Lazarus” - Amadea Bartle

Lazarus Amadea Bartle ‘20

Sometimes when we played knights, I would be the king and Richard would have to swear fealty to me.

It would be behind the stables—in summer, long afternoons passed us by without interruption. I stood on the low stone wall, the barrier between our kingdom and Father’s, Richard kneeling, still kingly. I covered Richard’s shoulders ZLWKJUDVVKLVKDLUZLWKPRVVDQGÁRZHUVVPHDUHGGLUWGRZQ the front of his tunic. Mother would punish me.

´7KHUH$NQLJKWµ,VDLGXVLQJP\ÀQJHUVWREUXVK loose dirt from around Richard’s eyes. Richard never lifted a ÀQJHU³QRWWRKHOSPHQRWWRVWRSPH

Richard smiled gleefully and tipped his head back to get a better look at me. “King Geoffrey,” he said. The words slotted themselves between my ribs, pounded out a rhythm the same as my heart.

Geoff-rey. Geoff-rey. Geoff-rey. I held a broken, fallen branch in my hand; tapped Richard shoulders one, two; and then the top of his head just to see a quicksilver smile.

“I knight thee Richard—as a protector of the realm and as a guardian of the king.” I didn’t know the real words and I barely knew what was meant by the words I did say.

“I knight thee, Richard.” I crown thee Richard. I love thee Richard.

Richard’s name sounded better as a heartbeat. When it was over my arms hung by my sides, useless, EUDQFKLQP\FORVHGÀVW5LFKDUGDQG,ZRXOGKROGRXUEUHDWK in awe of the sacrilegious act we had committed and then he clasped his arms around my middle, spinning me in endless circles.

“I’ve caught the king! I’ve caught the king!”

61 “Treachery! Treason!” I squealed, knowing these words from our father’s paranoia.

“You’ll never get away!” And we would laugh and laugh until Richard’s arms tired.

Mother didn’t like our game. ‘Fanciful’, she called it. ‘Blasphemous’, she said.

I heard her one night: “Richard, you cannot entertain this, this fantasy of your brother’s. Your brother is promised to the church. If he is lucky, he will be the archbishop to place the crown on your head.”

“Mama, please. He knows.” I could imagine her face pinching. “Have you told him?”

“No, but he knows.” That night Richard sat in the chair by my bed until I fell asleep.

“If I were king right now I’d make them let you stay,” I thought I heard him say.

“I’m promised to the church. One can’t break a promise to God,” I responded.

“I can. I’m ordained by God.” “Not yet.” Before I went away, Richard argued my case to Father. “Please let him stay. What will you do if something happens to me?”

“What on earth would happen to you?” Father asked, startled from his reading.

“What if I died, Papa? What if I died and you no longer had an heir?”

Father’s palm thwacked against the side of Richard’s face, his expression taught and furious.

“Do not say anything more on the matter. I forbid it.” Father thought Richard immortal. Until he died, I did, too. Father worried that I would kill Richard I know this now. Father worried I resented my elder brother, worried I

62 wanted to take what was his; depose him, like Father did his.

6HOÀVKO\,ORFNHGDOOWKHGRRUVWRP\FKDPEHUVRQWKH north side of the room and the west— even the one to the corridor connecting Richard’s rooms and mine. I was punishing him. I wanted to sulk until he missed me. I wanted to sit in the dark until he spoke to me through the door to tell me he would try again with Father—that I could stay; that Richard wanted me to stay.

,QWKHHQG,FUDFNHGÀUVWÁHHLQJP\URRPLQWKH middle of the night four days before my departure.

The moon illuminated the woodcarvings on the walls, manufacturing pockets of shadow every which way I looked. I made it to Richard’s room in tears.

“Please don’t cry Geoff. Please.” Richard used both his hands to try and scrub the tears off my cheeks, catch them before they left my eyes. My face felt hot and swollen, Richard’s breath the only cool relief behind the thick drapery that surrounded the bed. Richard’s eyes were hazy with worry and his mouth stood half-open in horror.

“Shh. Shh. Geoff. Geoffrey. Please.” “I can’t go, I can’t go. I’ll die before I’ll go,” I sobbed. Richard held me until I could feel an uncomfortable itchiness in my eyes, on my face, until my sobs turned to angry screams to slow, painful hiccups. I lay at the foot of the bed, my head spinning, twirling backwards. Tears had dried halfheartedly on my neck and shirt. When I opened my eyes, VWDUWOHGWRÀQGWKDWDZRUOGVWLOOH[LVWHGVHSDUDWHIURPWKH GDUNQHVV,KDGEULHÁ\LQKDELWHG5LFKDUGFDPHWRNQHHOQH[WWR me. My snot covered the left side of his collar and shoulder. I reached up to wipe it away.

“Geoff. Geoffrey, listen to me.” He swatted at my KDQG´,ZLOOÀQGDZD\WREULQJ\RXEDFNKHUH,VZHDUµ)LQgers dislodged strands of sweaty hair from my forehead and I went again to try and clean Richard’s shirt with the heel of my palm. It didn’t work; it would stain.