Page 73 of The Girl Beneath the Sea

I stop on the mark they have put on the stone, a small cross of tape. The camera on the stand is at the level of my chest, tilted up. I can see my own face in the black of its lens, tiny, white, gold at the throat.

Reinhardt looks at me at last.

He gives me the smallest nod.

The Archbishop lifts the book.

He speaks in our language first. Then he says the same words again in English.

Then he says the word for kneel.

I kneel.

It is in the rite. The omega kneels for his vows and the consort stands. I go down on the stone in the white suit with the sash sliding a fraction across my chest where it has been sitting lower all morning. I put my hands together in front of me, and I look up.

The camera has me framed perfectly. That is what it was placed for.

Reinhardt speaks first. That is also in the rite. The consort makes his promise, and then the omega gives his answer, and then, and only then, the consort takes the omega’s hand.

He has never touched my skin. Not once in twenty-three years. He patted my shoulder through a jacket, but he has never taken my hand, because that is not permitted until this.

He is not going to touch me. Not now. Not ever.

Reinhardt begins to speak, giving me his vows. They are beautiful. He wrote them, so of course they are.

He promises to protect me and to guide me and to stand between me and the world as he has always stood, but he says it to the camera, not to me.

There is a sound from the American side, a soft one, the sound a room makes when it is moved. They are sentimental. They believe in love. He told me so.

But I notice that there is little sound from mine. The Americans might be happy with me marrying a beta, the Monteverrans will be less so, but they cannot say no. Not with the power of the United States behind the Prime Minister.

The Archbishop turns to me. My heart is racing. Under the collar, I can feel my mark burning. The scent of coffee is still in the air, and it has not come any closer.

“Do you, Aurelio, take this man, and promise before God and before your people to honor him and to obey him, from this day, for all your days?”

This is the moment. All Reinhardt needs from me is two words: I do.

I marry you. I do marry you. We are married.

I am already married. What Roan and I did on the boat was not adultery. This, here, on my knees in front of the world, in white, with an old man waiting to take my hand: this is the adultery. Not that.

I take a deep breath and say as loud as I can, “I do not.”

I turn to the camera, aware of the widening of the cameraman’s eyes as he hears what I said. Then I stand up straight and stare directly into the lens.

“I do not wish to marry Prime Minister Reinhardt. I formally request that the United States grant me asylum.”

20. Roan

For a split second after he says it, the cathedral is completely silent. Then pandemonium breaks out.

I’m near the back on the American side. I have been so sure that someone was going to recognize me all morning, but no one has even looked at me once. Everyone has only had eyes for the spectacle of this wedding.

Everyone including me.

I don’t know why I didn’t expect it. Aurelio is smart. I’ve always known that. He was never going to make it easy for them.

Reinhardt wanted a spectacle. Aurelio gives it to him now. The instant after he asks for asylum, he turns his back on the altar and he runs.