Redeemer of Shadows

by Michelle M. Pillow

  “Madame?” he questioned, curious.

  Madame de Maintenon swung around at the flustered sound of his low voice. Motioning her hand, she began to speak, only to gape in open-mouthed confusion. The statue was gone.

  “It’s nothing,” she managed weakly. She snapped her mouth shut, turning to glare at the hapless man in disdain. With a wave befitting a queen, she huffed, “Just go!”

  “Oui, madame,” he said, bowing as he closed the doors.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Hathor had tried desperately to fight the stone of her limbs. She couldn’t move, held still by the stiffness of her body. She felt cold, unable to blink. Terrified, she’d watched Servaes being hauled from the chamber. She ached to reach out to him, to hold him. He stayed brave as he spouted his words of innocence. The guards wouldn’t listen. Finally, one of his captors struck him on the back of the head. He fell limp. Then her world again began to rock and pitch slowly, as if on an ocean. Suddenly, her sight dimmed. The light of the candles swirled and faded in jagged trails of light.

  Hathor’s stomach lurched in sickness. The marble statue of her body kept her weighed down and helpless against the rocking motion. A roar grew in her ears followed by a splash. Her stone bonds were released, and in a dangerous throw she was pitched backward into a wooden wall. Her body slammed with a heavy thud before falling onto an unsteady ground. She stiffened. Her body tipped and turned on top of the creaking of wood. She waited for the rocking to stop. It only grew more insistent—unrelentingly haphazard.

  Her nose pressed into a coarse floor, constructed of unfinished wood. She drew her hand back and felt a splinter pierce her palm. She let loose a long breath, unable to see well enough to dig the offending protrusion from her skin.

  Carefully, Hathor pushed herself up. She looked around the darkness, trying but unable to see. Tears entered her eyes. Her heart pounded. She slowly pushed back and braced her hands on her knees. Creaking filled the silence. She managed to crawl along the rough wood planks, feeling along the floor with shaking fingers. She was on a ship and, from the feel of damp wood beneath her palms, she guessed she was in the bottom of it. Terrified of being left alone in the black prison, she tried to feel her way toward a wall.

  “Argh!”

  Hathor trembled, recognizing the tortured voice. The darkness was all-consuming. She listened past the creaks and groans of the wood and inched her way toward the sound of Servaes’ cries.

  She searched desperately for him. Then, with a sudden burst, a blinding light streamed in above her head. She scurried back into the shadows. The sound of the sea swept in with the cool air from the opened hatch. Seeing she was by a rough-hewn ladder leading up from the darkness, she crawled to hide herself from view. There was nowhere to go. She pressed herself into the curved side of the ship, hoping whoever intruded upon them wouldn’t see her.

  Crouching in the shadows, she held her breath as thick leather boots stepped before her face. She looked frantically for a weapon. There was nothing she could easily grab. The dirty brown of a long waistcoat soon followed the boots.

  Watching fearfully, she curled into a small ball. The man smelled of salt and fish, the splashing of waves over the side of the deck his only bath for months. Hathor prayed the man wouldn’t see her. The light fell on his bearded face, crusted and wrinkled from years on the ocean. A yellowed cravat hung untied about his neck. To her relief, his squinted eyes didn’t find her as they adjusted and blinked. He reached above him, pulling a lantern down to his side.

  The man turned his back, calling out in a language she didn’t understand. His feet walked easily over the pitching boards, not tripping as the ship lurched to one side and then the other. He held his lantern high, revealing the top of his balding head. His hair fell longer at the sides and back, hanging around his shoulders in stringy waves. In his hand he carried a sack. Hathor, knowing the man would surely leave the same way he came, looked for a better place to conceal herself.

  Seeing a barrel, she crawled uneasily on her hands and knees to duck behind it. The splinter pressed uncomfortably into her skin. She ignored the irritation the best she could. Feeling a tickling at her wrists, she glanced down, noticing that she wore the clothing of a man. A linen shirt covered her arms, lace falling over her fingers. A long waistcoat fell to her knees, the buttons brown and plain. Over her legs she felt the heavy knee-high boots of a sailor.

  Hathor had no time to dwell on the oddity of her situation. The crusty sailor again called out as she watched him from behind the barrel. His light cast away from her to the other side of the ship. Unexpectedly, she saw bare feet lying on the tipping floor. The sailor kicked the legs, screaming angrily down at the prone man. She knew who the prisoner was even without needing to see his weary face. Servaes moaned and didn’t answer.

  The sailor cursed, looking around the belly of the ship as if to see if anyone watched him. He rubbed his arms, shivering. The sailor hung his lantern on a wayward nail. Then, opening the sack he carried, he reached inside.

  Hathor narrowed her eyes, leaning forward. Her heart leaped into her throat. She waited as the intruder dug around in the sack, wondering what he was going to do to the hapless man on the floor. Her fingers searched blindly for a weapon she could swing at the sailor’s back.

  With a grunt, the grimy man withdrew his hand from the sack. Instead of the weapon she feared, he took out a gnarled piece of dried meat and stuck it in his mouth. Then, tossing the sack on the floor, he let loose a dark laugh.

  Hathor sighed in relief. Leaning back, she stiffened in alarm. A red beady gaze stared at her from the lines of a furry face. She gasped noisily and jumped back to get away from the rat. With a crash, her body slipped, and she tumbled unceremoniously to the floor.

  The sailor turned around in alarm at the noise. His eyes narrowed as he searched his waist for a dagger without finding it. Seeing her on the floor, he began spouting his foreign words at Hathor. He gestured, his arms flung wide, and he took a menacing step forward. He shook his fist to punctuate his shouted meaning.

  Hathor watched him in fear, not knowing what to do. The man reached to his waist, this time pulling a knife from behind his back. He waved and pointed the blade at her, growing more agitated when she didn’t respond.

  Then, like a call from the heavens, a shout sounded above. The man froze, cocking his head to listen. He shot her another curse before sheathing his weapon once more. Going to the ladder, he kept Hathor in the corner of his eye until he reached the top. The hatch slammed shut behind him, and she heard the distinct sound of a lock sliding into place.

  Hathor sighed in relief, panting for breath as her heart began to slow. The man had left the lantern on the peg so she could still see her surroundings. She crawled through the belly of the ship to Servaes.

  Lightly, she touched his foot. She trembled as she felt the warmth of his skin. He moaned slightly, his leg twitching as if to shoo a rat. Hathor drew back her hand. She turned to the hatch above her as she detected the sound of footfalls on the deck. After a moment, when no one came down, she continued to crawl forward. Reaching up, she grabbed the lantern from the wall.

  Coming up next to Servaes’ pale face, tears stung her uneasy gaze. He’d been beaten badly. A bloody welt had settled over his eyes, closing them with puffiness, and dark bruises marred his handsome skin. His lips were swollen beyond recognition.

  Feeling her body rock and a pitch, she braced herself against the wall of the ship. Before her eyes, the welt melted from his face to be replaced by a bump, and the bruises faded from purple to a sickish yellow-green before disappearing completely. She vaguely heard a curse behind her.

  The boat lurched, and her body blurred and flew as if days passed by in seconds. She watched as a beard grew over Servaes’ sinking features. She saw his face pale and lose the color of sunlight. Lights dimmed and grew. Impressions of people came and went like eerie streaks of light and dark. Some fled from her in horror, yet others marked their chests with
the sign of a cross and laid food at Servaes’ feet like an offering.

  Then again her body slanted. Looking down, she saw Servaes’ eyes were open. His cracked lips parted as if to speak. Tilting down to him, she heard his beautiful voice whisper, “Don’t go. Stay with me, my angel. Light the darkness for me again.”

  Hathor smiled at him, raising her fingers to his whiskered face. She put the lantern on the floor beside him. His skin was pale, his eyes dull and weak. His flesh was warm as his stubbled cheek sought the comfort of her caresses. All around them the stale air mixed with the saltiness of the sea. The ship calmed and rocked in a soothing rhythm. Whatever storm they had gone through was passing.

  “Am I dead?” he whispered, emboldened to speak by her touch. His eyelids fell heavily but didn’t close. His gaze stayed trained on her, desperate to keep her before him.

  Hathor couldn’t form a ready answer. Tears brimmed over her eyes. Her lips trembled, filling with the uneven surge of love and pain that warred in her breast. Everything about her felt real. His face felt real. Swallowing, she whispered in French, “Maybe we are both dead, Monsieur Marquis.”

  Slowly, a smile curled his chapped lips. His hand lifted from his side to touch her face. His fingers trembled weakly and fell to his chest with a sigh. Hathor took his hand in hers. It too was pale and thin. She touched the roughly callused palms, the dirty and broken nails. He was so changed from the charming gentleman who led her about on his arm at the king’s party.

  “I have dreamed of you. I thought you were a ghost of my insanity. Now you are here, holding me. The sailors think you are a spirit. They keep me alive only out of fear of you. Do not leave me, ghost angel,” Servaes whispered in a plea. “I cannot survive this if you’re not with me.”

  “I will try,” she answered softly. She cried, wanting to draw him from the obvious pain he felt. His cheeks were skeletal from starvation, his flesh cast with an unhealthy gray. Still, he was beautiful to her. His eyes made her heart leap and race. Pursing her lips, she asked, “How long have you been here, Servaes?”

  At that he began to chuckle, a wild chuckle of a man believing himself to be deranged. As though every thought he had must be spoken in an instant lest she disappear again, he said a raspy voice, “Now I know you are a dream. A noblewoman would never utter my name as you just have. Not with that look of pleasure on your face as you stare into my pitiful and broken eyes. No one would wish to be trapped in this hell with me. So I know you are not real.”

  “I am real,” she broke in. Her words only produced another smile on his lips. His eyes glimmered with a tired sparkle.

  “I knew from the first moment I saw you,” he whispered. “You were by the statue at the king’s palace. I knew you were more than those other women of court were. I wanted you then. I wanted it to be me you meant when you whispered my name with such searching, such longing. I wanted to stay with you forever.”

  “I was looking for you,” she broke in with a murmur. She could tell he didn’t believe her. How could she blame him? To him, months had passed by in the gut of a ship as they sailed endlessly over the expanse of water, heading toward an unknown destination.

  “Said just as I would have it, my angel of dreams.” Servaes smiled, content to take her however he could. He had no money and no proof of his title. Only the darkness could comfort him. The darkness and his dream of the woman above him, her face fresh and clean, and her hair pulled back as if she were a lad snuck onto a ship to rescue him. “You disappeared. I sent word to you before being shipped away. I didn’t want you to think I abandoned you.”

  “I knew you didn’t,” she said, pushing back his hair. Her hand moved down the sides of his face over his whiskered jaw. As her caress met with his neck, she paused. Beneath her fingers she felt the hot stickiness of drying blood. Gently as she could, she took his jaw and pushed his face to the side. He tried to resist, but was too weak to fight her.

  Hidden beneath whiskers were two very distinct punctures. Hathor froze, knowing exactly what they were. They were the bite marks of the vampire, Jirí.

  “Do not look at that, chéri,” Servaes murmured desperately. “It is from my other ghost. He is my tormentor, my dark shadow, always speaking of death and rebirth. He brings me moldy food, to keep me alive, and then he drains me of my energy. With him I slowly die. But with you…you are my redeemer. With you I am happy and can think of naught but your beauty. I know you aren’t real…”

  Hathor saw him fading. His eyes drooped wearily, his lids falling leadenly to hide the mournful depths of his brown gaze. She lifted his head up and moved it onto her lap. The stark darkness of his hair fell against the peachy color of her hand. Brushing the dirty locks from his face, she leaned over to place a tender kiss on his forehead. A light moan of pleasure came from his throat.

  The gentle caress revived him, and he looked up into her face. “Where did you go, petite? My man looked all over Versailles for you. He said you disappeared completely.”

  “I had to leave very suddenly,” she whispered, thinking of Madame de Maintenon’s bedchamber. She had been there only a half-hour before. “What happened to you that night? Why are you here?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same thing. I don’t know. Madame La Fontaine gave me a missive saying I was to meet the king. Instead I was delivered into the chamber of the king’s favorite mistress. From there I was arrested. In his jealousy, the king banished me from French soil. He cast me out as a prisoner onto this Dutch ship.” Servaes sighed, unable to continue, for he didn’t have the answers.

  Servaes began to fade from consciousness again, and she worried that his neck was not comfortable angled on her lap. She moved to lie beside him and lifted his head onto her arm so she could nestle next to his side, wrapping her arm about his slender waist. She pulled him to her, close, so that her body pressed firmly to his. With all his strength, he rolled on his side. He stared at her face, almost afraid to touch it.

  “I have thought of you just so. Only we’re in my favorite chateau outside Paris or in one of my many houses…” Servaes paused with a weak smile. The light returned to his eyes briefly. “I thought of you as my wife. I imagined every detail of the long life we would live. Those images have kept me sane—or perhaps they have not. Perhaps I am insane, and that is why you visit me. If it is so, I pray sanity never claims me.”

  Hathor gasped at his meaningful look. Servaes leaned forward to press his lips to hers. His kiss was gentle and warm, his cracked lips unable to move as much as he urged them. Hathor used all her strength to pull him to her mouth. She parted her lips, desperately wanting him, scared of what was happening. She tried not to breathe, ignoring his breath as it wafted into her face. She didn’t care that his body was unwashed. He was a prisoner and couldn’t help it. Besides, none of it mattered. All that mattered was him.

  The world no longer made sense. She knew what he was to become—one of the undead preying upon humans for centuries of a lonely life. She knew how much that existence would pain the man next to her—the human man with a softly spoken respect for all things. She knew his kiss couldn’t be real. Her heart broke, desperately wanting the simple chateau life he laid out.

  Within his kiss she could imagine their children, happy and playful, with their father’s ornery charm and easy ways. She saw her husband, astride a horse in the country, riding hard over fields to come to her. She felt him make love to her on the grass, in the hay of the stables. She saw him come to her in the night, in the middle of the day. She saw his understanding look when their daughter became a bride, and as he held her gently while tears fell from her aging eyes. She could see their grandchildren, growing up in a time where new inventions were coming about in a world full of promise and dreams. She saw it all, feel it as real as if they lived inside the dream.

  Servaes weakly drew away. His eyes were soft as he gazed at her. “I know it sounds foolishly absurd. But I fell in love with you that first moment. I never expected love to come so swiftly. Wo
uld you have said yes to me, chéri, had I asked you to be my wife that night by the fountain? I was going to. Would you have regretted such a life with me?”

  As Hathor looked at him, she saw he'd imagined it too. The countryside life was his gift to her, the only thing he could give her as they traveled through the waters of hell. Her heart thudded dully within her, agonized with a longing of what could never be. Tears overwhelmed her eyes. Nodding her head, she knew it to be the truth. If she had been a noblewoman of his time and they had met as they did, she would have married him.

  “Oui, my love. I would marry you if you were to ask me now, Servaes, in this boat with no hope in it, and I wouldn’t have regretted the pretty life you just gave me. My only regret is that it can never be.”

  Servaes nodded, content in her words. “Thank you, chéri. Thank you for staying with me. Without you I would have died. Mayhap someday I will find you again, if I live through this. Mayhap I can redeem you as you have me.”

  “Oui, Servaes. You will find me again,” Hathor whispered, heartbroken and lost. But you will not be the same. You will be something else—something that keeps you from me even more than the curse of this dream.

  “Stay with me, chéri,” he pleaded, his shallow breath falling against her temple. “Stay with me as I sleep.”

  “I will try.”

  She sniffed from the heartache of her tears, trying to be strong for the man she loved. Her hands stroked over his body. Her fingers twined in the locks of his dirty hair. Pulling him closer, she willed the boat not to jerk and roll. Her body was tired from her day of traveling—the strolling and laughing in the king’s garden, the brief night under the stars that was too shortly lived, and then the bedchamber of a king’s mistress. Until finally now, traveling on a ship through the long hour that stretched over time and distance.

  She forced her eyes to stay open, watching the fall of his chest as he slept. The boat rocked them in its lullaby, drifting further out to sea. Hathor knew she loved him, would gladly stay in this torturous moment forever with him, if time would only let her.