“Ah, no. I cannot go to that place. The… water… you understand?” Aleksey clearly did not, and Etienne added confidentially, “The falls are not for everyone,mon petit. I need to stay on this side of the world of dreams.”
“Huh?”
I chuckled again and foresaw this conversation taking us longer than in truth we had. “Etienne, where did you hear the man, and what did he say? Speak plain, for we must return to our companions.”
“I heard him last night and the night before that, so he appears to be traveling slowly on foot. He is keeping to the darkness of the night. I did not approach him, but I listened for some time. He is quite mad,mon ami, and raving of a beast that came from the falls and devoured them. He said the devil walks among us.”
I heard Aleksey’s sharp intake of breath. “We must find this man and question him ourselves. Nikolai?”
I nodded. I was thinking about this beast and wondering if he liked children.
Chapter Eight
ETIENNELEFTus to pursue his own journey.
We rejoined the trail ahead of our companions.
After a mile or so of silence, I coughed lightly. “Do you think we should tell Major Parkinson and the others of this man?”
“I do not know. I am not thinking about that yet. I am still thinking of something else.”
“Oh.”
I had about another mile of peace before I got hit with a broadside. “All this time you’ve made me feel guilty for having perhaps given the impression that you were just an old doctor and made me swear things to you and apologize and… well, do other things to show how sorry I am… and all this time it should have beenyouwho—”
“Etienne is just a fr—”
“If that is true, then why did you tell me he was an old Jesuit?” He was exaggerating slightly here, you understand. If Ihadsaid this, it was by implication only.
I didn’t like being put on the back foot, so rejoined, “You did not tell me about the Christmas ball or playingpulu. Why did you not invite me to come and play? Hey, Aleksey? Are you bored with me and prefer your pretty young soldiers to play with?”
“You would not play such a childish game if I did invite you!” He was right, I would not, but I had now successfully diverted him from his accusations about Etienne. “And you are so stupid! I would have danced with youngwomenat the ball—as you would have been required to! We cannot dance with each other, can we?”
“Perhaps we could initiate dancing lessons in Cockston.”
“No! I am not going to be distracted by your ridiculous humor. Why did you lie about Etienne? He is… he is…. He is not old, and he is… not the sort of person I would want you to associate with.”
“What? Because he is so beautiful?”
“Oh, you are so stupid. He has other temptations for you besides his beauty.”
I was silent for a while. “You are jealous?”
“No! Of course not! Yes! What did you think? Are you really such a simpleton? Oh, Nikolai, every time I return to our cabin I wonder, just for a moment, if I will find you there—if you have not finally decided that beingtetheredto me is too restrictive for you and that you have flown back to your own people.”
I stopped Boudica with a hand upon her rein, but I did not want the others to catch us up, so then immediately walked on, but keeping Aleksey’s horse close. In all my fear of losing him—after all, who can keep sunlight and air, these necessities of life, entirely to himself?—it had not occurred to me that he might feel the same. That he feared losing me. Did he not understand that I only existed now through him? Clearly he did not. But then had I not been at some pains to hide this dependence from him for fear that he found weakness in such need?
He nodded sadly as if I’d articulated these thoughts and added, “If I do tether you, and I cannot say I particularly like that term, then I am very well aware what binds you—and it is not mycompany, is it, Niko? Sometimes, worse than fearing you will not be there when I return, I fear that on my journey home I will be suddenly struck down by some disfiguring disease, or become burnt upon my face, which is more likely, obviously, as people do not suddenly… anyway, that is what I think as I am riding: what will he say now? Will he gaze upon my ruined features and find anything he wants now? And then I answer myself: no, of course he—”
“So you babble just as much to yourself in imaginary conversations as you do to me in real ones?”
He smiled sadly. “You do not deny what I say, though, babble or not.”
I pursed my lips. “Talking is not my way, Aleksey. You know this. You knew this when we met.”
“You murmur endearments to Xavier all the time, telling him what a fine horse he is and how brave and beautiful. To me you once said that if I wanted to hear an endearment I should learn to bend over faster.”
“Well, there you go. What more proof of my devotion do you need?”
