Perfect Shadows (15 page)

We parted amicably enough, but from that night the rumors about
us, and about me in particular, took on a decidedly baneful tone. Just as the
rumors reached their peak, we were invited by one Lord Haggard to finally be
presented at court upon the occasion of the knighting of Thomas Walsingham at
his country house, Scadbury, at Chislehurst. We were pleased to accept.

Walsingham slowly climbed the stairs to his bed, shaking with
fatigue and numb from the sleeplessness his impending Knighthood had visited
upon him. Thank God that was over, and thank God that he and Audrey kept
separate chambers; he could not face her malicious chatter tonight. He had
given his body-servant leave to visit the kitchens and the man was probably
roaring drunk somewhere by now. Well, he was tired enough to sleep in his clothes
tonight, and not for the first time. He pushed open his chamber door and was
surprised to find the room well lit already. It wasn’t Dermot, his valet,
though, because no one came to assist him. His eyes swept the room and he
started violently when he noticed the figure watching him from the shadows of
his bed-curtains. His sudden fear and bewilderment pushed him back towards the
door.

“Stay,” the stranger said, and the voice stopped Sir Thomas dead
where he stood. He
knew
that voice. He lunged forward and swept the
curtains aside, then stepped back in confusion as the candlelight fell full on
the face of the man reclining insolently on the bed, propped up by pillows and
resting his boots on the counterpane. It was not Kit, of course; Kit was dead.
This was one of the foreign princes that Lord Haggard had brought with him to
present at court, Kryštof, the younger of the two. Walsingham thought the
striking young man had been staring at him earlier in the evening, now he was certain
of it and found himself staring back like a fool. He hadn’t been so attracted
to anyone since Kit—he wrenched his attention back to the man in front of him.

The prince was exotically dressed, completely in black, which
accentuated the extreme pallor of his skin. He wore a black silk doublet
appliquéd with black velvet arabesques, and full soft black velvet trousers
that met knee-high black calfskin boots, in place of the exaggerated pansied
slops, padded canions and hose, and the painted slippers that fashion demanded.
Indeed, like the trousers, the boots were an obvious affectation, as no
gentleman would wear them except when riding, preferring to show off his
calf-muscles (padded, if necessary), and ankles. The shirt was an affectation
too, and an expensive one, as not just the falling band, but the whole thing
was made of the finest cobweb lawn, dyed to the deepest black, the most costly
of colors. It was so sheer that one could see the well-formed muscles of his
arms through the open sleeves of the doublet and, since he now had the doublet
unfastened, his finely sculpted collar bones and an intoxicating expanse of
upper chest. Suddenly Walsingham, in his sapphire velvets, paddings, and jewels
felt vulgar and gaudy, tricked out like a harlot at Saint Audrey’s Fair.

The prince was smiling as if he could read thoughts, the plain
black silk eye patch he wore giving his quizzical expression a sinister cast.
“I am not going to hurt you,” he said, and the lazy, amused voice tugged at
Walsingham’s memory again, but his eyes denied his panicked thoughts.

“What are you doing here?” he rasped out.” This is my private
chamber.” The dark man nodded and patted the bed next to him. Walsingham found
himself inching forward, only to be stopped dead again by the light falling on
the man’s languid right hand as it rested on his raised knee. He had to get a
closer look, he
had
to. He crossed the remaining distance in two steps
and grasped the unresisting hand. He turned it to the light, and saw there what
he feared to see, the odd T-shaped scar he knew so well. He crumpled on the
bed. “No, no, it’s a trick, isn’t it? Who are you?” The last came out in a
broken whisper.

“Why, Sir Thomas, you know right well who I am, you were there
when we were presented at court. I am Prince Kryštof of Sybria, here with my
older brother Prince Geofri.” His amiable voice hardened into tones as menacing
as the whisper of a snake’s passage over a stone floor. “What you must needs
concern yourself with,
Tommy
, is who I was.”

“Who were you then?” The words jerked out as though hooked,
while the prince rubbed the scar thoughtfully with his left thumb.

“Do you remember when I got this? You had not married, then. We
wandered the grounds of Scadbury like two lovers in Arcadia, and I carved your
initials in the great beech out there. Do you remember how the dagger slipped?”
He ran the tip of his forefinger down the line that formed the upright of the
‘T’. “You were very upset, but I told you I would gladly suffer more than that
for you—”

“And you took the knife and slashed across the cut to carve a
‘T’ into your own flesh.” Walsingham’s voice, spent and colorless, rose to a
note of hysteria. “No! You died! I know that you died—” he gabbled, his eyes
flicking nervously to a small casket on a nearby table. His visitor raised an
eyebrow and seemed to flow upright off the bed, a shadow crossing the room to
open the small chest. Walsingham’s thoughts lurched again.

This man moved with the assurance and grace of an accomplished
swordsman and duelist. Kit had never moved like that, could never move like
that, and Kit had not been so tall, his face so angular nor his hair so dark.
Walsingham watched, frozen, as the bloodstained handkerchief was lifted from
its resting place, and then the man was back beside him, without seeming to
have crossed the intervening space. Kryštof ’s face had gone even paler, except
for two splotches of intense color splashing his flat cheekbones like the paint
on one of Ralegh’s savages.

“Is this your idea of a memento, then,” he hissed, his single
eye glittering. “Did he tell you how it was, Tommy? Did Frizer tell you what he
did to me? Shall I tell you? Shall I tell you now?”

“He said it was quick, p-p-painless. He said that you—that
K-kkit was drugged, and did not wake when—when—” Walsingham faltered, and fell
silent before the younger man’s bitter laughter.

“When I was butchered? Oh aye, they drugged me, but I did wake,
defenseless and beset by enemies, to hear them plotting my murder, and I knew I
was powerless to stop them. Skeres held me down while Frizer gloated and showed
me the dagger bought especially for my slaughter, then he stuffed my mouth with
silk, with
this
, and he slid the dagger into my eye, slowly, so slowly
that it seemed to last for hours. Try to imagine that, Tommy, the sheer agony,
the helplessness, the despair.

“But even that was far from the worst, Tommy, far from it. Do
you know what the worst of it was?” The voice was soft, softer than the defiled
silk he held, and as terrifying, as implacable as death. “The worst thing was
that I knew that you had sent him to murder me, that you had sent the one man
who would most enjoy my vulnerability and suffering, to dispatch me like a dog
for which you had no more use. That was the worst thing, Tommy.” Kryštof sat
staring into space, his blind side towards Walsingham, twisting the
handkerchief in his hands, and Sir Thomas realized that the whimpering sound
he’d been hearing came from his own throat. He forced the back of his hand away
from his mouth.

“You lie!” he said recklessly. “You cannot be Kit! Kit is dead,
dead and buried. I do admit there is a resemblance, a slight one, but you’re
too young—Kit was twenty-nine when he died, and you’re no more than five and
twenty. Kit was, Kit was a
scholar
, and
you
cannot even read!” He
hurled the last words with a scorn he hoped would cover the greensickness he
felt. The handsome, maimed face turned towards him, the lips curled in a wry
smile that Walsingham knew only too well, and he understood that, no matter how
loudly he protested, his belief was written on his face.

“That is true, I cannot read,” Kryštof paused and held up the
fingers of his left hand, unstained by ink for the first time in their
acquaintance, “or write, Tom. That, too, was taken from me.” The long fingers
caressed the patch he wore, then reached for Walsingham’s hand. He tried to
jerk away but the grip on his wrist was steel. “That’s a fine jest, is it not?
The one thing that made my life worth living . . . what makes your life worth
living these days, Tommy? What could I possibly take from you in return?”

Walsingham whimpered again, and drove the words out through his
closing throat. “Are you going to k-k-kill me,” he quavered.

“Why do you ask me that? Do you feel you deserve no less?” his
companion said, grinning humorlessly. He leaned back on the pillows, pulling
his unwilling victim with him, first stroking his hand, then forcibly pulling
the rings from the puffy fingers. “You
have
let yourself go to seed
since you’ve wed, Tom,” he said, tossing the rings to the floor. “I’ve thought
about killing you, of course. I killed Skeres, you know,” he added
conversationally, as he loosened and cast aside Walsingham’s ruff and started
on the doublet and shirt. “I lured him into an alley by playing drunk and
flashing my purse, then, when he followed, I cut his throat and told him why as
he bled to death. I enjoyed that. But you, no, you I will have to think about.”
Walsingham shuddered, but the relentless voice went on.

“Do you remember how you used to visit Bedlam and prod at the
lunatics with your sword? It could be you chained there in your own filth for
the gallants to jape and jab at, remember, if you try to tell anyone what has
passed here tonight. But now, come here, my not-so-pretty Tom, come to me.”
Walsingham felt the hand tangle in his hair, wrenching his face up, and he
struggled to free himself, tears blinding him and that hateful voice filling
his ears. “You used to like to play at rape, Tommy, making believe that I was
forcing you . . . is it too real now? I could force you, you know, but I won’t,
or at least, no more than this. . . .” and those cruel lips pressed against
his, the tongue pushing into his mouth. He felt the desire kindling in his
groin, and he knew that he wanted to be forced, wanted this man to master him,
to make him submit to his demands. Then the cool lips moved to his neck, he
felt sharp teeth piercing his throat, and he lost himself in a welling sea of
pleasure.

The next morning he woke alone, lying across his bed fully
clothed, his velvets ruined and reeking from his body’s emissions. He would
have thought the previous night’s encounter but a dream were it not for the
rings scattered among the rushes on the floor, and the handkerchief missing
from the casket on the table.

The late night air was cool, as I made my way back to Blackavar
House, enjoying the quiet power of the stallion I rode across the fields and
delighting in jumping the small streams and stiles. I had been warned of the
dangers inherent in so approaching Tom, but Geoffrey had not thought of the
most perilous: even though Tom was the author of my murder, I found that I
loved him yet; even though he was aging, I desired him yet.

Upon my return I found Geoffrey practicing sword in the
candlelit Hall. Invigorated by the ride, I plucked a bated blade from the rack
near the door, pausing only long enough to rack my own rapier out of the way
before falling to. It was a good bout, almost seven minutes passed before I
stood with Geoffrey’s slender blade at my throat, my own held carefully in
surrender. At least, I thought ruefully, I can hold onto it now.

Geoffrey smiled, showing his sharp white teeth, and said, “Come,
let us rest and speak for a time,” indicating the chairs pulled up to the
hearth. “Did it go as you thought?  Good.” He poured two cups of the white
Rhennish wine and passed one to me. Even though it was neither nourishing nor
intoxicating, I found the flavor refreshing after the recent exercise. I
shifted a bit, stretching my boots out to the fire.

“Frizer’s blackmailing him, of course, which has interesting
possibilities,” I reported. “I will have to pay a call on that one soon, I
think, after I see how things are running with Tom. He, Tom, I mean, knew that
I cannot read, so someone at Cecil’s is less circumspect than his master might
wish, or he has bruited it about himself.” It had been less than a week since
the letter had summoned us to the Lord Secretary’s.

I yawned, and rose to go to my bed, but a sudden thought turned
me back at the threshold. “Have you heard the latest prattle concerning us?”
Geoffrey shook his head. He had shown an interest in the rumors flying about
us, and had managed to turn more than one to our advantage. It had been
speculated, among other things, that I had lost my eye dueling, or that it had
happened while I had been fighting as a mercenary, that I was not Geoffrey’s
brother, but his hired assassin, his bodyguard, his lover or his victim,
depending upon the inclinations and imaginations of those telling the tales.

“Well,” I continued, “now it seems that you forbade me to learn
to read, hoping thereby to curb those ambitions that come so naturally to
younger princes. When I defied you, you had my eye putout, or even did it
yourself depending upon who tells it, promising the other would follow if I did
not abide in my ignorance, and that I am not loyal to you, but obedient only
out of fear.” I stopped to swallow before going on. There was an uncomfortable
amount of truth in that last conjecture. I forced a smile. “Truly, I could not have
written a better scene myself in the old days!”  As I departed with
Geoffrey’s sardonic laugh ringing in my ears, I could not help but reflect that
these rumors were milk and water compared with some of the tales told of
Geoffrey and his family in his breathing days.