by KJ Charles
Imagine putting together a team of just ten men to assault a moated, fortified castle, and deciding their most important characteristic was to be “well-bred.” What an arse.
Michael’s spies had given us all we needed about who was coming from Strelsau, and the activity at Tarlenheim told us where they were going. Michael now sent Hentzau, accompanied by Krafstein and Lauengram, to begin the war of words by informing the false king that Michael and several of his servants lay sick of scarlet fever, an obvious lie designed to rouse his suspicions. He took the opportunity to charm the player-king, whom he had not met before—I never knew Hentzau pass up an opportunity to charm someone—and Rassendyll comments, For my part, if a man must needs be a knave, I would have him a debonair knave, and I liked Rupert Hentzau better than his long-faced, close-eyed companions. It makes your sin no worse, as I conceive, to do it à la mode and stylishly. This is perhaps the only topic on which I might agree with him.
That night Rassendyll headed out, muffled in a cloak, and took our watchers straight to an inn where he had stayed before and had made a damned nuisance of himself to the serving-girl. As it happened, she had an understanding with Johann the gamekeeper, and to Michael’s intense satisfaction, Rassendyll charged her to bring Johann to him. He planned to subvert the very man that we had primed with false information to fool him. It summed up the whole affair in a nutshell.
Meanwhile Lauengram and two men went hunting in the woods around Chateau Tarlenheim, and managed to get a shot at one of Rassendyll’s well-bred idiots who had gone for a wander alone at night. They winged him and sent him flying home with tales of murderous assassins in every shadow. That doubtless put the wind up the king’s party nicely.
I had no part in the fun, instead enduring another uncomfortable night in an airless dungeon listening to the true king giggle and whimper on his bed of straw, and was thus not in the best of moods when the others came to relieve us. I worked off the frowstiness with a long walk in the morning air and then a fierce practice bout with de Gautet which came dangerously close to becoming a real swordfight, but I was still chafing for exercise when Hentzau sauntered up.
“Should you not be in the cellar?” I said, seeing no reason why he should be so fresh and cheerful when I was anything but.
“I have dispensation. Ride with me?”
“To where?”
“Chateau Tarlenheim. I have a message to deliver to the player-king.”
“I suppose you’re happy to play messenger boy.”
“As happy as you are to play nursemaid and gaoler. Mount up, I want to ride.”
It was a lovely day for it, bright high summer yet with a mountain breeze cutting through the heat, the warm air redolent of pine forests. We set out on the hillside route that skirted Zenda town rather than ride through its streets; I had had quite enough of people.
“You’re chafing,” Hentzau remarked after we had ridden in silence for a while.
“I don’t like my accommodation.”
“Or your employment?”
“If you will have it, no. Tell me something, Hentzau. You’re a Ruritanian, born and bred. Who do you think should reign in Strelsau?”
He laughed. “He who can take the crown, of course. That is how monarchy works.”
“I said ‘should.’ It’s your country.”
“Do you care who Britain’s Prime Minister is? Do you even know?”
“Gladstone,” I said. “Or Salisbury? One of the two, probably.” They had been alternating for years; one lost track. “Anyway, we are not attempting to overthrow the British Prime Minister. Who do you think would make a good fist of ruling all this?” I gestured around me. We were riding on the high ground, atop the foothills of the mountains that ringed the country, with Zenda’s prettily crooked red-roofed sprawl below, lush grass and wild flowers under our horses’ hooves and birdsong in our ears. It was a landscape to make one think slightly less ill of poets.
Hentzau shook his head. “There’s hardly a choice. Rudolf cannot even govern himself. Michael is a poisonous spider, but he has ruled his dukedom well. He might strive to be seen as a good king. Or he might let loose his self-indulgent temper and prove himself as bad as his brother, but there we are.”
“What about the other candidates?”
“Rassendyll is in this game for himself. Anders of the populist scum is a vicious swine. And Germany is looming over the border. The Kaiser wants a military alliance, you know. Anders would like nothing better than to become a vassal state; Rassendyll would probably make an alliance with Britain instead and set himself up as Germany’s foe. Michael has the edge, for me, of the four. Why do you ask, anyway?”
“I wanted your thoughts. What about Flavia?”
“Ruritania has not developed the habit of queens. You’re asking the wrong man about all this, you know; I’m not political.”
“Why do you serve Michael, then?”
“You should know.”
“Should I?”
“How many lands have you seen, Detchard? How many adventures have you had? You live for danger.”
“I live by danger. That is quite different.”
“You love it, and you know it. I want action. Intrigue. I want . . .” He turned in the saddle, arms wide, indicating the world around us. “I want all of it. I want to live as though every day is my last; I want to fight for foolish causes and gamble everything on the turn of a card. I want never to set a guard on my speech or my thoughts. I want to take all the pleasure there is to take, and reach for more. I want to drown in bright colours and dance on the edge of clifftops. Of course I seized the chance to overthrow a king. Who would miss that opportunity?”
I reined in my horse abruptly and dismounted. “Get down.”
Hentzau leapt lithely from his pretty mare. “Any reason?”
“Yes,” I said, looping my steed’s reins over a tree branch and reached for him.
He ducked away from my hands. “Uh-uh. First—” He secured his own horse and drew me along a few steps. Not up into the concealing trees, but towards the grassy edge of the hill, where the land was open to the skies. “And second, I want to know why you don’t kiss. No; you have asked me all sorts of questions. I want to know.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because I like kissing,” he said simply. “So I want to.”
I contemplated him, curly hair dishevelled by the breeze, all shameless enjoyment. “It gives the wrong impression, and sometimes leads to expectations.”
“O-oh. I see. But is that not your partner’s fault, if they conceive unrealistic expectations?”
I tapped him on the nose. “No. If you do nothing else honestly in your life, fuck honestly. Otherwise you make intimate enemies, and that is the worst kind.”
“I bow to your wisdom,” Hentzau said. “In which spirit, and please don’t take this the wrong way, I really am not going to cultivate expectations of you, and I should be deeply disappointed if you felt any of me. I want a great deal of you, but, shall we say, not in a regulated sort of way. I like to be free.”
“Then we understand each other,” I said, and this time when I reached for him, he stepped into my arms, hands coming up to cup my face, and kissed me.
It had been a long time. I had forgotten, or made myself forget, how much of pleasure lies in kissing, the soft slide of lips, the scrape of stubbled skin against stubbled skin—not that Hentzau had much use for a razor yet. Mouths meet, tongues tangle, fingers grip and slip and slide, all of it a connection so much more intimate than fucking.
And my God, Hentzau was a joy in my arms. He kissed with utter abandon, holding nothing back, apparently entirely unrestrained by the fact we were in the open air, albeit an unfrequented path. He kissed for his enjoyment and mine, and we staggered and stumbled our way to the ground, still kissing for the sheer glory of being alive, the wonder of finding a congenial soul in the world, and the very real prospect of being dead before the weekend.
Hentzau’s
fingers found the fastenings at my waist as I was fumbling for his. I had thought, if I thought anything, to expand his education, but I found I didn’t want to cease kissing. The warm press of flesh, sun on my skin, and a tongue in my mouth was enough, each of us with a hand wrapped around both pricks, fingers entwined, rubbing up against one another like schoolboys, to a fast, effortless climax. I tipped my head back and groaned; he shouted aloud as he spent, a joyful yelp that rang off the hills.
“God, you’re unsubtle,” I said, once I had my breath back.
“Who cares for subtlety?” He kissed me again with a cheery smack. “See, is it not more fun like that?”
“Don’t presume to educate me, wretch.”
We lay there, enjoying the fresh air and birdsong, for a few minutes more, then Hentzau sighed. “I suppose we should get on.”
“I suppose so. What is your mission?”
“To double Michael’s offer. He is convinced he can buy Rassendyll off.”
A hundred thousand pounds would buy most men. The player-king’s disappearance would be without a doubt the best outcome for Michael, potentially allowing him to seize power without bloodshed; it would not at all suit Antoinette.
“I’d be sorry if you succeeded,” I said aloud.
He twisted around to look at me. “Why?”
I might have told him then. But it was Antoinette’s life at stake, and I am not in the habit of unconsidered confidences. “Oh, it would be a tedious anticlimax to events,” I said instead, and he laughed and rolled away.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We rode together until we were close to the chateau, then I left my horse and went through the grounds on foot. There was only one guard posted, easily avoided; I prowled on until I came across Rassendyll sitting in the sun in an armchair, while one of his “hand-picked fighting men” played a guitar and sang love songs, and others sprawled around him at ease. Apparently the idiot thought he was on holiday. I settled behind a tree no more than twelve feet away, revolver in hand.
A few minutes later, as arranged, Hentzau came riding up the path. That, at least, got a reaction, the men scrambling to their feet. Hentzau dismounted close to the player-king, delivered a magnificently insincere bow, and requested private speech in order to deliver a message from the Duke of Strelsau.
“Withdraw,” Rassendyll said, waving his hand at his men. “Yes, all of you. Go.”
They went. Hentzau took one of the vacated chairs. “So the king is in love?”
“Not with life, my lord,” Rassendyll said with a smirk.
“I’m sorry to hear it. If you’d prefer to die, that could be arranged.”
The smirk disappeared. “That was to say, I am not so wedded to life that I would fear to lose it.”
“Oh. Sorry. Yes, very good. Since we are alone, Rassendyll—”
The player-king drew himself up sharply, a picture of offended dignity. “I shall call one of my gentlemen to bring your horse, my lord. If you do not know how to address the king, my brother must find another messenger.”
Hentzau gave him a pained look, withdrew a handkerchief, and removed a spot of dust from his riding boot. “If you insist. Although really, between ourselves, why keep up the farce?”
“Because I’m the king until any man proves otherwise,” Rassendyll said savagely.
Hentzau inclined his head. “I bow to Your Majesty’s honourable loyalty to his family.”
Rassendyll’s face reddened to the colour of his hair. “Is your mother dead?”
“What has that to do with it? Ay, she’s dead.”
“She may thank God. The world knows you broke her heart.” He sneered, apparently considering himself to have struck a shrewd blow, and clumsy though it was, I saw Hentzau’s nostrils flare. “Well, what’s the message?”
Hentzau took a breath. “You do jump around. The duke offers you—”
“I doubt it will be enough,” Rassendyll said. “I have the crown and the princess in my hand. What has he to offer me greater than that?”
“A choice,” Hentzau said. “On one side, a bullet or a blade. Player-kings die real deaths, Your Majesty. On the other, safe conduct across the frontier and a million crowns. That’s a hundred thousand English.”
“I know what it is,” he snapped. “It’s not enough.”
“I’m not here to haggle,” Hentzau said. “In truth, sire, I’d prefer to see you dead than paid off. I’ll tell Michael the offer won’t do, shall I?”
Rassendyll’s face darkened, but he could not now go back. “Tell him it is refused, as I should refuse any sum. Nothing would be enough to justify such a dereliction of my duty.”
“Oh, was that what you meant? I’ll tell him. Can I pass on any sentiments of fraternal love?”
“How is your prisoner?” Rassendyll retorted.
“The k—?”
“Your prisoner.”
“I forgot your wishes, sire,” Hentzau said. “I forgot you were the king now. Well, he is alive. And how’s the pretty princess?”
Rassendyll snarled, and clenched a fist threateningly. Hentzau laughed in his face, and Rassendyll dropped his arm with an oath. “Go, while your skin’s whole!”
Hentzau called the groom to bring him his horse, and dismissed the fellow with a crown. He made to mount, then paused and turned back to Rassendyll, who stood nearby, and stretched out his right hand, the other resting on his belt. “As we are gentlemen, then, let us part and shake hands.”
Rassendyll sneered, put his hands pointedly behind his back, and bowed. The stupid prick. Hentzau’s hand flashed out, the dagger glittering in it. I, having seen that coming a mile off, trained my gun on the oblivious “hand-picked gentlemen” even as the blade struck Rassendyll’s conveniently placed and defenceless shoulder.
Rassendyll screamed. Hentzau wrenched the blade out, swung up onto his horse with magnificent grace, and was off at a gallop while Rassendyll’s men were still disentangling their legs and shooting in random directions. I need not have bothered giving him cover at all.
I made my way out of the chateau grounds without difficulty—the man on guard, another tactical genius, had abandoned his post to run towards the commotion—and caught up with Hentzau at our designated meeting point. We rode at a pace too fast for conversation for a little while, until it became apparent that there was no pursuit, then settled back.
“What an arse,” Hentzau said eventually.
“An idiot, too. You might as well have sent him a formal invitation to a stabbing. Remind me to teach you how to do that better.”
“Thank you, I will. But I didn’t particularly want to stab the bastard. I intended to annoy him, not to give him an excuse not to fight. I moved too enthusiastically.”
“I’ve noticed you do that,” I said, and the unusually grim look on his face softened to a grin. “I think you let him annoy you too?”
Hentzau exhaled. “Perhaps a little.”
“If you’ve a weakness he knows, others may know it. You need to arm yourself.”
“How? Do you feel nothing for your family? Could you hear your mother insulted?”
“My mother, myself, anyone. It’s merely words. And I never greatly liked my mother.”
“Well, I did mine,” Hentzau retorted hotly, and turned his head away.
I allowed him a moment. “If you can be stirred to anger, you’ll lose the fight.”
“I know that, damn you!” he snapped, then took a breath. “I know. You are quite right. But— Ah, God. It wasn’t just what he said, it was the way he presumed to think he knew. All the world presumes it. Rupert Hentzau flaunted his mistresses in his mother’s house. Drove her to her grave with a broken heart. It is a damned insult.”
I scarcely knew what to make of this. “Given the life you intend to live, you will hear a great deal worse insults, and probably deserve them all.”
“Not an insult to me. To her.”
“That she died of a broken heart?” I asked, somewhat confused.
&n
bsp; “She died of a disease of the lungs,” Hentzau said. “She was married off to my father aged seventeen, when he was forty. He was old-fashioned, which is to say a brute. He circumscribed her life to nothing more than church, nursery, and drawing room, and would not let me go to school. We were all to live in his house forever, the shutters half-closed, no light, no air, puppets in his domestic dollhouse. She told me stories, though. She bought me books and hid them; she engaged tutors with imagination; she insisted I should learn to ride and secretly paid my instructors to teach me how to use a sword. I was seventeen when my father died of an apoplexy, and I thought we would both be free at last, but she was already ailing by then. It took her three years to die, and in all that time, she begged me to live for us both. She wanted the house filled with pleasure; she asked me to introduce my mistresses, and laughed at their stories, and made me promise not to marry early—as if I had not had quite enough of the domestic hearth—and she lived for tales of the life she had never been permitted to have. Broken heart, indeed. My father was the one who crushed her, not I, except that she would not be crushed. She refused a priest when she died, you know. She told me she’d had enough of God for an eternity, and laughed till she coughed blood.”
“I see where you get your character from,” I said. “Embrace the insults, Hentzau. Let people believe they know your weakness, and they will be weaker for it. Personally, I like nothing more than an opponent who suggests I am less of a fighter because of who I fuck. That tends to make them delightfully overconfident.”
“Oh, I see that. But even so— No, you’re right. I do know. But I don’t like it, all the same.”
I didn’t tell him, You’ll get used to it. He would find that out for himself; the world would not be his playground forever. He sighed. “Thank you for listening to me. I am a fool to let a fool bother me.”
