The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (50 page)

The third time, he read it aloud.

THERON WAS ON THE HILL, IN THE RANDALLS’ GILDED drawing room. He had brought Genevieve a book of colored prints of flowers, since she had said that she liked gardens. Also a book of poetry, since she’d asked him about some he’d quoted to her in a letter. She’d had the ring he’d given her sized to fit her hand. It was one of the Tremontaine rubies, and looked a bit garish on her because her bones were so small and red was not really her color. But it was important that she wear it throughout the engagement. He might, perhaps, have chosen more thoughtfully, but he’d been raised with tales of the ducal family rubies and they meant something to him.

Lady Randall had sent Genevieve to fetch an embroidered cushion that she was almost certain depicted the same flower as one in the book (though Theron knew Genevieve well enough by now to tell that, despite her docile acquiescence, she was sure it did not); meanwhile Lady Randall was discussing the benefits to one’s health of drinking vinegar, something he had often heard his mother deride as a fad of the overfed rich. He was being charming and agreeing with her, because he’d found he had no choice—and anyway, what did it matter? It was almost funny. Genevieve brought the pillow, but it was nothing like, and her mother sent her back across the room to look again.

Then Theron smelled green leaves and running water, although the windows were closed and the Randalls’ house far from the river. The scent was so strong, he lifted his head and gave a small cry.

The next thing he knew, he had fallen to his knees.

“My dear, what is it?” Lady Randall stood over him, trying to reach beyond her corsets to help him to his feet. Theron’s body felt heavy; his sex was a weight between his legs. For once, he had no words to answer. Lady Genevieve hurried to his side in a rustle of skirts.

“No!” he cried hoarsely, arm upraised to fend her off. “Don’t—”

The girl’s scent filled his nostrils. He tried to stumble to his feet, but his hands still sought the safety of the floor. Her flurried petticoats were attacking him with sharp rustling sounds like something coming at him through the underbrush. The scent of woman overpowered him. He wanted to run toward the scent, but away from the sounds.

He flung up his head and found his balance. “I must go,” he gasped. “Please, let me go—”

They were speaking, but he could not understand them. He ran, kicking aside the presents he had brought her, to get to the window, the fresh air. He fumbled with the latch, got it open, and breathed deep. It was the way out. He took it: stumbling over the sill and out through the garden, head high, nostrils flared to catch the scent of danger, running.

THERON NEVER REALLY REMEMBERED FINDING HIS WAY home to Riverside. It took a long time; he slid from shadow to shadow, afraid to let himself be seen. He moved by scent, away from the gardens and perfume, past the treacherous shops and soapy houses and bitter bloody tanneries, to the clear swift scent of the river and the stone that spanned it, crossing the river to the streets his feet knew in the dark. Night had fallen. Riversiders slipped through the streets to do their arcane business in the city: thieves and cutpurses, whores and rogues of all stripes. They walked past his still and breathing form without even seeing him. At the small, private door of his house he paused, stroking the wood, smelling its oaken grain and the iron that bound it. He peeled his clothing off as he went up the stairs. His own odor of fear and exertion rose to his nostrils; he fell asleep wrapped in the scent and heat of his own body.

Theron woke just at dawn, alert to the singing of the birds. The sky was cool and gray. There was a thirst raging in him so fierce that he poured cold water into his washbasin and drank from it. He pulled on a loose robe and found pen and paper.

“Dear Lady Randall,” he wrote, “My behavior yesterday was inexcusable to anyone, but doubly so to one I esteem so highly. Nonetheless I pray you will excuse me more gracefully than I excused myself, and even find it in you to praise me for my swift withdrawal from your fair company, since I was overcome by a malady which, had I stayed, would have inconvenienced everyone.” He smiled; he wasn’t a rhetorician for nothing. Rereading his letter, he found that he barely recognized the hand. The letters were awkward, ill-shaped. Frowning, Theron rang for Terence. He was famished; he’d had no supper the night before.

“Breakfast,” Theron commanded. “Whatever there is, but quickly.”

He went back to his letter, a fresh sheet of paper, forming the letters carefully like a penman’s exercise: hooks and pots and circles and swirls . . . and found that what he had made was a series of spirals, like a maze. He cast it into the embers; it was flaring brightly when Terence came in with a tray. “Sausages, my lord.” The smell filled the room like blood and death. Theron gagged, and reached his washbasin in time to vomit violently into it.

He dictated his note of apology to his mother’s secretary; in return, the Randalls sent him a basket of hothouse grapes, which he ate with gratitude. His mother took his pulse, and looked at his tongue and under his eyelids. His pulse, she said, was tumultuous. She did not generally believe in bleeding, but he was so hectic that she thought it might do good and help him back to an appetite. Theron wanted to tell her that he would eat as many fruits and salads as anyone cared to bring him, only meat and cheese revolted him; but he felt simultaneously agitated and listless, reluctant to speak. Sophia sent for her bowl and her lancet; they arrived on a tray, covered by a white napkin. “Hold out your arm, my love,” she said, and he did. The steel lifted, flashing bright and sharp, and he gave a full-throated scream that the whole house heard. Sophia stood very still. “Theron,” she said softly. He was pressed against the far wall, half twisted in a curtain.

“No,” he begged, “no, don’t cut me, no—”

She soothed him back to himself, and made him a very strong posset, and stood over him while he drank it all down and fell asleep. In his dreams, he was running, always running—and he woke with his muscles aching in unaccustomed places.

BASIL ST CLOUD UTTERED THE LAST OF THE HEAVY, edged words of the ancient spell and fell silent. The air rang around him, as if lightning had just struck nearby, and sparkling rainbows danced in his vision as the echo of his spell faded into the ancient walls.

He found he was standing in the middle of the floor with the Book in his hands. He did not remember rising from his desk. A trembling took his legs and hands, and he hastily sank onto the bed. He was not entirely sure, now, what he had done, or even if it had been entirely he who had done it. The power that had risen in him, had it been his or the Book’s, or even Guidry’s sleeping in those oddly supple pages until his desire woke it? He couldn’t think about it just now, with his head afire. Slowly he closed the Book. And then he slept.

The next day’s dawning found Basil St Cloud stretched fully dressed across his unmade bed. He woke with a burning thirst and a sense that the ground had been overnight cut from beneath his feet. He remembered that Theron had betrayed him. And he remembered that he had cast another spell on him.

The book lay by his hand. He opened it to
The Spelle of the
Tryal Royalle. By the whyche the True Kynge may be Knowne, or
Loose Hymself in the Wode.
He did not remember, now, exactly why he had chosen that spell, or what effect it could be expected to have. It was madness to have cast it. And what had he to show for it? Limbs as weak as damp cloth and a headache like the rumbling of carts and no proof that the spell had worked, or even the possibility of such proof. Unless Theron died, he thought dismally. Or somehow showed himself to be the king.

Whatever his spell-casting may or may not have done, whether he himself were mad or sane, certain things remained unchanged. Theron had abandoned him for the comforts of a noble marriage with his own kind. There was Roger Crabbe to face in a month’s time and all the Governors and Doctors of the University to persuade that magic was, or had been, real. And lectures to give and students to train in the pursuit of truth.

Slowly as an old man, Basil St Cloud rose and brushed down his clothes and rinsed his mouth with the rusty water from the yard pump and went out in search of breakfast.

GENEVIEVE RANDALL WROTE TO LORD THERON EVERY day, little bulletins about her new perroquet, or the sculpture-viewing party he had missed, or the plans for her wedding dress and her attendants. The world she inhabited seemed small and serene; a nice, safe place to be. When at last Theron felt himself well enough to go out, he dressed with care and set out for the Hill.

Riverside was alive with sharp-bladed sunlight and the buffeting scents of fresh air. Every flash of light caught his eye and made him jump: sun on a windowpane, the ornament on someone’s hat, even a speck of mica embedded in stone startled him as he went by. But he was determined to go on. When at last he achieved the Tremontaine stables across the Bridge, he sank into the recesses of his carriage with relief and kept the leather curtains down until they’d reached the Hill.

Lady Randall and her daughter were at home, as they usually were at this hour. Lady Randall, splendid in mole-colored satin, held out a plump hand to him. She smelled of some heavy, floral scent with civet in it. Teeth clenched against nausea, Theron touched her hand to his lips, then turned to Genevieve. There was a faint crease between her blue eyes; her rosy mouth was grave. She exclaimed over his pallor, wondered whether he was quite recovered.

Listening to the high, soft voices, Theron felt as if he’d entered a different world: the colors of their sitting room were so bright, so pure; the smells of dried roses and beeswax so unlike the wood smoke and spice of the Riverside house. They offered him chocolate to drink, but all he wanted was water.

“Such a temperate young man,” Lady Randall joked approvingly. “Or is it, my lord, that you’d prefer something stronger?”

Theron sipped the water gratefully. It tasted of metal, very different from the stone well at home. “No, thank you. This is very good.”

She rose, businesslike and cheerful. “If you are quite comfortable,” she said, “I’ve been meaning to have a word with the housekeeper. I’m sure Genevieve will be glad to entertain you.”

He had brought his betrothed a little token: a dove carved from tourmaline. It fit into the palm of his hand; he drew it from his bosom and held it out to Genevieve, to show her how soft it lay there. She made a pretty noise, jumping up in a rustle of taffeta, and bent over his hand to look more closely. He felt her breath on his upturned fingers. A wisp of her dark, feathery hair stroked his wrist. Theron gasped, and clenched his fingers on the bird. She laughed, and pulled at them with her own fluttery fingertips. He could taste the smell of her on his tongue, suffusing his mouth. His breath came in panting gulps, his body prickled with sweat, and he began to tremble with the strength of his desire. He knew it was not yet time to touch her, but he had forgotten exactly why.

“Show me the bird,” she laughed. “Theron, give it me!”

“I’ll show you,” he said hoarsely. “Give me your hand—” And he drew it down to his desire, and closed his eyes. She tugged against his grip, whimpering.

The door opened, and they sprang apart.

Lady Randall took in the sight of their faces and said, “Are you well, Lord Theron? You look quite flushed. Please, sit down. More water?” He heard the tone of her voice, like boiling sugar syrup, more than he understood the words. He put his nose in the glass of water, smelling it deeply to bring himself to coolness and stillness, and drank.

“Lord Theron brought me a bird, Mama,” said Genevieve, much too brightly.

“That was very kind of him. Not a live one, I hope!”

“No,” Theron said. “It’s made of stone.” Carefully he opened his hand. The carving was washed in sweat. He wiped it with his handkerchief, and put it on the table.

“What a sweet man you are,” said Lady Randall, “to come up here so soon after your illness with such a nice token. It’s what the poet says, isn’t it? ‘Two birds in one nest, is always the best.’ ” He forced his eyes away from the twin doves of her plump breasts, rising above her tight, brown bodice. “But I do think it is important for you not to tire yourself. Genevieve, have you thanked Lord Theron for his gift?”

She darted a glance at him, a flash of blue like a bird folding its wings. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I will cherish it.”

Theron’s carriage was sent for, and once again he drew the leather curtains so that he could have privacy for his needs. As the wheels jolted over the cobblestones of the city, he dreamed in a haze of woodland glades and soft-breasted birds and delicious, undying pleasure.

AS THE DOOR CLOSED ON LORD THERON, LADY Randall turned to her daughter, who was staring at the little dove with something like loathing. Lady Randall took a deep breath and began: “My love. Now that you’re betrothed . . .”

Genevieve began to weep in the overwrought, gusty way her mother particularly disliked. Lady Randall cast her eyes to heaven. “Genevieve! Stop that at once. It’s all very well to be sensitive and high-strung, but not if you’re going to carry on over a kiss like a serving-girl.”

“He didn’t kiss me,” Genevieve sobbed. “I wanted him to kiss me.”

“Well.” Extracting a lace handkerchief from her tight sleeve, Lady Randall gave it to her daughter, and silently cursed randy young bucks who couldn’t wait until the wedding feast was over before drinking the bridal cup. She had not planned to have this discussion for weeks yet. When Genevieve had reached the sniffling and mopping stage, Lady Randall said, “I won’t ask you what he did—you’re perfectly all right, after all, and you
are
betrothed. If he frightened you, I blame myself entirely for not having explained—certain things to you before now.”