“Very well, Queen Giffen, what the fuck should we be doing?” Archer challenged.
Giffen chose to ignore the sarcasm. “You and Roman can see if you can work out where the League are holed up around here. We need to know if they are watching the house, and if so, why.”
That did not seem to be something they disagreed with. Archer still smouldered with rage, but Roman folded his arms and leaned back against the desk. “Very well,” he said. “This is something we need to know.”
“Peter and I can go through these books and papers and see if there is anything here that the League might want. Whether it is a reliable source or not, the books here come from the church and theologians, and those at the League might see them very differently from us.”
“Wolfy, Bear, we do need to know what is stopping us from contacting and training the magical potential that is so clearly within Peter -- and now there are these latest developments. If you cannot get to the bottom of the matter, then we need some help sent up from the larger houses. I leave that for you to decide.”
The anger and energy of the room seemed to focus and fall away as each person was pointed towards a pressing task. Finally Giffen turned to Peter and Veleur.
“You two need to get your act together. You are meant to be together, but that doesn’t mean it will be effortless. You have to make it work, and nobody else can do it for you. Get the hell out of here and sort it out.”
Peter knew that he had to let go of his grudge against Veleur, but he was still going to choose the ground where the discussion occurred. Veleur’s room had become unwelcoming and full of all sorts of unpleasant associations. He went down the hall to the room that he had been using, and after a moment’s hesitation, Veleur followed.
Peter collapsed onto the bed covered in the bright red cover he had chosen from the spares in the hot water cupboard. He turned awkwardly onto his side to see Veleur hovering in the doorway.
“Come in,” Peter said. “I think we have a few things to talk about.”
It wasn’t entirely unpleasant to see Veleur looking uncertain for a change, but he chided himself for that.
“Do come in, Veleur.”
Veleur closed the door behind him and covered the distance between them. He knelt down upon the floor and leaned his arms upon the bed so that their heads were but a few inches apart. Veleur’s eyes were just a little larger than a human’s would be, the pupils small, but made of a vertical slit that opened to the shape of an almond in the dim light of the room with its curtains half drawn over cloudy dusk.
“So tell me,” Veleur said, “and I ask you this sincerely -- how did it come to be as Archer said? He saw an agent of the league in the deserted chapel, and you walking to meet her.”
He asked without accusation, and it was not difficult to reply with the simple truth. “I went to the church. It was inevitable I would, in time. I am a practising Catholic and have not been to a service or on sacred ground for months now. I don’t know how long she waited there, but there was no meeting planned, just a coincidence of the three of us.”
“You want to go to church?” Veleur said. The fact that he had not considered it said little for his sensitivity or good sense, but then he added, “Of course you do.” He sighed and laid his chin upon the soft edge of the mattress.
Peter lay back upon his elbow to put them at the same level. “Why were you so quick to see betrayal, so unwilling to even speak to me on the matter?”
Veleur remained silent, his head laid against his hands with fingers intertwined.
Peter did not want to press the matter, but truly he saw no other choice. “Is it something to do with what Bear told me, that I do not know what the League has done to you? Something tells me that he means something more specific than the conflict between League and Society.”
Veleur’s eyes were closed, but Peter could feel that he would speak now, given time and space.
“You should understand that I was helpless when they captured me,” Veleur said. “I had some notion to see what the League were up to; there was no secret that they had been hunting for an elf. I was foolish in going alone and ended up delivering myself into their hands.”
Peter clenched his teeth together to stop from speaking. At this juncture, it did not matter why Veleur had gone alone or how he’d come to be captured. It was clear that the point of the telling was yet to come. Veleur still hesitated, but Peter waited for him, for his confidence.
“I was helpless in their hands. Much weakened and blindfolded, naked, imprisoned in a dark cellar in some isolated cottage. The chains they forge burn and bind and drag one down. There were those amongst them who chose in those few days to ... take advantage of my helplessness. In the darkness, I was fevered and hardly aware, but I still knew and felt what they did.”
Peter’s heart clenched as he took Veleur’s meaning. Bear, of course, had known, had felt the marks that trauma leaves upon a person’s soul. Peter, to his great shame, had not.
“When Archer told us, when it seemed that you had won my trust falsely, my first thought was that you ... that you had been one of them.”
“Veleur ...”
How can you deny such a thing? Peter knew that such abuse could never be a part of his nature and wished he could peel open his own soul to show it.
“Hush,” Veleur said. His eyes opened, wide and vulnerable. “I know it was not you. The longer I was apart from you, the clearer it became that I do know you and I do trust you, and I cannot let anything the League has done to me undermine or twist what I feel and what I know in my heart.”
Veleur reached out one hand and laid his pale fingers upon Peter’s cheek. “Forgive me for doubting you.”
Peter put his hand over Veleur’s. “Of course,” he said. It wasn’t quite true yet, but that was for him to sort out in his own selfish time.
Veleur’s fingertips stroked gently against the grain of the slight stubble on Peter’s cheek.
“I’m never going to be ... anything other than what I am,” Peter said softly. “I would not betray you. I do love you, but in many ways I feel so out of place here. Giffen tells me you went to hunt down an unseelie elf. But, Veleur, ‘thou shalt not kill’ is a pretty fundamental thing for me. We have a lot to work around.”
“Or through,” Veleur amended. “I think when two people genuinely try to do their best, the difference between them cannot be so great -- cannot be too much for love to bridge.”
Peter smiled, partly because the metaphor seemed a little over the top -- but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Veleur’s narrow palm smoothed down Peter’s neck and insinuated under the collar of his shirt. He touched the slim chain upon which the cross hung, and his fingers jerked as if burnt.
“Veleur,” Peter said in annoyance.
“You don’t understand,” Veleur said, pulling back his hand. “The chain is enchanted. It is like it is ... Who gave that chain to you?”
Veleur staggered to his feet, and there was no mistaking his alarm.
“I ...” Peter sat up, his hand going to the chain and his mind to his old mentor, Father Michael. The old man had made such a show of giving it to him.
‘You may be leaving the church,’ he had said, ‘but you are not leaving God. Remember that. I am sure you will find other ways to serve him. Wear this, always, and remember that.’
It was so hard to dig over those memories and make new sense of them now that he saw the world differently. As Peter stood, Veleur stepped back from him.
“Take it off,” Veleur said.
“I ...” No matter what else he had learnt, the cross remained a deep and potent symbol. He couldn’t put it aside easily.
“Take it off!”
Tension crawled up Peter’s spine until his whole body was rigid. On the other hand, he had just learnt the full horror of what that sort of chain meant to Veleur. He reached up and released the catch. The chain pooled into his hand, feeling heavier than it should.
Veleur’s gaze
fell on it. “The chain -- the chain is why you can’t work magic fully. Last night, when the bond was so strong between us -- that was how it should be. You weren’t wearing it. Put it down.”
Peter put the chain and cross on the bedside table. It bunched into a small pile between his fingertips. Veleur reached out and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the tiny piece of jewellery as if it were a poisonous snake. It did make sense. The quickening might well have been powerful enough to break through the effect of the chain, but not without repercussions. But why did the League want him here, but not working magic? How could they know he would be here at all, back when he first left the priesthood?
Veleur pulled him further away, slipping into his arms as naturally as hand in glove. Peter looked aside to where the finger-polished cross winked in the light, and then he turned away from it. “We have got to figure this out,” he said.
“Come back to my -- our -- room,” Veleur said. There was steel back in his voice now. That was Veleur’s way. Once he had a fight, an enemy he could see ... “Come back to our room,” he said more gently. “Together we can do more than figure this out. We can put it right.”
Deep down, Peter really wanted to believe him.
Chapter Nine
Morning found Peter back beneath the ivory-toned covers, waking to find Veleur still snug against his body. He had woken late after the long night talking beneath the covers and finally drifting to sleep in the early hours. Their own plans wove in and out of talk of broader concerns. Were the League watching the place? Was there something within they wanted? Would the binding over Ireland ever be broken? The truth so simple it did not need saying was this: together they could face it.
Peter realised Veleur was awake. He should have known; the slightest stir or noise was enough to rouse him. Veleur’s head lay upon his shoulder, shifting slightly as Veleur looked across at him.
“Shall we see what Roman and Archer have discovered?” Peter said.
“Not quite yet.” Veleur fitted seamlessly to the side of Peter’s body. His thigh slid over Peter’s, and his foot curled against the muscle of Peter’s thigh.
Veleur’s body felt lean and slight, but strength ran through it like electricity through a wire. But after hearing what had happened, Peter hesitated to touch him, afraid of bringing back the memories, despite all that had happened since then. He tried to put it from his mind and focus on the kind of deep warmth that was only ever produced by two bodies beneath one blanket. Veleur, apparently, had something else on his mind. Peter felt Veleur stroke one hand down over his chest, arm falling possessively over him.
“I missed you,” Veleur murmured, his face nestled against Peter’s neck, so close he felt the puff of air with each breath.
Peter stretched slowly, raising his free arm up over his head. Veleur eased up over his body, the cover draped over his shoulders; he looked down like a predator considering its prey. Veleur straddled him and leaned down to kiss him deeply. A familiar energy stirred.
Peter stretched out one leg and then the other, feeling rested muscles come to life. Veleur’s thighs clasped his hips as he eased downwards. Peter felt Veleur’s body fold down up his. His cock nudged alongside Veleur’s. It was a constant amazement how easily their bodies fitted together in any position. Gone were the awkward and illicit fumblings of his past, and almost gone -- the guilt. But not all the years could slide away that cleanly, and it must have shown in his eyes.
“When are you going to let go?” Veleur whispered.
An image came to Peter’s mind of letting himself go, rising up into the wildness of the hurricane. It should have frightened him, but instead it pulled him, called to him -- it was freedom. It might have been the church or even the League that he was clinging to, but love and God ... they were in the storm together.
Veleur kissed him, and fire rose up from both their bodies and kissed together in a coruscation of emerald and scarlet and a hundred unlikely shades in between the two. He saw the sparkling flames at the edge of his vision and seemed to see them even through his skin. Through the gentle licking of their shared passion, he felt Veleur’s finger on him, stroking down the front of his body. Veleur’s fingers cupped his balls, softly caressing. Peter groaned, arching back into the embrace of the soft mattress.
“Veleur, we ...” he whispered hoarsely.
Veleur seemed to know what he wanted to say. It was too soon to go from utter estrangement to intimacy.
“We have a way to go yet,” Veleur said. “But this was never the problem, was it?”
Veleur’s fingers encircled Peter’s cock firmly, stroking up along its length. Peter trembled; his hands settled gently on Veleur’s waist. He surrendered control, letting Veleur coax him to full arousal. He looked up through slitted eyes to see those silver irises with their uncanny pupils looking back down fixedly at his face. Veleur was so free of shame, but he had his own crosses to bear. If their past differences had taught Peter one thing, it was that there was immense fragility beneath the elf’s steely surface.
Veleur slid free from Peter’s lax hands and slipped from sight, descending Peter’s body and then sliding his taut lips over the head of Peter’s cock. The sensation jolted any other thought out of his mind. Peter clutched at the mattress, feeling the sheet pulling free beneath his clawed fingers. His cock seemed to strain upwards from the ring of Veleur’s curled fingers towards the ring of his teasing mouth. Veleur massaged the head, wet and tight, and then began to descend lower with every stroke until the tip of Peter’s cock nudged the ridged roof of his mouth. Then ever so gradually, Peter felt the tight cavern of Veleur’s throat accept his glans. Peter fell completely still at this new, unique sensation.
In his groin coiled the urge to push forward, but he used every dram of his will to lie flat against the bed. Veleur showed him no mercy, drawing his lips further down with each dip of his head until he accommodated almost the full length of the shaft. The knob of the head breached the striated embrace of his slender throat. Far more swiftly this time, the fluid energy of the earth rose up through Peter. Afraid of hurting Veleur as he lost control, Peter called out wordlessly.
Veleur drew back only slightly, pressing down upon Peter’s hips with both hands. Peter jerked with a sudden roaring climax that filled his ears and head and heart. The great power of the earth shot into the small of his back and bent only slightly to bloom from his rigid cock like a pale flower. As it faded, the ordinary world returned very slowly to Peter’s sight, grey and dark.
Veleur released him at last and crawled to lean over him. “Now perhaps we might go downstairs?” he said smugly.
“Not just yet.” Peter lay bonelessly upon the naked mattress, feeling the air cool his body. His heart, which had raced just a moment before, now marked a stately, normal tempo. He felt like a piece of driftwood left to lie on some distant beach, but Veleur was both the waves and the shore.
It was midmorning by the time they walked down the stairs to talk to the others. Peter held the chain and cross in a small knot in his left hand. He was surprised to find Veleur holding his right hand loosely as they reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto the hard parquet floor. Veleur’s hand felt small over his own, and the gesture seemed so childish, something he associated with school crushes and TV movies. All the same, he did not want to pull away.
They found a triumvirate in the library. Bear, Wolfy, and Giffen bent over a broad coffee table stacked high with antique books and papers. There was an unmistakable command even to Giffen’s silent posture. He had the air of a man who was taking charge. It seemed like he had been on the point of speaking, but their entrance redirected his attention. It was Wolfy who spoke first, directly to Peter.
“I must confess that there is something about Merrin’s books. London left behind the works they thought worthless. Books all about ghosts and wraiths and revenant magic. They had assumed such superstition to be spurious and worthless. They overlooked them entirely, but perhaps the League has
not.”
“Ghosts and bindings are entwined in the church’s occult thinking, and I think it is not in error at all,” Peter replied. It seemed ridiculous to speak with such assurance on magic about which he knew almost nothing except by instinct, whilst these people had been living with it most of their lives.
Wolfy was seated to the left and Bear opposite to the right, with Giffen at his usual seat at the far end. Veleur stepped away and circled behind the deep leather sofas to lean against the arm of Giffen’s chair. It looked rather like the natural alignment of a soldier to his commander. Much as Peter felt some friendship with Giffen, the changes made him feel uneasy.
“We may have an answer to the problem with Peter’s art,” Veleur said.
Peter let the chain dangle from his hand. “A little of the League’s work. I had it on me without even knowing.”
And fate turns upon moments such as that. Peter was on the verge of placing the chain upon the table, noticing how Wolfy leaned away from it. His eyes fell upon a single cracked scroll lying amidst the chaos upon the table. There were a number of loose papers lying there which he had not seen before. They must have been stored away from the complete books in some overlooked box or drawer.
He could see just a small patch of scratchy writing, in a crabbed cursive on the curled-in heart of the paper. The word at its centre caught his eye: Patricus.
Peter reached out one fingertip and pinned down the curling corner. His hand tingled where the chain hung so lightly. Grey lines of sinister power threaded in through his fingertips and slipped into his body. With slight detachment he lifted the paper, noting its brittle, thick weight.
Then he heard himself speak, felt his lips and throat form the words without the slightest intent from him to do so. “There’s just something I want to check.”
“Peter, leave the ...” But Veleur did not press the point as Peter walked away.
Maewyn's Prophecy: Pilgrim Heart Page 8