State of Grace (Resurrection) (17 page)

Roman
shoved a piece of bread at me, and, too hungry to care it was probably the most unappetising and stale hunk of cooked dough I had ever seen, I picked it up and went to take a bite. Viktor, sitting next to me, knocked my hands away from my mouth, the bread dropping back on to the none-too-clean table. He shook his head once and then I saw why. Greasy-cap had returned with a large copper tureen and a ladle and she began spooning out the contents onto the bread. The aroma was making me giddy with delight as the thick gravy spread over the bread revealing pieces of meat and chunks of vegetables. I could see slivers of onions and diced carrots, and slices of swede, and my mouth flooded with saliva. Greasy-cap screeched at a hapless boy as she bustled away, patting Roman on the shoulder as she waddled past, taking her tureen with her. The boy rushed over with three metal tankards filled with a pungent smelling brew, slapped them down, then scampered away.

Viktor nudged my arm. ‘Eat,’ he said, and handed me a small, sharp knife. I stared at it; it was shaped like a dagger, with
a light coloured handle that could have been made of bone. As I sat there wondering what I was supposed to do with it, Viktor took it from me, and, with the tiniest of sighs, cut a square of gravy-soaked bread from the main chunk, spearing it on the point of the small dagger and offered it to me. I snatched at it and stuffed it into my mouth.

‘Mmm, it’
s good,’ I said around the mouthful, chewing hard. It tasted a little like my mother’s beef casserole and the gravy had soaked into the bread, making it soft and pliable. I groaned in delight as the food hit my empty stomach.

I was halfway through my meal before
I surfaced enough to notice neither Roman nor Viktor were eating. Instead, they were alternating between pushing bits of casseroley bread in my direction (no wonder my portion didn’t appear to be getting any smaller) and feeding it surreptitiously to a rangy bitch with hopeful eyes and teats that suggested she had very young pups to feed.

‘What’s wrong with it?’ I demanded, suddenly suspicious. ‘Why aren’t you eating?’ I poked at a strip of meat with the point of the tiny dagger, wonderi
ng what it was I was putting in my mouth. Please don’t tell me if it’s something gross, I silently pleaded: I didn’t want to know. I took a sip from the tankard and almost gagged. What the hell was that? It tasted like gone-off beer, hoppy and vinegary at the same time, and it was chewy! Ug!

Roman’s lips twitched, but he snagged the sleeve of a flustered young woman. She scowled until she saw who it was, then she straightened up and pushed back her shoulders, making her breasts jut out, one hand resting on a cocked hip, the other
went to her head and she began twirling a strand of chestnut hair flirtatiously around a finger. Her lips parted and the tip of a pink tongue poked out.

‘My lord,’ she purred.

Lord? I stared at Roman, but his attention was elsewhere, so I turned to Viktor, hoping he would shed some light. ‘Roman is a lord?’ I hissed.

‘Shh. No.’

‘But she called him –’

‘Quiet’.

I shut up as I realised I could understand her. She was speaking the sort of strangled English Roman and Viktor spoke.

‘Ingrith.’ Roman’s voice was seductive and low, full of promise.

The woman giggled, fluttering her eyelashes at him. She glanced at Viktor, coyly, before leaning close to Roman’s ear and whispering. I strained to hear, but the noise in the kitchen was too loud. She straightened again, resting one hand on his shoulder. He repaid her by placing his palm on her buttock and smiling suggestively at her. She squealed and slapped his hand away, but I could tell it was pretence. So could Roman.

‘Later,’ he breathed. ‘I will come for you.’

She glanced around to check that no-one was taking any notice, and then blew him a kiss.

‘Wait,’ he said, as she took a step away. ‘Could you bring wine?’

‘Anything, my lord, for you.’ There was that purr again. I felt nauseated.

Skirts swishing as she went back to her work,
I watched her hips sway. So did Roman. Viktor appeared unmoved. A minute later she was back. She placed a cup in front of Roman and poured. When she finished Roman stared into her eyes and held her gaze and I heard her sharp intake of breath.

Disconcerted, I grabbed the cup and
as her attention shot to me, she noticed me for the first time. She obviously didn’t like what she saw.

‘Who is this?’ she spat. I peered from over the rim of the cup as I gulpe
d the wine. I was thirsty, and it tasted better than that other stuff, so I drank it all down, defiantly.

‘Peace, Ingrith. She is with me. Us,’ he rectified quickly, seeing the outraged expression on Ingrith’s face.

‘I don’t know her. Where did she come from? Who is she? What is she to you?’ the questions came thick and fast, all coated with a smear of dislike and more than a hint of jealousy.

‘She is no one,’ Roman said. ‘No one you need worry about. She is a relation of sorts. Her…
father asked me to… um… find a husband for her.’ He was clearly making this up as he went along. ‘A serf or a soldier,’ he added hastily at Ingrith’s frown. ‘She is of no interest to me.’

Ingrith’s stare
scoured me. ‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘Now I see her clearly, I do not think she would be.’

My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open at the insult. Viktor’s elbow found my ribs and I closed my mouth with an indignant snap of my teeth. He pushed his cup towards me and I picked it up, keeping my hands busy so I wouldn’t slap her. I took a sip, then another as I watched Roman and the woman flirt i
n front of me. I had no claim on him, or he on me, but that small fact did not stop me from being disappointed and even a little jealous. No, I amended, a lot jealous. I finished the wine and thumped the cup back down on the table.

‘Later,’ Roman repeated, and Ingrith fluttered at him again before sashaying away.

‘You take risks with that one,’ Viktor commented, brushing the last of his bread on to the floor. The dog snatched it up. Roman shrugged.

‘You should enthral
her,’ Viktor continued.

There was that word again. T
hey were talking so quietly I had to strain to hear them, even though Viktor was sitting right next to me, and Roman was opposite.

‘I have done – a little. She forgets about the blood.’

‘You need to make her forget about you. She is too possessive. She will cause trouble.’ Viktor sent a look my way.

‘Makes it more exciting.’

It was Roman’s turn to look at me.

‘Enthral
her tonight – totally,’ Viktor instructed. ‘We have enough excitement with this one.’ He hesitated, and then added gently, ‘It is boredom that gets us killed.’

‘I don’t forget,’ Roman replied, equally gently. ‘I am careful.’

They both looked at me again.

‘What
?’ I reached for Roman’s tankard and the wine it contained as he obviously wasn’t going to drink it. ‘Stop looking at me. I won’t tell anyone that you’re aliens. No one would believe me. I’d get myself locked up in a padded room. Mind you, the Roswell lot might give me the benefit of the doubt.’ I stifled a snigger. ‘Oops, I forgot: they haven’t been born yet.’ The snigger was threatening to become hysterics.

‘Alien
s.’ Roman rolled the word around in his mouth. ‘I do not recognise this… aliens.’

‘You. It’s you. And him.’ I pointed to Viktor, before lowering my voice t
o an exaggerated whisper. ‘You’re aliens. I know. I guessed your secret.’

Mr and Mr Blank Faces were back. Everything drained from them, all expression,
and all movement. The only clue to their living state was their eyes: black and commanding. I felt a compulsion to look at Viktor, but instead I deliberately stared at Roman: he didn’t seem to have such a pull on me. My fear rose sharply and my meal sat heavily in my stomach. I shouldn’t have let them know I knew, I thought frantically, unable to move. My legs refused to obey me. I could feel Viktor next to me, and although he didn’t touch me, or even speak, his will paralysed me. I shook, a minute trembling all over my body. Both men inhaled deeply and I knew they could smell my fear. My pulse throbbed behind my eyes and at my throat, and I swallowed convulsively. A trickle of sweat dribbled down my back, yet I felt cold. So very cold.

‘Our secret,’ Roman said, and I wasn’t sure whether I heard him with my
ears or in my mind, his voice was so low. I gulped. ‘Speak,’ he commanded. I clamped my mouth firmly shut. For a nano second Roman looked helpless, then the shutters on his face came back down and Viktor took over.

‘What d
o you know?’

I couldn’
t disobey the command in Viktor’s voice. I was compelled to tell him, hell. I
wanted
to tell him, to please him.

‘You are aliens,’ I breathed, my lips hardly moving.

‘Explain.’ His tone was cold and hard, full of ice and death.

‘You are beings from another planet.’ As the words left my mouth I knew they still didn’t understand. The compulsion to talk was overwhelming, so I carried on. ‘The stars, you are from the stars,’ I said.

‘We are what?’ Viktor’s hand closed around my jaw and he turned my head to force me to look at him.

‘You live on a star and have come to Earth, and are either pretending to be human or you have stol
en someone’s body.’ I know how crazy I sounded, even as the words left my mouth.

‘Does she think we are gods?’ Roman asked incredulously
. ‘Demons I can understand, but gods?’

‘No,’ Viktor hesitated. ‘She is telling the truth, as she believes it.’ He released me, both physically and mentally, and I slumped over the table, shaking.

‘Look.’ I felt the need to explain. ‘Where I come from, or should I say,
when,
we know some stars are like Earth and that one of those stars, at least, must have life, intelligent life.’ Ok, that was a major simplification, and not totally accurate, but I think I’d said enough for one night.

The Brothers Grimm shared a long look.

‘You think we are ‘aliens’,’ Viktor said eventually.

‘Well, yes. At first I thought you were vampires, but then you were walking about in the dayligh
t, so I knew you couldn’t be, any anyway, that’s supernatural stuff, and I don’t believe in all rubbish. And there was all that talk about ‘your kind’ and humans, so I guessed you – What?’ Oh crap. I’d said something to set them off again. My heart beat quickened and sweat trickled down my back once more. My eyes prickled with tears; I couldn’t keep doing this. I couldn’t, shouldn’t, feel this scared all the time.

Sensing my fear, Roman stood. He unwound a cord from his wrist and shook his shoulder
-length hair back before gathering in up with his hands and tying it loosely with the cord. I watched, fascinated. He was behaving like a normal human being. It was as if the last few minutes hadn’t taken place. I bit my lip, confused.

‘Come.’ He held out a hand and I took it hesitantly. His fingers were cool, very cool, in spite of the heat in the kitchen. They wrapped around mine and he pulled me to my feet. My legs were wobbly, but I stayed upright. Viktor was tight by my side. I couldn’t decide whether it was concern for me, or whether they were making sure I couldn’t run.