Boots for the Gentleman

by Augusta Li

  “Bugger it,” Querry said, bracing himself for the next round of blows. The barrister asked the book’s location three more times, and by the end both of Querry’s eyes had nearly swollen shut, his mouth and nose bled, and a molar had come loose. But a little laugh escaped his blood-soaked lips, because he knew they couldn’t kill him or they’d never find the book.

  Finally the attorney stood and stashed his papers in a leather case. “Same time tomorrow, I presume,” he said as he left the cell, leaving Querry alone with the guards. Querry knew well enough how it would go as he watched the metal door close and lock.

  “Arrogant little faerie-loving queer,” said one of the guards, knocking Querry back down on his side with a savage blow. “Like the taste of faerie cock, do ye? Like to steal babies?” They circled him, and Querry shielded his head with his bound hands as their boot-toes prodded his ribs and belly, feeling out the soft places to kick.

  “Son of a mongrel bitch,” they taunted as they drove their feet against Querry’s back and sides. He sobbed dryly and began to cough, amusing the guards immensely. “Where’s your faggot faerie friends now?” Querry curled into a tight ball and waited for the assault to end. Finally, panting with exertion, the guards dragged him back to the main room of the prison.

  “We got this for ye every day, until you decide to talk. Miserable little cocksucker.”

  That night, Querry used half of his water ration to clean the dried blood from his face. The adolescent boys of the prison, to whom Querry had grown into an almost legendary figure, gave him a large bowl of some alcohol they made by fermenting bread crusts and the occasional potato peel. The stuff tasted like the Devil’s piss, but it eased Querry’s pain and helped him sleep.

  True to their word, the four constables came to interrogate Querry every morning after breakfast. He gave up eating, as he’d almost certainly throw up the gruel during the inevitable beating. Through the questions, kicks and blows, Querry mustered the strength to stay silent by remembering the good times he’d shared with Frolic. No matter what they did to him, he wouldn’t betray Frolic. By picturing Frolic’s bemused smile, the trust in his eyes, and the way his lips trembled and fell open when he came, Querry could almost transcend the brutal assaults, almost step outside of himself until that attorney admitted another defeat.

  Back in the cold, straw-strewn room, though, Querry’s aches returned, and his growing sense of despair deepened. He’d been imprisoned over two weeks. Thimbleroy could have Frolic out of the country by now, and Querry was no closer to orchestrating his escape. His will was strong, but he was mortal after all, and he didn’t know how much more his body could endure. How long before one of the guards ruptured an organ or broke a vital bone? His only hope seemed to be the faerie gentleman. Many nights, out of sheer desperation, he stared at the sky and called out to his gentleman with his mind. A few times he thought he caught a few bars of the atonal music he associated with the faerie, but still no one came. The beatings continued, and the lack of decent food sapped Querry’s strength. Probably the fey had forgotten him in favor of whatever pretty thing had his eye at the moment. Querry couldn’t blame him, either. His kind didn’t measure relationships as humans did. Neither cruelty nor indifference caused the gentleman to ignore Querry’s plight, or wonder about the thief’s condition. It simply didn’t occur to him.

  The winter holiday granted Querry a two-day respite from questioning. Each of the prisoners received a salty scrap of ham, a roast potato and some mushy greens. Beyond the cinderblock walls, cathedral bells rang day and night. Sipping the foul-tasting, clear spirit brewed by the boys, Querry imagined Reg dancing around a lighted tree with plain Emily Malvern. He imagined Frolic in a red, sateen suit at the Thimbleroy Yule Ball, and he felt so lonely and forgotten that for the first time in his life he didn’t know if he could go on, keep fighting. He missed the warm weight of his cats as he slept. Though he hadn’t realized it at the time, he’d planned to settle down with Frolic. He’d been saving for a house. His neck crumpled, and his head came to rest against the cold, stone wall. He stared into the darkness, too depleted even to cry. Eventually, sheer exhaustion granted him a brief respite from his despair.

  Querry was little surprised by the appearance of the quartet of constables the next morning.

  “That’s him there,” bellowed one of the large men. “Querrilous Knotte.”

  But then, from behind the shoulders of two guards, appeared a smaller man in an understated, gray suit. He had a delicate, pretty face, thick, sand-colored hair, and the gentlest hazel eyes. He stared down at Querry with an unspoken plea, and Querry understood.

  “You say this is the thief and murderer here.”

  “That’s right, sir. He’s an incorrigible one. No idea what his Lordship thinks you’ll be able to get out of him. Begging your pardon, sir.” It almost made Querry smile, the deference these brutes showed Reg.

  “His Lordship merely wishes for an official account of this villain’s career to be placed in the royal archives, for the sake of history. As Chief Archivist, the unhappy task of interviewing him falls to me. I don’t suppose you could take him into another room? A gentleman in my position is unaccustomed to dealing with such a stink as fills this one.”

  “Right then, sir! On your feet, you rascal.”

  Heart racing and hope renewed, Querry followed Reg to the familiar cell at the end of the corridor. He didn’t have any clue what Reg planned, but the fact that he’d come for Querry meant enough. He would trust Reg, and if he died attempting whatever Reg schemed, he’d die happy.

  “You’re sure it’ll be safe, sir? Being alone in here with him?”

  With a shrug, Reg said, “It will be as His Lordship wishes. He feels this criminal might be more candid about his activities.”

  “Well, we’ll be right outside in the yard having a smoke,” one of the guards said, pointing to a bleak patch beyond a wrought-iron door. “You just give a shout.”

  Reg thanked the men, and they left.

  “My God,” Reg said, seeing Querry’s condition.

  “Reg, what—”

  Reg held up a hand. “Don’t talk, Querry. Follow me. Run. Run as you’ve never run before.”

  He did, down a hallway opposite the yard and through the filthy, rat-infested little room they called the kitchen. Weak and injured, his bandaged foot numb with the cold, Querry sped after Reg around the side of the prison to a cart driven by a smoke-colored, Gypsy woman. Reg dove into the straw it held, and Querry followed. With a shout and a crack of her whip, the Gypsy urged her chestnut mare to a canter. Reg threw a piece of canvas over Querry and himself as the wagon made its bumpy, erratic way. When it came to a halt, Reg hurried Querry into the back of a milk truck, then to crouch among empty beer barrels on an ox-drawn flatbed. Finally they boarded an enclosed wagon driven by an old man in a wide-brimmed hat. Querry watched Reg pay the driver twenty times what the cart and both horses were worth, and then they climbed in back and sat among the sweet-smelling sacks of grain. Soon the vehicle disappeared among the many others that transported goods between the city and the farms beyond it.

  “Reg, I don’t know what to say,” Querry panted. He held a stitch in his side. “You, you’ve thrown your life away!”

  “They were planning to torture you, Querry. They’ve got this brain doctor who uses electricity and all sorts of ghastly devices. I couldn’t let them. I’ve seen what this man leaves behind, rotting in the asylums. I’d have come some sooner, but I didn’t even know they got you until a few nights ago, when the Head Barrister got drunk and started to complain about a stubborn prisoner. Didn’t take me long to figure out he was talking about you.” He smiled, and it was like a decade fell away. They were boys on an adventure again.

  “I love you,” was the only thing Querry could think of to say.

  “Yes, and I love you. After you left, I thought about you and Frolic, off somewhere exotic, and me left behind. No amount of money is worth how miserable I felt, like
the best part of my life was over. There was this one night. I was at dinner with Lady Malvern, and she was discussing the table service for the wedding. Two hours and two dozen different forks. Then she moved on to the napkins, and I realized this was the entirety of my future. She droned on and on, and all I could think about was you. And Frolic. Then, as soon as we left the restaurant and got into the carriage, she attacked me. I don’t exaggerate when I say I had to fight her off. She said she wanted me to rip her bodice and have my way with her, just like a knight in one of those trashy, two-penny novels. Of course I couldn’t do it. I almost became physically ill when she pulled my face against her chest. I don’t know how I fooled myself as long as I did.”

  “No, neither do I.” Lunging forward, Querry lowered Reg to the soft wheat sacks and held him around the waist. He kissed him, and Reg eagerly kissed back, digging his nails into Querry’s ass cheeks, pulling Querry’s groin against his own. Growing instantly erect, Querry ground his cock against Reg as he drove his tongue toward his throat. He tasted and felt amazing, even better than Querry’s idealized memories of him. Querry ripped Reg’s shirt free of his waistband to get his hands on his wonderful warm skin. Then he hooked his hands beneath Reg’s knees and thrust them toward his shoulders. Beneath him, Reg looked up with that mix of vulnerability and anticipation that drove Querry mad. He pushed forward, against Reg’s cleft in a preview of what was to come, and then he reached toward the buttons of Reg’s trouser flap. He couldn’t wait to get him out of those clothes, thrust into him hard and hear him cry out.

  Reg caught his hand and kissed his knuckles. “Out of your mind, like always,” he teased. “We can’t do this here. Now.”

  “Why not? It’s been forever.”

  “Because. We’re in the back of an open cart, and, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Querry, but you really smell.”

  “Thanks for that.” Querry moved to the other side of the compartment and crossed his arms.

  Tenderly Reg touched his cheek. “Don’t worry. We’ll have time. But we have work today. Our job’s only two-thirds done. We can’t abandon him.”

  “Never,” Querry agreed.

  “We need to find him and formulate a plan. They’ll be looking for both of us now. What should we do first?”

  Querry exhaled and pushed his filthy hair out of his face. “It’s getting bloody expensive, always replacing my damn gear.”

  Before long, paved streets gave way to rocky, dirt roads and fresh air replaced the stench of the city. Looking out the back of the cart, Querry watched the dark fields dotted with snow, rolling gently, broken here and there by a copse of trees or crumbling stone wall. The color departed the world: everything was black or white beneath a uniform, gray sky. Reg filled Querry in on the details he’d missed over his weeks in the jail. There had been no mention of his or Frolic’s capture. Work continued night and day on the clock tower. Lord Thimbleroy scoured the Archives for anything to do with clockwork construction, and he’d hired experts from all over the world. Querry told Reg about the theft of Frolic’s book, and the ghastly dolls in the Thimbleroy cellar. They discussed the possible implications for an hour, and then the cart’s driver stopped for lunch. Beneath a gnarled oak tree, the three men shared some savory liver and onion sandwiches provided by the driver’s wife. They passed his flask a few times, to steel themselves against the cold, and continued on their way.

  Back inside the cart, Querry made himself comfortable against the grain sacks. Lulled by the rhythmic sway and creak of the axles, he began to doze. When a rut in the track jostled and woke him, he bolted up defensively. But then he saw Reg reclining across from him, his hands folded serenely over his belt, and he let himself fall back to secure sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  NIGHT had fallen when a touch on his shoulder roused Querry. He’d slept the better part of the day, and he felt stronger, as well as powerfully hungry. The cart had come to a stop in front of an old, stone barn full of bleating sheep. A harsh wind had dispersed the clouds, and beneath the nearly full moon the snowy fields glowed a ghostly bluish-white. Here in the country, away from the haze and artificial light, the stars twinkled brightly. Hopping down, Querry took a deep breath of the crisp air, and exhaled a frozen cloud.

  “Put this on,” Reg said, handing Querry a green rubber boot designed for mucking stables. “We’ll have to walk this last bit.”

  “Where are we going?” Querry asked as he thrust his bandaged foot into the too-large boot. “We should be heading back to the city to look for Frolic. What are the chances that Thimbleroy has him stashed out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Absolutely none,” Reg said, hooking his elbow into Querry’s and walking in the direction of a fallow field overgrown with frozen grass.

  “Then what are we doing here? Besides wasting time?”

  “We’re safe here. I made sure to bring us here by such a roundabout route and by so many different drivers that it would be nearly impossible to retrace our steps. We need time to plan, and you need time to heal.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Reg said firmly. “This is a serious matter. Both of us are wanted criminals now. If we’re caught, we’ll be executed. And then what will become of Frolic, when the only two men in the world who truly know him are gone? You’re going to need all your strength. We can’t afford to rush into this unprepared. Agreed?”

  “I see your point, but I still say—”

  “Agreed, Querry?”

  “All right then.” They’d reached a strip of wood that separated the fields from a boulder-strewn hill. The bare trees were slim and stunted. Thick bracken snagged Querry’s pant legs as he and Reg picked their way slowly around trunks and large rocks. Finally they reached a tiny, stone house nestled at the foot of the hill. It had only a door and two small windows to break its plain front, and one of the walls had begun to crumble inward, taking the back corner and a section of the thatch roof with it. Woodbine and ivy drove their persistent tendrils into the mortar, and had nearly covered the chimney in leaves. Querry and Reg took what had possibly once been a path, before the ferns and holly reclaimed it.

  The rotting door opened with a groan, and Reg let loose of Querry’s arm and disappeared into the darkness. Querry heard the scrape of a match, followed by a soft amber glow from an oil lamp on the hearth. Looking around, he couldn’t believe how little the interior of the house matched its desolate exterior. Reg went to an upside-down half-barrel and lit a few more candles. Next to them sat several bottles of good wine and two crystal flutes. Near the fireplace, a single bed had been constructed from a feather mattress, half a dozen soft blankets, and a pile of down pillows and velvet and brocade cushions. A large sheet separated it all from the bare, earth floor. It all looked rather cozy, romantic even. Querry laughed out loud as Tosser and Toerag darted across the room, yowling loudly and winding their lithe bodies around his ankles. He knelt down and gave each of them a scratch behind the ears.

  “I’ll get a fire started,” Reg said, ignoring Querry’s surprise. “Fry us up some eggs and bacon. And some tea! I’m dying for a cup.”

  “When did you do all this?” Querry asked.

  “I set it up a few days ago. As I said, I needed some place to bring you where you’d be safe. I knew what sort of shape you’d be in after over three weeks in that prison. And I wasn’t wrong. What did they do to you?”

  “They wanted me to tell them where I hid the book.”

  “By the look of your face, I’m going to wager you refused.” Reg knelt down and lit the little pyramid of twigs in the hearth. It crackled and blazed, and Querry opened his fingers above the warmth. Soon, a healthy fire burned in the rough, stone enclosure, raising the temperature quickly and casting the room in a fuzzy orange light. Sensation began to return to Querry’s extremities.

  “It’s all a big, fat lie,” he said. “All their preaching about fairness and equality under the law. The right of every citizen to prove his innocence. The right
of every person to decent living conditions. All of it’s talk from people who’ve never had to experience any of it.”

  “You should wash,” Reg said in the gentle but insistent voice he always used to calm Querry’s fervor. “The pump out back still works. Take that big, copper kettle.”

  Querry did as he was told, walking around the small structure to a clear, leaf-strewn track around back. Some powdery snow sprinkled his hair from the shelf of rock above. It still hadn’t quite settled in: his freedom and Reg relinquishing his life, walking away from money and power to be with Querry. He couldn’t process the enormity of what happened, of what would happen, the dangers they would face. Frolic was out there somewhere, and they would have to find him and fight to get him back. All of their lives would be threatened every moment. But right now, it felt like he and Reg were on holiday. He looked up at the sky, at the silver orb and wispy clouds.

  It felt like they were on a honeymoon.

  Scanning around, Querry located the rusty pump. But then something else caught his eye: two rounded stones at the opposite end of the yard. He approached them and easily read their carvings by the bright moonlight. The first proclaimed “Mary and unborn baby,” and the second read “Reginald, father.” Querry felt irrationally angry at these people for abandoning Reg, leaving him to fend for himself in the indifferent world. The little, stone house may not have been a palace, but Querry could bet growing up within its walls beat the factory. Why hadn’t they fought harder to stay by his side?

  “Lost, Querry?”

  “No, no,” he answered, turning his back on the graves. “I’m on my way.”

  It took a bit of a struggle to get the rusted, old pump going, but it brought forth pure, clear water when Querry managed it. He filled the kettle and took it inside to hang above the fire and warm. Reg gave him a fluffy towel and washcloth, a box of little soaps made to look like seashells, and a porcelain basin. As Reg cooked, filling the room with the welcome fragrances of smoked bacon, fried bread and strong tea, Querry scrubbed himself from head to toe, dunking his hair in the warm water and lathering away the grime. Several times he caught Reg looking up from the frying pan to watch him, and Querry smiled. He shaved, cleaned his teeth with some minty powder and a silver brush, and sat down on a wooden bench, feeling better than he had in weeks. The fire had warmed the space enough that he wasn’t uncomfortable in just his towel.