The Domination

Epilogue I

CLAESTUM PLANTATION

DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

PROVINCE OF ITALY

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

JUNE 1, 2000

Yolande Ingolfsson paused and looked back from the entrance of the graveyard. The hills looked raw, without the ancient olives; the new plantings were tiny shoots of green, and she could see the workers still piling the black stumps and branches together for burning. There were gaps in the fruit orchards as well, despite all the anticold bacteria, and the sheep were few and sickly. The winds out of the west had been cold, these past winters; cold and full of death. But the land would recover, if not fully in her lifetime; the grass stood green, and the thin rumpled grainfields were beginning to show yellow with promise. She shivered slightly, pulling the collar of her coat closer about her; it would be a long time before Italy was as warm as it had been.

The grave was a little ragged, neglected when so much else needed every pair of hands. She knelt and laid the roses on the shaggy grass. That’s all right, she thought, smoothing it with her hands. There were small white flowers blooming in it; they smelled of peppermint. It’s life, is all.

“Myfwany,” she said, and found herself empty of words for a long time. The sun moved, and her shadow crept across the living flowers and the ones she had brought.

“Myfwany, sweet,” she whispered at last. “I don’t know what to say. They’re calling me a hero, now. Even Uncle Eric, in public.” She shook her head again. “The world is so full of mourning, it should make my own griefs seem small. And yet . . . I’m lucky, I suppose. Gwen’s safe; our children are safe. There’s no war hangin’ over they heads now. But—” she beat her fists together. “Oh, love, did I do right, or did I fuck it all up?”

Warm wet slid down her cheeks, into the corners of her mouth. She raised her hand to her face, reached out to lay the teardrop on the roses. It slid onto the crimson petal, lay glittering.

“Oh, honeysweet,” she said, her voice shaking with the sobs. “All the tears I never cried, would they have made a difference? My love, rest you well. Rest ever well. Till we meet again, forever.”