The Virtu (28 page)

We were a week out of Klepsydra before I realized what was wrong with Mildmay.

At first, I wasn’t even sure there was anything wrong at all. I had not expected him to be speaking to me, and thus the fact that he wasn’t did not seem to be cause for alarm. And I would have been shocked to see him in the hotel bars in the evenings, especially considering that he would have been sharing a table with Mehitabel.

Mehitabel was becoming a different person as the distance increased between us and Klepsydra. Her manners and appearance were still impeccable; she still had that beautifully erect carriage that must have made Theokrita Gauthy gnash her teeth with envy. But it was as if she had been cut loose from a stiff iron armature. With vitality, her face became beautiful, and her purring laugh was like a gift. Despite Mildmay’s sullen rejection of her, I found that I liked her a great deal.

We sat together in the evenings, in hotel bar after hotel bar, and talked.

The farther we traveled into the duchies, the more likely it was that one or both of us would be drinking. It was not wise, for either of us, but it seemed the best of a bad lot of options. If I was drinking with Mehitabel, I wasn’t doing anything that might cause me to be suspected of being ganumedes or a wizard.

For her part, Mehitabel drank with me to avoid drinking with our other traveling companions: a succession of acting troupes. She was related directly or indirectly, to many of the actors. That evening, in the bar of a hotel called The Maid’s Morion, in a town whose name I had already forgotten, she had positioned herself with particular care so that the actors at their table across the room could not catch her eye.

After her second glass of gin, I raised my eyebrows inquiringly, and she laughed, a husky, bitter sound.

“They’re Zamyatins,” she said, signaling the bartender for another drink.

“Is that a Merrovin name?”

“Well back in the family tree now, but yes.”

“And you don’t want to talk to them because you find their antecedents unsavory?”

She snorted. “Not hardly. My grandfather married Louise Zamyatin. She brought her name and two of her brothers, and that is why my family troupe is the Parr-Zamyatin Players.”

“And these?”

“Are the side of the family that didn’t want a close alliance with Gran’père Mato.”

“They seem friendly enough.”

“Family,” she said with an expressive sigh. “I don’t want to talk to them because they will inevitably want to know why I left my family’s troupe.”

“And your reason was… ?”

“Neither your business nor anyone else’s,” she said, but smiled to soften it.

“Well, that puts me properly in my place,” I said and smiled back.

“Oh come,” she said, halfway down her third gin and the alcohol starting to make her reckless. “It’s not like you don’t have things you won’t tell me. Like what Ingvard Vilker’s business was with you the morning we left town.”

The light in her eyes was a dare. I said, “He’d brought a letter for Mildmay.”

“Which he gave to you.”

“Mildmay and Ingvard did not take to each other.”

“Sir, you shock me. But that’s not what you were talking about, so seriously and at such length.”

“You sound as if you already know.”

“I’m well aware of Ingvard’s inclinations,” she said, her voice mercifully too low to be heard by anyone but me. “And I recognize a spurned suitor when I see one.”

“I didn’t spurn him,” I protested. “We simply… there was a misunderstanding. He wanted us to part friends.”

“And did you?”

“I think so. The problem was not entirely his fault, and I told him so.”

“Good,” she said, and I caught her wrist as she started to wave for a fourth gin.

“Why don’t you go upstairs instead? I am. We’ve got an early start tomorrow, you know.”

“We always do,” she said, mock-mournfully. “But you’re right. Finish your bourbon and let’s go.”

I glanced from her to the table of actors—two of whom looked away quickly—and back to her. “You want your cousins to think we’re sleeping together?”

Sudden anxiety in her dark eyes. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Just don’t expect any follow-through.”

She laughed. I knocked back the last of my bourbon; we settled our tab and left the bar.

We climbed the stairs together without talking; I could not tell if she was preoccupied or merely tired, but the silence suited me well enough. She said good night at the door of her room, and I continued down the hallway to ours.

It was dark and so perfectly still I honestly believed that Mildmay must have gone out—though I could not imagine where he would have gone or why he wouldn’t have told me—and conjured a flame to the wick of the candle I knew was by the bed.

The light caught him before he was ready for me to see him.

He was sitting on the side of the bed, his head sunk in his hands. I knew, without the slightest taint of doubt, that he had been sitting in exactly that position for hours, since I had told him I was going down to the bar and left the room. His head came up as I shut the door, and his face was as impassive as ever, but the wretched, defensive hunch of his shoulders told me everything his face did not.

I did not speak for a moment, stripping my gloves off and setting them on top of the carpet bag that contained, now, all my worldly possessions. Mildmay watched me, unspeaking and almost uncaring, except for the caution that did not let him leave anyone unmonitored. I remembered that caution from my childhood.

I went around the foot of the bed and sat down on the edge of the mattress, trying to keep distance between us, to be as unthreatening as I could. I had also thought it possible that his shut-off silence was the result of my inadvertent, shameful confession of lust for him. But now I wondered if perhaps the problem was something quite else, something I had not thought to watch for.

Another moment’s silence—and I was now watching him as carefully as he was watching me—and I said, “What’s the matter?” I was pleased with myself for making the question sound nonjudgmental, more curious than worried. Clearly, if he’d wanted concern, he would have told me days ago.

“Nothing,” he said—unsurprising, but at least it was not an obscenity.

I considered my next move carefully. He watched me, twisted around but still hunched together as if he expected a blow. I did not have to worry that he would become impatient, and with a spark of humor it occurred to me to be grateful that I didn’t have to have this conversation with myself. I said, still careful, still light, “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he said, shaking his head as if the movement pained him. And then added, “Nothing anybody can help with.”

It took all my control not to pounce on that hint, which would only frighten him into withdrawal, raising his quills like a porcupine. I said, taking a calculated risk, “Is it me? Is it… ?”

“No! Kethe, Felix, no, it ain’t you at all. It’s…” He trailed off again, but that flash of urgency and anxiety reassured me, both that this truly wasn’t about me and my idiocy, and that he could still be reached.

“Can it make things any worse to tell me?”

“You’ll laugh,” he said, and the way his gaze cut away from me reminded me suddenly of how young he was.

“I won’t. I promise. I couldn’t. Not at something that’s upset you this badly.”

Too intense: I could feel him shrinking away, like some night-loving creature caught in the sunlight. “It’s stupid,” he said, mumbling down at his hands as he did when he particularly wanted to be left alone.

But I could not leave him alone with this. I reined in my own concern, my hurt at seeing him in so much pain, and said, “No matter how stupid it is, I’ll bet I can top it.”

That brought his head up, and I smiled at him, with all the warmth and force I had. His eyes widened a little, and I saw his teeth catch his lower lip, a gesture of nervousness made grotesque by the scar that twisted his upper lip. But although I did not have his stone face, I could control my expression when I had to; I held his gaze and waited.

He did not want to tell me, but I could see how tired he was, worn ragged with carrying this thing, whatever it was, by himself. If he had not been lamed, he might have fled the room, but instead his hands clenched in the bedcovers, and he said, “It’s Ginevra.”

“Then it’s not stupid.”

However he had expected me to react—and I suspected that despite my promise, he had expected jeers and mockery—he had not been prepared for acceptance. He went white, then red, and turned quickly away. I said, as gently as I could, “Tell me.”

“It’s her voice,” he said. My hands felt suddenly as if I’d pressed them against a block of ice.

“Her voice?” I said. “You mean…”

“Like in the maze, yeah. Calling. And I want to go find her, and I
can’t
.” His breath hitched, and he lowered his face into his hands again. And said, in the smallest, most timid voice I had ever heard from him, “Is this what going crazy’s like?”

“You’re not going crazy,” I said, having had a little time to think things through. And, really, it only took a moment, and I could have kicked myself for my stupidity in not realizing earlier that the possibility existed. “It’s most likely a residue of the spell that made you hear her voice in the first place. Like the way the smell of smoke lingers in your hair or clothes.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, powers, how fucking
stupid
,” and his fingers tensed into his hair, disarraying it from its neat queue.

“Think of it as an illness,” I offered, trying not to heed the impulse to lean across the bed and unbraid his hair for him. “It’s not your fault if you’re feverish.”

“Not the way Keeper told it.” And although I thought he meant it as a little bit of a joke, I was struck by empathy as if by a sword. No wonder he will not tell anyone when he suffers.

It was a moment before I could trust my voice again. I said, “I can disperse it for you.”

A quick, worried sideways glance. “Won’t that bring the Bastion down on you?”

And a cogent question. “No,” I said. “It’s too small. And it’s not a Cabaline spell. Even the Bastion doesn’t police every hedge witch and half-centime wizard in the Empire. Will you let me?”

“What d’you gotta do?”

My mind was immediately flocked with unworthy suggestions, of which the tamest was,
Kiss you
. I fought them all back and said, as I had said in the labyrinth, “I need to see your eyes.”

“Powers and saints,” he said, but without any force. He rubbed both palms up his face, then raised his head and turned to look at me. Now that I knew it was there, I could see it: a faint, cruel darkness like a hairline crack in fine porcelain. I reached out and placed my palm against his unscarred cheek. His eyes were very wide, but he held perfectly still, so still that I could feel him trembling.

It was like snapping a taut thread: that quick, that brutal, and that simple. His breath hitched. I said, neutrally, “Did you feel it?”

“Dunno. Felt something. It was… weird.”

“You felt it.” I moved my hand away from his face, not allowing the gesture to be a caress. “Do you still hear her voice?”

His head tilted a little to one side, and his eyes became distant. Then he shook his head. “She’s gone.”

“Good. If the voice comes back, let me know at once. Will you do that?”

“Yeah.” An awkward hesitation, and then an even more awkward, “Thanks.”

I wanted to tell him not to thank me. I wanted to tell him it was no more than what I ought to do, and I should have done it two weeks ago in any event. I wanted to tell him I loved him. I wanted, very badly, to kiss him. I said, “It wasn’t difficult. Are you… all right now?”

He gave one of his half shrugs. “I’m okay.”

“Truly?”

He met my eyes—only for a moment, but enough that I knew we saw each other, as we so rarely did, plainly. “Good enough to get by on.” He hesitated again, then gave a slight, defeated sigh, and said, “You can’t mend everything, Felix. But thanks for wanting to.”

“Anything I can…”

“I know.” And that sweetness entered his face that was not a smile, because he did not smile. “And really, thanks. But some things are past fixing. Even with magic.”

The truth of that hurt. I covered my flinch by standing up and saying, “We should get to sleep. It’s late.” And then, the thought occurring to me belatedly, “Have you eaten?”

“Ain’t hungry.”

I bit back my first response:
That’s not what I asked
. I said, “If you’re looking for a hobby, may I suggest wood carving rather than starving yourself to death?”

“I’ll get something tomorrow.” He turned away from me sullenly and started unbuttoning his waistcoat. Somehow, I had said the wrong thing despite myself.

And there was a limit to how much caretaking either of us could bear from me. Better not to push my luck. The important thing tonight was that the last of that horrid spell had been dispersed; perhaps from here other things might improve without my interference.

We undressed and prepared for bed in silence. I did my best not to look at him, at the strong muscles of his shoulders and arms, at the ugly shine of scars on his lame leg, at the fox-red river of his unbraided hair.

Stop it, I said to myself. Just stop it.

We climbed into bed, one on each side. I snuffed the candle and then, in the dark, dared to ask, “Would you like me to ward your dreams again?”

What felt like a year later his whispered answer came back: “Yes. Please.”