Chain of Iron

James looked from Alastair to Elias. Not much showed on his face; in that moment, Cordelia was grateful for the Mask. Then he smiled, that smile that lit his face up, transformed it into something luminous. He inclined his head to Sona. “Truly,” he said, “to bayad kheili khoshhal bashi ke do ta ghahraman tooye khanevadat dari.”

Truly, you must be happy to have two such heroes in your life.

Cordelia gaped. She’d had no idea James knew any Persian beyond a few words for food, “thank you,” and “goodbye.” Even Alastair was staring at him with a mixture of surprise and respect.

Sona clapped her hands together in delight. “Have you been learning Persian, James? How wonderful!”

“It was a wedding surprise for Cordelia,” said James. He turned to Elias, still seeming perfectly at ease. “Cordelia tells me you taught her chess,” he said, as if there were no tensions roiling beneath the surface of the dinner. “She is a fierce player. She has beaten me every time we’ve had a match.”

Elias chuckled; the maid had come around to clear the plates, and he was on his fourth glass of wine. There was a red stain on his lapel. Alastair stared at him stonily, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Well, chess is a Persian game, you know, according to the Book of Kings,” he said. “Have you heard the story of how it originated?”

“Not at all,” said James with a straight face. “Do tell.”

He kicked Cordelia lightly under the table. It was fortunate they didn’t play cards more, she thought; he had a perfect face for bluffing.

“Mâmân,” she said, rising from the table. “Let me help you with the chai.”

It was a bit unorthodox for a lady to have anything to do with the preparation of food, but Cordelia knew her mother: no matter how strict the instructions, she would never trust someone else to make tea for her family. It had to be steeped for hours, and spiced with the right blend of saffron, cardamom, cinnamon, and rose water. Water would then be added from the samovar; water from a kettle simply would not do. Sona insisted it made all the difference.

In the kitchen, Cordelia saw with a touch of homesickness that the desserts had already been laid out on a silver tray: sweet sohan assali, and chunks of fried zoolbia bamieh soaked in rose syrup. She came up behind her mother and gently laid an arm about Sona’s shoulders, the silk sleeve of her lace-and-chiffon tea gown fluttering gently. “Mâmân,” she insisted. “You shouldn’t be on your feet so much.”

Sona ignored this and gave a look in the direction of the dining room. “James and your father seem to be getting along.”

Cordelia made an impatient noise. “Father’s rewriting what happened. Every time he tells that story it gets more elaborate and he gets more heroic.”

Sona added a bit of water to the red-brown tea in the pot and eyed it critically. “We’re all allowed to embroider stories a bit. It’s harmless.” She turned to Cordelia. “Layla,” she added, her voice softening, “so much has changed so quickly. You and your brother must give him a chance.”

“But don’t you wonder where he was all those days? He was released from the Basilias and instead of coming home he just … wandered around?”

Sona sighed. “He’s told me all about his travels. If you want to know about them, you could simply ask him yourself. Honestly, it saddens me to think how much he put himself through—but I believe the experience has changed him for the better. What he has survived has made him whole again.”

Cordelia wished she could believe it. Whatever her mother saw in her father since his return, Cordelia was blind to it. He seemed the same as he had always been—and now that she knew that all that time he had been drunk, or hungover from being drunk, rather than chronically ill, the sympathy she’d felt for him seemed like a cruel trick he’d played. She didn’t want to be like her mother—telling herself a story that made it all right, when it obviously wasn’t. But she also didn’t want to be like Alastair, angry all the time, unable to make peace with the reality of who their father was, butting his head against it over and over, though it would never budge.

Cordelia picked up the tray of desserts and carried it into the dining room. James was laughing. Alastair made eye contact with her, and she could decode the complexities of his look perfectly well: he thought he knew exactly what they had been discussing in the kitchen, and she was sure he was correct.

Fortunately, everyone managed to get through dessert with no further discord. Sona excused herself, saying she was tired, and seeing that her father was fading quickly himself, Cordelia announced that they too should be going, as the hour had grown late.

This left Alastair to see them out. He went with Cordelia into the vestibule as James, faultlessly polite as always, lingered to thank Elias for the evening.

“Well, he was in rare form tonight,” Alastair said with disgust.

Cordelia had no need to ask who “he” was. “It’s so different,” she said as Alastair helped her on with her coat. “Spending time with him, knowing he’s … he’s not ill at all. Was it always like this for—”

She broke off as James appeared, pausing to retrieve his coat and gloves. He took one look at Cordelia and Alastair and said, “I’ll just step outside. I need a breath of fresh air, and to check on Xanthos.”

Cordelia knew perfectly well that it was freezing outside and that Xanthos was probably asleep, but she appreciated that James was leaving her a moment to talk to Alastair alone. After James slipped out, she reached up to pat her brother’s cheek. “Alastair, dâdâsh,” she said. “Are you all right? If you ever want to stay at Curzon Street—”

“With you and James?” Alastair raised an eyebrow, glancing out the window. Cordelia could see James standing by the snowy curb, stroking Xanthos’s nose. “I was worried that he would never move on from Miss Blackthorn. But from all appearances, he seems not to be moping.”

It was a relief to be able to talk about it out loud. “I don’t know—when he saw her at Rosamund’s party, he looked as if he were going to be ill.”

“That doesn’t signify. Whenever I see Charles, I feel like I’m going to be ill. But that doesn’t mean I still … Contrary to what your beloved poets say, unrequited love doesn’t last forever. And being treated badly by someone doesn’t make you love them more.”

“Alastair,” she said softly. “I don’t regret my marriage, but there is a part of me that feels terrible for leaving you alone just as Father came back. Is every night as awkward as this one?”

Alastair shook his head. “Never feel that way, Layla. One of the things that makes all this”—he gestured, as if to encompass the whole living situation at Cornwall Gardens—“livable for me is knowing that you aren’t here, having to endure his moods and his demands and his very selective amnesia.” He smiled. “And maybe it’s selfish of me, but now that you know the truth, and I can speak of it to someone, it is an easier burden to bear than I would have imagined.”

 

It was late when Lucie left Anna’s party. She had spent a restless evening there, unable to lose herself in the champagne or the conversation. She kept looking toward the windows, watching the fat white flakes of snow come down and wondering how cold it had grown tonight in a roofless shed in Chiswick.