(Re)Visions: Alice ((Re)Visions)

by Kaye Chazan

  He pulls back, barely in time, and the Actor’s right hand hovers close, cupping the little lavender stars. “What,” the man asks, smirking, “did he tell you not to let me touch you?” He laughs, as brightly as before, and turns away. “Put them in one of the bottles, then.”

  Aelister obeys, finds a small medical bottle on the floor and props the flowers up in them, then sets them on the table beside the envelope. The card is mostly covered by the letter now, but whatever picture it has shows bare feet and a still pool of water. “Why would he tell me something like that?” Aelister asks.

  “Because he doesnae want me to.”

  “And why that?”

  “Ask him,” the Actor says, “if you can capture any more of his pieces. But if you ask me, I would tell you to stop playing at all. In fact, you can tell him that for me. Tell his Grace I’ll have no part in his games, and neither should you.”

  Aelister is certain he can remember that. “Why not?”

  “Why not I? Because here, they havnae any other stars the likes of me. I may not shine on greener grass, but I’m close enough here to catch my own light. Tell him that.”

  Aelister nods. “Thank you.”

  The Actor sends him off with tickets to the theatre—two, for the Duke and whoever he wishes to bring, “And if it’s you, I’ll be troubled by it,” the Actor says at the door. “Get there quick, and mind your arm.”

  “I shall,” Aelister says, and sets off into the rain again.

  Three—no, four moves later, Aelister’s king is in check.

  It is just a simple matter of moving the bishop in to block, which also threatens the queen, but the Duke seems so smug about it that Aelister suspects he’s missing something, and spends a great deal of time with his fingers pinched around the little nub on the bishop’s head. And the Duke merely sits and waits for Aelister to decide whether the move is good or not. He even has a newspaper with him, which proclaims that another prostitute is dead in Whitechapel, or else it is the same newspaper from however long ago. But Aelister concentrates on the chessboard and, once he decides that the danger to his king can be prevented by letting off of that bishop, he lifts his fingers.

  The Duke records the move without lifting his eyes from the newspaper. “Another capture,” he proclaims, knocking one of Aelister’s pawns aside, where it never moved from the first square. “Now, is it to be another truth, or another task?”

  “That depends on the truth,” Aelister says, kicking his heels against the chair legs. He leans to look out the window, and yes, it is raining again, though not the torrent it was two days ago when Aelister ran his errand to Covent Garden.

  “Then tell me: Did you enjoy your visit with my friend the Actor?”

  “Is that a question you want the truth on?”

  “I should think so, as it would flatter none of us if you lied.”

  “Then you’re wasting a question, your Grace,” Aelister says. “I did enjoy it some. It was good to be outside, even in that rain. I do feel rather like a monk in an abbey here sometimes, and I don’t care for it.”

  “Your imagination isn’t company enough?”

  Aelister thinks about that. “Yes and no,” he says.

  The Duke smiles, in a rather fond and gentle way that makes his black eyes shine. “Where do you go, when you are not here?”

  A flush creeps up Aelister’s cheeks, and no matter how he breathes he cannot suppress it. “You’ll think it awfully queer of me, but I wonder if here is where I go when I am not there.”

  “I don’t think it queer of you at all,” the Duke says. “In fact, I think it a truth that I shall cherish, for much longer than the duration of this game.”

  Aelister’s fondness and relief do not stop him from moving his bishop out of the way of his king, so that next turn, he can castle. It is a sacrifice, and he knows it, and he will want for that bishop later in the game, but he puts it into the path of the Duke’s queen and folds his hands in his lap.

  “You sacrifice a knight to keep me from castling, and a bishop to castle yourself,” the Duke chides, and swats that very bishop down with his queen. “As a move, it really is overrated.”

  “That depends on what kind of game this is, doesn’t it, your Grace?”

  “That it does,” he Duke says, writing the exchange down. “So. Another truth from you, boy: What doctor set your broken arm?”

  Aelister cannot answer that. His family doctor works only in Leamington, and if the Duke were to contact him, he would certainly know who Aelister is, and in that, it is just another way for the Duke to learn Aelister’s name and send him home. “A task,” he says, looking out at the dreary grey rain. “Another task.”

  “It is a rather sensitive subject with you,” the Duke agrees. “Though this will, unfortunately, stall our game a few nights.”

  You again!” his Highness laughs, and breaks away from the group of men he is conversing with at the card table. “Here to wipe us all clean at baccarat again, are you, young man?”

  “I would hope the cards are already clean, your Highness,” Aelister says, and takes a short bow.

  “Ha, you see!” the Prince says to the men behind him. “This is the child I was telling you about. I still don’t know where you came up with him,” he adds, gesturing grandly to the Duke.

  The Duke bows also, though without lowering his eyes. “And I still have no intention of telling you, Ned.”

  “Well, I’ll have something out of you before sunrise, be it your money or the young man’s mystery, and I have to admit, I’d rather he keep the mystery, seeing as you can always get more money.”

  “Not always, your Highness,” Aelister says, thinking about his own money—well, his father’s money. “Someone has to die first.”

  “That’s exactly it!” The Prince claps an arm around Aelister’s shoulders and leads him to the table. “My boy George is about your age and he never says anything of the kind.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose most children make pronouncements that people have to die,” Aelister agrees. “I mean, outside of school, where we say such things all the time.”

  The men laugh, and a game begins, and once again Aelister finds himself staring at the cards as they fly and turn. He plays a hand almost immediately, and the Duke steps in, says, “Of course I will take care of the betting, boy, but the cards are yours.”

  The first deal sets him up with an eight and a king, and Aelister rightly says, “Nothing more.” The bank takes another card, and it is yet another king of diamonds, which changes nothing about the bank’s two and three. The Duke pats Aelister’s head despite the effort that Mistresses March and Milliner have taken with dressing him for this gathering, and doubles his chips. “Again,” he says, “you’re the bank now,” and the cards flit out of the giant sextuple deck, a four and a three. “Nothing,” Aelister says again, and the other player takes none either, and again the money passes to Aelister and the Duke. A third time, Aelister is given an ace and a queen, both spades, and this time he does ask for another card. He draws a four, but it is barely enough, and the other player draws only a two to forestall his baccarat.

  “You’re a good luck charm, aren’t you, young man,” the Prince says, now that it is his turn against Aelister.

  “He certainly is,” the Duke says, relinquishing Aelister’s hair to very briefly touch the back of Aelister’s neck where his collars don’t quite reach. “Lucky as a rabbit’s foot, at least! He may be the luckiest thing I have ever come across, in all my years.”

  The jack of hearts is walking out of the decks.

  Aelister stares. It walks, on the corners of its frame since it doesn’t have any legs. The other card, a nine, slides over just as the dealer spun it, but the jack saunters over, waving its axes like flags, as if to say ho there.

  “Will you take any cards?” the Prince asks, as if there is nothing wrong at all.

  “No,” Aelister stammers, clapping his hands over the jack and folding them tight. “No, tha
nk you, your Highness.”

  “Well, I will,” he says, and does, and turns up a five to round out his three and queen. “Eight.”

  Aelister reveals his nine, but the jack of hearts is nowhere to be found.

  Nevertheless, play proceeds, and when the paddle skirts across the table to scrape the cards away, there are five cards caught on it and pushed into the discard pile. Aelister searches his own hands and the undersides of all the glasses and chip piles near him as discreetly as he can, but the dealer calls the next round too soon for him to see. Aelister is dimly aware of the Duke raising his bet and leaning over Aelister’s shoulder to push more chips onto the table, but soon there are cards in Aelister’s hand and he’s meant to see them, not the rest.

  The Prince laughs. “Money enough for all the whores in Whitechapel.”

  “There isn’t enough money in the city entire for the whores in Whitechapel,” the Duke says, laughing as well. “No sum will make a woman consent to die.”

  The men all laugh, and Aelister turns up a three and an eight, and his total is one. When he asks for a card, and the jack creeps out of the deck again, folded and scrunching like a caterpillar, Aelister tells it, quite clearly, go back, and it creeps back into the deck, shoving a five out of the way. “Six,” the dealer says when he sees Aelister’s total, and it is another win since the other player has a trio of kings, kings of diamonds.

  The jack of hearts winks two of its little paper eyes, one right-side-up, one upside-down. Congratulations ripple down from the men and the Prince like rain in the gutters and Aelister knows he’s meant to smile, since he has their eyes and their love and their money now, too. They serve him a glass of sherry just like the kind in the trifle from however many weeks ago, and he drinks, and wins another hand when the queen of hearts herself keeps the Prince’s hand from increasing.

  Someone must notice that Aelister is watching the deck. The jack of hearts stands at the head of the deck and culls it, chips at the face cards and tens with his axes so that Aelister wins again and again and again. It hacks the cards into even halves, splits their bodies. Jewels and patterns leak out of them onto the table and Aelister almost chokes on his sherry.

  The Duke pats his back in tight little circles until it stops. “Easy,” he says, and leans closer to whisper in Aelister’s ear. “How many jacks are there?”

  “Twenty-four,” Aelister answers, his voice low and dry. “Six of each. Of hearts.”

  “How many cards altogether?”

  “Three hundred twelve.”

  “Are you seeing only cards?”

  “No, your Grace. Roses. White paper roses.”

  “Count,” the Duke says, and his fingertips burn through his gloves, on the nape of Aelister’s neck.

  “Eight. Eighty. Four hundred eighteen. Six,” he murmurs, when the jack and six of hearts are settled in his hand, all six hearts flayed open and dripping bright scarlet onto Aelister’s cuff—

  “Don’t give it away, young man,” the Prince says, across the table. “Why, I know I’ll have to take another card now.”

  And Aelister understands, in a sudden brilliant burst, that the Prince and his friends cannot see what Aelister and the Duke see at all.

  The Prince draws a three, and wins this hand with eight, and play finally passes away from Aelister and the Duke. Aelister sinks into his chair and only manages to smile at the Prince’s witticisms.

  “Even the luckiest among us run out,” the Prince says. “But you had a good run.”

  “I didn’t run anywhere but here,” Aelister says. It echoes in his head, and buzzes, like all the chatter of Covent Garden.

  He only sits at the table a few more moments before the Duke takes him by the good wrist and helps him stand. The Duke’s touch still burns, even through his white gloves, and an itch climbs up Aelister’s arm as if a dozen midges have bitten him all in an even row, drilling red rungs into his skin. The Duke carries Aelister out to the coach, and the rain never touches them, sputters to curls of steam.

  Aelister rests in the Duke’s arms for the entire carriage ride back to the house in Islington. He counts the turns of the wheel and the stones of the road and the stars that breach the rainclouds, eight, eighty, four hundred eighteen, four, six, three, eight, and letters, he can count the letters too, even if they are in Greek—

  Exceed, the headache seems to say, exceed!, screeching each E until the X is all that’s left. He wakes to the sensation of his skull cracking like an eggshell around a cloudy hardboiled egg. He pulls the covers over his eyes to keep out the light, which is not terribly effective, and then steels himself to get his feet on the floor. The knots of the rug feel like nails pushed into the soles of his feet, and he cries out in shock (which does no good for his headache) and hops right back into bed, his knees tucked up to his chest.

  Fortunately, or perhaps not so, his shout alerts a servant, who takes the time to bring him tea and send up for the rest of breakfast. At first Aelister is too drained to protest a thing, and permits the servant to help him dress, but he has barely got his shirt on over his cast when the eggs arrive, charred with pepper as ever, and Aelister shoves the servant aside and charges out the door, never mind his bare feet nor his shaking knees nor the pounding in his head. He nearly flies down the stairs, throws himself into the Duke’s study and yells at him.

  “Continue the game,” he demands, and barely remembers to add, “—your Grace.”

  The Duke, who had been doing his accounts and would have appreciated being left alone, does not look up, nor does he put his pen down. “Make yourself presentable, boy, and then I’ll entertain the possibility.”

  “No, thank you.” Aelister says. “I’ll only make myself presentable if that’s part of your task. There’s no sense in it if you’re not letting me out of this house.”

  “You can leave any time you want to. Don’t pull either of our legs. You stay here because you want me to teach you. And I have been teaching you, haven’t I?”

  “Then you can’t fault me for being eager to learn. Continue the game.”

  “Make yourself presentable and have your breakfast. You’ll only feel more dreadful if you don’t. Hungry, disheveled boys don’t make for good chess-players. Why, it must hurt you to think right now, never mind play a game that’s all in your mind.”

  “It isn’t all in my mind,” Aelister says. “It’s on the board, in the library.”

  “As you say,” the Duke concedes. “My terms still stand. Eat. Dress. Permit me to finish my tablatures. Then, and only then, will I sit across a table from you.”

  Aelister breathes heavily, as if he has not at all for these last few arguments. “May I have your word on that, your Grace?”

  “You may have whatever word you like on that, boy. ”

  Aelister had thought himself above stamping his foot in tantrum, but you must forgive him for doing so, considering the state of his health and mind. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it!”

  “Then say what you mean,” the Duke says, and only now sets his pen down and folds his gloved hands over the pages. “I thought it frustrated you to hear people speak that way.”

  “It does, even worse when you do it.”

  “Then perhaps I am the hypocrite I fear. But, fine. I will tell you this now: You know as well as you know your own face that you cannot trust a blasted thing I say, unless I am across from you at that chess table and you have captured something of mine. Even then, it depends on the specificity of your questions. And despite this, you continue to live in my house, and on my charity, because whether or not you believe my intentions for you are good, you know I have intentions for you, and you are first and foremost a curious creature. So toward that end, you will obey me and my terms, and you will go back upstairs and eat your breakfast and make yourself presentable, or you will have no answers at all, true or otherwise.”

  The headache flares up like fireworks, and Aelister shivers so powerfully he nearly loses his footing. He holds t
he doorframe, and his hand leaves a slick print on the wood. His arm hurts worst of all, the heaviest rain-ache he has gotten yet, and it has rained every day for well over a month.

  “Go,” the Duke says, and resumes his work. “Now.”

  “You will sit across from me in an hour, whether you have finished your work or not.” The command takes its time coming out of Aelister’s throat, but once it is said, it cannot be taken back.

  The Duke laughs. “You drive a hard bargain. Very well. I will see you dressed and fed in the library in an hour.”

  Whether it is fair or not, Aelister knows he is not going to get any better a deal, and he says a quick and mostly earnest, “Thank you, your Grace,” and does not slam the door before he goes upstairs again.