Descent Into Madness (14 page)

              "No," I told him. I kissed the skin above his heart feeling the pulsation in my lips. "I can love you like this, but never like that."

              "You say never, but never is a long time, Bree."

              "You have no idea how long it is," I said. "I see time differently than you do. This moment, this one moment as we stand here face-to-face, embracing one another, it is so important to you. But this moment is just another moment to me, like so many moments from so many lifetimes that I have lived before and will live again once you are gone."             

              "Then why did you return to me?" he asked. "Why are you with me now if you cannot love me as I love you?"

              "Because I need you," I told him. "I need to love you the way I love. It is different from how a human loves... deeper. In time, you will learn that. But, I need you. I have been so dead inside. So alone. So afraid of myself. But you, you make me feel alive."

              "Alive?"

              "You make me remember what it is like to be a human, and I… need that," I said as I kissed him. "I never want to forget what it means to be human again."

              "Then I will not let you."

              I spent that night in his arms, our bodies intertwined and pressed together. The moonlight and the stars fused us, by the vanilla and musk perfumes, by the raging firelight and the shadows that played on the walls. We laid our heads on feather pillows and fine satins, covered in fur. And from that night on, neither of us were lonely again.

              Days passed like this, until the time came for his marriage to Mavra, Grand Duchess of Austria, and the nightmare grew into focus. She was but a child, a mere waif of sixteen. She was nothing more than a transaction, an exchange of property between two houses. Her father had sold her to the Russian Royal Court for amnesty. And she knew it. Behind her beauty, those pursed lips and genteel blue eyes, behind that smooth, fair skin, and lusciously combed hair the color of amber and gold fire with a spark of life all its own, was a mind so corrupt in jealousy and scandal that it spoiled what she could have been – a true goddess among men. At first, even Viktor fell under her spell.

              "Be wary of her," I had told him on their wedding night. "Her mind is clouded and dark."              

              They had bedded, producing no heir. I never told him, but she had been relieved.

              That is when her veil dropped— after that night, after she had met her marital obligation. That is when she allowed her true colors to shine. Her lies were plenty and a vile poison infecting Tver. She visited the men of the city, various men, and made no secret about it. She did not discriminate with her lovers, and once used, she discarded them as if they were bits of meaningless scrap.

              To her, people were to be used, not loved.

              Five years passed and the hatred between them grew to be a gaping chasm. In public, they were civil. In private, they were silent enemies.

              The men she slept with talked, and people watched her. And the more they talked about her, the more they talked about Viktor. They talked of his weakness, of his inability to control her, but there was no controlling her insanity.

              Then one night I came to him, as I did every night, but this night changed everything.

              I found him sitting at the edge of the bed, his head resting in his hands. His mind was foggy, clouded and jumbled.

              Terrible thoughts invaded my mind. I pushed them away. I had never seen him so consumed with darkness. The room was black, the fire dying. I entered and sat next to him on the bed, placing my arm around him, drawing him closer to me.

              The moonlight filtered in from the balcony. His curtains were pulled back, the heavy oak doors to the outside world still open to the inviting July air. The warm staleness of the night clung to him, to his hair, making it stick to his brow; clung to his shirt - the fabric resembling thin, wet plaster against his chest.

              "She is with child." His mouth quivered and the corners of his lips turned south as he spoke.

              "Congratulations," I told him as I soothingly ran my fingers through his hair. "She will produce for you an heir."

              "It is not mine."

              "Does it matter?"

              "Of course it matters!" he stammered. He stood from the bed, and began to pace about the room, his hands gripping his waist. "This child is not mine! Everyone knows it, Bree. She has made no secret of that fact."

              "But it is already done, Viktor, you cannot undo it. You will just have to make the best of this." I went to his side and reached for him, but he shuffled away. He looked distant, vacant, too far to comfort.

              "Who is the father?"

              "My uncle, the tsar," he replied.

              "She is a powerful seductress, Viktor," I said, putting an arm around him, and then leading him to a chair near the fire. "He stood no chance with her. No man does."

              A heavy sigh escaped as he eased into the chair. The brown high back swallowed him and he leaned his face into the side trying to ease his worries.  The fire had gone out, the room was nearly bathed in darkness save for a torch in the far side of the room by the door. I glanced at the fireplace, filling its dying hearth with a brilliant, caramel rainbow of color. A warm glow permeated the room and yet he did not even flinch.

              "I am being punished," he whispered, looking away from me.

              "For what?" I asked.

              "For loving you," he said, his eyes not turning from the firelight. They held their haunting glare at those amber flames, those burning embers brightly licking at the stones in the fireplace. His voice was eerily calm.

              "You will never be punished for loving me," I assured him. "Not now, not ever."

              "What do I do about this child?" he asked, looking at me.

              "What do I do?" he shouted.

              I knelt down at his feet and took his hands in mine. His hands, his mortal hands with their ability to age and change – they were a miracle. I kissed those hands, each one, and held them to my cheek. Time could have paused in that moment and I would have been happy, truly happy. However, it did not. It continued on, as it had to.

              "You let her have the baby," I told him. "You accept it as your own. And I will deal with the rumors."

TWELVE

O
n a Sunday evening, while the heavens poured forth a horrendous rainstorm of tears, Mavra delivered the child.

              From birth, the male babe was destined to live an uncomfortable life. His left arm grew shorter than his right, and one eye deadened to the world. There were episodes of sickness, and the child had to be quarantined, unable to experience and grow as a normal child would. It knew little of sunlight or of its mother’s touch.

              After a brief life of suffering, the Russian dampness finally delivered him to peace. He lingered those last months in bed with pneumonia. The seriousness of his illness finally drew Mavra to visit her son. She had only seen him twice in the two years he had graced the planet.

              She was cold-hearted and cruel - even refusing to caress the child as he lay dying. The unrelenting fever shook his body with chills as his lungs filled with fluid. The air slowly choked from his tender body. And all she managed was a "good-bye, Stefan" as she walked from the room. That was the last she saw him alive, and somehow, her soul found peace with this. 

              Viktor had shed a tear for the child and nothing more. He wept for the insignificant trivialities that escaped everyone else. Viktor wept for the mischief the boy would never make at court, for the girls the child would never kiss, and for the hearts he would never have the chance to break.

              All this while Viktor’s uncle donned mourning clothes and refused sustenance for three nights before fainting on the palace steps. He and Mavra had continued their affair during the child's illness, visiting in secret. However, after Stefan's death, the two spoke not more than three words to each other. The tsar refused to look at her. She, in turn, barely acknowledged his presence. Not a single person at court failed to take notice of the peculiar behavior.               

              Through it all, I remained at Viktor’s side. I came at night, each night, and slipped away before dawn approached.

              I was a rumor around the castle: a shadow that played against the walls. Sometimes the servants would spy me lingering, slipping in and out of the darkness. Yet when they came looking for me, I would have already disappeared.

              There were whispered conspiracies; Mavra’s ramped up attempts to strike Viktor down, ending the charade that was their marriage. Nightly, I concealed myself, creeping in and out of dusty, forgotten corridors to listen, as Viktor could not. Mavra was devious and promiscuous, but predictable. She always arranged her liaison’s in the same fashion: sending a coin to the Master of the Horse, who then sends an able bodied – and pleasing – servant to her chambers. Discretely, of course.

              Her assassination attempts, likewise, were just as predictable. Constantly, Mavra fetched a skilled man – well worth their weight in gold, she thought. These attacks, though, were distant, and never coming to fruition. They blundered— killing the wrong man, or missing completely – their arrows catching the wind as they ran. 

              Then on a humid night a few months after Stefan's death, as the stink of sweat permeated the castle, I heard a malicious murmur: Mavra’s siren song seducing its way into another assassination attempt.

              Following the acidic sound, I found her in a passageway leading to the dungeon. Dust clung to the stone and thick Belgium tapestries, and one's footprints, if not careful, were traceable. She was there, leaning against a heavy gold and cranberry tapestry. Knights dueled in front of a forest of muted ivory trees – muted by centuries of dust. A thick smudge of thick grey remained on her ebony gown as she edged closer to the cloaked figure at her side.

              The person's identity concealed, their face cleverly shrouded by a grey cloak; and what they did not conceal in this fashion they skillfully hid with the surrounding shadows. I watched as the stout and twisted being reached into its cloak and handed her a round, sapphire bottle, which she held to the candle light in her hand and then, quickly tuck it away in her cloak pocket. She left in one direction, and the figure in the other.

              I followed her toward the kitchen, where she instructed the cook add the contents of the bottle to Viktor’s stew. She then slipped out, casually and carelessly.

              From the shadows, I emerged, startling the somber cook from her mid-day lull in duties and retrieved the bottle from her hand.

              "What is in there?" she snorted.

              Her attentions remained on the stew, as she quickened her pace stirring the ingredients in the pot. The brew of fresh meats and vegetables bubbled in the heated cast iron, the flames reaching the pots lip.                

              "A tonic to cure the prince's insomnia," I answered her.

              "Blessed be," she sighed. She reached around me and gathered a pile of root vegetables from the counter, tossing them into the steaming brew. "Talk says he has not slept well since the lad sailed on to Heaven, my Lady. But, pray forgive me; it’s not my place to speak of such things."

              "Sleep is only refreshing if you wake up," I whispered to myself.

              I flung the bottle into my cloak and exited through the staff entrance, the odor of onions and garlic pursuing me like an eager bloodhound.

              This would not be the last attempt on Viktor’s life. What had started after Stefan's birth only increased with the child's death. Mavra now hired spies to catch us at night, to murder us while we were together. However, these spies, quiet as they attempted to be, never made it past the stone staircase to his chambers. I would come upon them, drain them into confusion, then discard the bodies in the courtyard. They would awake the next morning with a crashing headache, wandering aimlessly in a dazed wonderland.

              This left Mavra befuddled. How could her cream of the crop, richly paid group of assassin fail so miserably in their attempts? Her contempt grew, and with it her despair to be rid of Viktor. To be rid of me, as well.

              Over the next two years, most of which coursed on in an endless blur of monotony and assassination attempts, Mavra became pregnant twice. The first breathed nothing more than her first breath before turning a grim shade of blue and shaking violently. Mercifully, its soul flew northward. The body, Mavra rushed away, entombed before anyone could see it. Excuses were made.

              Viktor had not been the father. This honor went to a young soldier whose regiment was re-stationed three months prior to the birth. 

              The second child was more fortunate than her sister had been. She survived six days and was a beautiful dewy pink. She cooed when you stroked her cheek, wiggled her toes when you tickled her feet, and opened her eyelids and gazed at you with bold, hazel eyes. But, she was a girl and could not inherit the crown. Therefore, as the babe slept in the cold, crisp dawn-light, when life was waking to face a new day, Mavra smothered her. As angelic as the girl had been, she, too, had not been Viktor’s.

              It was August when this second child perished. The balmy August air wreaked a foul, poisonous odor that lingered from the sewers and rose up through the streets and into the homes, reaching into the highest tower. That stench permeated the highest rooms, the most perfumed halls; and percolated as it brewed in the city's underbelly. No one could escape it. That child – that gorgeous infantile angel – had been cursed to live to breathe such air. Perhaps it would have been better if she had been born blue.

              I had gone to him the night she passed.

              It was near the end of August; the smells were almost unbearable and he kept the balcony door closed. When I opened the doors, he was lying on the bed covered in a thick blanket of sweat. His bed covering were neat beneath him and the drapes tied back at their posts. He laid there, defeated, his legs bent and his feet resting along the edge in their stockings; his hands fixed behind his head. His eyes were closed, relaxed, but a seething cauldron of turmoil bubbled beneath his chiseled face. The sweat dripped down his weary cheeks soiling his white collar, soiling the lush bedding underneath.

              "I heard Yalena died," I said, approaching the bed. "I came as soon as I fed."

              I cradled his pallid head in my hands; his sweat was salty and tasted of blood on my lips as I kissed his wrinkled brow. He was aging right before me. His forehead wore the brunt of his worries; lines grew from his eyes; and his hair was streaking with grey. While time was being unkind to him, worry and grief was a burden his body could not hide.

              "Did she kill her?" It was more of a demand than a question. I tried to quiet him, but he insisted. "I know you can hear her thoughts. Tell me."

              "Do you really want to know?" I asked him. "The truth may be hard to live with, knowing your wife is a murder." He nodded. "Yes, Viktor, she killed Yalena. And right now, she is planning your demise, my love. Her vile thoughts were so loud I heard four blocks away.”

              I ran my fingers through his thinning hair. He sat up and stared wildly.              

              "She is downstairs in her room mixing arsenic into your wine. She is going to bring it to you herself this time because she will no longer stand for failures, Viktor. She is insistent that this time, you will die."              

              "She is planning to do it herself?" His eyes were vacant orbs staring into the fire behind me. His hands quaked as they reached for mine. "I am going to kill her first, Bree."

              "You will do no such thing," I scowled. He glared at me, his eyes piercing with his hatred for her. "Let me handle her." 

              I watched as the man I loved, a defeated and terrified hulk of flesh, traversed the room and fell with the full weight of his being into a chair. He was broken. She had broken him.

              His mind and body were weary from constantly being on guard. Everything had to be checked – his food, his clothing, even his bath. There was not a single moment, not a scrap of precious time, when Viktor was not susceptible to her assassination attempts. Despite what had transpired between them, his uncle refused to throw Mavra in the tower. Worse, even, convict her to death.

              I stayed with Viktor every night, watching him sleep. The nightmares plagued him: the fits tangled his legs and the sweat clung to his weathered brow. Before dawn, when I had to leave, I would wake him with kisses and reassurances that I would see him at nightfall and that he had again survived.

              But, that hell in which he lived would cease tonight, I told myself as I waited for her. He had had his last nightmare.

              I could hear her footsteps in the hallway. Viktor concealed himself on a corner settee. Her scent wafted heavily now; she was not far. I urged him to remain absolutely quiet and hidden. Then she was there, just on the other side, and I could hear her heartbeat pulsating through the wood and nails as she knocked upon the oak.

              "Enter," I said.

              Several seconds passed before the door creaked to life, a ruby slipper poking itself from around the corner. Her petite face peeked in afterwards and curiously peered around as she hugged the door, slightly ajar now, to her chest.

              "Come in, Mavra," I demanded.

              "Where is Viktor?" she asked as she entered. She remained close to the door.

              "You just missed him."

              "I will return later, then." She fingered a gold goblet in her right hand and turned toward the door, preparing to leave hastily.

              "Drink it," I demanded.

              "Excuse me?" She turned toward me, startled.               "The goblet, drink it."

              "This was not intended for me," she stammered. "It was for Viktor."

              "He will not mind if you take a sip, Mavra."

              "Oh, I could never do that," she replied. She shuffled awkwardly, shrinking closer to the door. “It is for my beloved.” 

              "Drink it!"

              "No," she said. "You cannot make me, harlot! I will have you thrown from this castle."

              Quickly, and without warning, I glided to her side and grasped the hand that held the goblet tightly in my own. My other hand encircled her throat. At first, she struggled against me. She attempted to jerk her hand away, or drop the goblet, but I held a crushing grasp on both. When she tried to retaliate, I dug a sharp nail into her neck.

              "What are you?" she whispered.

              "Keep fighting me and I will show you.” I released her and she nearly spilled the wine onto her velvet bodice. I caught her arm as she steadied herself.

              "Now drink it!" I commanded.

              My hand steadied her lifeless arm and lifted the goblet to her quivering lips. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and began to fall the closer the liquid traveled north. Yet, she did not resist.

              She closed her eyes, but when the cool metal hit her lips, a hurricane of tears poured forth and she refused to open her mouth. Instead, she dropped to her knees, my hand still grasping her own with the goblet attached.