by J. I. Radke
Oh, the lovely duplicities of the privileged and the rich. There was a certain uncomplicated comfort about it.
“The first time we met, it was like this,” Cain declared. “In a sea of bodies, dancing like idiots. And you chased me.”
“No, you chased me,” Levi corrected with a bitter smirk, like the idea of talking family versus family was a detrimental one right now. The room seemed to buckle and sway, if only for a few tipsy seconds. Levi hummed along to the voice of the violins as he led Cain around the dance floor in dizzying steps.
“How is it you’re the son of Lord Ruslaniv?” Cain asked, swallowed by the roar in Brackham’s as the dancers burlesqued Vakula the Smith and men roared and hollered over their cards. He didn’t mind having to lean closer for Levi to hear him.
“Well, he’s my father,” Levi replied in a merry, sarcastic way. Cain elbowed him.
“How is it the world doesn’t know?” Cain pressed.
Levi’s eyes darkened. He shrugged and shook his head at the same time, casting his gaze off elsewhere as if annoyed by Cain’s questions. And perhaps rightfully so. Why did these things have to be brought up to poison the purity of the night’s leisure?
Levi cleared his throat. “My father struggled to keep my brother and me secret from the world, lest we get all caught up in the fighting and the politics when it’s not necessary. He didn’t want anyone to know who we were or what we looked like, to protect us from possible plots against him that might involve us in a bad way. Ransom situations, blackmail, exploitation. He wanted us to live a happy and carefree life… while we could, I suppose, sheltered from the bloodshed and darkness of the legacy.”
Cain was left winded and vaguely mortified. The commotion at Brackham’s swirled around him, but for a moment he didn’t hear it. There was an awful ringing in his ears and the colors and pulsing crowds melted together like hot wax.
For all the reasons the Ruslaniv heirs had been kept hidden from the world, his own family had suffered pain at the hands of their foes, and that seemed a dreadful and laughable hypocrisy. A jab at his pride, a pinch to his soul.
“So that’s why you’re free to run around playing on the streets like a vagabond and a vigilante?” Cain hissed.
Levi narrowed his eyes as if he sensed the subtle insult in that, but he said nothing. He combed his fingers through Cain’s hair and kissed his temple.
“What of your brother?” Cain asked, hoping to distract the underlying throb of confused fury that had sprung up like a bad taste on the back of his tongue. “Does he run wild like you do, pretending to be someone he’s not?”
“My brother is dead,” Levi said, so flatly and indifferently, Cain couldn’t even find satisfaction in upsetting him.
“So you really have no power in your family’s politics?” he hissed, desperate to understand just how serious his sins were. “What were you doing in Dmitri’s Pavilion, then, that awful day?”
“I hold no accountability, and no responsibility, and do nothing for my father but kiss his rings,” Levi spat back coldly. “I was in Dmitri’s Pavilion by chance, and those who recognized me wanted my input. It’s far less shady than you want it to be.”
“And what about BLACK? It was disbanded once I returned home, but I catch whispers through the city as if it’s still around. I just don’t understand how it escapes me if it is….”
He spoke more to himself, under his breath, tipsy as he was, but Levi listened to every word. Something dark and monstrous flashed in his eyes, fast.
“BLACK?” he echoed.
“Never mind.” Cain shook his head. “Never mind, it’s something my higher security has their hands on. No more of this. No more talk of terrible circumstances,” he said, winding his arm about Levi’s waist in a gentlemanly fashion. He felt bad now for picking at open wounds for his own pleasure. “No more, darling. Let’s go find those friends of yours and forget the world for the rest of the night. As far as my family knows, I’m in bed with an awful headache, and they all know not to disturb me when I get in a mood like that.”
Levi kissed him against the wall in the darkest corner of the upper floor, as the burlesque went on and cheers flooded the air, laughter and song and shouts of drunken gentlemen, and Cain gave way completely.
He was distinctly aware of a void between them, a small shadowy stretch that neither would brave, and what slept in that dark place were intimate things. It was an awful pit of cause and effect. In that place, Cain would have to tell Levi about everything he’d done and what had been done to him for that abysmal length of time he’d been Father Kelvin’s captive. But if he told him that, he’d have to confess the connection he’d discovered between a dismantled Ruslaniv gang called BLACK and St. Mikael’s and how everyone had thought him manic when he’d ordered the church stormed and found nothing but dusty hymnals and baroque candlesticks. Then they’d shipped him off to the country for a short vacation as if he were a raving lunatic.
If Levi told Cain everything Cain didn’t know about him, he’d be forced to recognize again and again that this was the son of his family’s sworn enemy, those Cain fought to seek vengeance against. In lieu of those things would spring up again the vicious circle of doubt and distrust and the struggle to dissociate self-inflicted worries and undiluted feelings. What did Levi know, if he knew anything at all? What awful truths were just waiting for the right question to fall from Cain’s lips?
Was he existing obliviously right beside a trove of information, all the answers to all his questions?
Was he keeping himself in perpetual ignorance because he wasn’t sure he was prepared to know the truth should it be accessible?
Could the romance really be that detrimental to the revenge?
Levi was a bloody Ruslaniv. That was the best part, just unbelievable enough to be perfect for his wry humor. Where was the family honor in all that? Cain was quite a disobedient son, he’d come to find, but his parents were not there to lecture him, so what did it matter?
It was all too complicated for a tipsy mind, anyway, and Cain needed to get back home.
On Old Year’s Eve, the Venerable Mary marched through the masquerade crowds, and “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s…. Here comes a candle to light you to bed, and here comes a chopper to chop off your head!” chorused the people.
The bells clanged from church to church, songs and folk tunes pulsed through the streets, and Aunt Ophelia gave Cain an earful for retiring early and not counting down the last moments of the year with his household and fiancée.
Clove-stuffed oranges and gilded nutmegs would have been exchanged around the fires, and the hearths were all being scrubbed, and they would have gathered in the salon to consult tea leaves and scripture for predictions of what the New Year would hold.
But Cain had claimed that headache, and nobody wanted to contend with a possible nasty temperament, though Aunt Ophelia and Uncle Bradley too, had cast Cain their narrowed, suspecting glances, silent castigation for an antisocial attitude they should have been accustomed to already. They could see right through him. I know what you’re up to, those disappointed glances said, and rightfully so, but Cain didn’t care because as Levi returned him home, he bid him a happy New Year, and the sweet parting was all right because it stoked the fire.
Levi left him on his balcony, as the first moments of morning began to breathe life into the icy world. Cain stood in his coat, breath dancing on the biting air as he watched day break over New London and its stained chimney pots and crooked towers. And there, far past the city, windmills and black trees and country stone.
A tempest of thoughts came to visit him in his solitude, inspired by the wanderlust of drink.
How indiscreet and pure it all seemed in the dark, and utterly easy and right—love. It was such a delicious and indiscriminate ache, like the heart knew the feelings were warped and irrational by design. And always in the morning came the inevitable condemnation of self.
But Cain was conscio
us then, as New Year’s morning broke over New London, of the ties between him and Levi that nothing seemed capable of severing. Strange ties, powerful invisible threads knotted tight in the intimate depths between them.
It was a little bit of meaning to the otherwise tiny and meaningless little patterns of life, while other things could be so easily tattered, like a spiderweb broken by the wind, indifferent to its delicate, gossamer beauty. But his and Levi’s souls shivered on a kindred tonal plane, where tragedy did not break spirits but lit a fire beneath them that came from the same great flame of life, in the endless flow of time. A carnival of rust under a pale bruised sky.
The conviction left Cain reeling like he’d never felt such communion before in his life, only pitiful cousins of it.
Imagine, if he married Miss Emily Kelley and kept the son of Lord Ruslaniv as his secret lover. He could see it, actually, a lavish house and wearing imported brocade and many splendid rings. Parties would no longer be drags, and candlelight would flicker from glinting baroque sticks. Maybe he and Emily would produce heirs, and maybe Emily would be content with blissful ignorance as her husband, the tragic earl, conducted “business” into the latest hours of the night.
But eventually Levi would inherit the Ruslaniv fortune and be decorated Lord of that House. And what then? Well, Cain’s hatred suggested he’d just have to find a different suitor. Surely this romance couldn’t survive under the weight of revenge.
But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want anyone else.
Watching the sky turn colors for the sun, Cain was vaguely aware that there was no such thing as a peaceful ending.
Someone was always bound to be hurt, or betrayed, or destroyed by tragedy. There would always be injustice in the world, and those who sought to avenge it. There would be those who let life destroy them, and those who fought back against the hand of cards they were dealt. It was a lesson in strength of soul, perhaps.
The inner turmoil between good and bad, and right and wrong, and love and hate, was a war that would go on for eternity.
Cain didn’t mind it.
He rather liked the pain when all those things collided inside, because it made him feel alive.
He didn’t think he’d ever like real peace. He just wouldn’t know what to do with it.
He didn’t know what to do at all, right then, about anything. Everything inside felt jaded and faded and dulled, like it all had under St. Mikael’s in the solace of morphine dreams.
And he didn’t like it.
It was New Year’s Day, and he felt no farther ahead of life than the New Year’s Day before it.
SCENE TWO
RUSLANIV LOYALTY was indeed unraveling, bit by bit.
“What say you?” William demanded, and Levi wished they’d chosen to confront him after his morning coffee and cigarettes.
“I beg your pardon?” he spat, glowering up at his comrades where they’d circled around him in the garden. It was the first of January. He’d been enjoying the peace, bundled in furs among the ice-laced private grounds of the Ruslaniv estate. He hadn’t even combed his hair yet, for Christ’s sake.
Eliott lingered behind the Witch and the One with Glasses, avoiding Levi’s damning stare. We could take a peek around his offices Eliott had suggested what felt like so long ago, after what had happened in Dmitri’s Pavilion, when Levi had been in his most despairing state of mind. It’s BLACK’s idea. Your father wants this infernal vendetta put to rest, doesn’t he?
But Eliott had only been the messenger, hadn’t he?
“Claude told us about Brackham’s,” the Witch hissed, leaning low over the round table and meeting Levi’s eyes directly. But there was no intimidation in her face; no, what there was was a singular and desperate plea for acknowledgement. “This has gone on long enough, Levi. You’ve built a strong bridge. It’s time to cross it.”
No, that wasn’t the point anymore. But he couldn’t say that aloud.
They’re digging around in the past of St. Mikael’s….
William slammed a hand down on the garden table. Levi watched his coffee jump. “You’re lost in a dream world again!” William cried. “Tell me, my lord, what are we to do when our leader no longer seems interested, no longer seems fit to guide us!”
Levi stared at him, darkly, wondering if they could see written all over him that he could not find a point in the games anymore. They remembered Finn, anyway. They remembered Rosalie. They knew him better than perhaps he was comfortable with, and maybe, judging by the Witch’s words, they even knew what was really going on between him and the Earl Dietrich. The words unspoken were more potent than those that hung in the air.
“We don’t want to kill him. We’re just going to end the feud,” Eliott finally spoke up, in a tiny and remorseful way. “Levi, with or without you, we’re going to end this damn feud for your father.”
Something seemed to snap in Levi. Something cold and inveterate, and utterly raw with a renewed inspiration.
“It won’t be without me,” he husked, flashing them all a reproachful glance. “I want this feud to end too, you know.”
“Prove it,” the Witch hissed. “Be a fighter, Levi. Good Christ, fight for your family!”
Eventually they all dispersed, leaving him to his thoughts. And Levi could feel the breaking away, the shattering of a brotherhood that before had seemed worth it.
They’d given up on him.
Be a fighter.
He wasn’t, though. He wasn’t a fighter, or a romantic, or any murky shade of the two.
He was just Levi, son of Lord Ruslaniv, and that was all he could ever be.
SCENE THREE
THE DIETRICH banquet of New Year’s Day was for family. The grand ball would follow thereafter.
Emily looked beautiful, per usual. She sat at her place with her tight-mouthed mother on one side and her spineless father on the other; simpletons come in from the country for the holidays. The Persians sat across from them. They seemed to be making Emily giggle, much to her mother’s dismay.
There was Uncle Bradley, beside Aunt Ophelia. Graham and Rodney, and Mr. Renton, and Cain’s grandmother, and all the other family who had braved the city limits of New London for just this event. Hazel and Mr. Collins stood grimly near the doors of the dining room. There was the chorus of silver and crystal, and the smells wafted and the laughter rose, and even the servants seemed jolly and at ease in their hurry to and fro with marvelous dishes.
Cain wished that Levi might have been there to see him looking so elegant—cambric shirt with full sleeves, brocade tailcoat with its little black buttons, and Dietrich crest. Maybe he’d just leave it on for later, when Levi came to visit after the rest of the world retired and it was just the scoundrels and thieves and lying noble sons who moved through the shadows of the streets.
“To my nephew!” Aunt Ophelia cried out, lifting her third glass of scotch. She climbed to her feet, and she looked wonderful, for once done up like the stunning lady she was. All the noise around the table attenuated, focus falling on her. Cain wilted, knowing just what sort of sentimental speech was coming.
“To the head of our house, my wonderful nephew,” Aunt Ophelia went on, “a testament to our endurance in the face of continual adversities. You see, my brother and his wife tried for years to have a child, and for a short while we really feared there would be no legitimate heir to the name. And then along came Cain, so perfect and beautiful. Miracle the first….”
There was a murmuring ripple around the table. Cain covered his face with his hands at the leading seat, feeling quite humiliated already, although his aunt’s tipsy speech meant no harm.
“Then those filthy dogs—” Aunt Ophelia gestured spiritedly and almost spilled her drink. There was a quick hum of assent around the hall, a few quiet chuckles at her passion. “Those filthy Ruslaniv dogs took my precious brother and his wife, and they thought they could steal my precious nephew as well—but no, nobody was stealing him! Not even death! Nothing could steal my l
ittle nephew away. He came back. Miracle number two. And now here he stands, two years—almost three! Running our house with a hand as capable as his father’s, and Cain—”
She leaned forward, imploring Cain from down the table. He gawked back at her from below his fingers, steepled against his forehead. His cheeks were on fire. He didn’t want his aunt to say too much in her state of intoxicated inspiration.
“Even if you think I intrude, I love you very much,” Aunt Ophelia went on, her voice dropping to a slow and heartfelt tone. Her eyes shone bright with the feeling. “I want you to know that I find you a very responsible young man, and even if you never tell me what has happened to you, even if you never let any of us in on the turmoil behind those lovely eyes of yours, even if you never trust us with the most private knowledge that keeps shadows over your soul, I support you in whatever you do. And I know everyone else in this court will too! If any of those Ruslaniv bastards knew what was good for them, so would they. God have mercy on them, the fools! They don’t know what a man they oppose. So to my nephew! To you, our lord! To the Earl Dietrich on this New Year’s Day—”
Uncle Bradley touched her arm, to gently signal a close to her loving, inebriated discourse. Aunt Ophelia sputtered on a word or two, tearing up, then held her drink high again and repeated in conclusion, “To the Earl!”
Applause rose in something like a roar. Cain could only stare at his plate. He smiled, faintly, because sometimes this was too much for him to handle. He was embarrassed by his aunt’s slips of the tongue and the reminders of secret pains. Praise was not really what he searched for.
