The Fall of The Kings (Riverside) (21 page)

“I feel better,” Theron said. “The fever’s broken.”

Basil seized the cup from him, drained it, then wrestled him down, entering his mouth with kisses until he felt his body’s yielding. When Theron lay warm and satisfied across him, he breathed in their mingled scent and felt perfectly happy. Basil could hear the smile in Theron’s voice as he said, “I wish I spoke a hundred languages, to tell you how much I love you.”

The pleasure of the moment snapped. “Don’t say that. Don’t say you love me.”

“Why not?”

“Because that is something that should not be said between your father’s son and mine.”

“God!” Theron swore, and flopped back on the pillows. “Enough about my father! Not from you, too; I can’t bear it. My mother thinks he was a saint; my duchess cousin thinks he was a satyr. I am what I am—no more, no less—and I would very much appreciate it if you could all stop measuring me against dead dukes I’ve never even met!”

Basil thought about trying to explain to Theron how much what he was—noble, bright, thoughtlessly endowed with all the riches man and nature could rain on him—made the idea of love between them as impossible as roses at MidWinter. It would be as useless as it was cruel, he decided. Theron did not understand who he truly was.

“I’ve offended you,” Basil said gently. “I’m sorry.”

Theron was silent long enough for Basil to wonder whether Theron’s love had not survived the declaration. Then Theron said, “When you ask a girl to dance three times at a single ball, it means you’re serious about her. It’s the same with this: you can’t make love with someone three times and not fall in love.”

Basil shifted uncomfortably. “You make it sound like a magic spell: three times and you’re caught.”

“It would depend on the timing, I suppose.” His lover gave the question his full attention. “Three times in one year would be safe, but three times in a week, or even a month, and you can’t help falling in love.”

Basil said, “You’re confusing the body with the heart.”

“People do, you know.” Theron raised himself on one elbow. “But I’m willing to entertain the notion that you have them neatly divided. Maybe for you it takes something more direct.” His fingers made an elaborate pass over Basil’s face.

Before he could complete it, Basil caught his wrist and pulled him down into his arms. “Don’t, Theron. It’s not something to joke about.”

“Are you going to cry me to the Council for practicing magic? Even though my spells don’t work?”

“You have no need of spells.”

“It’s you who are magic, Basil, you who are the wizard. Who could resist the enchantment of your curling hair, your neck, your broad chest and narrow hips, your—”

“Stop!” Basil was laughing as Theron descended on each admired feature, while he struggled to get away. Then the University bell struck three times.

Theron yelped, jumped out of bed, and began diving for his scattered clothes. “My mother! I promised to escort her to an exceedingly dreary salon held by a woman she thinks might give her some money toward the women’s mathematics chair.”

Basil found Theron’s stockings and his belt. “Will you come back tonight?”

“Without fail. It may be latish—I’ll probably dine with her. But I’ll come to you afterward, and I’ll stay, Basil, I’ll stay. I want to sleep with you and wake with you, night after night and day after day.”

“Yes,” said Basil, although he knew it was not the right answer. He knew it, and he didn’t very much care. And that, too, was pleasure.

AFTER THERON HAD LEFT, BASIL SLEPT AGAIN, AND WHEN he woke, the last rays of the sun were catching the warm stone of the building opposite, crowning it with gold. It was getting cold in Basil’s room, or rather, colder. The fire was out again.

Basil groaned and heaved himself out of bed, pulling the coverlet with him. Gathering his clothes was unexpectedly difficult. His gown was puddled just inside the door, his breeches were under the bed, along with a single stocking. The other was in the far corner, behind a pile of books. He could not find his shoes, and after discovering that his last candle had been knocked from the desk and broken into three all-but-useless stubs, he sat down on the bed and sighed.

“ ‘The love of kings is as the sun,’ ” he quoted aloud, “ ‘that now blesses the earth, now scourges it with scorching ray.’ Placid, somewhere or other. Middle of the page.” His foot brushed against a shoe hiding under a drift of papers, which must have fallen from the bed. Unearthing its fellow, Basil reflected that his indifferent housewifery was hardly Theron’s fault, and that he should spend his evening in setting the place to rights. But first he must buy some candles and some wood, if he could only find his purse.

It took several hours, but at last Basil’s bed was made, his books were neatly stacked, his papers were sorted and tied with tape, his clothes hung up on hooks. His mug and tin bowl were washed and drying on the chimney-piece. He’d mended his pens and cleaned and filled his ink-pot. He’d sent the scruffy boy in search of candles and firewood and tipped him handsomely for hauling them up the stairs. He’d dusted his candlesticks and the engraving of Hilary he’d torn from a worm-eaten copy of Vespas and nailed to the wall. Sweeping the floor—a homely task he hated—he left for last.

When he came to the bed, he pulled out everything under it: stray papers, a copy of the history of the University he thought he’d lost, a pair of shoes, a black hat furred gray with dust. The document box. He dusted it in a housewifely fashion before opening it.

“There’s no time for this,” he said aloud. “Theron’s coming.”

Theron would be late. Basil had been avoiding the Book of the King’s Wizard for too long, now. It was time.

He unfolded the linen from it as if he were undressing a lover. And he opened the cover like a man opening the door to a room where someone waited. The words were waiting for him to discover them, he knew, to unfold their secret meanings and make them live.

The letters lay dark and heavy on the page. Basil stared at the secret tongue. It teased him, dared him . . . He picked out the letters, and spoke two syllables aloud. He felt like a fool. It made no sense, and never would. They felt strange in his mouth, as if he were picking up pebbles or nuts and trying them on his tongue. He spoke them again, and despite himself, he slowly smiled. If he was right about the book, and he must be right, no one had uttered these same sounds for nearly two hundred years. He glanced up at the page heading:
To Lende a Man Greate Potencie
. Blushing, he slammed the pages shut. But the tip of his finger remained between them. Carefully, he opened the book again.
To Inspyre Love in
One Unwilling: an Illusion,
read another page. Basil snorted. Certainly an illusion; weren’t they all, these so-called spells? Well, weren’t they?

The University Clock struck midnight. Where was the boy? Basil cast an impatient look at the door. Theron had told Basil he loved him, a declaration that begged to be answered in kind. But could he? That he was fascinated by Theron he would readily admit, drawn to his strong and slender body and his spirit that was brighter and quicker than any man’s he’d ever known. Was that love?

Or was love in fact the true name of that uncomfortable feeling which kept coming over him lately, the fierce, almost cruel thrill of possession that sometimes seized him with Theron in his arms? It was not unlike the sensation he got from touching the wizards’ spell-book, which was equally mysterious, in its way, as his kingly lover, and as desirable, too. Perhaps, indeed, he loved them both. Perhaps he only needed to study love.

Basil shrouded the book again and restored it to its box, and just in time: a tapping at the door announced Theron, glittering with melting snow and carrying a large basket.

“I’ve brought us provisions: cold beef and bread and a dried-apple pie and some potatoes to roast. And a fresh shirt, my scholar’s gown, and a suit of clothes in case we want to go out. And I’ve told Sophia not to expect to see me for two or three days.” He looked about him. “This is very cozy.”

Basil took the basket from his hand, set it on the floor, and gathered the boy into his arms.

“Your wizard awaits, my king,” he murmured into Theron’s wet hair.

chapter
XII

THE SUN ROSE ON A CITY ALL HUNG WITH DIAMONDS, carpeted with white, and damply cold. As the University Clock struck nine, the scruffy boy ran out of the door on Minchin Street and slithered through the snow, now rapidly turning to slush, to the lecture hall at LeClerc, where he informed the waiting students that Doctor St Cloud was indisposed. Since the magister had been looking odd for some time now, no one was surprised. They were, however, worried. A magister with only student fees to live on cannot afford to be ill. As one, twenty black-robed agents of mercy started toward Minchin Street, so bent on bringing their magister succor that they might have appeared at Basil’s door empty-handed had Benedict Vandeleur not stopped them.

“We’ll need chicken soup and meat jelly, a bottle of dark porter and a loaf of good white bread—a blanket, too.”

“We’d better wait on the porter and the meat jelly.” Peter Godwin held out a meager handful of copper and brass. “This is all I can spare. We’re poor students, Vandeleur. That’s poor, as in without funds.”

“You’re a fine one to talk, Godwin,” said Fremont. “You can go back up the Hill any time you want, eat until you’re full and sleep in a room with a fire and enough blankets to keep half of us warm all winter. For you, poverty is an affectation; for us, it’s reality.”

“Shut up, Henry,” said Vandeleur. “Godwin can’t help being born noble. And his allowance has bought us all plenty of dinners, too. I’ll take everything in your purse, though, Godwin, if you don’t mind.”

Peter Godwin laughed and emptied his purse, which encouraged two other sons of wealthy fathers to empty theirs. A discussion ensued about the best way to spend the bounty. Several students, cold and bored by the ordinary domesticity of their errand, decided to repair to the Nest for a warming drink. “Doctor St Cloud won’t need us all,” said one, apologetically. “Tell him to hurry back. Then come join us at the Nest. We’ll keep Historians’ Corner warm for you.”

Vandeleur’s initial enthusiasm had been cooling as fast as his toes. He weighed the purse in his hand, hesitated, and said, “Blake, you’re a sensible man. Here”—he pressed the purse into his friend’s hand—“send to the Nest if you need help.”

“Aren’t you coming?” said Lindley reproachfully. “Doctor St Cloud may be dangerously ill.”

Justis tucked the purse away in the bosom of his shirt and wondered, not for the first time, how it came to be that men who could track the complexities of the Arkenveldt Treaty could be so utterly lacking in common sense.

“Think, Lindley,” he said. “If the magister is dangerously ill, do you really think he’ll want the whole boiling of us crowded into his room?”

Lindley would have argued, but Vandeleur said, “My very thought. If Doctor St Cloud is ill, Blake here is perfectly capable of seeing to him.”

“While you’re seeing to the new barmaid,” sneered Fremont.

Vandeleur cuffed Fremont none too gently, and went off after Godwin and the rest, leaving Lindley, Fremont, and Blake in the cold, wet street.

Fremont glared at Blake. “This is what you wanted all along, isn’t it? It’s funny, it is, how you’ve managed to insinuate yourself into the inner circle after only three months. Why, I wouldn’t take it on myself to order people around as you do, and I’ve been following Doctor St Cloud for two years.”

“No one’s stopping you from following him now,” said Justis reasonably. “You can go ahead of us, if you want, and tell him we’re on our way with food.”

“And let you get all the glory?” asked Fremont. “Not likely.”

An hour or so later, Blake and Fremont and Lindley were knocking at the street door of Basil’s lodgings and telling the scruffy boy that they’d come to visit Doctor St Cloud. The boy surveyed them and their bundles with a suspicious eye, told them to wait, slammed the door, and disappeared. After a few frozen minutes of juggling increasingly damp and disintegrating parcels, Fremont rattled the latch, found it locked, swore sulfurously, and attacked the knocker.

“He’ll come when he comes, Fremont,” said Lindley, inspiring a scathing analysis of his opinions, his intelligence, and his character that served to while away the time until the door opened once more on the scruffy boy and his suspicious eye.