X. Catechism
Ian would not take the box back from her. It was not that he refused; only that he did not offer a hand to accept it. Moments passed and she was forced to choose between lobbing the box at him, or lowering it into her lap. She chose the latter.
In an effort to refocus both his mood and the outcome of their encounter, she asked, "Do you like it here?"
"Yes," he said with confidence, followed quickly by a quiet, "No."
His answer did not surprise her--neither the initial, nor the correction. She was pleased that he felt comfortable enough with her to voice the correction aloud. She had given him a rather angry lecture on the importance of truthfulness where the artist was concerned during a recent lesson. "Then why do you stay?"
He did not hesitate with his answer. "I want to protect Mr. Irons."
"From whom?" She did not laugh, nor did she wish to. There was a seriousness about the boy that always engendered a similar seriousness in herself. It would be a disservice to treat him unnecessarily lightheartedly. "From me? From others? That's all you want?"
He stood suddenly, his head sagging to the submissive angle she knew Irons to prefer. "Purity of heart," he intoned, "is to will one thing only."
Quietly she rebutted him. "Oftentimes, purity of heart is to will nothing at all."
Even under the weight and shadow of his bent head she saw his features contract, fleetingly confused. "But the will is the link between the soul and the universe."
She smiled into the darkness. "Sometimes, Ian, it is enough for soul to link to soul, and for the universe to take care of itself. Come," she said, making a place for him beside her in the large chair and echoing his earlier invitation. "Won't you sit down?"
He complied by sitting, but not beside her, instead resuming his previous seat on the floor.
She leaned back into her chair, and asked, "Does your guardian treat you well?"
"Yes," he said, his eyes not meeting hers. "No. Yes." And then stronger, "Yes."
"Ian," she gripped his chin firmly in a practice-strengthened hand so that he would have to face her when he made his answer. "Do you love Mr. Irons?"
"Yes." There was not so much as a speck of doubt in his eyes, and though he was good at lying for a thirteen-year-old, he was not good enough to fake that.
"Do you believe that he loves you back?"
Silence.
She let go of his chin, and he looked away for a second, as if he saw someone else in the room--a vapor, perhaps. A memory.
His voice, as it asked the question, became soft, almost unfamiliar to her. "Did you know my mother?"
"Your mother." The question startled her. And then, though it was out of her line of sight, she felt the bracelet blink a second time, and she understood. "Your mother is Elizabeth Bronte." She did not question the radical nature of such a statement, nor the way in which she came to understand its inherent truth. "No, I did not," she spoke candidly. "She died before I was born."
"Yes." She heard him say quietly, and thought when he spoke he echoed her words, "She died...before I was born."
...
Ulaauq had no more questions, but moved a moment later in an effort to cover her bare legs--the dressing gown's front opening like a much too-high slit, and the jewelry box she had almost forgotten slipped from her lap. Her hand went out instinctively to save it from its fall, and in rescuing it before it hit the floor her fingers touched the cold metal of the bracelet, whose stone winked its thanks to her, and she sank into a chilly, black unconsciousness.
XII. Punishment
Kenneth Irons did not know what called him from his more-than comfortable bed down to the Great Room, but he had long ago learned not to quibble with any prescience he might experience from time to time, rather to make use of it to the fullest extent possible. It was no great hardship, after all, to find the dressing gown and slippers laid out for the next morning, put them on, run a comb through his hair (there had been no urgency to his feeling, after all) and walk down to the Great Room to see what was afoot. It was, doubtless, a testament to his well-deserved confidence in the security of Valhalla that he did not even quicken his pace. Ian was, after all, under lock and key in the West Tower, and Christiansen secured similarly in the East Wing.
He entered the Great Room through the library, pausing at the railing to survey the space; the room's darkness once the fire was out usually making this task difficult at best.
But it took only a moment for him to see the pair, as appalling to his sight as had they been found sprawled en flagrante delicto. The woman he had ordered covertly secured in the Roosevelt Bedroom of the East Wing was asleep in a chair at the back wall. She was wearing one of his dressing gowns, the bottom front sliding open to reveal bare legs and slipperless feet. And at those feet, also sleeping, the young boy about whom he had fretted most of the evening away--fulfilling nearly all his worst fears. Young Nottingham lay curled at her bare feet like a loyal hound, oblivious to both his master's whereabouts and intrusion; as feared, his training and senses dulled in the presence of this woman.
Irons would not have been able to see the unlikely tableau as well as he did, though, had there not been a bright, red mist surrounding them like a soft, glowing nightlight. The aura of the Witchblade.
Irons was down the steps in half a heartbeat. Careful not to touch the blade itself, he took the hinged jewel box from Christiansen's lap, closed it, and slid it into the relative safety of his dressing gown's pocket.
With his right hand (the one that bore the mark of the Witchblade) still throbbing from his earlier foresight, he grabbed at the back collar of the sleeping Ian's shirt, gripping the cloth so tightly as he dragged the boy on his knees and belly across the room that Ian (now startled awake) could neither catch his breath, nor find his legs to stand.
Once to the fireplace wall of the Great Room, He slung the weight of Nottingham into the stone, and waited. The boy struggled for breath while attempting to bury his chin even further into his collarbone.
Irons extended a hand to help the boy up. Ian knew better than to take it, or to raise his eyes to meet his master's, burning at this moment brightly enough to consume whatever fell in his path.
"What have you done, Ian?" Irons snarled rhetorically, his voice stern, bitter.
Nottingham managed to stand on his own, fighting back the need to cough.
Irons took out the jewel box that held the Witchblade and held it out. When he spoke his voice was softer, calmer, more frightening. "You have taken away my choices, do you see that? I can do one of two things. I can have Christiansen killed. Would you like that?"
Nottingham did not look up.
"What, no?" Irons shook his head. "No," his voice dropped an octave with the word. "Not an easy thing to accomplish, the disposal of one so famous--so world renown. Not easy, but not impossible." He paused, and smiled coldly. "And not to your liking, is it? Hmm? Then I must take her away from you, Ian. Do you see what you are making me have to do?"
Irons stepped to the side so that Ian could see Christian, still in the chair, still enduring whatever the Witchblade had chosen to show her. "I can make that woman," Irons said, "nothing to you. She will not care about you, she will not think about you. When someone says your name to her she will feel nothing. She will never come here again unless I will it. And then she will come only for me, Ian. For my pleasure. Not for yours. From this day forward that woman," Irons grabbed a patch Ian's hair, elevating the boy's head so that he was looking at Christiansen full-on, "that woman is mine."
A moment passed and he let go of his grasp on Ian's hair, settling the boy's dark shock of hair back in to place with a studied, gentle caress. His voice softened. "As you, my boy, are mine." He smiled as close to sincerely as Kenneth Irons ever managed, lowering his face closer to Ian's. "Your actions have forced me to do this, Ian. Things would not have come to this if you had but done as you have been taught." He shook his head regretfully. "You have left me with no choice. No choice at all. And I see now," Ian tensed with alarm, "as you look at her," Irons spoke to Nottingham as though the boy were a small child. "That I shall have to execute both options to truly take her away from you." He gave the boy a pitying look. "For she has, I see, what you think is your heart." His smile soured and his voice again morphed into one of harshness and gravel. "It is a pity that when I kill her she will not be able to give it back to you."
Irons turned his back on Nottingham and began walking toward Christiansen. Over his shoulder he heard the young boy's breath--trained though it may be--quicken in fear of what was to come. Irons thought about demanding the boy stand watch and witness for both portions of his coming punishment, but decided instead that a grand exit would better serve at the moment, leaving the rest to the boy's well-developed imagination.
With strong arms he lifted the still unconscious Christiansen out of the chair along the far wall of the Great Room and carried her past Nottingham, and up the winding library steps, the length of her silk dressing gown falling over his arm to reveal again the skin of her bare legs, the excess fabric trailing behind Irons as Ian looked on, and all light in the room, with his instructor's, his master's, and the Witchblade's exit, extinguished.
Then, even alone in the darkness, he dared not move.
XIII. Sweet Dreams
Ulaauq Christiansen was not asleep. She was not asleep, but she was unconscious, and in that state she was having a vision of the Ice Goddess. And the Ice Goddess looked a very great deal like archival photos she had seen of Elizabeth Bronte. She did not question this.
In her vision a voice spoke to her, saying over and over again, "Take," beckoning her to enforce her will on whatever she chose. "Take," it whispered as she saw Ian laying at her feet, letting her know that it would help her rescue him from this place. "Take," it said when she saw, as though no longer in her body, the primitive bracelet that had winked at her. "Take," it said, and showed her Kenneth Irons coming to lift her into his embrace. "Take."
It was not an easy voice to resist, but there was an old story her mother had told her, that the Ice Goddess was known to be cruel, and did not give anything without asking a price, some barter in return.
She had agreed to have the Ocean's children, but only if he would care for them. She gave seals the ability to swim--but only if Inuk could hunt them. She had helped create the world, but only if she could one day destroy it.
"Take," said Elizabeth Bronte, the Ice Goddess, her lips not moving as she sat on a chaise lounge. She was stretched along the length of it, her skin cold, a fog surrounding her. She was missing two fingers. "Take."
XIV. Goodnight
"Uula," Kenneth Irons whispered to the unconscious woman in his arms as he entered through the door to the Roosevelt Bedroom. "Uula, will you not wake up?" he spoke it in his best East Greenlandic--which doubtless could have benefited from some polish. He needed to understand how much she had learned--how much she remembered of the evening. He had never before employed any form of her first name--let alone the familiar shortening she had once, out of politeness, offered for his use.
She came to slowly, as though she was waking from a lazy afternoon cap nap, her back arching against his forearms as she stretched herself awake and his pulse was quickened by her movement.
He was already to the bed with her before she opened her eyes. He did not bother to arrange her in any particular way, he did not bother to attempt some sort of feigned modesty where the front slit of the dressing gown she wore was concerned. In the moment before she opened her eyes he noted a great many things, the smoothness of her bare legs--even against silk, the length and fall of her loose dark hair against the bed's pillows, the slight tilt to her eyes, the explosion of heat that her heartbeat had effected in him as he carried her up the stairs.
He thought of the evening's earlier duet, of the conversation at dinner. He had said her name. He said it again. "Uula." He found he wished to hear her say his.
Things were simple now. It was no-holds-barred. This woman that he had been so wary of on Ian's account had done her damage, fulfilled the prophecy he had made for her. She now became, as he had counseled Ian, an expendable asset. He could use, abuse, or seduce her as he willed.
He took the fingertips of his left hand and ran them lightly up the side of her exposed leg, allowing himself to wander dangerously close to inner and upper thigh. He stopped short, though, tracing tiny nonsense onto her exposed flesh.
Her eyes were open now, though still somewhat cloudy, and she reached for his hand. His mind and body sparked to see whether she would slap it away, or direct it on its course of discovery.
In an instant she took his small finger (still wearing his signet ring) in her hand and bent it back to the brink of pain. His right eye narrowed, and his lips pursed, but he did not struggle, choosing instead to let the scene play out. Her breath no longer the measured rhythm of sleep, she raised her left hand to his chin, taking it in her thumb and first finger.
"Most un-professional, my dear," he said, challenging her.
At that, her thumb slipped in between his teeth and before he could say another word her mouth was inside his, her attack more enchanting and delicious than he could ever have imagined.
"Take," she breathed to him in a whisper of Greenlandic.
With his free hand he peeled the neck of her dressing gown from one shoulder, resting his thumb in the hollow of her throat, his fingers kneading at her exquisitely formed collarbone. Just when his senses would forget the pain of his captured left hand in the wake of other pleasures she was affording him, she would increase the pressure, marrying a dangerous mix of breath-taking pain to the precariously sensual cocktail she was mixing for him.
He reached his free hand to peel back the second side of her dressing gown's collar and she did not object, but when he made an effort to loosen her makeshift obi (the anticipation of the dressing gown falling away and revealing her to him wholly dominating his thoughts) though she surrendered his captive hand in response, she withdrew from their embrace, removing her mouth from his and standing up from her position on the bed.
She did not bother to resettle the collar of the gown, but left it open as it was, he thought to tempt him.
It did. He smiled, pleased.
"If I must choose tonight," she said, with what he imagined might be resolve in her voice, "Between the positions of Ian's instructor, or your lover, I will choose Ian."
"Why?" he was feeling decidedly charmed by her declaration.
"I am no one's possession."
He smiled more deeply, lines creasing about his eyes. "I do not believe in owning people, Uula." He deliberately made use of the familiar.
"Do you not?" her face held no expression for him to match or gauge.
He chose to belittle the notion, to paint it as absurd. "Why, that would be slavery!" He paused a moment as if considering her words, let his tongue wander into certain pockets of his mouth, finding he could still taste her there. "And, if I were to promise that you could both have your cake and eat it, too?" He raised his eyebrows with the question.
"Girls in locked towers do not get cake, Mr. Irons." The fact that she clung to the formal when addressing him did not pass unnoticed.
"You are rejecting me, then?" He allowed himself to sound mildly amused.
"If I were rejecting you," she answered in all seriousness, "be assured you would be in no doubt of the fact."
XV. Parting
"I will leave tomorrow," she announced, walking to take down her gown and place it into its garment bag. "It is well-likely there will be landings made in Thule, to the North."
"Yes," he agreed, with all banality. "I thought so as well. I will make the necessary arrangements immediately."
She looked at him. It was unclear what she recalled or understood from earlier in the evening. "You are too kind."
"You need not leave," he lied, but failed to extend a further invitation. Curious, he asked, "Why do you yearn so to return there?" He knew well enough she had no family beyond a great aunt, and no romantic attachments at present.
"I--" she paused, as though it were better not to speak the words aloud, "I miss the ice."
He allowed the genuine puzzlement at her announcement to show on his face. It was not any answer he had expected. He moved to help her with her suitcase.
"My fingers," she explained, "are bloated, clumsy, and useless to me in this heat. They crave the ice, as do I."
She did not pause in what she was doing out of respect to his presence, but finished laying her very few items into the suitcase, leaving it where he had put it on the bed, and skillfully unwrapping the sheet around her waist that formed the obi. When she stood still the gown was so large it did not gape in the front, concealing her physical secrets from him. The fact that it did so did little to cool any ardor he might still feel.
Dismissing himself, though he was not asked to go, Irons moved to the fireplace, selecting in clear view of her the correct panel that would open the passageway he was looking for. He did not need to draw attention to it, but wished to leave her with the idea of how easily he could be found--or how easily he could choose to find her.
His last view of her came as she walked out to the balcony, laying the satin sheet on the limestone surface--no other barrier between herself and the hard, cold rock as she lay down on it. She would spend the rest of the night this way. And he knew that once the panel closed behind him the dressing gown would join the cast-off sheet and she would meet the dawn unfettered by him, by his offer, by the Witchblade, unfettered by his world entirely. She had made a choice of what to take tonight, and she had chosen nothing. It was an interesting preference.
...
On his way upstairs to his own bed he made arrangements to have Ian taken from the Great Room and shackled in the Tower for the rest of the night--if not longer. Irons considered making good on his threat to kill Christiansen. It was not beyond his power--it was not even beyond his inclination. In actuality he knew he would not have to end the woman's life to make her as dead to Ian. No, perhaps he would simply allow her leave in the morning, directing no one to mention her departure to the boy--at great personal loss, let young Ian believe her dead for, perhaps three weeks. A nice vacation for Christiansen with her beloved ice. When he felt he had made his point he could easily have her back for weekly lessons. After all, he did have Ian's studies to consider, and he had long ago decided the boy would be best served by nothing but the most preeminent tutors where his studies were concerned.
Then again, it was never acceptable to renege on a promise--or a threat. Perhaps he would have to kill the beautiful Uula after all.
...
...the end...
nocturne--belonging to night; happening, done or active by night. A dreamy or pensive piece for the piano.
by: Neftzer 2002
Feedback Appreciated! Warner Bros. owns Witchblade for the moment.
Unlike Mr. Irons, Rookie, you will never have heard of Killotensunter's charming duet L'Etoile de Glace en Hiver (The Ice Star in Winter), and you will not know what a 1547 deNalis, restored or un, looks like. Nyah. Because I made them up.
All apologies to Soren Kierkegaard by way of Esoteric Emily. I stole his quotation from her sig file. I return it to her now not so very much the worse for wear. :)
Finally, please do not read this story whilst trying to actually imagine the characters in it wearing the fashions of the early 80s, during which it occurs. The idea of Mr. Irons and Ian be-decked so leaves me, for one, on the brink of tears.
For more Neftzer fiction (much that is not published here), please visit The OutBack Fiction Shack at http://www.royaltoby.com/shack, for an array of fiction and poetry from a variety of genres.