“A couple,” she said.
“Did you share a room? Did each of your servants have their own room?”
She didn’t answer.
“That’s what I thought.”
Zukunft turned green eyes on him. “This is where you share your terrible story of crushing poverty and how it shaped you? This is where you blame the past for everything you are today?”
Bedeckt bit down on a sharp reply. He thought back to the one room shack he shared with his parents. He remembered hiding under his blanket, watching his father beat his mother each night. He remembered the first time he tried to stop his father and the thrashing he received, his first scars. And then he grinned, remembering the day he realized he was bigger than the old man.
“That’s a scary smile,” Zukunft said.
“I’ve made my choices and here I am.”
“That’s true of all of us.”
Yes, but not everyone is willing to take responsibility for their choices. “I’m an old man with bad knees and a bad back.” He touched the bound wound at his side. It was deep. He’d seen enough gut wounds to know this wasn’t something he’d survive. “I’ve thrown away a lifetime of chances and opportunities to be a decent man. But you, you’re still young.”
“Even the young bear the scars of their crimes.”
“Ride away,” he said. “Turn your horse and go. Ride for wherever you left your family. Your sister, it was an accident. They’ll forgive you.”
“It’s not their forgiveness I need,” she said.
“She’s gone. Dead. What you see in the mirror, it’s just your imagination, your guilt. Go to your parents. They’ll forgive you and you’ll learn to forgive yourself.”
“No.”
Bedeckt growled in frustration. Why did he keep trying? He knew logic was of little use when confronting Geisteskranken.
“Why are you doing as she asks? The mirror ever lies. Every Mirrorist knows that.”
“She wants her vengeance and I’m going to give it to her. Whatever she wants me to suffer, I shall suffer.” Zukunft glanced at him, eyes damp. “And she wants you to play some part in that. I think it’s because I…”
“You what?”
Zukunft shrugged. “Men are swine.”
Having rutted more than his share of whores, Bedeckt couldn’t argue. Even now, here he was using her to get what he wanted. She—or her imagined sister—would show him how to stop Morgen, how to undo the damage done in straying from his list. Thinking about it now, he wondered why he ever thought this would work.
“You plans are shite, old man,” he whispered, thinking of Stehlen. He could almost hear her voice. She’d laugh at him. Mock his stupid list, ridicule his foolish quest for redemption. If you want to undo the damage you did to the boy, she’d say, then go kill the little bastard.
Beneath the leather straps and bar rags his gut felt hot and damp. Something leaked from under the bindings and trickled down his side. Each time he closed his eyes vertigo swept through him and he weaved drunkenly in the saddle.
“I think she wants me to understand betrayal,” said Zukunft, interrupting his thoughts.
Then your sister has chosen well.
They rode on in silence.
Ahead, Bedeckt recognized the hill and spotted the remains of the family’s ruined camp. The father, who’d been bound to a tree by his intestines, was gone, no doubt dragged away by the forest’s carrion creatures. He glanced at Zukunft. She rode, back stiff, eyes fixed forward.
“And who better to teach you of betrayal than me,” he said.
Zukunft didn’t look at him. She spoke, voice tight. “She showed me. You abandoned Wichtig when the Therianthropes attacked in Neidrig. You killed Stehlen. You left them both in the Afterdeath.”
It was all true. But why should Zukunft be disappointed in him if she knew his past? Disappointment implied expectations. Did she think he could save her, that he would?
That’s not why I’m here.
Bedeckt thought about the way she kept him off balance, one moment flirting and suggestive, the next distant and cold. What am I to her? Did she do it on purpose? Was it an attempt at manipulation, or was it unconscious, a defence of some kind?
You know what you are. You know what you look like. You’re a fat old man. You’re missing an ear and your nose is flatter than the southern grasslands. You’re a mess of scars.
The flirting, it had to be a distraction. She was young and beautiful and she knew it. She could have any man. If she was with him, it was because— It’s because she’s using you.
But what for? And what exactly did she expect?
She’s Geisteskranken, he reminded himself. She’s crazy, probably self-destructive. She’s plagued by guilt and wants punishment. She must think I will be instrumental in that punishment.
Zukunft stayed with him because she knew he’d betray her.