“Unfortunately I do not have such luxury, friend. Enlighten me.”
“You first.”
I grunted and gave him a very brief summary of my reasons for being in the woods and our proposed destination. He listened carefully, weighing my words, then said simply, “I advise you all to turn around now.”
“Because…?”
He sighed. “There has—we are being followed.”
I laid a hand on his arm. “I know. It is only… one of my companions.”
We slowed, and as we waited, I pondered this rapidly approaching meeting. Aleksey and Etienne had never met. For one reason or another, I kept my life with the Mik’mac very separate from that with Aleksey. Just as, I suppose, he kept his activities in the colony separate from me—although, to be fair to him, he had invited me many times to join him on his visits, whereas I had never once extended that courtesy to him. But then I was the one who could live between the two ways of being. He was not.
He rode out of the softly falling snow and reined in Boudica. I could not help the stab of intense pleasure seeing him gave me. There had been a time, and not too long ago, when he had not been mine and seeing him thus would have sent my spirits plummeting into spirals of hopeless despair, both for being a man who thought such things about another man and because it seemed I would never do the very things I had been thinking of withthisman. We had been all confusion, all heartache and repressed desire. Now we understood each other very well. I knew him so well that I could not foresee this meeting going happily at all.
I swiftly made introductions. I could see his expression, his surprise. Of course, I had spoken of Etienne. Perhaps he had pictured a Latin scholar… a saintly Jesuit… a man of the Bible, studying his Greek long into the night with weak, rheumy eyes. Perhaps I had given that impression… inadvertently, of course. Upon reflection, I do not believe I had mentioned the chiseled cheekbones natural to Etienne’s race. I don’t think I’d told Aleksey that Etienne was six feet of lean brown skin and muscle without imperfection. I had twisted a tale of dusty priest’s robes, and not skin in softest buckskin and feathers. This was bad. I had lied about Etienne just as Aleksey had misrepresented me.
What was slightly worse, however, was that I had also given the impression to Etienne that Aleksey was… well… somewhat older than he clearly was. I think I might have mentioned he had once been thought dead, only to have been unexpectedly revived. Etienne had then naturally assumed he had been very old—near death. I had not corrected this impression, nor disabused him of the idea that I was this old king’s doctor, and thus when he approved of my caring for this elderly, deposed monarch, I had almost been able to picture this act of charity in my mind.
I wrinkled my nose and waited for the explosion.
Etienne nodded pleasantly at Aleksey, a small grin repressed as he walked his horse closer. “I hope this cold is not affecting your joints, Your Majesty.”
Aleksey’s brows rose. I was very glad, for once, for his natural politeness, because he could not help then saying, although with a puzzled tone, “No, I thank you, I am quite well.”
“Ah, good. And your bowels? I hear they have been the very devil for some years.”
“Er… I’m sorry, you are the priest—Etienne Membertou?”
“I never took Holy Orders, I am sorry to say. Poverty I embrace, but chastity held no appeal whatsoever.” My friend was being disingenuous here. I knew the real reasons he had not taken Holy Orders, and they had little to do with chastity—his, anyway. He had been very unfortunate with the mission he had been placed in as a child and had seen very ungodly behavior from some of the priests. Indeed, upon the scandal reaching the ears of the Holy Father in Rome, the school and the mission had been closed and all the priests recalled. By that time, however, many had wives and children in the local tribes, and they had not heeded their summons. They had just disappeared….
“So… Aleksey….”
Etienne stared openly at Aleksey for a moment more and then chuckled. “Ah, je vois. You are the tether. All is made clear to me at last.”
Aleksey held his gaze. “Tether? How interesting. Pray elucidate.”
This was getting worse by the minute.
Then Etienne smiled a broad, irresistible smile (well, I always found them irresistible; I’m not sure this one was having the same effect upon Aleksey) and gestured to himself: his clothes, his hair, his face. “Even God and his blessed Son could not keep me in the Old World. I always wondered what held Kinap Kenap tethered so. Now I know: the bonds of love.”
Aleksey glanced at me for a moment. I schooled my expression to one of careless indifference to his opinion, but I was fractionally too late, and he saw the truth of my thoughts. He smiled very privately and nudged Boudica toward me. I did not want him to presume upon our relationship and say something I would not want Etienne to hear, so interjected quickly, “Etienne has some information relevant to our journey.”
Aleksey made a polite gesture for Etienne to come between us as we slowly walked the horses forward. I had a feeling I would be seeing some other, less friendly gestures later.
“I was about to tell my friend that he should turn back from this journey, and I now advise you both to consider this.”
“Why, sir? What do you know?”
“I know nothing,mon petit roi, but the trees whisper their secrets to those who will listen.”
“Oh, for goodness sake….” Aleksey was about to wheel his horse away when Etienne caught the bridle.
“I have heard screaming in the night—a man devoid of all reason.” He crossed himself, and Aleksey copied this old, reassuring gesture without thinking. They actually had a lot in common, when I thought about it—besides their beauty. Both were unusually well educated for their time, both had traveled beyond one world, and both clearly enjoyed the telling and hearing of stories, although I doubt either would admit that this was what their faces betrayed now.
“Where have you heard this? At the abandoned colony? Have you actually been there and investigated?”
I chuckled privately at the thought of this for some reason.
