The Sweet Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

when the gods withdrew.”
    “That’s dumb,” I say. “What about a tree with one dead branch?”
    “That’s what your father said.”
    Tycho goes back in the house.
    “Lookit,” I say, and show him the ring of teeth marks at the base of my thumb.
    He takes my hand and licks the blood off with his warm tongue. “Sorry.”
    “Sorry about your eye.”
    “Sorry about your symposium.”
    “You’re not sorry.”
    “Well, I wouldn’t rather be weaving,” he says. “But I guess I’d rather be doing something else. Getting out into the city, that’s what I’d like. Seeing the world.”
    “Daddy will let you,” I say. “But you have to go to his parties. You’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t. Plus then you can tell me about them.”
    “You’re weird,” he says.
    The bite marks will scar into a ring of white crescents around the joint.

    Myrmex settles into the household. Herpyllis never warms to him. Daddy seems to pity him. Nico is afraid of his bullying. The servants treat him as a guest. But he and I, he and I. I’ve never held a person’s weakness in my cupped hands, the way I feel I do his. Weakness and secrets: his loneliness, his hurt, his fear, his ordinary brain. He brings the world to me inpieces, the world I’m now shut out of: conversations he doesn’t understand, specimens he can’t name, manuscripts Daddy has set him to read that he can’t make head or tail of. He even gets to attend classes at Daddy’s school. I walk him through it all and help earn him Daddy’s gruff love. In return, he teaches me to ride a horse and fake a fever and gamble at dice. I’m afraid for him, afraid of where he’d be without me to guide him. It’s quite a responsibility.

 
    T HE KING IS DYING; THE KING DIES; THE KING IS DEAD . I walk down to the shore to watch the gulls squabble over this morsel. At sixteen summers, I shouldn’t be going about alone. The trick is not to ask. Myrmex used to be my chaperone, but lately he fancies himself a strongman: hanging around the garrison, drinking with the soldiers, missing his classes with Daddy. He resents every minute he spends with the family. He carries a knife of extravagant length and detailing, paid for the gods know how. He still isn’t much taller than me. He’s always hefting things, trying to build up his arms. Daddy says this is a temporary infatuation, and will pass when he realizes fighting is intellectually unsatisfying.
    I miss him, badly. I miss my friend, my brother. Lately, too, I miss the smell of him, and his snub nose and honey mouth and voice, the man who isn’t my brother. I think it’s his absence; if he were around more, things would go back to the way they were. Temporary infatuation, indeed.
    I’ve brought the lentil pot just to have a reason to detour through the market and hear the gossip. Milk, cheese, olives, bread, nuts, herbs, fish, fruit, meat. High summer, the fat season. I wear a new muslin dress and veil and drift, listening. I feel pretty. Babylon , I hear. I know Babylon from Daddy’s maps. A headache, a massive headache . Can you die of that? I don’t ask it aloud, don’t have to. No, it was the guts. He was in agony for a day and a night and then he died. They buried him there. No, they’re bringing him home. No, they were all wrong. He was alive. It was the double who’d died. They had a double who looked like him and appeared in public in his place. Assassins wouldn’t know the difference. Poison, it was poison, but it was the double who’d died. Not the king. Not yet .
    “Now, beauty,” the lentil seller says. “Red or green?”
    I’m not a beauty, but I go to him in particular to hear the lie. I put the heavy pot on his table. “Green, please.”
    “Lucky lentils,” he calls as he pours. “Favourite of the king.”
    Laughter all around us, not kind. Why? But of course I know why. Athenians can remember the time before Macedon, the time when they were independent and powerful and glorious in