Somehow he’d thought all of existence should have been altered after what they’d shared.
He smiled, his entire face softening, and he ran lightly down the stairs, and walked through the parlour and into the kitchen.
Jane, as ever, was standing at the hearth, stirring at their breakfast. She started a little at his entrance, watching him warily.
“Noah?” she said.
“She shall be down shortly,” Weyland said, sitting at the table and surprising himself, and Jane even more, by suddenly grinning widely at her.
He couldn’t help it. He’d felt such a surprising surge of happiness, for no apparent reason, that the only outlet he could find for it was an inane grin at Jane.
She stared at Weyland, then looked abruptly away.
“Are my imps about?” he said, finally managing to bring his expression under some degree of control.
Jane inclined her head to the door leading into the small alley. “Playing at hoop and ball. They arrived earlier.”
They had answered his call! Good. Weyland snapped his fingers, and almost immediately the kitchen door opened and the two imps poked their heads about it.
“Master!” they cried.
“I have a duty for you this morning,” Weyland said.
As one they raised their eyebrows, their expressions eager.
“Go to Whitehall, and seek out Elizabeth or Frances. Ask if anything of note happened within the palace last night. Concerning the king, perhaps. They will know what I mean.”
Once the imps had scurried away, Weyland rose and walked over to Jane.
“Jane? Did you feel anything last night? Anything of ‘note’ that you might like to mention?”
“What do you mean?” She studied him. “Surely, perhaps, I should be asking that of you?”
Again Weyland grinned, the expression so unforced, so natural, that Jane blinked in surprise. “Would you be surprised to hear,” Weyland said, “that Noah and I—”
He stopped abruptly at a step in the doorway. Noah entered and cast Weyland a sharp look, then walked over to the dresser and lifted down the dishes they’d need for their breakfast.
Jane looked to Noah, then back to Weyland, and her eyes widened at the expression she saw there.
Dear gods! That was softness in his eyes!
Hastily turning her back, not wanting Weyland to see her confusion, Jane stirred vigorously at the porridge.
All his pain and confusion and irritation vanished, and, as he felt solid ground beneath his feet, Louis opened his eyes.
And found himself standing in his father’s private chamber in his childhood home in Alba.
Silvius’ chamber was so private, that Louis, as Brutus, had only ever been in it five times throughout the first fifteen years of his life (before he murdered his father and had been expelled from Alba). Those five visits had all been for the same reason: he’d done wrong, and Silvius had summoned Brutus to inform his son of his disappointment.
Brutus had loathed to be so summoned. Silvius could have raged at him, or administered punishment, but he had done neither. Silvius would merely stand, gazing out the open door that looked into a small courtyard, before slowly turning as Brutus entered and, very softly, explaining his disappointment.
Now, as Louis opened his eyes and was overwhelmed by a long-forgotten sense of deep discomfort and shame, he wondered how much those terrible, shame-filled visits had been behind his decision to push that arrow down, instead of pulling it out.
Louis’ next thought was…Am I here for another discourse on disappointment? Has Silvius stored up three thousand years’ worth of disappointments to “discuss” with me?
He glanced down at his ruined chest, rubbed away the dried blood that caked his left cheek and jaw, and straightened, looking about with the one eye remaining to him.
The chamber was as he remembered it. Tiled in softly coloured mosaics, it was barely furnished save for a couch set close to the window, a desk clean of any pens or parchments, and a low wooden chair set against the wall.
Louis automatically looked to the light-filled doorway which led to the courtyard, expecting to see, as he always had, the shadow of his father, slowly turning about to study his son.
There was nothing. The doorway was empty of everything save light.
Louis turned slightly to look behind him at the doorway which led back into the house.
Nothing. The chamber was empty save for himself.
“Father?” Louis said, once more facing into the chamber. “Silvius?”
Silence.
“Father?”
Silence…save that this time, there was a change in the light at the courtyard door—as if someone moved deep within the courtyard.
Louis walked forward, silently and carefully. He reached the doorway then, unable to stop himself, turned (slowly, slowly) and looked back into the chamber.
For an instant he saw a shadow, the boy-child Brutus, standing sullen and resentful as he waited for his father to speak.
Then the shadow shimmered and vanished, and Louis turned, and, taking a deep breath, stepped into the courtyard.
The courtyard was almost as spare and empty as Silvius’ chamber. There was a small tree, a wooden bench beneath its shade, and, just beyond the bench, a large fish pond.
Silvius was crouched by the pond, crumbling a piece of bread into the gaping mouths of the fish as they broke the surface in a boiling, bubbling frantic crowd.
Louis stared, not knowing what to do or say, but then Silvius rose, tossed in the final piece of bread for the fish to squabble over, and turned to look at his son.
“I have been so blessed in you,” he said, and, walking forward, embraced Louis.
Weyland had gone to the market about his own business, and Jane and Noah were left alone.
“Well?” said Jane.
Noah frowned, as if puzzled.
“Why is Weyland so cheerful? Gods, Noah, I have never seen him so…carefree.”
“Perhaps he is happy, knowing he has me trapped within his den at night. You should be grateful, Jane, to sleep so undisturbed in this kitchen.”
Jane narrowed her eyes. “And what is in that den, Noah? Is it grey nothingness? Is it terror-ridden nightmare? Or is it…what?”
Noah hesitated, sliding her eyes away from Jane’s direct gaze.
“Noah?”
Noah ran her tongue over her lips, meeting Jane’s gaze once more. “He calls it his Idyll, Jane. It is a place of beauty.” Her voice softened. “Beauty beyond anything I could have imagined. It is not like this land. It is…”
Her voice drifted off, and for one crazed moment Jane thought Noah had been going to say, It is Asterion.
“It must be a trap,” Jane said.
“No,” Noah said, and in her eyes Jane saw a faint reflection of the same delight she’d seen in Weyland’s. Faint, but there.
“You lay with him!” Jane said.
“No! Gods, Jane…No. I did not. We lay together side by side, and we talked, but we did not…No. If I look…” Noah hesitated, and Jane saw again the tip of her tongue sliding over her lower lip. “If I look content, and perhaps even joyful, then it is merely the memory of Weyland’s Idyll.” Her voice slid into the defensive. “It is beautiful, and remarkable.”
“I had no idea you were this gullible, Noah.”
“Well, then,” Noah said, “there is another reason I should look joyful.” Noah glanced about the room, moved yet closer to Jane, and whispered into her ear: “Last night Louis began his journey.”
It was a dangerous thing to say, even so blandly put, but Jane knew instantly what she meant. “Ah!” she said on a breath. “I knew I felt something last night! Has he completed…his journey?”
Noah gave a small shake of her head. “There is a way to go yet.”
“Then we should be careful,” Jane said.
“Aye.”
“Noah…”
“Aye?”
“Tomorrow morning we must begin our own journey.”
Noah stilled.
“Ariadne spoke to me,” Jane said. “Last night. While you slept. Chastely. With Asterion.”
Louis lifted his arms and hugged his father to him fiercely until Silvius laughed, and managed to pull back a little.
“Well,” Silvius said, “it is finally time you came through that door and into the courtyard.”
Louis realised suddenly that Silvius had both his eyes, and that he also could see with two eyes. He put a hand to his chest, and felt it whole.
He looked back to Silvius. “You said you had been so blessed.”
“Brutus was what I had made him. I should more than have expected that arrow through the eye, that surge of ambition. But what you are now, and what you shall become, that you have made yourself, and it is that making which has blessed me. You are a son to be proud of, Brutus, and I could not have asked for one better.”
Louis’ eyes filled with tears. “Will you come back with me, Silvius? When I can find my way out of this damned enchanted existence? Tell me that this is not the last that I shall see of you. I would like my father back.”