Lesser Monsters, Part 1: Using John Page 4

  Stroud nodded jerkily; the ballad was well known. The shreds of his white shirt hung in strips from his waistband; his round, hairy belly was exposed.

  “Do you remember what happened to him, when I came riding back into town one day, to discovery his perfidy?”

  Stroud swallowed heavily. He remembered.

  Helène gave a pleased little sigh. “That was long ago. Those were different times.” With a small smile, she said, “I have changed my ways since then.”

  Seeing a ray of hope, the desperate Stroud said, “I’m so sorry, so very sorry, milady, it won’t—”

  And screamed, as four claws from her free hand sank into the flesh of his back.

  “You will not speak for me again,” she murmured, her mouth close to Stroud’s ear. It wasn’t clear that he’d heard her; he was shrieking loudly. Blood dripped around her embedded nails.

  “You will not act on my behalf again,” she said.

  Besides the squirming Stroud, nobody moved or even breathed.

  “I have indeed changed my ways since the war,” Helène said. With a feral grin, she added, “But I can always change them back.”

  An acrid smell filled the room, accompanying a long damp patch down one of Stroud’s trouser legs.

  Helène withdrew her claws from the meat of his back. She held them up, watching drops of blood glisten at their tips.

  She’s going to drink from him, John thought in horrified fascination. I mean, all that blood, right there….

  The onlookers held their collective breath, struck by the same thought.

  But Helène flicked the blood from her hand. “I would not sully my tongue with filth such as this,” she said, and carelessly tossed Stroud to the floor, where he curled into a shaking ball.

  John had thought she didn’t realize he was there, but then she looked quite deliberately at him, and he quailed at the fury in her face, the power in those bony hands.

  She wanted him to see her like this.

  Without another word, and before anyone else realized who she was looking at, she stalked from the room, people falling over themselves to get out of her way.

  In a few moments, the clicking of her shoes on the flagstones faded, and there was silence.

  ~

  “My goodness, sister, did you really?” laughed Nathalie.

  The three Ladies reclined on puffy white clouds. A brilliant blue sky curved above them; snowy-peaked mountaintops came in and out of view below them, as clouds slowly scudded by.

  “I wish I’d been there,” said Agathe, her eyes lively. “To see their faces. It’s a wonder none of them expired on the spot.”

  The sound of a tentative knock on a wooden door reached them. Helène turned to Nathalie.

  Nathalie frowned. “Must we still? Really?”

  “We’re blood-drinkers, remember?” Helène said patiently. “Not glamour-casters.”

  “Even after all these years?”

  “Especially after all these years.”

  At that, Agathe raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  Nathalie sighed. “All right, sister. For you.” She raised a languorous arm.

  The clouds and sky vanished, leaving the three sisters in the parlor of the Crystal Suite, with its snow-white fur rugs and ivory-lacquered furniture. Pale, diaphanous veils surrounded the bed, blowing gently in the subtle air currents.

  “Come,” Nathalie called.

  An elderly servant stiffly entered with a large tray covered with tea, cakes, breads, fruits, and nuts. Without a word, he laid it down on the low table in front of the divan.

  “Thank you,” Helène said. Startled, the servant blinked, bobbed a quick bow, and hastened out.

  Her sisters looked at her curiously.

  Giggling, Nathalie waved her hand at a white wall that contained only the undulating shadows of furniture cast by the roaring fire. New shadows crept out of the old ones, silhouetted caricatures of men knock-kneed with terror. Agathe laughed appreciatively.

  “Things have changed here,” Helène said. “There’s so much fear now. And they’re more brutal to each other than we ever were.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Agathe said with a sly, accomplished smile. “Anyway, you know they’re only shadows. It’s not like they’re important.”

  With small gestures of her fingers, Nathalie made duplicates of the shadows on the wall slide out from one another, and then shrink down into nothingness. “Sister,” she said gently to Helène, “This is how it’s always been. It’s not the castle that’s changed. It’s you.”

  “My dearest darling idiot,” Agathe said to Helène, “you know I adore you, but Nathalie is right. Love has ruined you.”

  “Clearly not entirely, though,” Nathalie said with a giggle. “Not after last night.”

  Agathe said, “Very true. It was the fire of the old Helène, Belle Helène the Conqueror, that put the fear of God in their hearts and piss in their pants.”

  Helène said, “But before—wasn’t there room for compassion? For dignity?”

  “Says Lady Helène the Cold,” Agathe said, with merry mischief in her eyes. “Honestly, sister, how dull you’ve become.”

  “No, wait, I think she’s right,” Nathalie said. “It’s been so long now, but I seem to recall that things were… milder once than they are now.”

  “If things have changed,” Agathe said, “it’s because that’s what they wanted.”

  “They wanted more brutality?” Helène said, clearly skeptical.

  Agathe shrugged. “They’re a beaten people, unmanned by defeat. Making deeper monsters of us makes them feel more valiant. Imagine how humiliating it would have been for them to have been vanquished by some minor, petty devils.”

  “Now that you mention it, it’s true,” Nathalie said. “They always come in expecting the worst.” With a dreamy smile, “And then I end up giving it to them, when I might not have otherwise.”

  “The pressure of their expectations?” Helène said, a bit archly.

  “The freedom allowed by their expectations,” Agathe corrected. “They make delightful playthings. Oh, don’t make a face, Helène. They don’t really feel pain, not like we do.”

  “You know that’s what they say of us,” Helène said.

  “Who cares?” Agathe said. “Let the shadows believe what they choose. It’s nothing to us.”

  “There is a danger, though,” Helène said, slowly. “Too much discontent can breed trouble. Perhaps it’s time to pull the claws back, to tread a bit more lightly for a while.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” Agathe said. “As you asked, I’ve faithfully tracked shipments of garlic, lemons, iron, and silver over the years—though, honestly, I still don’t understand why—and there has been no uptick.”

  “Hm,” Helène said, frowning.

  Agathe said, “That’s not good news? That they’re not collecting those things?”

  Helène shook her head. “They should have found it by now.”

  “Found what?” Agathe said.

  Waving a hand irritably, Helène said, “The cache of ancient documents. Apparently, I hid it better than I thought. I hate it when I overestimate them.”

  Nathalie and Agathe exchanged a glance.

  “Plans within plans,” Nathalie sighed with an affectionate smile. “Schemes within schemes.”

  Helène shrugged.

  Agathe cocked her head. “You seem so sad, Helène,” she said, reaching out and laying her hand on Helène’s arm. In the background, new shadows on the white wall rearranged themselves to form eyes, with stylized tears leaking down from them. “What’s wrong?”

  Helène was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “Do you ever miss home?”

  “Home?” Agathe said, puzzled. “We are home.”

  Helène waved that away. “I mean where we came from. Originally.”

  Agathe and Nathalie exchanged a glance.

  Nathalie said, “Poor dear sister. You’ve been gone too long. You’ll
feel better after you’ve settled in for a while.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t feel better already,” Agathe said with a grin. “After what you did last night.”

  “He is an unpleasant old prig, Stroud,” Nathalie said. “You should hear how the staff talks about him when they don’t think I’m listening.”

  “That was necessary,” Helène said. “A resetting of the boundaries. A reminder. They’ll all be treading feather-light for a while. Let us reward their caution with our more restrained attentions. They’ve seen the consequences of poor behavior. Now let them see the benefits of striving for peace.”

  ~

  Over the next few days, John noticed a distinct cooling toward him amongst the other servants. More than once, he caught people whispering, then looking awkwardly away when they spotted him.

  It’s because of what Lady Helène did, he realized. They think she protected me. And now they don’t trust me. We’re no longer all in this together.

  None of which would have mattered—it would have blown over—but when John slipped away downstairs on the first night of the new moon, to the disused stone cellar hallway and its distant storeroom, he found the room empty.

  It wasn’t supposed to be empty.

  Frowning, John left, still walking stiffly from the tugging of the healing wounds on his back. Back up in the more traveled hallways, he spotted Stroud off in the distance, hobbling along a hallway. No surprise there; no one trusted him.

  But no one else was around. Not Maida, not Genevieve, not Siddel.

  It could only mean one thing.

  They had moved the meeting. And, quite deliberately, not told him where.

  ~

  The next morning, John cornered Maida in the silver room, where she knelt with a bucket of water, working to scrub the bloodstains out of the ornate red-and-gold carpet.

  “What happened last night?” John said, meaning his voice to be hard, but hearing it as pettish instead.

  “What d’you mean?” Maida said, but she avoided his eyes.

  In a low voice, John said, “I went to the storeroom.”

  “What storeroom’s that, then?”

  “No one else was there.”

  With a tight shrug, she said, “What were you looking for? You know we sometimes have to move things around—”

  “Maida!” John said, his voice half desperate plea and half command.

  She winced and looked down, her wet, red hands becoming still on the carpet.

  “She hasn’t called for you again, has she?” Maida said, dipping the brush into the bucket and resuming her slow, scrubbing circles.

  “What?”

  “It’s just odd, that’s all,” Maida said, carefully avoiding his eyes. “First she leaves you unmarked, and then she punishes the man who dared raise a hand to you….” She let her voice trail off.

  “She went too far, didn’t she?” John said. “With Stroud.”

  “It was… unusual,” Maida said. “No one’s ever seen anything like it. One of them defending one of us.”

  John looked at Maida for a long moment. “Is that what you really believe?” he said, his voice strained.

  “There are whispers, John,” Maida went on. She stole a glance at his face, then looked back down at her work. “People wonder what you might have offered her, to save yourself from her… attentions. It must have been valuable indeed, they say, for her to come down here and do what she did.”

  “It’s Stroud still,” John said, understanding dawning. “He can’t get at me straight, so he comes at me sideways, with rumors and whispers.”

  Maida shrugged again, then sat back on her heels and looked John full in the face. Her expression was closed off, but he thought he saw a hint of—was that pity? And maybe warning?

  “You can’t seriously mean that you would rather she had hurt me,” he said slowly.

  “Might’ve been better for you if she had,” Maida said, stubbornly. “Stroud oughtn’t have done what he did to you. But what she did—it makes no sense. Not unless she was, as the rumors have it, protecting a valuable source of information.”

  “You cannot believe for a moment,” John said, anger rising in him, “that I would ever betray our secrets to one of them.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said. “But here you are, unmarked by her, while Stroud wears her scars for daring to touch you. You must admit, it’s a mystery. And we can’t afford mysteries. Not now.”

  “Don’t cut me out,” John said. “Maida, you know me. You know you can trust me.”

  And when she looked at him again, he saw, in her face, the pain that he had caused her, with the sweet declarations of love he’d whispered to her in intimate moments, and with the similarly sweet words he’d whispered to other girls afterwards. Careless, heedless.

  Untrustworthy.

  “Maida,” he said helplessly, but she just turned away and resumed scrubbing the carpet.

  One of the older cooks—Harvine—wobbled arthritically into the room. “You’ve been called up, John,” she said, her voice clear of any inflection.

  John exchanged a glance with Maida. “Where am I to go?”

  “The Sapphire Suite,” Harvine said, and, with a harrumph, turned around and hobbled back out.

  John didn’t miss Maida’s surprised intake of breath.

  Maida heaved herself to her feet, picking up the brush and bucket. “Well,” she said, and a little doubt had crept into her voice. “Time to get you cleaned up.”

  ~

  John had barely tapped at the blue-lacquered door to the Sapphire Suite when it swung open. Startled, he nearly dropped the bottle of rosemary oil.

  “Come in, John,” Lady Helène said. The loose, roughspun trousers and hunting coat she wore made her look boyish. She certainly didn’t look ready for a massage.

  Closing the door behind him, she said, “Sit,” and gestured toward a chair.

  He complied, holding the linens and bottle of oil awkwardly in his lap.

  “I’m going to check those bandages,” she said, walking around him. She reached for his shirt so quickly that it was off and tossed on the bed before he knew it, leaving his bare skin cooling.

  Uncertainty gripped him—he hadn’t known what to expect, but this wasn’t it. “Milady,” he said, keeping his tone pleasant and even, “please, there’s no need. Allow me to minister to—”

  “Shh,” she said absently. She pulled the bottle and linens from his hands and set them on the floor. With a quick, deft touch, she unwound his bandages, then stood behind him to survey his back.

  “Hm,” she said. “Are the cuts still painful?”

  “Not particularly,” he said, though the truth was that they still pulled and stung when he moved incautiously. “They’ve healed miraculously quickly,” he added.

  She snorted. “Not miracles,” she said. “Just medicine.”

  She pulled up another chair, set it facing him, and sat down. “John,” she said, her voice grave, “there’s something I must discuss with you.”

  “Of course, milady,” he said, feeling an uncomfortable bewilderment creeping over him. What was her game? “I wish only to serve, in any way I can.” And to himself, he thought, Please, she can’t know about the meetings, she can’t be about to ask me the kinds of questions everyone apparently thinks I’ve already answered….

  Her face grew stony. “I was angered when I heard about Stroud’s presumption.”

  He remembered her on that night, stalking like some feral predator. The memory roused an uneasy fear. With a painfully thudding heart, he wondered if this, now, was finally some sort of precursor to the kind of attentions he’d expected from her during their first encounter.

  She went on. “I took the actions that made sense to me. But it appears I may not have thought through the possible ramifications. Things have changed here; there are subtleties of relationships now that I did not quite understand, being so newly returned.”

  John had no idea what she was ta
lking about. “Milady?”

  “There’s a balance in this castle,” she said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my rather long life, it’s that upsetting an existing balance can have dire and unpredictable consequences.”

  “I see,” John said, though he didn’t.

  “All of which leads me to a rather troubling conundrum,” she said. Her voice grew reflective. “Centuries ago, I was every inch the monster they say. But it was always with a purpose. I may have changed my ways, but that purpose remains intact.”

  “And what is that purpose, milady?” John said, hoping it was the right thing to say.

  “Harmony. Balance. Peace with the lowest possible cost. I slaughtered thousands, yes, but in order that tens of thousands might survive. You don’t have to believe that; it doesn’t matter. But there is something that I would like you to believe, John.”

  “Yes, milady?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  The words turned his backbone to sculpted ice. “Milady?” he whispered.

  “You have a choice, John. Things cannot go on as they have been.”

  “I’m not sure I understand—”

  “You cannot stay here with things as they are.”

  She’s going to make me leave, he thought in bewilderment, clamping down heavily on the rush of anger so it did not reach his face. After all I’ve endured, she can’t make me leave now!

  “You’re like a thread that’s pulled loose from a coat,” she said. “It catches on things, and unless it’s dealt with—either cut off or rewoven—it might end up unraveling the entire garment.”

  “Please, milady,” John said miserably. “Don’t make me leave. There must be something I can do, anything—”

  She shook her head. “You misunderstand me, John. I won’t require you to leave. But I see only one path that would let you stay—that would reweave you into the coat, so you wouldn’t have to be removed.” She met his gaze evenly. “And I’m not sure that option would appeal to you.”

  He stared at her, forgetting himself, and tried to figure out what she meant.

  The other servants suspected him because she had not used him, had not hurt him. For them to welcome him to their ranks again—to believe he was truly one of them—they had to see evidence that he was not in league with her.

  “Oh,” he said, and swallowed hard. But, really, how bad could it be? In all his time in the castle, he had grunted in pain only during the first few times he’d attended one of the Ladies. His remarkable tolerance for pain was part of what gave him such endurance here. “Milady, I want to stay. Whatever the cost.”