Brethren

by W. A. Hoffman

  Now I wanted her to go. I did not want her to witness my pain and anger. She had suddenly and inexplicably become the enemy. I marveled that her eyes still seemed sincere.

  “Go home, Uly. Regain your father’s good grace, marry, have children, and then make some courtesan a very happy woman.” Her features settled into resignation, and she stood with a tired sigh. “You are free to do anything your heart desires. Make yourself happy.” She leaned down to kiss my cheek. I did not try to touch her, even though her words had squashed my anger.

  “You can leave here,” I said as she walked to the door.

  She turned to regard me sadly. “No, I cannot.” She held up a hand to stifle my protest. “I do not wish to leave,” she added.

  Without doubt, I knew she lied. I wanted to know who I had to kill to release her, what walls I had to tear down to set her free. There was so much sincerity in her lie, though, that I could not battle it. I was overcome with helplessness, and I did not feel I could battle that, either.

  “I will miss you.”

  She appeared relieved at my words. “I have brought money to provide for your journey.”

  “I do not…”

  “I know.”

  I sighed. “There is one thing I would have of you.”

  “If I am able,” she said.

  “That.” I pointed at the portrait of her on the wall. It was one of the last paintings my beloved Joseph had done. It was as tall as I, and I did not know how I would transport it if we were on the road. “Please keep it safe until I can send for it.”

  She nodded and smiled. She gave Alonso a parting look, and I realized they had already said their farewells. Then she was gone.

  I sat watching the door where she had stood. I did not want to think. I did not want to converse with Alonso. I did not want to exist in this moment in time. I wanted to be far away, and all of this only a passing memory.

  The surgeon arrived. Alonso handed me a goblet as the man examined the wound. After a night of pretending to be intoxicated, I wanted desperately to drink myself blind. I gasped in pain at the man’s prodding, and realized I would not manage to become inebriated enough to dull the wound or my heart before I would be forced to experience their agony. I could still make the attempt, though.

  So I drank wine and let Alonso hold my arm, while the surgeon pronounced the wound a clean slice and stitched it closed. I could not look at it myself, as I am quite squeamish when it comes to my own blood. The damned man added that there was always the possibility it might become noxious and feverish, and I could lose the arm in the end.

  Finally the surgeon left, and we were alone. Alonso found another bottle on the sideboard and opened it.

  “I did not expect it all to end so soon,” he said in Castilian.

  At first I thought he meant the bottle in my hand. I was pleased I had already managed such stupefaction. Then I knew what he truly meant, and I felt he was lying. He had obviously thought it would end much sooner than I had. I was not drunk enough to escape just yet.

  “I am beginning to feel a trifle bitter,” I said carefully. “I am sure it will become a raging torrent of righteous indignation all too soon. How long have you known?”

  “Since she asked us to perform the task,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

  I glared at him.

  “Uly, you are truly brilliant when it comes to strategy, but you never consider the consequences past the problem at hand. You are always living in the day, and never thinking about the future. I have been thinking about the future a great deal lately.”

  There he was, saying it again. And there he was, being ever so correct yet again. He would never understand that tonight’s events were why I do not think about the future. If I did, I would fear things such as had transpired.

  “I am proud of you,” I muttered.

  “Uly, please, we need to talk now.”

  “Alonso, I feel betrayed, and used, and discarded.”

  “We are the tools, not the tool users.”

  “I do not wish to be either, but I suppose the only other alternative within the human milieu is to become a sheep.”

  He raised a curious eyebrow.

  “We are wolves,” I said, happy to ramble about something and nothing in an effort to think nothing or something. “We were raised by wolves to be wolves. We are members of the aristocracy, despite whatever condition we may find ourselves in over the course of our lives. It is in our blood, and etched upon our minds and probably even our souls. We are destined and designed for lives of power and privilege. We rule over sheep.”

  “So noblemen are wolves and peasants sheep?” he asked.

  I frowned. “No, nobility does not make a wolf, but wolves are most often nobles and peasants are most often sheep. A wolf will seize power if he is not granted it by birth, and fight like a demon to keep it. They can see no other way to live. Sometimes one finds wolves in sheep’s clothing, acting timid and allowing themselves to be herded. But in their hearts, they are wolves and expect to be allowed to act like sheep. On the other side of the fence, sheep do not believe they have the right to expect any such thing, such as being allowed to act like a wolf. Occasionally you get a very bully sheep who does think like a wolf, in which case a wolf they become; and they are no longer a sheep, no matter what skin they may don.”

  He was grinning at me mischievously. “So, a sheep can become a wolf, but a wolf cannot become a sheep.”

  “Correct, it would be akin to stuffing the chick back into the egg.”

  “So you feel the natural order is for sheep to become wolves.”

  “Si, if they are able. Everyone wants to be a wolf, if they are intelligent enough to understand what being a wolf means. Many sheep think the thing that separates them from the wolves is gold, or blood, but they are wrong. Sheep and wolves are different because wolves have big teeth and fangs and eat sheep and they know it. Sheep do not eat wolves. It is a state of mind. It is a thing of assigning primacy to one’s own well-being above all other things, including the lives of others.”

  “So you cannot become a sheep by your own admission.”

  “True. I am a wolf without a pack.”

  “Are you sure you have no pack?” he asked kindly.

  “I do not know. It has been ten years now since I departed. Perhaps.”

  “I did not mean in England.”

  I regarded him with a twinge of guilt as I grasped his meaning. “No, I am not sure I have no pack. Yet, I am not sure I have one, either. One I counted amongst its number walked out that door not long ago.”

  He moved closer, and his fingers traced my cheek. “Abandoning you is not my intent.”

  “What, then? Where shall we go? If you have known, you, who think about the future, must have some plan in mind. So where? Will Venice or Rome be safe? Genoa? I have only been away from Vienna these three years, and I feel that is not sufficient time for tempers to have cooled there. Paris, perhaps? How is your French?”

  His big brown eyes managed to convey both guilt and hope. My gut clenched even tighter.

  “What?” I prompted quietly.

  “I have been corresponding with my family.”

  That was interesting. He had often told me he communicated less with them than I did with mine. And since my communication with my family was limited to an annual set of letters to my Uncle Cedric and my former tutor, Rucker, Alonso’s frequency and depth of discourse should have been very small indeed; but apparently not.

  He sighed. “Uly, we are getting too old for this life. I will have thirty years soon, and you have what, twenty-seven?”

  “Twenty-six,” I said flatly. I was visited by the impression that he had rehearsed this speech many times.

  “You are the eldest son and heir of the Earl of …” he frowned.

  “Dorshire.” I did not fault him on not remembering; I spoke little of it and thought on it less. “I am John Williams, Viscount of Marsdale, and heir to the Earl of Dorshire.” I had not f
elt myself to be my father’s heir since I left his house in the middle of the night; but while I lived, I surely was. Unless I had been disinherited, of course.

  Alonso nodded. “Unlike you, I am not the eldest son; yet I believe I have duties to my family, and to myself. I have given it great thought, and recently come to the conclusion that it is time to put aside boyish adventures and return home to the life that is expected of me.”

  Oddly, his words came as no surprise. Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps I had known he would say such a thing someday.

  “You said you were not abandoning me.”

  His eyes conveyed hope again. “I want you to accompany me.”

  I blinked, as he had grown foggy in my vision for a moment. “To Madrid?”

  He nodded.

  “Are you mad? Our nations are at war.”

  “I do not think so,” he said with a perplexed frown.

  “Perhaps not at the moment, but they are always on the brink, and nonetheless they like each other little.”

  “Your Castilian is excellent.”

  “For an Englishman. Alonso, I am blond, pale, and skinny. You are robust and swarthy.”

  “We have skinny and blond Spaniards.”

  “Do tell? Who speak Castilian like Englishmen?”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes.

  “I would look like a scarecrow left in the sun too long,” I added.

  “I did not think you would pretend to be Spanish. You have several personas, with documents.”

  “Si, I do.” In truth I was already considering various means of enacting his plan. “I could assume an Austrian identity, unless I ran afoul of someone with an ear for languages.”

  He warmed to my seeming acquiescence. “We would not remain in Spain long.”

  “Truly? Then what?”

  “My family wishes for me to join my brother in the New World and assist with our interests there. We have a plantation in Panama.”

  I was vaguely aware of Panama’s location. I believed it to be on the Main itself and not in the West Indies. I was curious about the New World, yet there were many things troubling me. I took a long breath, relieved him of the bottle he held, and finished it.

  “That is wonderful. Perhaps I shall pay you a visit, if my travels ever lead me there.”

  He stood with annoyance and went to the window to peer into the night, presenting me with his back.

  “I thought that,” he said carefully. “I knew that you would not want to leave here until forced. That is why I did not discuss it with you. I harbored the hope that you would wish to accompany me because… at least you would still have me.”

  I was seeing things in a truly harsh light, as I recognized his tone and gesture as one of calculation and practice. But all that really meant was that he truly wanted me to go and he was willing to play everything in his hand to achieve it.

  I loved Teresina with a boyish romantic fancy. Alonso, however, had been my companion for more than two years. He was not an unreachable destination, but a fellow traveler on the journey. I studied the lines of his back and wondered how I would live without him. Alonso had been gifted by many a god: Adonis, Mars, Apollo, and even Jupiter when one considered his birthright as the son of a Spanish count. Alonso was all any man should want to be, and as such he was attractive to me in every facet. I loved Alonso in a manner that I would never love Teresina, or be loved by Teresina, or any woman for that matter. And I was not merely thinking of carnal delights. Alonso was a man, and I am one of those men blessed or cursed to favor men. I prefer their company, and their bodies, but mostly their company. Alonso and I had shared plans, schemes, homes, beds, weapons, jokes, friends, women, and wine. He was my lover, and brother in all but name and blood.

  So there were two questions hanging betwixt us. How could I let him go without at least trying? And how could he have been so close and yet know me so little?

  “And what would we do there?” I asked. “Who would I be?” My thoughts floated along in the wine, and I did not like where the river was leading. “Would I be posing as your manservant?”

  He turned back to me and eagerly closed the distance between us. “It would not be like that.” He did not seem convinced by his own words.

  “Then how would it be, Alonso? You say I do not think things through; you are correct. Let me rectify that now. What would we do? What is this plantation like? What does it grow? Would we while away our days hunting and drinking?” Something else tickled at my mind. “What else does your family expect of you? Marriage?”

  He nodded glumly. “They have already found me a wife.” He threw up his hands. “But it is nothing. You know women. I will need to bed her until she gets with child, and then leave her alone until well after she births it. If I am lucky, I will only share her bed a few times a year.”

  “Will you be able to share mine the rest of it?” I asked.

  Alonso grimaced. “Uly… You know… We would need to be discreet, even more so than here. And you do not like me to share your bed every night.”

  “And you would not want me chasing boys; so if I am your servant, what does that leave me, your maids?” I asked.

  He was taken aback by this. I realized he had not thought everything through.

  “Alonso, I have seen men like myself living lives of that nature. Always… outside… watching and waiting for their lover to come to them, when it is safe, or convenient. I do not want that.”

  “It will not be that way,” he said doggedly; but I knew he could see what I spoke of. He knelt beside me, his face earnest. “Uly, I want you. I care for you more deeply than I ever imagined I would. And these last weeks have been very hard on me, knowing we would come to this discussion. I do not want to be without you. I am willing to do everything I can to keep us together.” His eyes were pleading, moist and bright in the dim candlelight.

  The wine had finally truly dulled my senses and my heart. My arm even throbbed less. I was in a distant place, observing him through a lens that brought him closer yet kept him out of reach.

  “Alonso, I love you, and I will miss you terribly. Yet, I could no more live in your shadow for the rest of my existence than you could live in mine.”

  His shoulders tightened. Then he sighed before regarding me with a new resolve. “Maybe we could travel elsewhere, then?”

  Those words pushed through the fog of wine and grasped at my heart. I found myself nodding, yet there were reservations in my soul. I could feel them rustling about, though I could not name them. It did not matter: we were beyond further discourse. He closed the final distance between us, and his lips covered mine. I returned the kiss and urged him to deepen it. When we pulled apart a breathless minute later, I whispered, “Your room.”

  He smiled and shrugged. I still disliked sharing a bed with anyone in the aftermath of passion, even him. I stood on shaky legs and let him lead me down the hall.

  We took turns pleasuring one another for hours, until what remained of the night was spent and we along with it. He performed every trick he knew to convince me that I could not live without him. My body surrendered to his ministrations time and again, until he had verily wrung me dry more times than I could remember. I even allowed him to do that which he always most desired and I usually refused. With my ankles on his shoulders, I watched him through the haze of pain, both real and remembered. I knew he loved me, but I felt little of that lofty emotion, and it was not solely due to the wine.

  At last we lay in the grey before dawn, he sleeping and I watching him, wondering how deeply asleep he truly was. I was not sure when I reached the decision, but reached it I had. It must have been the carnality; it always makes me think. He was correct. We had played the fools too long. It was time we made amends with our birthrights and accepted the yoke of duty. I would go home. I did not know what awaited me there, and perhaps I would not stay; but I would at least make the attempt.

  And more important than concerns of familial honor and the like, I could not
run from Shane forever. There was much to resolve. I was no longer the boy who had run away in the night. I owed it to myself to exorcise that demon.

  It had taken Alonso months of patience and persistence to induce me to yield to our mutual desires and overcome the fear that haunted me. Yet finding peace in his arms had not healed me; it had only made me aware of how very wounded I still was. In some utopian version of the world that only existed in my dreams, I would return to England with Alonso, confront Shane and say, “Here, this is what it can be.” But that was the stuff of fantasy, and fantasies are like brightly painted eggs. They are beautiful to consider, but if you grasp one it shatters, and you are left with a most unholy stench.

  I pushed a strand of hair from Alonso’s brow and told myself that it was better this way, as I would never see his beautiful body sag and turn to fat. I would not be forced to watch him wed. Or worse yet, and even more probable, watch him slip away from me in the manner of people everywhere as they grow and age. He would always be perfect in my mind as he was at this moment. Except that was not true. At the moment he was no more perfect than Teresina had been in that last conversation. I was angry, and as a result my memories of them now held a taint. I hoped that would pass.

  Love, so far, had not proven to be an invincible gem of beauty, but rather an ephemeral ray of color in the morning mist, something easily seen until one turned one’s head. It had not been a thing that could easily be lifted and transported in all its glory to another place or time. This wispy, momentary quality of love had permeated every relationship I dared label as love. I wondered at the words of poets and philosophers who professed of loves that transcended all earthly concerns and bound the participants with unbreakable chains of the heart. Perhaps they had only been dreaming, too.

  I slipped from his bed and padded on bare feet back to my room. I almost tripped on a small bag at his door. There was another at mine, which I hefted with surprise. Teresina had been generous in funding our travel. My bag contained a fortune in florins. I was thankful, as I had little else to call my own, save my weapons and horse. I had lived ten years through the beneficence of friends and the misfortune of adversaries. Now, I supposed, I would throw myself upon my father’s goodwill, as was my birthright.