Thursday, 3 September 1942
I need to talk to Ercole. I need to sit him down and have a talk with him, but I don't have the first idea where to begin. That's why I'm sitting here in a waiting room at St Mungo's scribbling in a pocket diary and trying to pretend that I don't care as much as I do about any of this because there's just so much to care about, and only so much of me to do the caring.
Three years ago, I told Nicodemo to go ahead and marry Portia Parkinson, even though I didn't like her and I didn't think they'd suit, because I knew that if he didn't get married and we didn't stop seeing each other, I'd stop waiting for Ercole, I'd give up and accept that he was never coming home and we were never going to be together again and I'd stop living in a future that might never come and I'd start enjoying the life I had. Sometimes at night, alone, I've even wondered if Nico chose that woman to goad me into doing just that, but it didn't work.
And then I went to Germany and Marcus fucked everything up and I nearly died and I came back and Marco finally gave Kyteler the excuse he needed to go into Carmela's house and I woke up and he was there, my husband, the man I waited eight years for, and I had them all back again, my man and my babies and...everything.
It isn't anything like I thought it would be. Is this really the man I fell in love with twenty years ago? He spends all his time excoriating himself for the mistakes he made when he came here, but it's the mistakes he made in Italy that concern me more, because he wants to go right back to the way we lived in Italy, and it's a nice dream, it is, but it's just a dream. And I have a war to win.
We can't, we cannot, we absolutely cannot be throwing extravagant house parties when there are Muggles starving ten miles away. If we throw even one, Gabrielle will ensure that the whole world hears of it. We cannot ignore the privations of others. In wartime we may be forgiven our adulteries, but they will never forgive us for dancing while others die. And we cannot afford to be seen as being the same sort of people that we were believed to be when we came here eight years ago. I have worked hard to restore my reputation as a loyal citizen, and Nicodemo and Lavinia and so many others have worked hard to build our reputation as serious, intelligent, hard-working people who will do whatever needs to be done to prevail and succeed.
I lost the respect of so many people when I chose to stay in Rome with Ercole and leave Gabrielle here and throw his parties and help him fight, and I believed absolutely in his cause, but we lost, and if we lose here, we die. My life is bound to the land. I can never again leave Britannia for long. His life, and my children's lives, are not, but this is my country and I belong to it, and they will suffer if I fall. There is no place left to go except into the sea; the war is behind the mists, and we cannot retreat there either.
Somehow I have to make him understand what Nicodemo made me understand seven years ago, that we have to live here, that we have to make new alliances to replace the ones of my mother's that we shattered. Even when he thought I was dead, Nico carried on with our plans, and he knows and trusts that I will continue to follow those plans. Ercole must agree to work within the sphere of the possible with us, or I will have more trouble on my head than I can imagine.
I don't know how to tell him this without making him more certain than ever that he is a fool, but it wasn't the decision to come here that was stupid, it wasn't underestimating Carmela; it was underestimating Evola, it was staying too long, burning our bridges, fighting too hard, leaving too much of our hearts and our spirits behind. How can I make him understand that this is my war, not his, and that it has to be fought on my terms? He doesn't even ask me what I'm doing when I write letters. He drills his men, and prepares for battle, and he doesn't have any idea what it means to fight a war in Faerie. Most of the time when he and I are alone we make love.
But even that is different, now. Ercole needs to feel powerful again...and so do I.