Ideas of Sin

by Cooper, R.

  He moved his thumb again, felt the papery softness of René’s cheek, the spot clean of tears or blood, for the moment as dewy as that of an innocent child.

  René had been sentenced to that Hell by the man he had just chosen to spare. Hadchosen to spare, whispering his petition for mercy as though only James would hear, as though he thought James asleep in the heat of their bed and deaf to his soft confessions of need.

  He had not heard the answering need in each breath that James took, had fallen to his knees when there had been no order for such penitence. His arguments for a woman, for Ben, had lacked sense when all could see why James had come to this house. And his cry to the Heavens, had he imagined James deaf to that as well?

  The pistol was still weighty in his other hand, but it was not that which caused him to tremble, to shake as he first had to feel René’s eyes on him.

  His belly was knotted tightly, holding back sickness for another time, but he sank his teeth into his bottom lip, wanting the pain to ensure his silence. Sweet Jesu . His hands had closed around thin arms, pressing René’s back to the wall, hiding him from those in the room who did not have the right to see his mottled face and his wild eyes. James had felt his heart beating fast, its speed no match the thundering force in René’s slick wrists.

  He had thought it their presence in this house that had drawn the life from René’s cheeks, only spots of high colour remaining that made him seemed crazed, the uneven lengths of his hair gleaming and wet, stuck out in swirling patterns. The sweetness that had blessed him in sleep was gone from him, his body shaking as he allowed James to push him back, many weapons jutting out from beneath his coat declaring he had thought to face down the Devil in this room.

  It was not the Devil. Only a cruel man that should have glimpsed Hell today. Would have, if René had not spared him, and James frowned, knowing that nothing would clear his head now but to rest with René, someplace far away from here with a fire to give them warmth and light as they slept.

  René had cried out as he only had before in the terrors of sleep, begging for mercy.Mercy. James wished to say it aloud, to ask René where he had learned this. There was only pink awash in René’s face now, as glowing as the lips moving against his palm, shaping his name or perhaps a prayer, and James felt his mouth fall open as René stayed at his feet, uncaring of the ugly, hardening mess of blood along his arms, across the floor.

  He would need another bath. The thought did not belong here, in this moment, but James did not feel the heat steal across his face, and did not look away from René’s closed eyes, seeing the dark rings beneath the cream-white lids. He allowed the memory to linger, René trembling at the first splash of water over his head, fighting the gentlest of touches, telling James he must not look upon him.

  What visions René beheld behind his eyes now did not pass his lips and he made no move to stand. James dropped his gaze, his hand tightening against his will to see the wicked lines that had been cut across the flesh of René’s lower arms.

  He had moved the pistol to his other hand, not wishing it to touch René’s delicate skin. His mouth opened to ask, to demand what had befallen René since James had left him asleep hours before, and he bit down hard on his tongue, his eyes stinging at the small measure of pain. Such a small wound and the salty tang washed down his throat. It was nothing to volumes of life René had already spilled because of this house, nothing to the raw slashes and blood clotted like cream and the scent of sickness as strong in the air as the smoke of the candles.

  His gaze moved from René, his head bending to allow him to see the shadows that moved in the edge of his vision. His fingers tightened, dull metal growing hot at his touch, hot when René was cold in his other hand. René’s pistol was heavy and he could not lift it now to use it as was his right. It should not be René’s blood on floor now just as it should not be their sins that kept his shoulders bent.

  James breathed in, knew it from the shock of dry air in his mouth, in his chest, and sent his gaze back to their black-eyed audience. He would see them dream of the child left to no one’s care, the child still clutching his cross as though an angel would be sent to save him, abandoned to men best left dangling from a strong branch. A child that would not flinch from the sight of moaning, trussed-up, bleeding puppets; René had even known that.

  James could see the same thoughts mirrored in the shining black studying him, and he waited until the proud heads lowered to keep the light hidden. Then he slowly freed his fingers, let them loosen until the metal was almost a memory. He turned his head away, back to René who still prayed on his knees.

  He felt his body surge, his belly tightening like the morning after too much ale, shaking with the fight to be calm. He had not thought René had any blood left in him and yet here it was, gashes along his wrists and arms that he had not let heal before moving again. He could not be well. Soon his skin would be burning with another fever, another crime to lay at the feet of Saint-Cyr. It would be accounted for, even if René could not see it done.

  René would sleep through the night, if James could grant him nothing else. René’s arms no longer possessed the strength for swords, and he spoke only in strange whispers. No water was pure enough, and no wine could burn the stain away, no matter the amount they might try to pour onto the wounds.

  James shook his head at that. A deal had been made, even he had not fully understood the terms then. Their desires were plain enough now even if the coward who called himself their father had not seen them.

  He coughed, finding the taste of bile in his throat and spitting it onto the stained wreck of marble. “Get to your feet, René.” Black eyes flew open at the order, their ferocity leaving James’ stomach weak and his lips dry. He did not hide how he paused to wet his mouth with his tongue, how he lowered his head to see René’s awakening anger. It was none of their concern, even had he wished to explain himself.

  He could not ignore the pallor of René’s bared skin, red only along the ugly cuts, a trace of pink at the cheek resting against his palm. René was still trembling, with cold or with illness or both, but his eyes did not cease their glaring at James for his presumption, and for that James allowed himself to smile. It was a strange madness to account that a lover’s glance, but René would forgive it when he forgave it of few others.

  His face was warm at the thought, and James tossed a look around to observe the others, wondering if any of them were wise enough to understand exactly what had occurred in this room, if they would pray their thanks as they ought, pray until their knees were bloody and their voices gone. For a moment they were all as the saints, still as stone in their moments of delirious agony, awaiting rapture and pain, and then he was turning away from them and back to René, who would not move.

  He must move. James frowned down into the furious eyes, uncaring of how they widened, seeing only the shifting white and red of René’s complexion, the sign of spirit yet remaining, that they had not taken from him.

  “James.” When René said his name, clearly, heavy with meaning, he knew was smiling as others should not see. He would seem mad fool but he did not care. It was not for those in this house to find René’s beauty wanting. He would make them see it.

  But only that, for René had chosen mercy. James stumbled though he was standing still, the world before him tossing like sea waves until he blinked, and then the collapsing waters left him sick, salt at his lips as though he had put them to René’s cheeks.

  He took his eyes from René and tilted his head up, staring at melted candles and faded paint, the tops of stairs, hints of corridors, everything but the grey sky outside. He was trembling and weak. He wanted to fall down next to René and wait with him. He would bow his head, he would kneel until his bones ached, and still there would not be enough prayer to ask what he wished.

  “René.” He was still looking upward, shivering with cold. René was warmth, fire in his palm. He shuddered with the need to angle his head down and bare his neck to the beas
t behind him. Even the demons in Hell were God’s children, and angels performed His most bloody work, their beautiful figures the same, it seemed. They would writhe in the same agony together for this, and only God would name which as which.

  James extended his arm, and gasped at the first cool touch. Others had not needed fever to show them the obvious truth, and so he did not curl around the stabbing pain at his chest, in his shoulder. He saw his hand without a scratch to mark what he had given up, because René had chosen mercy.

  The harder choice. The choice of tears and bloodshed and how he wanted to fall to René’s side, press a kiss to his neck, pass a hand over his eyes. “You are beautiful.” His voice echoed in the space between stained marble and faded curtains. He spoke, finally, and turned from black-eyed demons or angels, from his own hand, and smiled.

  “Get to your feet, René.” He did not disguise the urgency of his request. Only a beast would find it shaming. He laid himself bare and René’s eyes, eyes with the same flash of terrible innocence, looked into him. René would not like this, would not wish this to be seen in this place, but René did not blink, did not glance away to sneer at those watching. “Please, René.”

  He took the hand he had freed and felt it light as he offered it to René’s kneeling figure. “I do not need you to order me to my feet.” All the strength of his ship behind him, René spoke as if sails and smoke were at his back, his blades in his hands. He pulled his hands slowly from the floor, wrapped slender, fragile fingers around James’ wrists, and held tight.

  He closed his eyes and tried for strength, his bared forearms shaking, turning red along seams not yet healed, and when they beaded with blood, James fell forward, letting his arms fold around the precious weight, already too light. René’s breath was at his ear, and the slow rhythm stirred his hair, tickled his neck, and he stroked his hands down the stiff, wrinkled cloth of René’s coat, his coat.

  As he had taken René’s coat, something that René had perhaps recognized when he had chosen this one. His, an accident of fate, but he thought now that René left little to fate, or that perhaps there was no such thing. Except for this moment, René’s heart pounding in the chest pressed tightly against him, René’s hands coming up around his neck as James pulled him to feet. This was a gift that René had never thought to ask for. He thought it wondrous, that René who was all these things would allow James to hold him, to bring him to his feet.

  René swayed in his arms, breathing hard as he leaned against James. But he kept his feet, and it was James who shivered with loss when René slid his arms down, leaving only one hand at James’ chest, feather-light.

  Too much was in his eyes as he stared down at René, but if his soul was naked, René seemed to find the sight pleasing, his ferocity gone for the moment as he lifted one hand and pushed at the glasses on James’ nose, pinching them into place. He winced at the slight pain before James did, and James did not move away until René had seen to his spectacles and then dropped his hand.

  “ This is what you have brought to my house?” That voice was perhaps the sole thing on God’s earth that would have taken his eyes from René in that moment. It was not an honour that should have been given, but James brought his head around to stare at the man responsible.

  He did not know what René saw when he looked upon the plump, purple-faced figure, if he was haunted by the blackness of the eyes in the lined, dissipated face, or if he saw only the full, sneering lips. But he knew René kept no mirrors in his cabin and shuddered away from the smoothest waters.

  This face, this man, shaking with disgust and the same fear that had gripped him with a pistol aimed at his face, was ugly, as ugly as the twisted portraits of betrayers that gilded church doors in the New World and the Old. Betrayer, traitor, false lying beast, unrepentant sinner, in this man there was all of that. But it was his diseased, traitorous nature that had earned him damnation and he thought to sneer at them. Even pirates knew the cost of betrayal. Even bastards knew it, and the legitimate seed waiting on James to save them.

  Etienne still held the man in awe it seemed, to beg for him much as René had, trembling and crying to behold him coming down the stairs. They had chosen mercy and it made them beautiful in James eyes even if he felt his own soul empty. They were nothing like this man, this fattening, frail figure of a man standing on stairs to ensure his head would not sit below any other.

  It was blood only between them, an old burden René shared, but René had willingly drained his, until there should be no one to doubt his innocence.

  James narrowed his eyes, tightening his hold when René seemed to step back. But René did not move far, and lifted his chin. James thought his eyes were wide. “Disgrace and dishonour heaped upon my head after your failure in the Indies. Did you think to please me with this?” René’s father’s voice had the ringing tones of a messenger, each word as clean as a plucked, humming string. It was a voice to drown in, that reached out for his heart and stomach, and James nearly shuddered to hear the echo of the sons in it.

  Mayhap this was why they had pleaded for him; they could not deny that he had made them, what he had made them. “You are fortunate to be alive. You should thank your children.” James spoke without lowering his head, felt René’s small shiver travel to cross his heart.

  Saint-Cyr’s dark eyes barely flicked to him before he directed his gaze back to Etienne, waiting on a response that Etienne did not seem ready to give him. It was strange indeed, that Etienne did not feel the need to obey, and James felt himself smiling, his lips curving up like the end of a pirate’s short blade.

  There had been days to wonder at this change in himself, to marvel that he sought vengeance, and would sleep easy knowing it done, that he would die with bloodied hands. There were numbers of lives ruined and wrecked by Saint-Cyr, by men like him, arrogant, hot-blooded cowards who thought themselves noble. But even Lords saw their judgment come eventually, too proud to bend in time to save themselves the blade. Until someone forced them to.

  He did not have René’s pistol, but he still smiled. “You are a fool. I would have watched you die. It was René who spared you.” Those dark eyes so like René’s swung back to him and stayed there, and for the first moment James felt that Saint-Cyr had truly seen him. He licked his lips; his heart pounding to feel the wrath in the gleaming black eyes aimed at him. For a moment he was still, held to the spot by that gaze, but he felt no flames at his feet, no fire set to strike him down. He did not send his gaze down as he would have, should have, and he did not blink.

  The simple black of his eyes could never frighten a man who had beheld René Villon in all his fury, and James lifted his chin. Behind the anger was a fear he would never have seen a year ago, and he have been dizzy from the quick turns in his path, instead he was steady and rooted. “Be grateful.”

  Saint-Cyr would not know the meaning of the word, but James felt his warning warm against his chest. He saw clearly because of René, and watched the flush of colour in Saint-Cyr’s wasted complexion spread from his cheeks up to his forehead, reaching the roots of his graying hair.

  The man did not wear the layers of paint as his son Etienne did, should have, his face already red with drink. He waved a spotted hand, the gesture not as graceful as it might have been. “I will see you both dead.” In all James’ time in this house, Saint-Cyr had not moved from the foot of the stairs. He had not even the courage to cross the room. He was the disgrace, the dishonour. There was no trace of the lordly in him.

  He wished to move suddenly, to leave René on his own feet and shorten the distance between himself and this man, to crush this wretched man who thought himself a king on earth and in Heaven when the jesters of old had possessed more dignity. Of all creatures granted mercy, he did not deserve it. His hands were likely not stained with blood, for he would never have committed the act of murder itself, but there was nothing of love in him that he had shown, no feeling which might lead to redemption.

  He had once been handsom
e, and his eyes were black, but they did not burn. Not even Hellfire would warm them. Yet he would control all who walked here; he thought them pawns when in truth he did not realize what René had always known.

  “I did not save him,” René spoke lowly, but his voice was clear. His dark brows twitched upward, as though he found it startling, or perhaps merely irritating, that James still did not understand. James shook his head, sending a length of hair into his face. It curled under his chin and he felt René’s eyes go to it, wide as a child’s. He frowned a moment later, staring around the room with a displeasure that none would miss.

  James felt his cheeks grow warm, his mind as foggy as London streets. “Do you think I will allow this insult to go unpunished?” Like Carter, there was a voice intruding on his thoughts, thrusting its way between them, between that dark gaze that tried to tell him so much, much that even René did not seem aware of.

  It was René who lifted his head first, yet his mouth was not open when someone spoke, smooth and rich with something like calm. Etienne remained out of James’ vision, but it was evident that none of this madness had escaped him.

  “I do not think you have much say, Father.” Etienne’s words held a lilt at the end, the faint hint of surprise, though he kept his tone obsequious. But James did not imagine he was bending, could not even imagine the sight even knowing the truth as he did.

  That pretty face turned quickly from James when James sought to catch his eye. “Perhaps you should hide with the other women behind the door.” The insult was tossed out with ease and quickly as a snake might move and with as little thought. James felt his smile slip, and he turned his head at least, seeking out Etienne and finding him a few steps from them, the door far behind him. Only one sister remained behind the wood, the other frozen in the act of reaching for her brother.

  René’s fingers curled into his coat, his grip strong and feverish. His limbs were trembling. James looked back to him but René’s eyes were not on him. “With the right persuasion we might get you to lift your skirts as well, like this one.” To complete this, Saint-Cyr lifted a finger, just one, as though he would touch René if René had been any nearer to him. René did not move, leaving James to be the one wishing to pull them both away.