The Blood of Caged Birds (Mortalsong Book 1)

by J. M. Stredwick

  I stay silent. His father was the one who planted the idea in my head. My mind flashes back to Alexandre’s haunting tone, his voice curling over me like a coaxing twisted finger. I feel the chilly breeze teasing my skirts and brace my ankles as if the tides of air are warning me of the arcane. I will go to him in any case to retrieve the map.

  “He wanted us to do this. He told me so,” I say. “He mentioned that he had a place for us to go, a place that no one would be able to find us.”

  Benjamin’s brows lower and he blows out a breath. “I wonder why he cares so much. He never has before. You know, he was the one who helped me find a way to come back here.”

  “How?” I prod.

  “When we returned home, he had questioned me. Told me that I should seek you out if I wanted. I wanted to. I just didn’t know how. He suggested aligning ourselves with your father’s current business endeavor, to tell him that he should be involved in trade along the coast of Africa. Your father took the bait, and here we are.” He smirks down at me, and I feel warmth in my soul again.

  “Whatever your father’s reason, I am sure he only has your happiness in mind,” I tell him.

  “Yes,” he says. “Of course, he does.”

  We are silent, and I lean over him. I allow my lips to meet his and I feel the flick of his tongue that I long for. I am earnest to kiss him for the rest of my life. I am sure I look devious, all dark bouncing curls and eyes lit with zeal. This is his effect on me. Only around him can I release my inherent anxieties and fully dismantle the armor I have upheld for so many years. I think back to the depravity of my silence in the home, unable to capture or decide if I even desired attention from father or mother, or even bring about my own frustrations to Claire. It was easier to stay silent.

  “When exactly are we doing this?” Benjamin’s hands are slung on his hips and cannot keep myself from smiling, certifiably, as a madwoman might.

  “Sooner is better.” I tap my fingertips along my lower lip. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Tonight then?” he says.

  The words are sensational. Do we really have the gall, such audacity in us to follow through with it? Reality settles in.

  “Tonight,” my mischievous grin fades and there is a new seriousness planting itself firmly in my features. This night, I will be wed under the trickery of stars and the delicate haze of perfect love to the man that will forever incite passion to my bones.

  ________________

  The second act of my plan is a malignant one. When Benjamin and I had split ways after our promenade back to the manor, I secret myself to the natural haunts of Monsieur Alexandre. I told Benjamin that I would speak to his father so that he could situate the other arrangements. As I trail down the corridors, still wrapped in my cloak and walking wear, I search for him.

  He is muttering to himself, arm extending over a large map he had spread out across the table. Its canvas curls over the edges of the work table, the north of the Africa’s spilling over to nearly hit the floor.

  I enter the room and wait till he notices me. “Yes?” He does not lift his eyes.

  “I must speak with you,” I tell him.

  He releases the map and extends an arm before him. “Lead the way, Mademoiselle.”

  Monsieur Alexandre seems pompous with importance, and struts after me.

  We traipse down the quiet halls without a word until I know that we are completely alone with no fear of being heard. I do not even trust the servants with their hearing what I am, tactlessly, going to say.

  “You were right,” I mutter, addressing him without formal regard. “We’ll need to leave.”

  “Of course, you will.” He ambitiously puffs upon his pipe, a bit more delighted than I expected him to be at my realization.

  “It’s the only way for us to escape without being stopped. Claire will accompany us as well, and if Benjamin and I are married we can offer her solitude in our home. She will not be forced to marry the man my mother has promised her to unless she remains here.”

  “So.” He nods slowly, smiling like a dumbly minded creature. “Are you doing this for yourself or your sister?”

  “I’m doing it for all of our sakes. I love Benjamin. I could not live this life without him.”

  “Ah,” he agrees. “It is a pretty thing, such love. The love that you find yourself captured by.”

  I scoff, as we do not have much time. I glance round reassuring myself that there is no one to hear us. “You said you had a place we could go? A place no one could find us?”

  “Indeed.” The smile is wiped from his mouth, and he sobers into a more determined person. “There’s a safe place you can go. A place you’ll be safe from any soul trying to discover you.”

  “But my father,” I remind him. “My father has traveled many seas, how am I to know that he will not find us and take me back to France until Benjamin and I have established a life together?”

  “Your father could not even find you at this place. It is,” his words marble in the air as he thinks of what he will explain it as, “a special place. It is secret and only those with this,” he produces a small, stained scroll from beneath the folds of his coat, “may step feet on its sands.”

  I feel my brows furrow, and I cannot not help but be irritated by the man. He is so tediously mysterious, and I do not entirely trust him. His ways are of shadows and I view him as one might view a magician or a jester.

  “Benjamin is more than capable of captaining his ship. I’ve left a considerable amount of manpower at the docks, and I’ve already sent word that you will be coming. You are set to go. All you must do now is make the clean break and act in part.”

  I fold my arms over my chest, chilled. “Why are you helping us?”

  He chuckles, a hacking laugh of phlegm and raucous amusement. “I want my son to be happy.”

  But that is not all. It cannot be all. His secretive demeanor lays waste to the purpose of his helping me, and I doubt his reasons. But I trust that he will keep the secret. What is it that is so harrowing about him? Benjamin trusts his father, so I will have to trust him as well. He is our only way. Our saving grace, ironically.

  I make a stabbing motion for the scroll.

  “So indelicate,” he muses, pulling it out of my reach.

  “I thank you,” I bow my head, “for your aide. I could not marry your son without your help.”

  “Promise me.” He smirks.

  “Promise you what?” My heart begins to thud.

  I want him to give me the map and be on my way. There is still much for me to get in order.

  “Promise me that you will go to this island with my son. There is no other way for you both to be happy together if you do not follow this path as it has been set before you.” His words are brimming with heartfelt significance. I feel dogged and coerced, yet I’ve come to him of my own volition.

  “Yes, Monsieur,” I give him a cheerful face. “I promise you that we will. We have no other option, to be honest.”

  “To be honest, you could forego the marriage and do exactly as your blessed mother has orchestrated for you,” he mimics me rudely.

  “But I would never,” I argue, frustrated.

  “Then take this.” His lips grow wide with a newfound satisfaction, and he hands me the scroll, lodging it between my fingers.

  Stuffing the map, the precious artifact, between the walls of my pocket, I do not speak another word to the man. I glance back at him as I shuffle away. He has not moved from his place. He watches me leave with an iron stare, sucking languidly on his tobacco and, it seems, fighting the twitchiest smile.

  ______________

  “I made the arrangements,” Benjamin’s statement coasts on the shivering air, his words hitting me hard. “I sent word to the Chapel Priest. It just so happened that he could procure the marriage license without waiting for the Banns of marriage.” He chuckles. “He’ll be ready for us tonight when the moon is high. He told he that he had issued clandestine marriages be
fore. Said nothing else.”

  “He asked no questions?” I murmur, shocked that there will be no issues to untangle, no wall to scale in our efforts.

  “Well, a bit of bribing might have been done. What men will do for a few gold Louis.” He snickers, shutting the doors to my chambers and loping towards me. “It was no problem, though. I had been saving them for a necessary moment.”

  “And you’re sure he won’t speak of it to anyone?” I fumble with my hair. “If mother were to discover us, there would be no saving the situation.”

  “Sure,” he is firm. “Are you afraid?”

  Of course, I am afraid. For all of us. This is a risk, a dangerous risk that could lead us into the worst of impoverished lives. I am afraid that I will ruin the stable route that my life might have taken. Yet, there is nothing that seems more right, as if it is meant to be. I will not allow Claire to be subjected to another horrifying experience, bereaved by the darkness of man. I briefly wonder where she is. I have not seen her even in passing today.

  “We should stay near to France. I’ll be able to set up my company fairly quickly that way,” he mentions.

  “No.” I shake my head. “I promised your father we would go to the place he said.”

  I unsheathe the chart from my pocket. “This is it.”

  He takes it in his hands and unravels it, testing the paper lightly.

  “The West Indies?” He is perplexed.

  I glance down at the old parchment where black lines, bits of ink blotting the curled edges, makes it look half-hazard or created in a rush. There is a line that trails across the ocean into what I make as “The West Indies.” So far? I bite the inside flesh of my lip and study Benjamin’s face. He is as confused as I.

  “What is he thinking?” he whispers to himself.

  I hook my fingers over the map and press it down so that I can see him. But I cannot stand for us being shakable in this moment. I need things to be definite and decided. This is what we are going to do, there can be no backtracking. Backtracking means entering into a fate unknown.

  “It will be fine. There has to be a reason he wants us to go there. He knows better than us where we will not be found. He said even my father wouldn’t be able to find us. Although, once everything is settled, Father, if Claire can convince him, will offer my dowry as is proper. That should help.”

  “Yes.” He nods. “But we have to prepare as if he won’t.”

  Benjamin

  Her hood is drawn up so that her face is shadowed. Her cheeks appear sallow and her mouth is grooved into distaste. We are standing in the stables and the smell of horse and hay is overpowering. The night in its fullness is quiet and we permit ourselves no light. Only the moon shines through the cracked doorway, illuminating her in a way that disturbs me. Something about her, I feel that I would do anything for her, to please her, to keep her and she looks so unsettled and fragile.

  She lets out a small, frustrated breath.

  “Where could they be?” she whispers.

  “I have no idea. This isn’t like him,” I say.

  Alphonse has never done something out of the ordinary. He isn’t someone who takes risks. He’s always groveling around, asking Father what to do. He was entranced with Claire. I think about the longing glances he sent her, the grit of his teeth when she ignored him. I wish I could tell Giselle that they are safe but the only option I see is that something happened.

  “Mother has already sent for some of father’s men to be on the lookout,” she speaks quietly.

  “Alphonse is a fool but he knows how to handle himself,” I attempt to reassure her. “Claire will be alright.”

  She gives me a frozen smile. “You don’t know that. What if their carriage wrecked on the road somewhere? What if they were taken by thieves?”

  “Alphonse knows how to use a sword and they couldn’t die from that.”

  We’d grown up practicing our fencing, and the dirtier sort of swordplay. We had our fun with knives and daggers with my father’s crew. It was learn or die, and I know that Alphonse would be able to keep himself alive. I’ve no doubt in it.

  “Your father knows nothing?” she rounds.

  “I asked him, and he was just as confused as your mother. He didn’t seem as worried as her, but that’s a given.”

  I look at her. She is ready. We are prepared to leave, our trunks packed, everything is as we planned. We are going to take a small cart and head to the parish on the outskirts of the Bonteque lands. I wonder if she will do it, if she can follow through now that her sister is not here. She told me of what Claire had endured, and now, knowing that Francis left her and she may not have been in her right mind, I want to strangle Alphonse. If he took advantage of her, I will make him pay. He has never thought about what others have experienced, why they do what they do. He doesn’t understand what is right.

  I think back to what the man said in the cafe. What is good or bad? What is right or wrong? If I can know, he can know.

  “Listen,” I say, pressing my hand against her arm. “I will do whatever you want. We don’t have to go. We can stay and see if they’re found or if they come back.”

  Giselle stares out the crack in the doorway and shakes her head slowly.

  “There is no other option for us now,” she says. “Claire knew we were leaving tonight. She chose to do something different.”

  “You don’t know what she chose,” I remind her.

  I watch her eyes grow fearful, glistening with bright panic.

  “I can’t do it. We have to go. If I go back in there because there is the chance that the next time I will be leaving is to the home of my betrothed. I cannot afford to risk it.”

  “I won’t let you go,” I tell her, and I wrap my arm around her waist. “I am yours. There will always be time, even if I have to steal you away.”

  She breaks and turns to me. “Benjamin, I can’t. I don’t want this life anymore. It is suffocating me. Just to think of what I have to be, what masks I have to wear. I don’t want to press myself down anymore. I want to be with you. I want to learn…I want…” She tips her head back and exhales. “I want everything different. I don’t want to be the kind of woman they all expect me to be. It will kill me, I swear it.”

  I hold her tightly, my soul aching with pain for her. “Be anything you want. Do what you will. I will grow with you. We will let everything go and remake ourselves.”

  “You’ll hate me by the end of this.” She smiles up at me slyly.

  I greet her lips with mine. Hers are pliant and willing, supple and eager. Her body presses against mine, something crackling between us. It is adrenaline and excitement. The unknown of our bodies, what it will feel like, it leaves me restless and wild-eyed. I know that she feels the same.

  “We should go, then,” I say.

  “After everything is established, when we know we are safe, we’ll come back for her. Your father told you he’d send word when they are found?”

  I nod. Though, I don’t know how quickly we will know.

  I lead the cart out into the proper lane and maneuver our trunks into its holding place. After our things are packed together and tied down, I hook the horse into its spot. The horse chews on the metal of the bit and whinnies softly.

  “Hush there,” I say.

  I lift Giselle into the driver’s seat that we’re to share. It is a small coach, something that the servants would use if they were going in to town to bring back sacks of victuals from the market in Paris. I open the stable doors, bar them wide, and then hop up into my seat with the reins slung in my hand.

  “We’ll have to be quick, so no one sees. Everyone should be asleep…”

  Giselle lays a hand on my leg, “We will make it.”

  We begin our descent into the night slowly, the cart rattling over the cobbles. I try to keep us moving steadily. Rolling through the circular drive, my hands are tight on the reins, and I feel myself start to sweat. When we reach the covering of trees that lead to the main roa
ds, I breathe a sigh of relief.

  “The hard part is over,” I chuckle under my breath.

  She shivers against me and laughs.

  Before we have gone too far, I see an oncoming carriage. Its driver has a lantern on a pole illuminating the pathway before him. My heart plummets in my chest and I jerk the cart to a stop.

  “Get in the back,” I say. “Cover yourself!”

  Giselle maneuvers herself as well as she can and drops into the cart with a thud. I help her unravel a wool blanket over her and just as she is covered fairly well the carriage comes to a stop beside us. The driver eyes me speculatively and does not address me. I try to glance back to see if she is fully hidden, but I can’t do it without looking suspicious. The carriage door bangs open.

  “Benjamin!”

  It is Francis Beauchard. I balk, raising my brows. I can see from his lazy eyes and exaggerated movements that he is drunk. He leans out of his seat to study me and in his hand, he holds a goblet of red wine. Why is he here? I want to laugh at his lack of composure but swallow the mirth troubling my throat. He’s always been one to express his affluence and gentility through the tip of his nose. If only the rest of society could see him now. I can’t keep the smile from my mouth.

  “What the fuck are you so amused by, Benjamin Chardones?”

  “You,” I quip. “Showing up here in the middle of the night. What are you doing?”

  He steels his teeth and shuffles out of the carriage further so that he can take me in.

  “I might ask you the same thing. On your way out are you?”

  His words are slurred, and I smirk.

  “I decided to get a head start. I have a lot of work to get back to.”

  Francis snorts and stares at me, his pale eyes mocking, face illuminated by the moonlight.

  “I am sure you do. Very important work, if I am correct?”

  “Oh yes,” I agree, and then relax my hands. “What brought you back? I thought your business was done here? Funny that the night you left was the very same night that you discovered Mademoiselle Claire was to be married. A strange coincidence, really.”