Smite on his return, pale and thin, alone on the streets of Bristol. It had made so much sense to leave them. But nothing he did could repair what had happened to them in his absence. They wouldnât even talk of those years, not to him.
And that hadnât been the only time heâd abandoned Mark. Just the first.
âVery well,â he said stiffly. âYou are quite in the right. I should never have left. I failed Hope. I failed you. â
A puzzled look flitted across Markâs face. âHow is it that we are talking about me, then?â
âEvery time I look at you, I recall how Iâve failed you. There. Iâve admitted it. Are you happy now?â
âHappy that you look at me and see failure?â Markâs voice was tending towards scorn now, and his lip curled. âHardly.â
Christ. He was cocking it up again. âI know youâre not a failure. You took a first at Oxford.â
âIn case you hadnât noticed,â Mark said hotly, âIâm a good deal more than that. Granville himself said I was the brightest student heâd seen in the thirty-five yearsheâd been in philosophy. And thisââ Mark gestured at the pages that lay on the table in front of him ââthis will show everyone what I can do. Even you, Ash. Even you. So donât look at me and see failure. I havenât failed anything.â
This had all gone horribly wrong. âDonât get so upset, Mark. Iâm not questioning your intelligence. Or your capabilities.â
âWhat are you questioning, then? It canât be my principles, seeing as how you have none of your own to speak of.â
âOh, itâs my principles you object to, then?â Ash felt the whole bitter weight of his responsibilities shift restlessly. Heâd done everything for his brothersâ everything . Mark was his principle. And if Ashâs hands were a little dirty, it was because heâd wanted to keep his brothersâ clean. âTheyâre a hell of a lot more honest than your own,â he snapped.
He wished he could take the words back as soon as heâd said them, because Mark actually gasped in surprise.
âWhat do you mean by that?â
Ash didnât want to answer. He didnât want to let Mark know that there was yet another barrier between them, another one of Ashâs many failures. But Mark gestured, and the words tripped out anyway.
âMaybe youâre too young to remember what it was like before father died, or what happened in those years afterwards. You might not remember the day Mother decided to take to heart the Biblical command that one should sell everything one had and give it all to the poor. Nice, in principle; in practice, it leaves your own children starving, housed in rat-infested penury. We lost everything we should have hadâmodest comfort,education. She traded a secure competence for some stupid words she didnât even understand.â
âYouâre the one who never understood Mother,â Mark said.
âAs if I could. She was mad, Mark. Plain and simple.â
Markâs lip curled. âThere was nothing plain or simple about her insanity.â
âMaybe it doesnât seem that way to you. But I was supposed to protect youâall of you. Her principles killed Hope. They almost killed you and Smite. And throughout it all, Mother clung to dead words in a dead book, paying no attention to the living around her. Maybe you can understand why I mislike the notion of my youngest brother clinging to more dead words. Maybe you can understand why I wince, knowing that my little brother, who spent his childhood with a woman who quite literally went mad with her principles, is spending the summers of his youth practicing the same sort of abstemious insanity that he grew up with. Do you want to know why Iâve failed you? Because I havenât been able to save you from a woman who has been