The Virtu (70 page)

Mildmay sat silently by the window in the room we shared; I took to spending my time in the adjacent room, where Mehitabel and Simon and Rinaldo were staying. Since none of us wanted to chance going out, we occupied ourselves with cards, using the Sibylline until Mehitabel, ever resourceful, found us an ordinary deck.

We played a western variant of Long Tiffany called Dragon’s Clutch. I lost, hand after hand. But the game wasn’t what was important, and I thought all three of us knew it. Simon and Rinaldo had not been starved or mistreated or tortured, except for the one frightful incident with Malkar that Simon would not discuss—though after the first few rounds of Dragon’s Clutch, he seemed to lose most of his self-consciousness about his mutilated hands. But they had been prisoners for a long time. They were uneasy still, jumpy, agoraphobic. The endless game of Dragon’s Clutch was a way to soften the edges of the transition.

We talked about the Mirador, as Cabaline wizards inevitably do. They knew of the breaking of the Virtu, could tell me of General Mercator’s suspicion, his caution. “He wouldn’t move. He wanted to believe Malkar, but when it came right down to it, he never
trusted
him. To be fair,
no one
could believe he’d succeeded in breaking the Virtu, and then later, when he said he’d gone in through a dream, and the Mirador was burning… the General waited for confirmation. And by the time it came, the Coeurterre had moved in.”

“Malkar was livid,” Rinaldo said quietly, almost gently. I took the hint and changed the subject.

They also told me what they could about what had happened to Mildmay, although that was painfully little. “He almost killed me when he first regained consciousness,” Simon said, touching the faint yellow bruises on his neck. “It was amazing—although difficult to appreciate properly at the time. One second he was, for all intents and purposes, out cold; the next he had me flat on the floor and my vision was going excitingly black, just the way they tell you it will in books. But as soon as he saw me clearly, he let me go.”

“He never made a sound,” Rinaldo said. “Not a word, not a whimper. We really thought he might be a mute.”

“They’d cleaned him up before they dumped him in with us.” Simon again, and I’d noticed before the way that the two of them would hand a single line of thought back and forth. “And we didn’t want to abrogate his privacy—there’s so little of it, you understand. He and I already had to share a bed. Not that it mattered, since I don’t believe he slept.”

“No wonder he’s been sleeping so much,” I said; I hoped the unsteadiness in my voice wasn’t audible to them.

“What we wondered,” Rinaldo said, “and he didn’t tell us, of course, is how he came to be in Malkar’s hands to begin with.” He raised his eyebrows at me, both an invitation and a warning that he was already beginning to guess.

I told them the truth. I did not try to make excuses for myself, or hide what I had done. If I did not tell them the full truth about my relationship with Malkar, that mattered less. All that mattered was that I had let my hatred of him control me.

They listened quietly, attentively; when I was done, I waited, eyes down, watching my stiff fingers shuffle the cards over and over again.

“That’s quite a confession,” Rinaldo said.

“I would tell you to ask Mildmay, if I thought he would answer you. But Mehitabel can confirm it’s the truth.”

“I wasn’t suggesting I doubt your veracity. I meant that it must be a very painful story to relate.”

“I brought it on myself.”

“Also not what I said.”

And then Simon burst out with: “But how on earth did you know how to cast the obligation d‘âme in the first place?”

“Malkar taught me. Malkar taught me almost everything I wish I didn’t know. He…” And then the words simply bolted out: “He cast the obligation de sang on me when I was sixteen.”

“The binding-by-blood,” Rinaldo said thoughtfully; he didn’t sound surprised. “He would have been burned at the stake if you’d told anyone.”

“He told me I’d be burned with him.”

“But that’s—”

“No. He didn’t say the Mirador would burn me. He said that if he burned, I would burn along with him. Even if I jumped into the Sim.” And he had known perfectly well that there was nothing I was less likely to do.

“Was that true?” Rinaldo asked.

“I don’t know. I, um, I broke the obligation de sang when I was twenty, so—”

“How?”

“Nothing you want to know about. I don’t think, in any event, that it was entirely successful.”

“I am going to guess,” Rinaldo said, “that your reasons for hating Malkar Gennadion run rather deeper than what you have told us.”

“It doesn’t—” I began, when Simon interrupted me.

“Was it your dream?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Malkar said he broached the Mirador’s defenses through a dream. It was your dream, wasn’t it? And you were his cat’s-paw—his word, not one I would choose—when he broke the Virtu.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Rinaldo said sharply, “Simon, let him be,” and Simon subsided.

I said, “Someone else should deal,” and shoved the cards into the middle of the table. After a moment, Rinaldo picked them up, and the game went on, until Mehitabel came in, her step light and her eyes shining, to say she’d gotten the details worked out, and in the morning we could leave for home.

We’d be leaving Medeia in the morning. Mehitabel had come in to tell me, and now she was standing by the door like she was waiting for something.

I couldn’t think what it could be, and I didn’t figure it was on my account anyway. I was watching people go by, people with real lives. People who weren’t monsters and never had been. A lamplighter, doing his job, kindling lights one by one.

She said suddenly, “Have you taken a vow of silence or something?”

I thought it over. “Nothing to say.”

“No?” I heard her come closer, but I didn’t turn. “Not even things like, ‘Good morning,’ or ‘Please pass the salt,’ or ‘Thank you for saving my life’?”

I said in a mumble, “Shouldn’t‘ve bothered.”

“
What
? Goddammit, would you at feast
look
at me while we’re having this stupid not-conversation?”

She sounded really upset. So I turned. Looked up at her.

“Better. Now, what was it you said?”

“Don’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

Too much, too loud. I hunched one shoulder and turned back to the window.

“Mildmay,
please
.” I startled at her hand on my arm, realized she’d gone down on her knees beside the chair. “Tell me why you’re doing this. Is it just that you’re mad at Felix? Because I can understand that.”

“Not doing nothing.”

“Yes, I know. That’s my point. It’s like you’re just sitting here waiting to die. Please tell me you’re not.”

I shrugged.

“You’re going to let Messire Gennadion win?”

“Cut that the fuck out.”

“What?”

“Ain’t about winning,” I said. Powers, my voice was ugly. Just fucking
ugly
.

“Then what is it about?”

I shook my head, looked at a gal on the sidewalk carrying a pair of white ducks, one under each arm.

Mehitabel’s hand caught my jaw, dragged me back around to face her. I could have broken her wrist, but I didn’t. “What is this about?”

“You don’t care.”

“Yes, I do. I care very much.”

“You got no reason.”

“Do I need a reason?”

She’d kissed me, I remembered. Before I went off to kill Vey Coruscant. She’d kissed me on the mouth. I said, “I don’t understand what you want.”

“Tell me why you’re not talking to anyone. Tell me what Malkar did to you.”

“Don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember?”

“ ‘S what I said. I mean, I remember he hurt me. But that’s all.”

“You don’t remember, or you don’t
want
to remember?”

“I don’t remember.” Didn’t want to remember, neither, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that mattered. I just knew I’d woken up in Simon and Rinaldo’s cell, and everything had hurt.
Everything
.

“And that’s why you’re not talking?”

“I told you. Nothing to say.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. I think you’ve got a lot to say. You’re just not letting yourself say it.”

“Powers, would you at least pretend you don’t think I’m that stupid?”

“Sorry?”

“I ain’t that stupid,” I said slowly, carefully.

“I didn’t say you were stupid.”

“You think I am, though.”

“I don’t. I think you’re extremely intelligent. And I think you’re in a lot of pain.”

“I’m fine.”

“You are
not
fine, and we all know it. If you’re not stupid, then quit lying!”

“If you don’t want me lying, leave me the fuck alone.”

“No.”

I stared at her.

She went red, but she didn’t move. “Felix is so knotted up in his own guilt that he’d probably let you go ahead and kill yourself because he wouldn’t think he had the right to interfere. And Simon and Rinaldo can’t really understand what’s wrong. They didn’t know you before. That leaves me.”

“Why the
fuck
do you care?”

“Because I like you. I don’t want you to disappear into yourself the way you’re trying to do.” She squeezed my forearm very gently. “I want you to tell me what it is you’re punishing yourself for.”

I sighed and said it, flat out. “I thought I was done being a monster.”

“You mean the way you tried to kill Messire Gennadion?”

“The way it was just like all the other people I killed. Him and Vey and that goon in Klepsydra. I quit, you know. It was supposed to be
done
.”

She thought about it for a minute, but she didn’t try and make like she didn’t understand what I meant. “Dealing with the past is never that simple. I don’t think anything is ever really ‘done.’ Part of me is still fifteen and scared and shamed and furious, crawling out of a second-story window in the middle of the night because I know by the next day my uncle will have worked himself up to rape. Part of me is still sitting in the Bastion, ripping a sheet to pieces instead of mending it because I hate where I am and I hate what I do and I hate myself, but I’m trapped. And part of me will always be the Gauthys’ governess, sleeping with a man I don’t love because it’s the best option open to me. But that doesn’t mean I have to stay within those boundaries. Mildmay… Look. Nobody’s blaming you for wanting him dead. Nobody’s blaming you for having been a little distraught—”

“Batfuck crazy.”

“Whatever you want to call it. Think about it this way: Felix was worse. You didn’t hurt anybody else. You rescued Simon and Rinaldo. On that showing, you’re not a monster at all.” And she leaned up and kissed me.

“What was that for?” I said, the same way I had back in the Mirador.

But this time, she didn’t answer. She just kissed me again, hot and knowing—and I got my hands up between us. “Mehitabel, what’re you doing?”

“I must be slipping. I wouldn’t have thought you’d need to ask.”

“But you can’t want—”

She kissed me again.

“Wait. Stop.
Why
?”

She shrugged. “Because I think it would be better for you than sulking? Because it seems like fun? Because I’ve wanted to ever since that kiss in Aiaia?”

“You have?”

“Oh,
God
, yes.” She grinned at me. “Been dreaming about it, if you really want to know.”

“Oh,” I said. If it would make her happy, I was willing to do it. “Okay.”

“Then lock the door and come to bed.”

“Felix—”

“Fuck Felix.”

“No thanks,” I said, and she was laughing as she dragged me to my feet.

I locked the door. When I turned, she was standing by the bed, starting to take down her hair.

“Lemme do that,” I said. Keeper and Ginevra had both liked having me take the pins out of their hair.

“All right,” Mehitabel said. She lowered her head as I came over, and I found her hairpins one by one, putting them on the windowsill. For a moment, her hair stayed just like it was, and then I dug my fingers in and it uncoiled down her back like a flood.

“You’re pandering to my vanity,” she said.

“So?” I said, and made her laugh.

She straightened up—just a little taller than me, so when she leaned in to kiss me, neither of us had to crane our necks. It was quite a bit later and we were both breathless when she pulled back, tugging the ribbon out of my braid. I shook my head and my hair fell forward.

“Should cut it.”

“Don’t. It’s beautiful.”

I snorted.

“Some people like foxes, you know. I always have.”

“Some people are crazy.”

She laughed and said, “Oh, shut up and help me with these damnable buttons.”

I undid the buttons down her back while she held her hair out of the way, and then she undid my buttons, and we got ourselves out of our clothes. She wasn’t built generous, not like Ginevra—little tits, and narrow hips for a gal. She gave me a once-over and said in this low, throaty voice, “Well, I certainly like what I see.” Made me blush, too, and I was already hard.

“It’s nice to be appreciated,” she said, coming closer, and I yelped when she touched me. Her fingers were just as knowing as her mouth.

“What? You’re not a virgin, are you?”

“No. It’s just… well, it’s been a while, is all.”

“How long?”

“Oh, powers, I don’t know. A while.”

“I hope you haven’t forgotten what to do,” she said, nudging me backward toward the bed. “But if you have, I’m sure I can remind you.”

“Think I can figure it out,” I said and sat down.

She followed me, pushing me flat on my back and climbing over me to straddle my chest. “Good.” I ran my hands up her thighs, found her clit with my thumb. “
Very
good,” she said and smiled down at me. “I like a man who can find his way around.”

“I don’t get lost,” I said, and she laughed and leaned down to kiss me, and let me roll her over to where I could get at her tits and the soft skin of her belly and her cunt.

I brought her off once with my hands and my mouth, and then she dragged me back up the bed to where she could kiss me. “I’ve never had a man do that without being asked before. Thank you.”