even eleven months,” Geoffrey said, his voice kind, as it never was when he spoke to me. She stood and commenced to pace again.
“Perhaps you are right. I shall return to Paris, to give him more time to heal. I cannot bear to be with him now; I lose my George all over again with every glance at him—I had not remembered that there were worse things than dying!” She was so distraught that she passed me in my dark corner without noticing me. When she had gone I started to slip back to my room, only to find Geoffrey watching me from the doorway. He motioned me in, and I took my accustomed chair. I sat staring at my hands, too stunned to speak. After a moment Geoffrey shifted in his chair.
“I am sorry, Christopher, that you heard that. Rózsa is very upset—”
“Yes. It must be a truly horrifying thing, to throw a lifeline to a drowning poet, and drag a disfigured half-wit back in his place,” I said bitterly, and he raised his hand.
“That is not fair, Christopher, either to you or to Rózsa. I tried to warn her, though she did not want to believe me. But neither has she seen the progress you have already made. You will heal, that I do promise, though it may take a very long time, a very long time indeed. During that time, however, we will—you will be—”
“Put under charge? Given a keeper? Who shall be burdened with that honor? You?” He nodded, and I was angry, suddenly and furiously. We stood at the same moment, and Geoffrey caught my arm, holding me almost effortlessly. I struggled but it was useless. He savagely pushed me back into the chair, no less angry than I.
“Do not spurn us, Christopher,” he hissed. “You have this choice, and this choice only, to live upon my terms, or to die, here and now.” He meant it. I could see it in his eyes. If I so chose, he would kill me before I could change my mind. I looked down, trying to think. “Well?”
“I want to live,” I whispered. “Whatever the terms.” I raised my eyes to his, and he nodded coolly and started to walk away. “But,” I added, and he wheeled to face me. “But, if it is possible, I’d rather not see Rózsa for a time. I’d fain not put her to the strain of another such performance as last night’s; she hid her feelings most adroitly.” He relaxed slightly, and nodded again. He left, and I sat staring at the fire for a long time, still trying to think.
When I was well enough, we traveled to Italy, and there I felt for a time that I had come home. Geoffrey had me drilled in equitation, in swordsmanship and any other discipline he thought necessary to maintain my current social position; I was gratified to find that I mastered my lessons in nobility as easily as I had once mastered grammar and rhetoric. Before long I was able to ignore, if not forget, the pain and sense of failure Rózsa’s words had given me. The injury that had taken so much had at least left my arrogance relatively intact.
When the first year had passed, Rózsa joined us there, and she and I struck an uneasy peace, as of siblings raised apart and meeting for the first time as adults. The plots of plays lay thick as autumn leaves upon the ground there, and I had fretted over my inability to write them until Rózsa had proposed a simple solution: I would dictate, and she would write them down. We had made more than one attempt at this compromise, but I found that whatever spark had fired my talents had burned out of me, and the words I produced were stilted and awkward, worse than any of the “jigging rhymes” I had so despised in my lifetime. I gave the endeavor over to Rózsa, who found that she had a taste for it, and contented myself with collaborating on plots and staging, while she wrote the plays. I wondered at the time if she truly appreciated my help, or if she merely humored the half-wit. I still do not know.
Chapter 6
Nicholas Skeres was pimping for several doxies, the eldest a raddled forty, the youngest no more than fourteen. He approached me as I lounged against the wall of the shabby dockside tavern, and began trying to induce me to make use of