The Man Behind the Mask

I longed, if not for the refuge of madness, at least for the mask. For the comfort of shadows.

Or I had, until that moment.

Until the redheaded American with the wide, honest eyes.

I looked at her again and found she had waited for my gaze to find her once more—waited with her head tipped up, the tear-tracks drying on her velvet skin. I did not smile at her. My smile, after all, had become an exercise in the grotesque. Flesh and muscle pulling in the most bizarre ways.

I was thinking, A few words only: Hello. How are you? So pleased to meet my little sister’s dearest friend, at last.

A few words, and then farewell. I would turn and walk away.

But no words came.

Instead, in a moment of purest insanity, I held out my hand. I knew she would trust her hand to me, without hesitation. With no coyness.

And she did.

Somewhere a thousand miles away, my brave and cheeky little sister said, “Well, um, okay. Looks like I can leave you two on your own for a while…”

Neither I nor the woman with her hand in mine answered her. Brit was far away right then. Everything was far away and I was glad it was. Everything but the American, everything but her soft hand in mine, her honest eyes, the truth in her tears, shed for me.

The music right then was slow in rhythm. No longer a waltz, but a foxtrot. An American classic: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Suddenly I was ridiculously smug, as if the orchestra had played this perfect song at my command. I saw I had the excuse a sane man needs to take a woman he’s only just met into his arms: a dance.

I guided her to me, put my left arm at the curve of her back, felt the slightly stiff fabric of her dress—and the warm softness waiting beneath it.

Her flesh, I thought and heat shot up my arm to break at my shoulder into arrows of need. The arrows flew on, cutting all through me. My body responded like the starved thing it was.

I knew shame.

Loss of control was a thing I greatly despised since my slow return from the horror and the madness. I might be hideous now. But I was well-behaved. And in perfect control.

I hadn’t thought to worry about my penis betraying me. Since the horror, it kept…a low profile. At times I might imagine the joys of bedding a woman, but those thoughts were like faint echoes from a safer, happier time; not real to me anymore, vague bittersweet fantasies that always remained strictly above the neck.

Or they had until that night, at the first in a gala series of balls honoring the imminent union of my sister and my bloodbound lifelong friend—that night, when I made the mistake of pulling the American I’d just met into my arms for a dance. That night, when I saw something I wanted beyond the triumph of my revenge and knew that it was something I would never have.

I longed to yank her closer—and at the same time, to shove her away, turn on my heel and run.

I didn’t fear that anyone would see the way my body shamed me. My trousers, like every other man’s in the room, were black. Black is effective at masking unwelcome bulges. And while I held the woman in my arms, no one would be glancing there anyway. And even if they had, I would not have cared.

The shame was not that someone might see. The shame was that I had let my guard down so far and so fast that it had happened at all. One would think I would have learned better, after all I’d allowed to be done to me—and more important, to those who followed me—as a result of failing to stay in control and on guard.

I held the American lightly, enough away that I knew she couldn’t feel my physical response to her. And I kept my wreck of a face carefully composed.

As I led her across the floor, I saw in her sweet and dreamy expression that she had no clue of my sudden shame. I began to relax. Soon enough, the front of my trousers lay smooth once more.

The song ended. I led her back to the place I had met her, near the World Tree tapestry. My sister, by then, had moved on to other guests, other introductions.

I let go of the American’s hand. She stepped back—at the same time as her body seemed to lift and sway toward me, like a flower seeking the sun.

Didn’t she realize? What she sought was not in me. No light. No warmth. In me, there was only darkness and a determination to root out and destroy what had so very nearly destroyed me, what had been responsible for the deaths of good men who had trusted me.

I nodded. She bit her soft lower lip and nodded in response, clasping her hands low in front of her, knuckles toward the floor. Demure—and yet so very eager.

Her soft lips parted.

I put up a hand before she could speak.

She closed her mouth, seemed to settle back into herself. She nodded again. Brave. Disappointed.

I turned and left her there.

Neither of us had said a single word.

Chapter 3

Sunday, December 8, 11:02 pm; the king’s palace, Gullandria. Snowing.

Before I drew the heavy window curtains and climbed into bed, I stood for a moment at the tall mullioned windows, watching the white flakes coming out of the blackness to hit the diamond-shaped panes.

Things I learned today

Offshore oil drilling: major Gullandrian industry since the 1970s. Country was poor before its discovery; now, prosperous.

kingmaking: the election ceremony in which the jarl elect the next king.

Gullandrian slate: all of Isenhalla’s outer walls are faced in this silvery gray and semireflecting stone.

bloodsworn: a vow of

I looked up and groaned, then bent my head again to the mini word processor in my lap.…

Trouble concentrating. Keep thinking of last night, of V. Know I shouldn’t. Clearly a case of inbred romantic impulses spiraling scarily out of control. Must keep firmly in mind that it was only a dance. One dance. He didn’t speak. Neither did I. He shushed me. Now that should tell me something—that he was shushing me when I hadn’t said a word.

No sign of him today, or this evening at dinner. I might have asked Brit about him, but, as usual since I arrived here, we hardly had a moment to ourselves.

I can’t help believing that he

I looked up again, blinking, shaking my head.

Oh, lovely. Obsessing over Valbrand. Again. Filling up my AlphaSmart with lovesick babble.

A few minutes on the dance floor with Brit’s long-lost brother and there I was, a slave to love. I’d stayed awake all night the night before, typing like mad, filling four whole files with V., V., V. Had to dump most of it. Drivel anyway and the Alphie only had so much space. Until I got home to my PC, I’d have no place to download it. And the point was to pack it with facts and observations about Gullandria—not endless yada-yada about a man I hardly knew.

That morning I had made a firm resolution: if I couldn’t keep myself from starting in about him, I would at least switch to longhand. Maybe longhand would stop me. I swear, at the rate I was going, if I put it all in longhand, I’d be sure to get writer’s cramp, end up with a hand like a twisted claw.

Which would serve me right. I mean, how could I have spent all night pounding the keys on the subject of a guy with whom I had not exchanged one word?

Don’t answer that.