The lieutenant's body, one vertical half exposed, looks leaner than I'd expected. Her skin is like a child's in this fight; pinksoft. You two lie together, limbs nakedly entangled, carelessly entwined in a drowsy chaos of pillows, sheets and clothes, your cheek on her shoulder, her leg thrown over your hip, one hand lying lightly on your breast. How vulnerable she looks with you, my dear, how unmouthed her commanding pride, how unlieutenant like her exposed accessibility, how slumber fit the cheek conforming shoulder, the tousle of dark hair, the languid reach of out thrown arm, the succulent curve of rump and the soft hand cupping, all spread floating upon the billowed silken sheets like bare connected flotsam on a kind and magical sea.
How innocent, how beautiful you appear, raised above the fortified debauchery engorged in the storeys below, languorous and composed in a shared and silent peace, secure in your soft citadel of sleep. I walk carefully round to the bottom of the bed, mindful of where I know the floor creaks, ducking to prevent my candle shadow falling across the lieutenant's serenely sleeping face.
How I ache to join you both, to slide silently in and join your warmth, to be accepted by her as well as you.
But I know this cannot be. The lieutenant's shown no sign her tastes run to such inclusion, or that she might acquiesce to what I'd wish. I must be content to have witnessed this, to have seen what's to be seen and hold the memory of it close within me. It is enough. I have no idea what this may lead to, what change in circumstance and loyalties could entail hereafter, but we long since agreed these things must be treated with a reasoned passion, and that risk run. Only our requited leeway lets us drift together, only the loosest ties will keep us bound at all. Our wide licence has been the guarantee of our relaxed affiliation, holding us within our wildly casual orbits where a narrower scope of mutual consent would quickly have torn us apart.
It was selfish of me to have intruded as much as I have. Sleep on, gentle ladies. Forgive me for taking this small amount of enjoyment from the aftermath of yours. I'll make my exit, leave you in peace and perhaps find a bed somewhere above.
I tread with due care back round the bed, again watching where I place my feet, again ducking under the line the candlelight takes from glowing wick to our lieutenant's lidded eyes.
A floorboard creaks beneath me, where none ever sounded before. Of course, I realise; I am near the rug covering the hole the shell left. The lieutenant stirs, sleepily. I take a long step off the offending board and it makes an abrupt cracking noise as it springs back into place. I hear a sudden noise behind on the bed, and start to turn, startled, off balance, staggering and putting my foot out towards the edge of the rug, thinking it must be centred over the hole.
But something in the castle lets me down. As I look back, and see your head begin to rise and the lieutenant turning quickly round, twisting the bedclothes around with her like some spun cocoon her eyes starting to open, her hand going out towards the cabinet at the side of the bed my foot meets the hole beneath the rug, imperfectly plugged. My leg disappears beneath, plunging me down; my other foot slides on the wooden floor as I begin to drop. My arms fly out, my hands trying to clutch at
The gun, forgotten in my burn frozen grip, erupts with sound. Loosed like a taloned bird to grasp the sanctuary of the mantelpiece's marble perch, my hand, fingers spasming, jerks closed instead on the pistol's trigger. The shot cracks, stupefyingly loud in the room, and a harsh spear of flame flashes from the muzzle, obliterating the soft glow of candies and log embers, blinding me. My leg catches in the hole;_ I twist as I fall, head hitting the metal rail at the hearth's edge; the gun is still firing, possessed of its own leaping life, its lunatic bark filling my hand and my ears. Marble cracks, splinters scatter, screams and ricochets echo somewhere within the maelstrom of noise. I roll on my back, dazed, while the gun continues to jolt and leap in my hand. Even as I fall to the floor, leg pinned, caught like an animal in a trap, I find myself wondering how the gun can still be firing, and only dimly start to understand that, unlike any gun I have ever used, it fires as long as the trigger is depressed. I tell my hand to open, will my fingers to release the trigger, as I struggle back up, trying to sit.
Then I see the lieutenant, nude and kneeling wide legged on the bed, a pistol held in both her hands and pointing straight at me. I open my mouth, to explain. Behind beyond her limber, pinkly splayed body I see you, crouched, doubled over, shaking, clutching at one arm.
Is that blood there on the sheets? Did I?
The lieutenant fires. before I can speak, before I am able to explain, or question, or protest. Something smacks into the side of my head like a hammer driven spike, spinning me, twisting me, flicking my sight about so that the candle flames” tiny points wheel and trail and make a halo round me, their little fluttering lives a lineage.
Then all light drains away entirely as I fall back once more, hitting the boards in fading silence.
Darkness. No more shots. Stillness.
I seem not to be able to hear anything directly, and yet somehow I become aware of things. I am conscious of crying, of shouts, of soothing sounds, of heavy slamming things and terrible roars and stamping, thudding noises. The existence, the presence of these sounds is reported to me somehow, but only as concepts, as abstract entities. I cannot tell who cries, who speaks or what is said or exactly what the noises are or mean.
I want to open my eyes but cannot. There is a storm coming, I think. The gun is torn from my hand. It does not hurt very much. I would like to say something, but I cannot. Something thuds into my side, into my ribs. It happens again. It takes a moment. in this enveloping darkness, for me to work out that I am being kicked. It begins to hurt a little. The crying and shouting and slamming, thudding noises continue. Is that the trees? Can I hear the trees, starting to move in the breeze? Another kick, which hurts more.
“ here!” a voice says, distinct.
Hands close around me, lift me roughly up. My leg is extricated from the hole in the floor. Then I am thrown down again, landing on something soft. I think.
I am on my back. No, my front.
I can hear confused noises now. Boards creak, doors slam, feet come clubbing; clothing noises, slippings, slidings; distant running steps, beat broken, all heading this way; shouts puzzled, anxious, relieved and angry; urgent talking. I think that we shall all be sorry when that storm descends. My head's pulled up, thumped down again. Can hear it gathering in the mountains. Oddly numb. More words. Dark amassing clouds for crowns. Still breathing. A certain darkness at the summit. Rudolph. Riduff. Rid of.
That is you crying, I believe. Comforting words from the lieutenant. I am still trying to speak because there must be things to be said. I think my eyes are open, though not because I believe I can see anything. I think I can see. I would certainly like to. Aware of many people. The room seems very red, as though observed through a mist of blood. You on the bed, huddled, being held; tended. Plaster on the floor, blood dark upon the bed. The lieutenant, sitting on the bed, pulling on a boot. Hissing light, some old gas powered thing. There is a rug beneath me, soft soaking. Voice I recognise; a servant's, shouting, imploring, a room away, then hurried discussion, orders given and more shouts, the servant's voice protesting, quieting, going, disappearing. The storm is still coming though; its roar is loud against the castle's hollow walls.
I am wondering who screamed. Was it you, my dear, or her? Or me, perhaps? For some reason it seems important just now, this knowledge of who it was who screamed, but I know only that somebody did. I can remember that scream, recall its sound, play it back inside my head even over the roar of the storm, but from that memory it could have been any one of the three of us. Perhaps it was all of us at once. No.