“When we were children” Adam repeated. He turned toward Beatrice and found the young maiden gazing at him with a smile that broke familiarity. “Why do you stay?”
“Don’t be a silly ass” she laughed. Beatrice rolled to her back and stared at the canopy, like garbs of guardian angels surrounding the bed. “Why has anyone stayed. It’s because we love our king. I love my king.”
“I don’t feel like a king. Of anything. What I have is a crown that has no more rectitude than a bale of hay, or say, a mule.”
“But you have friends.”
“Some might say so.” He sighed at the thought of his throne and the crown resting on its mantle. “I lord over towns of people I have never seen. How great is my rule truly? I am sure that to them I am just folklore. Something faceless. Voiceless.”
“I see you” Beatrice said as she crept out of the bed and took up the dish, turning back with eyes that dared him to contest.
Yes! he thought. But could the girl from that village ever?
~ 18
“We got the permit!” Willem held up the ledger as Fierro drove the saw through the wood, splitting the beam. He combed the edge, raking away the splinters, and picked up the mallet with two iron nails to set the pilot holes.
“We sure did” Fierro sighed as he positioned the center punch, hit the head, pulled the metal back out and placed it again another stretch.
“It’s good that the lighthouse hasn’t buggered off in the storms. I’d rather be hewing wood than breaking and mounting stone. Masonry is something else. But wood, wood is a beautiful thing.” Willem picked up the shaver while Fierro listened like a silent priest in the confessional of seafaring men. The coxswain pulled the board from the vice and set another. “And I just can’t understand that councilman. He has the gratitude of a toddler. Although he’s paying us, and I swear we’ve bid too low, he still gripes about hiring us. We are bloody seamen. We know what’s to go into a harbor.”
“Let sleeping dogs lie.” Fierro blew out the hole, rebore it with a drill press, then clasped two anchors to the shaft. “Nothing good comes of that man.”
“I shouldn’t have said anything about docking on this side of the isle.”
“You’ve got us work.”
“I’ve got us trouble” he said, lifting the canteen to his lips. Willem swished the water around his mouth and spit into the wooden scree. “Have you ever seen him pleased? No, not even that. How about content?” Willem set the shaver down, lost in a quagmire of thoughts, opened his mouth and shut it again, then took up the shaver and began gleaning the surface. Fierro looked at him then put his head back to work.
“Atta’ boy” Fierro said.
“Damn it!” Willem threw the shaver and kicked the bucket of sawdust across the floor. He paced, rubbing his jaws, then ripped his hands away as they seizure into fists. “One more lousy word. One more, Fierro, and I’m quits.”
“Calm down!”
“To hell with you!” Willem spit on the ground. “You’re not captain anymore. Raise your flag somewhere else.” Fierro let the hammer drop with the nails, tingling like metal bread crumbs, then took a broom and rammed it into Willem’s chest.
“You’re right.” Fierro shoved Willem back and returned to his station. “Get swabbing.”
“No.” Willem dropped the broom. “You want to know what it is? I’m a dog to you, a thing at your beckon call. No, not even that. A bitch. A dirty, back alleyway bitch.
“Clearly you don’t trust me. That veiled threat about Gabrielle as we returned stateside. At the bar when we were celebrated. But that’s not the worst. You could have taken me into the woods that day to help you save that woman and her babies. If you weren’t too vain to have it all to yourself than her husband, their father, would be alive.”
Fierro set his tools down and faced Willem who stood like a scarecrow in a storm. The captain took him by the neck and threw him into the woodwork, collapsing the scaffolding. Willem scrambled in the dust and brought back a nail protruding between his fingers.
“Coward!” Fierro slapped his hand down and raised Willem by his shirt. “Next time you talk back to me, I’ll kill you. Next time you lift a hand to me, I’ll kill you. If you see me coming you better look the other way because the day you cross me there will be a reckoning.” Willem fell back curled into a ball, coughing into the dust, whimpering. Fierro picked up the hammer and nails, then braced his hands on the bench. “Get the hell out of here. I never want to see you again.”
“I’m sorry, captain” Willem rubbed the bags under his eyes. “I just don’t feel myself when ashore, with all this hullabaloo about the woods and this creature thing that got Hagar and the council.”
“Just do your job” Fierro sighed, picking up the saw. He rammed the teeth into the woody flesh, opening it, turning sawdust in the air. “It’s just like the seas. Some days we are at war. Other days peace. Some nights we have a storm. Others the stars. If you treat this town the way a boat is run, you’ll manage.”
“Aye ye” he chuckled. Fierro gave him a smirk he knew too well. Ships either retire or sink, Fierro thought. And this town will never retire. Willem set the bucket, scooped the sawdust with his hands, and looked up at Fierro sawing another piece of lumber. He wondered if the captain meant what he said about offing him. He knew him to be aggressive, but never maniacal. Was this the beginning of a new man?
“What say you about Gabrielle?” Willem asked. The saw stopped. Fear hatched in Willem’s heart and burned in his veins. Fierro pulled the tool again, see-sawing the lumber until the question passed.
“If you ever see that vixen Wilma and her baron, be cordial. They are keen on receiving their undue praises.”
“Nothing makes me sorer than them.” Willem threw dust into the bucket, then clapped his hands and wiped his pants. “I don’t see how you can put up with them.”
“I don’t. But just be grateful. When we came back they all thought I was a hero. A politician always wants a hero in his campaign. I’m no more important than anyone, I just get more attention. And it’s a hassle. People assume there are perks, when in fact they all have it better than I do. I’ve come to realize that most people we thought we looked up to have the type of lifestyles we really don’t want. I just smile when I’m told to and get on the fritz about things that I’m told to fritz about.”
“But you get her.”
“Who?”
“Gabrielle. A flirt here and a tease there. You are the cream of the crop. No one else gets so much as a crumb from her.” Fierro set his tools down and sat on the log while Willem took up the broom and swept the floor. He watched him for a moment, a handler about to explain to his prized buck that it's going to be butchered, and then shifted his tone.
“Did you know a snake can be impregnated by several mates? No fidelity. Gabrielle’s just another snake, Willem. She will smile at me, laugh with another, and mix a few words with another gentleman after that. We are all equals to her. Don’t observe what’s not there. You’re a better man than that.”
“I’m just saying she’s taken with you. Maybe it’s childsplay, but that’s as good as gold for what she offers.” The captain held a moment’s silence to reflect on it.
Gold’s not good enough, Fierro thought.
~ 19
The mirror showed Adam a skeleton dipper in fur. Hair clung to his frame in patches, and staring into infirm eyes he wondered what might come of the moment Gabrielle saw him. He set the scissors on the countertop and leaned near the vanity till the moisture on his breath drew a ring around the glass.
Beatrice opened the door, entering with a plate of minnow and withered dill. Adam smelt the sliver of butter beneath the crushed garlic skins as hunger rumbled through his body. He brought the scissors to his cheek, clipped a lock of hair from his face, then wove the metal tooth through another strand and snipped again. Moving about his face the blades curled in his muzzle and gridlocked. Adam pulled the shears until the pin broke from the center
and released the union of the halves. He ripped the first blade out as a crown of pain followed the hair rent from his face. Adam slammed his hand on the counter. Beatrice ran up to the king and threw her arm over his shoulder, tailoring him in the cloth of her love, and led him back to the bed.
“What are you doing?” Beatrice covered her mouth, looking at the blood matted fur. The scissor hung off his cheek like a wind chime caught in moss. She untangled the instrument, snapping the hair at the base of the knots, then held the blade out in her hand. “Why? Why, you foolish man?” Adam laid his head into her breast and wept. Who would want to be seen like this? Would that beautiful girl from the village bear to have him in her presence?
“I just want-” The words tumbling from his lips melted into a whimper.
“You should be content with what you have.” Beatrice held his head against her bosom. “My Adam, my poor, dear Adam. You are still a boy. Who will mother you? I feed you. I saved your beautiful hair when you wished to cut it. How more can I nature you?”
“Why does it have to be like this?” Adam groaned as he lifted his head and met the pale face of his chambermaid. “We have no food. Our loved ones are gone. All but I will die quickly in the winter. But even so, the snow shall overcome and I too will see my ancestors.”
“You, Adam, have a gift. But this gift” Beatrice said as she rubbed his cheek, catching a tear in her palm, tugged the hair and placed his hands in hers, “has been wrapped and rewrapped, because it is special.”
“It is a curse.”
“It is nothing of the sort. Who hasn’t loved you? Tell me that at once or lose your conviction. Maybe no one else looks the way you do, but your gift forces other to see below the surface, to hear more than words when you speak. You are listened to, seen. Once anyone understands this beautiful gift they will bulge with envy.
“I wouldn’t know you without. This” she ran her fingers through the fur, “makes you my Adam. Remain my king, my friend. By the help of the gods may nothing ever change, most especially this.”
~ 20
Cyril stood in the alleyway across from Hagar’s house with a knife dangling in his hand. Inflated bags hung from his eyes like rungs of raw meat. She’ll never quit the night he thought, observing Miss Jansen medicate Hagar for the past hour that he stirred. He placed the blade in his belt, spun the head off his flask, and swallowed hard. Winds blazed through his jacket, releasing the pockets of heat and sending shivers up his spine. Pain ran like a hookworm through his veins as he clenched his gut and vomited, then gagged again, suppressing the purge with hard swallows and a deep sigh. Why can’t Philippe do this he spat, watching the moon plant itself in cloudy soil, and the stars that evaporated into the smog of sea mist and chimney smoke. Damn the hustler and damn the sluts that have him.
He belched, setting his foot forward as heavy as an Athenian shield, and slit the leather as he ripped the knife from his belt. Cyril kicked the door in and stumbled against the entryway table. The knife slammed the wooden floor with a clank that beat inside his head like a boxed drum.
“Bloody” he muttered. Cyril got to his feet and knocked a vase off the table, shattering it across the floor. Candlelight emerged beneath the nurse’s door as she threw the quilt off her bed and toed her feet into a pair of moccasins. Cyril scrambled across the floor, like a snake given limbs, when the doorknob turned.
“Back into bed, Hagar” Miss Jansen said, cracking the door open. “You know tha-” Cyril shoved her up the wall with his hand wrapped over her mouth. The tip of his blade dug into her cheek, releasing a bloody teardrop of trepidation. She saw his eyes and read in those orbs his demand; silence. Miss Jansen gasped as he released his hand and stumbled backward over a piece of trifle. She lunged forward, taking the knife from the floor while Cyril vanished back out the door. She pressed her back against the wall, pairing the knife in both hands, watching as the dust in the street fell under the moonlight, waiting till the sound of his steps faded back into a quiet night, then slid to the floor and screamed until the tears ran dry on her cheeks.
~ 21
“This is the last of the livestock” Beatrice said as she climbed up to the throne where Adam sat emaciated in hunger. “We found a mother expired from a disease and took this calf out. Your men went into the forest for lumber but the winter is too harsh; what wood they brought back absorbed too much frost.
“Schubert kindled a fire for a short time” Beatrice said, bringing raw steak in the bowl. “We burned the utensil and plates just to melt the ice around the hearth. It’s all we could do. Eat well, Adam.” She placed the dish in his lap while he turned his eyes to the rubbery brown tissue and plucked it with a fork. It hung like a skin tag, a piece of cancerous organ, and stunk of rot. He put his tongue forward and lifted the fat onto his lips. Blood oozed out against his teeth and slithered down his throat in veins of bister. Tendons snapped off the raw organ as a spurt of interstitial fluid drizzled over his chin.
Beatrice left this thing taboo, unable to stand the basest hunger. Adam mauled the first bite, trying to break the buoyant slab down, when the servant girl returned from the kitchen with petit fours.
“We saved just enough, Schubert and I” Beatrice said. “We thought it would be a, well, good last meal. Take it” she said, offering the silver dish holding the stale trophy. Adam’s salivated, pulling the last threads of moisture through his glands while his lips parted and tongue rolled, sweeping his gums like a basting brush over dehydrated meat.
Schubert entered the room with a dishtowel over his hand and knelt to the king. Skin clung to his cheeks like warped latex. He looked to the throne with eyes as mute and as blue as the flesh that sagged off his bones in wrinkled bags. His hands trembled until the cloth slipped off his knuckles, exposing his thumb and a single finger left on his hand.
“Oh!” Beatrice said as she brought her hand over her mouth and Adam’s stomach rumbled in hunger. She flew to his side, bringing his hand into hers, then wrapped the cloth back around his palm and returned it against his chest. “What, what happened?”
“It’s been coming” Schubert replied. “I have been losing them. Slowly. First my hand froze and I cut through it; and I didn’t even realize it till later, that it was gone. I was so numb. This winter has been taking bit by bit. I was out in the garden” he paused, then laughed. “Garden. Well, I was getting the last of the crop from the snow and when I brought it back in, my finger, the blue one, the bad one, blackened. It came off as I kneaded the dough.” Adam stared at the hand. Traces of remorse and exhilaration fueled him, and he began shaking on the throne.
“You poor thing” Beatrice said, drawing back the cloth as though there was something she could provide, then turned to Adam with eyes that begged with desperation. A hush fell on his nerves as he brought the strudel to his mouth, jammed it against his gums, and chewed with his cheek bulged.
“Thank you.” Adam said. He set the plate on the armrest and tightened the robe across his chest.
“I threw it in the fire” Schubert said, jesting with his last finger. He turned back toward the king and knelt. “Before we go, it was my honor, my king, to feed you.”
~ 22
Luzenac locked the door to his bakery as the sun tilted and skid like egg yolk down the sky. He tucked a loaf of bread beneath his arm for his brother and watched children fold into the alleyways as the shadows grew their black vines up the walls. Months passed since he last saw Hagar, and all the while a feeling accused him of dragging Hagar across the seas to a place he hated, to be nursed by and buried among these cynics.
Luzenac wondered what happened to his kin. No one came to console them. The nurses overcharged and bickered about providing therapy although they kept him mollified with medication. Children sneered that the plague was among them. Men believed that Hagar, the old dog they called him, should be put down, drinking to the idea that the foreigner should be cast off, lobotomized. This chagrined Luzenac. But he opened his shop every morning, taking anthracit
e from the oven to suck on till the urge to spit in their food deferred to reason, and kept his business to pay his brother’s expenses. Appeasing the people became the penance for his brother’s life.
Luzenac turned down the street as Miss Jansen slid out the front door with her walking stick. She dipped her head as he approached, bringing the rod beneath her arm, and held her breath until he passed. An air of shame sat tailored in her shadow. It was something that haunted him until she disappeared where the sun sat level with the hills. Stale air greeted Luzenac at the threshold as he slid the door open and called out his brother’s name. A grunt echoed back as he hung his hat on the coatrack.
“You need better care” Luzenac said as he picked a piece of broken vase out from under the entryway table. “These molls are a bit chintzy. I’d let go every single one of ‘em if there was some other service.” Luzenac stepped into the room where his brother lay harnessed to the bed, slogged in sweat. Towels lay thrown over his body. He took off the sheets and piled them in a bin, then returned with new bedding. Luzenac tucked the linen around the mattress, folded the head into a sharp crease at Hagar’s shoulders, and replaced the rag on his forehead with a fresh dampened cloth. Then he drew back Hagar’s hair and kissed his baby brother’s forehead. Sweat rose from his scalp as Hagar’s eyes rolled in pain.
“Maybe I ought to call the nurse back” Luzenac said. Hagar shut his eyes and turned his head side to side.
“No” Hagar groaned. He fixed his eyes on Luzenac, staring through a film of yellow mucus at the portrait of his brother standing in shadows. “I want this, to be with me brother here” he said, tapping his head. Luzenac unbound the straps binding Hagar and set a package bundled in twine on his lap.
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