This Dark endeavor taovf-1

by Kenneth Oppel

  I parried his attack, and planned my next move.

  “Pacing, pacing!” cried our master. “I have seen old men with more verve!”

  “I do not want to tire my brother,” Konrad replied.

  I feinted once, and then feebly struck Konrad’s foil at the midpoint.

  “Rather a waste, don’t you think?” Konrad goaded me.

  “Indeed,” I said. But it was what I wanted. Let him mock me, I thought. I had my plan now.

  Konrad returned to the en garde position, and we circled warily. I watched him, waiting for his attack, waiting for the flex of his knee as he lunged. When it came, I was ready.

  I performed a passata-sotto, a difficult maneuver I had been secretly practicing for weeks now. I dropped my right hand to the floor and lowered my body beneath Konrad’s thrusting blade. At the same time, I lunged with my own foil. His blade hit empty air. Mine struck his belly.

  “A hit, a very palpable hit!” cried our master. “The match is Victor’s. A passata-sotto. Well done, young sir.”

  My eyes went to Elizabeth, who was clapping with Henry. I pulled up my mask, grinning. It wasn’t often I bested Konrad, and the victory was sweet indeed.

  “A very fancy move,” said Konrad. “Congratulations.”

  He removed his mask, and I was taken aback by his pallor.

  “Are you well, young sir?” our fencing master asked, frowning.

  Elizabeth walked toward us. “You two have fought too hard,” she said. “Konrad, sit down a moment.”

  He waved her away, shivering. “I am fine. I am fine.”

  Elizabeth put her hand to his head. “You’re scalding.”

  “Merely from our exertions,” I said, and gave a lighthearted laugh. “It was quite a match. Shall we fetch the wheelchair for you?”

  “He is feverish, Victor,” she said to me sharply.

  As I looked more carefully at my brother, I knew he was truly ill. His skin had a parched look to it, and beneath his eyes were smudges of darkness.

  “I am not feverish,” said Konrad, and then he fainted.

  Elizabeth and I caught him clumsily before he hit the floor. He was not long unconscious, and by the time he awoke, Henry had fetched Mother and Father and they were at his side.

  “To bed with you, Konrad,” Father said. “We will have Maria bring you some broth.”

  I helped my father raise him to his feet and walk him unsteadily from the armory, with Elizabeth and Mother keeping pace with us. I kept hoping Konrad would meet my eye, give a playful wink to set my mind at ease, but he seemed groggy and withdrawn.

  “Was it too many nights on the balcony, practicing our play?” Elizabeth said anxiously, as though she herself were to blame.

  “More likely too long on the lake without a cloak,” said Mother.

  “He will be up for dinner,” I said, trying to sound confident. “Just a chill, no doubt.”

  Dr. Lesage arrived later in the afternoon to examine Konrad. To everyone’s huge relief, he said it wasn’t plague. He advised bed rest for three days, no food but broth, and regular doses of his patented strengthening draft.

  Mother forbade us from entering his bedchamber, for fear we would catch the fever. Elizabeth wanted to help tend to Konrad, but despite her protests, we were only permitted to call out hellos from the doorway.

  “I’m not being a very festive host for you, Henry,” Konrad said from his bed.

  “Then you best hurry up and entertain him properly,” I replied.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Henry. “Take your rest, Konrad.”

  “Get better soon,” said Elizabeth.

  Konrad nodded. “I will. I promise.”

  But five days later he was still bedridden.

  Our morning lessons were subdued, as Elizabeth, Henry, and I sat in the library listening to Father tell us about the early Greek thinkers and the principles of democracy.

  At the best of times I had trouble concentrating, and right now it was nearly impossible. I kept looking over at Konrad’s empty chair. Father, too, seemed distracted. Usually his lectures were full of Sturm und Drang, and he would pace and thump the table, and fire questions at us like a volley of arrows. But today he dismissed us early and told us to get some fresh air.

  At lunch, when Mother joined us at the table, she looked grave.

  “How is he?” Elizabeth asked worriedly.

  “Feverish again, and he complains of aching limbs. He says it makes his head throb when I read to him.”

  Father took Mother’s hand. “He’s very strong. The fever will break soon for good. All will be well.”

  Throughout the afternoon Konrad’s fever mounted. Dr. Lesage came and left some powders that he said were very beneficial for fighting infection.

  Before dinner I went to check on Konrad with Elizabeth and Henry. He was asleep. We stood at the doorway and watched Maria gently mopping his brow with a cool cloth. He flinched and twisted and muttered nonsense. Maria tried to smooth his sheets, made shushing sounds to calm him.

  “I’ve never felt a hotter head,” she said quietly to us.

  Seeing my brother so ill sparked in me feelings of such intensity that I was nearly overwhelmed. What if he didn’t recover? What if I were to lose him? Looking at him was like looking upon myself, seeing my own body racked with fever and pain.

  And, even more strange, I felt anger. How could Konrad have allowed this to happen? How could someone so healthy, and so smart and sensible, become so ill?

  I was ashamed for having such thoughts.

  And I was ashamed at how powerless I was to help him.

  At dinner that night I could not eat. My body ached, and my stomach swirled.

  “Victor,” my mother said. “Are you well?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re pale,” she said.

  I looked over at Henry, and then Elizabeth, and caught her quick, nervous glance at Mother. Suddenly my stomach clenched and turned over, and I had to rush from the table to the nearest water closet, where I retched, again and again, tears welling from my eyes. I could not remember feeling sicker.

  What had happened to Konrad had happened to me.

  An eternal night spent tossing and turning, shivering and sweating. When awake, I lay in the grips of terror; and when I slept, it was only in cruel snatches, and my dreams were foul. In one, Konrad and I were playacting, joyfully at first, but then with more and more fury, and when I slew him with the sword, it was a real sword, and real blood poured from his chest, and I laughed and laughed-and started awake, drenched and panting.

  Throughout the night, I was dimly aware of Mother and Father and the servants checking on me.

  Finally I must have slept properly, for when I next opened my eyes, it was dawn, and Dr. Lesage stood over me, taking my pulse.

  “Let us have a good look at you, young Master Frankenstein,” said the doctor, gently helping me sit up.

  Limply I submitted to his grave prodding. He seemed to take a great deal of time, which made me all the more agitated.

  “It is the same ailment as Konrad’s,” I rasped.

  “I will speak with your mother,” the doctor said, and with that he left.

  The next five minutes might have been hours. I was filled with dread. I stared out the window and saw the sunshine and the mountains, and it was as though it had nothing to do with me. It was a different world, one from which I was cut off forever. I was certain of the news I was about to hear.

  It was not Mother who came in finally, or Father, but Elizabeth. Anger radiated from her face.

  “There is nothing wrong with you!” she said.

  “What?” I exclaimed.

  She sat down on the edge of my bed and burst into tears. “You are fine,” she said. “Dr. Lesage said you are absolutely fine.”

  The power of the mind must be a miraculous thing, for at that very moment I felt my fever and sickness lessen. I sat up and patted her shoulder, but she batted my hand away.

>   “I wasn’t play acting,” I objected. “I truly felt… I felt terrible, as though all my strength had left me.”

  “You had us all so worried,” she said. “And it was merely in your head.”

  “I didn’t know!” I retorted, but I felt foolish and ashamed. And strangely jealous, too, for I suddenly realized she was not crying for me but for Konrad.

  “The doctor said it’s not unexpected,” she said, wiping at her eyes.

  “What’s not?”

  “He has seen such a thing before, with twins. He knew of one who, when his brother had his arm crushed in a machine accident, screamed, and could not use his arm for weeks because of the pain.”

  “I must see Konrad,” I said. “How is he?”

  I stood up and suddenly remembered I was in my nightshirt. Though Elizabeth and I had grown up together, I now felt self-conscious to be around her in so little state of dress. I noticed a flush to her cheek as she turned her face away.

  “His fever is not so high.”

  “That is good news.”

  “It would be better if the fever were gone altogether.”

  “Has Dr. Lesage any better idea what it is?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “All he knows is that it isn’t any typical infection. It is not contagious. It is some ailment within him that he must fight alone.”

  “Let’s go see him right now,” I said.

  “Ah, Victor,” said Konrad, “I hear you had another near scrape with death.”

  “A false illness,” I admitted sheepishly.

  He put his hot hand on mine. “Do try to keep out of trouble, Little Brother,” he told me.

  “Of course,” I said. “It would be better, though, if you stopped lazing about, so you can keep an eye on me.”

  “Oh, I’ll be up shortly. I feel a bit stronger today.”

  Elizabeth beamed at me. The windows of his room were thrown wide, and the scent of cut grass from the fields wafted in, along with the sound of the lapping lake, and it felt like the spring itself was enough to heal any ills.

  “You’ve had Mother in a terrible state,” I said.

  Konrad rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s making a fuss for nothing. Remember Charlie Fancher? He was laid up with ague for two weeks before it left him. I’ll be up and about soon.”

  “Good,” I said, “because Henry and Elizabeth have been plotting another play, and this time you are to be the hero.”

  “Excellent,” he said.

  But later when he tried to get up, he did not have the strength to stand for more than a minute without shaking. His face had a gaunt look.

  He was as weak as a newborn.

  Over the next several days I tried to stay hopeful, and tell myself Konrad was on the mend.

  The fever didn’t return with its earlier ferocity, but it refused to leave him altogether. After a morning lull it would come on again in the late afternoon-like some infernal gale that paused only to renew its strength.

  Now that we knew he wasn’t contagious, Elizabeth spent a good deal of her time helping Mother and the servants tend to him, reading to him to distract him from his aches. When Konrad felt well enough, Henry and I would drop by to talk with him, or sometimes even play a game of chess. These were rarely finished, as he complained of headaches, or simply felt too unwell to concentrate.

  I felt oddly incomplete, moving about the chateau without my twin. Not that we were always side by side, but I felt his absence more intensely now. Once, when we were six, and Mother was unwell during her pregnancy with Ernest, Father sent us each to stay with different relations for a fortnight.

  It was one of the loneliest and most miserable times of my life.

  But this was worse.

  Why wasn’t Konrad getting better?

  “You must take me to Mass, Victor,” Elizabeth said Sunday morning during breakfast.

  I looked up from my hard-boiled egg, my mouth still full of bread, uncomprehending for a moment, because I was so used to Konrad escorting her to the cathedral in Geneva or the small village church in Bellerive.

  “Yes, of course,” I replied.

  “Philippe will ready the trap for you,” Father said.

  Though my parents had no faith themselves, they had no desire to deprive Elizabeth of hers, and I was certain no Sunday had ever passed without her attending a Roman Catholic service.

  It was a relief to be away from the chateau, to be in the warm spring air, holding the reins, driving the trap along the lake road. We traveled in silence, but our worries of Konrad kept pace with us.

  When we arrived at the small church, Elizabeth said, “You can come inside if you like.”

  “I will wait here, I think.”

  “You could light a candle for Konrad.”

  “You know I don’t believe in such things.”

  She nodded and looked at the other parishioners entering the church with their families. For the first time it occurred to me that it must have been lonely for her, attending Mass alone all these years.

  “Did Konrad go inside with you?”

  “Not at first.”

  I helped her down, and watched as she walked into the church. I thought of how she would light a candle and pray-and I envied her.

  “What are you doing?” Ernest asked, coming into the library.

  It was Monday afternoon, and I’d spent nearly the entire day with books spread all around me, taking notes furiously.

  “I’m trying to learn about the human body and its ailments,” I said.

  My nine-year-old brother came forward, looking gravely at the book’s illustrations.

  “Konrad will get better, won’t he, Victor?” he asked.

  To my shame, I realized how little I’d thought of Ernest and how his older brother’s illness might be affecting him. Little William was far too young to understand-and it was a great comfort to me sometimes just to hold his little body and try to lose myself in his warmth and laughter and obvious good cheer-but at nine, Ernest, like all of us, was having to endure the gloomy weather change that had beset our house.

  I put down my pen and smiled as Father did when trying to reassure us. “Of course he will get better. I have no doubt whatsoever. He is strong, like all of us Frankensteins!”

  He pointed seriously at the book. “Is the cure in there?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know. Perhaps.”

  He got interested in the diagram of a man’s spleen. “What does that do?”

  “They used to think it ruled our temperaments.”

  “You’ll find the cure, Victor,” he said. “You’re almost as clever as Konrad.”

  “ Almost as clever?” I snapped. “And how would you know that, little boy?”

  His eyes widened in astonishment and hurt, and I instantly regretted my outburst. How could I fault him, after all, when it was abundantly obvious? Konrad had always been the better student, and my father took no pains to conceal it. Still, Ernest’s words smarted. Even to a nine-year-old boy it was clear that Konrad was the brighter star in our family’s constellation.

  Had I been just a year younger than Konrad-or even a nonidentical twin-it would have been easier to bear. But he and I were supposed to be the same in every respect. So what excuse had I to be the weaker?

  Elizabeth appeared in the doorway. “Ernest, Justine is looking for you in the garden.”

  I gave Ernest an apologetic smile and clapped him on the shoulder, but his parting look to me was wary.

  “Still here?” Elizabeth said, coming in.

  “You have your prayers,” I said. “I cannot pray, but I must do something, or go mad.”

  Restlessly I looked back at my book, a huge tome written mostly in Latin. My Latin was poor, and every sentence was a struggle, but I refused to give up. I had been a lackluster student, but I would remedy that with hard work.

  Elizabeth gently closed the cover. “You cannot expect to cure him on your own.”

  “Why not?” I demanded. “Someone has to.
”

  My eyes strayed to the bookshelf that concealed the secret passage to the Dark Library.

  “You have been here all day,” she said. “You can’t simply abandon Henry.”

  I sighed. “I am sorry if Henry feels abandoned, but there are so many books here to understand…”

  “Go riding,” she suggested. “You will get gloomy if you spend any more time here. Take Henry up into the meadows for an hour or two.”

  I looked forlornly at my desk. “Just a short break,” I said.

  So Henry and I changed into our riding gear and took our horses out for several hours. And I did enjoy the sunlight and air on my face, even as I felt guilty leaving Konrad in his sickbed.

  As I neared home, I dared to hope.

  When I saw Mother and Father, they would be smiling, and saying that Konrad’s fever had broken for good and he was on the mend and all would be well.

  But it was not so. He was the same.

  The very next day, a second physician accompanied Dr. Lesage to see Konrad. He was a handsome, fashionable-looking gentleman called Dr. Bartonne, who exuded confidence like an overpowering cologne. I disliked him on sight.

  He strode into the room, took one look at my brother, and said he had a disturbance of the blood. Therefore he needed to be bled. The physician placed slimy leeches all over my brother’s pale body and let them suck his blood until Konrad swooned. The fellow was greatly satisfied, and announced that he had purged Konrad of the poisons that had caused the fever, and that when my brother woke in the morning, he would feel weak but improved.

  It was true that he was cooler that night-who would not be cooler after having most of his blood sucked away by leeches? Nonetheless we all had great hope that this would speed his recovery.

  Come morning, however, the fever returned once more. Dr. Bartonne was summoned yet again. After he left, I went to seek out Mother to ask what he’d said. Walking along the upper hallway, I overheard her talking to Maria in the west sitting room.