Perfect Shadows

chapter 7

Walsingham slowly climbed the stairs to his bed, shaking with fatigue and numb from the sleeplessness his impending Knighthood had visited upon him. Thank God that was over, and thank God that he and Audrey kept separate chambers; he could not face her malicious chatter tonight. He had given his body-servant leave to visit the kitchens and the man was probably roaring drunk somewhere by now. Well, he was tired enough to sleep in his clothes tonight, and not for the first time. He pushed open his chamber door and was surprised to find the room well lit already. It wasn’t Dermot, his valet, though, because no one came to assist him. His eyes swept the room and he started violently when he noticed the figure watching him from the shadows of his bed-curtains. His sudden fear and bewilderment pushed him back towards the door.

“Stay,” the stranger said, and the voice stopped Sir Thomas dead where he stood. He knew that voice. He lunged forward and swept the curtains aside, then stepped back in confusion as the candlelight fell full on the face of the man reclining insolently on the bed, propped up by pillows and resting his boots on the counterpane. It was not Kit, of course; Kit was dead. This was one of the foreign princes that Lord Haggard had brought with him to present at court, Kryštof, the younger of the two. Walsingham thought the striking young man had been staring at him earlier in the evening, now he was certain of it and found himself staring back like a fool. He hadn’t been so attracted to anyone since Kit—he wrenched his attention back to the man in front of him.

The prince was exotically dressed, completely in black, which accentuated the extreme pallor of his skin. He wore a black silk doublet appliquéd with black velvet arabesques, and full soft black velvet trousers that met knee-high black calfskin boots, in place of the exaggerated pansied slops, padded canions and hose, and the painted slippers that fashion demanded. Indeed, like the trousers, the boots were an obvious affectation, as no gentleman would wear them except when riding, preferring to show off his calf-muscles (padded, if necessary), and ankles. The shirt was an affectation too, and an expensive one, as not just the falling band, but the whole thing was made of the finest cobweb lawn, dyed to the deepest black, the most costly of colors. It was so sheer that one could see the well-formed muscles of his arms through the open sleeves of the doublet and, since he now had the doublet unfastened, his finely sculpted collar bones and an intoxicating expanse of upper chest. Suddenly Walsingham, in his sapphire velvets, paddings, and jewels felt vulgar and gaudy, tricked out like a harlot at Saint Audrey’s Fair.

The prince was smiling as if he could read thoughts, the plain black silk eye patch he wore giving his quizzical expression a sinister cast. “I am not going to hurt you,” he said, and the lazy, amused voice tugged at Walsingham’s memory again, but his eyes denied his panicked thoughts.

“What are you doing here?” he rasped out.” This is my private chamber.” The dark man nodded and patted the bed next to him. Walsingham found himself inching forward, only to be stopped dead again by the light falling on the man’s languid right hand as it rested on his raised knee. He had to get a closer look, he had to. He crossed the remaining distance in two steps and grasped the unresisting hand. He turned it to the light, and saw there what he feared to see, the odd T-shaped scar he knew so well. He crumpled on the bed. “No, no, it’s a trick, isn’t it? Who are you?” The last came out in a broken whisper.

“Why, Sir Thomas, you know right well who I am, you were there when we were presented at court. I am Prince Kryštof of Sybria, here with my older brother Prince Geofri.” His amiable voice hardened into tones as menacing as the whisper of a snake’s passage over a stone floor. “What you must needs concern yourself with, Tommy, is who I was.”

“Who were you then?” The words jerked out as though hooked, while the prince rubbed the scar thoughtfully with his left thumb.

“Do you remember when I got this? You had not married, then. We wandered the grounds of Scadbury like two lovers in Arcadia, and I carved your initials in the great beech out there. Do you remember how the dagger slipped?” He ran the tip of his forefinger down the line that formed the upright of the ‘T’. “You were very upset, but I told you I would gladly suffer more than that for you—”

“And you took the knife and slashed across the cut to carve a ‘T’ into your own flesh.” Walsingham’s voice, spent and colorless, rose to a note of hysteria. “No! You died! I know that you died—” he gabbled, his eyes flicking nervously to a small casket on a nearby table. His visitor raised an eyebrow and seemed to flow upright off the bed, a shadow crossing the room to open the small chest. Walsingham’s thoughts lurched again.

This man moved with the assurance and grace of an accomplished swordsman and duelist. Kit had never moved like that, could never move like that, and Kit had not been so tall, his face so angular nor his hair so dark. Walsingham watched, frozen, as the bloodstained handkerchief was lifted from its resting place, and then the man was back beside him, without seeming to have crossed the intervening space. Kryštof ’s face had gone even paler, except for two splotches of intense color splashing his flat cheekbones like the paint on one of Ralegh’s savages.

“Is this your idea of a memento, then,” he hissed, his single eye glittering. “Did he tell you how it was, Tommy? Did Frizer tell you what he did to me? Shall I tell you? Shall I tell you now?”

“He said it was quick, p-p-painless. He said that you—that K-kkit was drugged, and did not wake when—when—” Walsingham faltered, and fell silent before the younger man’s bitter laughter.

“When I was butchered? Oh aye, they drugged me, but I did wake, defenseless and beset by enemies, to hear them plotting my murder, and I knew I was powerless to stop them. Skeres held me down while Frizer gloated and showed me the dagger bought especially for my slaughter, then he stuffed my mouth with silk, with this, and he slid the dagger into my eye, slowly, so slowly that it seemed to last for hours. Try to imagine that, Tommy, the sheer agony, the helplessness, the despair.

“But even that was far from the worst, Tommy, far from it. Do you know what the worst of it was?” The voice was soft, softer than the defiled silk he held, and as terrifying, as implacable as death. “The worst thing was that I knew that you had sent him to murder me, that you had sent the one man who would most enjoy my vulnerability and suffering, to dispatch me like a dog for which you had no more use. That was the worst thing, Tommy.” Kryštof sat staring into space, his blind side towards Walsingham, twisting the handkerchief in his hands, and Sir Thomas realized that the whimpering sound he’d been hearing came from his own throat. He forced the back of his hand away from his mouth.

“You lie!” he said recklessly. “You cannot be Kit! Kit is dead, dead and buried. I do admit there is a resemblance, a slight one, but you’re too young—Kit was twenty-nine when he died, and you’re no more than five and twenty. Kit was, Kit was a scholar, and you cannot even read!” He hurled the last words with a scorn he hoped would cover the greensickness he felt. The handsome, maimed face turned towards him, the lips curled in a wry smile that Walsingham knew only too well, and he understood that, no matter how loudly he protested, his belief was written on his face.

“That is true, I cannot read,” Kryštof paused and held up the fingers of his left hand, unstained by ink for the first time in their acquaintance, “or write, Tom. That, too, was taken from me.” The long fingers caressed the patch he wore, then reached for Walsingham’s hand. He tried to jerk away but the grip on his wrist was steel. “That’s a fine jest, is it not? The one thing that made my life worth living . . . what makes your life worth living these days, Tommy? What could I possibly take from you in return?”

Walsingham whimpered again, and drove the words out through his closing throat. “Are you going to k-k-kill me,” he quavered.

“Why do you ask me that? Do you feel you deserve no less?” his companion said, grinning humorlessly. He leaned back on the pillows, pulling his unwilling victim with him, first stroking his hand, then forcibly pulling the rings from the puffy fingers. “You have let yourself go to seed since you’ve wed, Tom,” he said, tossing the rings to the floor. “I’ve thought about killing you, of course. I killed Skeres, you know,” he added conversationally, as he loosened and cast aside Walsingham’s ruff and started on the doublet and shirt. “I lured him into an alley by playing drunk and flashing my purse, then, when he followed, I cut his throat and told him why as he bled to death. I enjoyed that. But you, no, you I will have to think about.” Walsingham shuddered, but the relentless voice went on.

“Do you remember how you used to visit Bedlam and prod at the lunatics with your sword? It could be you chained there in your own filth for the gallants to jape and jab at, remember, if you try to tell anyone what has passed here tonight. But now, come here, my not-so-pretty Tom, come to me.” Walsingham felt the hand tangle in his hair, wrenching his face up, and he struggled to free himself, tears blinding him and that hateful voice filling his ears. “You used to like to play at rape, Tommy, making believe that I was forcing you . . . is it too real now? I could force you, you know, but I won’t, or at least, no more than this. . . .” and those cruel lips pressed against his, the tongue pushing into his mouth. He felt the desire kindling in his groin, and he knew that he wanted to be forced, wanted this man to master him, to make him submit to his demands. Then the cool lips moved to his neck, he felt sharp teeth piercing his throat, and he lost himself in a welling sea of pleasure.

The next morning he woke alone, lying across his bed fully clothed, his velvets ruined and reeking from his body’s emissions. He would have thought the previous night’s encounter but a dream were it not for the rings scattered among the rushes on the floor, and the handkerchief missing from the casket on the table.