Steampunk Hearts

by Jordan Reece

  Nicoli moved his hand up Bruno’s arm. “That will never be. There is only kindness on your lips.”

  “Ah, I wish. I am far from a perfect man.”

  Here was a full head of hair, thick and long and luxurious, its color a mystery but its texture a delight. There were no ravines in the forehead, nor was the nose some towering monstrosity. Pinpricks of stubble grew along the cheeks, and Nicoli’s fingers ran to the delicate whorl of an ear. Then to a mouth, two softly parted lips, and a chin that was not overshadowed.

  He could not see Bruno, yet Nicoli’s fingers traced a fine-looking face. He had lied about his appearance, not simple flights of fancy to while away the time but borne of pain. It was better to be so utterly repugnant of feature that one could not possibly hope to attract an admiring eye; it was better to be very old and life’s work upon its epilogue. Better these things than to be young and fair and full of dreams that could never be realized. Nicoli understood what lay behind Bruno’s tales, the knife to split his life from before the Queen’s Mob warehouse and after it.

  “Speak to me of your flaws?” Nicoli asked. “I cannot imagine them, but you must have some.”

  “Of course. We all have them, and some of us more than others.” Bruno rumbled with laughter and shook the air between them.

  “Can you imagine mine?”

  “You strike me as a little like my Vincenzo, a seedling that struggles to grow in winter. The soldier’s trade is pain and this was repellent to him. He did not need to be taught Redeemer ways; he was born a Redeemer at heart. And you are another brave and peaceful soul, but one born to the harshness that is the Godly way. There could be no long career in war for him; there can be no long life upon Christ’s blade for you. It speaks well of you that you knew yourself well enough to leave. There was no solace for you there. But to be gentle in this world, to be trusting, it makes you vulnerable. You can be betrayed and you can be soured by it. You can close in from too much hurt and never reopen, or be made inconsolably fretful, or give so much that you forget to take and consequently are drained. Behind every hardened cynic lies a once-gentle soul. Have I guessed well? Do your flaws stem from gentleness?”

  Nicoli had been too gentle with Dallen, too forgiving, too willing to see what was not there. Everything had he given, but Dallen could not give back. Nicoli had wanted to be happy and to have company so badly that it blinded him. And here he was in the hospital, truly blind. “Now lay yourself bare.”

  “As you wish. One flaw is remedied: there was a time I spoke but forgot to listen. Others are not: I am a man who prefers perfection, not from others but myself, and this leads me down the same tiresome straits that all perfectionists travel.”

  “I do not know this problem.”

  “Good. Never learn it. For me, my lecture must be the best lecture, and to stumble over a word or forget a passage here or there goads me. My book about hexes must be the best book, and when the sentences do not twist into the clever braids I intended, I am quite likely to storm away from my desk and vow never to return. I always go back to try again, but perfection, Nicoli, is a ravenous dog ever barking at my heel.”

  “There are worse flaws than that.”

  “There are, but this is mine, and it grieves me. I am not a selfish man, a glutton or a covetous one. But I am proud. These spells of mine in the hospital serve to check that pride. How much did I not work when my vanity was stung? And now I am here, unable to work at all, and that head full of steam while I am well shames me. There is not time to waste! Not for me! Vincenzo would have reminded me that even should every word upon every page be perfect, someone would still find fault with the book and throw it in the trash.”

  “He was wise in addition to gentle and brave,” Nicoli said. “In these years to pass, has there ever been another man?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “This is the lonely answer of the perfectionist: I am not at my best. I will never again be at my best. At any moment I can fall down ill, at the top of the stairs, at a table in a fine restaurant, anywhere and anytime . . . My vanity is stung, and I do not wish to make a nursemaid out of a lover.”

  “I do not think that anyone is at his best all of the time.”

  “I am guaranteed not to be. Six months may pass in relative health, seven, even nine or ten. A temporarily dead limb here and there, or twenty hours straight passed in sleep, to be followed by a fortnight with nary a complaint. I can start to imagine I am well. But it is all an illusion. Inevitably, I will crash at his feet and be of no use to him for weeks.”

  “Then he would be of use to you.”

  “A nursemaid.”

  Nicoli pressed his hand to Bruno’s cheek. “A lover. A lover carries the weight when you cannot. I know this much of love. The weight should be passed between you.”

  “Don’t argue with a Redeemer. We simply talk until you concede, whether you agree with us or not.”

  Taking his hand away, Nicoli said, “Well, you shouldn’t listen to the advice of a man who is here because his lover threw an acid hex into his eyes.”

  Silence, save quiet tides of breath. Then Nicoli turned to get out of the bed, and an arm snaked around his stomach to draw him back. “I am sorry,” Bruno said. “For all I saw in war, I can still be shocked at times.”

  “He was very angry at me for leaving him.”

  “Then he should have cursed your name and your lineage to Christ God by morning and night to anyone who would humor his tirades. He should have drank himself into a melancholy stupor, or gone chasing after some new hand offered in love. That is what a spurned man does. He hurts, he rails, and then he moves on to find love elsewhere. To use a hex from anger, Nicoli, was the act of a boy in a tantrum. The acid hex was hurled at you, but it was his own soul to be corroded by the splash.”

  “I thought I could save him,” Nicoli whispered, and still Dallen’s sad story had the power to rake his heart. “It was like he was flailing in the ocean, yelling at me upon the shore for help. But every time I swam for him, he turned away to paddle deeper. And finally . . . finally I gave up. He would not let me catch him, and the ocean was growing stormy. He was determined to drown in it, so I turned to swim back to shore and save myself.”

  “But he followed, and you did not reach the sand.”

  “He followed,” Nicoli said, “laughing at how he had won this cruel game, and then wound his arms around my neck to pull us down.”

  Chapter Seven

  Christ God, have mercy.

  “I beg one more anchor from you, Bruno. Anything.”

  They were sitting side by side upon Bruno’s bed, which they had shared all night. With the soldier standing sentinel at his back, Nicoli had not dreamed, and woken with Bruno’s fingers interlaced with his own.

  “Whether it ends in good or ill, you will come to my home that we might share dinner, if you would find this amenable,” Bruno said.

  Nicoli did indeed. “If it ends ill, I shall not be able to find it.”

  “Should you be in a home for the infirm, I will send a carriage to fetch you. Unless you would like a rumble buggy instead, in which case I will rent one with a driver.”

  “I have never ridden in one.”

  “I have ridden in too many. But I shall jounce about in one again to collect you. The streets will lead us home, and interminably bored you shall be as I walk you through the rooms of my house and describe them in too much detail.”

  “I shall attend the details well, as I’ll depend upon them to get around.”

  Footsteps paused at the door. Nicoli tensed, but then they went on.

  “The cook will have made us a feast,” Bruno said, “and afterwards we’ll have a drink by the fire. You shall stay the night, of course.”

  Nicoli laughed and held onto this invitation with both hands. “Of course.”

  The footsteps returned, and the doctor’s voice cried, “Good morning! Lieutenant, how do you feel?”

  “Healthy as ever.” />
  “No pains? No weakness? No other complaints?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I believe you are back to what passes as normal for you, so I’ve informed the nurses that you’re being discharged. Put on your trousers and I’ll see you next time. As for you, Nicoli . . . why, you’re dressed!”

  “Just take these off,” Nicoli blurted, his spirits dampening. “I cannot bear to discuss it beforehand. I dressed because if I have sight, there is no need for me to be in the hospital any longer. And if I’m blind, there’s nothing you can do for me but call a buggy to an infirm home.”

  “Very well.”

  Metal clinked. Wheels rolled. The knot of the bandage was tugged. Then the stream of fabric was unrolled from Nicoli’s head, and then only little strips of tape held squares of gauze to his eyes.

  “I am going to remove the bandage from the right side,” the doctor said. “When you feel it pulled away, we shall see what we shall see.”

  An inadvertent joke, and one that went unnoticed by the person who spoke it. Nicoli’s skin protested as the tape was pulled free. Then his heart leaped as the black of night turned to the gray of evening.

  “Keep the eye closed.”

  Click. Clatter.

  “Can you see light or dark through the lid?”

  “It is light.”

  “And now?”

  “Far brighter.”

  Click. Swish.

  “And now?”

  “Black,” Nicoli said in panic.

  “Do not fret. I am holding something in front of the lid. Good. You can discern light from dark. Now open the eye.”

  Nicoli could not for fear.

  Someone took his hand. It was Bruno. Whether or not his sight returned, they would have their dinner.

  Christ God, have mercy.

  Nicoli opened the eye. His heart sank. “I see nothing but mist.”

  “Give it a minute to adjust.”

  There was gray and white, a hint of blue, movement. The doctor bent down in a whitewashed blur, with shadows in the crags of his face. Nicoli could see him no more clearly than that. Beyond the doctor was a window, and through it a haze of blue.

  Stepping back from the bed, the doctor said, “What is this letter on top?”

  “There is a letter?”

  Paces brought him closer, but even two inches from the end of Nicoli’s nose, the chart of letters was a smear of white and black. He could not say what they were, only that the ones on the top of the chart were larger than the ones on the bottom. When it was nearly touching his nose he could name the largest letter, yet nothing below.

  This was blindness. It would not be dark but an impenetrable mist. So distressed was he that he startled when the doctor began to remove the bandage over his second eye. Keeping it closed as he was bidden to do, his blind eye being covered once more, numbness overcame him. The infirm home.

  “Light or dark?”

  “Light. Bright light.”

  “Light or dark?”

  “Light, but it is dimmer now.”

  “Light or dark?”

  “Black as pitch.”

  “Open your eye.”

  He opened it. There it was, fathoms upon fathoms of mist.

  They waited to let his eye adjust. Slowly things took shape within the mist, the blurry lines of the window frame and second bed, the rumpled blanket atop it. The doctor’s face was not a topography of shadows but featured, if hazily. Bushy brows and a florid complexion, there was a pencil tucked behind the point of his earlobe. He lifted a chart, but before he could ask, Nicoli cried like a child, “I see you! I see you!”

  At once he turned to Bruno. Even right there at Nicoli’s side, he was not sharply defined. But still! Nicoli could see that his hair was a lovely tempered blond, light and dark intermingling, and his eyes another juxtaposition of blue and green. His brows arched over a friendly face more than a handsome one to an objective eye, but to Nicoli he was beautiful. “I see you!”

  “You see me,” Bruno said.

  The doctor repeated his test with the chart. Ten steps back there was nothing, and five steps back Nicoli could see hazy shapes. Three steps and the largest letter bubbled up; two and the line below it appeared. Just beyond his nose he could read all but the lowest line, which remained in fragments.

  “I am sorry,” the doctor said softly as Nicoli laughed for what he could see and cried for what he could not. He had lost his independence and that devastated him. He could not live on his own anymore, work or shop or wander the night market. That had ended. And yet he saw! He was not reduced to total helplessness. He could maneuver around a room without assistance, and would not need anyone to tell him what was upon his dinner plate. He could squash a book at his nose if it had large script, attend his own baths and dress himself, and match a face to a voice if the person came close.

  Then he turned back to Bruno and saw him through tears. A nurse called the doctor away for an emergency, and the doctor said as he left that Nicoli could gain a little more vision through spectacles.

  “You will have to send for me at the infirm home after all, Bruno,” Nicoli said shakily, now that it was done and he stood on the other side.

  “I know of a good home where you might go,” Bruno said.

  “Tell me, but it must be one the state can afford. I have precious little to my name.”

  “There is nothing to afford in this home. It is of good size but easy to navigate, because the owner does not care for clutter.”

  “That will be good.”

  “Windows abound in every room and the beds are quite comfortable. He does have a fondness for flowers, so you will notice a motif from room to room, and in the morning hours he hunches and growls like a beast at his desk. At times he storms away and let him go to have his tantrum, or shove a cookie in his mouth and send him back. And he does like to take a long afternoon respite to clear his head, though he fears to do this alone and be stranded should hexes waken and dance upon his nerves.”

  Christ God had shown a measure of mercy in Nicoli’s eyes, and even more mercy through Bruno. He was asking Nicoli to live with him, rather than go to an infirm home.

  His heart leaping at this unexpected path appearing in the mists before him, Nicoli warned, “I shall not be a good pair of eyes in these walks.”

  “Spectacles, Nicoli!” Bruno reminded him, a shaggy lock of his golden hair falling over his forehead. “Forget not this powerful spell of science! A good strong pair of spectacles will render further aid to you. We shall acquire a pair for you immediately, as well muscled as glass can be. And though they may not be enough to let you see far, I have two eyes that can spot a gnat at a hundred paces. I will be your eyes; you will be my strength.”

  Nicoli could not speak for the clot of emotions in his throat. His hands were gathered into Bruno’s. “Should we go to an infirm home when we can match one’s curse to another’s gift, Nicoli? Should we cut ourselves off entirely from the race when we could instead putter on together in the slow lane? But maybe you do not enjoy me and my rattling tongue, and cannot bear the thought of enduring my company beyond this room.”

  What Nicoli feared was becoming a burden, just as Bruno feared for himself. Since this was a fear they both held, it was rendered invalid. “Bruno, I have gone twenty-five years without knowing you, and now in a matter of days I would not like to greet the sunrise without your voice.” Tears stung in his eyes, blurring the world, and he said, “I would kiss you, if only I could find you.”

  Gently, Bruno said, “You have seen with your hands just yesterday.”

  Closing his eyes, Nicoli traced the solid shape beside him. A muscled chest beneath the shirt, and two sturdy arms under whisper-soft skin. There was a lock of velvet hair upon his broad shoulder, Nicoli running it through his fingers. Up his neck to his face and there were the features he knew, by sight and feel both, familiar and full of grace. He bent Bruno’s head to him, and they kissed.

  Such noise was housed in t
he four walls of this hospital, but for a moment, the roar of it muted to the soft press of Bruno’s lips. Then there was a clatter in the hallway of something spilling to the floor, and in the clangs and rattles and thumps to follow, the total lack of peace for more than a second made Nicoli smile and Bruno laugh.

  “It is our fault for doing that here,” Bruno said.

  Nicoli opened his eyes in time to make out a very blurry green shape rolling past the open door. “I would like to go somewhere we can.”

  “Then mop your eyes and grant me a moment to dress, and we shall have a good luncheon on the walk to our home.” Bruno stood and went around the bed as Nicoli dried his eyes upon the collar of his shirt.

  There it was, the world returned, his better eye compensating for his weaker one. The white frame of the window and the blue sky beyond, the rumpled blanket on Nicoli’s bed, a mirror and sink in the corner.

  He had this still, and so much more.

  Bruno stepped to the mirror with the ramrod posture of a soldier. He was adjusting his collar, or wiping at his neck. Nicoli could not quite tell. “What shall I do when you are lecturing at universities?”

  “You will go with me, naturally, and wander in and out of lectures while I am a guest there.”

  Nicoli laughed at the preposterousness of it. “I do not belong at a university! A man like me with two years of schooling!”

  “All people belong at a school should they like to learn, which you do,” Bruno countered. “If it is science to interest you, go to biology or chemistry and take a seat to listen. Or perhaps you wish to sit through my history and composition of hexes again, or slip into religion and be taught all the hands of Christ God. The olive branch, the weapon, the seedcake and wine . . . dozens upon dozens make up the All-Christ, and one can study this for a lifetime.”

  Bruno came to the bed and offered his arm. Taking it, Nicoli stood.

  He did not need this arm to get around, but he wanted to hold to Bruno from love rather than need. There would be times of need for both of them, but not now.

  “Perhaps I would like to sit in that last lecture,” Nicoli said as they turned to the door. “To learn of the many different hands of Christ God.”