"What?" Harper asked.
"Where we're going..." Belimai's voice was slow and groggy.
"What's it like?"
"The Foster Estate? It's big, empty...quite beautiful, really. There are orchards, mostly apple and hazelnut. There's a summer staff there, but that's all. My grandmother stays with my aunt's family at Redcliff. We'll have the place to ourselves."
"Sounds nice. I wish that I wasn't so messed up for my one chance to see the world outside the capital."
"You'll get better. It's not as if I'm going to haul you back to the city after you recover."
"No. Guess not. God, I'm cold." Belimai shuddered.
"You're burning up," Harper whispered.
"Do you think hell will be worse than this?" Belimai murmured, curling his arms in around himself.
"I don't know." Harper closed his eyes again. Belimai's fevered body trembled, and Harper continued stroking his hair. He wished Belimai would fall asleep. It would be easier on both of them.
"Tell me something," Belimai whispered.
"What?" Harper asked.
"Do you ever think about hell?"
"Not if I can help it."
"I used to think about it all the time. I wondered what it was like, now that all the demons had left it."
"A vast, abandoned kingdom of endless silence, if you believe the scriptures," Harper replied easily.
"And do you believe the scriptures, Captain Harper?"
Harper imagined, from Belimai's tone of voice, that Belimai was watching him with that sidelong smirk. It wasn't an odd expression for Belimai; in fact, it suited his features. He often used the expression to mask his own earnestness.
"I imagine we'll discover what's there for ourselves soon enough," Harper said.
"I'll write you about it if I get there before you. I bet it's warm." Belimai's words were garbled under a long yawn. He shivered and then resettled himself.
"Do you want me to cover you with my coat?" Harper asked.
"Harper." Belimai was quiet for a long moment. "You can't keep giving your own things up for other people. You need to be a little selfish sometimes."
"It's no trouble. I'm not cold."
"We're both cold..." Belimai drifted into silence. He lay limp against Harper and, at last, fell asleep.
Harper had known he would. Only in the few minutes before he passed out did Belimai completely lose his tones of sarcasm and cynicism. Some nights, if Harper kept him talking, Belimai could almost sound sweet.
Harper relaxed back against the cushions of the seat. He closed his eyes and slept.
Steadily the night gave way to morning, and bright light poured in through the carriage window. Belimai rolled over so that his face pressed into the shadows of the seat cushions. Harper woke and gazed out at the passing rows of apple trees. The air was sweet with the perfume of wildflowers and fallen rain. He was nearly home.
Chapter Five
Angel
The estate house was as Harper remembered. The dark building rose above the outer walls and towered over the oak trees lining the drive. The huge walls were first erected when the estate served as a church garrison. They stood, as they had for generations, awaiting a last assault of ancient heretics. From the narrow windows high in the walls to the vast stables, the estate remained in a warring past. Instead of gas lamps, iron torch-holders hung over the massive stone entry.
Though the grounds and building were immaculate and clearly kept up, the quiet made the estate house seem abandoned. It felt deeply isolated. Not just separated from the rest of civilization by distance, but lost in another age.
Each time Harper returned, he recalled thinking that the torch-holders should be refitted for new gas fixtures. But then he always forgot and ended up leaving them until the next time he came. He wondered if his father had perhaps done the same thing. Perhaps generations of his ancestors had done so, and slowly the estate house had been left further and further in the past, until it at last became this towering relic.
Harper rapped at the carved double doors. The sound wasn't much, but it carried through the stillness. A moment later a slot in one of the doors opened and a young man, dressed in the estate colors of blue and white, grinned out at Harper.
His name was Giles and he was the eldest son of Mrs. Kately, the housekeeper. Harper's annual visits always afforded him a glimpse of the progress of Giles' maturity. This year Giles sported a wispy brown mustache that looked like something he might have bought in a costume shop rather than grown. The way he stroked his chin told Harper that he was rather proud of the thing. Giles pulled aside the heavy bolt and heaved at the door.
"Good morning, Master William. It's a pleasure to see you back at the estate, sir." Giles inclined his head and then noticed Belimai.
In the bright morning sun, it was obvious that Belimai's clothes were mismatched and the wrong sizes. His skin looked waxy and his hair was a wild, black mass. He clenched his eyes closed against the light.
Giles stared at him.
"Good morning to you also, sir," Giles said after a moment.
Belimai groaned slightly in response.
"Giles." Harper called the young man's attention away from Belimai. "Will you inform Mrs. Kately that I have a guest with me and that he is ill? We'll be taking meals upstairs."
"Yes, sir." Giles bowed and then quietly left the entry hall.
"Are you all right?" Harper asked once they were alone.
Belimai slowly cracked his eyes open wide enough to study his surroundings.
"Too damn bright," Belimai said quietly.
The marble floor gleamed, reflecting the shafts of sunlight that poured in through the windows. Though tapestries of martyred saints no longer hung from the walls, the estate house still held remnants of its early history. Gilded crosses were etched into the face of each door and over every archway. Narrow, stained glass windows infused the morning light with vivid colors. Tiny, luminous visions of angels in battle and sinners in torment shone from high up in the walls.
Harper followed Belimai's gaze up to a furious, red-eyed angel of vengeance. The image was one of a hundred that Harper had seen day-in and out during his youth and then again during his studies at St. Bennet's. Like the images of the cross, angels had become so familiar to Harper that he hardly noticed them at all anymore.
Belimai's pupils dilated and contracted. His lips moved fractionally, but no sound came out. Harper wondered if he was hallucinating.
"Belimai," Harper said. "It's just a stained glass window."
"She looks like your sister," Belimai said at last.
Harper looked back up at the window. Belimai was right. It did look like Joan. Not the sweet, brown-eyed girl of his memories, but the furious woman she had become after Peter Roffcale's murder. The angel hung over him like an accusation.
"Harper," Belimai whispered.
"What?" Harper glanced back to Belimai.
His face had gone a bloodless white. He swayed, and Harper placed an arm on his shoulder to steady him.
"It's all right," Belimai whispered. "I'm just..." Belimai crumpled. Harper caught him and lifted him up into his arms.
The closest bedroom was the nursery. Harper doubted that Belimai would appreciate the decor, but at the moment he wasn't likely to notice it. The walls were painted in bright childish colors and Harper's name was embroidered across the trim of the coverlet on the bed.