Seconds later Agenor came pounding past, his breath sounding fierce and guttural, like that of a wild boar. Beheim heard branches shredding in the surrounding thickets, the footsteps receding, then silence. Somewhere a bird twittered. Wind stirred the leaves and needles above them, admitting a shower of light. Beheim’s flurried thoughts began to settle, and as they did he recalled the location of the pits in reference to the landmark of the fallen trees. One was very near, about a hundred feet away and almost directly upslope. A bit late, he thought, but he was pleased to know his own location, more secure for knowing it.
He gave Alexandra’s hand another squeeze, but held up his own hand to signal that she should maintain silence. Their eyes met again. There was, he thought, a softening of her regard, a new color added to her view of him, another gold fleck glinting in that mineral iris. His fingers strayed along her wrist. He felt her strong pulse, the beat of her century-long life, as powerful and persistent as the rhythm of an African drum. Her hand was pliant in his. Receptive. He intended to be cautious this time in interpreting that receptivity, but he was tempted to believe it signaled real promise for them. Love? He was not sure their inconstant natures would support such an easily bruised passion, though lust might well find a fine expression in their promise. But what he sought most of all was something rarer than love. Trust. Commitment. Honor. Possibly she had acted in her own immediate self-interest in striking down Agenor—she may have feared being discovered by him and realized that her chances of survival would improve with an ally. But she had not acted for those reasons alone, he was sure of that much. The infant recognition that had made them lovers must also have been at work. The intuition that he was someone in union with whom she could achieve her heart’s desire, someone whose influence would refine and make more precise her comprehension of that desired object. It was something he himself felt about her, and though he was not yet willing to embrace the feeling with open arms, he had the notion that sitting there in that clammy little womb beneath the dead trees, the darkness was putting a seal on their union, marrying them in some final and ultimately efficient way.
There was a creaking from somewhere close by, as of a clandestine footstep on an unstable surface.
Beheim held perfectly still, his ears straining.
Wind riffled the pine boughs; the distant chatter of a jay.
The rich smell of the soil around them seemed suddenly to grow more pungent.
But there was no further creaking.
He was about to risk a whispered assurance to Alexandra when someone began tearing at the layers of foliage above them, ripping away great swatches of vines and dead boughs and chokecherry branches.
Agenor.
Beheim saw him through rents in the greenery, standing atop the pine trunk, his features contorted with rage, half his face covered in drying blood.
He dipped his shoulder and his hand punched through into the cavity, groping for them. He smashed his fist into the trunk, and as if the fist were an ax, it clove the dead wood, scattering chips everywhere.
Alexandra shrieked; Beheim caught her about the waist, dragged her deeper into the hollow. He toppled over backward onto cold wet ground, and as he scrambled up, his head scraped against pine bark, against the trunk upon which Agenor was standing. “Help me!” he said, squatting and putting his shoulder to the trunk. “Help me lift it! Hurry!”
Agenor was grunting, cursing, continuing to rip and batter away at the barrier of foliage, at the wood itself, chewing out a wider passage with blows from his powerful right hand. Whenever his fingers caught the wood, they tore deep gouges in it. The vibration of his blows seemed to shiver the world. Beheim’s heart felt hot and swollen.
“Now!” he said as Alexandra settled beside him, her shoulder pressing against the trunk.
Together they heaved upward, first merely shifting the trunk, but then—the full force of their strength engaged—pushing it up at an extreme angle, tearing loose vines and shrubs, warm gold light flooding the hollow, half-blinding them, and Beheim heard a shrill cry as Agenor lost his balance and fell.
With a fierce effort, they shoved the trunk off to the side of the hollow and clambered up onto level ground.
Agenor was ensnared in a mass of uprooted shrubs, visible as an arm and a shock of white hair; the trunk had rolled onto his legs. But as they gained their footing, shielding their eyes against the light, they saw him sit straight up, draped in vines and crowned with leaves like an old forest king suddenly woken from a long sleep. He wrenched a leg free and kicked at the trunk with it, rolling it aside with what seemed the slightest of exertions. Then he came to his feet, trailing strands of vine, moss in his hair, which was an unruly mess, sticking up in places, stray locks falling onto his forehead. Leaves and needles fluttered down about him. His eyes gleamed, pure black at that distance like beetles lodged in the orbits, and he stared cold death at them, the image of savagery and madness. With a backhanded swipe, he snapped the slim trunk of a sapling ash beside him; then he stepped toward them, appearing in no particular hurry, certain of his victory.
Beheim and Alexandra backed clumsily up the slope away from him, and Beheim, remembering the pits, steered Alexandra on an appropriate course. When Agenor increased his pace, he pushed her ahead of him and they ran, darting in and out among the pines, until they reached a circular clearing centered by an immense prow-shaped boulder that marked the site of one of the pits. Beheim took a stand beside it, positioning them in a patch of sunlight so that the pit lay between them and Agenor, who was moving purposefully toward them now, smiling, doubtless thinking that they had given up. Alexandra made to run again, but Beheim restrained her.
“Stay here,” he said under his breath. “We’ll never outrun him. Our best chance is here. Believe me!”
Doubt caused her stoic expression to flicker, but after a second’s hesitation she nodded and turned toward Agenor.
The old man had regained his composure. Though he was still dressed in vines and a few leaves, he seemed only disheveled, a gentleman who had, perhaps, taken a bad fall from a horse.
“That’s better,” he said as he approached. “Better by half. It will be quick, I promise you.”
Beheim tried to keep his eyes off the mat of branches and leaves and needles that disguised the pit. Could any water be seen through the latticework of foliage, shining in the sun? To draw Agenor’s attention away from it, he said, “No one need die of this, lord. What you did was only an aberration. I understand that. I have no desire to punish you.”
“Perhaps you do not, my young friend,” said Agenor, coming forward at a steady pace. “But others will. The Patriarch will learn of my guilt. If not from you, then by some other means. I can never return to Castle Banat, and if I am to escape, I must make certain that I have a good head start. I wish I could spare you, but”—he shrugged—“I cannot.”
A dozen more steps, Beheim thought, urging Agenor on with a wish as intense as a prayer.
“It’s I whom you have reason to fear,” Alexandra said, startling Beheim. “For I am not of your branch. Kill me if you must, but you have no reason to kill Michel. You are his master, you can control him.”
“Can I?” said Agenor. “I wonder. It strikes me that he has changed greatly in this short time. Had he not, I doubt he would have inspired such allegiance from you.”
Beheim let his eyes drift to the side, making sure of the position of the iron shutter, buried beneath dirt and needles.
Five steps, maybe six.
He felt almost buoyant with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. The burning thing in the sky seemed to have intensified its radiance, flooding the clearing with light so substantially golden it seemed to be solidifying around them, threatening to preserve the pines and the boulder and the three of them forever like insects in amber.
Then Agenor paused, and Beheim’s heart sank.
“Come to me, my friend,” Agenor said, extending his arms to him. “Let me embrace you.”
&nbs
p; There was nothing sardonic or gloating in his tone; on the contrary, he looked rather wistful standing there, head tipped to the side, brow knitted, the corners of his mouth turned down.
“I cannot, lord,” Beheim said. “I am not so easy with this moment.”
“Nor am I,” Agenor said sadly. “But there is no point in prolonging it, is there?”
He came several steps closer, stopping with his feet mere inches from the verge of the pit. Beheim could scarcely hold himself back from leaping forward and pushing him in.
“Strange,” said Agenor musingly, “how this has all come round.”
“Think on this, Agenor,” said Alexandra. “Consider it well. We might compose a formidable power, you and I. Surely there is another way, a way in which you could make use of the assistance of the Valeas, whom I now represent, to further your ends.”
“An alliance?” said Agenor. “True, if it were an alliance I could count on, such would be most helpful. But where are my guarantees?”
“A guarantee is easily achieved,” Alexandra said. “Were I to kill your man here, were I to report that my actions came as a result of having discovered it was he who killed the Golden, would not my complicity assure an alliance?”
Beheim gazed at Alexandra in astonishment, but she paid no notice to him, fixed upon Agenor, her lovely face drawn with intensity.
“Interesting,” said Agenor.
“Everyone witnessed his behavior toward the Golden on the night of the ball,” Alexandra said. “His guilt would come as no surprise. Evidence could be planted in his rooms. You could claim that you suspected him from the start, and that you hoped by appointing him to investigate the crime, you were giving him an opportunity to reveal himself.”
Agenor gave a sharp laugh and, addressing Beheim, said, “Is she not the most astonishing creature?”
Beheim was speechless, gone beyond fear into a state of confusion so profound it seemed a new kind of pain.
“Yet the very quality that makes her so astonishing,” Agenor went on, “the marvelous spiritual agility that enables her to give herself wholly to first one and then another…” He shook his head in awe. “I’m afraid I would find you too distracting, so I will have to forgo the pleasure of an alliance, dear lady, and proceed with my initial design. But first”—he glanced down at the ground, then smiled at them—“first I must decide how to negotiate this ridiculous trap you’ve set. Now let me see. Shall I leap across, or shall I go round? What do you think?”
Beheim’s acceptance of defeat must have shown on his face, for Agenor—staring at him—proceeded to laugh heartily and then said, “There, there, Michel! Surely your hopes for this pathetic device were not high.”
“No, not very.” Beheim looked down at his hands, finding them in this moment before extinction odd in the extreme, little fleshy grips that moved with such craftiness—it seemed impossible they should cease to exist. Then anger knotted in him again. “Tell me, lord,” he said. “All your ideals, all those hopeful schemes and noble designs with which you so enthralled me, were they only part of a game? Were they whimsy, a trait of the character you chose to adopt?”
Agenor did not answer at once, but gazed off into the deep woods, down the slope toward a trickle of bright water showing like a strip of silver ribbon left hanging in the boughs of an old Christmas tree. The blood had finished drying on his face, much of it had been rubbed away, and with his white hair and the ravaged beauty of his face, he resembled an old actor who had botched his makeup with an overapplication of rouge.
“I believe not,” he said, genuine pain in his voice. “I believe what I have done is stray from the path of my spirit rather than returning to it. A great deal of worth has come of the philosophy I have helped to breed. That we stand here in this terrible light is itself a proof. But how can I be certain that even these things are not the by-products of willfulness and folly?” He stared at Beheim, his mouth working. “Do you believe I love you, Michel? In my heart it seems I love you well, and no matter how this day ends, that will not change. But do you believe it?”
“Why is it important what I believe?” Beheim asked, trying not to stare at Agenor, for it appeared that something was happening to his face, that the skin was coarsening, reddening.
“In the centuries to come, perhaps I will forget you, my young friend,” said Agenor, assuming his familiar lectoral mien. “Then again, perhaps I will not. The question of your importance has yet to be decided. However, why the question is important remains another issue. I would like your opinion on my mental state. I realize it’s much to ask, considering the circumstances. But nevertheless I would—”
“Yes, it is rather much, isn’t it?” Beheim snapped. “But never mind, I’ll be happy to oblige. You see, it’s an incredibly easy question to answer. It calls for no consideration whatsoever. Just look at yourself. In the space of a few seconds you’ve gone from mawkish regret to the fatuous maunderings of an old poof, and you haven’t noticed a damned thing that’s happening to you. You’re mad! And not just a little bit mad. You’re as mad as that foul thing who calls himself our Patriarch!”
He was afire with elation—something was definitely happening to Agenor. The skin was darkening in patches, reddening overall, the wrinkles growing more pronounced. The effects of Felipe’s drug were finally wearing off. Finally! Beheim was surprised that Agenor had not yet felt any pain.
“And as to whether you were ever sane, well, I’ll admit that all you ever said about how we need to change…” He made a derisive noise. “You’re living proof of that! But it doesn’t matter if sanity once gripped you, because you’ll never be sane again. You’re finished as a rational being. You might as well go hang in the trees with the rest of the bats!”
Agenor listened to this outburst with an air of haughty bemusement, like an adult tolerating an annoying child, and when Beheim fell silent, he gave a sigh in which it seemed years of dust and patience were collected, and opened his mouth to deliver what Beheim might have expected to be a pompous denial or a grandiloquent expression of superiority; but then his eyes grew distended, he touched his cheek with a trembling hand as if to reassure himself of its solidity, and what issued from his mouth was no condescending prattle but a raspy scream that built in volume and pitch until it became as full-throated as that of a terrified woman.
Very like, Beheim thought with satisfaction, how the Golden must have screamed on the eastern turret that morning when Agenor tore her apart.
Chapter FIFTEEN
The old man clasped his hands to his face. Wisps of smoke trickled between his fingers, and the fingers themselves began to blister. He made a gargling noise, and then, flinging out his hands, revealed the scorched surface of his face, the forehead charring, the blisters on the cheeks burst and leaking a clear fluid. His hair, too, was burning, the pale, sunstruck flames leaping merrily. He dropped into a crouch, hopping about like a bedizened dwarf, trying to pull his jacket up over his head, all the while emitting a quavery cry. The backs of his hands were crisping, the blackened skin cracking to reveal an angry redness beneath, and Beheim, without thinking why he acted, leaped across the pit and pushed him in.
As Agenor’s body broke through the mat of branches and hit the water with a heavy splash, there was a great venting of steam, and when he surfaced, still burning, he groped wildly for the branches that had fallen in with him, attempting to arrange them like a thatch over his head. Beheim searched in the dirt for the iron edge of the camouflaged shutter, gripped it, and heaved it toward the pit, wrangling it sideways.
“What are you doing?” Alexandra shrilled, clutching at him. “Let him burn! He would have killed us! Burn him!”
But he broke free of her and maneuvered the shutter until it covered the imprisoning water and its agonized captive.
Alexandra grabbed at the shutter, trying to remove it from the pit, and Beheim shoved her away. She shrieked, enraged, and came at him, clawing at his face. Again he knocked her away. He spotted a pin
e branch lying beside the pit, one that had broken, so that its end was sharp and pointed, he picked it up, and as Alexandra ran at him a second time, he slapped her, driving her against the boulder. Before she could gather herself, he flung himself atop her, bending her backward over the boulder; he tore the front of her dress and her lace undergarment, fitted the sharp end of the pine branch to the inner side of her left breast and pushed until bright blood showed against the freckly white skin. She stiffened, ceased her struggles. Her eyes were wheels of reflected light, like frozen eddies in a green river. He did not look away, but met her dazzling stare with the hot press of his anger.
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