Descent Into Madness (10 page)

              “May I introduce myself?” he said, bowing.

              “I already know who are, sir” I curtsied in reverence. “You are Prince Viktor Vladislous, and today is the celebration of your birth.”

              “You are correct, and you are, my Lady?”

              “I, your Highness, am Bree of Trondheim,” I replied, the hum of heartbeat distracting me.

              “Bree of Trondheim, I was told of your coming to Tver. You have traveled far from home, and not everyone at court is eager to host your presence tonight.”

              “I hold no diplomatic functionalities, Prince Vladislous. I am merely a traveler, an explorer.”

              “You are a woman!” he jested. “A woman cannot explore.”

              “Yes, my prince, she can.”

              “Can she dance too, then?” he asked.

              “I beg your pardon, your highness?”

              “Will you dance with me?” he asked. “It is my birthday. And, after all,” he winked, grabbing my hand, “if you say no, I can have you thrown in the dungeon.”

              He led me onto the dance floor. As the violins began their crescendo, he embraced me, taking me tightly into him. The tempo swelled and I closed my eyes; and as the violins sautilléd, we danced.

              Somehow, he had bewitched me. His captivating eyes teased me; his heartbeat, pulsating against my skin, rendered me useless. The dance was a momentary reprieve from my melancholy.

              We had danced together the rest of the evening, with me feeling the jealous eyes of every eligible woman in the ballroom glaring at us. Yet as the hours passed, the night grew older and the morning threatened to approach. Attendance waned, but the musicians played on. I slipped away while Viktor fetched a servant to prepare me bedchambers. 

              Leaving him was out of necessity. For if I could have, I would have stayed to greet the dawn, hand in hand. He would have needed to force me from his side, I feared; and this concerned me. His influence over me concerned me.                

              Once he had faded from view, I left the ballroom, slipping into the main hall. Down the main steps I flew. Past the waiting carriages, come to collect their wealthy patrons. Past the torch lit path lining the main steps. There was a forested path in the distance, and I quickened my steps heading for it when I heard footsteps behind me.

              He was panting by the time I turned and stopped.               “You were just going to leave, then?” he asked. 

              “I am sorry, but I have to go.”

              “Where – into the woods? Come, let me fetch you a carriage if you will not accept my invitation of hospitality.”              

              “Really, you must not bother. There is somewhere urgent I must be,” I explained.

              “Will you return to court?” he asked.

              “Perhaps,” I said, walking in the direction of the carriages. He followed.

              Viktor took my hand and drew me into an embrace. His hearts tympanic rhythm tapped steadily in my head as the moonlight caught his ebony eyes. They shimmered down at me as girls gathered on the steps to snicker.               “Perhaps, I should find you?” he whispered. 

              “You will see me again at court,” I rushed. “I promise.”

              I wiggled from his embrace and ran toward the hovel of carriages. The drunk and exhausted littered the congested carriage lines as the ball wore down, the morning hour creeping upon us. I slipped into an open carriage, escaping him and the waiting sun, watching as he held witness to my departure.

              Three nights passed before I returned. Those were three nights of agony, spent pacing urine-caked streets. Each shadowy passage, noisy tavern, child’s boisterous laugh, echoed his heartbeat. There was not a safe place in Tver for me to escape its thunderclap song. It was constant and maddening and beautiful.

             
Nothing, not even the hustle of the night market could drown out its assuredness. So, I found myself seeking solace in familiarity, in custom.

              The hay-strewn pews did little to warm the chilled, splintered wood. And I could hear the scuttle of vermin on the mud-laden stone floors. The dimly lit altar, with its gilded idols, hid the filth keeping warm on the chapel’s floor.

              There was a haunting stillness in between creaturely movements – an unsettling quiet. I sat transfixed on the images of Russian saints, martyrs in a war I no longer fought. Their anguished faces, lined in melted gold and crushed jewels, shimmered in the candlelight. A subtleness of linseed and lavender clung to the air, kissing my skin as I sat there.

              Distracting as they were, I could still hear that gentle thud calling to me. So on the third night, I resigned to its siren song.

              The overcast moon struggled behind a delicate sprinkling of eager rain. The drops trickled from rooftops, rolling into the gutters, onto the streets, their hypnotic pitter-patter luring me forward. The buildings sparkled with what little starlight managed to peak through the clouds.

              The city appeared more alive that night, even though most of its people were safely inside their homes; hidden from the raindrops, hidden from the violent storm that would soon follow.              

              His
heart
spoke to me. The
blood
spoke to me. They drew me to him, to the palace.

              His balcony was grand and furnished, but unused that night. Instead, the doors were opened and the ruby curtains closed. They were all that separated me now from him, from his heartbeat. From his blood. Its palatable aroma of succulent, metallic sweetness seduced my mind.

             
If I was to begin again, though, to fall in love, to be loved, I could not make the same mistakes. I had to reveal to Viktor my true nature. Something about his heartbeat, the way it lured me to him, told me it had to be so.

              I drew back the curtain and spied him fireside, lounging. Its unending war-like flames raged their undying evil that he dutifully stoked. And he was completely unaware of my presence; so innocently naive to a world that encroached upon him, threatening his very life. But, I knew it was time to shatter his serenity.

              I could have flown away – left Russia that evening. I should have done so. Then, he would have just died with the rest history, a meager player in his own timeline. Would he have known love in his lifetime? Perhaps. But then, if I had never spoken his name whilst out on his balcony, I would have missed out on his endless, passionate affection. And the twins.

              And I did speak his name, but softly. It was almost a whisper, for I was terrified that he would hear me and be frightened.

              “Prince Vladislous?” I had whispered into the quiet room. He turned, startled, and when he saw me, he jumped back and froze.

              “I am not here to hurt you, Viktor.”

              “How... how did you get in here?” his voice quivered as he spoke. “Guards!” he called.

              There was an immediate rustle in the stairwell, followed by a skirmish of metal outside Viktor’s door. The guards smacked their leathered fists against the door, shouting for their lord’s attention. 

              “I can do many things,” I said as I inched into the room, slowly advancing toward him. “I’ve barred the door.”

              I looked toward the fire and with my thoughts, it extinguished. Smoldering ash remained where there was once flickering flames; and nothing was left in the fireplace as evidence of the great fire that once consumed it except for it and a few grayed logs. The display of power made him back into the wall as he tried to retreat from me, to hide.

              “I told you, Viktor, I can do many things. Now, call off your guards.” 

              “Sorceress!” he shouted as he stumbled on the corner of a rug.

              Regaining his footing, he dodged toward the bed, trying to hide himself behind the crimson velvet and vanilla damask curtains. He kept his glare on me as I lingered near the fireplace.

              “Viktor there is no escaping me. I can be on top of you before you can bat an eye, or shout for those blessed guards. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have already done so.”

              “Then, pray thee, mistress, why have you come if not to kill me? For, I do not know what wicked treachery this is but to me drive mad with fear.”

              “I promised that I would return. I always keep my promises,” I explained.

              “Now, before I change my mind and leave this place, call off your guards. And, pray, if you must, that I not give you reason to fear me. For, dear sir, it is not my intent.”

              “It is a false alarm, all is well,” he told the guards through a cracked door. “Return to your posts.”

              “Come here and sit with me by the fire.” Waving my hand over the fireplace, a vibrant array of orange flames licked to life, touching the stones and crackling the near-ash wood. “Come,” I said, patting the spot next to me.

              “I do not believe you,” he replied, as he remained, fixed behind the curtain. “I...I do not even know you.”

              “We danced, Viktor. You know me well enough,” I whispered.

              “I fear, somehow, you are better acquainted with myself. This puts me at a grave disadvantage.” 

              “And yet, you feel the connection, do you not?” I turned. He still clung to the fabric, his face now paled with moonlight’s glimmer.

              “Even as I struggle you now, I cannot deny I’m pulled to you,” he replied; his words catching a wind and trailing off the balcony, softening as the sentence lingered between us.

              “Then you should not fear me, nor fear your feelings for me.”

              “But I do fear your sorcery, duchess.”

              As promised, before he could blink, I was on top of him. I threw his body upon the bed and lay against it, his heart now beating furiously. His eyes stared into mine wildly. His breath was fire upon my face as I hovered over him. His dressing gown opened; his chiseled chest was nothing but a spot for me to rest my palm against as I pressed bore down to restrain him. My strength was far greater than his was, and when he realized this, he conceded. His mind was plagued with thoughts of death, thoughts of escape, thoughts so jumbled that I blocked them from my own.

              “I could kill you this minute, Viktor. I could have killed you when I came here without you even knowing it was me,” I confessed. “But I do not wish you death, Viktor; so rid those images, those thoughts from your mind this instant. We will have no more of that, do you understand? No more unrest and unhappiness. Loneliness.”

              With him still quivering beneath me, I bent my head and caressed his naked chest. His heart pulsated, its cadence quickening as my caresses advanced their march up his neck, then to his chin.

              When I reached his ear lobe, he whispered, “You are not going to kill me?”

              “No,” I replied, softly. I glided him from the bed; his legs jelly twigs and his arms mere globs of putty in my own. "I promise, Viktor; I will not, ever, take your life.”

              "Why?" he asked; but I was not sure how to answer.

              In that moment – as his blood intoxicated me – his blood that I could taste on the tip of my tongue; that bled in his sweat; that mingled on my lips with each delicate kiss, I too wondered why I spared his life.

              "Why do you not just kill me? I know what you are now."

              "No, you do not."

              I released him, and let him watch me as I sauntered over to the chair and sat down nearest to the fire. The flames, the orange and red beacons calling to me, they felt inviting as if I could jump right in, right then, and end this facade; this joke of an eternity. But, in the end, not even that would have killed me. In time, I would have healed; and I would become jaded by the pain.

              "Then what are you if not a sorceress, who can appear on a man's balcony in the dead of night?" he asked. "You are not a ghost; not a figment of my imagination either. I know you are real. I have felt you – with these two hands; with these lips.”

              "You would not understand," I explained. "You would be afraid of the truth."

              "I am already afraid of you, how much harm can the truth do?” he replied. “Why did you come here tonight if you are someone, or something so frightening that you cannot reveal your nature?" 

              "I am lonely," I told him, and then he rose from the bed but stayed near it, holding onto the bedpost.

              "Everyone gets lonely, Bree, but not everyone can scale a tower wall and breathe fire to life with the wave of her hand." He clutched the bed curtain, tightly, winding it in his fist. “Nor, can they press a man twice their size – at least – down with impressive force, rendering him immobile.”