An Echo in the Bone

Had he felt or thought the same things, waking to find me there beside him?

“Or perhaps it is curiosity,” he said, smiling a little more broadly. “I have not seen a naked woman in some time, bar Negro slaves at the docks in Charleston.”

“How long is some time? Fifteen years, you said?”

“Oh, a good deal longer than that. Isobel—” He stopped abruptly, the smile vanishing. He hadn’t mentioned his dead wife before.

“You never saw her naked?” I asked, with more than idle curiosity. He turned his face away a little, eyes cast down.

“Ah … no. It wasn’t… She did not… No.” He cleared his throat, then raised his eyes, looking into mine with an honesty raw enough to make me want to look away.

“I am naked to you,” he said simply, and drew back the sheet.

Thus invited, I could hardly not look at him. And in all truth, I wanted to, out of simple curiosity. He was trim and lightly built, but muscular and solid. A little softness at the waist, but no fat—and softly furred with vigorous blond hair, darkening to brown at his crutch. It was a warrior’s body; I was well acquainted with those. One side of his chest was heavily marked with crisscrossing scars, and there were others—a deep one across the top of one thigh, a jagged thing like a lightning bolt down his left forearm.

At least my own scars weren’t visible, I thought, and before I could hesitate further, I pulled the sheet away from my own body. He looked at it with deep curiosity, smiling a little.

“You are very lovely,” he said politely.

“For a woman of my age?”

His gaze passed over me dispassionately, not with any sense of judgment but rather with the air of a man of educated tastes evaluating what he saw in the light of years of seeing.

“No,” he said finally. “Not for a woman of your age; not for a woman at all, I think.”

“As what, then?” I asked, fascinated. “An object? A sculpture?” In a way, I could see that. Something like museum sculptures, perhaps: weathered statues, fragments of vanished culture, holding within them some remnant of the original inspiration, this remnant in some odd way magnified by the lens of age, sanctified by antiquity. I had never regarded myself in such a light, but I couldn’t think what else he might mean.

“As my friend,” he said simply.

“Oh,” I said, very touched. “Thank you.”

I waited, then drew the sheet up over both of us.

“Since we’re friends …” I said, somewhat emboldened.

“Yes?”

“I only wondered… have you… been quite alone all this time? Since your wife died?”

He sighed, but smiled to let me know he didn’t mind the question.

“If you really must know, I have for many years enjoyed a physical relationship with my cook.”

“With… your cook?”

“Not with Mrs. Figg, no,” he said hastily, hearing the horror in my voice. “I meant with my cook at Mount Josiah, in Virginia. His name is Manoke.”

“Ma—oh!” I recalled Bobby Higgins telling me that Lord John retained an Indian named Manoke to cook for him.

“It is not merely the relief of necessary urges,” he added pointedly, turning his head to meet my eyes. “There is true liking between us.”

“I’m pleased to hear that,” I murmured. “He, er, he’s…”

“I have no idea whether his preference is solely for men. I rather doubt it—I was somewhat surprised when he made his desires known in re myself—but I am in no position to complain, whatever his tastes may be.”

I rubbed a knuckle over my lips, not wanting to seem vulgarly curious—but vulgarly curious, all the same.

“You don’t mind, if he … takes other lovers? Or he you, come to that?” I had a sudden uneasy apprehension. I did not intend that what had happened the night before should ever happen again. In fact, I was still trying to convince myself that it hadn’t happened this time. Nor did I mean to go to Virginia with him. But what if I should and Lord John’s household then assumed… I had visions of a jealous Indian cook poisoning my soup or lying in wait behind the necessary house with a tomahawk.

John himself seemed to be considering the matter, lips pursed. He had a heavy beard, I saw; the blond stubble softened his features and at the same time gave me an odd feeling of strangeness—I had so seldom seen him less than perfectly shaved and groomed.

“No. There is… no sense of possession in it,” he said finally.

I gave him a look of patent disbelief.

“I assure you,” he said, smiling a little. “It—well. Perhaps I can describe it best by analogy. At my plantation—it belongs to William, of course; I refer to it as mine only in the sense of habitation—”

I made a small polite sound in my throat, indicating that he might curtail his inclinations toward complete accuracy in the interests of getting on with it.

“At the plantation,” he said, ignoring me, “there is a large open space at the rear of the house. It was a small clearing at first, and over the years I have enlarged it and finally made a lawn of it, but the edge of the clearing runs up to the trees. In the evenings, quite often, deer come out of the forest to feed at the edges of the lawn. Now and then, though, I see a particular deer. It’s white, I suppose, but it looks as though it’s made of silver. I don’t know whether it comes only in the moonlight or whether it’s only that I cannot see it save by moonlight—but it is a sight of rare beauty.”

His eyes had softened, and I could see that he wasn’t looking at the plaster ceiling overhead but at the white deer, coat shining in the moonlight.

“It comes for two nights, three—rarely, four—and then it’s gone, and I don’t see it again for weeks, sometimes months. And then it comes again, and I am enchanted once more.”

He rolled onto his side in a rustle of bedclothes, regarding me.

“Do you see? I do not own this creature—would not, if I could. Its coming is a gift, which I accept with gratitude, but when it’s gone, there is no sense of abandonment or deprivation. I’m only glad to have had it for so long as it chose to remain.”

“And you’re saying that your relationship with Manoke is the same. Does he feel that way about you, do you think?” I asked, fascinated. He glanced at me, clearly startled.

“I have no idea.”

“You, um, don’t… talk in bed?” I said, striving for delicacy.

His mouth twitched, and he looked away.

“No.”

We lay in silence for a few moments, examining the ceiling.

“Have you ever?” I blurted.

“Have I what?”

“Had a lover that you talked to.”

He cut his eyes at me.

“Yes. Perhaps not quite so frankly as I find myself talking to you, but, yes.” He opened his mouth as though to say or ask something further, but instead breathed in, shut his mouth firmly, and let the air out slowly through his nose.

I knew—I couldn’t not know—that he wanted very much to know what Jamie was like in bed, beyond what I had inadvertently shown him the night before. And I was obliged to admit to myself that I was very tempted to tell him, only in order to bring Jamie back to life for the brief moments while we talked. But I knew that such revelations would have a price: not only a later sense of betrayal of Jamie but a sense of shame at using John—whether he wished such usage or not. But if the memories of what had passed between Jamie and myself in our intimacy were no longer shared—still, they belonged only to that intimacy and were not mine to give away.

It occurred to me—belatedly, as so many things did these days—that John’s intimate memories belonged to him, as well.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” I said apologetically.

He smiled faintly, but with real humor.

“I am flattered, madam, that you should entertain an interest in me. I know many more … conventional marriages in which the partners remain by preference in complete ignorance of each other’s thoughts and histories.”

With considerable startlement, I realized that there was now an intimacy between myself and John—unexpected and uninvited on both our parts, but… there it was.

The realization made me shy, and with that realization came a more practical one: to wit, that a person with functional kidneys cannot lie in bed drinking beer forever.

He noticed my slight shifting and rose at once himself, donning his banyan before fetching my own dressing gown—which, I saw with a sense of unease, some kindly hand had hung over a chair to warm before the fire.

“Where did that come from?” I asked, nodding at the silk robe he held for me.

“From your bedroom, I assume.” He frowned at me for a moment before discerning what I meant. “Oh. Mrs. Figg brought it in when she built the fire.”

“Oh,” I said faintly. The thought of Mrs. Figg seeing me in Lord John’s bed—doubtless out cold, disheveled, and snoring, if not actually drooling—was hideously mortifying. For that matter, the mere fact of my being in his bed was deeply embarrassing, no matter what I had looked like.

“We are married,” he pointed out, with a slight edge to his voice.

“Er… yes. But…” A further thought came to me: perhaps this was not so unusual an occurrence for Mrs. Figg as I thought—had he entertained other women in his bed from time to time?

“Do you sleep with women? Er … not sleep, I mean, but …”

He stared at me, stopped in the act of untangling his hair.

“Not willingly,” he said. He paused, then laid down his silver comb. “Is there anything else you would like to ask me,” he inquired, with exquisite politeness, “before I allow the bootboy to come in?”

Despite the fire, the room was chilly, but my cheeks bloomed with heat. I drew the silk dressing gown tighter.

“Since you offer… I know Brianna told you what—what we are. Do you believe it?”

He considered me for a time without speaking. He didn’t have Jamie’s ability to mask his feelings, and I could see his mild irritation at my previous question fade into amusement. He gave me a small bow.

“No,” he said, “but I give you my word that I will of course behave in all respects as if I did.”

I stared at him until I became aware that my mouth was hanging unattractively open. I closed it.

“Fair enough,” I said.

The odd little bubble of intimacy in which we had spent the last half hour had burst, and despite the fact that I had been the one asking nosy questions, I felt like a snail suddenly deprived of its shell—not merely naked but fatally exposed, emotionally as well as physically. Thoroughly rattled, I murmured a farewell and made for the door.

“Claire?” he said, a question in his voice.

I stopped, hand on the doorknob, feeling quite queer; he’d never called me by my name before. It took a small effort to look over my shoulder at him, but when I did, I found him smiling.

“Think of the deer,” he said gently. “My dear.”

I nodded, wordless, and made my escape. Only later, after I had washed—vigorously—dressed, and had a restorative cup of tea with brandy in it, did I make sense of this last remark.

Its coming is a gift, he’d said of the white deer, which I accept with gratitude.

I breathed the fragrant steam and watched the tiny curls of tea leaf drift to the bottom of the cup. For the first time in weeks, I wondered just what the future might hold.

“Fair enough,” I whispered, and drained the cup, the shreds of tea leaf strong and bitter on my tongue.





FIREFLY


IT WAS DARK. Darker than any place he’d ever been. Night outside wasn’t really ever dark, even when the sky was cloudy, but this was darker than the back of Mandy’s closet when they played hide ’n seek. There was a crack between the doors, he could feel it with his fingers, but no light came through it at all. It must still be night. Maybe there’d be light through the crack when it got morning.

But maybe Mr. Cameron would come back when it got morning, too. Jem moved a little away from the door, thinking that. He didn’t think Mr. Cameron wanted to hurt him, exactly—he said he didn’t, at least—but he might try to take him back up to the rocks and Jem wasn’t going there, not for anything.

Thinking about the rocks hurt. Not as much as when Mr. Cameron pushed him against one and it … started, but it hurt. There was a scrape on his elbow where he banged it, fighting back, and he rubbed at it now, because it was lots better to feel that than to think about the rocks. No, he told himself, Mr. Cameron wouldn’t hurt him, because he’d pulled him back out of the rock when it tried to … He swallowed hard, and tried to think about something else.

He sort of thought he knew where he was, only because he remembered Mam telling Da about the joke Mr. Cameron played on her, locking her in the tunnel, and she said the wheels that locked the doors sounded like bones being chewed, and that’s just what it sounded like when Mr. Cameron shoved him in here and shut the doors.

He was kind of shaking. It was cold in here, even with his jacket on. Not as cold as when he and Grandda got up before dawn and waited in the snow for the deer to come down and drink, but still pretty cold.

The air felt weird. He sniffed, trying to smell what was going on, like Grandda and Uncle Ian could. He could smell rock—but it was just plain old rock, not … them. Metal, too, and an oily sort of smell, kind of like a gas station. A hot kind of smell he thought was electricity. There was something in the air that wasn’t a smell at all, but a kind of hum. That was power, he recognized that. Not quite the same as the big chamber Mam had showed him and Jimmy Glasscock, where the turbines lived, but sort of the same. Machines, then. He felt a little better. Machines felt friendly to him.

Thinking about machines reminded him that Mam said there was a train in here, a little train, and that made him feel lots better. If there was a train in here, it wasn’t all just empty dark space. That hum maybe belonged to the train.

He put out his hands and shuffled along until he bumped into a wall. Then he felt around and walked along with one hand on the wall, found out he was going the wrong way when he walked face first into the doors and said, “Ow!”

His own voice made him laugh, but the laughter sounded funny in the big space and he quit and turned around to walk the other way, with his other hand on the wall to steer by.

Where was Mr. Cameron now? He hadn’t said where he was going. Just told Jem to wait and he’d come back with some food.

His hand touched something round and smooth, and he jerked it back. It didn’t move, though, and he put his hand on it. Power cables, running along the wall. Big ones. He could feel a little hum in them, same as he could when Da turned on the car’s motor. It made him think of Mandy. She had that kind of quiet hum when she was sleeping, and a louder one when she was awake.

He wondered suddenly whether Mr. Cameron might have gone to take Mandy, and the thought made him feel scared. Mr. Cameron wanted to know how you got through the stones, and Jem couldn’t tell him—but Mandy for sure couldn’t be telling him, she was only a baby. The thought made him feel hollow, though, and he reached out, panicked.

There she was, though. Something like a little warm light in his head, and he took a breath. Mandy was OK, then. He was interested to find he could tell that with her far away. He’d never thought to try before, usually she was just right there, being a pain in the arse, and when him and his friends went off without her, he wasn’t thinking about her.

His foot struck something and he stopped, reaching out with one hand. He didn’t find anything and after a minute got up his nerve to let go of the wall and reach out further, then to edge out into the dark. His heart thumped and he started to sweat, even though he was still cold. His fingers stubbed metal and his heart leaped in his chest. The train!

He found the opening, and felt his way in on his hands and knees, and cracked his head on the thing where the controls were, standing up. That made him see colored stars and he said “Ifrinn!” out loud. It sounded funny, not so echoey now he was inside the train, and he giggled.

He felt around over the controls. They were like Mam said, just a switch and a little lever, and he pushed the switch. A red light popped into life, and made him jump. It made him feel lots better, though, just to see it. He could feel the electricity coming through the train, and that made him feel better, too. He pushed the lever, just a little, and was thrilled to feel the train move.

Where did it go? He pushed the lever a little more, and air moved past his face. He sniffed at it, but it didn’t tell him anything. He was going away from the big doors, though—away from Mr. Cameron.

Maybe Mr. Cameron would go and try to find out about the stones from Mam or Da? Jem hoped he would. Da would settle Mr. Cameron’s hash, he kent that for sure, and the thought warmed him. Then they’d come and find him and it would be OK. He wondered if Mandy could tell them where he was. She kent him the same way he kent her, and he looked at the little red light on the train. It glowed like Mandy, steady and warm-looking, and he felt good looking at it. He pushed the lever a little farther, and the train went faster into the dark.





NEXUS


RACHEL POKED SUSPICIOUSLY at the end of a loaf. The bread-seller, catching sight, turned on her with a growl.

“Here, don’t you be touching that! You want it, it’s a penny. You don’t, go away.”

“How old is this bread?” Rachel said, ignoring the young woman’s glower. “It smells stale, and if it is as stale as it looks, I would not give thee more than half a penny for a loaf.”

“It’s no more than a day old!” The young woman pulled back the tray of loaves, indignant. “There’ll be no fresh bread ’til Wednesday; my master can’t get flour ’til then. Now, d’you want bread or not?”

“Hmm,” said Rachel, feigning skepticism. Denny would have fits if he thought she was trying to cheat the woman, but there was a difference between paying a fair price and being robbed, and it was no more fair to allow the woman to cheat her than it was the other way about.

Were those crumbs on the tray? And were those tooth marks in the end of that loaf? She bent close, frowning, and Rollo whined suddenly.

“Does thee think the mice have been at these, dog?” she said to him. “So do I.”

Rollo wasn’t interested in mice, though. Ignoring both Rachel’s question and the bread-seller’s indignant reply, he was sniffing the ground with great industry, making an odd, high-pitched noise in his throat.

“Whatever ails thee, dog?” Rachel said, staring at this performance in consternation. She put a hand on his ruff and was startled at the vibration running through the great hairy frame.

Rollo ignored her touch as well as her voice. He was moving—almost running—in small circles, whining, nose to the ground.

“That dog’s not gone mad, has he?” the baker’s assistant asked, watching this.

“Of course not,” Rachel said absently. “Rollo … Rollo!”

The dog had suddenly shot out of the shop, nose to the ground, and was heading down the street, half-trotting in his eagerness.

Muttering under her breath, Rachel seized her marketing basket and went after him.

To her alarm, he was already at the next street and vanished round the corner as she watched. She ran, calling after him, the basket bumping against her leg as she went and threatening to spill out the goods she’d already bought.

What was the matter with him? He’d never acted thus before. She ran faster, trying to keep him in sight.

“Wicked dog,” she panted. “Serve thee right if I let thee go!” And yet she ran after him, calling. It was one thing for Rollo to leave the inn on his own hunting expeditions—he always returned. But she was well away from the inn and feared his being lost.

“Though if thy sense of smell is so acute as it seems, doubtless you could follow me back!” she panted, and then stopped dead, struck by a thought.

He was following a scent, so much was clear. But what kind of scent would make the dog do that? Surely no cat, no squirrel…

“Ian,” she whispered to herself. “Ian.”

She picked up her skirts and ran flat out in pursuit of the dog, heart hammering in her ears, even as she tried to restrain the wild hope she felt. The dog was still in sight, nose to the ground and tail held low, intent on his trail. He went into a narrow alley and she followed without hesitation, hopping and lurching in an effort to avoid stepping on the various squashy, nasty things in her path.

Any of these would normally have fascinated any dog, including Rollo—and yet he ignored them all, following his trail.

Seeing this, she realized suddenly what “dogged” really meant, and smiled to