by Claire North
On the fourth night the grand old duke came to me and took the seat on the other side of the chess board.
Do you? he asked.
I did.
He played competently, but moved too fast, his impatience showing in reckless attacks and careless defences. I told myself I would play with mercy, but it is not a game where good intentions last, and soon his pieces were scattered across the board.
“You are leaving us tomorrow?” Casually, his fingers on a bishop, a thing that hardly mattered.
“Yes.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’m not yet certain. South, perhaps. The western borders seem a little too… unsteady for my inclination.”
“You fear war?”
“I consider it a possibility.”
“Could you not spend such a conflict as… a general’s wife? A minister’s daughter? Some position away from the front lines?”
“I could. But in my experience war comes to us all, even – if not especially – the wives, sisters and mothers of those who fight. Womanhood is no protection from conflict. You wait for the news that comes. You dread, powerless and alone, forbidden to do what you would and fight for those you love.”
“And who do you love, Josef?” he asked softly. “Who do you really love?”
I leaned back from the board, went to fold my arms, remembered my body, its station, and instead laid them on my lap. “If I am wife, then I love my husband. If I am sister, then I love my brother. If I am soldier, then I love my men. My privilege, if you will, is that I may choose to enter any life I please. Why would I be a man in a callous home? Why would I be a mother whose children I did not adore? I love my kin, otherwise I would not keep them. I love everyone that I am, otherwise I would not be them.”
His eyes were fixed on the board, his eyebrows knotted together. “Are you not tempted to be me? Does my dukedom not attract you?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
I licked my lips, saw small eyes in his drooping face, noted the yellow spots on his hands, the stiff tendons about his neck, the curvature at the base of his spine where posture fought with age. He saw my speculation, blurted, “My age repulses you.”
“No, sir. Not that, although age, if you do not have the opportunity to grow into it easily, can be a shock. You have power and the respect of your peers, and health, but I do not think you are… beautiful. You lack that joy, or that love, which makes beauty more than the flesh that owns it.” A muscle twitched in a cheek, a tiny movement, but enough. I pressed my hands together in apology. “I have spoken… out of turn.”
“No,” he replied, more sharply than I think he meant, and then, softer, “No. You have spoken your mind. Very few do that around me. My daughter… spits in my face, wishes me dead. Do you think I did the right thing in commissioning you? Do you think I acted with… love?”
Silence.
“Come, sir, come.” He tutted. “I have congratulated you on the liberty of your speech. Do not betray that compliment now.”
“I believe you acted from love when you commissioned me to be your daughter. I believe you wish her well and through my intervention sought to give her that security in life which her own nature would not provide.”
“But?” he grunted. “Get on with it.”
“Sir… this understanding has been of great benefit to both of us. But the question I must ask is this: if the security you wished for your daughter required another to achieve it, then do you not force that which is opposite to her nature upon her? Or perhaps I may put it like this: is the daughter you love the daughter you in fact have?”
His eyes upon the board, though he no longer saw the pieces.
“You did not say as much when you agreed to this contract.”
“Nor was it in my interest to do so. But our arrangement is concluded, and you have asked for my thoughts, and there they are.”
His finger settled on a pawn, moved it for the sake of moving, an irrelevant gesture in an already concluded game.
“My wife believes my daughter to be ill.”
I waited, studied the board, leaning forward, enjoying the freedom of a man’s clothes, which did not restrict me to polite straight backs and the little breaths of a corset.
“She believes the illness to be of the mind. She has said it for many years. Sometimes Antonina… has episodes. She will… cry out against people who are not there, name fancies which cannot be believed, tell tales. As a child I hoped it was merely a trick of her growing, some spark of her personality which might, one day, be almost charming. Now she is a young woman, and that hope diminishes. Before you came… she lay with a peasant boy. He was fourteen, she one year older, and when they were done she came running back to the house, still… unclean, and shrieked of the deed that she had done. I do not mean to say that she lamented it, but rather she danced around the room, laughed in our faces, hitched up her skirts to show us the dirt and nakedness of her act, spat in her mother’s eye and told us she was free now. Free and blessed in the eyes of the Lord. I beat her that night. I beat her until even my wife, her child’s spittle dry on her face, begged me to stop. I told no one. We waited for her wounds to heal before letting any living soul near the house – near her. I had hoped that your presence would heal our household, redeem my daughter’s name, and do not think I have complaint. Your behaviour has been exemplary. Perhaps too much so. For these last few months I have almost at times forgotten that you are not my daughter. I watched her dance, laugh and smile. I heard her tell little jokes, bow to gentlemen of whom I approved, politely dismiss those whose spirits were too high. She has been appropriate with the servants, generous with her friends, welcoming to strangers, careful of her dignity. These last months my daughter has been everything I wanted her to be, and now… you are gone, and she returns, and I realise that it was not – nor was it ever – for my daughter’s sake that I sought your services, but for mine. For a few months with the child I thought I had deserved. I do not know what to do.”
He was weeping. The old duke was weeping, his hands pressed in little fists against his eyes, tears gleaming like icicles off the whiskers on his chin. I opened my mouth to speak, and no words came. I stared down at the board, noticed that checkmate was a few moves away, and I felt no triumph at the revelation. Tiny sobs, barely more than hiccups, swallowed before they could begin, broke from him and were gasped back down – the shame, said his clenched fists, the shame.
Then the duke raised his head, eyes raw, and whispered, “Would you be my daughter? Would you be her… a little longer?”
I shook my head.
“Please. Be my daughter. Be who she ought to be.”
I reached out, laid my hands on his, pulled them gently down into his lap, spreading the fingers wide.
“No,” I replied, and jumped.
My old servant Josef swayed before my eyes. “Stay there,” I barked, and, tired bones creaking, face swollen and red from tears, I clambered to my feet. My legs ached more than I had imagined, a nerve twanged in my thigh, the duke too proud to carry the walking stick he clearly required.
The house was sleeping, the lamps turned down low as I climbed the stairs, limping, to Antonina’s door. A chubby matron sat outside, the key around her waist. I removed it without a sound, and she, snoring through her flared nose, did not stir. I slipped into the darkness of the room.
All furniture was gone. Any object by which Antonina might do herself harm had been removed. The windows were barred, the curtains drawn, but the smell of urine and faeces rose from the smeared floors, overpowering the soap and brine.
A figure stirred in the shadows, dressed in a torn white gown which offered as little warmth as it did dignity. I had looked in the mirror so often and seen that face and found it lovely; now as it rose, hair wild and eyes set in vengeance, I saw only a tempest of growling youth and hatred.
“Antonina,” I whispered. “Antonina,” I breathed again, and, one leg hardly accepting the
project at all, I sank down on to my knees before her. “Forgive me,” I said. “Forgive me. I did you wrong. I have stolen time from you. I have taken your dignity, your name, your soul. I love you. Forgive me.”
She stirred from the shadows of the room, shuffled towards me, one unsteady foot at a time. I stayed where I was, head bowed, hands clasped before me. She stopped, her feet and bare lower legs filling my vision. I looked up. Her hair was tangled across her face, around her neck, as if she had tried to hang herself with her own locks. She spat in my face. I flinched, and didn’t move. She spat again. The liquid barely registered, already skin temperature, as it rolled down my forehead.
“I love you,” I said, and she shook her head, covered her ears. “I love you.” Reaching out, pressing my hands against her feet, rooting them in place. “I love you.”
Her hands turned to claws, dragging them down across her own face, and with a sudden lurch she pulled her feet free from my fingers. There were no words, no shaping except her rage, only heat and wetness on my face as she lowered her mouth to the level of my eyes and screamed, screamed and screamed until at last she had no more breath, and I caught her by the shoulders and pulled her close. She bit and scratched, tore at my beard, my face, her nails digging into my wrinkled skin as if she would pull it from my skull, but I let her fight until at last even that strength seemed to leave her, and I held her tight.
The noise could not have been ignored. The servants came, along with my lady wife, who stood in the door and gaped at the sight she beheld. I shook my head at her, sending her away, and held my daughter closer still, her breath hot in the tangle of mine, until morning.
Then I was someone else, and I was gone.
Chapter 77
A shaking awake, a starting. The sun is setting, and I have dreamed of Galileo.
Coyle is still asleep on the bed. I wake him as the last vestiges of daylight fade.
“We have to keep moving.”
“Where are we going?” he asks as I help him down to the car.
“Somewhere with trains.”
We reached Lyon shortly after 8 p.m.
Like many old cities in France, Lyon was possessed of beautiful houses pressed against a sluggish river, of a high-towered cathedral and ancient buried walls, and of suburbs of grand supermarchés, sprawling car parks and low-rise clothing outlets in iron-ceilinged industrial sheds. I left Coyle slumbering in the car park of one which advertised itself with the immortal words EAT THE BEST, LIVE THE BEST, SHOP THE BEST! and went inside with my plundered euros. A child giggled on a tiny fireman’s truck that rocked back and forth to the wailing of a siren. A small marquee, perfect, declared the billboard, for weddings and festive occasions, had been erected by the supermarket checkout counters for any casual shoppers looking for the ultimate spontaneous splurge. Cold steam drifted in grey wisps over fat vegetables, and the smell of yeast mixed with light jazz pumped from the bare pipes of the ceiling.
I bought bread, meat, water and an armful of men’s clothes, all baggier than required. The woman behind the checkout counter wore a peaked green hat and a bewildered expression as my shopping drifted down the conveyer belt towards her.
“For my brother,” I explained.
“He lets you buy trousers for him?”
“I’m good at dressing people.”
Coyle was still asleep in the car.
“Coyle.” I brushed his arm gingerly and, when he didn’t stir, ran the back of my fingers, gentle as a feather, across his cheek. His eyes opened, flickering in the darkness of the car, registered where he was and who he was with, and recoiled. I swallowed and said, “We’re in Lyon.”
“What’s in Lyon?”
“Public transport, mostly. Here.”
“What’s this?”
“Clean clothes. For you.”
“Not for you?”
“If I wanted to change, it’d be more than the clothes I wear. Try them. I think I remembered your size.”
He scowled but said, “Help me with the shirt?”
I turned the heater up, helped him fumble with buttons, peeled the ruined shirt away from his skin. Remarkably the dressing across his shoulder was neither saturated with blood nor falling away. By the faint light of the car park I felt around the edges of the wound and asked, “Does it burn?”
“No.”
“How’s the pain?”
“I’m coping. Your hands are cold.”
“My circulation isn’t fantastic. Here.” I rolled a T-shirt down over his head, helped him manoeuvre one arm at a time into the sleeves, tucked it down around his trousers. He sat still and straight, breath steady, watching my every move. My fingers brushed the scar across his belly and he didn’t flinch, but every fibre was tight, every muscle locked. “Fit OK?”
“Fine.”
“I bought you a jumper too. It’ll probably disintegrate in the first wash, but it’s warm and clean.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Why are you bothering?”
I sighed and turned away. “You’ve got blood on the upholstery,” I murmured. “Blood’s hard to clean.”
Roundabouts were the lock, patience the key, to any driver seeking to find their way into the middle of Lyon. I took us through one-way systems and down towards the river, where the hot young things of the city grew cold to the sound of 90s techno and noughties bass. I parked, illegally, in front of a grey stone church from whose porch the Virgin Mary gazed sorrowfully down at her straying flock and said, “We can’t use the car any more.”
“Why not?”
“Irena’s been gone more than eight hours. If she had a shift tonight, it would have started a few hours ago. The last person I wore – Max – I left him at the service station…”
“You think Aquarius will have worked out who you are?”
“You know them better than I. Would you?”
“Yes. I think I might.”
“Then we need to lose the car. It’s public transport from now on. If we can get to Spain, or even Gibraltar, without setting off alarms, that’ll make things easier. I need a drink.”
“A drink?”
“Can you walk?”
“Is this the time for a drink?”
“Never better,” I replied, pushing open the car door. “I’m a lady who likes tequila.”
I had tequila, Coyle had orange juice.
In France orange juice means fizzy orange-coloured sugar from a spherical bottle.
We sat at the counter of a bar whose flat-screen TVs showed football and BMX. Only one game interested the crowd, and by their gripes it was both local and not going well. Coyle was sweating, one hand clenched around a paper napkin, his teeth drawn back across his lips.
The barman said, “You all right?”
And I replied, “He twisted his ankle.”
“You should see a doctor. Sometimes these things are worse than you think.”
“They usually are. More tequila?”
His eyes radiated scepticism, but economics guided his hand to another glass. Behind us someone scored, and the room groaned its universal dismay.
“You’re knocking it back,” grunted Coyle to the sound of sporting hearts breaking and the hissing of fresh beer.
“I’ll let you into a secret. It’s far easier to divert the world’s attention away from a host if that host can be discovered intoxicated, bewildered, concussed or otherwise in an altered mental state upon her awakening.”
“You’re moving on?”
I took another slurp, felt salt crackle, alcohol burn, hissed in satisfaction at the effect. “There’s a file – I stole records from Aquarius while in Berlin.”
“You told me.”
“And did you tell Aquarius?”
“I did. We… they… are afraid of you.”
“I take it they didn’t realise I was with Janus?”
“No.”
“Why were you there?”
“It’s my job,” he
replied. “It’s what I do.” Another drink; I put the empty glass to one side. “No. That’s not it.” His voice was for him, though I happened to hear it. “I asked about Galileo, and they reassigned me to Paris. At the time I thought it was… At the time I didn’t think. That’s what I was doing there, as you ask.”
My nails were hard and sharp as they rattled around the edge of the glass.
“I’m not going to help you hurt them,” he breathed. “I won’t help you against Aquarius, no matter what they did. If it was them who did it. You’re not my friend. This is about Galileo – nothing more.”
“I understand.”
The busy roar of the football screen, the busy contempt of the disappointed fans lamenting the game. I ran my finger round the lip of the glass, which stoutly refused to hum.
Then, “New York,” said Coyle. “There’s a… sponsor in New York. After Berlin, after you showed me the file, I tried to speak to him, but Aquarius said no. Told me you’d lied to me about Galileo, that it was what you did – spread the chaos. You put Alice in hospital, did you know that?”
“She was bruised but walking when I left her. The rest is psychological, nothing to do with me.”
“Do you care?”
“Not right now.”
He sipped his juice like it was whisky, salve to the wounds, old and new, still burning on his body. “I knew they were lying to me. You’re a parasite, but you didn’t lie. I guess I should thank you for that.”
“Knock yourself out.”
“A sponsor,” he tried again. “There’s a sponsor in New York.”
“What does he sponsor?”
“Us. Aquarius. The units are kept largely separate. If one is infiltrated, the others should be safe, but there has to be some central authority, someone who watches it all. We aren’t bad people. We don’t hurt our own. If there were orders… if Galileo is being protected… the sponsor will know why.”
