Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

  Black eyes had met his, and James had fallen silent with the fleeting thought that Etienne had known precisely what would drive a man to exact this sort of revenge. But he had given away his right to hear anymore of Etienne’s truths and moved on.

  “There is very little I can promise…” “There is very little I am getting in return,” Etienne had interrupted him, tossing his head. “My life?” He had already declared that to be worth nothing. That was false, would always be false, and was enough to make James clench his jaw.

  He had reached out, pushing forward to take hold of Etienne’s hands, trying not to flinch when Etienne had pulled away. His hands had felt small, as cold as his voice. René always seemed to burn.

  “Do this because it matters to me.” The strange insistence had made his voice rough. He could not credit the words, the need to run from making yet another demand on Etienne. But James had found that when focused on keeping his face like a stone, his thoughts remained clear.

  His stomach had turned, his body heating, and Etienne had stared at him with a glowing passion, hatred bringing light to his eyes before he had buried that too.

  James shifted his position, the long carriage ride in cold and silence preying on his mood and leaving him with energy in his veins that he could not dispel. He had no desire to laugh, mayhap since his madness was already apparent in this act, but the need for motion—for battle, Deniau would say, remained. His belly turned with it, and he swallowed, tasting sourness along his tongue when he thought on what must be done, and the truth behind words, truth he had been too blind to see before.

  “You are in England.” Such a tired, hopeless whisper should not seem so heavy that he still felt it now. He wondered anew at the task he had given himself and those around him, the lady, René, even Etienne, but he had to be right, he must be. It would be easy, but he could not turn from this.

  He was not far from home, he knew. Two days of frantic travel would have him in London again. If he were to leave—cowardly but wise—he would be home, safe with his father and step-mother, ready to get up in the morning and resume work in the shop as though he had not ever left. Ben might be with him, eyes wide as Rebecca—his lady mother—forced him to sit and eat her sweet, soft breads and puddings until the bones no longer showed through his skin.

  He looked so thin. Pale with his anger at James but for the fire in his cheeks and eyes, and James closed his eyes, his sick stomach churning more to remember the number of ribs he could count on René‘s gaunt form, even seeing it before had not prepared him for the pain of seeing René’s fingers extend across the white skin as though wanting to hide it from him.

  “I will have thee clean,” James had tried to speak so softly, not wanting even his breath to hurt, and yet he thought it had, for René‘s dark eyes had fluttered, open then closed, only to open again, his face flushed as the water had not made it.

  He did not think René remembered either the whimpers of nightmares or the quiet that James’ body, warm along his back, had brought at last. He did not think René would wish to remember, when he woke and discovered this.

  But it was right, just as Etienne’s mistreatment was wrong. René would be made to see it or he would kill James, and James could not stop the shiver of his own to realize that despite his words, he was not certain René would not do just that for this interference. It would gain René nothing but another black mark on his soul, for Etienne had been clear that nothing would stop his father from seeking revenge once the fate of the family’s trading venture was known.

  “Father is the Devil himself,” Etienne had confessed in Parisian as James had cut the last of the bonds from the other man’s wrists and repeated the words of their bargain. “This will do no good.” Etienne did not even seem to notice how solemn his vow seemed. His bruised, pink lips had formed a sneer, a sneer James had seen months before ever befriending the son of Saint-Cyr.

  “Some say that about René Villon,” James had answered, without amusement, glancing away just as Etienne turned to him, eyebrows up as though he had been surprised. He did not comment on James saying the name to him, as he had not before, in Port Royal, and James was left wondering what Etienne Saint-Cyr knew, or suspected, lay between René and himself. But silence had been itself an unspoken but necessary condition of their bargain.

  Paris prisons were famous enough; James had no wish to visit them. There were heavy framed churches everywhere throughout the city too, or perhaps they were not churches at all. The large buildings of stone had no spiraling towers or magnificent arches, just carved stone facades, and for a moment James admired them, recalling the wood and thatch that had so easily fallen to the fire in his own city. If it was arrogance or faith that had led so many rich Frenchmen to construct houses that could have served as cathedrals, he did not know, but he counted the number of them to distract himself, noting that for all the fine houses, the streets before them were still lined with straw and refuse.

  “You have not been to Paris, have you, James?” Etienne questioned him softly, and James turned to see him staring out at the same scenery. “We are not on the island,” Etienne whispered, unknowing or uncaring that James did not understand his meaning. Then his body shook, a slight shiver seeming to start at his feet and then working up to a strong shudder that sent the dark hair spilling over his shoulders. Etienne had found his face paints again, from some dark source, but he had not found a wig. At least not one to his liking.

  He looked strange now, in his borrowed finery and his dusted face and stained lips. His mouth was no match to the red of René‘s, and yet James had watched him use his smallest finger to smudge the colour onto his face. The paint did not hide the shadows under the other man’s eyes, or his body’s thinness, but it had pleased Etienne enough that he had grown silent, only his eyes belying his calm appearance, darting in all directions.

  He looked almost as he had once looked, slender and delicate, so beautiful and careless that women had flocked to him and James had followed obediently after him. He had held no savagery then, no anger, only a desire for fun, a more innocent fun it seemed now than many a lord’s son would have had in London.

  That boy was gone, a crime not to be entirely laid at René’s feet. But like with René, all the thoughts of blame had so far stayed locked in the dark where James could not reach, along with any other feelings that James sought to understand.

  He thought that perhaps he did not need to wonder anymore how or why men learned such skills, and curled his hands tightly in his lap.

  Etienne turned as though knowing James studied him once again, the move so sudden that for one moment James found himself pinned to his seat by bottomless eyes. The lashes were long, his skin as white as it had ever been, if no longer flawless. His cheeks artificially as rose-coloured as his mouth, his hair long and hand-curled to hide the marks about his neck. The ridiculous affectations did not conceal anything; Etienne looked like a man who ought to be broken, and for the smallest fraction of time before he remembered to blink, James found himself staring.

  “You find me lovely?” The quiet words startled him, as Etienne must have known they would. His response stayed on his tongue, his breath caught in his chest just as it had been back in Port Royal to find Etienne stumbling into his arms. He frowned instead, not caring one whit for his warm face, and Etienne trained his eyes on the world outside the carriage.

  He had acknowledged to himself, back in Port Royal, that though he felt drawn to the other man, Etienne most likely had never returned his regard, in fact would have found it ridiculous, sinful. He had known that to be truth. Yet now there was a soft question that held more of the confessional about it.

  It was as direct as Etienne had ever been with him. Perhaps even more so.

  James let his frown deepen, his heart thundering in his ears, his stomach sick. Then he breathed out, and heard Etienne do the same. There was perhaps too much knowledge between them to attempt a lie, not that James would dishonour something so bra
ve. He only wondered how Etienne dared, and why now and not before. Perhaps René was right, and Saint-Cyrs could hold no promise.

  “Yes.” The very word was another betrayal. James felt it pulled from him, painful as only the truth could be. Etienne’s brows lifted, and then his hands made a small motion in the air before falling back to his sides. James could only sit, frozen, while Etienne pulled in another breath and dropped his head in what might have been a nod. He did not look away from the window until he spoke again.

  His smile was as chilled as the air. “You find me lovely…” Etienne repeated, his voice falling off so that James could only imagine that Etienne had left something else unsaid, something as fanciful as the hint of brightness in the other man’s dark gaze. Countless unknown abuses in the hot, secret space of his prison had not once brought such a look to his eyes, and James knew it must be a work of his mind. Etienne’s head dipped again, the barest acknowledgment before his chin lifted. “Thank you, James,” he offered, swallowing once to ease whatever had his through tight and his voice nearly too quiet to be understood, “but I am not.”

  The silence was too heavy to pretend that nothing had been said, and in another time, another carriage, Etienne would have turned to him then with a jest, mocking him for believing in anything to come out of his wicked mouth. It did not matter, none of it mattered, is what someone should have said, added something to the burden James felt at his shoulders, but Etienne’s mouth stayed closed and James could think of no words that would not cause more offense. He hurt everyone with his blundering; there was no more hiding from that, no use in pretending at all. God had placed him here; it was his task now to set it all right

  “Here,” Etienne barked after too long a pause and lifted a hand to bang on the wall of the carriage before James could do more then turn and stare at the darkened front of yet another hôtel. If they had not stopped he would have thought it empty, or that the family were mourning, curtains were drawn over every window, and the glass seemed dirty.

  “Our home in Paris. You may enter, if you truly wish it, James.” Etienne’s smile was thin as he waited, startling James into leaving the carriage first with his very act of waiting. He stood in the dirt of the street, his stomach turning as Etienne floated up the small stairs to the door of the house, uneasy to see how Etienne sought to treat the whole situation so lightly, how he moved when the effort of hiding pain must cost him. But he followed, weighing his choice, wondering if Etienne did not now wish to be rid of him, if Etienne believed that James would help him, or merely humoured his rescuer.

  Only a single candle lit the entryway, and James blinked, stopping behind Etienne as darkness blinded him. He sensed movement, and turned in time to see the liveried back of a servant disappear behind a black velvet curtain. What room lay beyond the shrouded door he could not tell, and he looked back to Etienne, wondering if one of the Saint-Cyrs had died.

  James shivered as the last gust from the closing door hit his neck and pushed him forward. If this was not a place of death, then it was not a place of life either.

  He had come to this place of his own will, he reminded himself. He had sought answers and had been led here. There was another set of doors just in front of them, closed and silent, and James could not guess how many doors he would have to open to be allowed into this place. But Etienne grasped the handle without waiting for the servant to return to do so, likely having sent the man away when James had first been too stunned to notice much of anything.

  Light crept out from behind the burnished doors and James had to blink again, focusing rapidly as he stepped into a large hall where gray curtains had been opened on the opposite wall, letting in what sunlight there was to be had.

  “Etienne, my darling!” The excited cry of a young girl was the last sound James had thought to hear upon coming to this house, and to hear it addressing Etienne Saint-Cyr made it seem all the more strange. He felt his brows rise as he looked up.

  A slim form was frozen in place at the top of a long, curling staircase that went higher than the long, rectangular windows, with one small foot still extended beyond the hem of the young lady’s skirts as though she had forgotten it. Her slipper was black, and faded, and James blinked to see it before he looked away from the glimpse of her stocking, glancing back at Etienne.

  The other man was smiling, his cheeks curved far enough to show the smile as genuine, though it was already fading, slipping away to his old, practiced smirk. He moved his hands, adjusting his shirtsleeves to cover his wrists.

  “Your sister,” James murmured, barely earning a look or a nod from Etienne. He felt a fool; Etienne had mentioned his sisters in Port Royal, and his mission to earn dowries for them. James simply had not expected to see one of them, or to find her so different from her brother.

  “You are not alone?” Etienne’s sister took another step down the stairs, pausing to pose the question to her brother. Though when James turned back to her, he found her studying him intently, her head dipped to one side. For one moment only her look was as direct as her brother’s was not, and then her expression was too artful for James to read, and she was not so different from her sibling after all.

  “Suzette.” Etienne said the name sharply, drawing a vexed noise from the girl and starting her into motion again. She slipped one pale hand from her side and draped it along the stair’s railing, smoothing down the wood of the banister as she moved. The scarf at her wrist reached all the way to the floor, and she let it trail after her with each gliding step, the red a contrast to the light yellow shade of her gown.

  Closer, James could see her hair was dark, nearly black in fact and held up by an arrangement of roses so that a few curls rested on her collar. She wore no jewels, and James did not think that such a lady needed them, though he could easily imagine her wearing earbobs of purple, or gold as the one he wore now. The girl held all of her brother’s old grace, and James knew he was smiling too as she came nearer, when he ought to have bowed respectfully.

  Something sharp poked into his side and James straightened, his eyes widening at the realization that Etienne stood next to him, holding some sort of blade, the end digging into James’ skin. He thought, distantly, that it was the one he had left behind in the act of freeing Etienne.

  His mind could not grasp the threat Etienne posed, and James half-turned, firming his lips when Etienne spoke low in his ear. “Tell her nothing.” Ferocity gave Etienne’s voice weight, and then the blade was gone, tucked away into a sleeve as the lady Suzette placed both of her white hands on her brother’s shoulders and pulled him close to kiss his cheeks.

  James put a hand to his side though the pain was dim, nothing to the throbbing that still stung the flesh of his ear. His mind instead chose to dwell on the knowledge that Etienne had been armed, and for a moment, he also recalled René in his room the night before, weak near to fainting, but still clutching at the knife hidden in his clothing. He again swallowed the sour taste on his taste.

  “You are pale.” The exclamation was loud, as bold as the red of the lady’s scarf and the way her hands fluttered over the bones of Etienne’s frame. Her fingers found each hole in his garments and though James thought Etienne went still, the lady said nothing of them. Her next words were said as she leaned in to pet over the obviously inferior coat her brother wore. “Did it not go well? He is not at home.” She spoke quickly but James still heard her, narrowing his eyes when she glanced over to him and then blinking in confusion when she offered him a winsome smile and turned to face him.

  “Our visitor is handsome. Oh, Etienne, have you brought me a husband?” Lady Suzette clapped her hands together and smiled, pausing only a moment to stick out her lower lip as her scarf fell to the floor. James stooped to pick it up but Etienne was faster, grabbing it and handing it back to his sister with a little laugh to cover his wince of pain.

  “No, my dear, he is no husband for you.” The fabric slipped through Etienne’s fingers as his sister draped it back around her s
houlders, the movement so silken James imagined he could feel the cool rush of cloth over his palm.

  Etienne’s small grin was not a pleasing sight, and James lifted his chin, wondering if the mockery he saw there was real or imagined or even directed at him. In any case, Etienne dropped his gaze so quickly that he had no time to decide and the other man added nothing else. For the moment, their bargain for silence held.

  “La, so threatening…” The hushed voice of the lady brought James back, made him realize that he was staring at the man he had chosen to follow here. It was in Etienne’s power to have them all detained, perhaps even killed or stripped of their possessions, and yet he had not killed James now, or told his sister the truth of what had happened. At least, he had not done soyet; his dealings with René had taught James to beware that, at least, and wait and see what would come next.

  Nobles had no reason to bargain with peasants, even with their lives at stake, and many would not have. Nobles had no reason to keep their promises to peasants either, and yet though Etienne had stretched their agreement on their carriage ride, he had not broken it.

  James had demanded he say nothing, and now Etienne asked the same. It was not so much to give, not nearly as much as what else he had offered. His face was warm, and James realized that he had blushed, that somehow he still had some shame, and he was grateful he had left behind the weapon lent to him. If the lady had not reminded him of his appearance, he might have been grasping at that in anger in the same manner as René.

  “He is a sailor?” Suzette continued to speak to her brother without looking in any direction but at James, her eyes so dark that it seemed to James that she could not be anyone but Etienne’s sister. Only the Saint-Cyrs seemed to have eyes so black and penetrating. “And he blushes!” she paused to sigh, almost sadly, and James felt his shoulders twitch. “But he does not speak.”