Undermajordomo Minor (11 page)

S
he invited him over for tea, which led to supper, with only the two of them in the shanty, as Memel and Mewe had gone away to Listen to work the crowds at a solstice celebration. The hours drew past, and there was nothing like a slack moment, for no sooner did Klara answer a question of Lucy's than she would ask a question herself, and then back again, until the village had gone quiet, and all were in for the night. At one point Lucy screwed up his courage and said,

“Just who is this Adolphus?”

Klara looked away. “He is a soldier I knew.”

“Knew or know?”

“Know. I don't know. I haven't seen him in months. And I don't know where he goes, when he does.”

“But you wish you did?”

“Sometimes I do.” Klara looked back at Lucy. “Perhaps you might find it flattering, that I have an inclination to lie to you about this.”

“Perhaps I might,” he said.

Rose lay on the table, dozing in between them; they both stroked her but were careful never to touch each other's hands. Lucy could have stayed up all night, but when Klara stifled a yawn, he stood, and said he would take his leave. Klara nodded; her hair was mussed and she smiled at him as he stood at the door. He walked through the village and up the hill to the castle, crossing the still entry
way and pausing at the bottom of the stairwell to fish out a squat candlestick from his trouser pocket. Rose began to squirm, and so he let her down onto the ground. She disappeared around the bend of the stair and Lucy, lighting the candle, followed after. The bulbous flame was jouncing up and down as he took the steps; arriving at the mid-point landing, he paused, thinking of how pleasing Klara's face had appeared in the candlelight, and of the way she'd hid her smile in the shadows. He recalled looking over to find she was drawing her cheek back and forth against the fur collar of her cape; and this was a proud moment for him, one that he knew he would revisit any number of times in the coming days and months.

While cataloging these happenings, he'd been peering absently into the darkened recess of the landing; and to look at him was to see a young man without a care or concern, a person for whom life posed no problems whatsoever, only opportunity, and adventure. But gradually this look left his face, and by degrees was replaced with an ever more severe and serious one. A thought had entered his mind, a terrible suspicion, which was that the darkness into which he had been gazing was not empty at all, but that it held, or hid, something; that it held someone. He stared with an increasing intensity, scarcely drawing a breath. There was no movement in the darkness, but with each passing moment he became surer and surer that there was a body hiding in the recess; and, furthermore, that it was aware of his being there—that it was watching him as well.

Now a sound became audible, but this was so slight at the start that Lucy couldn't be sure he was hearing anything at all. Soon it increased in volume, not so very much, but loud enough that Lucy could not deny its existence. He wasn't certain what the sound was, but thought he could identify it; and he hoped with great fervency that he was mistaken. Alas, as it became louder, his suspicion was confirmed, and he lamented this, because of all the noises to hear, at this late hour and in this lonely location, here was the one he least wished to witness, and it filled him with the direst dread. It was the sound of someone hungrily, gutturally eating.

L
ucy raised his candle, and this cast a jewel of milky light in the darkened corner, where he could now make out the proportions of a man, and a wretched man at that, crouched on the floor and outfitted in nothing more than ragged tweed trousers. His bare back was all bones, the flesh coated in grime, and the bottoms of his feet, tucked under his legs, were painted in the blackest filth. Lucy could not see what the man's feast consisted of, his face being hidden behind a curtain of long and grease-matted hair, but he ate with something beyond gusto, groaning slavishly, his body shuddering as the consumption of his meal reached its pleasurable capstone. Lucy's hand was trembling, and so the candlelight also was trembling.
Where is Rose?
he thought.

The man ceased eating and turned toward Lucy. His face was covered in blood, and he held in his hands the remains of a small animal, its middle section eaten away save for a ribbon of black fur connecting its halves. A smile crept across his face as he stood; fur and red-purple flecks of meat and entrails clung to his emaciated body. He was panting, and his eyes were so wild that Lucy could not regard them directly. The man was laughing, but stifling this, as though he didn't want to make any sound, as though he might disturb someone; or, bizarrely, as if fearful of offending Lucy. He stood and moved closer, holding the remnants of his feast up to the candlelight. Lucy found he couldn't not look down, and in doing
so he was at once encouraged and discouraged to see not the body of Rose, but that of a very large rat. The man too was watching over the carcass, only with something like adoration, or satisfaction. When he lifted the remains to his mouth and lovingly chewed at the stubborn string of fatty fur to halve the thing, Lucy's revulsion was such that his world became liquid, and he lost consciousness, falling away to the ground.

H
e awoke the next morning in his own bed, Rose licking his face, his head gauze-wrapped, his skull lumped and tender. There came a knock on his door and Agnes entered carrying a breakfast tray. He sat up and she set the tray upon his lap; pouring him a cup of tea, her face was nearer to his than it had ever been before—he noticed she had a downy cheek, and the balled red ear of a newborn. She placed a spoon in his hand and moved to sit in the rocking chair, patiently and wordlessly observing Lucy while he ate. After he had finished, she removed the tray and set it by the door before returning to the chair. Folding her hands, then, and with what seemed to be repressed irritation, she said, “Now, I'd like to know just what it is you think you're doing here, boy.”

Lucy said, “Ma'am?”

“Did you not hear what I said?”

“I heard. I suppose I'm not sure I understand the question. A position was offered to me, and I accepted the position.”

“But surely there's some other type of work where you come from?”

“Not so very much. Nothing that suited me, anyway.”

“And what is it about this appointment that suits you, can I ask?”

“It's far away,” he said. “It's different.”

She spoke as though they had hit upon something key: “What if it's too far away, Lucy?” she said. “What if it's too different?” Now
she fished a single gold coin from her smock pocket and laid this on the bed. “Here is your return fare. And I would like for you to go home, if you please.”

Lucy looked at the coin but didn't pick it up. “You're terminating me?”

“It wouldn't be my place to do that.”

“Does Mr. Olderglough want me gone, then?”

“I don't suppose he does. But then, Mr. Olderglough is not currently of a mind to make such judgments.”

“How do you mean, ma'am?”

She assumed the demeanor of one wondering how much she might prudently say. “Do you not find him a peculiar man?”

“Frankly, ma'am,” said Lucy, “most everyone I've met since I've left home is peculiar to me in one way or another.” Agnes was visibly dissatisfied by the response, however, and so Lucy added, “But yes, I suppose I do find him so particularly.”

She nodded, and asked, “Now, would you be surprised to know that he is
more
than peculiar?”

“I don't know what you mean by that,” said Lucy, which was true—he didn't.

Here Agnes began removing hypothetical bits of grit from her smock. “Far be it from me,” she said, “to besmirch the man's good name. God knows I looked to him for support and guidance any number of times over the years. But I can't say, Lucy, that I would look to him for guidance at present.” A sadness came over her, and she said, “Listen to me, boy. Can't you see that a mistake has been made in bringing you here?”

“But I don't want to go home, ma'am,” said Lucy. “I'm not happy there.”

“You're happy here, then?”

Lucy didn't answer for a moment. He was thinking about Klara. “Possibly I am.”

“You understand that you're in danger?”

“Yes.”

Agnes stood. There was an air of finality or defeat to her carriage, so that Lucy felt he had let her down in some way. She said, “What happened to you last night will happen again if you stay here. The situation will not improve. On the contrary.” With this, she turned to go. Lucy asked her,

“But why do you stay on, ma'am?”

She lingered in the doorway, considering her reply. Speaking over her shoulder, she said, “Many years ago, I made an agreement with a friend. So long as he remains, then so will I stay as well.” Her eyes were kinder now, smoky, and crowded with emotion. “Hold on to that coin. If the impulse to go seizes you, I want you to heed it. Will you do that for me, boy?”

“All right.”

“Don't just say it to say it. That's what Mr. Broom did, and look what it got him.”

It sent a shiver through Lucy, to hear Broom's name. “What is the matter with him, exactly?” he asked.

“The matter with whom?” Agnes asked.

“With Mr. Broom.”

Agnes shook her head, and she regarded Lucy as though he were a pitiful individual indeed. “You really don't understand at all, do you?”

“Understand what?”

“Mr. Broom is long dead, Lucy. The man you met last night is the Baron.”

L
ucy sat for a long while after Agnes had left, trying to connect the author of the elegantly lovelorn letters he'd been delivering each day with the feral and cretinous apparition he'd seen on the landing. When he found he couldn't link these two, he elected to let it lie awhile. A restlessness came over him and he dressed, descending the stairs and crossing the entryway for the outdoors. Stepping into the cool morning air, he pulled on his cap, careful not to disturb the officious bandaging. He felt an affinity for his head wound; was there not a certain sweetness in its aching pain? He wondered what Klara's reaction to his injury might be, and he imagined her gentle hands searching his skull to pinpoint the epicenter of tenderness. He would tell of how he came to be hurt, and she would swoon and marvel at his trial of fright, afterward comforting him with a cup of tea, and perhaps a slice of poppy-seed cake. And this moment, would it not make the entire ordeal worthwhile for Lucy? Alas, this was not to be, for when he arrived at Klara's door he discovered she was not there, and neither was Memel, and neither was Mewe, which isn't to say the shanty was empty, for it was not; in fact it was filled to capacity, filled with soldiers, the same group Lucy had met when he'd first arrived at the castle. All were standing save for the exceptionally handsome man, who sat in the center, at the table, and he held Klara's cape in his hands. His face was drawn and grim, and he was not in the least pleased with Lucy.

T
he exceptionally handsome man spoke. “I am Adolphus, Lucy from Bury. I apologize for not introducing myself when last we met. But possibly it is that you've heard my name since then.”

“Yes,” Lucy said.

Adolphus held up the cape. “It has come to my attention that you've brought my Klara a gift. Is that so?”

“It's so.”

“And why, may I ask, have you done this?”

“Because she was cold.”

“I see.” Adolphus turned to the soldier on his right. “Are you cold?”

“Yes, I'm cold,” the soldier answered.

Adolphus turned to the soldier on his left. “And you?”

“It's cold. I'm cold.”

“And so am I cold,” Adolphus said. He turned to Lucy. “We're all cold. But you'll not furnish us with capes, will you?”

Lucy remained silent. A look of violence came over Adolphus, and he said, “Here's how it's going to go, boy. I'm going to give you back this cape. And you may give it to another village lass, or you may wear it yourself, or you may set it afire. You may do with it what you wish, for it is yours. But there is one thing which, I'm here to tell you, you may not do with it, and that is return it to Klara. As
a matter of fact, I should think you and she have no further business together, is that understood?”

Lucy didn't answer. The soldiers were standing unnecessarily close to him, he noticed. “May I ask what you men are fighting about?” he asked.

“We fight so that others need not,” Adolphus said.

“And who are you fighting, that I need not?”

“They are bastards and will die bastards.” Adolphus gestured at the men standing about him. “Now, we've a significant campaign beginning soon, which will see us through to the spring. I've quite enough to do in preparation for this without having to worry about some non-regional cast-off wagging his tiny pink pecker at my bride-to-be. Will you heed me, yes or no?”

He stood and crossed over to Lucy.
If only he weren't so much larger,
Lucy thought.
If only he weren't so bold
. Lucy couldn't look him in the eye, and when Adolphus thrust the cape into his arms and pushed him out the door, there was no option other than to accept its happening, and so he did.

Walking numbly through the village, he caught sight of Klara in the marketplace, shivering in her old, ragged coat. He approached her, and was aware of an anger gathering within him. Standing before her now, he wondered if he didn't hate her.

“Adolphus says you're to be married,” he said.

When she faced him, he could see she had been crying. “Anyway, according to him we are.”

“I suppose I should offer you my congratulations, then.” He bowed. “A long and happy life to you both.”

She was wounded by this, and retreated a pace. Staring at the cape in his hands, she said, “Is that all you have to say to me, Lucy?”

He had hoped to communicate an appearance of cold control and indifference, but in looking at Klara's face, and in knowing he had been bettered in love, then did his heart turn against him, and an expansive sorrow welled up in his chest. “Long life!” he said, and spun around, retreating for the castle, his face gone hot with
tears. By the time he'd climbed the stairs to his room he had exhausted himself, and felt as though there were nothing inside him at all. Acting automatically, he pulled his valise from under his bed and packed his belongings, including Klara's cape, and Mr. Broom's telescope. He pocketed Agnes's coin before taking up pen and paper to compose a short farewell letter to her and Mr. Olderglough. Leaving this atop his pillow, he scooped up Rose, gripped his valise, and descended the steps. Crossing the entryway, he saw the Baron had left a letter on the side table. Setting down his valise, he stared at it. He opened it up and read it.

Last night I took up a razor, that I might open my own throat with it. How simple this would be: a flick of the wrist and the life would pour from my body, the room would dim, and I would have my rest. I am not afraid to die, and have not been for some time now. And yet I found I couldn't perform the gesture, knowing you are still drawing breath. If you yourself were passed, it would be nothing, but the knowledge that you remain lulled my hand. I will live until you come back to me, then. If you do not come back, then I will die waiting. This is my pledge to you.