by Mark Anthony
“The fever burns hotter in him than ever,” said the Scottish voice. “It must break soon, or it will burn him to death.”
“It will break,” the deep voice said.
I felt something cool touch my brow. A peace came over me, and I smiled as at last the water pulled me down.
When I woke, it was quite to my surprise.
By the light streaming in through the window, it was late morning. I propped myself up and found I was naked beneath clean white sheets in a large bed. The chamber around me was large as well, with a fireplace, a pair of chairs, and three tall windows, one of which stood open to let in a sweet breath of spring air. Beyond gauze curtains I saw green hills rolling away to a misty horizon. I stared, for I had not been beyond the walls of the city in all my fourteen years, and I had never seen a sight so beautiful.
I was still staring when the door opened and a man stepped through. I recognized him at once by his servant’s coat and his gray hair, which was pulled into a knot at the nape of his neck. His nose was hooked like a hawk’s, and his wrinkled skin was a deep olive color I had never seen before. He regarded me with black eyes and nodded.
“The doctor said you would likely wake today.” The servant, Pietro, seemed more to sing than talk, for all words were musical and trilling upon his tongue. “The master will wish to speak with you, but first we must see to your appearance.”
I felt strong and ready to talk to the master at once. I started to tell Pietro this, but as I slipped from the bed I found I was anything but strong. My limbs shook with an uncontrollable spasm, and I would have fallen but for the older man’s tight grip.
Such was my state that I felt no shame at my nakedness as Pietro bathed me before the fire in a wooden tub and dressed me as if I were an infant. He dusted my shoulders and turned me to face a mirror. The figure of a young nobleman gazed back. His coat and breeches were a soft dove gray trimmed with silver, and his shirt was as crisp as snow. A dark ribbon held back long gold hair from a face that was pale and delicately wrought. His eyes glittered like twin emeralds. The only thing that spoiled the image was the bruise that marred his left cheek.
Pietro nodded. “I believe the master will approve. You look a fine young lord, sir.”
I ran my fingers over the cool silver buttons. “Tell me, Pietro, who is he? The master.”
“A kind man,” the servant said. “Though a private one. He shall tell you in good time, I believe.”
“But what is his name?” I said, turning from the mirror. “I must know what I am to call him.”
“His name is Albrecht. He is lord of this manor, and so you may address him as Master.”
“But what does he want with me?”
“Your fingernails need paring,” Pietro said, clucking his tongue, and went to fetch a knife.
To my great disappointment, I did not see the master that day.
“He has been called to Edinburgh on sudden business,” Pietro informed me as I ate breakfast in the manor’s kitchen. It was a great, rambling stone room with fireplaces as large as the niche in the tunnels where I had slept with my mother as a child. Pietro waited on me himself, and I might have found that unnerving save I was ravenous, and my thoughts were wholly occupied by the dishes prepared by the kitchen staff that Pietro set before me.
In all my life, I had never eaten such marvelous food. There was crusty bread and butter, eggs and fat sausages fried crisp, and dried fruits drowned in the thickest cream. I ate until my belly visibly protruded from my thin body.
After that I thought no more of the master, but only of sleep. Docile as a lamb I let Pietro lead me back to my room, remove my fine new clothes, and lay the bedcovers over me.
When I woke it was evening, and the doctor was there, a corpulent, red-cheeked man with a jovial air about him. He examined me, used a silver knife to let a small amount of blood from my arm, and pronounced me firmly on the mend, much to his amazement.
“Favored by God, this lad is,” he said to Pietro as he gathered his things. “The Lord must have some purpose on this Earth for him.”
At his words I shivered, but perhaps it was only some last remnant of the chill that had afflicted me.
“Master Albrecht thanks you for your service,” Pietro said, then saw the doctor to the door. When the man was gone, Pietro brought me a cup of water.
“Does God really have a purpose for me, Pietro?” I touched my bandaged arm. It hurt where the doctor had cut me.
“Such things are beyond me, Master James.”
My gaze went to the window and the deepening twilight outside. “He has a purpose for me. Doesn’t he?”
“Go to sleep,” Pietro said, and I did.
When I woke again, the sky was still gray outside my window, but I knew that many hours had passed, and that it was no longer dusk. Rather, dawn grew near. I heard a faint ringing noise, and I thought perhaps it was the sound of bells. Then I knew it for what it was: the music of a horse’s bridle jingling.
I leaped from the bed, feeling shockingly strong for the food and rest, and ran to the window. My chamber looked over the manor’s courtyard, and below I saw a figure wrapped in a cloak—Pietro, by his stoop —shuffle forward as another, clad all in black, rode into the courtyard on a massive stallion. He swung down from the horse in an easy motion and handed the reins to Pietro. The rider started across the courtyard, then paused and looked up. Two sparks of amber flashed, their gleam directed at the window through which I peered. I stumbled back from the sill. Then I moved to the wardrobe and—fingers fumbling with the unfamiliar buttons and clasps—donned my new clothes.
By the time Pietro entered my chamber, I was ready. He led me downstairs to a room carpeted with Oriental rugs and walled with books, bound in leather and writ upon their spines in gold ink. A fire roared in the fireplace, making the room warm. Objects decorated the mantelpiece: porcelain figurines, a golden mask, and metallic devices that seemed to have scientific purposes I could not fathom. Fascinating as these items were, I gave them barely a glance.
He sat in a chair by the fire, and his hat and cloak were gone, so for the first time I truly got a look at him. Even sitting back in his chair he was tall, his long legs stretched out toward the fire, one large hand resting upon his thigh. He was still clad in riding attire—a form-fitting coat, breeches, and boots all in black— and as I drew near him I caught the rich scents of leather and horses. His dark hair was held back by a ribbon, and the firelight played across a bearded face that was too strong and sharply hewn to be handsome, but which was nonetheless striking.
As I approached, he turned his eyes—gold as old coins— upon me. I froze, and it was then I noticed there was something in one of his hands. It was a cloth of silver.
“I believe this is yours, James,” he said, holding out the cloth.
I hesitated, then stepped forward and took the cloth from him. Relief flooded through me at its cool touch. I had feared that, in my fever, I had left it behind in the crib.
“Pietro found it tucked inside your shirt when we brought you here three nights ago. I fear we had to burn your other clothes. But not this.” His amber eyes locked on me. “It was without stain or rent.”
“My mother gave it to me.”
He nodded, then turned his gaze to the fire, as if this were all he had required of me. I stood silently, until I could bear it no longer.
“Why have your brought me here, Master?” I blurted out.
“Can you read?” He did not take his gaze from the fire.
I frowned, puzzled by this question. “A little. My mother taught me some words when I was very young.”
“Good. Then you shall read, James. You shall begin on the morrow. Pietro will help you.”
There was so much more I wished to ask him, but he seemed lost in thought, staring at the fire, then Pietro was there. Gently but firmly he led me from the library. He took me to the kitchen for supper, and eating temporarily quelled my curiosity, but it flared again as soon as Pietro guided me back to
my chamber.
“Why does he want me to read, Pietro?” I asked as he helped me off with my coat.
“In this modern time, all fine young lords are expected to be well-read,” the gray-haired servant said.
However, that only raised new questions—I was no young lord—and after Pietro left, as I lay in the bed, I was certain there was something more to the master’s command. There had to be.
“If he wishes me to read,” I said aloud to the darkness, “then I shall read every book in the library.”
That was easier said than done. My mother’s teachings did not carry me so far as I had thought they would. I knew my letters, and while I could read simple sentences, the books in the manor’s library were filled with long and arcane words that were beyond my ability to pronounce, let alone comprehend. What was more, I could not write at all, not even my own name.
Pietro became my teacher. In the mornings, we sat in the drawing room off the manor’s vast main hall, or on fine days outside at a stone table in the garden. We drank tea, brought to us by one of the other household servants. I had never had tea before, and I liked it so much I soon forgot my cravings for whiskey.
My reading began with an English translation of Virgil, a poet who lived in the great city of Rome a long time ago. Pietro admired him, being from Italy himself, as he informed me.
“What of the master?” I asked. “Is he also from Italy?”
“Let us begin at the beginning,” Pietro said, and opened the book.
It was slow going at first, but Pietro was a patient teacher, and I soon found myself drawn in by the tale of the hero Aeneas, and how he fought bravely at Troy, then fled after King Hector told him to found a new city that would later become Rome. I was fascinated by how the ghost of Aeneas’s wife appeared to him, and I liked especially the section in which Aeneas went to Africa and fell in love with Queen Dido, only to abandon her when the gods reminded him of his duty to found Rome. After that, Dido threw herself upon a funeral pyre, which I found horrible and compelling.
I practiced writing, and though clumsy at first, I improved so rapidly that Pietro declared I was gifted by God. I soon took to drawing as well, and playing music on a harpsichord, and I excelled at both, for my fingers were long and dexterous, and if I imagined something in my mind it seemed no effort to make my hands bring it into being.
I saw the master regularly, if not often. Usually several days would pass, and I would see him little if at all about the manor. Then, on the third or fourth evening since I had last spoken with him, he would call me to his library and ask what I had learned since our last meeting.
“I learned it is better to die than lose what one loves most,” I said one evening. This was while I was in the midst of reading The Aeneid.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “And what taught you that?”
“Queen Dido,” I said excitedly, for I was obsessed with her story and liked nothing better than to speak of it. “The warrior Aeneas left her, called away by the gods, and rather than go on without him she threw herself on a fire and stabbed herself with a knife while her people watched. There was a great amount of blood, then she burned up.” I never spared the gory details, and indeed tended to embellish them in the retelling.
His golden eyes were thoughtful. “I see. And do you not think Queen Dido was foolish in her actions? Might she not have done good to live on and continue to lead her people?”
I chewed my lip, thinking of how to answer that. His words seemed wise. Why shouldn’t Dido have gone on? She was a queen. “It just seemed right what she did,” I said finally, unsure how else to explain it. “It was sadder that way. And more beautiful.”
To my astonishment, he laughed—a deep, ringing sound. “Continue with your studies, James,” he said, and our meeting was ended.
As spring passed into summer, I grew determined to learn where the master went and what he did in the days between our meetings. Most often he went to Edinburgh, I knew, always late in the day and returning the next morning. From what scant crumbs Pietro dropped, I learned it was business that took the master to the city—though what sort of business it might be, my young mind could not guess.
At other times he took his horse and rode out across the lands of his manor, and we would not see him all the rest of the day, no matter if the weather was fair or foul. Then, past midnight, I would wake to the clatter of hooves in the courtyard, and I would look out my window to see Pietro limp forward and take the reins of his horse. He would stride into the manor, black cape fluttering, and sometimes it seemed to me he held something in his arms. One time he glanced up, his golden eyes fixed on the window through which I peered, and I quickly jumped back into bed, my heart pounding.
On the days he did not leave the manor, the master most often remained locked in his library. Usually he was alone, though some days horsemen arrived, coats spattered with mud, bearing papers sealed with wax, and Pietro would rush them into the library. Soon after they would depart with new papers, imprinted with the master’s own seal. What was written upon those papers, I didn’t know, but I would have given anything to try out my reading skills upon them.
It was Midsummer’s Day—when the simple folk of village and croft venture out onto the hills, to the old standing stones, and leave offerings of the season’s first fruit to forgotten gods— when the visitors came to Madstone Hall. They arrived just as the sun touched the western horizon, in a glossy black carriage drawn by fine horses. Three figures climbed from the carriage, all wreathed and hooded in rich black. One was slighter than the others, and wore a veil rather than hood, so I guessed it to be a woman beneath the shrouding attire.
I imagined a feast would be prepared for such obviously important guests, only then Pietro told me the servants had been commanded to their quarters, and that I, too, was to remain in my room. However, he seemed too preoccupied to lead me all the way to my chamber himself, and so—left to my own devices—I crept back downstairs and concealed myself in the manor’s hall, in a corner behind a chair. Since I was a child, I had always found it simple to spirit myself into shadows and remain unseen, and my skill had not diminished in my time at the manor, for Pietro walked right past me as he opened the door of the master’s library.
“They are here,” he spoke through the open door.
“Send them in, Pietro,” came the master’s deep voice. “There is no use in delaying, I suppose.”
A moment later three dark figures entered the hall. I shrank into the shadows behind the chair as they drew near, and a certainty grew in me that I did not want to be seen by them. There was something about the three—not a wickedness or malice, but all the same a kind of peril—that caused me to shudder. I bit my lip, lest a sound escape me.
As they drew even with the chair behind which I had concealed myself, one of the three—the slender one—paused. She turned her veiled head back and forth, and I felt the hair on my arms stand on end. Beneath the black veil, I caught two sharp glints of gold. Her gaze passed over the chair . . .
. . . then moved on. The three stepped into the library. Pietro shut the door. He pressed a trembling hand to his brow, then shuffled across the hall and was gone. Once he was out of sight, I bolted away like a rabbit who had just seen a fox—three foxes—and dashed up the stairs. I spent the rest of the evening in my chamber, and when I heard the sound of horses and the rattle of a carriage’s wheels, I did not look out my window.
Although curiosity burned in me, neither Pietro nor the master spoke of the visitors the next day, and I did not dare to ask about them. I tried to occupy myself with my studies, but as the hours passed it grew harder and harder to concentrate on books and ink and quill pens. Would the master never tell me anything at all?
Because of my petulant sighs and inability to perform any meaningful work, Pietro dismissed me early from my studies. He gave me a sharp look, but I ignored him and went to my room. I felt bitter and lonely in a way I had not since the master plucked me from the streets of E
dinburgh and brought me here. Why had he not revealed his purpose for me?
But perhaps there was no great purpose in his actions. As I paced before the window, I became more and more certain this was the case. I was simply a thing to him: a pretty object like those he had collected for the mantelpiece in his library.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. All traces of the scabs and bruises from my days on the street were gone. My golden hair framed my face, pale and delicate almost as a woman’s, but with the first hints of a man’s hard, square lines, and I knew with calm detachment that I was beautiful.
“If I am a thing to him,” I murmured to the mirror, “then it is past time that he used me.”
I would not have minded. While the master was not handsome—his face was too grim, too rough and angular—he was tall and strong, and I had sold myself to far worse on the street. I crept into his room and slipped naked into his bed, letting his rich smell encapsulate me. A warmth kindled inside my body, and I drifted into sleep.
“No, James, this is not what I wish from you,” a voice, deep and soft said, awakening me.
I felt a weight beside me. Half in a dream, I reached for him, slipping my hand inside his robe. Gently, but firmly, he took my hand and pushed it away. I was too weary, too full of sadness, to resist. I wanted to lie on a fire, like Queen Dido, and let the beautiful flames burn away my sorrow. For the first time I could remember in my life, I wept.
I did not resist as he clothed me in a robe and carried me like a small child—lanky though I was getting—to my own bed. He pulled the covers over me, then laid a hand on my brow.
“You have more worth than this, James. More worth than you can possibly know.”
I didn’t know what to say. His words made me feel strange inside, as if a fish wriggled in me, lovely and silvery and sparkling, but much too slippery to grasp.
“Who were they?” I said instead. “The ones who came to the manor yesterday?” I thought of the golden eyes I had glimpsed beneath her veil. “They are the same as you.”
