He thought he was lost: he knew he was drunk and alone and in no mood for
a fight. The side portal of a church offered shelter--its door ajar, at this
hour, was an extra bit of luck. It was dark inside but warm enough.
Must be a rich parish, MacLeod thought, taking off his hat. He used
to think all churches smelled the same, before he came to France. Stone and
wax and some pomade clinging to wool, here; and another sober, woody smell.
He touched the slightly oily water in the entry stoup and crossed himself,
then wiped his fingers from habit on the hilt of his sword. He moved his
head from side to side, testing the silence. Empty.
A gleam of light drew him further inside. He could see a thick candle burning
in a bay behind an ornate screen and caught a whiff of incense. More candles
wavered in the depths near what must be the main altar; hard to gauge in
the dark and in his state. An hour's nap would be a blessing, if he could
find a spot. The arch to his left opened on the nave and a few steps brought
him to a dimly outlined row of pews. Climbing into the closest one, he caught
his boot on a carved arm and sprawled across the seat, clawing at its back.
The echoes racketed up like bats, before settling in the blackness overhead.
He swayed a moment, listening; then set his hat carefully aside, his sword
in reach on the floor. He tightened his cloak around him and laid his head
on a pillowing arm.
A moving light, a creak, a wash of Presence: he was awake. He freed his arm
and reached for his sword, lifting his head cautiously above the sheltering
pew. A priest, pale as a wax saint in a black robe, stood by the crossing,
holding a double candlestick.
"Who's there?" The priest swung the light higher and MacLeod ducked.
"A sinner, Father," answered a deep voice from the shadows. One immortal
or both? He couldn't tell. The second man came up the aisle, his boots loud
on the stone flaggings. Tall, taut, caped, with a military air; the man kept
his hat on and a hand on his sword as he swung past. MacLeod smelled rain
and blood and musk. Keeping his eyes lowered, he held his breath until the
footsteps stopped. A draught swirled in the man's wake, crazing the candle
shadows and rousing the incense again.
MacLeod slowly raised his head, hoping to get a better look. They stood in
front of the chancel screen, backlit by the altar candles. He had an impression
of the priest's hawklike face, but he'd set his candlestick on a pre-dieu
too low to light him clearly and the caped man had his back to him. At a
muted question, the man lowered his hat and knelt before the priest.
Confession, MacLeod grumbled. Hope it's for the bastard who was
following me. The priest laid a hand on the man's bent head and the hat
dropped to the floor. The muffled conversation continued. MacLeod eased back
down. This could take a while, if he's anything like me. A little
guilt bubbled up from beneath the wine. The sound intensified; he heard sobs.
How much like me?
Curious, he hunched up, staring into the gloom. The kneeling man was shaking,
the priest bent forward and clutching his shoulders. The compassion in the
gesture struck MacLeod and he strained forward, trying to sharpen his sight.
Suddenly the priest cried out and jerked upright, arching into the screen,
upsetting the pre-dieu. His black soutane spread wide, and in the rocking
candlelight MacLeod saw him exposed, the long white gleam of his body stark
against the velvet darkness, the supplicant clutching for his hip, face shadowed
but lips stretched red and wide after the glistening member that bounced,
spurting, inches from his open mouth.
MacLeod yelped as he tumbled from the seat, tangled in his cloak, kicking
the pew in front of him. Somehow on his feet, he ran for the door; behind
him he heard the man's rich voice, mocking.
"I said, daydream on your own time, MacLeod! You're supposed to be helping
me here."
Duncan started and knocked over the drill. Hell of a thing to remember halfway
up a ladder on a Sunday. There was a hiss and shake behind him and he turned
to look down on Methos, who was nursing his elbow. The ladder platform pressed,
not unpleasantly, against Duncan's upper thighs.
"Son of a bitch! Just screw the damned plate in and get down before you kill
us both." Methos handed the tool up with a glare. "That's what I get for
using unskilled labor."
"It's what you get for being a cheap bastard," said Duncan, flipping the
drill into position and snugging screws into the mount. "And an unhandy one,
at that." With a bent mind and a bad eye, he added to himself. An
hour's struggle with a mass of twisted iron posing as a chandelier hadn't
improved his views on Methos's taste. His relationship with the ladder, though,
was getting closer by the moment. I'm a voyeur of my own life, he
thought, while the bright tingle born of memory took root and grew. Gives
a new meaning to self abuse.
Another shake traveled up the ladder, making Ducan's buttocks clench. "Well?"
He snapped the tool box closed. "Done. Get back." He pressed a brief farewell
against the ladder, then climbed down. "Where's that drink?"
Methos was squinting at the chandelier. "It looks crooked."
"It was born that way." He looked up anyway; then back, to catch Methos gazing
at his jeans.
"Enjoy your work?"
Duncan bared his teeth, unabashed."Whisky. The good stuff, mind: no ice."
"The help get beer." Methos lifted his chin in the direction of the bathroom.
"There's a leaky faucet, if you're really in the mood. Take your time, I
ordered in."
"Funny guy." Duncan set the box next to a piece of furniture he decided was
a couch and sat, adjusting himself conspicuously. The seat was more comfortable
than it looked; it faced a window that framed a chestnut tree in leaf and
a white stone edge of the building next door. A broad patch of sunlight hit
his arm. He was warm, relaxed, and still aroused. Funny guy.
A trunk near his knee was piled with document cases. Archival boxes in green
and gray were stacked against the wall and next to them was a wrought-iron
lectern that he'd seen before, somewhere. Looked like a home, almost. Methos
was in the kitchen making noises, none of which sounded like the prelude
to a decent drink. Duncan flipped back the toolbox lid; clipped to the underside
was a pewter flask. He liked the feel of the sun, liked the glow in his belly,
and wanted something with a little more heat and flavor than a bottle of
fizz.
The first sip slid down gratefully, fumey and smooth--apples and citrus,
sherry and peat. He smiled and sipped again. I'm happy. It was so
small an idea, and yet so foreign, so unexpected and unjust. Cradling the
feeling, he drank and blinked at the sun. He twisted on the couch and moved
one of the cases on the trunk to make room for his feet. As his thighs brushed
his scrotum, his cock leapt; he squeezed his legs together and laughed.
"Amusing yourself?" Methos stood over him, holding a plate and a bottle.
Duncan saw the sunlight glint in a narrowed eye and flow down along the lean
body to warm a fullness in jeans he never remembered seeing from this angle.
"I hope you brought enough to share."
"The help get beer." Duncan swigged from the flask again, eyebrows up, and
Methos snorted.
"Fine." He waved the bottle. "More for me. Move your feet."
Duncan's mind still held the image of the couple in the church; he looked
up at the lanky figure and wondered where his mouth would come to if he knelt
in front of Methos; and if those large hands would grip his shoulders...He
licked his lips and shook his head, eyes fixed on Methos's face. Time slowed
as Methos bent across the couch, over Duncan's legs, to set the platter down;
Duncan reached out and grabbed his wrist. The doorbell buzzed.
"Joe!" Methos pushed the platter into Duncan's hand. "Told you I'd ordered
in." He gave Duncan an opaque look, and turned away.
Duncan consigned his
erection to a circle of Hell and dropped the platter on his lap. Told
me I could take my time, too.
Joe had brought sandwiches from Fanelli's; Methos dug out a glass for Duncan
and a few bottles of Anchor Steam. The plate held huge olives and breadsticks
wrapped with prosciutto. Duncan laid claim to most of those, chewing with
relish on the meat-tipped batons. He lay back in his corner of the couch,
crowding Methos at the other end, talking to Joe who'd settled into a squarish
chair of chrome and leather strips. The sun drew away from the window, but
green-filtered light lingered in the room.
"So, what was it in a former life?" Joe asked, staring at the new addition.
"Before the accident?"
Methos sighed. "Let's see: no wagon wheel, no antlers; no wonder you're confused.
A classical saying on gustation comes to mind..."
"Bad taste is timeless?" Duncan offered, helpfully.
"The blood's still missing from your brain." Methos picked a breadstick from
Duncan's lap.
While Joe chuckled, Duncan stretched and knocked the stack of cases on the
trunk. "What is all this, anyway?" He picked up the top box.
"Hey! Hands!" Methos warned. "Don't open that, MacLeod; it's rare."
"My hands are clean," he lied, and read from the label: "Auguste Maquet:
Journaux 1845-48."
"Just something I'm working on." Methos sat up and frowned.
"Auguste Maquet...Maquet the hack?"
"What have you got there?" Joe's eyes had lit up at the mention of journals.
"I've heard of Maquet. Researcher for the Musketeer novels? Sued Dumas for
credit?"
"A hack and a leech." Duncan decapitated another breadstick. "A pisseur
de copie," he elaborated, scattering crumbs.
"Oh, like you'd know. Reading by then, were you?" Methos pulled the case
from Duncan's dubiously sanitary grasp and propped it on the lectern. From
the corner of his eye, Duncan saw Joe wipe his hands and pick it up; but
a nettled Methos was a better show.
"I know he was a second-rate historian who couldn't publish anything on his
own. I know he had to beg Dumas for work. And I know he tried to drag the
real genius through the mud for money. He died rich," Duncan sniffed, "and
Dumas died ruined."
"Good lord, a fan!"
"A reader with taste."
"The timeless kind?"
"Darius told me..."
"Darius told you what?" Oh, on beyond nettled, suddenly. Duncan recognized
the lectern now. Friends? Surely not a student.
"He told me once that Maquet was a thief. No details." And Methos came off
the boil.
"He wasn't so bad." Methos drained his bottle and stood up, frowning at Joe.
"May I?" asked Joe, who had finally undone the cover.
"Put it down." Behind him, Duncan picked up another box. Methos looked around
at the piled riches of the room and visibly made an effort to relax. Shrugged.
"The paper's fragile and I don't want it handled. Something else to drink?"
He took the case from Joe, who gave it up reluctantly, and carried it with
him into the kitchen.
"Funny guy," said Duncan.
"Taking it kind of personal, don't you think?" Joe pointed at the box Duncan
still held. "What's that one?"
"L'Habitation Saint-Ybars: Notes."
"More by Maquet?"
"Alfred Mercier." Methos came back holding a bottle of Bushmill's. "I'm scanning
in some stuff I've had in storage. Make room, MacLeod."
The light went slowly blue as the bottle made its round. Duncan found himself
staring at Methos's hand wrapped around a squat crystal tumbler. He did a
quick internal check: the little idea was still installed--more than content,
more than comfortable. Happy. Across from him, Joe leaned back and swirled
his glass, watching the golden film cling to its sides. "The Musketeers.
Read it when I was twelve; hell of a story. Got me hooked on history." He
wore the same air of concentrated nonchalance Duncan had seen him use to
build a poker hand. "Never heard that Maquet kept a journal, though. That's
quite the find; damned near impossible to get your hands on, I'd imagine..."
Methos rolled his eyes. "Just ask, Joe."
Joe leaned over his knees and fixed Methos with a gimlet eye: "Were you Maquet?"
Methos choked on his whisky. "Sorry, wrong pisseur. Good grief, no.
Have you seen his tomb?" He coughed again.
"How did you get his private papers?" Duncan was curious, as well.
"I paid." Methos emptied his glass in a gulp. "Anything else?"
"How much of it was real?" Joe asked, and Duncan smiled to himself.
"You think I know?" Methos poured out another inch. "A lot of the history
was wrong. Maquet, Dumas, Scott--they turned old chronicles into adventures
and love stories. They invented the historical romance."
"Yes, but the Musketeers--they did exist." Joe pressed. "There was a Comte
de la Fère; there was someone named Portau and an Aramitz and Milady.
And D'Artagnan was definitely real." He edged another inch forward. "Dumas
wrote that the books were based on a secret journal. What does Maquet say?"
"Fiction, Joe--there was no secret diary. Look, Maquet wrote; Dumas rewrote;
they picked up whatever looked interesting and made it new. They took the
Musketeer noms de guerre and a few stories from the Memoirs of D'Artagnan;
but that was fictional, as well. Porthos was modeled on Dumas's father. Athos
was a romantic ideal."
"And Aramis?"
"Aramis was a fool."
"Just in the first book," put in Duncan. "After he left the Musketeers he
turned scheming and rotten. Felt real to me." He tugged the bottle from Methos's
grip.
"Invention," Methos insisted. "Henri d'Aramitz was nothing like the Bishop
of Vannes."
"Well, what about the real D'Artagnan?"
"Not far off, there," Duncan said. He'd been waiting for the conversation
to take this turn. "He was everything Dumas said he was. I met him; fought
with him, once." He swirled his own glass and sipped, waiting for the reaction.
Methos sniggered and Joe shook his head. "Thought you were above that kind
of thing, Mac." At Duncan's indignant look he laughed. "Oh, come on. It's
an old Watcher joke. Every immortal alive back then claimed some contact
with D'Artagnan. After the books were written, of course. He loved all the
women and fought all the men."
"A miracle he survived as long as he did," Methos grinned.
Joe took the bottle from MacLeod. "We know of one immortal mistress, when
he was young. Very few actual duels with immortals and none of them with
Duncan MacLeod. How about you, old man? Ever have a go?"
"I'm telling the truth, damn it!" Duncan insisted. "Ask Connor. I was in
Lille, in 1640..."
"Were you?" murmured Methos.
"It was a rainy night and I was...lost." He faltered, recalling his memory
on the ladder. Strange coincidence. He'd run from the church that night straight
into the young soldier standing in the street. "I knocked him down and we
fought; he ran me though the arm then took me to an inn." And there was more
to say about the shaken evening, but he had lost the appetite to tell it.
In the lengthening silence the last light faded from the room and he caught
the gleam of Methos's eyes.
"Well, Joe will have to annotate your file." Methos pressed a hand on Duncan's
knee as he levered off the couch; he dialed up the light of the iron monstrosity
and stood underneath, admiring it. Duncan watched his lips curve into one
of his deceptively sweet private smiles, and asked, "So, where were you in
1640?"
He was chilled and angry and his lace stank of blood. However long he rubbed
his hand through the rain-wet grass or across his horse's mane it felt unclean.
The smell lingered and his fingers buzzed, sticky and sore. He disliked killing
a woman, no matter how much the witch deserved it--her Quickening was violent
and foul and had coiled in his liver like a snake. One place to go, one refuge
he knew, one place to take him in whatever he'd done. It was dark and silent
at the rectory, but here the door was open, as promised. Drawing his cape
about him, he walked in until he passed the archway and felt the prickle
of immortal Presence, a veil of sensation that he pressed into hungrily.
"Qui est là?"
"Un pécheur, mon père." The stones made noise beneath his boots,
marking hard, steady steps. His head swam, his senses drew in until he knew
only the figure that raised a light to guide him in the gloom. Up a step.
Two. They were almost of a height; he lifted a hand to touch, then stopped.
"Aramis?" the priest asked; and when he didn't answer, "René? Are
you well?"
Methos grimaced and took off his hat. Scattered drops hissed in the candle
flames. "It's been a long time." The snake struck and he sank to his knees.
"Not Aramis; not well. I've been a fool, Father."
A fool who trusted, who loved, whose careful plans had come undone. She ran,
the bitch, she slipped and the boy had lost his nerve and fouled the headsman
and he was the closest to hand; he struck out without scruple, without thought,
and after she fell the earth and sky shattered through him. He came to his
senses alone, bound to the severed head by its hair, her teeth embedded in
his hand. His friends and their horses had vanished, the band of four broken
and gone.
He wound his fist in the wool that draped the good man's knee. "They saw
me Quicken and they ran. My sworn companions, my superstitious friends."
Half a laugh. The executioner had crept back to collect his fee from the
grass around the body. He'd seen the like before, he said, but his eye rolled
white in his direction.
Darius touched his head, sliding icy fingers to his scalp. "Come inside and
talk."
He shook his head, he pressed his face against the cassock and felt it shift
and part; felt cold flesh against his cheek. "You're naked."
"It's all right."
"Did I disturb you at your prayers? Lying naked on the stone?"
"I was asleep. It's too cold for theatrics."
He didn't ask what woke him. He slid his hands across the soft wool behind
Darius' legs, feeling the swell of calf, the hollow behind the knees; he
moved his fingers up, stroking the long thighs, rucking up the cloth, digging
in, finally under the round press of flesh above.
"Come within, child."
"Later!" He gripped the priest tightly, shaking him, snarling to himself.
This is mine, this is the only promise kept: my flesh and blood back again
from death; one place to shelter, on holy ground; and you--so far, still
you.
He shook his head a second time; the movement displaced the open robe and
his nose grazed slick flesh, his moustache and beard rasped across fine hairs,
caught by the light, that rose and stirred in needle peaks of skin. He blew
a damp breath to feel his heat wash back against his lips; then slowly, roughly,
drew his tongue across the shadowed rim of navel. Darius shuddered and shifted
in his grip, but he pressed him back against the screen. The worked iron
dug into the back of his hands as he drove his fingers deep into the robe
over Darius' hips and bit his stomach. He must have drawn blood, for he tasted
the coppery sizzle of healing. Darius' pelvis jerked forward and the fingers
in his hair went to claws.
"Not here, you heathen sot!"
He stabbed his tongue into the navel, then pressed his tongue flat and broad
below against warming skin and bands of muscle, lower, lower, down to tight
wiry curls that picked at the inside of his lip, that tangled with his beard,
that smelled sharp and dry as myrrh. Under his chin the priest's member swelled,
bobbing against his collar's pointed lace and he finally felt one long hand
move in his hair, rub down and behind his ear in the familiar acquiescent
caress.
He eased back on his haunches to bring his mouth lower, closer, licking and
fumbling; and his ear was sharply pinched.
"What are you doing?"
"It's Friday--I'm fishing," he muttered. That won him another vicious pinch.
"Bad puns are a sin." But Darius' voice was rough and fond.
The snake had moved, had slithered down inside his lower belly to thicken
out his cock; it twitched against confinement and he twisted, squeezing his
thighs together. Darius bent over, grasping him by the shoulders and the
robe fell around his face, cloaking him, sheltering him between its wings.
Darius was saying something, but he had captured his prey without his hands,
growling a little for the pleasure. The angle was awkward so he screwed his
fingers inward, up into the wool-clad flesh, spreading the cheeks, pushing
against the testes to bunch them forward higher, tighter, firmer to reach.
He licked the balls and sucked them till they dripped; he lapped at the wet
cock tip, he played his tongue along the shifting sheath and pressed the
stiff hairs of his moustache into tender skin; he opened his mouth wide and
slubbed, then engulfed the slender shaft, pressing his tongue hard up beneath
the heavy vein. The prick quivered in his mouth and his own cock throbbed--he
shifted just as Darius' hips began to jerk forward and he slipped
somehow--unbalanced, his hands bound by the cassock, he brought a knee down
heavily on Darius' bare foot and the sheltered haven burst.
Darius roared in pain and heat, falling open and back as he came in a stream
of drops that fell like pearls in the light; he dashed the candlestick onto
the steps while Methos gaped and tumbled. As they fell, Methos heard a crash
from the nave and managed to swivel round on hands and knees to see some
tall oaf scrambling down the aisle, making a hot escape. "Run, fool!" he
called after him, trying to free his sword."Mass is over!" Before he gained
his feet, the intruder was through the door, hell-bent for the avenue.
He picked up the candlestick and received a stinging box on his ear. Methos
turned to find the priest slumped on the steps. Darius' hair stood up in
spikes above a reddened face and wide pale eyes. "Blasphemy, too! You broke
my foot, you hound."
He had to laugh, at last. "It has been a long while, hasn't it?"
"Ooof. Maybe not long enough." Darius pulled himself upright and tested the
healing foot. "So, was that a friend of yours?"
Heat flared behind Methos's ribs and the snake rewoke. He walked down the
aisle to the voyeur's pew, holding up the candlestick, Darius limping behind.
When he came to a trampled object on the floor he stopped and shook his head.
"Not in that hat." A black wave of bile flooded through him, quelling the
snake, damping the last pangs of energy, leaving him desolate and flat.
"Ah. Another fisher, no doubt." Darius grasped Methos by the nape and shook
him gently. "Well, not-Aramis-René, or whatever your name is now:
come away. We'll warm ourselves and talk about your penance."
-End-
Notes
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