Truth about Leo

by Katie MacAlister

  Julia slid her arm through Dagmar’s and beamed at her. “If he is English and unmarried, then you would agree to marry him?”

  “If it got us to England?” Dagmar thought for a moment. She’d been betrothed from a very early age to a distant cousin who had died some four years before, and hadn’t particularly felt the need to encourage her father to find her a replacement. Marriage tended to restrict one’s activities, since husbands frequently felt they had the right to tell one how to live, but if Julia’s man was indeed English and unmarried, she could do worse than consider him as a suitor.

  The mental image of a dark, cold French nun’s cell came to mind. She shivered and hurried forward. “Possibly. Come along, turtle! Let’s go see if this man of yours is still alive before we start planning a wedding.”

  Three

  A princess does not approach a strange man and ask if she can have what’s in his breeches. A princess remembers that not only is it not nice to ask others for things, but also that not every man plays a game wherein he hides sweets in his clothing so his daughter can find them.

  —Princess Christian of Sonderburg-Beck’s Guide for Her Daughter’s Illumination and Betterment

  Leo had died and gone to hell. He accepted the fact that the men who had set upon him had been right to leave him for dead—obviously, he died from the wounds inflicted by them. He had a vague memory of dragging himself through the woods to the faint glimmer of light flashing off windows, but clearly that was a delusion, a fevered imagining of a brain that had ceased its primary function.

  Dammit, there was a root poking up into his spleen. He shifted irritably. It was just his luck to end up in the hell where roots ensured that the dead did not rest easily.

  Then there were the harpies. Shrill female voices argued and squabbled over his head, no doubt trying to decide who would get to rend his flesh and commence the torment of his soul.

  Blast it all, the harpies had started at his feet. Cold air swept over his toes as his boots were removed. The voices of the harpies shifted and changed to less cacophonous sounds, although they still argued. That irritated him. He was dead, after all, in hell, with a blasted root the size of a small heifer attempting to bore its way through his tender organs, and yet the harpies continued to squabble and fuss at him.

  He opened an eye to glare at them. “Can you give a man no rest? Must you strip me of my boots now? I haven’t been dead that long, you know. Isn’t there some sort of a period of respite before the torment commences?”

  One of the harpies was holding a lantern up to a piece of paper. She looked over at him, and he felt a sense of surprise that she wasn’t old and hag-like and the bearer of plentiful warts upon her grisly visage, as any proper harpy ought to be. In fact, her visage wasn’t grisly in the least. She had an oval face that reminded him of a Botticelli. If she hadn’t been a harpy, he would have thought her pretty.

  Whoever heard of a pretty harpy? Death must be playing with his ability to reason.

  “You are deficient in warts,” he told her, closing his eye and waving a hand toward her. “I will have nothing to do with you.”

  “Warts!”

  “Oh, thank the Lord, he is still alive.”

  “Julia, did you hear that? He told me I had warts!”

  “No, dear, I think he said you were deficient in warts, although that was indeed a very odd comment to make. Sir, what is your name?” a soft voice said near his ear. He brushed at his ear, squirming a little to try to find comfort on that damned root. “Are you, as I suspect, English?”

  “Of course he’s English, Julia,” the other harpy snapped, and to his further annoyance, began to tug at his sleeve. Odd that he couldn’t feel his arm. He could feel his toes. He wiggled them. They were cold now that the harpies had stripped them bare to his stockings, and he wanted to inform them of that fact, but he figured they would just laugh and tell him that was what happened to men who died and went to hell. Still, he worried a bit at the lack of feeling in his left arm. “He sounds very English. What I want to know is if he’s an officer.”

  “Madam, I was a major in His Majesty’s army before I died and arrived at this place,” he said stiffly, trying to convey to the harpy through the coldness in his voice just how irritated he was, but she, like all the other heartless beings of hell, paid no mind to his wants or desires and continued to rip the clothing from his poor, naked body.

  “Army? Well, hell!”

  “Princess!”

  “I think I’m allowed to swear in this circumstance, Julia. An army major is no earthly good to me, especially one that thinks I have warts and is under the delusion that he’s dead. What I want is a navy major.”

  “I don’t believe they have majors in the navy, dearest. I think they’re called something else.”

  Leo frowned to himself, and before he could think better of it, protested aloud, “There is nothing wrong with the army.”

  “I didn’t say there was, you annoying—oh, no. Julia, you didn’t tell me he was bleeding this much.”

  Cold seemed to leech into his body from the ground, starting at his left arm and slowly radiating outward. He shivered.

  “I didn’t know since I did not remove his coat. We should move him as quickly as may be. Can you not see that he is feverish? To lie out here in the damp and cold is to court disaster.”

  He wished he had the strength to open his eyes and look again at the harpies, but at that moment, he felt as drained as a newborn colt.

  Still the harpy on the left of him, the wartless one, tugged at him, peeling off his heavy coat and making him aware of the cold and discomfort. He didn’t like her one bit, and turned his head to tell her so. “This certainly wasn’t evident before. Look: it appears he’s taken a saber blade to the arm and I suspect chest, if the blood is any guide. No doubt the attacker thought he had killed him outright. Julia, hand me the blanket. No, the old one. We’ll bind his arm and chest tightly before we move him. That might stop some of the bleeding.”

  “What a most excellent idea. I knew that you would know how to deal with him once you saw him.”

  “Don’t be heaping praise on my head yet. He’s lost a lot of blood, and the fever is upon him. He may well die before I can speak with Colonel Stewart again. Ready? Lift on three.”

  Leo was confused about whom they spoke, but was distracted by the sudden sensation of floating. The root that had been ground into his back drifted away as he lurched along some sort of wind, one that swore and grunted quite a bit, not to mention threatened to drop its burden and let the vultures have at it.

  It must be some other soul the harpies had focused on now that he had drifted off out of their reaches. “Don’t let them take your boots,” he warned. “Your toes will never be warm again.”

  Odd, that, when you thought about it. He’d always been taught that hell was filled with hellfire and brimstone, not cold and numbness.

  The harpies were back, once again arguing. He dragged his attention from where it had wandered, and tried to focus on what they were saying.

  “It is utterly out of the question. You are unmarried, and this gentleman is not your relative. What would your mother say to the idea of him occupying your bed?”

  “My mother would commend me for trying to save the life of one of her countrymen. Now stop arguing, and let’s get him settled so you can fetch the doctor.”

  “But your sheets! We just washed them two days ago!”

  “And we can wash them again. Julia, my hands are getting tired, and if that happens, I’ll drop the poor man. Will you please stop arguing over silly points of etiquette and put him down?”

  Pain spiked through him suddenly, a dull, cold pain that seemed to nag at him, dragging him downward into a black pit.

  The hellfire came at last, burning at him, ripping away his sinews and flesh with metallic claws. He heard a man screaming,
followed by the low rumble of a male voice speaking in Danish that gave way to another, this one female, that seemed to bore into his brain, urging him to be calm so that the doctor could do his work.

  “It’s too late for a doctor,” he argued, moving restlessly, lying in the pit that alternated cold and fire. “I’ve died and gone to hell.”

  “I’ve done what I can, but I’m afraid it’s too late. He won’t last the night through.”

  “But…he was talking! And moving his limbs. Are you sure there is nothing we can do for him? Perhaps a draught or some other physic? My sainted mother used to say that if the fever was attended to—”

  “I have been physician to His Royal Highness for more years than your mother was alive. I know the look of death when I see it, and I say this man will not last until morning. If, by some miracle of God, he does survive the night, then I will bleed him.”

  “Over my dead body you will,” he heard the first harpy say in a firm voice. “My mother always said that bleeding made people weaker, not stronger.”

  He wanted to agree with her, but it was too much effort to speak, so he simply nodded his head.

  “Your mother was not a physician,” the man answered. Footsteps and the sound of a door slamming told of his leaving.

  Good, thought Leo. He sounded singularly unhelpful.

  “Oh, Princess, what will we do now?” one of the harpies asked, wringing her hands as she stood at the foot of his bed.

  “Go fetch me what remains of my mother’s herbs. I’m going to make him a fever draught.”

  “But you heard what the doctor said! He won’t last the night.”

  “Perhaps not, but it won’t be for the lack of me trying. Go, Julia, and get some water boiling.”

  The older harpy moved slowly toward the door, casting a worried look back at him. “If he’s not going to live long…Princess, you must marry him.”

  The pretty harpy turned to her, astonishment clearly writ on her face. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “Quite the contrary. If you marry him now, and he…” She made a vague gesture. “Then you will be his widow, and the colonel will have to send you to England.”

  “I’m not so desperate to find a husband that I need to marry a man on his deathbed.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  The wartless harpy looked as obstinate as a mule. For some reason, that amused Leo. He wondered vaguely who the poor man was who they wanted to marry.

  “All right, I might be that desperate, but really, Julia. He’s desperately ill.”

  “All the more reason to do it now.”

  “But…it seems so wrong to just marry him while he’s not cognizant.”

  “It won’t matter at all to him if he goes to meet his maker wed, while it will mean everything to you and me.”

  He closed his eyes, waiting to hear the fate of the poor, unmarried man. At last the first harpy said, “I suppose it wouldn’t matter much. Go attend to the water and herbs while I fetch the last of the damson wine.”

  Leo drifted for a little bit, coming back to awareness at a slight noise.

  “Is it ready?” one of the harpies was asking.

  “I hope so. His fever is increasing, so we have to get something in him. I just hope this draught helps.”

  “I don’t want to take a draught,” Leo said pettishly, trying with every ounce of strength to open his eyes. He managed to get one cracked to see the pretty harpy sniffing at a bottle of dark red liquid. “You can’t cure death, madam.”

  The harpy set the bottle down on a table, giving him a curious look.

  “What have you done with my root?” he asked suspiciously. “How dare you take it away from me. It was you who spirited me here, wasn’t it? Don’t deny it, I can see by the look on your wartless face that it was. First you strip the flesh from my bones, then you take away the spleen root, and now you threaten to dose me with some foul concoction. I won’t have it. Return me to the proper hell, the one that wasn’t soft and warm and comfortable.”

  He panted with the effort to speak, so exhausted he couldn’t hold open his eye any longer. He wanted to gesture to the harpy, but his arm appeared to be turned to lead, and he didn’t have the strength to lift it.

  “What a very odd man you are. What’s your name?”

  “I do not converse with harpies. It’s Leo.”

  “Leo what?”

  “Leopold.”

  “No, I mean what is your surname? I can’t call you Leo.”

  “Why not? Is there some sort of harpy rule that says you are unable to use a Christian name?”

  “Will you stop calling me a harpy? I’m a princess, dammit! A gentle, innocent princess, and I swear to heaven above if you don’t stop being so annoying, I’m going to clunk you on the head with the chamber pot.”

  He snorted, wishing he had the wherewithal to open his eyes again, but accepting that now that he was in hell, he wouldn’t be granted any wishes. “I’d like to see you try.”

  The harpy made an irritated noise and asked (in a way that sounded like she was forcing the words through her teeth), “What is your surname?”

  “Mortimer. Do harpies have names?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. Are you married?”

  “Not at the moment. What is your name, harpy?”

  “Stop calling me that! I just told you I was a princess. I am Dagmar Marie Sophie, the daughter of Prince Christian of Sonderburg-Beck, the granddaughter of the Duke of Leesbury, and you, sirrah, may refer to me as ‘Her Serene Highness.’ Do you understand?”

  He smiled to himself, pleased he had tricked her into telling her name. “You need warts if you’re going to be a proper harpy.”

  “Gah!”

  He heard the harpy stomp away, muttering to herself and slamming a door behind her. He chuckled silently to himself, feeling oddly contented for a man who had a lead arm and cold toes, and was tucked into a warm, cozy bed deep in the confines of hell. Perhaps he’d take another little nap, just so he was refreshed when the harpy next came to torment him.

  Dagmar was worried. She didn’t want to tell Julia just how worried she was, because Julia was a world-class worrier and, once started down a path, would worry to the point that Dagmar wanted to scream. But worried she was, and for once, that emotion was centered on something other than her own dire circumstances.

  She considered the man who lay in her bed. He had been exceptionally dirty and covered in dried blood since the doctor that Julia had fetched hadn’t felt it necessary to wash any of the muck off the Englishman. Dagmar, mindful of her mother’s teachings, waited until the doctor left, and the man—Leo, that was his name—had lost consciousness before she fetched a bowl of water and, with Julia’s blushing, gaze-averted help, managed to wrestle the man out of his upper garments.

  Whereupon Julia promptly swooned at the sight of so much blood, leaving Dagmar to clean him up. She had done so, not particularly bothered by either the man’s bare chest or the blood, more concerned that he might die before the sun rose.

  “Although why I care is beyond me,” she said, sitting on the side of the bed and wiping his sweaty face with a cold, wet rag. “You’re not in the navy, and you’re argumentative and stubborn and not at all going to help us in any way. I shouldn’t give two figs if you die.”

  And yet she did. There was something about him, perhaps the way he insisted that he was already dead, or maybe it was the glint of humor she’d seen in the one eye he managed to get open, but there was something about him that appealed to her.

  She studied his face. In repose, she could see the hard lines that ran from his nose to his mouth. He had a stubborn jaw; a thin, aristocratic nose that had obviously been broken since the lower half of it was slightly off center; and two dark, straight eyebrows that slashed across a high forehead. He wasn’t handsome in t
he strictest sense of the word, and yet he wasn’t difficult to look at. Absently, she reached out and brushed back a strand of hair that had glued itself to his damp forehead.

  He moaned and turned his face toward her hand.

  “You have had a time of it, haven’t you?” she murmured, wetting the cloth and wiping his face again. He moaned a second time. “Should I marry you if you live through the night? Would you mind having a widow who you didn’t know? But what if you survive? Maybe I won’t need to marry you. Maybe you would be so grateful for my care that you’d do anything for me, including sending me to England with a large purse. No, that won’t work. It will take you weeks to recover, assuming you don’t die as the doctor says you will, and we only have three days left. It’s either ransom or marrying, I’m afraid, and a ransom is just too heartless. Ah, well. If we marry in Denmark, I can divorce you later if you turn out to be unbearable.”

  The hours dragged by with the speed of an elderly caterpillar. The small hours of the morning passed to late hours, and finally the sun rose. With it, Dagmar’s hopes sank, for Leo seemed more fevered, if anything. With Julia’s assistance, she managed to get another dose of draught down him, but he was barely able to swallow the foul mixture.

  Exhausted though she was, Dagmar gathered up a bonnet and shawl, instructing Julia, who had snatched a few hours’ sleep, to watch over their patient. “I must find a clergyman.”

  “Is he…gone?”

  “No.” She felt as if the weight of the world was pushing her into the earth. She didn’t want to make the decision, but she had to. Leo could die at any time, and if he died before they were wed…she refused to consider what it meant to lose her last hope. “I must have a clergyman marry us before I see Colonel Stewart.”

  “You are making the right choice, my dear. But I thought you said that an army major would not be suitable?” Julia asked, glancing fearfully at the door, behind which lay the still figure of Leo. “Will the colonel bother himself with a member of the army?”

  “I fervently pray he will. If he dies, the British ambassador will have to take responsibility for Leo, and that care will extend to us, as well. If he lives…well, we’ll have to deal with that if the situation arises. I’ll be back before he’s due for the next draught. If he gets restless, wipe his face. He seems to like that.”