Aleksey's Kingdom

by John Wiltshire

  The boy, however, refused to have me treat his leg further. He didn’t cry or scream. He informed me in a cold, flat little voice that I was not to touch him again. He even added that he did not like my kind of touching. I didn’t really care one way or the other, but I did murmur that he was clearly wise beyond his years, for now he would always have a good living—as the crippled freak in the marketplace begging for coins… that his one leg would always be half the length of his other, and he would waddle around with his head jiggling… that boys would make him their sport, and wasn’t it good, therefore, that he understood such cruelty so well and that he would not mind this treatment for the rest of his life.

  Have I mentioned I am not a good man?

  He relented. I did what needed to be done. I broke some boards off the cart and fixed these securely either side of the small limb, bound them around and around with strips of cloth (I used the burnt and bloodied sleeve of my shirt, which only added to the irony of the whole situation). The child did not look down once at his leg, but kept his empty eyes fastened upon my face. By the time I had finished, the improvised splint was possibly heavier than the child. I withdrew from the cart and turned to the mother, who had been hovering, silent but watchful, as I had worked. “He must not walk on it for at least a week and then only with his weight taken off with crutches.”

  ALEKSEY, AS I said, is a very good man, but even he could not help confiding wryly as we rode away from the cart, which was now the boy’s enforced bed, “If wishes were horses… ah, look, horses….”

  I chuckled. “Do not say that in company. Witchcraft is almost worse than papistry. Although I suspect there were twelve adults wishing for just the same thing.”

  He was silent for a moment, then ventured cautiously, “Is it not a very odd coincidence that he put his foot into a hole? We could not give the soldiers a Christian burial in the ground… in a hole… yet almost immediately a hole opened up and—it is very rude to laugh like that! You can scoff all you like, but they are barely cold, and yet it appears they have taken their revenge on—”

  “They have not taken very effective revenge, then.”

  “I think that snapping the boy’s leg was quite….” He trailed off, studying my smug expression, and then exclaimed, clearly torn between horror and awe, “You did not! Nikolai!”

  I could not help a grin as I shrugged. “I said he needed to rest his leg for a week… that it needed to be immobilized—it did, but just not for his benefit.” I glanced over. “He did have a very small sprain, so something had to be done!” He was trying not to laugh too; I could tell.

  THE FIRST flakes of snow began to fall that afternoon. We were making good time, and I did not fear it would settle much in the forest and impede our progress. God forbid I had to remain on this journey one day longer than necessary. I kept casting glances back at the cart, wondering if it was cold lying there immobile all day.

  I hoped it was.

  I was about to suggest to Aleksey that we go hunting to celebrate, when I sensed we were being watched. The feeling stayed with me. Casually, I told Aleksey to stay on the riverbank and then eased Xavier off into the darker forest. I had not gone far when a voice appeared to speak out of a large tree. “Bonjour, mon ami.” A figure dropped lightly to the ground, startling Xavier, who reared in alarm. I backed him away and calmed him, then slid off. After a moment the figure came forward, and we embraced warmly.

  “Etienne. I did not expect to see you here.”

  Etienne’s real name was Onekwenhtara Okwaho, but he preferred to call himself Etienne—the name he had been given in the mission. Etienne and I had enjoyed uncannily similar experiences of life in many ways—but in opposite directions. He had been born into the Mik’mac tribe but raised in a papist mission across the border by Jesuits. Upon becoming a man, he had traveled widely both to Europe and around the new colonies. He could read and write not only English and French but also Latin and Greek. He had returned to the New World and to his tribe a few years previous and was now to all intents and purposes a savage heathen once again. Thus his journey had been from savage to civilized man to savage. I had been civilized, savage, and was now civilized once more. I think we both knew only too well, therefore, that these ways of thinking were utterly ridiculous, and that savagery lay in the heart of all men, and civilization was merely a trick of the light: blink and it was gone.

  So, this savage, beautiful man, dressed in his buckskin and fur with his painted face and long braids could argue me into a cocked hat in four languages and had seen a great deal more of the world than I. For all that, he seemed to enjoy my company, and had it not been for Aleksey and the unique pull he had upon me, I would have spent a great deal more time with Etienne than I did. I might well be wearing face paint and braiding my hair too.

  Etienne’s horses were tethered farther away in the trees, and we walked together to retrieve them. I don’t know if Xavier recognized the yearling in the small herd as his son, but I did. I was delighted to see this beautiful young horse once more, and Etienne and I chatted quite happily for some time as we rode side by side a little way off the track and out of sight of the rest of my companions.

  Etienne was naturally very curious about my being there with such a group, but being the man he was, with his Jesuit and native reserve rendering him subtle and patient, he did not ask outright or show any outward sign of his interest. He merely commented on the snow. I took this to mean that he was surprised I was traveling in such weather. Living as we did in the raw, as it were, in the great forests of the New World, there was always much to do this time of year to prepare for the winter ahead, and thus his surprise that I was not back at the cabin doing just that. I nodded at his wisdom but did not alleviate his curiosity, commenting in return that it had been fine for some days previous and that traveling was easy in such favorable conditions.

  Thwarted, he rejoined that the season was not the only factor in determining the ease of travel and that many things that had not been foreseen could hinder a journey. I frowned and thought about this for a while, then asked outright, which was considered rude, I knew, “What have you seen?”

  He dropped his inscrutable act and chuckled. “You’re no fun, Nikolai. I have all day with nothing to do and was looking forward to spinning you along for many hours.”

  “Unfortunately I do not have such luxury, friend. Enlighten me.”

  “You first.”

  I grunted and gave him a very brief summary of my reasons for being in the woods and our proposed destination. He listened carefully, weighing my words, then said simply, “I advise you all to turn around now.”

  “Because…?”

  He sighed. “There has—we are being followed.”

  I laid a hand on his arm. “I know. It is only… one of my companions.”

  We slowed, and as we waited, I pondered this rapidly approaching meeting. Aleksey and Etienne had never met. For one reason or another, I kept my life with the Mik’mac very separate from that with Aleksey. Just as, I suppose, he kept his activities in the colony separate from me—although, to be fair to him, he had invited me many times to join him on his visits, whereas I had never once extended that courtesy to him. But then I was the one who could live between the two ways of being. He was not.

  He rode out of the softly falling snow and reined in Boudica. I could not help the stab of intense pleasure seeing him gave me. There had been a time, and not too long ago, when he had not been mine and seeing him thus would have sent my spirits plummeting into spirals of hopeless despair, both for being a man who thought such things about another man and because it seemed I would never do the very things I had been thinking of with this man. We had been all confusion, all heartache and repressed desire. Now we understood each other very well. I knew him so well that I could not foresee this meeting going happily at all.

  I swiftly made introductions. I could see his expression, his surprise. Of course, I had spoken of Etienne. Perhaps he had pictured a Lati
n scholar… a saintly Jesuit… a man of the Bible, studying his Greek long into the night with weak, rheumy eyes. Perhaps I had given that impression… inadvertently, of course. Upon reflection, I do not believe I had mentioned the chiseled cheekbones natural to Etienne’s race. I don’t think I’d told Aleksey that Etienne was six feet of lean brown skin and muscle without imperfection. I had twisted a tale of dusty priest’s robes, and not skin in softest buckskin and feathers. This was bad. I had lied about Etienne just as Aleksey had misrepresented me.

  What was slightly worse, however, was that I had also given the impression to Etienne that Aleksey was… well… somewhat older than he clearly was. I think I might have mentioned he had once been thought dead, only to have been unexpectedly revived. Etienne had then naturally assumed he had been very old—near death. I had not corrected this impression, nor disabused him of the idea that I was this old king’s doctor, and thus when he approved of my caring for this elderly, deposed monarch, I had almost been able to picture this act of charity in my mind.

  I wrinkled my nose and waited for the explosion.

  Etienne nodded pleasantly at Aleksey, a small grin repressed as he walked his horse closer. “I hope this cold is not affecting your joints, Your Majesty.”

  Aleksey’s brows rose. I was very glad, for once, for his natural politeness, because he could not help then saying, although with a puzzled tone, “No, I thank you, I am quite well.”

  “Ah, good. And your bowels? I hear they have been the very devil for some years.”

  “Er… I’m sorry, you are the priest—Etienne Membertou?”

  “I never took Holy Orders, I am sorry to say. Poverty I embrace, but chastity held no appeal whatsoever.” My friend was being disingenuous here. I knew the real reasons he had not taken Holy Orders, and they had little to do with chastity—his, anyway. He had been very unfortunate with the mission he had been placed in as a child and had seen very ungodly behavior from some of the priests. Indeed, upon the scandal reaching the ears of the Holy Father in Rome, the school and the mission had been closed and all the priests recalled. By that time, however, many had wives and children in the local tribes, and they had not heeded their summons. They had just disappeared….

  “So… Aleksey….”

  Etienne stared openly at Aleksey for a moment more and then chuckled. “Ah, je vois. You are the tether. All is made clear to me at last.”

  Aleksey held his gaze. “Tether? How interesting. Pray elucidate.”

  This was getting worse by the minute.

  Then Etienne smiled a broad, irresistible smile (well, I always found them irresistible; I’m not sure this one was having the same effect upon Aleksey) and gestured to himself: his clothes, his hair, his face. “Even God and his blessed Son could not keep me in the Old World. I always wondered what held Kinap Kenap tethered so. Now I know: the bonds of love.”

  Aleksey glanced at me for a moment. I schooled my expression to one of careless indifference to his opinion, but I was fractionally too late, and he saw the truth of my thoughts. He smiled very privately and nudged Boudica toward me. I did not want him to presume upon our relationship and say something I would not want Etienne to hear, so interjected quickly, “Etienne has some information relevant to our journey.”

  Aleksey made a polite gesture for Etienne to come between us as we slowly walked the horses forward. I had a feeling I would be seeing some other, less friendly gestures later.

  “I was about to tell my friend that he should turn back from this journey, and I now advise you both to consider this.”

  “Why, sir? What do you know?”

  “I know nothing, mon petit roi, but the trees whisper their secrets to those who will listen.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake….” Aleksey was about to wheel his horse away when Etienne caught the bridle.

  “I have heard screaming in the night—a man devoid of all reason.” He crossed himself, and Aleksey copied this old, reassuring gesture without thinking. They actually had a lot in common, when I thought about it—besides their beauty. Both were unusually well educated for their time, both had traveled beyond one world, and both clearly enjoyed the telling and hearing of stories, although I doubt either would admit that this was what their faces betrayed now.

  “Where have you heard this? At the abandoned colony? Have you actually been there and investigated?”

  I chuckled privately at the thought of this for some reason.

  “Ah, no. I cannot go to that place. The… water… you understand?” Aleksey clearly did not, and Etienne added confidentially, “The falls are not for everyone, mon petit. I need to stay on this side of the world of dreams.”

  “Huh?”

  I chuckled again and foresaw this conversation taking us longer than in truth we had. “Etienne, where did you hear the man, and what did he say? Speak plain, for we must return to our companions.”

  “I heard him last night and the night before that, so he appears to be traveling slowly on foot. He is keeping to the darkness of the night. I did not approach him, but I listened for some time. He is quite mad, mon ami, and raving of a beast that came from the falls and devoured them. He said the devil walks among us.”

  I heard Aleksey’s sharp intake of breath. “We must find this man and question him ourselves. Nikolai?”

  I nodded. I was thinking about this beast and wondering if he liked children.

  Chapter Eight

  ETIENNE LEFT us to pursue his own journey.

  We rejoined the trail ahead of our companions.

  After a mile or so of silence, I coughed lightly. “Do you think we should tell Major Parkinson and the others of this man?”

  “I do not know. I am not thinking about that yet. I am still thinking of something else.”

  “Oh.”

  I had about another mile of peace before I got hit with a broadside. “All this time you’ve made me feel guilty for having perhaps given the impression that you were just an old doctor and made me swear things to you and apologize and… well, do other things to show how sorry I am… and all this time it should have been you who—”

  “Etienne is just a fr—”

  “If that is true, then why did you tell me he was an old Jesuit?” He was exaggerating slightly here, you understand. If I had said this, it was by implication only.

  I didn’t like being put on the back foot, so rejoined, “You did not tell me about the Christmas ball or playing pulu. Why did you not invite me to come and play? Hey, Aleksey? Are you bored with me and prefer your pretty young soldiers to play with?”

  “You would not play such a childish game if I did invite you!” He was right, I would not, but I had now successfully diverted him from his accusations about Etienne. “And you are so stupid! I would have danced with young women at the ball—as you would have been required to! We cannot dance with each other, can we?”

  “Perhaps we could initiate dancing lessons in Cockston.”

  “No! I am not going to be distracted by your ridiculous humor. Why did you lie about Etienne? He is… he is…. He is not old, and he is… not the sort of person I would want you to associate with.”

  “What? Because he is so beautiful?”

  “Oh, you are so stupid. He has other temptations for you besides his beauty.”

  I was silent for a while. “You are jealous?”

  “No! Of course not! Yes! What did you think? Are you really such a simpleton? Oh, Nikolai, every time I return to our cabin I wonder, just for a moment, if I will find you there—if you have not finally decided that being tethered to me is too restrictive for you and that you have flown back to your own people.”

  I stopped Boudica with a hand upon her rein, but I did not want the others to catch us up, so then immediately walked on, but keeping Aleksey’s horse close. In all my fear of losing him—after all, who can keep sunlight and air, these necessities of life, entirely to himself?—it had not occurred to me that he might feel the same. That he feared losing me. Did
he not understand that I only existed now through him? Clearly he did not. But then had I not been at some pains to hide this dependence from him for fear that he found weakness in such need?

  He nodded sadly as if I’d articulated these thoughts and added, “If I do tether you, and I cannot say I particularly like that term, then I am very well aware what binds you—and it is not my company, is it, Niko? Sometimes, worse than fearing you will not be there when I return, I fear that on my journey home I will be suddenly struck down by some disfiguring disease, or become burnt upon my face, which is more likely, obviously, as people do not suddenly… anyway, that is what I think as I am riding: what will he say now? Will he gaze upon my ruined features and find anything he wants now? And then I answer myself: no, of course he—”

  “So you babble just as much to yourself in imaginary conversations as you do to me in real ones?”

  He smiled sadly. “You do not deny what I say, though, babble or not.”

  I pursed my lips. “Talking is not my way, Aleksey. You know this. You knew this when we met.”

  “You murmur endearments to Xavier all the time, telling him what a fine horse he is and how brave and beautiful. To me you once said that if I wanted to hear an endearment I should learn to bend over faster.”

  “Well, there you go. What more proof of my devotion do you need?”

  “I sometimes think that is our problem. We went from you being angry and annoyed with me all the time to….” The color rose upon his cold-whitened cheeks, and he did not complete his thought. I did it for him.

  “You think we fucked too soon? I remember it as an agonizingly long drawn-out wait.”

  He bit his lip and played with Boudica’s mane. “You have an uncanny knack, Nikolai, of getting to the heart of the matter sometimes.”

  “Thank you.”

  “That was not a compliment.”