “Why are you looming over my husband like an evil spirit? Isn’t it enough that you demand his nights? Now you lay your dirty claim on his days as well?”

          Jilliard looked at his Queen with sadness. To his own surprise he didn’t feel any anger for her unjust spiteful words. He noticed how she spread her shoulders and straightened her back and lifted her chin, tying to stand taller, how angry red spots flared on her cheeks and her lips formed a pale tight line. He saw her the way she looked at herself, a short, heavyset plain woman, neither young nor beautiful. Someone who is trying to fill the space for which she is not cut. Someone who is failing miserably.

          “I didn’t mean to impose on you, my lady Queen,” he answered mildly. “Usually I take a walk in a garden earlier in the morning. I bid my leave for I do not wish to disturb you.”
          He bowed to her again and turned to leave. She hissed behind his back, “You disturb me by your existence. You impose on me by breathing the same air.”

          He turned to face her. She came closer and he looked down on her. She seemed to be a moment away from spitting on him or sinking her nails to his face.
          “Why do you hate me so?” he asked her softly. “What have I ever done to -”
          “How dare you!” she cried out and bright tear ran down her round cheek. She wiped it angrily with a nervous sharp gesture. “How dare you pretending that you don’t know what you are taking from me!”

          He tried again, feeling a true pity for her, “I’m very sorry that you should feel that way, my -”

          “Don’t!” she screamed in his face and with both hands she pushed him on a chest. It was a feeble desperate move but he stepped back lightly. “Do not try to charm me with your smooth words, with your sweet lies! You are the poison in my heart; you steal everything from me, the light, the warmth, the sun, the life itself!” She pushed him again but he stood his ground and she looked down, nearly touching his chest with her forehead, crying in honest by then. He wanted to put his arms around her but didn’t dare. The Queen sobbed, “Don’t you think I see the way he looks at you? How his eyes light up every time when he sees you? When we are alone I see that smile in his eyes, and I know that he thinks of you. When he beds me he thinks of you and I can see it in his eyes!”

          She looked up sharply standing so close that he could feel her breath on his face, “Why does he love you so? It’s unnatural, it’s wrong and wicked! It’s a sin! I am his wife. He should love me!”

          “He does, lady,” Jilliard said very quietly. “He does love you very much.”
          “How do you know that?” she demanded, trembling, and he answered,
          “He told me so. He told me of his happiness with you. When he married you he did it to advance his political interests. He didn’t look for happiness. But he found it anyway. He found it with you.”

          She wiped her face with her hands and took a shaky rasping breath. “How is it possible? How can it be that he loves us both?”
          “Oh, it’s him. He can do much more than that.”

          The woman sagged as if deflated, tired and unsure what to do next. He took her elbow and led her towards the low bench in an arbor, blooming with sweet jasmine. She tried to free herself but he held her firmly.

          “He is a man like no others,” Jilliard continued as they walked, “and his abilities should not be judged by those of common men. Everybody knows of his courage and strength, his intelligence and wisdom. But we, those fortunate to share his life, also know of his remarkable talent of love.”

          He sat her on the bench among the fragrant white constellations, moving in a light breeze, and kneeled on the patch of sand by her feet. She tightly clasped her hands on her knees and strengthened her back and took a pain of not looking at him.
          “I don’t know how his heart can hold so much love, but it does. It’s a different kind of love, just like music woven of many bright threads. It’s the love to his country and his people and it’s not abstract and distant as we could assume it to be. It’s right there, on the surface, shiny and true, when he rides on a field or touches ripe ears of barley, when he talks to his farmers, soldiers, old wives and merchants. It brims with joy when he drinks simple ale in a tavern or cold fresh water of a forest stream. I would say it’s a love of a king but I suspect it’s not entirely true. It looks to me like a love of son to his father, so natural, so thoroughly mixed with pride of belonging to something greater than him, so rich with purpose and sense of destiny. And such is his biggest and most important love in his life, the one he will be happy to die for.”

          “I know that,” Sevilla said softly. “I know that love in him.”

          “Of course you do,” nodded Jilliard. ”You also know of the love he has to Kingar. I have brothers and I love them too, but it’s different between Emrys and Kingar. There’s this sense of absolute unity, of completing each other in every way, of growing into each other to the point of becoming one. They are different and they are same. They share words and jokes and afflictions. They built their world around the idea of being together, the way very few married couples can possibly hope to. It made them inseparable, like Siamese twins. There’s a big strength in it but also a terrible vulnerability. I fear for what happens to Emrys if Kingar dies.”

          “Is the lord Kingar sick?” asked Sevilla sharply and Jilliard hurried with the answer, “No, no, he’s well. I’m just saying it hypothetically. He was sick last winter while traveling in Lloegir but Emrys only learned about it from Kitty when they came back. Now, Kitty… It’s a different kind of love. I used to be jealous of her, truly. She fascinates him. She challenges and delights him. She is like a strange bird with bright feathers that flew into his window in lonely evening of cold winter day. She is like a fire he wants to get close to but not too close. If she wasn’t Kingar’s wife I think Emrys would have taken Kitty for himself. Or so I though, until I understood that there’s something fatherly in his love to her, something of an intimacy that only comes with blood ties. There’s fierce desire to protect her as well, and a pride, but still, first of all there’s a wonder, an awe of witnessing a miracle. Such a beautiful love.
There’s also his love to Valerian. It’s a love to a son he never had. It’s mixed with regret and fear, a fear to be disappointed, to be proven wrong. That is why every Valerian’s victory, big or small, is taken so personally by Emrys, as prove of his own vision, as confirmation of his own decision. Nobody can make Emrys as proud as Valerian but also, nobody can disappoint him more painfully. He asks a lot from him. He is afraid it’s not fair to ask so much. Yet he has no other choice. It’s not very easy love, as it is the love of father to his son and a pressure of king shaping his heir.”
         
          Jilliard made a short pause, squinting up to the sunlight shaded by green canopy with clouds of white flowers.

          “His love to me is different still. It has a joy of giving, satisfaction of easing one’s pain, elation of saving one’s life. It’s the gift he offers to me and it pleases him to see how much this gift is treasured, how I value it way above my own life. There’s bitterness in it and also willingness to protect, and pride of accepting challenge, and courage to face the crowd, to stare it down, to bend it to his will. It brings out the best in him. I think sometimes that that people’s opposition keeps the flame of his love up.”

          “I think you are wrong,” Sevilla finally looked down to Jilliard. Their eyes met and there wasn’t any anger in her anymore. Just sadness. “His love to you is very tender. I felt the same way when I was nursing my babies. When you hold in your hands something very precious, very delicate and entirely yours.”
          It was Jilliard’s turn to look down in unease. He felt his face blushing fiercely. He heard Sevilla’s soft amused laughter.

          “It brings us to his love to you, my lady queen,” he said, glad to stir the conversation away from his own disquiet. “This love came late to him. He didn’t expect it. He wasn’t looking for it. It came upon him like a summer shower and he embraced it eagerly. This love is like a light in a window of a roadside inn at the night of a long journey. It’s the warmth of fire on a cold winter day. It’s a taste of a spiced wine and music of a song familiar from childhood. It’s a long summer afternoon on a meadow by a slow river. It’s strength of two clasped hands. It’s as pure and true as homecoming, warm milk and honey and freshly baked bread. There’s also pride in it, pride of a husband and a king presenting his lady queen to his people, pride of doing the right thing. You give him a comfort none of us could possibly offer, my lady Queen. And for that we are in your debt forever.”

          Sevilla cried quietly, covering her face with the end of her shawl. Through the tears she said, “Why are you doing it, boy?”

          “Don’t think me kind, my lady. Don’t think me free of jealousy. I would so desperately wanted to stand by his side openly, the way you do, for all the people to see and cheer us on. To be able to touch his hand in public. To smooth his hair and kiss his cheek. But it is not to be and I shouldn’t be complaining. I have my own place in his heart, however small, and this is the true miracle to which I can never get used to. But do not envy this place, my lady Queen, for it is a lonely place and dark with shame. And I only hold it while I am young and pretty. Which is not very long.”

          The Queen leaned towards Jilliard and planted a firm wet kiss on his forehead. He took her hand hesitantly and held it in both of his.
 
          “Very well,” she squeezed his hand with unexpected strength and demanded. “Now sit by my side. Yes, right here. Tell me how you two met. Tell me everything.”

          The young man caught his breath. He kissed her hand. He told her everything. By the end of his tale she was crying again. He joined her in it.