Mark Antonius deMontford

by G. A. Hauser

  Mark had stopped listening to him. The towel was limp in his hand and he was naked and completely still. A servant stood by with fresh clothing.

  Enraged, Richard shouted, “Stop this! Get dressed!”

  The tone brought Mark back. He twisted to his right to see the servant waiting patiently. Mark reached for the pile in his arms and went to work covering himself.

  As he did, turning his back to Richard, Mark felt Richard run his fingers lightly over the three red lines crossing his bottom before the material was drawn up to cover it.

  * * * *

  When Mark entered the room, he paused. Margaret was not singing. She was playing a concerto. It was pleasant and had some complexity to it Mark enjoyed. Gabriel immediately stood and reached for him.

  “My lovely man, come here to me. How are you, my sweet? You can tell me anything. That is why I am here.” She petted back his long hair to clear the view of his face.

  “I am fine, for a bastard.” He nodded to the servant in thanks for his glass of wine.

  “Stop. Don't be silly.” She kept in contact with him, obviously not willing to let him go.

  Mark wished to be left alone. He wanted to be able to sit and listen to Margaret sing and play undisturbed, on that harpsichord. That gift from his father to his mother. Why wouldn't everyone just let him be? When Gabriel kept prodding him to talk, Mark stood and approached Margaret. She moved over at once to allow him to sit near her. Mark focused on how her fingers seemed to have a life of their own, moving with a satanic possession over the white and black keys. He'd never witnessed anything like it.

  Turning her face to him, Margaret smiled as if making sure he knew it was for him she played.

  At her attention Mark's pensive mood vanished. A sweet smile emerged from him and he gave it to Margaret.

  When she noticed it, her cheeks went raspberry in her blush. She focused back on her playing, as if trying to hit the notes perfectly for him.

  Yes, perhaps music was in his blood. Perhaps.

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  * * *

  Chapter Five

  The chiming of church bells sounded the distance. Midnight. Mark lay awake, his hands behind his head, staring at nothing. Like an irritating hammer on an anvil, he was going over and over again the things in his head that seemed to need sorting. He wished he could take them out, shuffle them correctly, and place them back inside.

  Richard had come and gone for a brief snuggle. There was no way the servant would summon him tonight to attend the master of the house. Even Gabriel must have thought he needed the night alone. He was glad for it for he felt spent.

  What course would be wise? What path would be a fool's folly? Were they both the same?

  If the great Marc Antinous Caeserni wanted his son with him, surely he would have sent for him nineteen years ago. A chariot of gold would have come to his door. Liveried servants would have bowed to the ground and called him “Excellency".

  No. He did not exist. The title granted him was “farm boy". Stop fussing and get to sleep!

  Oh, but if he could forget. How long would it take to get to Venice? He had no concept of it. Surely Cousin Thomas would know the way, which boat would sail him across the Channel, which coach would rush across France's green hills to the very edges of the earth. It seemed so inconceivably far. But his opera singer mother had made the journey, so obviously it was not impossible.

  How would he finance a venture such as this? His father, Marc Antinous Caeserni, was wealthy. The “farm boy” was not.

  Sleep would not come. Stepping out onto the cold floor, he straightened his nightshirt and padded out into the hall. He raised a tiny candle and made his way down to the lower level. Outside the world had come to a stop. It was the dead of night and no horse or carriage roamed. Pitch dark. Rain.

  He trod silently to the sitting room. The harpsichord so dominated that space. The white sheet covering it made it appear like an apparition, a haunted creature bent over with a wide back and narrow spindly legs. A gift. A present to his mother.

  “The music is in your blood,” Richard had said that to him. Passed down to him by his mother. The woman he was trying so hard not to hold in utter contempt. Had he meant nothing to her? Did she ever think about him after she had handed him off?

  Was he her only offspring? Had he a legion of brothers and sisters, all living scattered across the country, like so many seeds to the wind?

  Something raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Why was he convinced if he spun around he would see something frightening? When he did he found Margaret and exhaled in relief.

  She moved nearer to him, her thick dressing gown brushed the floor when she walked giving her the illusion of floating.

  Delicately she set her candle beside his own and sat next to him. They stared at each other for a long moment before either of them spoke.

  “You cannot sleep.” Her voice was so high and pure it brought a shiver to his skin. “I know what happened yesterday. They think me an idiot and try to hide things, but I know, Mark. I know what they told you.”

  It shamed him. Instantly the heat and redness came to his face. She knows! She knows I am an unwanted bastard of an opera singer and a Venetian! Could life become any more of a torment?

  Margaret touched his hand as it rested on his nightshirt-covered thigh. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause more harm.”

  Lifting his wet lashes, Mark stared at her hand. It was petite and pale, more so from the yellowish candle flames and his darker shade under it.

  Her fingers tightened around his hand, trying to comfort him.

  “What are you doing down here? Why aren't you in bed?” He sounded like her father suddenly.

  “I was thirsty. When I came past this room to the kitchen, I found you here.”

  “Go then. Leave me.” He twisted his face away to the curtained window, removing his hand from her grip.

  As she rose up slowly, the material of her gown slipped past him in a soft rustle. “Would you like to see a picture of your mother?”

  He spun around with so much speed, she let out a gasp. Rising up at once, Mark stood and towered over her menacingly. “What picture?”

  Shaken slightly by his reaction, she took a moment to get herself back, her small hand fluttering like a butterfly near her throat.

  “What picture?” he repeated, about to shake her violently if she did not respond.

  In obedient silence, she picked up the candle and started out of the room.

  Mark followed after her, trying not to pant, holding his breath.

  It was down that same long stretch of hall he'd moved earlier, when the sting of the switch had tamed him. A sudden ripping sensation seared through his lower abdomen. He already knew where she was headed. Somehow a face came back to him from a painting. How this could be possible he could not explain.

  The air inside this room was moldy, dust covered, it was so seldom used. She moved to that side of the room directly. Now he was certain.

  Mark rushed to her as she held the candle aloft over that ornate piece of furniture he had been bent over. The family portrait came to view.

  “Wait!” He stopped her from pointing his mother out and did it himself. “It is she.”

  She twisted to face him and asked, “Has Richard already shown you?”

  Mark did not answer. How he knew this, he could not guess. But when he had first lain eyes on that fragile face captured on canvas, he knew. There was a likeness. She was quite possibly his age when it had been done. She could be his sister.

  Mark pushed the candle to the side, trying to see through the annoying reflections on the surface. “Do you know her name?” It was nothing more than a strained whisper of a request. The pain was so constant in him now, he could hide nothing.

  “You mean you don't even know her name?” She took a deep breath and said, “Elizabeth Jones.”

  He repeated it silently.

  “She went by the stage name,
‘Maria',” Margaret continued.

  They knew so much. They knew all his history. This was inexcusable. He never wanted to see his Uncle David and Aunt Katie again. What they did to him, what they kept from him, it was criminal and certainly unforgivable.

  After a very long moment, memorizing his mother's features, Mark turned, head down, and made for the door in the dimness.

  Margaret followed. He ascended the staircase, still silently brooding.

  His young shadow followed him until Mark stood before the door to her bedroom. Pausing, he twisted back to see her. “Good night, Margaret.”

  Mark continued down the hallway. He rested his cheek against a door and scratched lightly at the wood. When he heard nothing, Mark turned the latch and pushed it back. A rush of warm air brushed by his face. Gliding to the bed, Mark stared down at its occupant.

  Thomas was peaceful as he rested. His handsome face, passive and sweet. Mark tickled Thomas’ forearm as it lay over the quilt. He was lonely and wanted a companion to ease his ache. Thomas was the strongest and most tender of the three. Richard hadn't the wisdom or patience, Gabriel hadn't the power.

  Moving to the surface of consciousness, Thomas came to life slowly and opened his eyes. A smile soft and kind came to his face. “You cannot sleep?”

  Mark shook his head.

  Slowly, Thomas moved over for him. Mark climbed in and the warmth was welcoming as if he were fresh from playing in the snow and this was a coal-burning stove.

  “You must go to your own room before the dawn,” Thomas warned as he wrapped around Mark and brought him to his chest.

  “Yes.” Mark drifted off into a deep slumber soon after.

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  * * *

  Chapter Six

  Mark thought they would have to drag him here, this spectacle of light and paste-covered faces. But he came willingly. His curiosity piqued. Their box seat was set high above the noise and to the right of the stage. Mark leaned over the edge to peer into the musician's pit. A few of the men had begun taking their seats in it and papers flapped like doves’ feathers as they were set on stands.

  Suspended from the ceiling was the most enormous chandelier he had ever seen. Hundreds of wax tapers shot up from it and illuminated the ornate gilded columns to the painted ceiling. Over his head angels reached out their wings to one another. Wisps of fabric covered them modestly as they seemed to float naked in the depicted sky.

  The stage was curved and drew in tight at its ends like a bow pulled taut before the arrow flies. The curtains were black in the dimness, but Mark was sure he would see a color if he stood closer.

  Below, the noise and number of patrons astonished him. Everywhere the low murmur of voices and rustle of cloth surrounded him. He wore the finest fabric money could buy. The lace at his neck and wrists burst out like overflowing sea foam and the royal blue velvet of his frock was embroidered with white stitching, spinning around shining brass buttons. His white knee breeches were crisp and tight, right to his cream colored stockings. He wore a short sword on his belt, mostly for ornament. He wasn't sure he knew how to use it any more than playing with tree branches at the farm, lunging and stabbing at imagined dragons whilst standing on a log in a stream. His hair shone in the rising chandelier light, so long and flowing from the back he knew he could easily be mistaken for a woman in a man's uniform. (Or so Richard had said.) His sharp eyes studied every detail below whilst his cousins sipped their wine and murmured behind him about the wonderful new composer, some German named Georg Friedrich Handel. A man who had endeared himself so much to London society that Queen Anne had granted him an annual income.

  When the chandelier rose to the ceiling and the room became all but black, Mark leaned over the ledge to be able to catch every sound.

  The composer bowed and stood before the orchestra. When those first few notes of violin, il Pastor fido, reached Mark's ears, he thought he would burst into tears. The melody had a moaning sadness he found painful. That shimmering, eerie reverberation coming from bow and string was like nothing he had ever heard before. His skin broke out into a shiver of gooseflesh.

  The curtain drew back and a gasp of pleasure rose at once from the illusion created behind it. Puffy clouds hung over a Grecian courtyard where statues bigger than life loomed beside a fountain.

  A woman appeared in white, her wig tall and covered in pearls. When she opened her mouth and sang in the crispest soprano voice he had ever imagined, Mark cried. Suddenly he was transformed back to the stage where a young woman named Elizabeth Jones chased her dreams. That would be her down there, in satin and lace, her bosom crushed up from the seams of a tightly constricting bodice, her slippers shushing on the wooden stage. And that sound! Those notes more resonant than any violin, pouring out of her. A largeness came to her, so grand that she could fill and silence this mass auditorium.

  He could not stand it. Emotionally he went haywire. Frozen, Mark stayed until she had finished and from the crowd came a roar of applause and shouting. To his stunned ears he thought he heard, “Maria! Maria!”

  Though several sets of arms reached to stop him, Mark pushed through the dusty curtain to the aisle, oblivious to the few people he shoved past to get out. He needed air.

  Madness. Madness came over him. He was rabid. Mark could not see. In the wet streets he floundered, stepping back as horses almost ran him over, carriages listed to scrape his shoulder. He wanted to retch, to throw up all this poison inside. How foolish he was to think the simplicity of the farm was a bad thing! A thing of contempt! Oh, the lessons one learned in life were so hard. So punishing.

  Four black horses thundered by. The carriage itself was the color of tar, glossy and shiny whether wet or dry. Gold touched the carved scrolls of its edges. Mark noticed them just in time. It was raining and the visibility was waning with the deepening hour of night. He shouted as he jumped aside, falling to his knees on the hard cobbles.

  The carriage ground to a halt and the driver climbed down to make sure he was all right.

  Dizzy and sick, Mark was on his knees, his hands on the wetness, trying to get out of this eternal nightmare.

  “Lad! Are you hurt?”

  The occupant of the carriage peered out and shouted to the driver in a coarse angry roar, “Get back and resume your speed at once!”

  The driver yelled back his apology, “Sorry, Your Lordship. I've hit a young lad.”

  Out came a white slipper on the boards, gem encrusted and followed by imported and richly embroidered silk stockings. A walking stick emerged with a sapphire on its top. The sway of a white satin cape moved side to side with the swagger. “I've no time for peasants who are too stupid for their own sense they cannot get out of the way of a carriage.”

  “Yes, Your Lordship. I'm sorry, Your Lordship. I just wanted to see the lad was all right,” came the driver's stammering reply.

  The man peered down his nose in repugnance. “Well? Is it alive?”

  The driver helped Mark to his feet. As Mark stood tall, he pushed the hair back from his eyes and he could see them both staring at him.

  As if he were just noticing Mark's expensive clothing, fine lace, and jeweled sword, the man's gaze came to rest on Mark's face.

  Mark's fury was like a lighthouse's torch in a black sea. He was puffed up in a rage, but it had nothing to do with this near miss of a coach.

  “He seems all right, Your Lordship,” the driver said.

  Slowly, the man moved closer to scrutinize Mark's face. “No peasant are you. What a remarkable looking young man, and such finery. Who is this charming fellow?”

  Not interested in his comments, Mark snarled.

  Grinning in wicked delight, the man appeared even more amused. “Let me take you to my home where you will get cleaned up and some wine in you. I insist. After all, I almost killed you tonight. Come along.” He reached out his gloved hand.

  With disdain, Mark inspected the tall white wig and the fake birthmark on his cheek. Tho
se narrow, pursed lips were even painted whore red. In odd curiosity Mark took that hand and entered the lush gilded carriage.

  Climbing in, Mark sat heavily, just noticing the mud on his pure white breeches. It angered him terribly somehow.

  The horses resumed their fast pace over the narrow lanes as the man stared at Mark in the dimness. As if he were pleased of an audience, he spoke softly to Mark, obviously not caring if he was heard or even replied to.

  “I ask that you tell me your name.” With an act of elegant poise, the man moved to Mark's side of the carriage.

  “What does it matter? What if I am merely no one?”

  “Ah! Such anger! I was once an angry young man. I dueled and fought my whole young life away. What has it ever gotten me but scars.” Boldly the man reached for Mark's jaw and turned his head so he could see him straight on. A kerchief came out of the man's sleeve as he tried to wipe the mud from Mark's cheek. “A lovelier face I have not seen,” he purred seductively.

  At the comment, Mark connected to his eyes. That horrible showy wig! That set of red lips! How repulsive! And how indescribably exciting!

  A wicked smirk curled Mark's lips. Before the man could recognize his intent, Mark shoved him back and lay over him, sucking on the man's mouth hungrily.

  Shocked, the man grunted at the surprise and then closed his eyes and allowed Mark's enormous appetite to envelope him.

  As Mark squirmed on him and dug deeper into this man's clothing, he tried to block out that noise in his head, “Maria! Maria!”

  With a deep gasp, Mark twisted away from his mouth and violently tore at the breeches under him, trying to get the man naked so he could lose himself.

  Once Mark found that hardness, he lowered down and took it into his mouth. A deep, masculine groan filled his ears as he sucked. Within moments the man cried out as it overwhelmed him, “Oh, sweet mother of God!”

  The carriage came to a halt, the quarter horses shifted noisily in their harnesses blowing out clouds of steam with their breath. The driver climbed down and opened the door. The step rolled out and once again a white satin slipper touched it.