The Virtu (63 page)

And what, pray tell, do you owe Mildmay?

An hour, I bargained with myself. An hour and I could put this whole business out of my head, one way or another. And the ugly truth was that an hour wasn’t going to make any difference. It wasn’t as if I were close to an answer to anything.

Finding Thaddeus was not difficult. The Mirador was resistant to change; just as no one had taken my suite or my workroom, even when there had seemed no chance of my returning, so Thaddeus’s workroom had been left undisturbed for the five years he had been in Aurelias, and as I had expected, he was there, working on another of his infinite permutations to the same complex of light spells. It was important theoretical work—as Thaddeus would remind anyone unwise enough to comment—but it was monumentally boring. Thaddeus claimed it wasn’t; I thought, remembering something Gideon had said, that that was another thing Thaddeus had talked himself into believing. I could see no other way that he could have borne it.

He left his door open while he was working, and I stood in the doorway watching him for almost a minute before he noticed me. I was grateful for the chance to observe him, to ground myself against the bewildering array of things I felt about him.

Thaddeus had been one of the first friends I made when I was trying to break free of Malkar. With his experience in the Bastion, he understood better than any orthodox Cabaline how Malkar had treated me—although I had never told Thaddeus more than fragments of the truth. I had sworn him to secrecy, so terrified of Malkar I could barely breathe, and whatever else might have happened between us, he had never broken that promise. He was honorable to the point of rigidity, incapable of seeing the world in other than black-and-white.

He had rescued me from St. Crellifer’s, and after that… I could remember that he had been angry at me, could remember that I had been afraid of him, but the whys and wherefores were gone. There had been a monster, but I did not know what that monster had been. From the vantage point of sanity, of distance, I thought I could fall back on a simple summation: I had been insane—defenseless and hurt—and he had bullied me.

I could even understand why—I knew Thaddeus well enough for that. In his simple black-and-white world, one identified problems and solved them. And when one had solved them, they
stayed
solved. I had been a problem, and he had solved me. He had gotten me out of St. Crellifer’s, convinced the Curia to remove Malkar’s compulsion. And I had not had the decency to stay solved. There was no room for me in Thaddeus’s cosmology, and so he had been impatient, angry. He had hit me, I remembered, a sudden sense memory almost enough to make me wince.

He had hit me, and I would not have thought it of him, and that was ultimately the cause of my confusion about him. I knew Thaddeus was intolerant, close-minded, rigid in his thinking, but I had never thought he would be a bully.

He saw me then, out of the corner of his eye, and swung round. “Good God, Felix, what are you doing? Trying to give me a coronary?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” I said.

“Did you? Have you finally seen the truth about Gideon? I understand how charming he can be, how plausible, but you—”

“What are you babbling about?” I said, cutting him off sharply. “More of your nonsense about spies and cultists?”

“It is not nonsense,” he said, putting down the double compass and a handful of amber beads. “It is the truth.”

“Was the truth.”

He snorted. “Do you think leopards can change their spots, then? Wash them away?”

“I think Gideon is not a leopard.”

“You and your willful blindness. I thank God you’re off the Curia, you know.”

“Have you been spreading poison? I thought that was better left to people like Robert and Agnes.”

“I’m telling the truth. The Curia shouldn’t make any decisions about him without knowing what he is.”

“Decisions?”

“He’s already petitioning,” Thaddeus said, scowling blackly at me. “As if they’d be fool enough to let him take our oaths.”

“They let you,” I said.

“I am not a spy!”

“Neither is Gideon.”

“You’ll believe anything a man tells you when he’s buried in your ass, won’t you?”

I recoiled physically, as much from the uncharacteristic vulgarity as from the contempt in his voice. I had always known Thaddeus regarded the ganumedes with suspicion, believing them weak, effeminate, perverted. But I hadn’t thought he saw me that way, had thought…

I’d thought I was an exception to his rule, and that had been stupid. Willfully blind, as he had said. And looking at him, anger and disgust on his face, I realized what had happened, why he had been angry in Hermione. Why he had hit me.

Madness was weakness; weakness was what one expected of a moll. He’d thought I was an exception to his rule, as well, and if there was one thing in the world Thaddeus de Lalage hated, it was being proved wrong.

I felt sick, almost to the point of literally vomiting on Thaddeus’s workroom floor. Sick of Thaddeus, sick of myself. “If that’s what you think,” I said, “I won’t keep you.” I did not run, although I wanted to; some absurd remnant of pride insisted that I not let Thaddeus hear my bootheels clattering as if I were fleeing from him.

Now, more than ever, I wanted to retreat, to hide. Thaddeus had answered my question before I’d managed to ask it: he would be all too glad to tell anyone who asked that I was unstable—to use Robert’s word—and not to be heeded. Are you satisfied? I asked myself savagely. How many more blows will it take to kill your vanity?

An imponderable, like the number of angels who could dance on the point of a needle. And unimportant. For if Thaddeus’s tongue had been busy while I had been hiding, craven, from my own culpability, then the person I needed to worry about now was not myself, but Gideon.

He was not in the room he had been given, and I only very briefly contemplated the idea of asking Mehitabel if she knew where he was. Whether she knew or not, I would be pressing my luck to try to convince her to tell me.

But where could he go? The Mirador was not kind to strangers, and as far as I knew, he had no friends here. Where would he go, if his room was not a haven?

Thaddeus probably came preaching at him. It was the worst of Thaddeus; he so passionately believed in his own rectitude that he could not leave other people alone in their wrongdoing. I couldn’t imagine what he thought he wanted to persuade Gideon to do—return to the Bastion? confess himself a spy in front of court and Curia? commit a quick and gentlemanly suicide?—but I knew he wouldn’t let it rest. It was how he’d gotten me out of St. Crellifer’s, after all.

I knew where I would have gone—where I
had
gone, in years past, to get away from Robert or Roseanna Aemoria, even sometimes from Thaddeus himself—and in a whimsy born of defeat, I found the nearest staircase to the battlements and climbed it.

Gideon was there, small, shabby, tired—looking not out over the city as I always did, but back at the roofs of the Mirador, at the fire-savaged remains of their gaudy, brassy beauty. He did not look surprised to see me. Neither did he look pleased.

“Gideon,” I said. I tried to remember the last time I’d seen him, and then wished I hadn’t. I’d thrown him out of my room, along with the others, when I was making my insane, malevolent, stupid decision about Vey Coruscant. He hadn’t spoken to me since.

:Felix,: he said. A small, meticulously polite nod of the head.

I did not approach him, knowing he would only move away. “I, ah, I just talked to Thaddeus.” Gideon waited, one eyebrow rising, and I said lamely, “Is he causing you very much trouble?”

Gideon’s laugh was bitter mockery. :Your concern is touching, if hypocritical.:

“I have never thought—or said—that you were a spy for the Bastion.”

:You wouldn’t care if I were. Unless I threatened you, and then I imagine you would be quick enough to dispose of me. Or until you get bored. Will it amuse you, Felix, to throw me to the wolves?:

“I wouldn’t—”

:Of course you would,: he said wearily. :You haven’t hesitated to lie to me. I’m not about to expect you to keep faith.:

“Have I been lying to you?” I said, trying for lightness.

There was open contempt in the look he gave me.

I turned away quickly, making my own survey of the damaged roofs.

:You have been allowing me to believe something that is manifestly untrue. Do you remember anything of the time we spent in each other’s company last year?:

He knew. I knew he knew, and yet I could not keep from defending myself. “We’ve talked before about what is and is not reasonable to expect me to—”

:By the Seven Saints of Hellebore, I am tired of this.: He came around in front of me, met my eyes fiercely. :Suppose you try telling me the truth. If you have even the faintest idea of what that word means, which I doubt.:

I flinched back, but his hand shot out and caught my wrist. :
What do you remember
?:

“Being afraid!” The words burst out now, like water pent up too long behind a dam. “Being in pain and alone and there were monsters everywhere.” I wrenched free of him. “Mildmay helped me, and I guess I’ve shown him what a stupid idea that was. Now I’m one of the monsters, so why don’t you just fuck off?”

We were both frozen, both of us hearing, not merely the obscenity, but more than that: the shift in my vowels, the nasal stridency suddenly in my voice. I took a deep breath, then another. Realized they weren’t helping and leaned against the battlements, burying my face in my hands. “Maybe Robert was right.”

:Robert of Hermione? I doubt it.: Gideon’s voice was dry again, dispassionate. He touched my shoulder, and although I did not want to, I looked up. :Felix. I do not want to ‘fuck off.’ Unless you truly do not wish my… : He hesitated, visibly searching for a word. :Companionship.:

“I don’t deserve your companionship, and you know that as well as I do.”

:None of us get what we deserve,: he said, and I flinched.

A silence, fishhooks and shards of glass. I said, “You want to stay?”

:I do.:

“Even though…”

:Even though. I don’t expect you to be other than you are.:

I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. “You’re a fool, you know that?”

:Yes. I know.: Gideon’s fingers brushed gently against the dampness on my cheekbone. :Felix, come to bed with me. We can talk later.:

I nodded, mutely grateful, and followed him down the stairs; then, for he did not know the corridors, I led him to my suite. I closed and locked the door behind us; he stood in the center of the room and watched me, his eyes dark and bright and deep enough to drown in.

:Felix. Come here.:

I went to him, bent my head obediently to be kissed. His hands came up, one cupping my jaw, the other clenching in my hair, holding me still.

My heart kicked against my ribs, but I knew now where this fear came from. It had nothing to do with Gideon, as it had had nothing to do with Ingvard. It didn’t even have very much to do with Malkar, although all my sexual responses were influenced by Malkar, and I knew it. No, this fear belonged to the basements of St. Crellifer’s, to a table with leather straps, where I had been held down and…

:Felix?:

I did not answer him with words, merely moved closer against him. I could do this; if Gideon wanted to be in control, I could let him.

We made our way to the bedroom, and there he pushed me flat on my back on the bed and kissed me hard, biting, his hands catching my wrists and pinning them down.

And I couldn’t do it.

I knew what was wrong, knew why I was panicking, and I still couldn’t control it. I was ashamed of myself, even as I was shoving against Gideon, humiliated and infuriated even as I flung myself off the bed, mortified beyond bearing as I came up flat against the wall.

:If you didn’t like what I was doing,: Gideon said, mild and deliberate with his own fury, :you could have just said so.:

“I’m sorry,” I said, and I was gasping for breath, fighting to keep from bursting into tears like a child. “I’m so sorry.”

:Felix?:

The last thing in the world I’d wanted: Gideon’s undivided attention. I would have preferred to have him angry, if only I had been sufficiently in control of myself to provoke him.

:What’s wrong?: Gideon said, getting up and approaching me cautiously, as if I were a wild animal… or a frightened child, and I hated the comparison but could not deny its truth. :Did I hurt you?:

The noise I made was half laugh, half sob. I’d been earning favor from tarquins before I turned twelve, and while pain was not exactly, usually, arousing, nothing Gideon could or would do to me would even be enough to make me wince. I shook my head, not wanting to trust my voice, and he said, :What, then?:

“I…” But my voice wouldn’t work, all breath and tears. :I can’t.:

:Can’t what?:

:Just… I
can’t
.:

:You haven’t had this problem before,: he said dryly. :Does power truly mean that much to you?:

I felt as if he’d hit me. I stared at him, my jaw going slack and my eyes widening. He colored a little and said, :That
is
what all of this is about, isn’t it?:

I couldn’t answer him, and his lips twitched in a grin. :Did you think I hadn’t noticed? You’re a manipulative bastard, and you can’t stand not having things your way. I know that. I just thought… : He sighed, and he looked so tired, so defeated, that I finally found my voice.

“It isn’t that, I promise. That is, you’re right. I
do
like controlling things. But it isn’t… it’s not that I can’t… that I won’t… Oh
damn
.”

Cautiously, slowly, he reached out, took my hands. His hands were square, sturdy, shorter-fingered than mine but broader across the palm; his grip was firm and warm and somehow comforting. :Come sit down,: he said, :and tell me what’s wrong.:

I let him tug me back to the bed, sat down next to him, stared at our clasped hands, mine all pale skin and gaudy ink, his darker, unmarked. :Felix,: he said gently, sternly, and I knew he was not going to allow me to escape.