Toki lifted the wine to his lips once again. He and Skwigelf had retreated to the parlor, and Marinette had laid out cakes for them. He and Skwigelf were facing one another on two thick sofas, but had not spoken a word since Ofdensen had left. The window was open, and a thick, humid breeze swept through the room. It was near dusk, the golden hour, when the birds outside began to chatter and the fields took on a rich glow. Skwigelf's cheeks were red with wine, and he pulled back his chair, his eyelids drooping.
"You needs a nap?" asked Toki.
"Nos," said Skwigelf, running a hand slowly over his hair. "I like things how they ams. I feels good."
Toki thought for a moment and nodded. "Me too." The air was richly scented and the curtain over the window rose and fell gently, reflecting the calm of his mood.
"That Ofdensen, he ams not so bad, ams he?" asked Skwigelf.
Toki paused. He was certainly a strange one, with unorthodox ways of getting in touch with his friends, but he almost liked him. "He ams okay- when he stays out of my house."
Skwigelf chuckled. "You puts on this sweets look, but you really ams a strict one. This ams right, this ams wrong, and nothings inbetween."
"That ams not true," Toki protested. "He- he puts a gun to my face!"
Skiwgelf rubbed his chin. "Well, that ams wrong, I suppose. But you ams brave, little count. You didn't runs away!"
Toki frowned. "What makes you thinks I would? And I ams not little!"
Skwigelf stretched out his leg. His breeches went well above the knee, almost to the mid thigh. "Your clothes begs to differ."
"Yours should be dry nows," snapped Toki. "And you ams welcome to put them back on."
Skwigelf's eyebrows rose. "And spoils this fun? No, I thinks not. I likes roughing it- living like a bears."
Toki's expression soured, and Skwigelf smiled gently. "It ams only a joke, but really, I likes it here." He craned his head around the room. "I have beens in so many courts, palace after palace, each bigger and richer than the next. But it ams simple here, and calms. It's like…" Skwigelf paused, and quickly glanced at Toki. "It ams like home."
Toki looked around him and reflected. But no, something wasn't right.
"But it does not feels that way to you, hmm? You wants to be with your friends, in the splendors, in Versailles…"
"I am never going back there!" Toki shouted, and then, self-conscious, he slumped back in his chair.
"Oh," said Skwigelf. He stood up and walked to the window. His figure was dark against the golden rays that shone like a halo around him. "That ams it."
Toki tilted his head in bewilderment. Skwigelf turned, his face half in shadow and half glowing. "You ams a bigger fool than I thinks."
Toki could not understand why this man was in his house, why he was tormenting him. "Why did you comes here, if onlys to mock me?" cried Toki.
"Because you leaves our duel a broken man- a foolish boy, yes, but also a mans. I thought it was another silly games for you, a parlor tricks to plays with your fancy friends. I wanted to crush you, to shows you that you ams just another fat heads noble."
Toki sunk deeper into the sofa, and deeper into himself.
"But I did not expects you to plays as you did," said Skwigelf. He sat down on the very edge of the couch, facing Toki again. "My gods, I never heards a man plays like that. So much powers, such turmoil, such brutality." He shut his eyes and tapping his knees, he hummed out a tune. Toki realized it was the song he had played, the notes that had trailed out of his ecstatic fingers as he rose through the cloud, before…before….
"But I falls," said Toki bitterly. "And I fails."
"Ja," said Skwigelf, a hard edge to his voice. "You fails. But you pushes me higher than I have ever gone, taken my fingers to a distant realms, raw as the flesh. I thinks I am travelings time, and space, and my core ams rotted out and replaced by fire. No, I have never plays so well."
Toki sneered. "How very nice for you."
"And yous? You goes nowhere? What happens to you when you played?"
Toki did not speak. He had only fixated on the fall, not how high he had risen, not the ecstasy of playing and inhabiting a higher plane, not the shiver of electricity and the transforming power of song. It had not occurred to him, but he had never played so well either.
"It- it does not matter. I ams a fool, and I don't play no more."
"No!" Skwigelf shouted at him. "You willplays again."
"Oh certainlys, Baron Skwigelf," Toki shouted back.
"Looks at you! You plays in the court with dogs and little girls and eats cakes and gossips. And you knows why I beats you, and will always crushes you under my fist?"
"I am sures you will tell me," said Toki, sweeping out his hand in a mocking gesture.
"Because I always haves that guitars under my fingers, waking, sleeping, traveling, I carries it with me and toys with the strings and explores it. I am greats because I don't leaves it in the closet to go play with kittens."
"Oh?" asked Toki. "And where ams it now? Where ams the great Thunderhorse, my Lord?"
Skwigelf dropped his head.
"Wells?" asked Toki.
"I has left her at Versailles," he said, as though he had betrayed his best friend. "The hurry was too great- I had to mounts my horse and be off."
"Yes, a great hurries, to comes to my house and wears my clothes and drinks all my wine."
Skwigelf hesitated, his features growing sharper, more alert. He massaged his wrist.
"It ams not that. It ams what they says. What they says at Versailles."
Toki's heart beat rapidly. He was never returning there, not ever. But what gossip was spreading?
He spoke quietly. "What does they say?"
Skwigelf's lips pursed together. "They tells me- they tells me you ams dying." He swallowed. "Or that you hads a shock, and would never recover. Or that you- you would takes your lifes for the shame. I did nots believe. They lies in your palace- I know that. Every good story travels arounds and arounds like a windmill. But you- but I-"
He buried his face in his hands. When he lifted them his teeth were gritted. "And I -couldn't stands it anymore. I had to know…"
Toki studied him with awe. All those rumors and no one had come for him- but Skwigelf had. His enemy, his rival…
"And you- I comes here half dead, and you lives on. I could not speak."
"You ams frozens," said Toki.
"Ja," admitted Skwigelf. "But they ams wrong about you, and I feels such a strange, sharp happiness, before everything turns black."
It was as though a cloud had formed in Tokis mind, moving and dark and impenetrable. Looking into Skwigelf'ss face, with its pursed lips and tilted brows, he felt a familiar hate, a hate of being judged, a hate of being thrown aside and laughed at. But what had he just told him? What could this mean?
Before he could find the words to speak, Skwisgelf had approached him, nimble as a cat. He had a way of drawing near that always caused Toki to hold his breath. He uttered a small cry as Skwisgelf took his shoulders in his long hands, and pressed a burning mouth against his. The kiss was short, but exhilaratingly soft . Skwisgelf pulled back and stared at him, parsing his response. Toki opened his mouth to speak- what he would have said there was no telling- but was silenced by another kiss, a deeper one that stole the balance out from under him. He felt the lithe movement Skwigelf's tongue, the heat of his breath through his nostrils, the fingers that crawled through his hair, up the nape of his neck to his scalp, and his body trembled.
Toki hesitated, his pale eyes wide. A childhood of admonitions, his own distaste for all Skwisgelf was- his arrogance, that haughty smirk, the way he had crushed him- they all formed in a miasma of doubt around him.
His body shook. His mind wavered.
And he kissed back.
He pushed against Skwigelf, and shutting his eyes, he explored the contours of his mouth: the full lips so soft that they yielded under the slightest pressure, the infernal heat of the tongue, even the teeth, feral and sharp. He opened his mouth and groaned as Skwisgelf suckled on his lower lip. He could feel Skwigaar's lashes against his cheek, his fingers running over his sides as though exploring the frets of his guitar, his knee rubbing up against his thigh.
"My Gods, Toki," he said, taking Toki's face in his hands. He kissed his forehead. "My Gods."
"Skwigelf," Toki said softly.
"That's Baron Skwigelf,"the Swede whispered, a wry smile on his lips. "Or just Skwisgaar, if you want."
Skwisgaar pushed Toki downward so his body was spread over the sofa. He snaked himself over him. Toki gasped from weight, the luxurious warmth of his body. As Skwisgaar leaned down to kiss him, a strange, superstitious thought occurred to him,
A face so beautiful must be cursed.
A deep misgiving overcame him, though his body was responding, and fiercely. There was a throbbing against his thigh. Skwigaar's eyebrows tilted, and his lips formed into a half-smile. Toki pushed back against the coach, as Skwisgaar undid the buttons of his breeches and slowly slipped his hand over him, cradling him in his palm.
A deep wave of pleasure and an intense aversion pulsed through him simultaneously, so that it was nearly impossible to move. But he forced himself, rising upwards and quickly buttoning himself up.
"Toki," said Skwisgaar, looking up in alarm.
Toki was silent.
"Speak to me," pleaded Skwisgaar, his eyebrows kneading together.
Toki marched to the end of the room before turning around in a fury. "Gods, I really ams an idiot!" Toki said, running his hands over his head. "You will fucks anyone, won't you?"
"Toki, it's not like that," protested Skwisgaar. His hair was in disarray and his cheeks were flushed.
"Don't calls me that. You don't know me- you comes here, destroy mes, and now you tries to fucks with my head!" His teeth clenched.
Skwisgaar looked up at him, completely baffled. "But there ams something- somethings between us. "
Toki looked at him in an agony of doubt. It was so easy to believe him, but he would not be taken in. "And that's what you tells Yolande? And maybe Lady Harcourts in London? All the fine courtiers you haves fucked, and the stableboys too. "
Skwisgaar's expression shifted, from what seemed like pain to a sneer. "I had no ideas you were so delicates," he said.
"It ams all just a jokes to you," shouted Toki. "Just nothings! The games, the seduction- honey words and lies. It ams…it ams…heartless."
Skwisgaar shot up, and began fixing his hair and tidying his clothes. "Heartless, ams I? Very wells. You really ams only a child, and a very stupid one." His bearing was proud, but there was a strange shaking in his jaw.
"You'll be goings now?" Toki said, his mouth firm.
"Oh certainly, Count Wartooth." Skwisgaar gave a deep, mocking bow. "But remembers- these fine morals of yours can makes you crueler than the worst Lothario."
"Jean!" shouted Toki, his voice uneven. "See Baron Skwigelf out."
Jean appeared, looking baffled. Skwisgaar turned towards Toki. He gave another bow, shorter and brisker, and when he rose his eyes were flickering and his lips were hard. He then turned on his heel, and left.
When he had gone, Toki realized that his body still ached. It angered him, and he threw himself on the sofa in frustration. He pushed his face against the cushion, and sorted through his consciousness, trying to root out every memory of Skwisgaar Skwigelf. But for his efforts they were only more deeply embedded, as though they had made their way under his skin.