Page 37

37

LOVE AND DEATH

T hey stumbled into full and blinding daylight, a harsh clap in the face compared to the dark and damp interior of the cottage.

But the field outside was idyllic.

It was bright sunshine and green grass and two horses lazily grazing, the cooing of partridges and the breeze in the trees forming a soft and wholesome soundtrack.

Destroyer lifted his head and walked to Henry.

Léon ran a hand down his neck while Henry rubbed his soft snout.

Eyes almost shut against the sunlight, wind blowing in his hair, Henry looked so soft to Léon.

His sharp lines were augmented pleasingly by the flush on his cheeks, the two still high from their moment in the ivy.

And Léon felt desperately shy by his side.

It was the strangest thing.

He felt he knew Henry so well in some ways.

That he knew his anger and his darkness, that he had begun to know what pleased him.

He knew what he tasted like, his smell was becoming an obsession, almost as deeply desired as his touch.

But who was he when he wasn’t violence or sex?

Of that, Léon had only glimpses.

Beautiful glimpses.

It was a wild imagining to Léon that they two could ever have something like this—a field far away from everything.

A place to simply be together.

That they would get along.

Maybe they would? Had it been an option.

He tried not to let sadness overtake him at the impossibility of the daydream, and before he could, Henry took his hand, leading him a little way from the horses.

He stopped somewhere about the middle of the field and locked eyes with Léon, a sort of melancholy confidence about him.

Then he held his arm out long, and he whistled low.

Léon recognised the sound.

It was the same strange and unearthly whistle from the night Destroyer had carried émile away.

His inclination was to look to the horse, but a flap of wings drew his attention, and out of the trees came a partridge.

It flew fast and serene and landed right on Henry’s arm.

It was no coincidence.

Léon knew it logically, and he felt it in the quality of that whistle.

But it was too bizarre to attribute the occurrence so easily to Henry.

Henry clarified the matter.

“You asked if I’m a witch. I am. But this is the sum of all my skill.”

He moved the docile bird closer to Léon and gave a small nod.

And the animal, wild as the night, remained exactly where it was, except to raise its small head and blink its little eyes.

Léon raised a slow hand, and the partridge didn’t flinch.

He touched gentle fingertips to soft feathers, barely at first, then more firmly, stroking down its neck, over its wings.

He was caught in wonder, bright eyes wide, with an almost childlike curiosity, so wonderfully at odds with the remoteness those same eyes had held back in Reims.

Henry made a clicking noise with his tongue, and the bird flapped away.

But no sooner had he done it than he whistled again, and another bird, a small and bright yellowhammer, landed lightly on his thumb.

“That’s marvellous,” Léon whispered, just as tentative to touch this bird as the last, but soon caught up in the beauty of the creature and the scene.

“I can do simple animals,” Henry explained.

“Anything I tell them, they’ll do it. Insects, rodents, birds…”

“And horses,” said Léon, glancing at the two they’d taken.

“Can you…” He felt so stupid saying it aloud, but having seen what he had…

“Can you understand them?”

“Just as well as I can understand you. Horses are smarter than people think. Quite satanic. They enjoy violence.” Léon gave an unsure laugh, shortened by Henry asking, “Would you like to hold it?”

His face lit gorgeously as Henry passed him the small bird.

“Is it scared of me?”

“No. It knows you won’t hurt it.”

Léon cradled the animal close to his chest, stroking its feathers.

“And what else?”

“Dogs, sometimes.” He began a slow walk towards the cottage.

“Not cats. Never cats. Irritable little shits.” Léon chuckled, but Henry stopped.

His expression shifted to earnest, heart-cleavingly sweet, and he said, “Not humans. I can’t do that. If I could, I certainly wouldn’t have been chained up in the Witches’ Tower. And I wouldn’t have gotten into any of these scrapes that punctuate my life. And I would never have had to come to you.”

Henry wrapped tender fingers around Léon’s.

More tender than he’d ever been, and Léon adored him more deeply with every fleeting second.

Henry’s cheeks kept their soft blush, and when he looked anxiously down at the ground, Léon’s heart smashed to life in a way it never had before.

Henry said, “I don’t want to be presumptuous, or…” He pressed his lips, then raised shy eyes to Léon’s.

“If you’re feeling half of what I’m feeling, whenever we’re together, then you should know it’s real.” He brought Léon’s hand to his lips, placing the briefest of kisses, then rushing on, “I haven’t ever felt like this. I like you so much. And that feels childish, and inadequate to say. I have strong…” He laughed over his awkwardness as Léon melted into the paddock.

“I have strong feelings, and… I want you to come to Paris.”

Léon’s smile faded.

He passed the bird back to Henry, who whistled it away, golden bird in the golden sun, back to the wilderness where it belonged.

“I can’t go to Paris with you.”

“Of course you can. Why can’t you?”

“And what? Henri, you can’t really believe all that the revolution promises.” A flash of irritation darkened Henry’s face—irritation, disappointment, embarrassment—mingling with something he now recognised as hurt.

“I wish I could.”

“Then do it,” Henry said, far too deeply, far too resentfully.

Léon hated the way they’d fallen so quickly back to arguing.

Maybe the relationship really was a chimera and nothing more.

He tried to say it gently.

“I have to think of émile. I’m not taking him into a war zone. And then there’s Souveraine?—”

In a flash of jealous anger, “What’s the bar wench got to do with it?”

“She’s my best friend,” Léon said.

And Christ, how to talk to him about all the rest of it?

That she thought they were engaged.

That he’d let her think it.

That he’d used her.

As if he could read his mind, Henry said, “I felt like throwing up when you said you were engaged to her.”

Then Léon felt like throwing up.

“I told you from the start it was my intention to marry her one day.”

“That was before we happened,” Henry snapped.

The words being spoken aloud caught them both off-guard, squeezed their hearts and twisted their stomachs up in knots.

They two had their paths and their lives and their responsibilities set, and they both knew they were not converging in any foreseeable future.

“So, what will you do?” Henry prodded.

“Go back to Reims and take up your axe like none of this ever happened? Aren’t you tired of being compliant and dependable? Aren’t you tired of putting on your show?” Léon turned his cheek away, recoiling from the accusation and anger in Henry’s voice.

But Henry was thinking of Léon even more than he was thinking of his aching heart.

“I’ve seen you up there, I know what it’s doing to you. You can’t keep beheading people and imagine anything’s going to get easier.”

Léon huffed out a sarcastic laugh.

“After yesterday, I have no idea what I’ll do ever again. My whole life is fucked now. And all for this.”

Léon walked away, but Henry soon fell in at his side.

It was a few moments until the tension settled enough for Henry to ask, “Who was it you killed?”

“The warden,” Léon replied, stooping to pick a long piece of grass to toy with.

“The vile one?”

It was oddly touching that a throwaway comment like that had stuck in Henry’s brain.

That he’d been listening hard all along, to all the things Léon had said.

It softened him. “The very one.”

Taking up his own blade of grass to pick at, “Do you think they’ll be able to figure out it was you?”

“I don’t know.” He ripped at the tip of the grass.

“I told my employer that I was leaving town right before I did it. With any luck, he might believe I was clear when it happened. But…” A sickening revelation slunk low in Léon’s chest.

“What is it?”

Wary eyes flicked up to Henry’s.

“I told him I was leaving because of you.”

“Léon…” Appalled but enamoured, Henry pulled Léon close and pressed his hand to his cheek, that same irresistible softness catching his heart when Léon leaned into him.

“I said I couldn't burn you. That I couldn't stand the barbarity of it. So I was leaving.”

“Not a person who saw that trial would ever imagine you’d try to save me. You really…” He breathed out a small laugh.

“You really made me into a villain. A terrifying one.”

There was a sad glow about Léon’s eyes when they met Henry’s, hoping the puzzle had clicked for him.

“You must have heard, they attributed all your sister’s…” He stopped short of saying ‘her crimes’, defensive of her as Henry was.

“All of what happened, to you. She’s no longer wanted.”

Henry’s smile was dazzling with the confirmation.

“It was calculated, wasn’t it?”

“That was the plan. Part of it. And that they should keep you in the tower, isolated, so we could escape more easily. And all of it… I hope you understand. I couldn’t let you kill Bernard DuPont. And had I not stopped you that night, I think you would have.”

“I absolutely would have,” Henry said.

“I’d have cut down anyone who came for us. If he’s a friend of yours?—”

“He was like a father to me,” Léon said.

“After mine died, he really took care of me. So I’m sorry for everything you went through?—”

“You shouldn’t be.” Henry chuckled.

“You’ve seen what I’d do for someone I care about.”

Léon laughed in return.

“It’s only fair then, I suppose. All things considered.”

“All things considered,” Henry agreed.

“It all went so smoothly, too.” Léon’s tone cooled.

“Until I needed Mollard to give me those keys.”

Henry’s fingers closed on Léon’s in support.

“What you’ve done is worth a thousand of him. Don’t beat yourself up. People die. It happens all the time.”

“I don’t kill them,” Léon argued.

“Not unless?—”

“Not unless it’s a kindness,” Henry finished for him.

Cheeks blooming like meadow flowers, “That’s what I adore about you.” Henry leaned in and kissed him softly.

“Your good heart, right in the midst of all the horror. What would the world be without someone like you?” Léon turned away to hide the tear that started to his eye, but too late.

The second it broke, Henry kissed it from his cheek.

“You’ve been so strong. But I don’t want you to have to live like that anymore.”

Léon let his weight drift into Henry’s protective arms, hidden away from all the world, where Henry kissed his hair.

Henry breathed out a long sigh.

“If you really want to go back, I’ll find a way to fix it. I’ll send them a letter or something, with an account of what my ‘accomplice’ did to the vile one. I’ll detail my crime in a taunting scrawl. Maybe written in blood. I’ll make it very convincing.”

Léon got in on the joke with a soft smile.

“Or tell them you conjured the whole thing?”

“They’d believe it after the job you did.” He felt Léon chuckle against his chest.

Now they’d found themselves back on safer ground, Léon plucked up the courage to ask, “How did you learn those things? With the animals. Did you have to… to train or something?”

“No.” He offered a warm and indulgent smile.

“I was born like that.”

“So your sister…”

Henry deflected, exactly like Léon thought he would.

“It’s nothing to do with Catherine.”

Enough was enough.

Léon looked straight into his eyes and revealed, “She almost caved a roof in on my head in Saint- Quentin. She turned the sky orange, made the clouds bleed, ripped roads apart…”

Henry wiped a hand over his eyes, a laugh caught in his throat.

“That is… very like her…” With a hard breath, “I assume you must have all come out okay, considering you’re here to tell me about it.” Moving a lock of Léon’s hair back to examine his face, “She didn’t hurt you?”

Léon shook his head, all the more fond of Henry now he’d let him in on their secret.

“No. And no one else. I could see…” He scanned Henry’s face for his reaction.

“It seemed to me like she didn’t mean to do it.”

“She didn’t,” he said firmly.

“She never does. She was born with it, like me. But in her case…” Léon watched all the heaviness return, like he’d gone from waking fresh to the end of a long day of hard labour in the space of three seconds.

“It’s getting stronger. Every day. And when she gets upset… She can’t control it, you see. I can call a bird, or a rat, or a horse. She… She can’t do anything. Not deliberately. So we go from town to town, city to city, and I just pray?—”

Léon finished Henry’s sentence.

“You pray she’ll find a place she’ll be truly happy. So it won’t happen anymore.”

Now it was Henry who was overcome with emotion.

He pulled away, making towards the cottage.

He’d been lost in a fantasy every bit as much as Léon had.

A fantasy of a sunny field in France, of a cottage, and horses, and all of it with Léon.

But there was reality, always waiting for him.

Léon wasn’t coming to Paris.

He was going to marry some stupid girl and throw himself away.

And none of it would ever end for Henry.

These short moments of peace he’d found in Léon’s arms were to be nothing but sad and bitter memories, the lot dissipating at his fingertips as soon as he touched it.

“Henri?” Léon called.

He ran after him, then took Henry’s face in two hands and kissed him.

“If we leave at nightfall, we’ll make it some time towards tomorrow morning. So what if, just for today, we… Could we just enjoy this? This one day we have?”

The edge of Henry’s lip shook, but with an effort, he firmed his voice, even if his words admitted all his shattered exhaustion.

“Honestly, Ange?” He gazed back with sad eyes.

“I think it will hurt too much.”

But Léon stepped closer, resting his forehead against Henry’s, their eyes closing as he slid hands around Henry’s waist. “I don’t care if it hurts. Let’s do it, anyway.”