The Mask and Mirror

PART II

Algeria, January 1882

Chapter 17

At first he saw only his own face; white and strained, fair hair matted, blue eyes turned almost black. Then he realised he was staring at his reflection in the sword that lay on the ground. Blood-crimson on silver. Its symmetry dazzled him. And beyond the sword lay a dark huddled shape some feet away.

He looked up and saw Christine facing him. There was a look of serene contentment on her face, but there was something oddly immobile about it, the kind of lifeless expression found on the face of a china doll.

"So you killed him, then?" she said, with a careless glance at the dark and motionless form.

Raoul stared down at his hands. He hadn't been able to wash the stains out. "I didn't mean to –"

"Oh, it's alright," she said calmly. "I don't mind."

"I thought you would be angry…"

She smiled pleasantly. "Don't be silly. You know how much I hated him." She came forward and took hold of his hands, and the slipperiness of blood met and collided on their intertwined fingers. "Besides – it's better this way. Now we can be happy together."

"Yes," he heard himself say automatically. "That's all I wanted."

He noticed now that her hair was pulled back and threaded with jewels, dark blue, that flashed against and heightened the sapphire silk of her dress.

"You're dressed up."

"Yes, dinner's at eight. You didn't forget, did you? But you'll need a change of clothes – those are all covered in blood."

He looked down at his shirt that hung half open, the material torn and flecked with red stains. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I suppose you're right."

Raoul turned to leave, but her voice halted him.

"Wait," she said. "You dropped something."

His eyes fell on the object in her hand. It was a white porcelain mask, Venetian style, designed to cover half the face. She stood up on her tiptoes and held it against his face. Once more, he caught his reflection staring back at him within the steel of the sword.

"There," Christine said brightly. "Now you wouldn't even know the difference."

Raoul jerked awake. The room was very dark, although the curtains were made of thin material and let in far too much of the merciless Algerian sunlight during the day. Sitting up in the narrow bed and passing a hand across his eyes, he could see the uneven wooden floor was coated in the dust that seemed to be everywhere in this region. Despite the money at his disposal, the accommodation on offer had been rudimentary at best, which fitted in with his intentions to stay as inconspicuous as possible. He had fallen asleep in his shirt and breeches – gone were the former luxurious outfits with their fine trimmings and expensive tailoring. Not only would they be woefully impractical in the fierce heat, there were not enough young French noblemen in the region to allow him to pass through unnoticed. Practicality had replaced finery.

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he crossed the room to the narrow window and pulled aside the tattered curtain, staring out into the night. They had long left behind the port and glittering sea, and hard blue sky. They had passed through the desert, with its wide and desolate wastes that still seemed more alive than he was. Now this – Mustapha, with its vibrant foreignness and constant, ongoing, ever-changing life that passed him by like puppets on a stage – was where the trail had stopped. And it was easy to see why. Below him, the streets twisted in a labyrinthine maze, the scents of amber and spices heavy in the air. There was no moon visible, but the distant Kasbah was never dark; there was always the gleam of the white houses, the flaring coloured veils and the glitter of bangles on dancing girls. It was vivid and exotic, and it revolted him. He thought with longing of the temperate Paris, the balmy days passed on his estate, where he could go into the city and be known as he knew others, not a stranger disguised as a pauper in a pauper's land. He was no longer the Comte de Chagny. Those days already felt like a part of someone else's life. He could see his own slightly blurred reflection in the glass and rested a couple of fingers against the dusty windowpane. Questions plagued him, rendering any chance of sleep impossible.

Where was Christine? Was she all right; was she safe? Did she have a place to stay, a bed to sleep in at night? Was she perhaps restless and awake as he was, and staring out of the window into the darkness, desperately trying to seek him as he sought her?

Of course, he was not here by himself. Meg Giry and her mother were in the next room, the Persian down the corridor. Raoul knew all this and yet he felt… lonely. This was something new to him. He had never really known what it was to be alone. His parents had died too long ago for him to remember, his brother and sisters had indulged him, and he had grown up with a wide circle of friends. Throughout his life, he had never been wanted for company. Neither had he understood Christine's solitary nature and her predilection for wandering off alone. Sometimes when he looked at her, he had the sense that she was only half in this world, and her fleeting elusive spirit was somewhere far away, seeing things beyond the ken of human vision. To him, it seemed a strange thing, and unnatural. He, who had always been so grounded in the physical world and everything it offered.

But now it felt as though all those old elements of his past life were being stripped away, gradually shaping him into someone else, someone who could do the necessary things that the Vicomte de Chagny could not. Those ties that had bound him to the world were gone: first Philippe, then Christine. Now a vast sea lay between him and his home; there was nothing left to distract him or turn him from his purpose. His companions could stay or go – it made no difference as far as he was concerned. He had no time to consider them. He had never lacked the ability to connect with people or make friends, but the pain of losing Philippe – with whom he not been overly close in recent years – had been unbearable as a knife driving into flesh. And Christine, whom he had opened up to, offered her everything his generous nature was capable of giving… her loss had severed the last natural human impulse to connect, to feel. There was every chance that Erik would not hesitate in destroying those who threatened or opposed him: if anything happened to one of his companions…

No, it was better this way. Better to leave everything behind. Paris was dead.

The crossing from Marseille had not been pleasant. Raoul had done his best, considering they had been pressed for time, to secure respectable quarters for them. But the sea had been rough, and the journey had taken longer than expected. Managing to find respectable accommodation for four people, as opposed to two – which was what he had initially thought – had been difficult.

Because he had only expected himself and Nadir to be undertaking such a journey with so little hope of success. The Persian was an elderly man with few friends and no relatives, little to keep him in Paris. But Madame Giry and her daughter – surely they had their own lives to live and could trust to Raoul's commitment to return Christine to them safely? Only, after learning of his intentions, a blazing row had taken place between Meg Giry and her mother. Raoul had called round their house, only to walk in on Meg shouting furiously, and her mother having lost control in a way he could never have thought possible – stern, icy Madame Giry shrieking at her daughter in wild abandon? It was nonsense, the widow had insisted, to uproot their lives at such short notice; the construction work on the new Opera House would soon be complete, offering them work that was better paid than teaching a weekly dancing class for girls in reduced circumstances. And yet here they were. God knows how Meg had persuaded her mother, if indeed she had. Raoul did not know the full details and was, if truth be told, beyond caring. His finances were able to accommodate them and their presence might be of some use. Beyond that, he had not cared to inquire. He had spent over a month in their company and knew them no better than when they had set out.

Yet even this indifference had not made him blind. Christine's absence had changed all of them in some way. Madame Giry had not infrequently been sharp, but it was in the heat of anger or emotion. Now it was through coldness. She had locked herself away from everyone, maintaining that aloofness that repelled pity. If she suffered, she did not allow an iota of it to leak into her eyes or voice. She was a pillar of ice and resolve. Meg's warmth was still intact. So was her generosity. But something else – her humour, her impish sense of youthful playfulness had gone. And Nadir… the Persian was calm. He never spoke acerbically like Madame Giry, neither did he concentrate on everyone around him to try and forget his own feelings like Meg, but there was a terrible sadness in his eyes that was somehow worse. The man he had – for whatever reason – regarded as a friend, had disappointed him. This seemed to affect him as much as Christine's kidnapping.

Yes, they were all altered, and he himself the most changed of them all.

The eager, generous man had over the course of weeks spent in constant strain and hardship become something darker and more sombre. The flare of anger and the chill of fear had long since passed, leaving only bitterness in its wake – the worst kind of bitterness that gnawed and corroded and would not go away. A part of himself had been lost in crossing the sea, and what pale shadow of feeling might have been left had turned itself inward to an iron fist that locked itself around his heart. It formed a protection that he was grateful for, but protection came at a price. He knew his behaviour was altered, that he wasn't being particularly nice to his companions when they needed it most, but he couldn't bring himself to care. The blind obsession that had narrowed his world down to the sole purpose of finding Christine made anything else irrelevant. When he found Christine, he would make amends. But until then –

He had become the most desperate of creatures – a man living purely on his nerves. It was a dangerous combination: very little food or sleep, surviving only on adrenalin that fuelled him with a feverish energy. His eyes were very bright, his hair grown long. But he did not look wild. Heightened, yes, but the grim determination to see the thing through to the end meant he maintained a kind of deadly sanity that would carry him to Erik and the day of reckoning. His mind was fixed to a single purpose. Dreams and memories of happier times were both his lifeline and his torment.

Raoul closed his eyes; the image of the infinity of desert stretching out in his imagination. He opened the window as far as he was able and leaned out, hoping for a breath of the arid air that transcended the busy streets below and came from the wind-beaten sands of a world that was far older.

If he could only remove his heart and fling it onto the vast plains to be buried by the sands. If he could only sleep a sleep like death and know at least one moment of peaceful oblivion. If he could either banish the darkness or let it consume him, not merely dally with it in this interim where there was no white, only infinite shades of never-ending grey.

His hands tightened on the window frame.

If there is one thing in all the world that I wish for, he thought. It's to go back to the way things were. The life we had before.

Something sharp and cool dug into his wrist. He looked down at his pocket watch – left him by his father, and the one piece of finery he could not bring himself to leave behind. It was half an hour past midnight. Raoul pocketed the watch with a grim expression. It was time.

There was no going back.

Nadir Khan was not asleep. It was not the heat that kept him awake – on the contrary, he was far more comfortable in this environment than in Paris, which he judged to be unreasonably cold. It was a deep, gnawing fear that had taken root within him over the last few weeks and now drove him from the dry solitude of his room, to immerse himself in the energy of the Kasbah around him, and hopefully drive his own concerns away.

In some ways he had missed this: the vigour, the energy. Of course, Persia had been different. Its rich walls had been adorned with finery; its corridors and streets were incense laden in a perfumed smokescreen that concealed true intentions like gauzy veils. But in some ways it was very much the same. This wasn't Paris with its swarms of cold, lonely people and civil decorum. There was that sense of being close to people; the sweat, the noise, the physicality, the smell of a cigarette trailing in the air… all proof that he too was real and breathing, that he was alive.

Once he reached the bottom of the rickety stairs he pushed open the door of the inn – no curfew in a place like this – and stepped out into the muggy heat. This backdoor led into a darkened alleyway; it would take a twisting maze of back streets before he found himself in the Kasbah proper. He could faintly hear the sounds drifting from the distance, the hum and pulse of drums and music, the meaningless combination of many voices and clatter of wheels from a cart passing by in the next lane. Taking a deep breath, he caught the heavy combination of that unique Algerian scent: sweat and dust and amber musk. It was different to the smell of Persia: that vividly remembered deadly exoticism and perfumed fragrances. This was something more raw and primal, the living pulse of a city that never slept.

"No." A voice close by spoke suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. "Nothing until after."

Nadir opened his eyes, startled, because he knew that voice. Easing himself from his position in the doorway, he followed the flare of distant torch lights that cast patches of light like spilled gold on the ground. Picking his way through the alley, he passed the tattered remains of a glittery veil lying discarded on the ground. A young boy crouched in a doorway watched him with wide dark eyes as he went by. Nadir slowed down and turned the corner. He leaned forward, while being careful to remain in the shadows. Across from him, half his face lit by the one of the overhanging lamps, stood Raoul, his expression detached, but there was a thunderous look in his eyes. He was facing two men who were taking as much trouble to conceal themselves as he himself was. Nadir at first could discern nothing beyond the darkness of their cloaks, but every now and then was the telltale flash of jewellery.

The Persian swallowed hard. Men who so openly displayed gaudy flashes of wealth in a country like this were either fools or professionals who knew how to handle themselves. And considering the men had come under the cover of darkness to a place where they were unlikely to be overheard, Nadir doubted it was the first sort.

One of them spoke then, so softly; he had to move along the wall a few inches to hear. The French was heavily accented, but otherwise impeccable. "We're putting our necks on the line here. By the sound of it, this man we're tracking is –"

"Probably more dangerous than anyone you've ever encountered. Yes."

A grimy smirk, the flash of pointed teeth. "Clearly Monsieur, you haven't met some our acquaintances."

Raoul smiled, a cool, dangerous smile. He was standing very still, but Nadir could see the tension in every line of his body and the anger simmering just beneath the surface. "Neither do I want to. And I may as well inform you that I'm no prancing fool, so double-cross me, and it'll be the last thing you do." In a movement so fast, Nadir didn't realise what had happened until a few seconds later, he had disarmed one of the men of his knife, and cast it contemptuously across the ground. "Roundabout threats are also wasted on me. You've heard my terms. It's your decision."

"If we bring her to you –"

"You'll get your payment. I'm a man of my word; I won't play you false."

"I'd like to see him try," the man muttered to his companion.

"Oh no," said Raoul dangerously. Not once had he raised his voice. "You really wouldn't. And you're trying my patience. Do we have an agreement or not?"

A moment of silence in which Nadir could hear only his beating heart. And then –

"Agreed."

The Persian pressed himself further against the rough, heated surface of the wall as the men slipped away towards the busier streets with the practised ease of professional thieves. He waited, feeling a tightening knot of tension in his chest from what he'd just heard. He watched Raoul sigh quietly and turn around, then suddenly pause and become still as a hunting cat. Their eyes met across the dimly lit alley. Nadir was the first to speak.

"Is this really a good idea?"

"You startled me," was all Raoul said. He made to walk past Nadir, but the Persian didn't move.

"You should have told those men to leave. Whatever they approached you for –"

"They didn't approach me. I approached them. This meeting tonight was at my request."

Nadir stared. "You cannot be thinking of employing them to –"

"I already have."

"So these are the kinds of people you do business with now?"

Raoul looked sideways at him dispassionately. "I'm doing what I have to."

"They're rogues," said Nadir. "Scoundrels. They'd do anything for the highest bidder."

"Then it's a good thing I have more money than they've ever dreamed of."

"And what sort of uses do you think they'll put your money to? Opium dens, brothels, and worse besides."

"That's not my problem." Raoul's expression was calm, but his eyes were blazing. "As long as they bring Christine back they can do what they like."

"And how do you think they'll treat her? A woman of her station alone and unprotected –"

"How do you think Erik's treated her these last couple of months?" Raoul retorted in a terrible voice. He turned away, shaking his head slightly. "I don't even want to think about what might have happened to her – God, even if she's still alive. But if there's a chance – if there's the remotest chance these men can bring her back to me, then I'll pay them – yes, even if they're scoundrels."

"But if there's another way –" said the Persian, a little desperately.

"Oh, to hell with it, Nadir!" exploded Raoul, suddenly. "Look around you! This isn't Paris. Their laws aren't our laws. We've been here for nearly two months now and we've gotten nowhere. The ordinary avenues have been no use. The trail's gone cold. We're out of time, ideas – we're at the end of our resources. This is our last option."

His words silenced Nadir. The young man was breathing hard, his tanned cheeks visibly flushed, despite the darkness of the alley. His blue eyes were dark and fierce, and glittered with something that might have been tears if Nadir hadn't known better. The Persian stared, his anger turning to quiet reproach. He was not yet too old to remember what it was like to be so young and so in love. If it had been his late wife…

But still…

"You should have consulted us."

"Has it occurred to you that this is the reason why I didn't?"

"I can understand not wanting to tell Madame Giry and her daughter – although you underestimate them both. But you came to me asking for my help. So you can't just shut me out whenever it suits you. You let me in back in Paris, and we work together in this, or not at all."

"Shutting you out… " The younger man frowned slightly. "That wasn't what I had intended. But I don't have time for a moral preacher; I want someone whom I can trust to stand by me. Things are different here. We can't just walk into a Gendarmerie and expect someone to solve our problems for us. This place doesn't work that way. It is harsh; it is corrupt – and sometimes difficult decisions have to be made, and in the end, if you won't make them, then I'll have to."

"You forget," said Nadir grimly. "That I was a part of the Shah's court for nearly twenty years. I saw corruption on a daily basis. And I've seen what it can do to a man. No matter how good your intentions might be, it'll seep into you like poison before you know it – and it'll destroy you. You're a good man, Raoul. I think I could truly like you, if you'd only let me. I don't want to see you eaten up by this obsession."

"I appreciate your concern." Raoul smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. Nadir was chilled by the expression in them. He had seen that look before, of cold and bleak despair. It was the look of a man who had nothing left to lose. For a moment, it forcefully reminded him of someone else, and he wondered why this should be.

Raoul spoke again, very calmly and deliberately. "I appreciate your concern," he said again. "At least, I want to. But I've come too far to give up now. You still don't realise, do you? I don't care what happens to me anymore, so long as the last thing I do is bring Christine back, and see her safe and happy once more. Then I'll have done what I set out to do."

"By losing yourself in the process?"

His jaw tightened. For a second, he looked on the brink of saying something, but deliberately checked himself. His face become a smooth, impenetrable mask once again. "I've heard enough of this. Think what you like – I'm going to bed."

He turned and walked away down the alley, but when he reached the doorway and the stairs, he paused without turning around.

"Oh – and Nadir?"

"Yes?"

Raoul's voice was flat, and without affect. "Don't ever question my motives again."