A Curious Beginning

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  “It is simply what I have experienced of you,” I pointed out. “You must admit your lesser qualities have been far more to the fore than your noble ones. Aside from your expert medical care of me—involving a situation for which you were at least in part responsible—you have been churlish and impatient, quick to anger, impulsive, suspicious, and frequently rude.”

  “Well, thank God I am not the sensitive sort,” he said lightly. “Else I might think you didn’t like me.”

  “I like you in spite of those qualities,” I assured him. “I do not like people who are easy to get along with. I would far rather keep company with the hedgehog than the squirrel.”

  “Don’t you mind the prickles?” he asked, and I had the oddest sensation he was laughing at me.

  “Prickles don’t frighten me,” I returned stoutly. “Not even yours.”

  “I shall make a note of that,” he said soberly.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It had been on the tip of my tongue to tell Stoker about the ransacking of Wren Cottage, but his reaction to learning about Mr. de Clare had been so unguarded, I could not bring myself to shatter his peace twice in one afternoon. The story would keep, and I consoled myself with the thought that it would give him a fresh opportunity to rage at me when I did get around to telling him—an activity he clearly enjoyed. Besides, he had the rebenque fight to prepare for, and I believed it could not help his chances to have additional distractions. He insisted upon extracting a promise from me that I would go straight to bed and not tax my strength further.

  I gave it to him because, in my experience, it is far better to tell a man what he wants to hear and then do as you please than attempt to reason with him. I counted to one hundred after he left, then slipped out of the caravan. The crowd was gathering as it did every night, but I noticed the change immediately. There was something extra in the air, some new hum of anticipation, and I realized with a sickening twist of my stomach that it was bloodlust. They were here to see something extraordinary, and the professor had done all in his power to ensure folk knew about it. A dozen of the riggers and acrobats had been pressed into service, distributing handbills, and I snatched one as I passed. I skimmed it hastily, then read it again in mounting horror.

  I dashed as quickly as I could to the small tent where Stoker was preparing.

  I found him removing his coat and waistcoat with studied resignation and brandished the handbill at him. “Have you seen this?”

  “Veronica, you gave me your word that you would rest,” he said, his expression thunderous.

  “I lied, and we can discuss that to whatever length you wish, but later. Have you seen this?” I demanded.

  He did not take it. “I have.”

  “Did you know the professor meant to use your real name when he advertised the fight?”

  “No.” His voice was clipped. “I knew he was angry with me over an incident that happened a few years ago, but I thought we were past it.”

  “You mean the departure of Baby Alice—Sirena as she came to be, thanks to your efforts.”

  “You have been busy,” he said, taking up his rebenque.

  “I had the story from Salome. I know he blamed you when Alice left.”

  “Yes, well, I never realized quite how far the professor was willing to carry a grudge.”

  I looked down at the smudged letters on the handbill. THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY. ACCUSED MURDERER TEMPLETON-VANE TO CROSS WHIPS WITH THE LARGEST MAN ON EARTH! It was the tawdriest piece of sensationalism I had ever seen. I screwed the paper into a ball and threw it aside.

  “Stoker, he has exposed you. It is only a matter of time before someone at this fight realizes you are wanted by Scotland Yard.”

  “I understand that,” he said coolly. “It means we must leave this place as soon as the fight is over.”

  “No, we ought to leave now! What possible reason is there to stay?”

  He gave me a long, level look. “Which one would you like? Pride? Obligation? After all, I do owe him for the past few days’ keep. He has been kind enough to present me with a bill. If I don’t work it off, he can send the bailiffs after us. And I already have quite enough people interested in my whereabouts.”

  He tested the weight of the rebenque’s handle, flipping it lightly from one hand to the other.

  “This is my fault,” I began.

  He paused long enough to take me by the shoulders. “No, it isn’t. The choice to do this is mine.”

  “Are you quite certain . . . that is, a fight of this sort requires a particular state of mind, I should imagine.”

  He gave me a look that was almost pitying, and when he smiled it was the smile of a vengeful god. “My dear Veronica, I am surprised you have not already learned—everyone has a capacity for cruelty. Not everyone gets the chance to exercise it.”

  He pushed me gently away. “Now, go back to the caravan and pack your bag. We will leave when this is finished.”

  Naturally, I did no such thing. I circled around the exhibition tent to the front and slipped behind Mornaday, who was one of the fellows manning the entrance. He gave me a nod as I slid inside, careful to keep to the back and out of the way of the jostling crowd. The air smelled of tobacco and sweat and the noise was indescribable. I glanced idly at the fellow next to me. I recognized him as one of the riggers, the men whose job it was to secure the many ropes that supported the various tents. Their main responsibilities were upon setting and striking the campsites, and in the meantime, the professor often set them to odd jobs. This one seemed bent upon his task, and I realized with a start he was holding a rebenque. He hunched over it, as if to shield it from view, but I was close enough to watch him about his business. He removed the handle of the whip, unscrewing the end to reveal the hollow cavity inside. Carefully, he filled it with iron weights, packing the iron with bits of sacking so it made no noise. He reassembled the handle so that it looked precisely the same, only now it weighed significantly more, I realized. And with a rush of outrage, I knew exactly where that rebenque was bound. The men shouted as they laid wagers upon the outcome, and I was not surprised to find the odds were laid heavily in Colosso’s favor.

  He was an utter beast of a man, and when he entered the tent, a great roar fairly shook the ground. He was stripped to the waist—the better to display his musculature—and his body had been coated with a thin film of oil. His head and face were shaven, apart from his vast mustaches, which were waxed to curl at the end, giving him the look of a diabolical ram. He smiled, showing a mouth full of brown and broken teeth, as he lifted his arms to goad the crowd to louder cheers.

  Suddenly, the spectators fell silent. Stoker had entered, also stripped to the waist, to prevent his opponent from grasping his shirt. While his physique was impressive on its own merit, in comparison to Colosso’s bulk it seemed slight as thistledown. I might have prayed then, but I was too engrossed in the battle at hand. The professor himself deigned to introduce them, sitting to the side of the ring in a padded chair, Otto beside him playing a rousing tune. The ring was marked out in chalk, and the center of it was beaten earth covered in sawdust, the better to soak up the blood, I realized. For one terrible moment, my vision swam, but I kept to my feet, digging my nails into my palms for stimulation.

  The professor gave his little speech, his eyes bright with malice. Colosso’s name elicited cheers from the crowd, a hectic adoration he accepted with an exaggerated bow. But when the professor said Stoker’s name, a harsh murmur descended, and I heard one or two brave souls mutter, “Murderer!”

  The professor stated the rules of the fight. Each man would be equipped with a rebenque. Striking with any other weapon or with the bare hand was not permitted. Neither was kicking or any sort of grappling hold. The first man to leave the circle would forfeit the fight.

  Otto’s music slid into something approaching a fanfare. “And now,” the professor in
toned, “let us commence with this contest of brute strength and cunning!”

  Stoker already held his rebenque, but Colosso turned to take his from the rigger I had seen. Unlike Stoker’s unadulterated weapon, the one Colosso held now carried a significant advantage, and my gaze darted wildly about the tent as I tried to determine how best to warn Stoker.

  The professor gave a flourish of his hand and the two men advanced. Each now held a rebenque in his right hand, and to my horror, I saw them grip each other by the left forearm. At such enforced proximity, it would be impossible for Stoker to escape Colosso’s blows, blows unfairly multiplied by the iron in his handle. I opened my mouth to scream a warning but instantly thought better of it. In that crowd, gripped as it was by bloodlust, we would be torn to pieces for disappointing them. Instead, I stepped forward, holding my breath as the combatants raised their arms. Instinctively, I reached into my pocket and stroked Chester’s tiny velvet head. But there was no comfort to be had, no matter how small.

  Stoker struck first, and the sharp crack of that whip was a sound I would never forget. There was something primal about the collision of rawhide upon human flesh, and Colosso took a large step backward as the rebenque connected with his cheek.

  But he recovered his footing, coming back to give Stoker a smile as he spat out a mouthful of his own blood. Stoker circled, attempting to keep him off his balance, an excellent strategy given the larger man’s bulk. But there was nothing he could do against the strength of his blows, and Colosso landed four of them in quick succession, whip cracks against Stoker’s torso, each leaving a smart red weal across his chest.

  It was then that I realized Colosso was merely toying with him. The first blows were not intended to do anything other than let Stoker know that he could hit him whenever he liked—and that the blows to come would bring pain unlike anything he had ever known.

  “Do it quickly,” I muttered, knowing the futility of it. Barring a miracle, Stoker was going to get badly beaten, perhaps even killed, and I could do nothing to stop it.

  But then the miracle happened. Colosso struck him with the handle of his rebenque, just once, but the blow to his cheek was enough. Stoker staggered back, still gripping Colosso’s forearm in his own as blood streamed from his face. I saw him shake his head as if to clear it, his gaze coming to rest upon Colosso’s weapon. He understood then, from the force of that blow, that the weight was not what it should have been. And the knowledge that Colosso had taken unfair advantage of him was as a red flag to a bull.

  Folk talk of the berserker rages of the Vikings, of the chaotic fury of the woad-painted Celt, and these must have been fearsome sights to behold. But no heated anger could ever match Stoker’s cold dismantling of Colosso. He made no moves out of blind wrath; each was as deliberate and calculated as a battlefield strategy, and each designed to deliver the most pain he could possibly inflict.

  First, he tossed aside his own, lighter rebenque. With a speed so quick I could not follow it, he reached for Colosso’s weapon, wrapping the rawhide thong around his broad palm. It took only a single lightning flick of his strong wrist to wrest the thing from Colosso’s grasp. He flipped it once into the air, catching it on the descent. The weighted handle fit neatly into his fist, and he used it to break the larger man’s jaw in two places. It took a surgeon to know exactly where to hit and a born fighter to land the blows, but there was no mistaking the sharp crack of splintering bone and the howls of pain as the jaw shattered under Stoker’s assault. Colosso staggered to his knees, and Stoker brought the rebenque down one last time, sharply under his ear, sending him neatly into unconsciousness. With slow, deliberate precision, he lifted the larger man, his arms shuddering with strain as he hoisted Colosso over his head. He stepped to the edge of the circle, and with one last great effort, he dropped Colosso over the chalk mark and out of the ring.

  The crowd roared its outrage, angered that the fight had been so short and they had lost so much, for few of them had wagered upon Stoker. Heedless of their dismay, he dropped the rebenque on Colosso’s recumbent form and ostentatiously dusted off his hands as he gave the professor a long look of purest hatred. Then he turned on his heel to leave, and the crowd parted for him like the Red Sea before Moses, not a single man daring to stand in his way.

  I scuttled out, hurrying to catch up to him as he strode to the caravan. He carried his shirt and coat but made no attempt to put them on. His skin was hot to the touch, as if he were fevered, and I saw as he whipped around to face me that the cool detachment I had witnessed in the tent was merely a façade for a rage so volcanic, he could scarcely contain it.

  He opened his mouth, but no words came.

  “I know,” I told him simply. “I just wish you had broken his skull as well.”

  He managed a thin smile as I led him into the caravan. I thrust the flask of aguardiente into his hands. He was trembling now, as a horse will tremble after a long race.

  “Drink it,” I ordered. He did, and when he had taken two long drafts, I packed the flask and hurried him into his clothes, pausing just long enough to daub the blood from his cheek. Luckily, the wound was small, although I suspected it would bruise in spectacular fashion.

  “I had forgot,” he said when he could manage to speak.

  “What?” I asked, thrusting our few belongings into our bags.

  “What it feels like to want to take someone apart. I have not felt that sort of anger in years. It leaves one spent.”

  I could well believe it. The champion of the rebenque ring was sweating freely, perspiration darkening his hair and dampening his shirt. His hands were still unsteady, and I did not like his color.

  “We cannot stay here,” I warned. “Not now that your name is known. Every man in that tent knows who you are. We will have to walk some distance to make our way to the train station undetected. Do you think you can manage?”

  He gave me a brilliant smile. “My dear Veronica, if I had to, I could fly.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Stoker was as good as his word. All through the long night of walking, he supported me, weakened as I still was by my recent bout of malaria. He permitted me to lean upon his arm when I grew tired and guided me across streams and over gates. Slipping away from the traveling show was a simple matter. We avoided the horse lines and the late-night carousers, following the edge of the river as it wound downstream towards the town of Clackton. We might have easily caught the train in Butterleigh, but as I pointed out to Stoker, anyone bent on finding us would presume we had taken the most direct route. Stoker had purloined a few shabby coats from inattentive traveling folk, and with these buttoned over our own clothes, we boarded the third-class carriage at Greycott and rode as far as Old Ashton before disembarking. Stoker had kept his eye patch firmly in his pocket, and I had, with a little difficulty, managed to stuff my orchidaceous rose hat into my carpetbag. In our attempts to blend in with other travelers, we could afford as few distinctions as possible. We washed our faces and hands carefully and left the decrepit garments in the public lavatories, each of us emerging with a far more respectable appearance than we had previously presented. We breakfasted heartily at the local inn, finishing just in time to catch the next train. Stoker dipped into his slender funds to purchase a packet of boiled sweets and tickets—first-class this time, as much to muddle any would-be pursuers as to afford us a bit of privacy.

  Alone at last, I fixed Stoker with a curious look. “You are the most complex and contradictory man I have ever known,” I told him.

  He unwrapped a boiled sweet and stuffed it into his mouth. “Shall I take that as a compliment or condemnation?”

  “Neither. It is merely a statement of fact. You survived a brutal jaguar attack and spent what I can only imagine was a long and demanding period in the Royal Navy. You have willingly submitted to the extremely painful process of tattooing—not once, but upon multiple occasions. And you entered a rebenqu
e fight with a man so fearsome, he ought to have picked his teeth with your femurs. All of this with perfect resignation and fortitude. And yet when a dressmaker’s pin stuck you in the shoulder, you roared like a wounded lion.”

  He considered that a moment, rolling the sweet over his tongue. “There are times when it is entirely safe to show one’s vulnerability, to roll over and reveal the soft underbelly beneath. But there are other times when pain must be borne without a murmur, when the pain is so consuming that if you give in to it, even in the slightest, you have lost everything.”

  “I suppose one might say the same of mental and emotional pain as well as physical,” I mused. “One simply gets on with what must be done because if one paused and looked at it full in the face—”

  “Then one would never find the strength to go on,” he finished, cracking the sweet between his strong white teeth.

  “As Arcadia Brown would say, ‘Excelsior!’ Ever upward, ever forward.”

  I expected him to disparage my taste in popular literature again, but he merely inclined his head. “Excelsior,” he agreed quietly.

  “Your cheek is bleeding again,” I told him. He rummaged for a handkerchief, and I realized how handy it was of him to carry scarlet ones. He always seemed to be mopping up blood with them.

  “Pity if it scars,” he said lightly. “The bastard would wound me on my good side.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I replied deliberately. “Both sides look entirely appealing to me.”

  His hand stilled, his expression inscrutable. “Veronica,” he began. But I put up a hand.

  “You needn’t fear any predation on my part, Stoker. That was not a prelude to seduction. I was merely making an observation. You think those scars are off-putting, and to a woman with a feeble imagination, they might be. But for any woman who appreciates valor and courage, they are more attractive than any perfect profile or unblemished cheek.”