Wicked Gentlemen (18 page)

"Sounds nice. I wish that I wasn't so messed up for my one chance to see the world outside the capital."

"You'll get better. It's not as if I'm going to haul you back to the city after you recover."

"No. Guess not. God, I'm cold." Belimai shuddered.

"You're burning up," Harper whispered.

"Do you think hell will be worse than this?" Belimai murmured, curling his arms in around himself.

"I don't know." Harper closed his eyes again. Belimai's fevered body trembled, and Harper continued stroking his hair. He wished Belimai would fall asleep. It would be easier on both of them.

"Tell me something," Belimai whispered.

"What?" Harper asked.

"Do you ever think about hell?"

"Not if I can help it."

"I used to think about it all the time. I wondered what it was like, now that all the demons had left it."

"A vast, abandoned kingdom of endless silence, if you believe the scriptures," Harper replied easily.

"And do you believe the scriptures, Captain Harper?"

Harper imagined, from Belimai's tone of voice, that Belimai was watching him with that sidelong smirk. It wasn't an odd expression for Belimai; in fact, it suited his features. He often used the expression to mask his own earnestness.

"I imagine we'll discover what's there for ourselves soon enough," Harper said.

"I'll write you about it if I get there before you. I bet it's warm." Belimai's words were garbled under a long yawn. He shivered and then resettled himself.

"Do you want me to cover you with my coat?" Harper asked.

"Harper." Belimai was quiet for a long moment. "You can't keep giving your own things up for other people. You need to be a little selfish sometimes."

"It's no trouble. I'm not cold."

"We're both cold..." Belimai drifted into silence. He lay limp against Harper and, at last, fell asleep.

Harper had known he would. Only in the few minutes before he passed out did Belimai completely lose his tones of sarcasm and cynicism. Some nights, if Harper kept him talking, Belimai could almost sound sweet.

Harper relaxed back against the cushions of the seat. He closed his eyes and slept.

Steadily the night gave way to morning, and bright light poured in through the carriage window. Belimai rolled over so that his face pressed into the shadows of the seat cushions. Harper woke and gazed out at the passing rows of apple trees. The air was sweet with the perfume of wildflowers and fallen rain. He was nearly home.

Chapter Five

Angel

The estate house was as Harper remembered. The dark
 
building rose above the outer walls and towered over the oak trees lining the drive. The huge walls were first erected when the estate served as a church garrison. They stood, as they had for generations, awaiting a last assault of ancient heretics. From the narrow windows high in the walls to the vast stables, the estate remained in a warring past. Instead of gas lamps, iron torch-holders hung over the massive stone entry.

Though the grounds and building were immaculate and clearly kept up, the quiet made the estate house seem abandoned. It felt deeply isolated. Not just separated from the rest of civilization by distance, but lost in another age.

Each time Harper returned, he recalled thinking that the torch-holders should be refitted for new gas fixtures. But then he always forgot and ended up leaving them until the next time he came. He wondered if his father had perhaps done the same thing. Perhaps generations of his ancestors had done so, and slowly the estate house had been left further and further in the past, until it at last became this towering relic.

Harper rapped at the carved double doors. The sound wasn't much, but it carried through the stillness. A moment later a slot in one of the doors opened and a young man, dressed in the estate colors of blue and white, grinned out at Harper.

His name was Giles and he was the eldest son of Mrs. Kately, the housekeeper. Harper's annual visits always afforded him a glimpse of the progress of Giles' maturity. This year Giles sported a wispy brown mustache that looked like something he might have bought in a costume shop rather than grown. The way he stroked his chin told Harper that he was rather proud of the thing. Giles pulled aside the heavy bolt and heaved at the door.

"Good morning, Master William. It's a pleasure to see you back at the estate, sir." Giles inclined his head and then noticed Belimai.

In the bright morning sun, it was obvious that Belimai's clothes were mismatched and the wrong sizes. His skin looked waxy and his hair was a wild, black mass. He clenched his eyes closed against the light.

Giles stared at him.

"Good morning to you also, sir," Giles said after a moment.

Belimai groaned slightly in response.

"Giles." Harper called the young man's attention away from Belimai. "Will you inform Mrs. Kately that I have a guest with me and that he is ill? We'll be taking meals upstairs."

"Yes, sir." Giles bowed and then quietly left the entry hall.

"Are you all right?" Harper asked once they were alone.

Belimai slowly cracked his eyes open wide enough to study his surroundings.

"Too damn bright," Belimai said quietly.

The marble floor gleamed, reflecting the shafts of sunlight that poured in through the windows. Though tapestries of martyred saints no longer hung from the walls, the estate house still held remnants of its early history. Gilded crosses were etched into the face of each door and over every archway. Narrow, stained glass windows infused the morning light with vivid colors. Tiny, luminous visions of angels in battle and sinners in torment shone from high up in the walls.

Harper followed Belimai's gaze up to a furious, red-eyed angel of vengeance. The image was one of a hundred that Harper had seen day-in and out during his youth and then again during his studies at St. Bennet's. Like the images of the cross, angels had become so familiar to Harper that he hardly noticed them at all anymore.

Belimai's pupils dilated and contracted. His lips moved fractionally, but no sound came out. Harper wondered if he was hallucinating.

"Belimai," Harper said. "It's just a stained glass window."

"She looks like your sister," Belimai said at last.

Harper looked back up at the window. Belimai was right. It did look like Joan. Not the sweet, brown-eyed girl of his memories, but the furious woman she had become after Peter Roffcale's murder. The angel hung over him like an accusation.

"Harper," Belimai whispered.

"What?" Harper glanced back to Belimai.

His face had gone a bloodless white. He swayed, and Harper placed an arm on his shoulder to steady him.

"It's all right," Belimai whispered. "I'm just..." Belimai crumpled. Harper caught him and lifted him up into his arms.

The closest bedroom was the nursery. Harper doubted that Belimai would appreciate the decor, but at the moment he wasn't likely to notice it. The walls were painted in bright childish colors and Harper's name was embroidered across the trim of the coverlet on the bed.

As Harper lay Belimai down on the bed, he realized that Belimai had regained consciousness. He stared at the far wall.

"My God," Belimai muttered, "are there clouds all over the walls?"

"Yes. You should get out of these clothes." When Harper reached for Belimai's coat, Belimai flinched back from him. Then he suddenly cupped his hands over his face.

"Are you going to be sick?" Harper felt a slight burst of panic as he glanced around for a basin of some kind.

"No." Belimai slowly lowered his arms. "For a moment I thought I was in the Inquisition House again." Belimai scowled at the far wall, with its scattering of fluffy white clouds.

"Where the hell am I?" Belimai demanded.

"We're in the nursery. And you need to get undressed and lay down." Harper gently tugged off Belimai's shoes and then took his coat. "These are the only rooms that have been improved much in the last hundred years. Hopefully the pumped water and heating will make up for the blue sky and little clouds painted all over the walls and ceiling."

"Maggots," Belimai mumbled.

"Maggots?" Harper asked.

"There are sticky piles of maggots eating through the walls."

"They're not real," Harper said.

"I know." Belimai continued staring. "It's quite a convincing hallucination though."

Belimai seemed oddly calm. Harper wondered if it was because he was too tired to react or if Belimai was already deeply familiar with hallucinations. Harper watched him for a moment. Belimai continued to glare at the wall as if it were to blame for what he saw.

"You know what the worst thing about them is?" Belimai didn't look at Harper when he spoke.

"What?"

"The fact that they're coming from my own mind." Belimai forced an unnaturally bright smile. "All those ugly little bodies are worming out of ugly little me." He continued staring forward at the wall. Harper began to worry.

"I never realized I was so familiar with maggots," Belimai continued. "So white and pulpy. Their wet little mouths never stop chewing. They glisten."

"Try not to think about them. You're going to have to try to sleep." Harper gently took hold of Belimai's arm and worked his shirt off him. It was damp with sweat. Harper tossed it aside. The skin of Belimai's chest was deathly pale, and the scars left by the prayer engines looked alarmingly red.

"I don't want to close my eyes," Belimai said. "I don't want to keep seeing them inside my head."

"They'll go away, I promise." Harper stripped off the rest of Belimai's clothes. Belimai took a short, sharp breath each time Harper's hands contacted his skin. His yellow eyes searched the far wall. Harper pushed him back down into the blankets.

"You have to sleep, Belimai," he said.

"No. I don't," Belimai whispered, but he wasn't even looking at Harper. His eyes were wide and focused on the empty space to Harper's left.

Belimai's eyes had been open so long that tears welled up and dribbled down the sides of his face.

 
"Belimai," Harper said softly. "Close your eyes."

"Close yours," Belimai hissed.

"Why?" Harper asked.

"I don't want you to see me like this." Belimai pulled his gaze away from the ceiling and stared hard at Harper. "Close your eyes."

Harper closed his eyes.

He heard Belimai shifting through the blankets.

Harper cracked his eyes just enough to take in a shadowed impression of Belimai's motions. Belimai crouched on the far side of the bed. He was still for a moment, then he hunched over and vomited into a bedside washbasin. Harper closed his eyes again and gave Belimai his privacy. After a few minutes, the room seemed too quiet. Harper opened his eyes. Belimai knelt on the floor. Harper watched Belimai cram himself under the small bed and collapse.

As Harper lifted Belimai back up onto the bed, he noticed with alarm that blots of blood colored Belimai's chest. The holy words scarring Belimai's body were bleeding. As Harper watched, a delicate line on Belimai's shoulder split and bright red beads of blood welled up. Letter after letter opened, as if a phantom blade were re-tracing each of the ophorium-packed scars that the prayer engines had laid down.

Harper reached down to daub the blood away with his handkerchief. Belimai's eyes snapped open.

"No!" Belimai shouted.

Before Harper could react, Belimai punched him hard in the chest. Harper grabbed Belimai's hand and caught the other as Belimai took a swipe at his face. Instinctively Harper reached for his handcuffs. He quickly locked Belimai's hands to the headboard. It was easy to do, but Harper hated it. It felt like betrayal to restrain Belimai just as the Inquisition had trained him to do.

Belimai fought hard against the handcuffs, screaming and kicking. He twisted and jerked until his wrists bled. Then, in absolute exhaustion, he collapsed back to the bed.

Harper backed away and sat down on the floor. He stared up at the orange sun painted on the ceiling. When he had been a child, it had seemed magically real. The entire world had been as simplistic as that painting. Bright blue days and deep, sleepy nights had encircled his existence while his parents enfolded him in a constant sense of adoration. Harper wished he could still feel so perfectly happy.

He didn't know when exactly he had lost his hold on that life. Small, corrosive deceptions had steadily eaten away at his innocence. He had learned that his father was actually a stepfather and that Joan was only a stepsister. He'd often lied about that, sometimes even to himself. He had answered to two different names: Foster, at chapel, and Harper, at home. He wore gloves, as his sister and stepfather did, to disguise a Prodigal nature that he did not possess. He still wore them now. Sometimes, when he had been young, he would stare down at his gloved hands and forget that he was not one of them.

He had told lie upon lie about his family, about his beliefs and even himself. After years of it, all he could remember were the lies.