“Bad luck,” said Crane amiably. “Merrick, can you drive back and see about Mr. Day’s clothes for tonight?”
“Sir,” said Merrick, flipping a cheery wave to Miss Bell, who was being buttonholed by Mrs. Talbot, as he got into the carriage.
Stephen set off at a rapid, angry pace down the leafy lane. Crane, whose extra height was mostly leg, kept up effortlessly with long, casual strides. It was very hot now, but the trees above shed welcome green shade, and magpies cawed and chirruped overhead. Their feet echoed slightly on the dry packed earth.
“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Crane.
“No.”
They paced on for a moment.
“What’s a justiciar?”
Stephen stared ahead. “You asked who enforces the laws surrounding practitioners. Justiciars do.”
“And that’s what you are.”
“Yes.”
“A secret policeman.”
“It’s not a secret.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“You’re not a practitioner.”
“Justiciar. Judge and jury?”
“If you like.”
“So what’s the penalty for killing someone with a Judas jack?”
“My job is to stop practitioners hurting people,” said Stephen irritably. “I’d have stopped Gammer Parrott by whatever means necessary.”
“You killed that warlock last winter,” Crane observed.
“That was necessary.”
“Judge, jury and executioner. What about Miss Bell? What’s the maximum sentence for aiding and abetting murder?”
“It doesn’t work like that. My job is to stop practitioners hurting people, and I do that however I have to.”
“So you left Miss Bell disinclined to hurt me, by bullying and threatening her.”
“If you want to put it like that,” said Stephen, tight-lipped.
“Until you forced me and her into alliance. So I stood up for her, more or less proving she was wrong about me as I did so, and left her far better disposed towards me. I can feel my local reputation improving as we speak.”
Stephen looked slowly round. Crane was grinning at him.
“Nicely played. Although when you’re relying on my intervention, I’d rather you warn me in advance.”
“I wasn’t relying on anything. You had every right to demand redress, and I’d have supported that. Though I did think—hope—you might react as you did,” Stephen added, slightly less stiffly. “It was…fair. And I’m glad of it. It’s best for everyone to get her back on the straight and narrow.”
“You’ve got that authority, to let her off?”
“Well, yes. Judge and jury.”
“That’s quite a responsibility.”
“It’s how your ancestor set it up,” Stephen said. “The Magpie Lord founded the justiciary, he made the rules. Of course, he thought it would be an appointment of honour, not a job you give the misfits and the ones who can’t pay for training.”
“Not a popular job, then.”
“No,” Stephen said, with some emphasis. “Nobody likes the justiciary, sticking our noses into other people’s business and telling our betters what to do. They can’t stand us, right up till the moment they come up against someone stronger and more ruthless, and then they start clamouring for help and asking why we haven’t done our jobs before.” He kicked a stone into the white-blossomed hedgerow. “It’s harder out here. In the cities, there’s more danger but that means people understand more. Here, they just do what they like and treat the law like it’s for other people.”
“That attitude seems fairly common round here. I take it your aunt wasn’t sympathetic.”
“My aunt,” said Stephen viciously. “Dear Aunt Annie. Apparently the fact that she’s my father’s sister gives her the right to decide what he’d have thought about any situation. Apparently, she knows the definition of justice better than I do. Apparently, any friend of hers, such as Gammer Parrott, is above the law. Or rather, it’s impossible that dear Edna could have done a bad thing, therefore you must deserve the fate of the other Vaudreys regardless of evidence, and therefore there’s only one reason for me to prevent you being murdered, and it has nothing to do with law or justice.”
“And that is?”
“Well, let’s see,” Stephen said. “You’re notorious for unspeakable vice. You’ve put me up in what ought to be your wife’s bedroom. And Graham saw—saw—me commit an abominable act on you in the garden last night. So why don’t you take a guess.”
“Shit.”
“I just want to know how exactly you’ve made sure everyone in Lychdale knows who you go to bed with,” Stephen snapped. “You’ve only been in the country four months! Do you even stop to sleep? And between your abysmal reputation and a pair of damp trouser knees, Mr. Graham seems to have conjured up a story out of Sins of the Cities of the Plain, which allowed my aunt to accuse me of gross depravity with, more or less, my father’s murderer.”
“The bitch. Stephen—” Crane reached for him. He slithered sideways, away, and started walking again, a fast, angry march.
“It’s what she wanted to hear,” he went on. “It confirmed that she was quite right not to offer to house me when my father died, which she’s been trying to justify for the last twelve years. It’s entirely reasonable to abandon a homeless boy if he grows up to be a sodomite, especially with a Vaudrey involved. And I could hardly make a convincing denial of anything going on, could I?”
Crane put a hand through his hair. “I’m extremely sorry. I can probably make Graham recant—”
“It won’t change her mind. I don’t care anyway.” Stephen halted abruptly. “Do you want me?”
“What?”
“Well, if I’m going to get talked about and screamed at and accused anyway… You can have me. Now. If you want.”
“Out here?” Crane said incredulously. “Did they change the law without telling me?”
“There’s nobody within a quarter of a mile.”
“How can you possibly— Do you actually know that?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “For God’s sake, do you want to do it or not?”
Crane grabbed the back of Stephen’s head and tilted it back as he bent to force his mouth onto the smaller man’s, hard, feeling him gasp. They stumbled to the side of the road and a few yards into the woods, lips awkwardly locked, and Crane pushed Stephen up against a tree. Stephen pulled at his shirt, and Crane grasped his wrists and shoved them back, either side of the tree trunk, pinioning him.
“I’m in charge,” he said.
Stephen nodded, closing his eyes. His lips were reddened, but his face was rather pale.
Crane’s hand slipped to Stephen’s waist, unfastening buttons rapidly. Stephen was only semi-hard, but that changed rapidly as Crane went on his knees and took him in his mouth.
He licked and sucked with well-honed skill, using teeth and lips and tongue, and Stephen gripped his scalp desperately. Crane felt the prickle of those magical fingers as Stephen’s arousal built. He brought him off quickly, not allowing him time to think, ignoring Stephen’s warning groan and taking the magician’s come in a salty rush to his mouth as Stephen jerked and spasmed against him, his electric fingertips sparking in Crane’s hair.
Stephen slithered down the tree trunk and ended up sitting on the moss, mouth open, eyes shut.
“God,” he said eventually. “You’re very good at that.”
Crane wiped his lips. “Practice makes perfect.”
Stephen was still for another moment while his breathing returned to normal. He squared his shoulders slightly as he opened his eyes to meet Crane’s. “How do you want me?”
“Uh-uh,” said Crane. “Another time.”
“What?”
Crane leaned over and kissed him, deep but gentle now, letting Stephen feel his own salty sweetness on his tongue. At last he pulled away and rubbed Stephen’s swollen lower lip with a light thumb. “When I have you, sweet boy, it will be
because you want me to. Not against your better judgement, not in spite of my surname, and definitely not to annoy your aunt.”
Stephen went red, but his voice was defiant. “Well, what was that, then?”
Crane shrugged. “You seemed tense.”
Stephen gave an incredulous choke of laughter. His head whipped round. “Blast. Stay still.”
His hands gave a quick jerk in the air, and he gripped Crane’s arm, holding him steady, as two labourers strolled round the bend. They walked together, chatting idly, completely ignoring the two men sprawled together a few yards from the road, and disappeared up the lane. Crane stared after them until Stephen released his arm.
“That is useful,” Crane said. “But, rather than using it again…” He got to his feet and pulled Stephen up, gently brushing his cropped hair for bark as Stephen rearranged his clothing.
“Look, Crane—Lucien—are you sure—”
“Yes,” Crane said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take it out on you soon enough. Come on.”
Chapter Twelve
Stephen Day contemplated himself in the spotty mirror with a sense of quietly impending doom. There were several reasons for this. The most trivial but most obvious was his clothing.
Merrick had done impressive work on his black suit, but there was no getting away from its age and cheapness: it was ill fitting; the black was rusty; and the elbows were worn, as always happened to his jackets because he always ended up propping himself on his elbows, occasionally in pools of various liquids. He’d definitely leaned in something in this one.
Usually the issue wouldn’t have crossed his mind, but two days of Crane’s sartorial perfection were getting to him. The man wore the best-cut suits Stephen had ever seen, of magnificent, understated quality, setting off the elegance of his long, rangy frame. Stephen couldn’t imagine what he—or rather Merrick—did to his spotless linen to prevent the tattoos showing through like black stains across his chest. An image of Crane’s muscular, magpie-etched torso flashed into his mind and he blinked it away, aware that he could have drawn a freehand map of the man’s skin decoration based on those few seconds of fascinated attention a week ago.
Stephen was—had to be—realistic in his expectations. He didn’t have either the height or the wealth to wear suits like Crane, even if he’d cared enough about clothing to try, and he would never be physically impressive. Normally he was unconcerned by that. But normally he was a stone heavier and able to tap into the etheric flow. As it was, looking at the cheap suit hanging off his starveling frame, his thin, pale, worried face and horribly short hair, he was conscious of a wish he’d taken another month’s convalescence as his doctor had attempted to order.
Well, too late to worry about that now. A larger concern was what he’d find at this dinner.
On its own, identifying and slapping down an abuse of power would be nothing, a daily chore. But someone fluencing Crane wasn’t an isolated incident. It was part of a tangle of threads—the Judas jack, Hector’s ghost, and the unpleasantly wrong atmosphere of Piper, which nagged at Stephen’s instincts like a bad tooth.
It was of course possible that all these were separate matters, brought together by coincidence, but Stephen hadn’t survived seven years as a justiciar by trusting to luck. So tonight he would watch, and wait, and work out how to unpick the knot of trouble around Crane.
This meant that he would be spending more time here, with him.
Considering the utter fool he had made of himself, for the second time that day, the walk home had been surprisingly tolerable. Crane had kept the conversation flowing: charming, fascinating, amusing. They had talked the whole way back and had reached Piper before Stephen’s urge to curl up and die of self-inflicted embarrassment became unbearable. He had mumbled something about working in the library, suddenly desperate to hide away, and Crane…
Crane had said, “Then we will speak later,” but as he spoke he had taken Stephen’s chin in one hand and stroked that thumb over his lips, opening them with a firm, deliberate touch, so that Stephen found himself standing receptively, obediently, waiting.
That was all. It wasn’t much. But they both knew that Crane could have him at the crook of one long, slender finger.
He could still feel those powerful hands on his shoulders, slamming him back against the bookshelves, throwing him onto the desk, holding him down. It had been humiliating, of course—his own arousal and Crane’s bitingly accurate assessment of it. It had also been painfully, dangerously exciting, and Crane had known it, had identified Stephen’s desires, and was quite evidently a match for them.
I’m in charge. I’ll take it out on you.
Stephen didn’t anticipate that Crane would let him off so easily next time, and he didn’t want him to.
That didn’t mean this was anything other than madness, of course.
How was your trip to the country, Steph? he imagined his partner asking.
Oh, I let a bored aristocrat use me as his new plaything, and now my Aunt Annie will never speak to me again. So-so, really.
A nice relaxing interlude, though, with a remarkably attractive man who’d normally never look twice at you, isn’t that just what you needed?
Ah, well, you see, he replied to the imaginary Esther, I could have just had a tumble in the grass, but I thought I’d wait and make sure of things. That he’s a decent man. Fair-minded. The things that matter to me.
He could almost see Esther rolling her eyes. He could never have had this conversation with her in reality, but he knew what she’d say all the same: Well done, Steph. Why settle for a bit of simple pleasure when you could turn it into a hopeless passion for a man who could have anyone, and probably will?
He sat on the four-poster bed, looking round at the faded wallpaper that splashed great pink peonies over the room, lit by the rapidly fading evening sun. He was extremely conscious that Crane was just beyond the connecting door, could hear him talking to Merrick in that extraordinary language that made it impossible even to guess at meaning. He thought they might be laughing.
When Stephen emerged from the house, the last of the golden light was turning cold but the evening air was like bathwater, a shock after the bone-chilling freeze of Piper.
Crane was lounging, looking predictably perfect in an impeccable dining suit. You wouldn’t have thought he had a body like a sailor, or a mouth like one. Stephen gave a brief, convulsive shiver at the thought of that mouth.
Crane gave Stephen an up-and-down glance and waved him to the dogcart. There was no groom.
“Are you driving?” asked Stephen.
“Yes. So we can talk.”
“Oh.”
Crane flicked the reins and set the horses moving down the long avenue that led away from Piper. Stephen took a deep breath.
“I think I should apologise for that performance earlier. I made rather a fool of myself.”
“If you think that was making a fool of yourself, you have a lot to learn,” Crane said. “Some day you should bring a bottle of brandy down to the kitchen and get Merrick to tell you about the occasions I’ve really made a fool of myself. I promise you, the brandy will run out before the stories do.” He shot Stephen a sideways glance. “Besides, it gave me the opportunity to put a smile on your face. I enjoyed that.”
Stephen had no idea how to answer that. The horse trotted on. It was dark down the tree-lined lanes, and there was the occasional rustle of birds above and the harsh calls of nesting rooks and, probably, magpies.
“Tell me,” Stephen said eventually. “Your local reputation…is it as widely spread as Aunt Annie suggested?”
“I dare say.” Crane didn’t sound concerned. “I was expelled from five schools, three of them for gross immorality. My father was happy to tell all and sundry that was why he was getting rid of me. And of course, there’s no laws against it in China, so I lived as I chose, and word got back.”
Stephen stared at him. “No laws?”
“No laws, no moral objection
s. Nobody cares. It’s just one of the things people do. I’m sure my father didn’t know that when he sent me there.”
Stephen thought about that. “What about practice? Shamanism? Is that legal?”
“Yes, of course. Legal, acknowledged, shamans on every corner and advising the government— God, you look like a child outside a sweet shop.”
“I feel like one,” Stephen said. “No laws. You mean, like…normal?”
“Entirely normal.” Crane shrugged. “I had a fairly intense fling with a youngish and rather lovely mandarin. He took me to the odd state banquet. Nobody raised an eyebrow. Except the British contingent, the bacon-and-egg types. They didn’t like it. I expect they wrote back to England in droves. Didn’t bother me. I’d never planned to come back so I didn’t care about my reputation in England—and, actually, after twenty years in a sane country, I don’t care now. If I’m arrested Merrick will post bail and we’ll get on the next ship back to civilisation.”
“Can I come?” said Stephen, and blushed as the words left his mouth.
“By all means. The laws don’t apply to you, though, surely?”
“Yes, of course they do. Well, they absolutely would if I was arrested and sentenced. Admittedly, I don’t propose to let that happen, for witchcraft or anything else. But in theory, yes.”
The horse trotted on.
“Tell me what’s going to happen this evening,” Crane said. “Will Lady Thwaite know you’re a justiciar?”
“I don’t expect so, unless she’s heard from Miss Bell, but that seems unlikely. I’m not sure I’ll act on her tonight, incidentally. I want to get a sense of what’s going on here first. Would you mind letting her fluence you?”
“Yes, I bloody would!” said Crane with startling vehemence, jerking the reins. “I will not be played with like that.” He was obviously forcing down anger as he went on, “I object to having my mind invaded. That is an absolute refusal. No.”
Stephen frowned. “This is the sore point you mentioned, isn’t it? What happened?”
Crane’s mouth tightened. “Oh, we had a charming experience with one of your lot in China.” He stared up into the trees, muscles twitching over his face. “In a word, Merrick rooked a shaman at dice, and the bastard put a curse on him that made him…imbecilic. Animal. It was disgusting. He drooled and gibbered. Smeared his shit on the walls and—tsaena. It was grotesque. I thought he’d be like it forever.” He jerked his head, shaking off the memory.
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