The prince was smiling as if he could read thoughts, the plain black silk eye patch he wore giving his quizzical expression a sinister cast. “I am not going to hurt you,” he said, and the lazy, amused voice tugged at Walsingham’s memory again, but his eyes denied his panicked thoughts.
“What are you doing here?” he rasped out.” This is my private chamber.” The dark man nodded and patted the bed next to him. Walsingham found himself inching forward, only to be stopped dead again by the light falling on the man’s languid right hand as it rested on his raised knee. He had to get a closer look, he had to. He crossed the remaining distance in two steps and grasped the unresisting hand. He turned it to the light, and saw there what he feared to see, the odd T-shaped scar he knew so well. He crumpled on the bed. “No, no, it’s a trick, isn’t it? Who are you?” The last came out in a broken whisper.
“Why, Sir Thomas, you know right well who I am, you were there when we were presented at court. I am Prince Kryštof of Sybria, here with my older brother Prince Geofri.” His amiable voice hardened into tones as menacing as the whisper of a snake’s passage over a stone floor. “What you must needs concern yourself with, Tommy, is who I was.”
“Who were you then?” The words jerked out as though hooked, while the prince rubbed the scar thoughtfully with his left thumb.
“Do you remember when I got this? You had not married, then. We wandered the grounds of Scadbury like two lovers in Arcadia, and I carved your initials in the great beech out there. Do you remember how the dagger slipped?” He ran the tip of his forefinger down the line that formed the upright of the ‘T’. “You were very upset, but I told you I would gladly suffer more than that for you—”
“And you took the knife and slashed across the cut to carve a ‘T’ into your own flesh.” Walsingham’s voice, spent and colorless, rose to a note of hysteria. “No! You died! I know that you died—” he gabbled, his eyes flicking nervously to a small casket on a nearby table. His visitor raised an eyebrow and seemed to flow upright off the bed, a shadow crossing the room to open the small chest. Walsingham’s thoughts lurched again.
This man moved with the assurance and grace of an accomplished swordsman and duelist. Kit had never moved like that, could never move like that, and Kit had not been so tall, his face so angular nor his hair so dark. Walsingham watched, frozen, as the bloodstained handkerchief was lifted from its resting place, and then the man was back beside him, without seeming to have crossed the intervening space. Kryštof ’s face had gone even paler, except for two splotches of intense color splashing his flat cheekbones like the paint on one of Ralegh’s savages.
“Is this your idea of a memento, then,” he hissed, his single eye glittering. “Did he tell you how it was, Tommy? Did Frizer tell you what he did to me? Shall I tell you? Shall I tell you now?”
“He said it was quick, p-p-painless. He said that you—that K-kkit was drugged, and did not wake when—when—” Walsingham faltered, and fell silent before the younger man’s bitter laughter.
“When I was butchered? Oh aye, they drugged me, but I did wake, defenseless and beset by enemies, to hear them plotting my murder, and I knew I was powerless to stop them. Skeres held me down while Frizer gloated and showed me the dagger bought especially for my slaughter, then he stuffed my mouth with silk, with this, and he slid the dagger into my eye, slowly, so slowly that it seemed to last for hours. Try to imagine that, Tommy, the sheer agony, the helplessness, the despair.
“But even that was far from the worst, Tommy, far from it. Do you know what the worst of it was?” The voice was soft, softer than the defiled silk he held, and as terrifying, as implacable as death. “The worst thing was that I knew that you had sent him to murder me, that you had sent the one man who would most enjoy my vulnerability and suffering, to dispatch me like a dog for which you had no more use. That was the worst thing, Tommy.” Kryštof sat staring into space, his blind side towards Walsingham, twisting the handkerchief in his hands, and Sir Thomas realized that the whimpering sound he’d been hearing came from his own throat. He forced the back of his hand away from his mouth.
“You lie!” he said recklessly. “You cannot be Kit! Kit is dead, dead and buried. I do admit there is a resemblance, a slight one, but you’re too young—Kit was twenty-nine when he died, and you’re no more than five and twenty. Kit was, Kit was a scholar, and you cannot even read!” He hurled the last words with a scorn he hoped would cover the greensickness he felt. The handsome, maimed face turned towards him, the lips curled in a wry smile that Walsingham knew only too well, and he understood that, no matter how loudly he protested, his belief was written on his face.
“That is true, I cannot read,” Kryštof paused and held up the fingers of his left hand, unstained by ink for the first time in their acquaintance, “or write, Tom. That, too, was taken from me.” The long fingers caressed the patch he wore, then reached for Walsingham’s hand. He tried to jerk away but the grip on his wrist was steel. “That’s a fine jest, is it not? The one thing that made my life worth living . . . what makes your life worth living these days, Tommy? What could I possibly take from you in return?”
Walsingham whimpered again, and drove the words out through his closing throat. “Are you going to k-k-kill me,” he quavered.
“Why do you ask me that? Do you feel you deserve no less?” his companion said, grinning humorlessly. He leaned back on the pillows, pulling his unwilling victim with him, first stroking his hand, then forcibly pulling the rings from the puffy fingers. “You have let yourself go to seed since you’ve wed, Tom,” he said, tossing the rings to the floor. “I’ve thought about killing you, of course. I killed Skeres, you know,” he added conversationally, as he loosened and cast aside Walsingham’s ruff and started on the doublet and shirt. “I lured him into an alley by playing drunk and flashing my purse, then, when he followed, I cut his throat and told him why as he bled to death. I enjoyed that. But you, no, you I will have to think about.” Walsingham shuddered, but the relentless voice went on.
“Do you remember how you used to visit Bedlam and prod at the lunatics with your sword? It could be you chained there in your own filth for the gallants to jape and jab at, remember, if you try to tell anyone what has passed here tonight. But now, come here, my not-so-pretty Tom, come to me.” Walsingham felt the hand tangle in his hair, wrenching his face up, and he struggled to free himself, tears blinding him and that hateful voice filling his ears. “You used to like to play at rape, Tommy, making believe that I was forcing you . . . is it too real now? I could force you, you know, but I won’t, or at least, no more than this. . . .” and those cruel lips pressed against his, the tongue pushing into his mouth. He felt the desire kindling in his groin, and he knew that he wanted to be forced, wanted this man to master him, to make him submit to his demands. Then the cool lips moved to his neck, he felt sharp teeth piercing his throat, and he lost himself in a welling sea of pleasure.
The next morning he woke alone, lying across his bed fully clothed, his velvets ruined and reeking from his body’s emissions. He would have thought the previous night’s encounter but a dream were it not for the rings scattered among the rushes on the floor, and the handkerchief missing from the casket on the table.
Chapter 8
The late night air was cool, as I made my way back to Blackavar House, enjoying the quiet power of the stallion I rode across the fields and delighting in jumping the small streams and stiles. I had been warned of the dangers inherent in so approaching Tom, but Geoffrey had not thought of the most perilous: even though Tom was the author of my murder, I found that I loved him yet; even though he was aging, I desired him yet.
Upon my return I found Geoffrey practicing sword in the candlelit Hall. Invigorated by the ride, I plucked a bated blade from the rack near the door, pausing only long enough to rack my own rapier out of the way before falling to. It was a good bout, almost seven minutes passed before I stood with Geoffrey’s slender blade at my throat, my own held car
efully in surrender. At least, I thought ruefully, I can hold onto it now.
Geoffrey smiled, showing his sharp white teeth, and said, “Come, let us rest and speak for a time,” indicating the chairs pulled up to the hearth. “Did it go as you thought? Good.” He poured two cups of the white Rhennish wine and passed one to me. Even though it was neither nourishing nor intoxicating, I found the flavor refreshing after the recent exercise. I shifted a bit, stretching my boots out to the fire.
“Frizer’s blackmailing him, of course, which has interesting possibilities,” I reported. “I will have to pay a call on that one soon, I think, after I see how things are running with Tom. He, Tom, I mean, knew that I cannot read, so someone at Cecil’s is less circumspect than his master might wish, or he has bruited it about himself.” It had been less than a week since the letter had summoned us to the Lord Secretary’s.
I yawned, and rose to go to my bed, but a sudden thought turned me back at the threshold. “Have you heard the latest prattle concerning us?” Geoffrey shook his head. He had shown an interest in the rumors flying about us, and had managed to turn more than one to our advantage. It had been speculated, among other things, that I had lost my eye dueling, or that it had happened while I had been fighting as a mercenary, that I was not Geoffrey’s brother, but his hired assassin, his bodyguard, his lover or his victim, depending upon the inclinations and imaginations of those telling the tales.
“Well,” I continued, “now it seems that you forbade me to learn to read, hoping thereby to curb those ambitions that come so naturally to younger princes. When I defied you, you had my eye putout, or even did it yourself depending upon who tells it, promising the other would follow if I did not abide in my ignorance, and that I am not loyal to you, but obedient only out of fear.” I stopped to swallow before going on. There was an uncomfortable amount of truth in that last conjecture. I forced a smile. “Truly, I could not have written a better scene myself in the old days!” As I departed with Geoffrey’s sardonic laugh ringing in my ears, I could not help but reflect that these rumors were milk and water compared with some of the tales told of Geoffrey and his family in his breathing days.
It was hot in the banqueting hall at Nonsuch, and I found that the habit of using perfumes as a substitute for bathing a less than endearing one among some of the English aristocracy.
We were dancing, and I, in the somber black Geoffrey had chosen for me, must have appeared as a raven among the brilliantly colored and bejeweled tropical birds of the court, darker even than the occasional Spaniard or puritan found there. My partner, all in white and dripping pearls, vaulted towards me, proud of her skillful control in the Volta’s high leaps, but I saw that she had misjudged the last one and was coming down hard upon her ankle. Without thinking I caught her up in my arms, and the music staggered to a halt, the other dancers standing around me as if turned to stone. Ignoring the building hum of outrage and menace, I carried her to her place under the canopy at the end of the room. “Are you injured, Majesty?” I asked her quietly, setting her gently down.
“Call me cousin, Prince Kryštof, for you are no idle flatterer, or at least not so by nature, and I shall name you my Shadow,” she replied in equally soft tones, laying her long fingers on my dark doublet. “And, my thanks to you, my ankle is but a little jolted, not broken.” She swept a keen glance over the room, then rapped my arm smartly with her flat Italian fan, scolding me loudly. “You forget yourself, Sir Shadow! I am not one of your rustic maids to be whisked away at your whim!”
“I crave your pardon, cousin! I was carried away, and thought that action might win you, where diplomacy has so often failed,” I answered smoothly, equaling her volume and dropping to one knee.” Eastern barbarian I may be, but wild horses would not induce me to act to your dishonor.” I had soon learned to play this flirting game to her great satisfaction, and to my own considerable advantage, as did any man who wished to find advancement at Elizabeth’s court.
“A certain Wild Horse would be more than happy to see you dragged away at his heels were he here tonight,” a broad Devon voice behind me drawled sarcastically. I rose and whirled to face the man, but relaxed when I saw who stood there.
“How-now, my Ocean-water? I did not think you so fond of my lord Essex that you would be pining for him,” Elizabeth said, her coquette’s tone at once dismissing me and enticing Ralegh closer. I bowed to the Queen, and gave Sir Walter a slight nod, which was returned along with a piercing blue stare, then wandered out into the moonlit grounds. The day had been hot and airless, the evening only now beginning to cool. I had walked for some time away from the palace when my enhanced sight told me that someone was lurking in the shadow of the little wood just ahead of me. I gave no sign that I had spotted the man and a few steps further on I recognized him. Tom.
As I passed the spot he drew himself a little deeper into the shadows, a small sigh escaping him when I passed by, apparently without seeing him, then a gasp of terror as my hand shot from behind him and closed over his mouth.
“Well, Tommy, waiting for me?” I said with no little malice. “How flattering, just when I had thought that you were avoiding me.” My hand dropped to his shoulder and Tom sagged against me, shuddering at my touch, as if fighting back a sob. “Why not try telling me the truth, Tommy. It would be such a novel deed for you.” Tom’s pale blue eyes stared up, reflecting a stray beam of moonlight in tears of impotent dread. “Stop it, Tom. I told you before that I’m not going to hurt you—or at least, not very much. Let us find some spot where we may talk.” I gave him a little shake, suddenly irritated by his abnormal timidity. Eventually we made our way to the carefully tended “Wilderness” and I dropped down into the sweet smelling grass, pulling Tom down beside me. “Now, isn’t this pleasant?” Still holding him by the wrist, I reached over and stroked his hair, smiling at the shivering reaction. “You cannot decide, can you, whether you desire me more than you fear and despise me, or if it’s the other way about,” I continued in the darkness, amusement and disdain equally combined in the quiet tones of my voice.
“I could never hate you . . . I was waiting for you,” Tom extemporized. I could almost hear his thoughts clacking along: If I was Kit a little flattery should do the trick. His Kit had always doted pathetically on admiration, and if I were only a feigned Kit, well, then I was mad, and what harm could it do? “I wanted to see you again, as we were, uh, in my chamber. I—I need you,” he let his voiced break off in a ardent sigh, reaching his free hand up to touch my face, wondering if his design was working. I could read his every thought as easily as I once read books. I plainly saw that part of him wanted it to work, wanted me to be as besotted with him as his lost Kit had been, wanted to manipulate me as he had the others, while at the same time another part of him wanted to grovel at my feet and beg for favor.
“God’s Teeth, Tom, but what a tawdry little whore you’ve become! You should have trod the boards: even the Rose has never seen a performance like this. Do you think you’re still seventeen and the prettiest boy in England? Think again,” I purred, the words as cruel as knives, as cruel as I could make them. He tried futilely to wrench away from my restraining hand only to have his wrist twisted viciously. My lazy inspection of his person must have left him horribly aware of his thinning hair and the beginnings of the paunch that he had tried to hide with the stuffed peascod belly of his doublet. A red flood of hatred washed over his face, hatred for me, a handsome, elegant, and above all, much younger man.
“I will see you destroyed, dishonored, and begging for deliverance, and I shall spurn you and walk on,” he raged and I laughed.
“It won’t work, Tom, whatever petty little plans for revenge you devise. Now, what were you really trying to seduce me into, killing Frizer for you?” He lurched away, and this time I let him go, amused by his tumble back into the long grass.
“Well-a-day, Tom! It would seem that shot hit in the gold,” I chuckled and stood up, brushing the leaves from my clothing, offering my hand t
o help him up. He ignored me, scrambled to his feet and began to back away. “Not that way, Tom. The Wilderness verges on the duck pond just over there and I am quite certain you would find the water disagreeable,” I laughed. Moving far too quickly for him to see, I crossed the space between us to grasp his elbow, pinching a nerve and numbing his arm when he tried to jerk away. “Don’t be recalcitrant, Tommy. Remember, I’ll not hurt you, not seriously, if I can help it. But tell me about Frizer. Where is he now?”
“In Eltham. He’s running a tavern there. But you must not kill him! It would all come out then—I’d be ruined!”
“Perhaps I desire that. You could come crawling to me for favor and patronage, then.”
Tom’s anger choked him into silence. As we stepped into the lamplit stable-yard, he stopped, looking with horror at the stable cat. It had caught a mouse and was toying with it, letting it appear to escape; only to snare it again and drag it back. He glanced sidelong at me, and gasped at the smile playing over my face. “I’m the mouse to your cat, aren’t I,” he said wildly, “and for a cat-caught mouse there can be only one outcome.” I loosed my grip and turned an amused glance on him, but he seized his chance and fled. A second later, as he ran, I watched him shudder at my sudden laugh. The mouse had met its fate.
“My lord,” Jehan spoke softly from the shadows. “Prince Geofri wishes that you return to Blackavar at once.” I nodded, and went for my cloak, but I was no sooner inside than Ambrose Willoughby, her majesty’s Squire of the Body, pounced on me, saying that the Queen wished to speak with me at once. I followed the callow young man back into the hall, and approached the elderly woman under the canopy. “God’s Blood, cousin! An unfaithful Shadow you are, to so wander away; I vow I sent the man after you fully half an hour ago. Now, come sit here, that we may converse.” She nudged a cushion at her feet, seemingly unaware of the glares many in the crowd were turning on me. I bowed low then went down on one knee. “How now, you do not sit, my lord?”
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