The Cross and the Black Page 6

  ***

  The next night, Serge had wandered into Claude’s room. Claude did not turn to acknowledge his presence. Like a gargoyle, Serge perched at the door, weighing Claude’s declared intentions to insubordinately shoot volleys of kisses on his face. But this night was not to be another night lost to silence and indecision.

  “Who was he?” Serge demanded.

  Claude turned in the sheets. “Nobody important.”

  “Another of your perverted companions?”

  “’Tis not I who came down here. You’re just as much a reprobate—”

  “Who’s he?” His voice was at once pleading and aggressive.

  Claude liked the idea of a jealous Serge although it was a little unsettling that Serge would choose to be jealous about Guy and not his numerous friends. Still, he liked it. The fleeting tingle on his groin quite liked it. In full view to Serge, he spread-eagled his legs, and hands slid over his thighs with a mind of its own.

  “Serge, come hither,” Claude groaned. “Come and touch it. Come and play with it.”

  Sounds, rustling, shuffling, flapping, etched Serge into a hard place at the door. “You demon.” His voice was dry and cracked. “You demon … they’ll come for you in time, the guards of the Senachausée, the rabid dogs of the Carivarri.”

  “In another month, you shall worry no longer. But I worry about you and your betrothed,” he said easily as hands searched lazily for his pleasure. “You’d spend your nuptial night seeking after me, rather than your wife. I should stay … my wedding gift.” The darkness swathed Claude’s body with heat. He gasped, his eyes wide on the black figure at the door. His breaths stirred the wind, stirred Serge to grip on the door handle.

  Serge said, his voice thin and tight, “Ever since Antoine died, you abandoned yourself to the Devil’s hand.”

  Claude stopped. All feeling died as memory betrayed him to the image of the brown-haired, brown-eyed Antoine asleep in death. Antoine’s voice prickled his ears. “You insensitive prune. You’d wake one morning and find your face has turned to stone.” He heard himself hiss, “Sissy,” as Antoine had talked him to extreme vexation. He felt Antoine’s spit drenching his face because Antoine had demanded that he take back the insult. Eventually Antoine would take his weary eyes, tired ears, and resigned lips for apology.

  Till his dying day, Antoine was alate with the hopes for a rich, fat wife, six children(all girls), and a house with stables and vineyards and a battalion of servants. He died, condemned a reprobate, not having known the love of a good woman. Because of my black hands. Claude covered his face against the darkness that would mar it. His fingers slid down to his groin glowing again with need. Inexpressible grief was a powerful aphrodisiac, more potent when it was inadmissible. All was well, for Serge was still at the door, superiorly needy.

  “Your foolhardiness makes me want.” Claude snorted into cheeky laughter. He started stroking himself again and mouthed the moans of an obnoxious virgin newly awakened to lust. Then he spilled white with a high plume of laughter and taunts for the Serge who would watch rather than taste.

  “Have you no care for hell’s perdition?” Serge demanded.

  “Why? Antoine would be there. Who awaits me in heaven?”

  Serge slunk out the door and silence was complete.

  A rush of heat, a sudden profusion of sweat, then Claude collapsed into the cool bed. The release had been too quick. He scratched his limp damp hair, scratched and scrubbed. Lice. No one would nestle him in between the thighs and delouse his head like Antoine did. Not Serge. Not anyone. Bearitz might. Claude jumped to his feet and to the window, scoffing the idea of Bearitz handling his blond hair. Out there, beyond the paper-shielded window, a sky sparkled with stars and sheltered a peeping Guy. He rolled away from window, held his chest, and laughed.

  The laxity and the satiety of the old days came rushing over him. It had been enough to charm Donas and their simple maids, and their equally simple daughters to earn his daily bread. He had had no need to see beyond the day and dream of tomorrow. But with three sisters needing dowries, Antoine was the one who had dreams. Was it to be another of the grand woad merchants? Or to be another of those black-robed judges who strode to Parlement every morning? Claude remembered sneering and snorting at every one of Antoine’s ideas. Then the Sissy died, and suddenly sweet-talking his way to bread was too hard. His voice cracked hollowly, his countenance was too severe; so when Serge approached him for a possible apprenticeship, he accepted despite knowing what Serge’s black-furrowed gaze hinted to.

  Claude fleered at his weak self keeling over just because of a flippant death. But was this it, fate defying him to dream and aspire for once? At last, be the one who never cowered before God or life? Did Guy have the way forward?

  His body tensed and loosened in febrile motions, and his legs felt like without the spine of bone, and laughter spilled forth a thin gruel. Guy would not be as perfidious as Serge, would he?

  His heart was too blind to reveal an answer, his instincts mute. Claude trudged to bed and dumped himself to sleep. In truth, his heart had always been blind, deaf, and mute.