Chapter 11 #2
“I was taught that way. I don’t know how else I might bring the Lord to His people.”
“Eating their cake might be a start.”
Thomas laughed before realising Micha was serious. “What has that to do with anything?”
“Well, how are you supposed to bring the Lord to His people if His people think you’re a prig?
” But before Thomas could even begin to frame an answer, Micha turned and walked away.
His boots echoed on the cobbles as he strolled over to the final, occupied stall.
“And who—” he began. “My God. What a beauty.”
“What? Oh.” It took a moment for Thomas’s head to stop spinning.
“That’s Edward’s old horse, Bucephalus.” Even the words hurt a little, though it had been over a year.
“I’m afraid he’s not quite the prize he once was.
And please be careful, he’s rather wary.
He can bite, if you catch him in the wrong mood. ”
Micha held out a hand, murmuring softly under his breath, words Thomas was standing too far away to catch.
There came a stirring from within, and Bucephalus’s head appeared over the top of the door.
Micha stroked his nose with calm assurance.
Bucephalus tossed his mane nervously but otherwise stood still and endured it.
“He’s Arabian stock, isn’t he?” asked Micha.
Thomas kept his distance, not wanting to startle either of them, and nodded. “But he damaged his knees. He’ll never race again.”
“How?”
A blank, cold syllable that hung in the air like gun smoke. Thomas felt a little sick.
“We don’t know. He limped home after Edward’s . . . accident, like this. Perhaps he stumbled when the gun was discharged. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.”
Micha half-turned, his hand still stroking almost hypnotically and Bucephalus quiescent beneath it as though bespelled. “Is that how your brother died?”
Not for the first time, Thomas felt the truth surge hotly inside him, as though it wanted to force its way out of his throat. But he had given the marquess his oath. It was not his secret. It was Edward’s. It was the family’s. “Yes,” he managed. “As I said. A hunting accident.”
Micha’s eyes were very dark in the half-light. They looked like pits into which Thomas could fall and never be found again. “A hunting accident,” repeated Micha, in a strange, harsh voice. “Right.”
Thomas nodded. “They brought him back to the house, but it was too late to . . . do anything. And they found Bucephalus wandering afterwards.”
It had been a question that had long troubled Thomas, one he clung to, perhaps, so he would not have to think about the others.
Suicide was, after all, a sin. What did that mean for Edward’s soul?
But if Edward had, indeed, shot himself as the marquess had said, what would have caused Bucephalus to break his knees?
Did that mean someone had maimed him, simply to support the lie of Edward’s death?
How much pain could one life cause? “George wanted to shoot him,” Thomas heard himself say. “But I would not allow it.”
“Let me guess,” Micha sneered, “you threw yourself between beast and bullet.”
Thomas said nothing.
“Did you really? For a horse? What if George had shot you?”
“He would not have shot me. He’s impetuous but not fratricidal. And we can hardly blame Bucephalus for what happened.”
Micha shrugged. “What’s the use of a horse with damaged knees?”
“Edward loved him dearly. For that I am grateful.”
“You know it’s a horse, right? I don’t think it really cares if you’re grateful or not.”
“I care. And you said yourself, he’s beautiful.”
Micha stepped away. “He’s ruined. He’ll never be worth anything to anybody.”
“Except me.”
Micha snorted.
“He can still be ridden,” said Thomas. “He just needs to be treated with a little consideration.”
“Words to live by.”
Thomas had run out of things to say. All the talk of Edward and Bucephalus had been unexpected and had left him feeling rather bruised.
Micha’s mood was clearly settling into bleak and unhappy, and Thomas felt incapable of handling it.
It had been such a beautiful morning, shadowed now by an impending storm of death, lies, and sin.
He had always said—maybe even believed—that he wanted nothing from Micha.
But that, he was beginning to realise, was just another lie.
Though he would never have sought gratification of desires he knew to be wrong, he still selfishly wanted Micha’s smiles.
His gratitude. His joy. Gifts, in short, he had no right to expect.
“Will you excuse me? I have duties to attend.”
“Of course.” As ever, Micha showed no sign of caring whether he was there or not.
Thomas broke into the sunlight, breathless and panicked, as though he had been deep underwater, and strode rapidly away through the gardens. It was not until he had been walking for about five minutes that he realised he had left his hat and coat behind, and reluctantly turned back.
He entered the stables with apologies ready on his lips, but Micha was standing in front of Bucephalus’s box, his face resting against the proud arch of the horse’s neck and his fingers curling through the animal’s mane.
“That’s my beauty,” he was whispering, in a voice sweeter and far gentler than Thomas had ever heard him use before. “You’re all right. Everything is all right.”
And knowing he was an intruder on this scene, Thomas crept away.