Lies of Golden Straw

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  Merlin pursed his lips, hard. “A ring, or a crown?”

  “Respect and devotion,” I countered.

  “But not love,” he challenged.

  “If we’re fortunate,” I said calmly, feeling as if I was trying to keep a boat steady despite Merlin’s frantic efforts to capsize it, “love will come in time.”

  “And that’s worth it for you? Even if—even if—”

  He couldn’t bring himself to finish the question. He looked so stricken then, I hated the conversation we were having, hated how he was nitpicking everything I said, hated that he was fighting for me.

  “Even if what, Merlin?” I asked quietly, forcefully.

  Merlin opened his mouth to respond, but never said the words his lips silently formed. He shut his mouth and shook his head, then looked away.

  “He’s the king, Merlin,” I sighed. “What am I supposed to say?”

  “No.”

  “I should refuse the king?”

  “Yes,” Merlin replied. “You say, ‘thank you for your generous offer, Your Majesty, but I have to decline.’”

  “Why on earth would I decline?” I demanded. “What’s keeping me from saying yes?”

  Merlin looked at me, really looked at me, then glanced down at his feet. He zapped away again and reappeared a little closer. “Millie,” he said, and something deep inside me broke with that one simple word.

  Because, to be honest, my heart had chosen Merlin long, long ago and didn’t want to let him go. But my mind chose the king, and I was giving it the final say. That didn’t keep away the pain, from feeling a desperate need for air. Merlin knew, and always would know, the truth about me, the real me; the king only knew, and would only ever know, the truth about the woman I had created for him to see. I tried to look into Merlin’s lovely eyes, tried to meet his familiar gaze, but I couldn’t bear to see the deep hurt I’d caused.

  There was so much left unsaid between us, but I knew everything he was trying to say with one word, because that name truly said it all. Millie was the girl Merlin had named all those years ago. She was shy and ordinary, the only truth in her father’s lies. A boy with violet eyes had seen her and given her something all her own; a name that only she could write the story to.

  Millie was the girl who sat beside him on a log and swung her feet with his over a flowing river as their words formed the future, the past, their fears, and the world as they wanted it to be. Millie was the bird who soared on wings he’d given her, because she’d never had her own.

  But that Mille had changed. Millie had grown into a girl that other boys noticed, and he resented their notice because it hadn’t been there before, because they hadn’t cared before. They didn’t see the truth of her that would never change.

  Most importantly, Millie was and always had been the only one for him, who had accepted him as readily as he’d accepted her. And now she was leaving him, he who’d proven himself more than necessary, for a man who could give her something he couldn’t, despite his magic, no matter that he was standing now with his heart in his hands and her name on his lips.

  That moment was an unbreachable rift between an idyllic past and the wonder awaiting in my future. The tear between the purity of our friendship and the complexity of palace life, absolute truth and a life built on a lie. That moment broke my heart, and I wondered if I could ever repair the shattered pieces it left behind.

  Both sides beckoned to me with their own kind of magic, and I suddenly thought of that wall of water, and how the king believed that just as a lie could obscure the truth for selfish gain, the truth could also be cloaked to create an honest moment of marvel. An odd coexistence of two things that should never be compatible.

  With that, something hardened within me, because there was one thing Merlin was forgetting. As soon as he’d given it to me, Millie wasn’t his anymore. It was my name now. And this was my story, only mine, to write.

  “Don’t ‘Millie’ me!” I snapped at him, though he scarce deserved such treatment from me. I was feeling too many emotions and feared drowning in the whirlpool they created. “The Millie I was disappeared the night that third room filled with gold. Search enough and you may yet find some trace of her, but I will never be Millie again!”

  Merlin stared at me, unsure of what to say next, disbelieving of how this moment had turned. Undoubtedly, he was in denial, forcing himself to stay together to save any scrap of pride and dignity he had left. Perhaps, considering everything, he never thought I would one day choose a lie over truth. With all that we’d never bothered to say, perhaps he hadn’t realized there were things he should have spoken about sooner.

  But I had little more to say to him. Why wouldn’t he let me chase this possibility of future with his blessing? Maybe I would never receive the type of love he had to offer me, but that didn’t mean I shouldn’t have the life the king offered. How dare he try to hold me back when he had never spoken for me? Did he just assume we’d always be together, as I once had? Didn’t he want me to soar? Hadn’t he been the one to show me just how vast the horizon could be?

  I walked past him, blindly stumbling from the cottage I refused to look back at. Rather, I couldn’t bring myself to look back at him. I would lose all resolve, dissolve in tears were I to see his brokenhearted eyes. I still love him to this day, and know that what we had was unique. I don’t expect to ever find anything like it again.

  Kirkin held the carriage door open as soon as he saw me step outside. I didn’t need to say anything. My expression, my demeanor, said it all for me. I only stopped long enough to tug a hidden plant out of my garden. Something I would need in going back to the king.

  I didn’t climb into the carriage though before asking Father, “Would you like to come with?”

  My father took my hands in his and smiled, the most affectionate gesture I now realize I ever received from him in eighteen years of life. He looked to the mill, the little cottage, and finally his gaze landed on the blossoming garden. It struck me then that he must have cared for it while I was away, because not a petal was out of place, not a leaf wilted. I’m almost certain I saw his eyes water. I still believe, to this day, that is the most honest moment I ever shared with him.

  “I be staying here,” he finally said.

  I nodded. I understood. For all his talk, for all his stories, this was his life after all. Here was the memory of his wife and his own land on which to dream.

  Only then did I climb into the carriage. Kirkin closed the door behind me, then swung himself onto his horse and gave the command to travel forward. As the carriage surged into motion, I gathered enough courage to turn around in my seat, a backward farewell to the life I was leaving behind.

  Merlin stepped out of the cottage at the last moment, and I frantically searched for his gaze over the soft jostling of the ride. Were his purple eyes not glowing, I never would have found them.

  “Don’t forget,” I whispered, “you promised to be there.”

  There was no way to know for sure, but from the brief flash I caught from his eyes before the carriage turned out of sight, I was almost certain that, somehow, he had heard me.

  When the carriage rolled back through the king’s gates, a nervous jitter tickled me under my skin. I couldn’t believe I’d left behind my old world for this one. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening.

  Kirkin rode ahead to give word that I was returning. By the time I exited the carriage, the king himself was waiting for me at the top of the palace steps.

  I swallowed my nerves and stepped carefully up to him, curtsying low before the man whose life I would now share. An unexpectedly warm finger lifted my chin, and me with it, bringing my eyes up to look into the king’s. A genuine smile lit them from within. Already, he was making good on his promise of honesty.

  “Came back to me then?” he asked.

  “Well, Your Majesty,” I said slowly, “it is for the good of the kingdom, after all.”

  The king let out a hearty laugh. He
tucked my hand into his arm and led me into my new home.

  I won’t lie, if felt good to be back. It felt right.

  “Queen Millie,” he half murmured to himself. Then to me, “Do you prefer Millie?”

  And that’s when everything came together. This was my chance to no longer answer to someone else’s description of me, to be someone of my own making. And I would start with just one simple word.

  “Emalyn,” I replied. “My name is Emalyn.”

  Entering the palace, something squeezed the air from my heart, forcing me to take a quick series of quiet, shallow breaths. I knew then, before I shoved it out of my mind, that it was the little man’s bond reminding me of our bargain.

  Well, he may have been right about some things, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being entirely correct about everything. There were some parts of the story I could still write. I thought of the plant I’d taken from my garden. Now, I simply had to figure out a way to tell the king that though I would be his wife, I would not give him an heir. For his good, as well as mine.

  The Early Years

  If anyone disagreed with the king’s decision to marry the miller’s daughter, I heard no word of it. Rather, from the moment I returned, the magical palace hummed merrily as its insides were turned over in preparation for a long-awaited royal wedding.

  I wasn’t taken to my old room, but immediately whisked away to chambers more befitting a queen, with drawing rooms, private bathing room, and bedchamber. My magical purple anemone was on my new bedtable when I came in, but I moved it to a less noticeable place near a high window. A permanent gaggle of servants was now at my beck and call, the best of which turned out to be Kirkin, who arrived flushed at my chambers one day, wearing a cloak over his uniform.

  “My lady,” he bowed low with a flourish.

  “Am I being summoned?” I asked, surprised by his unexpected appearance.

  There was so much going on with fittings for royal gowns and lessons on how to be a queen and preparations for royal parties that I had been walking around in a constant state of worry that I had forgotten something important, made all the more worrisome because I could never quite figure out what it was.

  Kirkin straightened, not bothering to hide the smile playing across his lips. “I have something to show you, milady,” he said.

  “I’ll call for my cloak,” I replied, already raising a finger to signal a servant to me.

  “Or you can remove mine,” Kirkin offered.

  “Kirkin!” I gasped.

  Kirkin stopped short. “That wasn’t entirely right,” he acceded. “Well, nothing left to it then.”

  He flung off his cape with a grand, sweeping gesture to reveal his uniform. The deep yellow and blue of the king’s guard had been modified, the yellow lightened like newly spun gold. Emblazoned across his chest was a golden spindle, the king’s crest visible behind it.

  I reached out a hand, but didn’t dare to touch.

  “What is this?” I asked awestruck.

  Kirkin unleashed a proud smile. “The coat of arms for the Queen’s Guard, milady,” he replied. “The captain of which humbly stands before you, ready as ever to be of service.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I was to have my own guard, with my own coat of arms. It was too much to fathom.

  “Do you like it?” Kirkin asked earnestly, when I didn’t immediately respond to his announcement.

  I had no words with which to respond. I opened my mouth, but only a slight stuttering came from the back of my throat.

  Kirkin imitated my response. His face grew serious. “I shall exactly convey her lady’s satisfaction to the king,” he announced, winking for good measure.

  I watched him leave, standing by the door a good while, well after he was out of sight. In barely a month, I was far from a village girl in a gingham dress whose only excitement was in anticipating how many boys who once teased her would clamor for a dance with her. Now I was about to become ruler of a kingdom all because my father’s lies had finally, unwittingly done me some good. It was as if I was finally being rewarded for having put up with him and the constant mud dragged in by his sailor boots for so long.

  The three seamstresses who had designed the few dresses I now wore regularly were appointed head of the queen’s wardrobe, an honored title which came with the coveted assignment of designing my wedding gown. After a few days of tittering around me with silks, laces, and jewels, they finally settled on a lovely gold dress, the skirts decorated with deep purple anemones, blossoming all the way down to the tip of my very long train.

  At the first fitting, I curiously studied my reflection as the three women buzzed about me. The dress itself was wonderful, a sparkling creation that seemed as magical as the streams gurgling and flowing throughout the palace. Despite being woven from real gold, the material was light and airy, hugging where it must, draping where it must, and never once clinging where it mustn’t. Any feeling of heaviness came only from my imprisoned heart.

  I loved how the dress was designed, but that couldn’t undo the stabbing sensation I felt each time I looked at the purple anemones, deeply beautiful flowers to anyone else, tiny daggers to me. The gold didn’t either help much to lighten the weight dragging on my heart. Each part of my dress was supposed to show who I was, yet all I could see was how each part betrayed Merlin just a little bit more, how each part preserved the lies that had changed and separated us.

  Gazing at the regally bedecked woman looking back at me from the mirror, I swore that from that day forth I would never wear gold again if I could help it. I ordered that my crowns be made from silver, sapphire, bronze, any metal that wasn’t gold. My heart was already in chains; I needn’t wrap them around my head, too.

  The wedding took place barely two months later, less than three months from when I had first arrived. It was magnificent, an overall blur to this day, though there are distinct pieces that still starkly stand out. I remember getting ready for the ceremony, remember waking in the early dawn to bathe and dress, to have my hair made up and my cosmetics done. I remember walking down the hall toward the chapel, Kirkin proudly leading the way in his new uniform, my ladies-in-waiting trailing behind me, the four foremost holding the train of my golden gown. I remember muttering something to myself, I assume reminders of the ceremony to follow, but I do not remember anything I said.

  The ceremony in the chapel went quickly, and even if it didn’t, it felt that way to me. I remember my father flitting in and out of my vision. The first time I saw him was when I stepped into the chapel and walked the long, petal-strewn aisle toward my king. Father beamed at me from the end of the first row, cap doffed in hand, body dressed in a new suit of shamrock-green silk. My first thought was that someone had made sure to clean him up nicely for the occasion. My next was that I hoped he wouldn’t be allowed to talk to anyone. I couldn’t trust the things he would say. After all, his lies were much more dangerous in a palace than a small village mill.

  I was both surprised and pleased to see Merlin standing at his side, before I realized that he had to be there because all mages were standing in that same row. Still, I don’t think it an accident that he made sure to place himself next to my father, and though I was certain something irretrievable had been lost between us, I was sure his positioning was reassurance that he’d keep an eye on Father for the night.

  I only met Merlin’s purple gaze long enough to see it widen at the details of my dress, his expression an enlarged dagger to match the ones in my side, before he fixed his gaze ahead. A sharp, inner cracking threatened to split my heart even more.

  After, my husband took my hand and led me down the water-lined aisle of the throne room where I was crowned his queen to the cheers of the assembled crowd. Somehow, we were next in the great banquet hall, sitting upon the raised royal dais. I remember that part most as a lot of noise in my ears and hurt in my cheeks from smiling at the never-ending line of well-wishers.

  I didn’t know who most of them were,
and that’s despite all the people I’d been introduced to since I’d come to the palace, despite the small likenesses of neighboring kings and allies my husband forced me to study so I would recognize them that day. I did recognize Lady Mulberry and her noxious little mutt, which rudely growled at me even then, enough to confirm there was nothing I could ever do to make it like me.

  I was rather at peace with that, though the same could not be said for its owner, who I’d overheard remark just a few days earlier while trying to retrace my steps after getting lost somewhere in the palace, “…marrying so late! And Emalyn, this is who he’s been waiting for? I don’t know what Rupie could be thinking…”

  I was curious to hear the other side of the conversation, being just as confused as to the true intent of the king’s willingness to marry a commoner, but I would never stoop to eavesdropping on her to hear it. She was probably talking to her dog, anyway.

  Still, those few lines reminded me that a name wasn’t enough without creating a persona to stand behind it. My name had always been an ever-present reminder of a wonderfully precious gift from a friend, of a girl elicited by the name I wore, and kept close, with some traces of pride. Now, it’s all I have left of him, even as my name is of my own choosing, and the woman it portrays of my own making.

  At some point amidst all the ceremony, my husband gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, a firm touch mirroring the squeezing of my heart. I suppose he must have done it more than once. I’m sure I must have seemed overwhelmed within the throng of people, more people than I’d ever seen in one place at one time. Then again, it’s possible nobody saw the disorder in my mind. I had spent hours practicing to keep a pleasant expression and an overall royal disposition.

  I saw Merlin again, then, somewhere in the line of well-wishers, though I doubted very much he wanted to be there. The mages were among the highest ranking nobles and visiting dignitaries, and each made a point of patiently waiting in line to wish their king and his new queen the very best. When Merlin came before me, he subtly raised one eye at the line of people before him, then muttered hasty congratulations and moved on to greet the king before I had a chance to stay him.