Pierre had not read any of the files, because he did not know how to read.
When he was very young, Pierre had been the sort of cute little child who attracted a lot of attention. He had a headful of tawny curls. Dimples. A well-formed body. And his personality had been mischievous in the best sort of way, playful, a joy to be around. He caught the attention of the man running the Château–not le Seigneur, but his right-hand man, his aide, who made himself responsible for le Seigneur’s happiness.
At the age of four, little Pierre was taken from his loving parents and the farm where he was born, and brought to the Château to live. He was instructed in boot-polishing. He lived in a sort of dormitory on the top floor, with the legion of scullery maids, groomsmen-in-training, and others of low social rank that kept the Château running smoothly. He was a pet of the girls, and of the young men as well, the kind of unusual child that newcomers to the Château would notice, and ask about, because he was so beautiful and his liveliness and good humor so infectious.
It did not take long before le Seigneur himself took notice of Pierre, and that was when the road forked, and Pierre was forced down the road there was no turning back from, the road to almost infinite life, but for him, a life absent all its former joy.
At first, le Seigneur made it a point to have only Pierre polish his boots, acting as though this was quite an honor for him, that this lowly youngster had been chosen above all the others for this important once, or twice, or thrice-daily task. Pierre began to dread rain, since rain meant mud, and mud meant more polishings than ever, and difficult ones that required several rags and then cleaning up all the mud clods afterwards.
Not at any point did anyone consider educating Pierre. It was before the Revolution, when anyone of his class was happy just to have enough to eat. Education for a peasant was out of the question.
Although he worked quite hard, and missed his parents, as he grew Pierre still managed to hold on to his jolly personality, and everyone at the Château was grateful to hear his peals of laughter throughout the day as he joked and chattered with everyone, no matter what rank. Le Seigneur got in the habit of taking the young boy into his chambers at night, to give himself a bit of entertainment before going to sleep. Just looking at the boy’s glowing young skin gave le Seigneur pleasure, and of course, like everyone else, he loved to hear Pierre laugh.
When Pierre was eight, le Seigneur had invited him into his chambers one night, nothing unusual about that. He dismissed the servants who usually waited on him there, and he snuffed a quantity of the candles, so that the room was dimmer than it usually was, and their faces shimmered in the low light.
Le Seigneur, at that time, around 1769, still had a powerful physical presence. He had not developed the intense reaction to light and sound that by 2000 had reduced the parameters of his life so dramatically that he could not leave the dungeon. He sat down on the foot of his bed and asked that Pierre remove his boots.
With a good-natured laugh, Pierre pretended to tug and tug as though the boot would never come off. When le Seigneur lifted his foot for the second one, Pierre pulled it off at once and catapulted across the room, ending in a somersault.
“Come here, you silly child,” said le Seigneur, affectionately. “I want you to undo my breeches,” he said, gesturing at the buttons that went across the top of his pants and then down the sides, in a line towards his groin.
Pierre did as he was told, as he always did. He was humming a little tune he had made up as his childish fingers worked at the buttons.
Le Seigneur made a growling noise, a sound that seemed to come from the deepest part of himself. It was not an entirely human sound, and Pierre looked up in surprise.
Le Seigneur unbuttoned his own shirt and shrugged it off, revealing a strong chest with a mat of dark hair. Then with the back of his hand he stroked the boy’s cheek. His rosy, glowing cheek. Then he put his hand in the boy’s tawny curls, stroking at first, and then pulled a little bit, not to hurt him, but to bring his face closer.
Although Pierre no longer lived at his parents’ farm, he spent plenty of time down at the stables and the barns of the Château, and he had seen stallions and bulls with their mates. And he was privy, on the upper floor where he slept, to all the talk of the young men, which tended to be focused on a few subjects only.
In short, he knew an erection when he saw one.
“Seigneur!” he gasped, and then regretted speaking.
Le Seigneur smiled a smile of satisfaction. He put his other hand on the back of Pierre’s head and began, slowly but steadily, to press it towards his crotch, the breeches nearly undone.
But Pierre wrenched his head away. “Not me!” he yelled, crouching down and then springing away, his body seeming to jerk in the flickering candlelight. “Not me!” he yelled again, uncertain of what to do next, now that he was out of the man’s grasp. He was old enough to realize that if he fled the chambers completely, the punishment would be horribly severe. Unimaginably severe. So he kept dancing from one foot to the other, trying to manage a bit of a smile as though they were playing a game, and to keep the feeling of desperation from choking him.
Le Seigneur’s eyes were lit up with fury. He was not used to being denied. This was not to be borne. He got up, buttoning enough buttons to keep his pants from falling down, and went with great speed to his large and ornate desk. He jerked open a drawer and took out a knife, the blade glinting.
“Come,” he said to Pierre, his quavering voice full of emotion–of rage, of affection, of lust, of the desire to hurt.
Pierre could see no other choice but to do what he was told, just as he had been taught. He walked slowly towards le Seigneur, his head slunk down, all his usual effervescence gone. He was only eight years old, and unable to imagine any way to save himself, or any person he could run to who could help him.
Le Seigneur brandished the knife. He held it out so Pierre could see it and admire it, the jewels in its handle, the razor-sharpness of its thin blade. Then le Seigneur took the tip of the blade and drew it across his own chest, and a stripe of red sprang up through the dark hair and began to drip down.
“Seigneur!” said Pierre, utterly confused.
“Yes, child,” said le Seigneur. “Do not worry, this is not a deep wound, it is not dangerous. See?” He took the boy’s hand and singled out a finger, then pulled the finger through the blood, making it draw a bloody stripe over his abdomen. “It is beautiful, is it not?” asked le Seigneur.
Pierre could not think of a thing to say to that.
Le Seigneur then reached for Pierre and drew him close, and again pressed his head towards him, but this time not in the direction of his crotch but instead toward the bleeding wound.
“Drink, little boy,” he said softly.
All Pierre could think was, this is not as bad as the other thing he wanted me to do. So he gingerly touched his tongue to le Seigneur’s blood, and finding that it tasted sort of interesting–a bit salty, and a bit like the Port he sometimes managed to steal from the sideboard when no one was looking–he licked some more, and then more, until he was sucking and lapping at the wound, while le Seigneur crooned to him, caressing his curls, and pumping his hips ever so slowly, as the candles guttered and the night slid away, nearing dawn.
22
Jo came back into the kitchen, holding a fistful of tarragon and parsley. “Haven’t we had a frost already?” she said to David, who…was not there.
She felt a stab in her belly, in that place where bad events register, but she did her best to brush it off. He probably went to the bathroom or something, she thought, ignoring what she knew in her heart to be true, that he had disappeared without a word.
Jo went to the refrigerator and brought out a bowl containing a knob of butter the size of a grapefruit. She searched among the pans for a small omelet pan, and put it on the stove. Found a bowl to beat up the eggs in. Moved one by one through all the other steps until she was sitting on a stool at the stainless
steel counter, with a lovely omelet on a beautiful Limoges plate, glistening with butter and flecked with bits of the herbs she had just picked.
Ugh, she thought. Not hungry.
Jo took a deep breath. Marianne. I need to hear her voice, she thought. It’s late afternoon at home, perfect timing.
She pulled her cell phone out and tapped out her number. The reception in the kitchen was much better than in her tower, and the ring was crisp and clear.
“Thank God you’re home!” said Jo on hearing her friend’s voice.
“I’m not home. I’m in the car actually, on the way to pick up my dry cleaning. You know, leading my usual glamorous life. So, tell me everything! Is it fabulous?”
“It’s amazing. A different world. My horse is one of the best I’ve ever ridden, so nimble and smart –”
“Jo? I don’t care about the horse.”
“You want to hear about the man.”
“Well duh!”
“It’s….”
Marianne waited. But she heard more or less what she needed to know in the silence of her friend’s hesitation. “Yes?” she said, gently.
“David is incredible,” said Jo. “Whenever I see him, it’s like my body just responds. I feel sort of…like an animal. In a good way!” she laughed. “I have never, and I mean never, had sex like this before. It’s like falling into an abyss of pleasure. Like hurtling into space and spinning faster than planets, like –”
Marianne laughed. “OK, got it. And what else? Is he a good man?”
Jo didn’t answer right away. She didn’t like the answer that first popped into her head. She picked up her fork and cut off a corner of the omelet and speared it. “I don’t know him all that well, actually. He’s…he’s sort of difficult to get to know, or maybe I am too, for that matter. It’s…well, our time together has been more about touching than about talking, you know what I mean?”
“Yep,” said Marianne. “Been there, done that.” She asked about the Château, about the other people who worked there, about the food, about Mourency. She waited to see if Jo would ask her advice, but when she didn’t, Marianne didn’t offer any. When the conversation came to the end and they had said their goodbyes, Marianne rested her forehead on the steering wheel for a moment and took some deep breaths.
“Let him not hurt my friend too badly,” Marianne thought. She packed that thought in a nice box and imagined tossing it up into the air where it floated off to wherever wishes went, and then set off to get her drycleaning.
He was really screwed now.
Sunrise was coming soon–he did not have much time. David paced around the cottage trying to settle his mind so he could think clearly. His body had an almost volcanic power from the long, long drink he had just had. So long, so complete, that the college girl from New Hampshire lay in her bed, utterly drained, and unfortunately, utterly dead.
Never had this happen before, he thought, feeling a surge of anger at the girl. She had been so vulnerable, so flattered at his attentions. He remembered the shy smile when she first opened the cottage door and saw him there, and how avid she had been when he started to touch her. In some ways, he thought, it had been more interesting when females tried to resist, back in the old days. It was more of a hunt, and oh, he liked to hunt. But on the other hand, these modern girls with their enthusiasm, their willingness, and it must be said, their skill–it would be hard to go back now, as entertaining as the hunting used to be.
He looked down at the girl on the bed, her skin as white as the sheet. He remembered her particular taste when he first bit, full of minerals, bracing, quite delicious.
Just thinking for a split second about that taste made him stiffen up again, and that made him really angry–David may not have been your average, everyday kind of guy, but he did not appreciate the combination of hard-on and dead body. That was not his cup of tea, not at all.
Got to get rid of her, he thought, still trying to calm the frantic zig-zaggy feeling in his head.
Well, he thought, picking the girl up and slinging her over one shoulder as easily as if she were a sack of groceries, I don’t like it but I can’t see any other way. He glanced around the cottage to see if he needed to come back and do any straightening up, whether there was any indication of his presence.
Got my socks and underwear, he thought. Good thing this girl hadn’t been a regular thing.
He adjusted her weight and then peeked out the door to make sure no one was around. Then he flicked off the cottage light, stepped into the darkness leaving the door slightly open, and started to run.
David was extremely fast on a normal day, but having just drunk every drop of the New Hampshire girl’s blood, he was difficult to see, just a blur, just a streak across the path in the dark, and then the pasture, and in a matter of seconds he was swallowed up by the forest and gone.
“What kind of idiot are you?” Dominic shouted. “Rhetorical question!” he shouted even louder. Daybreak was only minutes away and he and Maloney needed to leave for the inn without delay. They had spent the last few hours going through the files Pierre had stolen, only to find most of them to be completely unhelpful–research on herbs, copies of tattered old tracts in languages they couldn’t identify, much less understand, and on and on.
“What we need is the technology,” growled Dominic. “We’ve got plenty of botanists back home. Marketing reports!” he shouted, throwing a file up in the air so that the pages fluttered down on their heads. “We don’t need your moronic marketing reports! Don’t you know that Americans invented marketing? That we’re the best in the world?” He picked up the last handful of files and threw them across the room without looking at them.
“We can sell you any kind of crap at all and make you like it!” Dominic yelled. “Marketing is not what we are looking for!”
Pierre was in a corner of the hayloft, outwardly looking tough, but inwardly cringing like a beaten child. He was not surprised this was happening. His not being able to read had caused similar eruptions from time to time over the decades. Yet to him, not reading was simply part of who he was, and he never considered trying to figure out a way to learn. The only thing to do, as he had done many times before, was to wait out whatever problem it caused and then continue on.
But the thought of the labri slipping out of his grasp made him want to find some way to salvage the situation.
“You were totally vague,” Pierre said with a sneer. “You want something particular, you’ve got to say that. I can wipe your mind,” he said with an insinuating smile, “but I can’t read it.”
Dominic glanced at the sky. “We can’t stay to talk about this any further,” he said. “Look!” and pointed at the pinkening horizon as though that were Pierre’s fault too. “Come on, Maloney,” he said, and went down the ladder out of the loft, in something of a hurry not only because of the impending sun but also to get out of the way in case the big man slipped.
The two of them hurried down the country road and into the village, getting to their room just before Madame got up and began fussing in the kitchen at the instant of sunrise.
“Dammit to hell,” said Dominic, slumped against the headboard to his bed. “We’re running out of time, big fella,” he said. “If we don’t produce….”
They both shuddered. Not producing was simply not an option. Not if they wanted to ever get home in one piece.
23
When Jo woke up the next morning, the first instant of consciousness felt like getting hit with something hard right in the stomach. That feeling when one knows something painful has happened but is not awake enough yet to remember what it is. She brought her attention to the crisp sheets, the wonderfully comfortable mattress, the perfect down pillow, trying to keep understanding at bay for as long as possible.
As a strategy, distraction had worked pretty well in the past. For most of her life, in fact. But this morning, not so much.
So he comes in here and has sex with me, and then when I’m in the midd
le of making him dinner, he just runs off? He’s never once even come to the barn, and disappears every single day, and now at night too? That’s how it is?
Jo felt a deep, deep sadness. Tears welled up and spilled down her face, plopping onto the sheet. She drew her knees up and hugged them, burying her face in her arms.
For some people–the ones with issues–a moment like this is so dramatically and intensely painful because it is about the present hurt, yes, but also all the other similar hurts that are piled up behind it, hurts that were dismissed, rationalized, stuffed down, ignored.
The ironic thing about pain is that it won’t go away unless you allow yourself to feel it. How many times had Marianne said that to her?
Well, she was feeling it now, thought Jo. Marianne would be so relieved to see me crying for once.
Then she thought, what a jerk, quickly moving from hurt to pissed off, unable to stay in that place where she felt helpless and wounded and shamed. She threw back the covers and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth and splash some water on her face. Then she whipped on her riding clothes and went down to the dining room for coffee.
What I need the most, she thought, pouring warm milk into her cup and watching it swirl into the coffee, is a long, hard ride with Drogo. I need to get outside, and do the work I was hired to do.
Angélique came into the breakfast room with a new couple in tow, and showed them the procedure for getting their coffee and pastries. She stopped quickly by Jo’s table to say hello.
“It’s good to see you, Jo–I’m sorry I’ve been too busy for us to have some time for going out. Not that Mourency has so much to offer!” she said with a laugh. “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she added. “What is a…Mississippi Prom Queen?”
“Where did you hear that?” Jo said, laughing. “I guess you’d say it’s a Southern girl, popular and pretty? I’m from New Jersey, what do I know? Not much about Mississippi or prom queens, to be honest!”
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