Fly Up into the Night Air (15 page)

Grief

The next morning, Harte invited Stilian for a walk. The day was overcast and dreary, but the snow had passed for the moment. The air smelled of wood smoke. They walked down towards the commons again.

"You recall Peli, our kidnapped witness?" said Harte.

"The one so certain you had betrayed him?"

"Aye, that one," said Harte. "The good Sister seems to think he needs a father. She nominates me."

Stilian spoke softly, his face grave. "He has none of his own?"

Harte waived an arm in a gesture that encompassed the town. "None present."

"How did he come to be here?"

"I do not know his story," said Harte. "But it is easy enough to guess."

Stilian's face revealed little. "Perhaps you should ask him."

"Does your father yet live?"

"Last I heard. We do not correspond. He's barely literate. There's a man at Blue House I would go to first, if I needed ... advice."

"Blue House?" said Harte. "The school for judges veritor? I have always wanted to see it. My legal training was at King's College. At the time, I wanted to travel as far away from home as I could. This man at Blue House, is he a judge veritor?"

"Yes." Stilian turned to look at Harte. "But his real calling is as a teacher. He's Dean of Blue House now. He's the one I mentioned when we spoke before. He was the first sensitive I ever met. I ran away from home, straight to Bugport to apply for schooling at Grayholme. Nearly the first thing Hugh said to me was that I had to get my father's permission to apply for Grayholme. I nearly cried on the spot." He smiled. "But he took me in and sent a rider to get my father's signature. That was when I met Kit."

"Kit?"

Stilian nodded. "My bonded."

"The one who died. How did he die?" The question was out before Harte could think to stop it.

But Stilian answered without hesitation. "Two years ago, in December, while I was studying at Blue House, there was an influenza epidemic at Grayholme. He was one of twelve who died. I did not receive the news--could not get there--until he was already dead." Stilian's stride become slightly ungainly, as if one of his legs was longer than the other.

"I'm sorry. I did not realize the loss was so recent." Harte's discomfort at this turn in the conversation made him frantic to change the subject. "Tell me about Blue House."

Stilian appeared not to hear. "I couldn't stay at Grayholme after that. I returned to Blue House, finished my studies, and took employment as a circuit rider for the shire. I can scarcely remember the first few months. I drank a lot." Stilian stopped moving entirely and clenched his fists at his sides. "I thought we would have a lifetime together. I spent the last four months of his life separated from him."

Harte stood frozen by his side, unable to think what to do. He wanted to say something, to touch Stilian. But he feared his touch might rip out the stitches holding the man together. Finally, he placed his hands around one of Stilian's fists and pried it open. Stilian, looking at his hand as if he didn't know whose it was, turned and walked away.

* * *

Harte came to Amalia, as he if he were child again, panicked at the sight of a bloody knee. "Mother, I opened a wound I did not know how to close. I pried into his personal life, and now I'm afraid he will not trust me again. How could I be so stupid?"

Amalia's struggled to anchor her own dinghy in the face of roaring emotions. "Harte, child, did you mean to hurt him?"

"No, I just wanted to know more about him."

"He will know that, Harte. Did you think that you could get close and not hurt him at least a little? When we come together, we bump and jostle one another."

She had not seen Harte so wild since he was a child. "I made him weep!"

Amalia felt a certain sympathy for the judge. "Perhaps he needed a good cry? Go to him. I do not believe he will reject you."

"Mother, I think I love him."

She felt her control cracking. "Do you think me a block of wood?"

"What?" Harte was oblivious to her desperation.

"Leave me alone. We will talk about this later. Go to him."

* * *

"Stilian?"

Stilian suppressed an impulse to shade his eyes. "Yes, Harte?"

"May I come in."

Stilian opened the door to his room and raised a hand. "On one condition."

Harte ran a hand through the mop on his head. "What?"

Stilian sought Harte's eyes. "Stay with me tonight. If you must take me apart, then you had better stay to put me back together." He stepped back from the doorway.

Harte eyes widened. Then he rushed in and stopped, uncertain. "I didn't mean to upset you. You frightened me, when you would not talk on the way back."

"I know." Stilian sat on the bed, his long limbs a disorganized jumble. "Come here." Harte joined Stilian on the bed. Stilian looked at Harte for a moment before speaking. He sighed. "I owe you an apology. You see, I'm not used to so much talk. With Kit, he was always in here with me." He touched his head. "And I was always there." He placed a finger on Harte's forehead. "With you, I must learn to talk, even when I'm so full the words choke me. Will you be patient with me?"

"I cannot be what Kit was to you. I cannot just
know
."

Stilian's stern visage softened. "I will be patient with you. Will you be patient with me?"

"I will try."

"Then, please hold me. I need to be held. No, let there be nothing but skin between us."

* * *

Dear Bonded,

Although you are gone from this world, it seems I still have something to ask of you. When you lived, our sharing was as natural and automatic as a child reaching for his mother's teat. Now, I find I must learn a new language of sharing. Do you resent my involvement with him? I cannot believe it. You never could hold pain in your heart. It always flew from you in a howling wind. So I write to you because I must share or die, and there are things I would share with no other.

He is so beautiful, Kit! Yesterday, he asked me about you, and I told him of your loss, and of my guilt. I frightened him, exposing too much too fast; my limbs felt disjointed with the strain of it. I forgot language and knew only pain for a time. But he would not give me up. He came to me wearing his fear like a heavy coat, and I took it off him.

His skin is pale, much lighter than that of my kin. I mapped the blue veins of his terrain through that thin cover and marveled at human vulnerability. How is it that we survive at all in the world? I shocked him when he found I wanted to touch all of him: the ticklish inside of his ears, his small hard nipples, his belly button, the small of his back, the back of his knees, the points of his hips, the curved tip of his cock, the soft skin of his scrotum, and his anus too. The small clothes of his shame were nothing to me.

I address this to you, Kit, although you no longer have an address, in hopes of release. When I burn it, it will fly up into the night air, as you flew up, leaving me here to go on.

Duties

Harte was amused to see Griff looking like the blacksmith's apprentice left behind to tend the fire on on a summer evening. "Who does Sister Grace think I am, that I have nothing better to do than run errands for her? Today, we are to interview the servants from Greer House. I must prepare, and here I am playing post rider!"

"Peace friend! We shall be ready in time. What does the sister want?"

"She said nothing but to deliver this note to you," said Griff. "As my duties permitted."

"Then why--"

"It was a euphemism. My first duty is
always
to her. Open the damn thing." Harte filched a butter knife from his untouched breakfast tray, and broke the wax seal. He read out loud.

Dear Mr. Walford,

I trust you are well and that your preparations for trial are progressing satisfactorily. I pray for your continued success every day. I am writing with regard to our temporary ward, Peli. The boy is troubled and will not tell me why. He does not seem unhappy here. Indeed, he works hard every day, even asking for additional tasks when I have left his basket empty. But his sleep is troubled. He cries out and wrestles with the bedding. In the morning, he looks as though he has fought with demons. I have tried to speak to him, but he has closed his mind to me. I ask, not for myself, but for the boy. Visit. Try to draw the boy out. I fear--I know not what.

May the Lord hold you and grant you his peace,

Sister Grace

"Did you know of this?" Harte asked Griff.

"No, she has been silent on the matter."

Harte cocked his head and looked at Griff. "I cannot imagine why she thinks I am the only one to help the boy."

"Can't you, Harte? She imagines the matter to be beyond her ken, both as a woman and as a religious. Why do you resist her? Why not talk to the boy?"

Harte went to the window, where he used a fingernail to scrape the frost from the rippled glass. "I feel myself unqualified to deal with the ... emotional disturbances of boys. Who was your confidant, when you lived with the sisters?"

"I told her all--all that I could share with anyone. It was easier than resisting her." Griff frowned. "I left when I could no longer do that."

Harte shook his head. "Perhaps my very secrets qualify me for this position."

Griff grunted. "I must go, if I'm to complete our preparations. We must snatch all four servants at once, if we are to speak to them without interference."

Harte turned back to consider the day's effort. "You confirmed that that Brin and his father will be absent?"

"Yes, they visit a farming interest today."

"Who is your informant?"

Griff smiled grimly. "The daughter. You were right."

"Hold that information close. It would cost her dear, if it become known that she helps us. I fear her father and brother treat her poorly enough now."

* * *

Harte was examining a volume of legal precedent in his father's library when his mother entered. She wore gardening gloves and carried one of the holly decorations left over from winter solstice party. "Harte, I would speak with you, if you have time."

Harte would not look at her. "I must prepare to argue this case, Mother."

"I would not leave our last conversation to hang in the air between us. There is something very important happening to you. You are my son. I want nothing between us."

The echo of Stilian's words was like discovering a rip in his britches. "What could be between us, mother? You seem to know me better than I do. You knew what I had to do before I did. Strange you never thought to speak to me about my ... needs before this. I might have had a less painful adolescence."

Amalia twisted the leaves in her hands. "You are angry with me."

"Perhaps a little. More, it is myself. What is that line?
I wear my body like a strangers coat. The shoulders are too tight, and it smells of places I've never been.
"

"Can you blame me for not wanting to acknowledge that which you yourself did not acknowledge? I am your mother! I did not want this for you. I thought it might just be a fashion, a face to present to the world, a youthful rebellion." The holly dropped from her hands. "I would have believed anything."

"It would have helped me to know that you knew."

"I didn't know. I suspected. I tried to give you room to find out for yourself." She bent to pick up the holly. "Do you remember that we used to have parties, parties like last week?"

"Yes. Father asked you to cut them back."

"I told you a lie. Your father would have had more parties. They are a stage for his productions. I stopped them for you, because you were expected to entertain the young ladies of our station, to dance, to flirt, to find a wife. I could not bear to see you going through the motions."

"Once again, I had no idea I was so transparent."

"You were a stag in pasture of nanny goats. You could not have been less interested." She smiled. "Or more beautiful in your distress."

Harte still couldn't meet her eyes. "You were very direct, the other night."

"Do you love him?"

"I don't--I think so."

She threw the holly on the table. "So then, what else was I to do? Run screaming from the room? I merely told you to do what you wanted to do. You are a man."

Harte rose and put the legal book back on the shelf. "It seems I must cut my own path." He forced a grin. "What if it had been some stable boy with hay in his hair?"

There were tears in Amalia's eyes, but she smiled. "I would have told your father to invest in horses."

* * *

It was not until the third interview that the break came. Griff asked the Greers' housekeeper about the clothes that Brin Greer wore when he went out with his friends on six December. The housekeeper shrugged.

"Just the usual long shirt, britches, and tunic. I don't remember which ones."

"What about his outerwear? Boots?"

"His heavy winter cloak, sure, and those awful hobnailed boots. They gouge the floors terribly! He
will
wear them indoors, despite my pleading."

"The cloak was his dark
fur-lined
one?" Griff asked.

"Oh no. That's the new one. He didn't buy that one until the week or so after the sixth. It would have been the heavy wool one, with the black and white striped, fir collar."

Griff became very still. Harte noted a crack in the plaster above the door. "You don't happen to know where he bought the new one?"

"Morgan's Haberdashery, I should think. That's where he buys most of his finery."

After the staff had been released to return to Greer House, Harte sent Griff to Morgan's to see if it was possible to confirm the purchase date of the new cloak. When Griff returned, they took up residence at the Ragged Crow.

"Ale, Griff?" Harte motioned for the barkeep.

"Aye." Griff waited for the ale, then blew a little foam from the top of his mug. "Mmm."

Harte found Griff's broad face irritatingly blank. "John is a good brew-master."

"You will not ask?"

"I cannot." Harte's chest was tight as a swollen barrel.

"Hmm." Griff took a swig of ale. "Very good brew. Suitable for a celebration." A small smile widened the corners of his mouth.

"They confirmed the date of the purchase?"

Griff nodded. "Aye."

"Oh, my friend. We have him now." Harte let out a whoop, which had the Ragged Crow's customers ready to break into startled flight. "It is enough for a magistrate."

"How soon can you schedule a hearing?"

"Tomorrow? A few days? It does not usually take long once the request is entered. I will take the request to the clerk of court tomorrow."

Griff drained half his mug. "Will you have time to visit Peli?"

"Has that woman been after you again?"

Griff produced a beery grin. "Her course is set."

Harte raised an eyebrow. "She flies into the wind," he returned.

Griff sipped his beer. "That's her habit."

"White sails bent to the wind ... "

"A habitual wind bag."

"Ha!" Harte hit the table, launching his untouched ale in a small fountain.