Page 72 of The Familiar

“True. The prince saw many wonders in his travels. Mysteries of the old world that had nearly been forgotten. Miracles, if you want to call them that. He learned to read and write in many languages in the hope that it would open up doorways to the possible, and he had only one true friend through all of it, a young man of no name and no property named Tello.”

“A servant?”

“He began that way. But Tello was twice as learned as the prince, and twice as kind, and he quickly became the prince’s trusted friend. They drank together, they wooed women together, they spent long nights in study together, and when the prince’s father died, it was Tello who kept the prince from hurling himself into the sea. They journeyed home and the prince prayed for his father’s soul. He sat with the priest for many hours, thinking it would bring him peace. But when he stood over his father’s grave, it was as if he could hear Death calling to him. He tried to go about his business, to return to his travels and his treatises, but always he felt Death beside him. He could sense its patience, how it would wait for him, confident in its inevitability. He could take pleasure in nothing any longer because he knew it would all come to an end.”

“He was spoiled, this prince.”

“Very. He became obsessed with finding a way to live forever. He and Tello met with sages and healers and seers, with alchemists and astrologers. They went places on maps that had not yet been drawn. But for all the coin they spent and miles they traveled, they had nothing to show for it but foul-smelling elixirs, useless amulets, and sore feet.”

Santángel heard a loud splash of water, then smelled sweet almonds. Was she washing her hair? He wanted to ask but didn’t quite trust his voice to frame the question.

“He should have stayed home and wept for his father,” Luzia said.

“Maybe,” said Santángel. “If he had met grief as an honest man, he might not have feared greeting Death on the same road.”

“I still meet grief in sudden places, when I least expect it. A familiar song. A smell from the kitchen. Then there it is. An enemy that can’t be bested.”

“Whom did you lose?”

“My mother quickly. My father slowly. I’m not sure which was worse. But tell me more of the prince and his friend.”

“I should warn you, this isn’t a happy story.”

“I don’t recall asking for such a thing.”

Though she couldn’t see him, Santángel nodded. He wanted to finish, though he knew the ending too well.

“Then let’s go on, for this is the moment in the story when a stranger appears. In a marketplace in a southern city, a man approached the prince and Tello, who had been arguing over where to travel next. Tello wished to go north, to go home. But the prince had heard of a nobleman with a text that was rumored to give life eternal if one could manage to read it from beginning to end. The stranger bought them drinks and said he had overheard their conversation. He offered the prince a bargain.”

Luzia sighed.

“Yes, I know,” said Santángel. “But the young and fortunate believe they will always be so. At first the bargain didn’t seem so very terrible. The stranger would ask for payment—”

“Of course.”

“Of course. Though it was not such a large amount. The stranger explained the particulars of the ritual he would perform, some words recited, some wine drunk, some blood spilled. The usual stuff. Then he said, ‘You will lose the thing you value least, but there’s a catch.’”

“Of course.”

“Of course. The stranger turned to Tello. ‘Your servant will lose the thing he values most.’ The prince, and maybe even the stranger, expected Tello to refuse. But they didn’t understand how little Tello had. No family, no fortune, no home. Life was not so precious to him, and the prince’s obsession with hoarding it mystified him. Tello agreed to the bargain.

“The prince had little faith in this stranger to do anything more than take their money, but he protested anyway. ‘It could cost you your life,’ he warned Tello. And Tello agreed that it very well could. ‘Then why would you do this thing?’ the prince asked.

“‘Because I love you best in the world,’ Tello replied. ‘And if this bargain will put an end to this ceaseless travel and we can go home, I will do it.’ So the bargain was struck.”

Behind the screen, Luzia shifted and he heard water slosh over the edge.

“Come, comb my hair,” she said.

“Luzia—”

“Come, comb my hair. I need to know that what I want matters to someone.”

He could have refused. He could have left the story unfinished. He fetched her silver comb.

The water was milky with soap, and only the gleam of her breasts and the tops of her knees were visible. Her head leaned back over the edge of the tub, the wet mass of her hair dripping on the linen that had been set on the floor. He knelt behind her, looking down upon her upturned face, her pink cheeks, her parted lips, her many freckles like desert sand. How had he not understood how lovely she was? She opened her dark eyes, her gaze direct.

“Go on,” she said. “You won’t hurt me.”