Muffled Drum (9 page)

Too impatient to wait for long, Rudolph spat on his fingers and slid them between Ernst’s arse cheeks. Ernst gave a whimper of pain—or pleasure, Rudolph hardly knew—and pushed back against Rudolph’s fingers, impaling himself before pulling forward, encouraging Rudolph to finger fuck him, which Rudolph was happy to do, briefly, until Ernst’s muscles relaxed enough. Then he put his cock in place and pushed forward, slipping easily into Ernst’s little hole.

Ernst had his head down on the pillow, his arse raised high in the air. The angle was just right. Rudolph paused as his length slid all the way home, then pushed even farther forward as if to push even more of himself inside, to share as much of himself with his grabby lover. He moved his hips sideways, rotating them, clenching his arse cheeks and appreciating every nuance of the full grip of Ernst against the base of his cock. He loved the feel of himself in a tight channel, and he paused a moment, fully sheathed, allowing his cock to twitch and throb in autonomous impatience as it begged for action. Ernst was groaning into the pillow, and Rudolph slid a hand around to take hold of Ernst’s hardness.

“
Ungh
…I missed you, Rudolph.” Ernst’s voice was muffled by the pillow.

Rudolph pumped Ernst’s cock, once, twice, then begun to thrust, slowly at first, letting the pressure spiral upward slowly and making the most of every change in sensation and tightness. He felt his balls tighten and closed his eyes as he sped up, pounding hard and harder into Ernst, forcing him so far forward that Ernst had to brace his hands against the bedstead to prevent himself being brained against the wood.

“Yes. Oh,
God, yes…
” And with a final thrust he buried himself deep in Ernst, as he came, hard and violently, each spurt a warm, wet pleasure, draining him of all energy.

Aware he’d left Ernst rather unattended to, he fell considerately sideways to avoid crushing his lover more than he already had and reached again for Ernst’s cock just as Ernst slid into his arms. Ernst’s cock was weeping and dark with frustration, and it took only a few hard strokes, each punctuated with Ernst’s most sublime and grateful cries of pleasure, before Ernst spilled his seed over Rudolph’s fingers. Ernst tipped his head up for a kiss before resting his head in a submissive and familiar way on Rudolph’s chest. Rudolph was aware of Ernst’s mouth on his nipple before finally dropping off to sleep.

When Rudolph woke, at first he had that same feeling of not knowing where he was, and he recognized it for what it was and found that entirely ironic.
How very stupid, that I can remember the panic of not knowing where I am, and yet can’t remember where I am.
There was a warm body pressed up against him, and that was familiar. Beautifully familiar. Without being able to see his lover, he could imagine every muscle on the man’s body, every saber scar and curling blond hair. He could even feel his gorgeous thick cock nudging hard and hopeful against the crease of his thigh. Of course.
Mathias.
He rolled over, the name
Mathias
on his lips, and stopped at the sight of the tousled dark hair on the pillow beside him.

“Oh, God!” he said out loud, pain searing through his head.

Ernst awoke and rolled over, his voice blurred with last night’s drink and sleep. “What is it?”

Nausea flooded through Rudolph, and he clambered out of bed and staggered to the window, throwing it open and gasping in the cool morning air. How could he have made such a mistake? How could he have imagined Mathias there, so exactly? It was so
real.
With his eyes closed, even now, his imagination and his stupid, damaged mind played tricks on him. He could see Mathias’s naked body, clearly in his mind. His broad shoulders, his solid waist, beautiful firm arse…He vomited out the window onto the balcony and clung to the windowsill, every muscle seeming to shake as cold sweat broke out on his forehead. When the nausea receded, he was aware of Ernst standing beside him.

Ernst took his arm and led him back to the bed. “I’d better get you a doctor,” he said, as he pulled the covers over Rudolph’s legs. “You should make yourself presentable.”

“I’m not being seen here,” Rudolph muttered. “I’m supposed to be at the Grand.” His throat felt raw from the bile. “This place probably reeks of what we’ve been doing.” He forced his mind away from the purely imaginary—and hugely arousing—vision of Mathias and literally fought with his mind, bringing to the surface the memory of Ernst as he fucked him. When he felt he had his thoughts under control, he told Ernst to get dressed. “I’m going to the townhouse.”

“I’ll come with you,” Ernst said.

“No.” Rudolph struggled into his drawers. He looked up to find Ernst’s face pale and with an all-too-familiar expression of hurt. “Oh, for God’s sake, Ernst. Don’t take it personally. I’ve been in town for one night. You know damned well I can’t move you into the townhouse.”

“No, I
don’t.
” The petulance in Ernst’s voice was something familiar, at least. Ernst dressed hurriedly and as Rudolph watched him, his desire ebbed away, which he found odd. “I never have. You take me out of the box when it’s convenient to do so. Then I’m shut away until you need me again.”

The argument was an old one, and not one Rudolph was going to rise to. He finished dressing before he replied. “Yes, I feel so sorry for you. Shut away like a monk in some of the best apartments money can buy, with a more-than-generous allowance coming in.”

“I’m glad you brought that up,” Ernst said, suddenly submissive once more. He approached and looked up at him through dark, thick lashes. “But your allowance stopped…”

“Stopped? How did that happen?” He stroked Ernst’s hair. It felt strange to his fingers, and yet not entirely unknown. Like a distant memory, and yet he’d not been more than a few weeks away.

“I don’t know. And I lied to you last night. My apartment isn’t being decorated. I lost it when the allowance stopped.”

“I don’t understand.” Rudolph couldn’t remember having any correspondence from his bank—if there was a problem, they would have written, but why would there be any problem? The account—strictly separate from anything Augusta would ever discover—had plenty of funds. But if they had written, of course he wouldn’t remember. Goertz had all the papers with him. “Why didn’t you write? Where are you staying?”

Ernst shrugged. “You’ve told me enough times how being distracted in war could kill you. So I didn’t bother you. I knew you’d be home eventually. As to where I’ve been staying…here and there. With friends. Wilhem Genz mostly, you know him. But…Rudolph.” Ernst smiled up at him with that melting, seductive smile that went straight to his groin. Ernst’s hand ghosted over Rudolph’s cock, raising warmth and a slight hardness. “Now you are back, can’t we forget an allowance? Can’t you just give me cash? For the rent, and things I need? I can get credit from most people, but I hated knowing that my bank knew where my money came from. I hated going in there, feeling that they all gossiped about me. About us. You know you hate it when people talk.”

Rudolph pulled Ernst close and crushed Ernst’s lips beneath his own. Ernst was almost entirely limp in his arms, and when he pulled away, Ernst’s eyes were closed and his mouth was set in a blissful smile.

“Parasite,” Rudolph said, lovingly. “Whatever you want, of course. As usual. Look in the saddlebag, there’s the last of my cash in there. It’ll have to do you until I get to the bank and take out some more. There’s quite a lot, and I know exactly how much, so don’t complain in a week, or even a month, that you need any more, you extravagant luxury.”

“Will you be all right without any?” Ernst said as he opened the bags and took out Rudolph’s cache.

“You know I always keep some at the house. Banks are for paper and transfers, as far as I’m concerned.”

“You’re too good to me.”

“I know that.” Rudolph stepped up behind Ernst and put his arms around him. Ernst suddenly felt too light, too feminine. Too small in his arms. “But then you earn it. Now bugger off. Drop me a note when you’ve found another apartment.”

“You won’t be free tonight?” There was an edge to Ernst’s voice, a hint of sulkiness.

“No. Let me get settled in, for God’s sake.” He kissed Ernst’s neck. “Now I’m on indefinite leave we have as much time as we like, but I need to do things.”

“Von Ratzlaff things.”

“Precisely.”

“But you’ll see a doctor?”

“I’ll see a doctor. Today, I promise it.” He slapped Ernst’s rump. Ernst gave a small squeal, grabbed his belongings and retired to the other bedroom.

Outside, Ernst felt rejuvenated, a huge sense of relief washing over him. What excellent timing! What a fortuitous accident! For Rudolph not to know he’d severed their association was almost too good to believe. If Ernst hadn’t been completely assured of Rudolph’s honesty, he might suspect him of having some ulterior motive, but there was no doubt he sincerely had forgotten the facts of their breakup.

Ernst knew he couldn’t live under these false pretences for long. Someone was bound to tell Rudolph the truth, but for now—particularly for today—Ernst was in profit from this serendipity. He made his way back to the apartment Pieter paid for.

After letting himself in, he looked around. Pieter had no taste, not in location or décor. He’d tried to put his current lover off renting these rooms but Pieter had been adamant that they were the best he could afford. It was probably true, but they were a shadow of the opulent high-ceilinged splendor he’d been used to when Rudolph paid his bills. To Ernst they seemed positively antediluvian. And he’d managed without a valet for far too long. Now he could afford one again. For now, at least.

I’ve been settling for second best.
He pulled open his wardrobe to choose something nice to wear for lunch and a touch of shopping.
Even those men I thought would be a decent replacement for Pieter are not the treasure Rudolph is. Rudolph’s given me more money in one morning than Pieter has given me in six months.
He paused, considering one jewel-colored cravat against the suit he’d laid out, and then another. Although he’d be very stupid to drop Pieter right now. He was away in the country, and he didn’t need to know about Rudolph.
I’ll take it one day at a time.
With a smug smile, he tucked the larger portion of the money away in his hidden panel by the fireplace and went to prepare a bath.

At lunch with Wilhem he found it difficult to look less than smug. Wilhem was full of surprise and bursting with questions. “I was dying to come closer but you looked very cozy, like you’d never been apart. My dear, how did it happen?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t go into much detail. A fall. In battle.”

“Von Ratzlaff fell from his horse?” Wilhem looked more amazed at that than at the news that Rudolph thought Ernst was still his devoted lover. “Good Lord. I think Seeger had a bet in the regimental book on that back in ’62. I don’t think anyone ever took him up on it.”

Ernst feigned boredom. “Horses. And dogs. In that respect, Wilhem, you are one step worse than Rudolph. He thinks more of those horses than he does of me, always has, just as you think more of…that.” He flipped a glove toward Regina, sitting on Wilhem’s lap and baring her brown, peg-like teeth at him. “Do you know he put his damned horses on the train instead of making the ghastly Goertz take them by road? How much did
that
cost, I ask you?”

“I rather think you’re more annoyed that the ghastly Goertz is not still on the road with his horses, because if he was, that would give you another week to get your hooks back into von Ratzlaff. It’ll never work. He’s bound to find out. What makes you think you’re going to get away with it for any length of time? His regiment might be still in the wilds of Bohemia, or worse by now for all I know, but he does have some friends still in Berlin.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I have no doubt of it, my dear.” Wilhem stroked Regina’s head. “Perhaps by the time he finds out he’s given you the chuck, he’ll find you indispensable again. Perhaps you’ll be a little nicer to him—and only him—this time around.”

Ernst glared at Wilhem but it was only meant in jest. Wilhem was one man who could say just about anything to him.

“What are you going to do about poor Pieter? He’ll be crushed. His cock is so devoted to you.”

“What I’m going to do about poor Pieter is nothing. Why should I? I’m not going to tell him.”

Wilhem raised one darkly amused eyebrow. “Oh, Ernst, I would die of boredom in Berlin without you. Do be careful, won’t you? Last time I had two fillies on my rod—” he gave a rueful grin as Ernst rolled his eyes, “—they both escaped the hook and swam away.”

“You didn’t want either of them in your keep net, though, that’s the difference,” Ernst said. “You’d rather be dipping your rod into the water until you’re too old to cast your line. It’s a little different for me. I need security, you’ve got it.”

“I wish I could help you, my dear,” Wilhem said.

Ernst gave a moue of agreement. “You don’t know how much I wish the same thing.”

It felt so good to enter his townhouse. It was just about the first thing that felt comfortable, entirely familiar and
safe.
Rudolph had inherited the house along with the estate, and his father had changed almost nothing from
his
father’s day, and Rudolph had continued in that tradition. As he moved through the house, it was the very immutability of the decoration that made him really feel grounded for the first time since waking up after the battle of Gitschin.

“It is good to see you sir,” his butler said, leading the way up the stairs. “I think you’ll find everything to your satisfaction. We had your telegram, of course. I will contact the station and find out when the horses will arrive.”

“Thank you, Hiller.”

“I do hope nothing has happened to Herr Goertz?” He made it sound like he sincerely hoped it had, and Rudolph was glad Hiller could not see him smile. There was no love lost between Hiller and Goertz.

“He’s fine. Came through without a scratch.”

“That’s good news, sir.” Again he couldn’t have made it sound more of an opposite effect unless he’d actually said
That’s a shame, sir.
“We won’t have any difficulty stabling the two extra horses. Will Herr Hofmann be keeping them here long?” He stopped and opened Rudolph’s bedroom door. “I only ask as it might be a little snug in the mews if the carriage horses return from the country.”

Rudolph stopped in the doorway and stared at the butler for a moment. “That’s not likely, is it? Frau von Ratzlaff isn’t coming to Berlin?”

“Not that she has made me aware of, sir,” Hiller said.

“Well, we’ll worry about that when and if it happens. And Herr Hofmann can keep his horses here as long as he likes.”

“Of course, sir. I’ll let Herr Goertz know when he arrives.”

Hiller took Rudolph’s jacket and patted the pockets, as Rudolph had seen him do a hundred times, checking for items that needed to stay with their master. He pulled out a letter and held it out to Rudolph. It was the letter from the regimental quack.

“God, I’d forgotten about that. Yes, have it sent around to Dr. Ludeke, and tell him he’ll need to come here. Buggered if I’m traipsing over to his fancy offices just to give him more money to decorate them.”

“Right away, sir. Should the boy wait for an answer?”

“Yes. Then have him go to…” He frowned. For a panicked moment he couldn’t remember the name of the hotel Mathias had told him he was at. Wieher? Went? “No, don’t worry. I’ll have letters ready for delivery in about an hour.”
I damn well hope I can remember Mathias’s hotel, although at least I know he’ll get in touch with me, if only for the horses’ sake.

“Very good, sir.”

Rudolph had a quick wash and changed his clothes. Then he went down to the study and scribbled a note for Mathias. Damn it, he wouldn’t let Mathias just slip away from him, not after everything he’d done, accompanying him on the road, particularly. Once Mathias set off to God knows where—the man was maddeningly vague about where he planned to go and what he planned to do now he was free of the army—it would be impossible to stay in touch.
And damn it, I want to.
If only things weren’t so complicated! Why wouldn’t he just stay in Berlin for a while?
Wilka’s!
The name of the hotel came to him like a burst of light from behind the clouds, boosting his confidence that his memory wasn’t so damned bad after all.

He contemplated writing to his wife, but he’d already told her everything he knew about his malady. He’d wait until he had something further to impart before worrying her unnecessarily. He’d not wanted her informed at all—her heart being as weak as it was—but his views had been overridden in that regard, and it seemed she was none the worse for the worry.

He couldn’t settle until an answer came from Mathias, and when it did, the contents didn’t please him at all. Mathias was as cool and distant in correspondence as he’d been at the beginning of their ride from Gitschin. Perfectly formal and correct,
damn the man.
But he stated that he couldn’t dine with Rudolph, as he had business elsewhere early the next morning, so would only call briefly to take the horses off his hands.

The Devil you will.

“Sir,” Hiller said. Rudolph had forgotten the man was standing there.

“What is it, Hiller?”

“The doctor said he’ll see you this afternoon. He’ll be calling at two.”

Rudolph nodded, stuffed the letter from Mathias into the desk and stormed upstairs, feeling as though his life was unraveling faster than he could gather it up.

Dr. Ludeke was the best money could buy. It was generally accepted that this was the case, although Rudolph had no more confidence in the most expensive doctor in Berlin than he had in the field medic. Dr. Ludeke examined him from head to toe, and quite unnecessarily intimately, as far as Rudolph was concerned.

“Blast it,” Rudolph complained, as the man groped at his testicles and told him to bear down, “is this entirely necessary? The bloody damage is to my head, man!”

“Herr von Ratzlaff,” the doctor said, straightening and turning to wash his hands in the basin waiting for him, “I do not tell you how to ride a horse, or how to command or slaughter men. Kindly allow me the same courtesy of my profession. Pull up your trousers and lie on the bed, please. Soldiers come home with all sorts of diseases, if you must know—I have a responsibility to your wife, too, if you’d picked up something more than battlefield lice.”

“Damn it, you know me better than that, Fritz.”

“Dr. Ludeke, please, when I’m working.”

Rudolph sighed. It seemed he was bullied by everyone in his life these days.

Ludeke spent some time examining the side of his head and asked him seemingly endless questions about what he remembered, how the incident happened, and about his headaches. He preached to him about his sex life and suggested that there were new treatments for his “problem,” new men with new research. Apparently some quack Ludeke knew, some idiot called Ulrichs, had coined a word for men like him:
homosexual.
Rudolph quite liked the word, it was better than many he’d been called, but he put a stop to any idea of Ludeke’s that he was going to put himself up as some kind of experiment for mad doctors to cure.

“If you insist,” Dr. Ludeke said, with a coolness in his voice. “And you say you are experiencing disorientation on a regular basis? How often? And what form does it take?”

“I’m having hallucinations.”

“Let me be the judge of that, please. Clarify.”

Rudolph huffed loudly through his nose at the intrusion. It was bad enough having the man’s impartial hands on his genitals without him grubbing around inside his sex life too. It was just as well they’d known each other since boys—although in some respects it made it worse, too, as if Fritz considered Rudolph his own personal experiment. Well, now he’d really got something to experiment with.

“I was with…someone, and I saw someone else. And then when I was with the someone else, I saw the someone.” Rudolph didn’t look at Fritz as he said this, knowing how unutterably idiotic he sounded.

However, Fritz didn’t bat an eyelash and made notes on a small pad. “When you say you saw someone, was it as an apparition? The second person was in the room with the two of you? In both cases?”

“I’m not seeing ghosts,” Rudolph growled. “I mean that the person I was with, turned
into
—or seemed to turn into—someone else. And don’t go saying it was wishful thinking, Fritz, you arse, because it wasn’t that.”

For once Fritz didn’t reprimand him but continued to make notes. “Are you having sexual relations with both of these…persons?”

“No. Or at least—” That ghastly feeling of something moving in his head happened again, and he clutched his head as he fought with the headache that hit him.

“Pain?” Ludeke moved to his bag, took out some powder and dropped it into a glass of water, then stirred it with a glass rod. “At least we can treat that.”

“Thank you.” Rudolph drained the opaque water gratefully.

“Perhaps we should leave it there for today.”

“No, you asked me something, and something happened, a flash of memory, I’m sure of it.”

“Rudolph,” Ludeke warned. “Don’t go acting like you know what you’re talking about. You can’t go at this the way you always go at things. Like riding your father’s best horse before your aunt allowed you to, or doing circus tricks for your regiment for fun, or leaping the Kobold Brook when people said it couldn’t be done. This is serious. You push this, and for all anyone knows you could lose more than just a year or so.”

“I know, I know.”

“You obviously don’t,” Fritz said. “Or you wouldn’t have ridden—ridden, for God’s sake!—from Gitschin instead of taking the time to be safe. For God’s sake, for once in your life, take my advice. You don’t take my guidance over your…entanglements, and I don’t have to watch you make a fool of yourself in that respect, but if you lose your mind, I lose
you.
Not only do I have to watch, but I’d feel it was partly my fault. I’m trying to be dispassionate about this, Rudolph, but you make it very hard.”

Rudolph gave a wry grin and opened his mouth, but Fritz forestalled him. “And you if say what I think you’re going to say, I’ll put something more than headache powder in your next glass.”

Rudolph shut his mouth.

“Now, answer the question, are you having sexual relations with both of these men?”

“No. Just one of them.”

“And he seemed to turn into this other man?”

“Yes. It was more than that, though. I turned over, and I expected to
see
this other man—it was so real. I’ve never seen him naked and yet my mind supplied the details. I had my back to him, but I knew when I turned around exactly what I would see, how he would look, feel, smell…everything.”

“Hmm. Rudolph, I take it you’re attracted to this second man?”

Rudolph hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes.”

“And I take it he’s shown similar—proclivities? An interest in you?”

“Yes, damn it, but it’s not just wishful thinking! How could I know how he tastes? How he smells? On that level?”

“Smell is a powerful memory stimulant…”

“But I have no memories of him in that regard! Other than a very brief tussle which I broke off—”

“Rudolph. Sit still and calm down. You’ve lost two years of your life. How can you trust anything you think you don’t know? How
can you be sure
you and this man haven’t been lovers?”

Rudolph gawped at Fritz. “I…I…” He wanted to say a lot more, but his head felt heavy as lead and he could hardly keep his eyelids open.

Fritz raised an eyebrow. “That’s shut you up. I think that’s quite enough shocks to your system for one day. That powder has a mild sedative in it, and you’ll be asleep in a minute or two. I’ll tell Hiller to make sure you aren’t disturbed, and I’ll let him know when I’m coming again. In the meantime, try not to think so much. It’s generally the thing you’re best at.”

The room spun around him. “Mild sedative, my arse…” he said, before everything went dark.

The road wound through some of the deepest and lushest forests Mathias had ever seen, and still he hadn’t come to the house. The gatekeeper had warned him it was “a fair ride,” but nothing had really prepared him for the distance between gate and manor house. It was an eerie forest, too, as full of menace as any forested place he’d seen on campaign.
Or perhaps that’s my imagination
.

Being here in the Grunewald Forest, one could really see where some of the folk stories had come from—the Erlking and the Nix must surely have been first imagined in places like these, stalking travelers behind the huge pines and firs dripping with moss, or transforming from man to serpent and then vanishing into a woodland lake. As if picking up on Mathias’s imaginings, Danzig snorted, as if he saw kobolds in every rotted tree stump.

Eventually, the road turned sharply, running alongside a dark green lake with hills beyond. When it turned again, Mathias was quite taken by surprise at the house rising up before him. Solid and white, it sat squarely in the park, a tower at each end, all topped with a beautiful blue-green copper roof. Danzig’s ears pricked forward as he spotted the horses in the paddocks beside the stables. The horses, obviously as excited to see him as he was to see them, galloped up and down beside the railing fence, giving out little whinnies of excitement.

“Mares, are they, boy?” Mathias said with a smile. “You don’t know how lucky you are. Perhaps women
are
easier to understand.” He sat easily on the stallion as he started to high-step, almost on the spot. “That’s right, you show them what they’re missing.”

He allowed Danzig to flirt for a little longer as they bounced sideways, half-passing along the perimeter of the manicured paddocks, then he turned the great animal toward the imposing front of the house. Danzig snorted his disapproval and gave a half-hearted buck, but he knew his master too well to complain further.

As Matthias neared the house, he slowed Danzig to a walk and looked up at the facade. Mathias had always known that Rudolph was wealthy, generations-wealthy, despite having no title, but this house seemed, to Mathias at any rate, to be the residence of a count at the very least. He felt entirely humbled that, even if only for a little while, Rudolph had been prepared to leave all this behind and go into relative ignominy with his male lover.

Had Rudolph had some other plan in mind? Had he tired of Ernst, or was he using Mathias, planning to teach Ernst some sort of lesson, bringing him to heel? Despite being entirely convinced of Rudolph’s sincerity at the time they had made their plans, Mathias couldn’t help but doubt that sincerity now. Perhaps Rudolph made a habit of running away with his male consorts. Treating them to a tour of European capitals, having a hedonistic holiday before breaking it off and returning to Berlin, his family commitments—and Ernst. It seemed at odds with everything Mathias knew about Rudolph, and had he not heard from Rudolph’s own mouth that he’d been keeping two lovers on the go at the same time, he wouldn’t have believed it.