Muffled Drum (13 page)

Mathias felt himself getting annoyed. “The damned horse isn’t even being used, this is the third time I’ve been here this week and the third time he’s been idle.”

The owner looked suitably caught out. “That’s because he’s not an easy ride.”

“He’s a warhorse,” Mathias said. “I warned you about that when I brought him in, and you said you knew gentlemen who appreciated the challenge. He’s eating his head off, and with no exercise at all, he’ll soon be unrideable. Look, let’s add two more
thaler
to the deal and call it even, shall we?”

The man looked doubtful, and Mathias put a third coin on the table. After a moment’s hesitation, the man scooped up the coins and jerked his head to indicate that Mathias should go while the going was good.

Danzig was boisterously happy to see him, weaving from one side of his stall to the other and lifting his front legs off the floor in his excitement, causing the stable owner to blanch in fear. He caught hold of Mathias’s elbow as if to stop him from entering the stall, but Mathias took no notice, let himself in and flung his arms around the horse’s neck.

The stable owner stood watching practically openmouthed as Mathias prepared Danzig for the journey without even tying the stallion up. The worst that Danzig did was to mouth the top of Mathias’s head as he bent to pull the girth under the horse’s belly, knocking his hat to the floor and depositing a large amount of chewed hay into Mathias’s hair.

Once out on the road, and outside town, he paused at the crossroads. A decision had to be made. He moved his horse to one side so the carriages behind could pass. Danzig slipped in the mud and tugged impatiently at the bit, his head tossing as if to say, “I don’t care where we go, let’s just go.”

Mathias looked left, then right, and spurred Danzig forward into a gallop, southward.

Muddy, unshaven and tired, Mathias finally came in sight of the von Ratzlaff mansion. He’d stopped in Berlin only to find the house shut up and no one but a caretaker there. The man would not let him in and knew nothing more than that the master was in the country,
yes, alone, who else would be there now the mistress is dead?

He stayed in the city overnight, more for Danzig’s sake than his own, and they pushed on the next morning. Mathias kept Danzig reined at a careful speed, for he could feel the great horse’s strength was sapping. The animal would burst his heart before he’d give up. As they neared the house, riding alongside the paddocks, Danzig arched his neck, but did no more than to snort long and slowly at the mares in the field beyond as if to say, “I remember you, but I want to sleep now.”

A boy sweeping leaves out front turned and waited for Mathias to dismount before taking the reins. Mathias climbed the stairs, slowly, steadily.
I must remember this
, he thought. He raised a hand to knock at the front door, half expecting the butler to have anticipated him, like last time. But all was still, aside from the clinking of Danzig’s harness, below, and the cawing of distant crows. The moment itself seemed to be holding its breath.

He knocked, and within a few seconds, as if he was waiting for just such a knock, the door opened and Rudolph’s dear face emerged. Thinner, paler, but still the man he loved.

“Mathias,” Rudolph said. “Oh, God.”

Hardly able to think of anything to say, Mathias looked past Rudolph into the hall. “No butler?”

“I’ve…been answering the door. In case it was you. I hoped…hoped you would come…but I wasn’t sure. I’ve been sure of so little. For God’s sake, come in.” He grasped Mathias’s arm and drew him into the hall. Then as if suddenly remembering their last meeting, he pulled his hand away, and the look on his face nearly broke Mathias’s heart.

The butler—Mathias could not for the life of him remember his name—appeared as if from nowhere and helped Mathias out of his greatcoat, then vanished behind a door again, leaving them alone.

Rudolph led the way across the hall but opened the door to another room than the one Mathias had been in before. It turned out to be as masculine as his wife’s sitting room had been feminine, rich reds and blues, and three walls entirely covered in books. Next to a roaring fire stood two deep leather chairs, one of which was worn and saggy in the seat from much use. Rudolph sank into this chair, as if the mere act of standing was too much for him.

Mathias took the seat opposite and examined the man he loved. He looked haggard, his healthy complexion paler than Mathias had ever seen it, and there were the beginnings of hollows in his cheeks.
His wife’s death hit him hard,
he thought, remembering the men’s conversation in the bar. He couldn’t imagine himself ever loving a woman, but he knew that—in his own way—Rudolph had loved his wife and had done much to protect her.

He seemed to have forgotten Mathias was in the room, and was staring at the fire. The very fact that he hadn’t offered Mathias a drink was unheard of, and something the old Rudolph would never have done. After a minute or two of silence, Mathias stood and helped himself to a much-needed brandy from the laden drinks cabinet, downing a large shot before pouring two generous measures and returning to the fireside. He took hold of Rudolph’s hand for a moment—
my God, his hand’s as cold as ice
—then pressed the glass into it.

Rudolph looked up, then, as if waking from a dream, took the drink, downed it and watched Mathias intently as he sat back in the chair.

“The children?” Mathias asked. There were certainly no discernible signs of any in this room, nor any sounds to betray their presence, but perhaps they were as Rudolph. Stunned and beaten.

“In Vienna, with their maternal great-aunt.”

Mathias’s heart seemed to twist at the sorrow in Rudolph’s voice. “Wouldn’t it be better for them…better for you…if they were here?” Rudolph eyes narrowed and Mathias added, “If you don’t mind me inquiring…”

“It was just for the funeral. She…we…Augusta…”

“It’s all right, Rudolph,” Mathias said, as gently as he could, “you can speak of her to me. Perhaps it’s something we should have spoken of. She was a very lovely woman.”

“Thank you. Coming from you…thank you. We decided years ago that if either of us was to die—of course we only really thought it would be me—the army, you know—then we wouldn’t inflict it on the children before a certain age. I’ll send for them soon, I think.”

“I hardly know what to say,” Mathias said.

“Mathias,” Rudolph said, suddenly desperate to end the charade. “Listen to me. I didn’t understand—you never said anything, and I assumed that we were just friends, had been…Oh
Christ—
” he said. “I can’t even speak without getting too muddled up. Everything’s been like some kind of dream, a bloody nightmare. I thought…” He took a deep breath. “You have to listen to me. Please sit down. Please.”

Mathias sat gingerly on the edge of the chair, as if Rudolph were a kind of rocket that might explode at any moment. “Very well.”

“I’ll try and make sense. God alone knows I’ve made little enough of it over the past week or so. I’ve never been faithful to my wife, you know that. God knows,
she
knew it. It was an arrangement that suited us both, for our own reasons. But what you saw in Berlin was a lie. A lie Ernst let me believe, a lie that we—you and I—both believed because Ernst wanted to take advantage of a situation, for however long it lasted. I broke with Ernst Fetter two years ago, and my own doctor confirmed that. I just didn’t know that at the time, and Ernst, well…” He paused, looking at Mathias for any reaction at all.

“It seems compatible with my opinion of him,” Mathias said, his gaze stubbornly on the floor. “Go on.”

“Mathias, where is the daguerreotype you once gave me?”

Finally, Rudolph obtained a reaction. Mathias looked as shocked as if he’d been slapped. Mathias’s chest heaved and a muscle twitched in his cheek.
He cares, oh God, he must care. He’s got memories of me that I may never know of. And I have nothing other than a recollection of a portrait. How can I ask him to come back to me when there’s no “back” for me?

Suddenly, he felt shaken and sick at his own stupidity that he hadn’t seen the signs, which had clearly been there all along. Not the signs of a man longing for something he couldn’t have, could
never
have, but the heartsick despair of a man who has lost something and thinks he’ll never get it back.

“Rudolph…”
was all Mathias said, and it was the same desperate word, in just the same tone he’d used in the hotel in Dresden.

How could I have been so blind? The way Mathias looks at me, and the way that Ernst—there’s no comparison.

“The field medic told me that anything surprising and shocking might damage you further, maybe permanently,” Mathias said quietly.

Rudolph bit the inside of his cheek, not allowing himself to be diverted by a further diatribe about that particular doctor. “That’s not what I asked you, Oberleutnant. Answer the question.”

Mathias was motionless, his eyes locked with Rudolph’s. Then suddenly he seemed to make a decision and touched the breast pocket of his jacket. “Here.”

“I thought so,” Rudolph said, and he smiled. “You wouldn’t leave that scandalous thing in your hotel room where anyone could see it.”

“No, I—” Mathias stopped and looked up at Rudolph with an incredulous expression. “You…you remember it?” He almost leapt out of his chair.

Rudolph stood to meet Mathias’s embrace and grabbed him by the elbows, his gaze scouring the man’s face, searing every line, every white scar back into his memory.
Never to be lost again.

Instead of answering, and with fingers that were moving almost too fast to be useful, he began to unbutton Mathias’s jacket, never taking his eyes from the man’s face. Mathias’s expressions were worth watching as they flickered from hope to disbelief to sheer happiness—they warmed Rudolph in a way he couldn’t remember having been warmed before.

I’m lucky,
he thought, as he freed Mathias from the sleeves of the jacket.
I get a first time with my lover—twice. There’s not many who can say that. But this one, I’ll remember.

Buttons flew undone under his eager fingers, the shirt was pulled from Mathias’s trousers and his hands reached in and up under the shirt, letting his palms run over Mathias’s chest. Mathias’s eyes closed and it all seemed so familiar, but oh so new—it was intoxicating, and Rudolph never wanted to lose this feeling.

He felt Mathias’s fingers on his fly, and he broke from his exploration of Mathias’s chest to help him out, unbuttoning his own trousers. Mathias took his lead and started to strip off, matching Rudolph garment for garment. The kiss continued, and it was anything but soft. Rudolph didn’t hold back, putting everything into that one kiss, hard and vital, and feeling that just having Mathias here with him was enough to give him hope.

To his delight, Mathias matched him, kiss for kiss, tongue to tongue. They moved as one, hands reaching for hard, muscled flanks, each seeking purchase. Fingers reaching out for skin, never tender, but always claiming and real. Somewhere between when and wherever, between lost and found, Rudolph pulled the last of Mathias’s clothes from him and hadn’t even noticed that he’d shed his, but was delighted to finally have nothing between them, not even lies.

He pressed Mathias back onto the carpet. Mathias reached up and, with his fingers in Rudolph’s hair, pulled Rudolph down onto him. The connection of warm skin was thunderous, rending the world apart and leaving the future open for the new. Rudolph broke the kiss only when Mathias’s hands went around his waist, seemingly searching for every pore and hair.

Rudolph’s eyes raked over the man beneath him, savoring and learning what he once must have known every bit as well as his own body. Mathias was solid muscle, with not a soft edge to him.
Unlike
…then he made himself stop the thought. Ernst had no place here. Mathias’s stomach was flat and taut and, stretched out as he was, Rudolph could see the hints of a rib or two. His skin was paler than Rudolph had imagined it but matched his soft blond hair. A golden trail began at his navel and swept down to shiny curls guarding a cock that made Rudolph gasp with pleasure.

There was little enough time to acquaint himself with the sight. Mathias, surprising him again with his urgency, pulled him down into a deep kiss. His knee pushed Rudolph’s legs apart and rubbed painfully, beautifully, between his thighs. Cock grated against cock, and Rudolph realized he was going to come like a schoolboy if he didn’t slow it down.

“Bloody hell, Rudolph,” growled Mathias. “We’ve waited long enough, lost so much—what you do want, an engraved invitation?”

“Too…long…I’m sor—” Rudolph said.

“Don’t,” Mathias said. “Just
come.
”

He accompanied the deadly words with action. Hard, calloused fingers wrapped themselves around Rudolph’s already overheated cock, and Rudolph gave a muffled groan as his body obeyed without further thought. He felt his balls tighten, and rapture flooded through him as he pumped his seed into Mathias’s busy hand, each burst a bone-shuddering, embarrassing pleasure.

Mathias’s head lay heavy on his chest, and his fingers tickled the hairs on his stomach. For a long time Rudolph lay there, warm, sated and entirely content, vowing to himself that he would never again forget a single moment he spent with this man. He turned his head and spotted Mathias’s jacket within reach. He pulled it toward them and searched it clumsily. It took him a moment to undo the button inside and remove the picture but he managed it, and his head swam as he looked at the one thing he remembered, Mathias teasingly naked and frozen in the picture—not a patch on the original that was warm and vital and in his arms.

Mathias moved and as he did, his cock bumped against Rudolph’s leg, reminding him of how selfish a lover he’d been. Seeing the picture in Rudolph’s hand, Mathias smiled, kissed Rudolph’s nipple. “You never answered my question.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining.”

“You rather took my mind off the subject, Herr Rittmeister. You remember that portrait of me…does that mean your memory is returning?”