by Steven Brust
He must have been exhausted to be this deeply asleep so quickly. Irina knelt and took his large, limp hand in both her own. Watching his face, still matching his breath, she worked her way over the shiatsu points in his fingers down into the meat of his palm. She rubbed in small circles, feeling for the telltale grains under the skin that revealed stress or illness. The whole structure of him was taut, and Irina worked gently, but with strength, breathing with him. She pressed her thumb hard into the base of his palm until he turned his head and groaned. She shifted to his other hand, massaging between the bones, easing tension away. He was carrying too much. They all were.
Oskar’s eyes slid open, but he made no move to retract his hand. “Fuck off,” he mumbled.
Irina went on working.
“What are you playing at, Irina?”
“What makes you think I’m playing?” She worked her fingers up the sleeve of Oskar’s shirt, kneading the hard muscles of his forearms to his elbow and then down the whole arm to his fingertips again.
Oskar sighed, but kept his eyes open, wary. “You never do anything but.”
Irina switched her hands to his other beautifully muscled arm. “I’m just having fun.”
Oskar’s body stayed pliant in her hands, but he chuckled, deep in his chest. “Oh, I don’t doubt that.” His eyelids flickered, wanting to close. “I want to know why.”
Irina widened her eyes. “Why am I enjoying this? Oskar, you’re a magnificent specimen.”
* * *
Well, this is awkward.
—O
* * *
“Surely someone has told you as much?” Irina teased. “I know you’re dedicated and disciplined, but you’ve had lovers in this lifetime haven’t you? With this body?”
Oskar opened his mouth to say something, but Irina stood, moving behind him, and slid her strong fingers into his hair to work the small muscles of his scalp. “How selfish of you,” she chided, “to have such natural resources, and not share.”
“I share.” His voice was gruff.
Her hunger for him bordered on greed, but in the way Oskar surrendered the weight of his head to her ministering hands, Irina felt how long it had been since he’d been touched. He needed this more.
* * *
This whole seed is embarrassing. I hope you appreciate what I’m sacrificing here in the name of transparency.
—O
* * *
Irina wanted to put her lips to the spots her fingers worked, to know what Oskar’s hair smelled like, but she slid her hands down the proud column of his neck instead, fanning her fingers over his hard shoulders.
“Why were you in Tucson?” His voice was level with grim determination.
She dug into his shoulders, and he groaned.
“I told you,” she said, pressing her thumbs hard into taut muscle. “My newest Second—”
Oskar grunted at the pressure, but Irina didn’t ease up and felt the tension start to lessen. “That answers how,” he said. “Not why.”
“Florida is too muggy. I can’t make my hair behave there. Sit forward.”
Oskar sat forward, allowing Irina access to the wide field of his back. “And?” he said.
“I wanted to be close to Ren and Phil in case anything went wrong,” she told him, perhaps more truthfully than she should.
“Why would anything go wrong?”
“Doesn’t it always?” She kept her voice casual, but her thumb had found a pocket of pain between Oskar’s spine and shoulder blade that was years older than the muscles it torqued.
“What do you know about who shot him?” Oskar exhaled unsteadily with the increased pressure of Irina’s thumbs.
“Nothing you don’t,” Irina told him, which was, distressingly, entirely true. She tugged at Oskar’s shirt; he yanked it over his head. Irina ran her hands over the warm skin of his shoulders, surveying his back—strong, beautifully sculpted, and haunted as a graveyard. She tracked his spine with her thumbs, and visualized the knot under his skin breaking up and letting go. She drew the tension up through her hands and arms, and breathed it out her mouth. Oskar sighed and stopped her, reaching back to encircle her wrist in one of his large paws. He drew her around to standing in front of him, rising slowly to tower over her.
No one could meet Oskar and not notice his size—tall, with most of his height in his torso, and big too, muscled in the carved, lean way of swimmers. Still, what you noticed most about Oskar was his grace. The feline ease of his movements, even when he moved quickly, almost eclipsed his height; you could forget he was big. Then he looked down into your eyes. “What do you want from me, Irina?”
She wanted to feel close to him, to minister to him and make him her ally, but she could scarcely say that. The beauty of his bare torso humbled her, and the delicate corona of hair around his nipples and beneath his navel stirred a tenderness in her that ached. The corded muscles of his belly made her greedy.
* * *
I’m leaving this as it stands, not redacting or hiding anything to prove I’m serious about full disclosure, even when it’s unpleasant.
—O
* * *
“I’ll ask you again, Irina.” Oskar touched her, tender fingertips running along her jaw to turn her face up to his. “Tell me what you’re playing at or fuck off.”
“Don’t recruit Jane,” she whispered.
“Why not?” His fingers wove into her hair, his thumb rested under her chin.
“It’s not right for Phil, not now. And it won’t work for Ren.”
“It might,” Oskar said. “We can ask her.” He turned her face, exposing her throat, and bowed his head over it.
Desire, heavy and too long a stranger, dusted Irina’s skin. She’d had this body for two years already, but she’d had the last one for fifty by the time Phil shot it. Maybe it was grief, maybe it was hope, but Irina hadn’t been this rattled by lust since 1979.
“No,” Irina said. “Ren’s need to have Phil back will blind her to the problems with Jane. You have no business cowboying off on your own with this one, Oskar. You have got to play well with others this time.”
Oskar’s lips brushed the delicate skin behind Irina’s ear and whispered down the length of her neck. “I’m playing well with you.”
“You are,” she told him, stepping against his motionless body. “Let’s work together on this one.”
“There’s not much more work to be done. Jane’s well vetted.”
Irina slid her hands around Oskar’s narrow waist and up the bare skin of his back. “I miss him too,” she whispered. “But there’s no rush. Let’s take the time to recruit the right Second for Phil. We owe him that much.”
Oskar opened his mouth to say something, but Irina ran her hands over his delicious biceps to his chest and down, slowly, allowing herself an appreciative sigh that silenced him.
So that was what it took.
“I’ve been looking into Phil’s meddlework, Irina.” Oskar’s eyes held to hers with grim determination, but his hands stayed gentle on her face and in her hair. “This was a terrible time for him to die.”
“There’s never a good one,” Irina quipped, but her insides washed cold. Oskar had no idea how right he was.
If Oskar noticed, he didn’t say anything. His fingers stroked her cheek. He brought his face to hers and touched their temples together.
All the air in Irina’s lungs left in a whoosh and she clung to Oskar’s broad body for support as his filthy Paris and Phil’s atrium crowded out her vision. She felt the stiff leather of an armchair against her thighs and the gouge of a knife blade over her palm. She held a vase of cattails in her lap, tickling her nose with details of SB 1070’s tiny pollen. She sneezed. Oskar held her closer against his warmth and courage, and Irina smelled Ren’s salt marsh garden on his skin, and saw her own footprints spiraling out behind them as they walked through the mud.
A sob shook Irina, and Oskar held her against his chest. He tangled the fingers of one hand into
her hair and ran the other open-palmed down her back. Irina took a slower, shuddering breath, desire replacing desperation. Oskar repeated the caress more slowly, with his fingertips instead of his palm, tracing the bones of her spine, trailing along the last rib.
So pleasure was not only where Oskar was silent, it was the one place he listened. His fingers and—god help her—now his mouth were more than simply skillful. They were astute, learning from her body even more than she knew about what most aroused her. Irina wanted him, but how could she trust the body she was in? She didn’t know it yet, but she knew her mind. She knew she’d kissed a boy she loved before they married and had come just from the touch of his mouth, so earnest and enthralled.
Oskar tipped her face up to his again. His velvet blue eyes were vulnerable and strong, and Irina knew if he kissed her, she would come and he would win. She couldn’t allow that, but how she wanted his mouth on her lips one more time. She’d been alone too long and Phil’s death frightened her, coming months too soon and from god-knows-where. She desperately needed this strength and pleasure. Oskar lowered his blond head to her mouth, but Irina couldn’t risk it. Oskar had asked her what she was playing at, but he was playing her. Like a fiddle. Like a goddamn sudoku grid.
* * *
To be fair, I thought I was just returning fire.
—O
* * *
“I’m going home to seed everything we need to consider in recruiting Phil’s Second,” she informed him. “Maybe you could put your considerable energy into figuring out who shot him and why.”
“I know why.”
“I’m fairly certain you don’t.”
“What do you know that you’re not saying, Irina?” His voice was clean as a knife blade and as uncluttered with love.
Irina leaned into him. “If I asked you the same question, would our answers be the same?”
His mouth was inches above hers. Now, she wanted him to kiss her.
“Fuck off, Irina,” he said, and for the first time, Irina thought perhaps he meant it.
* * *
Kate bustled into Daniel Whitman’s room with her clipboard in one hand and a plastic travel mug in the other. He gave her such a warm smile, she got flustered and checked her clipboard for no reason.
“Daniel Whitman?” she said. “I’m Dr. Donnally. It looks like you’re doing better. I’m ordering one last set of tests.”
“Well,” the young man gave a deep sigh of mock resignation, “at least you’re pretty. That’s nice. If a doctor is going to kill me, it’s a blessing if she’s cute.”
Kate felt her cheeks flame. She wasn’t cute. Not in this Second. She was a pink-cheeked, blond, Midwestern farmwife with no makeup and a white lab coat, but gracious, if she didn’t like the way this young man talked! “We’ll have you out of here tomorrow,” she said, peering at her empty clipboard again. “And we won’t be poking you any more. I mean there’s no more bloodwork. I’ve ordered one last breathing test.”
“All right,” he said, and Kate set her travel mug down on the hospital tray with a bump. She studied Daniel’s monitor, noting a heart rate likely lower than her own, settling herself, and letting the mug waft the scent of mint Daniel-ward. It would remind him of his first crush, a girl named Peggy, when they were both eight, but he’d said Kate was pretty before he smelled it.
“Mr. Whitman—” she said.
“Call me Daniel.”
“I will.” Kate gave Daniel a smile, feeling calmer now the meddle was underway. She might not even visit the two other potential recruits she’d identified in her late-night comb of local hospitals. “Call me Kate,” she said. “I want to let you know how sorry we are for all the complications since you’ve been here.”
“Not your fault,” he said. “Hospitals.”
Kate nodded and queued up a distant rumble of trains, barely audible, on her pocketed iPhone. “I still feel bad,” she said. “You’re something of a hero, you know.”
Daniel’s lips compressed. He had a beautiful shape to his mouth, but Kate noted this only in her working capacity. She was over the surprise of his flirtation. Ren would find him attractive, Kate was sure.
“I know you don’t feel like a hero,” she said, settling her broad hips on the edge of his bed. “You can’t get the faces out of your mind—the ones you didn’t save. I understand that.” Kate slid her hand to her lab coat pocket, turning up the trains. “We both know what matters is the lives you saved, not the ones you couldn’t, and we both know it’ll never feel that way.”
Daniel looked up at her, and she put her well-scrubbed hand on his shoulder in a precisely calibrated gesture of professional tenderness. If her meddle was going to plan, Daniel would be remembering the backstairs now. He’d almost be back there, in the apartment where he and Josh had grown up with their dad and the rumble of trains and the glare of the streetlights at night. Daniel and Josh would sit on those stairs for hours sometimes while Dad was off at his second job. They’d talk sports, then girls, then music, then girls. It was hitting him. Kate could practically see the tears form.
“I think you’re the first person I’ve met who understands that,” he said.
He’d endured so much since the fire and not yet cried. Kate wished she could give him the catharsis, and let him off the hook, but she wasn’t just meddling, here. She was recruiting. “How you feel about it doesn’t matter,” she told him, maternal hand on his shoulder. “You made things better.”
Daniel nodded, bundling his pain away. “For a few of them, yeah.”
“Do you want to do more?”
“It’s too late.”
“What if it isn’t?”
He blinked and asked her what she meant.
AUGUST, 1856
“I KNEW A GUY ONCE … FELLOW NAMED JOHN BROWN.”
It was the end of August, and Kansas gave us a clear sky and a hot day, and Governor Woodson had declared Kansas to be in a state of insurrection. I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, under the circumstances, but it was a safe bet that the ruffians would use it as an excuse for more killing. The pretext for the declaration had probably been the dust-up at Fort Titus, where we’d freed some slaves. I say “we” although I hadn’t been there, and if I’d had the chance, I’d have tried to stop it. But I couldn’t be unhappy with the result.
I was feeling generally optimistic. While I’d so far failed to find switches for Captain Brown, I’d had better luck with his son, Frederick. One of Fred’s brothers had written a letter home in which he mentioned how much Fred loved horses (there were, it seems, a lot of them in Springfield), and on another occasion he mentioned fishing on the Westfield River. These things, since they’d been written down, made it into the Garden, and led to a few others.
* * *
We used to know the letters we wrote would be handed around from person to person. There was not the assumption of privacy then that we have now, and I never felt bad about grazing such documents, even diaries. There’s something about the immateriality of words typed on a screen and never printed out that’s changed the way people think about the permanence and accessibility of what they commit to writing.
—Oskar
* * *
I felt good about my chances with Fred, and I had hopes that he could exert some influence on his father. I will admit I felt a little uncomfortable meddling with Fred. He was pretty simple at the best of times, and since the massacre at Dutch Henry’s Crossing, he’d been about halfway out of his head—sometimes more than halfway, to be honest. But it was the best chance I had.
It was early afternoon when I picked up the Big Osage, which brought me into Osawatomie. I heard later that I’d passed only a few miles from the older Brown on my way in. Maybe so, but I never saw where he was camped.
My first stop was Reverend Adair. The Reverend always knew who was where among the local Abolitionists, at least better than anyone else did. He had no trouble pointing me to Fred Brown: he was lying in Adair’s cabin, shot to deat
h.
“Found him when I came home,” said Adair. “Practically on my doorstep.”
There was a lump in my throat, and I had to look away. You get to know someone pretty well when you’re preparing to meddle with him, and gunshot wounds are wretched things.
* * *
Phil’s absolutely right here. On both counts.
—O
* * *
I turned to Adair. “Does his father know?”
He shook his head. “I sent my boy to tell him, and warn him.”
“Ruffians?”
“Maybe five, six hundred of them. I thank God my wife and children weren’t home when they came by.”
I cursed, then apologized.
“Where are you going?” he asked my back.
I didn’t answer him; I didn’t know myself.
SEVEN
A Small Form of Rebellion
Ren rolled herself to standing, swaying a little with the residual Ambien. Her eyes were gummy, her mouth was crusty, and her skin was stuck to her yoga top. She staggered across the hall to the bathroom and turned on the shower.
“Ren?” Jane tapped gently on the door. “Good morning. Do you need anything?”
“I’m okay,” Ren said. “Thanks.” She put one palm flat on the cupboard door to steady herself, and could almost feel Phil’s bathrobe folded away inside it. He was in stub. They would get him back. They had to. Soon.
In the shower, Ren stood under the water. It was cleansing, but not clean. Transitional. Like she was, like Phil was. Ren put her face to the water, then her back, then the top of her head, wishing she could wash worry down the drain. What if Phil didn’t come back? She cycled face, back, crown, face again, but Oskar would need hot water. Jane too, since it seemed she’d stayed the night, which was interesting. Had Irina?