Perfect Shadows

by Siobhan Burke

  “I have had a letter, Christopher, from Rózsa. She will be joining us here for the summer, and as this is her home, I can scarcely ask that she stay away. Your young ward—” he broke off, and I nodded gravely. I told Geoffrey that Nicolas had suggested the house in Brittany, should that prove necessary. We talked for a time of Richard, of his recovery, and the strain that his proximity was putting on my fortitude. Geoffrey was at least sympathetic, having gone through something of the sort with Rózsa years before. “It is never easy, never, but these things have a way of working themselves out, given time, and time we have in abundance. And now, your Southampton is a man of ready wit, but little depth, I think. He has never had to fight, so it seems, and thus has weaknesses where he most should be strong. But there is good metal there, under the dross.” Geoffrey turned his gaze from the hearth to me, piercing me with steely fire. “Go now to your guest, Christopher, though he will be but the companion of the moment—do not think that he would join us, for he would not. Indeed, I feel that he will break off with you soon now and that is no bad thing.”

  Those words came back to me a few weeks later. We had begun to spend most of our time pushing at each other, Hal and I, he vainly rebelling against my mastery, and I refusing to yield an inch. Richard had been the cause of no little contention between us as well, since we both found the boy attractive. The position that Cecil had arranged for Hal was largely show and make-work, and he, in his enforced indolence and boredom, had been playing at provoking my jealousy, idly and without much direction. Knowing that I desired Richard, Hal had set out to seduce the lad himself, but Richard had shied away from any intimate contact. He would need more time and effort than Hal was willing to grant him, even though it might provide his other desire: the destruction of his intimacy with me.

  It was as if Hal were demon-ridden, I sometimes thought, for no sooner would a thing approach a certain completion or perfection than he would set about its ruin, helplessly and unable to stop himself, as well attested by the disastrous conclusion of his career at court. He was still drawn to me, and even as he longed to provoke me, he seemed to long also to placate me, and his ambivalence made him irritable.

  One day he got a letter, tear-stained and incoherent, from London. He crumpled it and cast it blindly across the room, where it bounced off Jehan’s muzzle, waking him from his doze by the fire. He got up and padded from the room to fetch me, and a few minutes later, still sluggish from the day’s trance, I slipped in.

  “You’ve had a letter? Is it bad news?” I yawned and apologized. I was preoccupied and stared into the fire fingering the place on my lip, cut by my own sharp canine tooth. I was uneasy about the way that Hal had kissed the cut, licking the blood away with seeming relish. Did that count as an exchange? A few drops, only? No, it was impossible. But I was uncomfortably aware that he took some few drops any chance that he got.

  “I must go to London. Libby’s pregnant, and the Queen has locked her away in the Fleet prison,” Hal blurted, pacing, then turning on his heel to face me. “I will marry her,” he stated defiantly, as if expecting an argument, but I had played these scenes more than once in my former life and recalled enough of them to know better. I merely nodded then poured the wine. I offered a glass to Hal, who took it from me with an air of unease that he was unable to completely hide.

  “Her Majesty will certainly imprison you, an you do,” I commented blandly.

  “She may try! I will be back in France before she knows I was in England. You cannot keep me here, Kit,” he added, the merest hint of a threat in his voice.

  “Hal, I would not even try. I am, and hope to remain, a friend to you. All I ask is that you not burn all of your bridges, or at least, not spectacularly. It may be that you will have need of friends, and that sooner than you think.” Hal strode from the room without a further word and I watched my retreating lover’s rigid and angry back, then turned to the lesson that Richard had set me. It was useless, and worse, it was maddening, to stumble blindly through provinces where once I had flown, to live as an ignorant beggar where once I had been a king. I thrust the copybook aside and went across to the manor to speak with Geoffrey. We talked the night away, and I suppose that Geoffrey sensed my restlessness, for he commanded me to share his bed, as he ever did when he felt the need to reassert his mastery. When I woke the next evening, Hal had gone.

  Within a week word had come from Robert Cecil of the events in London, and I, in Poley’s chambers, pocketed both the cipher and Poley’s translation. Poley himself sat slack-jawed against the far wall, his eyes white slits in his face, while I made free with his correspondence. I had appropriated the position of Lord Robert’s confidant in Paris for Geoffrey, and he fed the English spider only such flies as he saw fit. Poley had reported the presence in France of the Sybrian exiles, and had been instructed to observe and recount our movements. This had gone on for weeks, with Poley unaware that the messages he sent had been prepared by other hands, indeed, unaware that he had a visitor at all. I folded the flimsy papers into a small purse and tucked it into my doublet for Geoffrey to read to me later. I made up my mind: I would take the shoddy little man back to the manor, and this night would be his last. I bound him hand and foot, gagging him with the filthy rag he used for a kerchief, then set off to hire a horse to carry him. I was damned if I would carry the verminous little villain upon my own horse.

  It would be Christmas soon, and the snow lay already thick upon the ground, muffling the horse’s hooves. Poley had awakened before we reached the manor, struggling madly against his bonds for a few minutes before resigning himself. Rhys met us at the stable, taking the horses and vanishing into the dark building.

  I slung my squalid burden across my shoulder easily and made my way into the cellars through the outside entrance. There was a little room there, caught against the foundations of an older building when the present house had been rebuilt. It was a somewhat damp and a bit airless, but I wasn’t overly concerned with the little assassin’s comfort, only with my own revenge for that day in Deptford, over seven years before. I dropped the man to the floor and took the candles from the serving-wench who had accompanied us to light the way. I perched the candles on the outcroppings of the rough foundation stones, and stood over my victim in contemplation. Poley struggled into a seated position, then gasped as he recognized me.

  “Good evening, Robin,” my smile was no more than a feral baring of teeth. “I see you remember me, after all. What else do you remember?” I stooped and plucked the gag from his mouth, letting it fall to the floor.

  “What is the meaning of this outrage? I am an Englishman, and not to be treated so! I have friends, very highly placed friends, and—”

  “You have no friends, Robin, and you never had. You are a tawdry twisted little man who has come to the end of his tawdry twisted little life. Did you think that you would never have to atone for the lives you warped and ruined? Did you think that you could explain it all to God, and he would forgive you? Well, perhaps you are right. You are certainly about to find out.”

  “Who are you?” Robin shouted desperately, “You’re not Marlowe! Marlowe is dead!” I nodded agreeably, and took a step back from the man, closer to the candle, then removed the patch that covered my scarred eyelid. Robin gasped again, but said nothing.

  “Marlowe is dead, Robin, undeniably dead, but I yet live, at least after a fashion. No,” I cut off the spluttering protests, “I do not wish to know the whys of the thing, or how you were forced to do it, or even how I forced the council into moving as it did. It makes no difference, you see. You will die, and I will kill you. I’ve just not decided upon how, yet.” That was a lie, though Poley could not know that. I would let the man stew all day, and break his neck quickly and cleanly the following night. “Of course, the precept ‘an eye for an eye’ offers a certain ironic symmetry,” I added, tilting my head to listen to the crowing of a distant cock, allowing the candlelight to fall full upon the jagged ridges of the heavy scar before t
urning on my heel and leaving the room, locking the door securely behind me. There was yet time for Geoffrey to read Poley’s correspondence, if I hurried.

  Geoffrey’s voice was steady as he read, but my gorge rose at the crowing note in the terse tale of Hal’s capture and imprisonment. He had married his Libby, there in the prison, and had thought that word could not be taken to the Queen before he himself was well on the road back to Paris. But Cecil’s spies were legion, and the tidings had soon reached his ears. He then presented them to the queen as a perfect means to abate the objectionable earl’s imagined influence on Essex, whose precarious position at court was obvious to every eye but Essex’s own.

  It scalded me to think of Hal imprisoned, though I had to admit that the romantic role of captive would probably afford him some little amusement, at least at first. Poley’s latest message to Cecil had been little more than a wail of supplication, entreating the secretary to recall him to London, and employ him there. We altered the message, advising Cecil that Poley was going out of Paris for what might be a protracted time, and hinting at some momentous news he would uncover.

  “Take your rest now, Christopher,” Geoffrey ordered. “It grows late.” I thanked him, and left. The late winter’s dawn was almost upon me; I paused in the kitchens long enough to give orders concerning my guest, and reached my bed in the gatehouse as the shrouded sun rose.

  Chapter 22

  As the door closed behind the madman who had captured him, Poley frantically sought a means to escape. The door was bolted and barred, and there was no window. Even the candles were burning dimly in that airless space—the candles! He wormed his way up the rough stones of the wall to his feet. The candle was too high for his hands, bound behind him, to reach. He almost sobbed in his frustration. Desperately he knocked the candle from the ledge with his shoulder, but the fall put it out. He turned to the second candle, on a higher, but narrower ledge. Carefully he nudged it over with his chin, gaining a painful burn on his cheek, and filling what air there was with the stench of his burning beard. Not daring to breathe he backed away. His luck returned to him, the candle guttered for a moment, then the flame burned high in the spilled grease. He tried to ignore the blistering pain in his wrists, and the sweat that ran into eyes, but the pain was unendurable and he jerked his hands from the flames. The sudden strain parted the strands that held him.

  One of the servants came in then bringing the prisoner a tray to break his fast, but when she pushed the door open he fell on her, snatching the heavy tray from her hands and hitting her hard with the edge of it. She fell dead, her slender neck snapped like a flowerstalk, and he made his escape into the vast park surrounding the manor.

  Poley had set off for the gates even as an unearthly howling broke out behind him, only to lose himself in the blowing snow. It was no more than a half hour before he found himself in a clearing in the wood, and realized with dismay that he was lost. He hadn’t seen the grey shapes that followed him, circled and surrounded him, until one of the wolves darted in and nipped at his calf, where his hose was thin and torn. He had seen them then, so many shadows in the snowy air, and he screamed. As if they had been awaiting that signal, the pack closed in, and the smell of death had filled the air as the dying man’s blood scalded the snow. Soon the wolves drifted away, leaving nothing to show what had occurred but a few scraps of rag and bone, and a patch of bloody ice, soon covered by the fresh falling snow.

  Chapter 23

  When I woke that night, Richard was waiting there at my bedside. He had an ugly tale to tell in answer to my unspoken question.

  Later that afternoon, Richard told me, several of the servants had become violently ill with what appeared to be food poisoning.

  I cursed, remembering the candles that I had left burning at the summons of the approaching dawn, reckoning that Poley had used the flames to free himself, then awaited his chance. If it had been a vampire who tended him, it would not have mattered, but poor, kind-hearted Lena, unable to imagine that the orders to leave the prisoner alone extended to not feeding him, had had no chance.

  Without a word I dressed and crossed to the manor, where Geoffrey was waiting for me. I felt much as I had at University, awaiting the public whipping, and when the interview was over, I considered a flogging preferable to the tongue-lashing I received. I swallowed the burning sense of shame that welled in me at Geoffrey’s words, acknowledging my fault and my responsibility, and gleaning what comfort I could with the scant approbation Geoffrey had afforded me for not pointing out that I had, in fact, left orders that Poley should not be disturbed. In my former life my rash nature might have prompted a drawn blade, but I knew full well where that would get me now: flat on my back with the point of Geoffrey’s steel resting in the hollow of my throat, if I were lucky, and Geoffrey lenient. Dead, if not.

  Chapter 24

  The years passed as years will, and the time came when we were ready to return to England. On the evening before we were to leave Paris, Geoffrey clipped the stitches that held the lids of my right eye closed. He had noted a growing fullness behind the formerly slack lid, and resolved to investigate. Jehan stood by with a basin and soft cloths, then bathed my eye with warm herb-scented water. As the lids parted, Geoffrey gave a soft sigh of satisfaction. The eyeball was regenerating, he told me, though when I viewed it in the mirror, the pupil was as yet smoky and dull and the iris a startling milky blue. I saw the light of the candle as no more than a soft ball of furry gold, but it was light, and I was seeing it with my right eye.

  “It is very likely that you will fully regain your sight in time,” Geoffrey told me. “But for now, Christopher, you should continue to wear the patch most of the time, but try to exercise the eye for a time every night.” The scar across the lid, though its angry color had faded, was still ragged and puckered, and I was vain enough to desire hiding such a blemish.

  I watched Richard avert his eyes from it that same evening, as he read to me, though he seemed unable to keep himself from casting sidelong glances at it, try as he might to force his gaze away.

  “If you will fetch me the patch from the table, Richard, I will cover it up,” I said testily, unable to bear it any longer. Richard brought the patch, and as he handed it over he asked how it had happened, the words coming reluctantly as if both against his will and beyond his control. “I was held down, and it was done with a twelve-penny dagger. That is when I died, Richard, before I became the monster that I am.” Richard paled, then blushed a furious crimson.

  “I was wrong, my lord, to speak so that night, and I pray you might forget my foolishness and my ingratitude,” he said stiffly, then relaxed a little when I smiled.

  “I do forgive it, Richard, even if I do not forget it. I won’t bring it up again,” I said. Richard nodded solemnly and went to fetch some wine.

  He had never quite healed from the horrors of confinement and assault, and indeed seemed truly comfortable only with me. We had fallen into the easy relationship that one sometimes finds between siblings when their relative ages have a sufficient disparity.

  Rózsa had helped him a great deal, the threat of her sex blunted by the boy’s clothing that she habitually wore. She had coaxed him into talking of his ordeal, easing his pain thereby. I had thought that she might take the boy as a lover, but she had not, saying that he was not yet ready for such a step, and might never be. To the surprise of all, Rhys’s not the least, she had set about seducing the handsome stableman, quelling his fears of her vampirism, and setting him truly at ease with us for the first time since he and his family had joined the household.

  I forced my gaze back to the book in my lap, but my thoughts wandered, and when Richard came back with the wine to mull at the fire, I studied the changes the years had made in my companion. Richard had reached his full height at five feet and nine inches, but he hadn’t yet filled out, retaining the leggy coltishness of adolescence, and though the delicate bones of his face had lost some of their androgyny he retained an almost st
artling beauty.

  Finding my thoughts veering relentlessly towards Richard again, I snorted and closed the book. Startled at the sound Richard looked up from the hearth and smiled shyly. Unable to stop myself, I reached a hand out to touch that impossibly black hair, watching the purple highlights following my fingers, then reluctantly pulled my hand away. Richard caught it in both of his, holding it a moment, then, shamefaced, letting go. “I am sorry, Richard,” I said softly, but Richard interrupted, his voice hoarse and close to tears.

  “No, I am sorry,” he said, turning his face away. “I know what you want, and I—I do dream about you, sometimes, but I am frightened. No,” he stopped me, “I know about Rhys and Lady Rózsa, and I know that you would not hurt me, that you do not harm Jehan when he—when you—couple,” he drew a shuddering breath, and went on. “The dreams always change, you see, and then it’s not beautiful, it’s ugly, and you are cruel and laughing—” I gathered the distressed young man to me, murmuring against the heavy hair.

  “I will never harm you, Richard, nor even touch you without your consent. I can do something about the dreams, however, and I will, if you will trust me. Look at me,” I added, turning his wet face towards mine.

  Chapter 25

  Hal paced by the fire, his face alight with excitement as he told me of the Irish campaign, his long fingers moving as if they plucked his words from the air. Essex had appointed him his Master of Horse, much to the displeasure of the Queen, who, although she had eventually agreed to his release from prison, still had little use for the handsome earl.

  He told of the mud and the cold, the murky chambers that managed to keep the smoke trapped inside despite the roaring drafts that pierced through the heaviest clothing, and the constant fear when venturing out that every hummock would suddenly sprout a berserk kern bent on murder. Many was the time that the entourage would arrive at a destination with men missing, or dead in the saddle. It was enough to make one believe in the Sidhe, he said and his voice faltered. He flashed a bright smile at me, realizing that he had completely lost the thread of his narrative. “But tell me, will you return to the court?”