look like Marlowe, or not exactly, but there was a resemblance . . . Poley caught his breath in a ragged gasp as I turned my head and showed the eye patch that covered my right eye. “Well, well, Robin, how are the mighty brought low! Is this the best that Cecil can do for you?”
“M-m-marlowe?” Poley stammered, then slumped to the floor in a faint. I knelt on the filthy floor, and dragged him up until my teeth found the vein in his throat. I drank his blood, though the taste of it disgusted me, but I had to take enough to exert my will over the repellent little man. He woke again, and struggled against me, but his strength was no match for a normal man’s, let alone mine. I forced his eyes to meet mine, charging him to remember this encounter as no more than a drunken dream. He would obey any command I gave him, and fall into trance at a word from me. I ordered him to sleep for a time, and before he woke I had gone.
I had arrived back at the manor in good spirits. Poley’s being in Paris promised some diversion, at least. I joined Geoffrey in the Hall, delighted to see Hal lounging by the fire. He had arrived an hour or so after my departure on my night’s adventure, and Geoffrey had invited him to the Hall to await my return. Hal had never actually met Geoffrey, only seen him at court from a distance, and seemed to be finding the man’s physical presence somewhat overwhelming. I had seduced him: Geoffrey would need only to snap his fingers to have anyone he desired groveling at his feet. Hal didn’t seem to know whether to be vexed or thankful that he presumably was not desirable. Geoffrey was well aware of the effect that he was having on my lover, and would have withdrawn but that he wished to speak with me.
I noted Geoffrey’s savage amusement and Hal’s sullen frustration as I joined them, my own amusement spilling out in soft laughter. “It is good to see you, Hal. You will stay in the gatehouse with me? I have had a chamber made ready,” I added, catching a subtle movement from Geoffrey indicating that he desired Hal’s absence at the moment. I arranged for a footman to take Hal across the grounds, and to settle his luggage, stealing a kiss in the shadows before sending him away.
“I have had a letter, Christopher, from Rózsa. She will be joining us here for the summer, and as this is her home, I can scarcely ask that she stay away. Your young ward—” he broke off, and I nodded gravely. I told Geoffrey that Nicolas had suggested the house in Brittany, should that prove necessary. We talked for a time of Richard, of his recovery, and the strain that his proximity was putting on my fortitude. Geoffrey was at least sympathetic, having gone through something of the sort with Rózsa years before. “It is never easy, never, but these things have a way of working themselves out, given time, and time we have in abundance. And now, your Southampton is a man of ready wit, but little depth, I think. He has never had to fight, so it seems, and thus has weaknesses where he most should be strong. But there is good metal there, under the dross.” Geoffrey turned his gaze from the hearth to me, piercing me with steely fire. “Go now to your guest, Christopher, though he will be but the companion of the moment—do not think that he would join us, for he would not. Indeed, I feel that he will break off with you soon now and that is no bad thing.”
Those words came back to me a few weeks later. We had begun to spend most of our time pushing at each other, Hal and I, he vainly rebelling against my mastery, and I refusing to yield an inch. Richard had been the cause of no little contention between us as well, since we both found the boy attractive. The position that Cecil had arranged for Hal was largely show and make-work, and he, in his enforced indolence and boredom, had been playing at provoking my jealousy, idly and without much direction. Knowing that I desired Richard, Hal had set out to seduce the lad himself, but Richard had shied away from any intimate contact. He would need more