by Cooper, R.
The dog stood still before James, not turning to look at anyone while this figure watched them.
René blinked, accustomed to such spells after months of aching bones and weakness, startled only by the sudden pounding of his heart, tense muscles keeping him on his feet. What trick was it that he beheld now, when it was only the merciless eyes of a raven that gleamed as they gazed upon him. As though it were nothing to see his sold-off bastard bleeding at his door.
If he thought himself safe in his home surrounded by his children then he was a fool. René allowed himself a deep breath that brought more bile with it and then tightened his hold on his sword, narrowing his eyes as he stared down the slick, wet edge of the blade.
It was in James Fitzroy to feel pity while René’s soul remained empty. It was for that that he stayed upright on his shaking limbs and did not blink, and did not direct his gaze to where it wished to rest forever. There was only a sliver of gold allowed at the corner of his vision, his eyes meeting another pair, black like his own, so carefully reflecting back nothing when they glanced to him. He turned away from that sight as well, his dry lips cracking apart to know himself under scrutiny.
Perhaps this man did not know which bastard had him in sight now, or perhaps they came to him in dozens, knowing that none with his eyes could deny their parentage.
“You are not dead.” The man’s stare held no light as it left him, as it went back to where it should not be, and René felt his fingers slipping, feeling at last the loss of the blood. His eyes would close despite his wishes, slow to open again, and he was left in the dark, turning his head until he found the red of light. It was James, and he could not open his eyes now, not with his limbs trembling and his knees urging him to the floor.
“You bring…this…to my house?” The voice spoke, words stabbing down through René’s shoulder to his chest, creeping inside his wounds like sickness that would turn his flesh to black, the demand wet at his ear. He could not breathe no matter how he tried, and the fingers curled into his skin until he felt his eyes throbbing, his gasps louder then the heels scraping and kicking on the wall. His heels, he thought, but that could not be, he would not, though his cheeks were hot and damp.
He wanted to feel the tears on his face, and moaned when his hands would not quit their hold on shining fabric. It was rough on his palms and still he could not let go, and he wanted to cry out when even the red began to turn dark and his head was falling. He was not a child any longer, and this would not happen to him again.
Fear had burned through his lungs like he had stood too near the fire, searing his dry eyes, but he had had to breathe, and when the hands at his throat had suddenly eased, it had hurt, the pain of his body on the floor nothing to what had been tearing inside of him with every gasp.
“I owe a debt… It is a matter of honour.” The silken insertion was as low as a servant’s voice, interfering with planned humility, and it was bitter on René tongue though he had not spoken the words, made his legs ache with the urge to straighten. His lips moved, but he could not speak, and the beat of his blood in his chest was loud and unsteady, drowning out the angel that called his name.
The beat was fast and unforgiving. He was not dead though he had prayed to die so many times, called out toMaman’s God in the language the priests used to speak with Him, begged his own tongue, prayed aloud and when his mouth had been full. God hated him, he had known it with every man at his back, and God was punishing him at last for his sins and would not let him die.
“You will not touch what is mine.” The warning against further transgressions had come as he had lain there with his knees to his chest, the impression of those hands still warm at his throat. But the grin had fallen from Father’s face to his see his bastard laughing at being thrown to the floor. How all his children laughed when threatened with death. Perhaps Father would smile as well, laugh into the cold marble that would soon warm with his blood.
René’s eyes opened wide as his hands fell, fingers stretched and empty. His shudder was strong enough to make his shoulders curl into his body, around the pain that pierced his side. Always pain for him, and he was nearly smiling already to feel it, narrowing his eyes and tilting his head back.
The creature he could have called brother had moved, standing at an angle to James, their shoulders nearly touching. He had tried to save James too, though he no longer held his hand up in warning, and his eyes gleamed as he watched, his mouth pressed tight. The golden glow had not faded when René had opened his eyes, the light coming from James now streaked out over Etienne Saint-Cyr, and René could feel the dust of ashes sticking in his nose, in his throat.
He did not know if the others hiding behind the door could taste it as well, but he pitied them as he dropped his head to his coat and breathed in oranges and rosemary. He knew without turning to look that Father was still smiling, an unpleasant twisting of his lips, that his father thought this would frighten the peasant James, when not even his sons flinched from it.
René’s eyes burned as he kept them open, staring at the defiance that James had brought here, disobedience that would earn them all pain. There were no soft poses as they waited, and René’s head snapped at up at the noise when Saint-Cyr chose to at last answer them.
“You return with nothing and now demand payment.” The contempt of a king was a sharp as the sword itself, a reminder of the cost of failure. He dismissed words of honour with a wave of his hand, his limp wrist lacking the grace that should have been in the movement, that would have been in the motions of a younger man. The women stayed behind their door, but even they gasped.
There was no honour in being cast off and thrown to Hell. The trembling returned to René’s body to think of the fate awaiting them for this. For every moment they did not bend there would be punishment, perhaps death unless they ended it now. He could not allow that, not for those who did not yet know real sin.
Innocents that he had brought to this; he had not cared about the bravery of a child staring with hate-filled eyes at the man who owned his fate, or the courage of an unarmed fool offering silken challenges to a killer. Even the women risked much by remaining so near to this danger. He had not guessed the cost of his act as a child, but he had known his guilt before he had ever laid eyes onMademoiselle, the sickness in his birth, and he had known there would be blood.
She had not stayed in Father’s bed long, no longer than the others, but René had chosen her and brought on his own banishment. James, who had not killed Deniau, who had freed the prisoner Etienne, would not follow him to that. He would not. René had kept the child from this place and for that Godmust listen.
“I will not allow it.” Through his teeth, the words were too quiet to carry around the room, the barest whisper, and René flexed his fingers, seeking out and finding the crossing hilt of the knife at his waist. His swords had disappeared into the abyss at his feet, and he left them, grinding his teeth at the pain in his movements.
“I will not allow it!” The stabbing at his shoulder made his words harsh, but he lifted his chin at his father’s gaze, staring back into the face wrinkled with sin. He would bear this, but if God refused him than he would commit sins to blacken Heaven and the very name of God until the last of his blood finally dripped from his body.
“I will not allow you to have them.” He could not breathe, his words coming too far apart for him to understand, but James heard, opening his mouth to protest in shapeless noises. One dark, slender brow arched upward, creating lines in the layers of powder, the painted lips parting to expel a breath that had the sound of a laugh. It should have burned beneath his skin, but his flesh was numb, and the laugh was weak, trembling with hidden fear.
He sought to send his eyes elsewhere, tried to deny the blade René had offered him, and looked instead to his claimed heir.
“For what is there this debt?” The voice that should have been smooth was rough, reaching up too loudly to the ceiling above as though he needed all of Paris to know,
and if the son answered it was too low for René to hear, not enough to draw his eyes from his fate. Every line on the handsome face marked a sin, and no powders would hide it from his eyes. “If you were so foolish as to trade with them for your life, they can have it or bring me something useful, else send them back to gutter.”
Across the room, James betrayed his weakness with a noise low in his throat, but René did not look to him, knowing he would see only disgust. Instead, his head went back at such old injuries, and he stared at his blood through the wet sting of tears.
“Aye, we hardly belong here.” James who had been silent spoke again, and it was as though the madman’s soul were still splashed darkly across his hands, his fingers curled around Deniau’s knife. He had stood there in the growing pool with angry eyes glittering all around him, shaking with the force of a strange emotion. He was not shaking now, standing just as tall above Etienne Saint-Cyr.
“James…” He whispered the name, his protest catching in his tight throat when he was ignored. René felt his body grow still as well, his breathing stalled in his chest, next to his trapped heart that would not stop beating. This was the vision she had seen in her pathetic church, and how she had prayed to see James enter. Light clung to each strand of hair that he had tied away from his shoulders, flickering over the strong lines of his face. Beyond the glass, René could not see into the brown eyes, but he knew they were not turned to him, just as they no longer looked upward.
“Do you fear me to tremble so?” The terrible voice had demanded an answer, echoing inside his skull despite the attempt at gentleness, and he was a fool not to have known then, not to have seen it when he had let the taste melt on his tongue. He had lied, denying James even as he had opened his legs and his mouth and given James all he had wanted. He had ignored the truth of the creature in his bed and brought them all to this, and the silver tightening in his belly spoke of more death to come. It flashed behind his eyes, sparkling and sharp like the thousands he had known before and would not know again after this day.
“James!” He called out the name knowing that he would not answer, his gaze narrowing to only the firm line of the rose-coloured mouth. It did not open to speak to him, and the spirit was draining from him, settling heavily in the legs that no longer wished to hold him.
“We do not belong here. None belong here save you.” So quietly he spoke, René could still feel the shivering breath at his neck, his lips burning with the need for another soft kiss. “Then you ought to leave…” He could hear the words, the fever in the voice when it should have been cool, and sighed a warning that would not be heeded. But there was no one else to speak it, no one else allowed to speak before this. They all waited in silence as René should have, looking to James as he moved at last, sliding aside the stiff lining of a stolen coat to reveal the silver of the pistol.
The renewed pounding of his blood hurt, pushing René forward with his hands out, forgetful of the blades still caressing his palms. He had asked before, and James had refused. He would not stain himself now; he would not if there was mercy even for a sinner. The other had begged, yet said nothing in this moment, as James closed his hand around the weapon and pulled it free.
“There will be no dueling with such as you. I will not earn such dishonour.” He had no time for the fear shaking the old body now, the fear of this James that kept them all in their places, made them want to fall to their knees. René was breathing carefully, counting each dry rush of air that passed through his mouth, looking across to study the hard line of James’ jaw, the firmed lips.
“You are concerned with honour?” James seemed to be trembling, moving oddly in the blurred scene in front René’s dry eyes, moving so that even when René blinked there was only the quivering traces of gold that surrounded James as he swept forward another step, his voice rising. “You?”
“Father!” The cry came from the space behind him, the voice high with alarm and yet no one came forward, no one matched the next slow, deliberate step James took so they might stop this, not wishing it to stop.
René forced his gaze to the son, to Etienne Saint-Cyr, who stood with a closed mouth at James’ back, one hand out behind him as though this would keep his sisters locked in their far room. His eyes he kept on their father, his chin lifted as he waited for that man to speak, as though he knew something that the rest did not.
Whatever had been bargained between them, down below the decks of his ship, it held no weight here. René clenched his teeth to know he had said the thought aloud, but did not look away. The word of a Saint-Cyr was nothing, and James was a fool to have offered his own, the mad, prudish Englishman who had judged him on board his own ship for seeing justice done.
The sword had taxed his strength then, made him weak though he had stood tall, and yet it was the man behind him who worried for the sake of those who needed protection. James could not have known René had wished no harm to the boy, and yet he had left him that morning, slipping out like a thief before dawn, leaving the boy to René’s care.
As long as he had thought the child safe, he had stayed in that house with the man who had sold him to pirates and killers. His dignity had meant nothing next to the child’s happiness, and yet he had left the boy to do this, left with no hope of returning, left him to René’s care as if he possessed faith after all.
“It is good, then, that I have no wish to duel this day.” James spoke to a quiet room, reason and calm terrifying in his level voice when so many others could not free their tongues to respond, bile burning at their throats. It was not René who answered him; it could not be, with his heart pushing the breath from him, his body in the posture of pain.
“James…” The name did not grant him James’ attention, and the tall form did not turn. “The boy, James…the boy is not here. He is safe.” For once he and the child had agreed, did not James understand? There was no need for this action. “James, let us leave.”
He felt eyes on him, not the eyes he wished, but eyes of gleaming back, too many for him to face, and still he raised his head, staring down those who did not understand what would soon be laying at their feet.
James turned to him as well, blinking as though there were still dreams behind his eyes, confusion drawing his brows together for one long moment. Then his mouth opened. Whatever words he wished to say were not for René it seemed, as he turned away, his frown deepening for one moment as he faced the beast—an old man, who snorted and made a show of chuckling, his laughter as colourless as James’ unbitten lips.
“You refuse to see.” It was James who accused another of blindness, as though most did not pray for the blanket to hide their eyes, as though the thin planes of glass across his nose did not shield him from the truths that clung to the skin and burned like hot wax. “They did not wish me to see either. They thought ittheir shame.”
It was a sin for James not to have told him, to have kept the light away from him as he had watched and feigned ignorance and held him in those arms. Whatever James dreamed of had been kept from him, whatever he imagined that could not be true and this would not matter. It was James who did not see.
“…But you will.” It was madness, and yet Rene felt himself stretching on his toes for the touch of those words, not imagining the tickle of breath at his ears as though James did speak for him after all though his eyes were elsewhere.
His thumb stroked lightly over the pistol as he held it, as though he treasured having it, and René felt his stomach tighten to remember that first gentle, surprising touch to his cock, the gasp that had come from James’ mouth to learn of his own pleasure.
“You did not listen to the cries of your children.” His hand was empty when he brought it to his mouth and pressed his skin hard to his lips to keep the sounds inside, and they dried to dust on his tongue. It was the other who spoke, murmuring nothing at James’ back, a protest that he had not cried, the brave, true son. But James was deaf to his pleas, and it was René who shook his head at the reminder of what he
had done.
A mention of his boy had not cracked the hard shell of gold that surrounded him, had not even slowed the careful, measured breaths that came between each quiet, calm word.
“Those who love you, you abandon. You leave your own blood used and broken behind you.” “What did she ask of you, James?” René’s voice was cracking and he was again a child fallen at his father’s feet, but he did not care when the others were dumb with fear and worry. He would still speak as whips ate his flesh and demanded more. “What did she tell you?”
“She?” James barely whispered and angled his head only slightly toward him, as though he waited on another word that René had yet to speak. Too many thoughts pounded inside his skull as René tried to search his mind, feeling as ill as a man who had had nothing but too much wine for months, wishing suddenly that he had eaten at James’ urging the night before, that he were still in his bed, James underneath him as he dreamed. His mind gave him nothing but that, glowing red, and he could not stop to think, and could not find what it was that would bring this to another ending. James was his, James would only heed him, if only he could give James what was needed now.
“Who are you?” It had taken the man too long to muster the strength to ask the question, and he asked it too loudly, his voice quavering in the silence that followed. René turned to follow the sound, his eyes big and round, and saw another whose eyes were the same.
It was not his gaze that flinched away, and yet his vision spun around, streaked with the yellow light of this room, of unnatural light, and found himself seeing brown English eyes so far away, staring at him as though he could see his thoughts and was ashamed to know them.
If another had not claimed the Englishman’s attention then, he might have fallen there, and pled for forgiveness. He stumbled though he stood upright, the force in James’ eyes urging him to the floor, making him shake like the old man awaiting judgment now. He could not answer the demand in those eyes, did not even know what answer to give.