Chapter Eighteen
“Young Master Evan,” the butler declared, his joy barely disguised behind his formality. He wasn’t yet fifty if Mark had to guess, ginger-haired, heavily freckled, and he had bright blue eyes. “You’re a welcome sight, sir. Morgan has already run for your father. Will you take a meal?”
“No, thank you Thomas. This will be a brief visit.”
Mark’s pulse raised, and he felt it wasn’t from his own anxiousness alone.
“Coffee, sir?”
The colonel took in a breath to answer, held it, and then released it with a sigh. “Yes, thank you.”
The butler stood there expectantly. Mark felt a terrible discomfort that didn’t just come from his nerves. The butler was almost bursting with a need to know, but the colonel hadn’t acknowledged Mark. Instead the colonel stood there, smoothing his coat nervously. Finally he slipped his coat off and handed it over to the butler.
Mark lost his temper. “I’m—” Lord now. Shit. “Lord Jester Lark, in service to the colonel.”
The butler almost dropped the colonel’s coat along with his own jaw. He fumbled into a rigid posture in a bad recovery. “May I take your coat, lord jester?”
Mark remembered to ease it off as if it pained him. He wanted to storm away, but held himself in check. He knew it wasn’t just anger that made him want to leave.
I’m not going to run like a coward or hide as if I’m ashamed of our bond.
The butler led them past the bright and open entryway directly to a neighboring salon. Most of the light came from upper windows in the vaulting. The floors were an unusual red wood with no knots to speak of, and the walls were a majestic blue gray that enhanced the red. White trim, window dressing and white furniture helped brighten the room. Whoever had put it together had a good eye, but Mark couldn’t appreciate it. Instead he resented it, and the mucked up arrival at his master’s father’s house, and his own foolishness. He’d ruined his life. He could blame no one for it but himself. Whatever plans Gutter had made for him couldn’t be worse than this.
“I hate this house,” the colonel muttered after the butler left.
“Are you ashamed of me?” Mark didn’t care if the colonel was ashamed. He wanted to pick a fight.
The colonel hesitated.
“Is this how I can expect to be presented in the future? Skulk in with no mention of me and no warning of our arrival, made to introduce myself to the shock of all, and then forced to recover your clumsiness?”
The colonel’s head cocked dangerously and he strode over until he was close and tall and imposing. “Excuse me?”
Mark had dealt with taller men all his life. He wasn’t intimidated. “No wonder you’re pushing thirty and not married, or are you? Perhaps you’ve neglected to mention your bride the same way you neglected to mention me to, oh, I expect you haven’t informed anyone.”
“I hardly had time.”
“To pen a note and send it?”
“How dare you speak to me this way.” His dark eyes blazed with hot shadows. They frightened Mark, but he didn’t care. His heart pounded with passion.
“How dare you bond with me and then treat me like a servant. Worse than a servant. You treat Trudy with more courtesy than you treated me just now.”
“We will not have this discussion here.”
Mark started to answer when he remembered that their hearts beat as one. The colonel was right. This wasn’t the place for an argument, much as Mark wanted it. He didn’t want an ordinary argument, either. He realized he craved the brutality he’d dreaded in Lord Argenwain’s manor. How could he want that? It was more repulsive a desire than the tiny itch for gracian he felt now. He steadied his breaths, hoping it would calm his heart.
Gradually, too slow to suit him, his heart steadied. The colonel seemed to calm as well, though his cheeks were flushed and his eyes still held that shadowed anger.
A tall, thin jester, dressed in emerald green and bald as a child’s lie, strode into the salon with a man that couldn’t be anyone but the colonel’s father. His hair had gone mostly white, and he wore a close-cut beard and mustache but the dark eyes, proud cheeks, dusky skin and broad shoulders were all akin. He looked hale for a man of perhaps sixty, and cut a clean figure in his tidy gold waistcoat and white breeches. He wore his hair shoulder-length and loose at the front with a ribboned tail in the fashion of perhaps a decade before. He wore ruffles rather than lace, and had three large rings on his hands—two on the left and one on the right.
This was also the governor of Perida, Mark remembered.
The governor stared at Mark while his jester stood by a moment, allowing his master to take Mark in before the jester spoke. “May I present my master General Holiver Evan, Governor and a baron of Perida.”
The man seemed to command enormous power, far more than Mark had given him credit for based on his personal knowledge of governors and their usual importance in society.
“My good friend Lord Jester Fine,” the governor said by way of a brief introduction before turning on his son. “What in the seven hells have you done?”
The colonel stood there like a man calmly resigned to death while a firing squad took aim.
“I thought you had given up your sinful ways, and now you present me with this feminine mockery of a man, like a coward, after the fact.”
“Sir, if I may.” Mark wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but not this. His instincts urged him to stay out of what was clearly a family matter and one he had no knowledge of, but he wasn’t about to stand around while the colonel suffered humiliation because of him. “You can’t mean to accuse us of carnal familiarity before the coffee has arrived. Assuming we’re still welcome in your house.”
“I think it would be in all our best interests to have fruit and cheese with a bit of white wine,” Fine said, matching Mark’s overture. “That way if we fling things at each other they’re less likely to cause permanent damage.”
The governor led his jester by the elbow just outside the room where they exchanged quiet words.
The colonel hadn’t moved. In spite of all his fears and doubts, Mark couldn’t help but admire his stoic demeanor and calm. And the pain—Mark hadn’t known him long at all, but even he could see the agony behind the colonel’s cold expression. Mark refused to sympathize with his lord until he knew more. Still, he couldn’t ignore everything that had first drawn him to the man. Elegance. Pride. Surprising gentleness, and carefully tempered passion.
The governor and his jester came back inside. “Have a seat,” the governor said tightly.
The colonel chose a chair with its back to an inner wall. Mark moved a chair close by him, but not too close in consideration of the father’s accusation. He remembered to wince a bit when he moved the chair, and again when he sat.
Lord Jester Fine stood beside his master. “Your father is mainly concerned about how this will appear to society,” Fine began.
“You uprooted our family to get away from the scandal in Saphir,” the governor growled. “Only to throw it away for this—” He bit off whatever slur he planned to use.
“I don’t care how it appears to you or anyone else.” The colonel spoke softly, but his gaze never wavered from his father’s face. “My interest is in Meridua’s future.”
“A jester is supposed to elevate his master’s status, not drag him down. You trust this painted fop with Meridua’s future? He’ll not just disappoint you. He’ll ruin you.”
Mark had a good idea of what they were discussing. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to laugh or leave. This was a waste of time and effort.
“Is that disregard in your eyes, lord jester?” the father asked.
Mark should have thought to control the expression on his own face instead of idly listening to the governor spew his disapproval with the subtlety of a rutting ox. “I don’t know what happened in Saphir—”
“He didn’t tell you? I wonder what else you don’t know about my son. Did he tell you that when his degene
rate of a friend died in the war, he told me he would marry and live a life free of sin. Eight years I’ve been worrying and waiting for him to fulfill his promise. He is the last of our line. It’s not just his familial duty, but his spiritual duty as well. And what does he bring home? A sheep wife.”
Mark had to grip the chair to keep himself from vaulting out of it and demanding an apology. He’d heard many slurs uttered in jest or feigned jest in Lord Argenwain’s house, but no one had dared utter that one. If there were worse, he didn’t know them. “I would answer that, my lord, but I wouldn’t presume to know you well enough to insult you regardless of whether you extend that courtesy to me.”
Fine looked like he wanted to say something, but the butler arrived with juice and a fruit and cheese plate. “Saved by afternoon refreshments,” Fine said, and began doling out a plate for the governor.
The colonel stood. “I’m afraid we have another engagement this evening, and we must be off.”
The butler paused mid-retreat.
“Sit back down,” his father said.
“I’m not in love with Lark, father. I intend to keep my promise, and Lark will help me at the appropriate time—a time of my choosing, not yours. He is a jester, nothing more, and nothing less. Now if you will excuse us.” He walked out. The butler hurried after him.
He wasn’t just playing in Saphir. He had fallen in love, and his lover had died. Nothing else could explain the hurt, the accusations, the pain that had shattered this family.
Mark stood, dazed by the implications of everything he’d heard. “If you’ll both excuse me ....”
“Of course,” Fine said gently.
Mark bowed and limped after the colonel. He didn’t hurry. He had too much to think about. Using his cane gave him an excuse to move slowly.
Was the loss of the colonel’s lover related to the killing for pleasure that had so offended the morbai? Maybe it made no difference to them, but it seemed slightly better to imagine the colonel had taken pleasure in vengeance than fearing his lord and master had charged onto battlefields with the hateful joy of a hunting hound after a fox.
The butler waited by the door with Mark’s coat. “Good day, lord jester,” he said kindly while he helped Mark shrug it on.
“Thank you.” Mark offered him a smile before he left.
The colonel stood beside the carriage. “I’m sorry. That proved to be considerably more unpleasant than I’d calculated.”
“I’m sorry I embarrassed you.” Mark climbed into the carriage.
The colonel sat across from him. “You don’t embarrass me. In fact, you did remarkably well. I was pleased, and impressed by your restraint. There was only one moment that I feared my father would provoke you into something. I’m not sure I’d regret it if he had. But you remained composed.” He rubbed a place over his heart under his coat. “I’m certain I made the right decision. I believe I chose well.”
The carriage began to move.
“But you still have doubts,” the colonel added.
“I think we’ve both had enough.” Mark sat back with a sigh. “Let’s celebrate our bonding. We can worry about how we’re going to work together the day after tomorrow.”
“I’d prefer to set a few things straight first,” the colonel said.
“I’m sure you would, but we already have an invitation for an early meal, and I’m sure we’ll have a dinner invitation waiting when we get home.” Home. The word caught in his mind, and in his throat. The part of him that was still a little orphan boy felt pain and hope at the same time. The more cynical part of him felt trapped in what was still a stranger’s household. “We’ll be out late tonight if I have any say in it, which means we’ll sleep in.”
“Not together. I meant what I told my father.”
That bothered him, though he was willing to let it go for now. “I hadn’t assumed that. I wasn’t even sure ....” There wasn’t anything left to say about it anyway, except to ask those questions about the colonel’s lover that he wasn’t prepared to ask yet. “Never mind.”
“I tried not to assume about you either, not even when you asked me to read to you.”
Mark smiled. “Thank you, but I’m afraid my bend, for whatever reason, is painfully obvious to everyone who meets me.”
“You don’t go to much effort to disguise it.”
“I’ve never tried to. I doubt I could.”
“Nonsense. If you wish it, you can study it and present yourself ... differently.”
“Is that what you did?”
The colonel shook his head. “No. But I didn’t need to. My mannerisms have never struck people as supple.”
“I don’t think clothes or wearing a beard or changing my walk will fool anyone. But I’ll try if you want me to.” Having to offer it made him feel desperately lonely.
“I don’t think it will matter. You’re charming. Likeable. You had no trouble on Dainty, and after the trial half the nobles on the island contacted me. They wanted to put you up in their households and made various pretty arguments trying to convince me it was to my advantage. Changing so much of who you are will serve no purpose.”
Whereas denying everything the colonel was served many purposes. The colonel didn’t have to say it. It was written into his heart. He wasn’t just mourning for his lost love. He mourned the loss of who he’d been.
Mark had no doubt he was happy in Saphir, and that he hadn’t been happy since.
Mark drew his rapier and traced a large letter G in the sand. Waves glowing with an exquisite aquamarine phosphorescence caressed the gentle slope. Behind Grant, sparks flew toward the stars, dying before they could even hope to meet them. “Now you try,” Mark told him. He had to concentrate not to slur his words.
Grant drew his service blade, an inelegant thing no doubt forged in a rush, born to kill but never meant to really live.
It had been so long since Mark had learned to write that he had a hard time understanding why Grant hesitated. Then he remembered something. “Let’s try it this way.” He drew three guidelines through his G and extended beyond, giving Grant plenty of room. “Start just below the top line, make a broad parry this way, a little deflection here at the center line—”
Grant traced a curve with a lot of awkward bends. He managed a pretty flourish at the end.
“Perfect,” Mark declared. “You’ve made your first letter.”
Even in the firelit darkness Mark could see the blush burn up from Grant’s throat into his handsome face. “I won’t remember come morning.”
“Practice.” Mark extended the lines. “And the day after tomorrow I’ll teach you the rest of your name.”
The colonel walked from the fire to where they stood, taking slow, measured steps in an attempt to hide his own drunkenness. “What have we here? Ah, the letter G. Fine work, Mr. Roadman.”
“Thank you, sir.” Grant’s blush deepened.
“Lark, it is time for us to retire.” The colonel set his arm around Mark’s shoulders. Mark flinched to avoid yielding to him like a wanton debutante. He yearned for touch so much he would have gladly flung himself into Lord Argenwain’s bed tonight. And the colonel was so incredibly attractive ... but of course in the morning it would be a mess of angry accusations. Mark hardly knew the man but he could still hear his words. How dare you seduce me after I explicitly— “Sir, I would rather stay a while longer.”
The colonel’s arm slid away with excessive indifference. “I will not have my driver up all night waiting for you while you revel yourself into senselessness and fall asleep where the tide will wash you out to sea to drown, or be eaten by sharks, or wake up half-eaten by crabs.”
Through his wine-fogged faculties Mark tried to figure out a line of clarity from what he’d said and laughed at the hopelessness of it. “Take Philip home. I’ll find my own way.”
“It’s at least a ten mile walk from here and this isn’t Sa—this isn’t Seven Churches.”
“I can bunk on Dainty,” Mark told
him, and then he remembered she would sail away before dawn. It gave him a terrible hollow feeling that hurt even past his numbed senses. “Wait, never mind. I’d forgotten. Anyway, there must be a room I can hire in town.”
“You’ll wake some poor soul in the dead of night and force them to make you coffee at an unholy hour—”
Mark failed to stifle his laughter. “Please, don’t try to make a point again. I understand better with one example than a chain of badly connected ones.” He’d begun to lean and had to put his hand on the colonel’s chest to recover. That chest lifted in lordly indignation. “I have to see a tailor anyway, first thing in the morning. I have no proper clothes for tomorrow’s events. I hope someone has something close to my size that can be adjusted in a pinch. Who do you use?”
“Excuse me?” The colonel’s face turned pink.
Mark sputtered, trying not to collapse into a fit of unmanly giggles. “Who is your tailor.”
“Lauderland on Halfrye Street, but you’ll never find it.”
“I’ll get him there, sir.” Grant tried to swig wine from his tankard and failed because it was empty. He looked baffled and tried again more forcefully.
“I don’t want to hear of any untoward behavior unworthy of the idle gossip in the afternoon gazette, Lark.” The colonel gave him a surprisingly effective warning look considering his inebriation. His words made sense to Mark’s befuddled mind only because he had a good idea of what his master would want of him. With that the colonel strode off with grave dignity.
“He’s pounded,” Grant said, leaning on Mark. Mark almost crumpled under the weight. Grant smelled like fish and sweat, but it wasn’t unpleasant. “I’ve never seen him pounded before. Pounded or not, I’d still follow him through the hells in front of a Hunt.”
Mark smiled. “I just swore to do it. And I think I did right, but I’m afraid.”
“You, afraid?”
Mark looked up at him in surprise. Grant appeared to be in earnest.
The firelight flared from an added log, illuminating half of Grant’s face. They both had green eyes, but Mark’s were muddy and Grant’s were deep and clear, the kind of eyes that inspired insipid poetry. “Can I tell you something? Something you mustn’t tell anyone.”
Grant nodded. He probably wouldn’t remember anyway.
“I’m afraid of him,” Mark confessed. “I’m afraid of what he’s done and what he’ll ask me to do and I’m afraid I won’t survive to see my twentieth birthday. Worse than that, I trust him, and I’m afraid I’m going to do some really awful things because I have faith in him. Does that make sense?”
Grant nodded heavily. “I have to wiss now.” He pulled Mark along with him, using him as a wobbly crutch.
Grant’s eyes had closed and he leaned on his massive hand, scarred and calloused from the line work he confessed to prefer over nets, though he used both methods to fish. There was barely room for all their elbows, the wine jug, two mugs and the lone candle at the table. The scent of fish in Grant’s room brought back memories of a time when Mark still had parents, and friends, and a neighborhood with actual neighbors in it. Mark remembered opening the door first thing in the morning and there would be delivery boys with baked goods and fish and milk and all kinds of things already about, and fishermen looking for breakfast after spending the earliest hours out on the sea. Sometimes someone’s butler would be waiting to buy wine.
“There was this lieutenant,” Grant began suddenly just as Mark had begun to doze again. Grant’s breath trailed away, his eyes still closed. “Got killed. They were best friends. What can you do? It happened all the time. Sometimes every day, sometimes a lot of best friends all in the same day for days and days. And then the fighting stops for a while and you grieve.” Grant took in a long, shaky breath like he’d just come up from almost drowning. “The colonel—he wasn’t a colonel then—did things after his friend died. You’ll hear about ‘em, I’m sure, but not from me. He was just—lost—for a while. The Morbai’s Kiss—they were his men for a while, you know. Then that jester took ‘em over and they went on and on. His father’s doing.” Mark could only halfway follow what Grant was trying to tell him. He wished he hadn’t been drinking. He wanted desperately to understand, to catch even more of the nuances of pain and pride and darkness in Grant’s voice. “The general took the colonel away from the fighting as much as he could. He took him away so he could wean him off like you’d wean a man off of gracian.
“He’s weaned off the bloodlust,” Grant murmured. “He’s strong. He’ll never go back to it. That was war, l’jeste. You don’t know, but every islander who lived through it knows. They know he’s a hero. And no one is free of sin, the priests say. Not even the nobles. So he, the colonel, though he did things, he’s still a good man. I think he was good even while he did them. I guess that makes me a bad man for believing that.”
“No.” Mark gripped the slack hand Grant had resting on his rough little table. He kept the touch brief, like a sailor, like a soldier, like a man who didn’t lean. “You’re a good man. You’re the best man I’ve met.”
“I’m just a fisherman.”
“And I’m just a boy.”
Grant blearily opened his eyes. “You fight like a man. And your eyes—cold as death. Only an idiot would look at you and think you’re a boy. Only a fool would think you’re weak, l’jeste.”
Mark folded his arms and rested his head in the linen and lace.
“Let’s have none of that.” Grant pushed himself up, nearly tipping the table over in the process. “I’ve fallen asleep at my share of tables and you don’t wanna do it. Trust me.” He hefted Mark up under the arms and Mark half-stumbled, half-allowed himself to be dragged to the bed. Mark flopped back onto the thin quilt. Grant pulled Mark’s shoes off, then wrestled, grunting, with his fisherman’s boots. Mark forced himself to sit up long enough to take off his belt with the rapier, followed by his waistcoat. He searched in vain for a place to hang them without having to get up before he gave up and dropped them on the floor. He wondered briefly where he’d left his coat before he sank back on the bed and closed his eyes.
Masks Page 19
