Page 31 of Chateau Reverie

Orestes says, ‘Mother asks after you. Wonders how you fare.’

‘She knows how I fare. She sees everything. She hardly requires me to explain it to her.’

‘You owe her your obedience. We are her sons, after all.’

‘We are not her sons!’ Leander snarls. ‘She stole us, she made us forget who we were, made us her puppets and her vessels, and set us to work. That is not motherhood, Orestes. It is the furthest thing from motherhood there is.’

Orestes raises a brow. ‘How would you know? Do you remember your birth mother?’

‘You are well aware that I don’t.’

‘Every auction, you see these people,’ he says. ‘These pitiable people, who come to us shuffling on their knees. Princes and barons and ladies of good standing, dripping with gems, who have all that they could want and yet nothing they require. They weep at our command, and they spill their secrets, hoping for miracles. They have seen death and they have seen war—they know their own ends are inevitable, yet they still retain some delusion that their lives are worth living. Lady Reverie exempted us from that, Leander. She has saved us.’

‘You can’t truly believe that.’

‘I must,’ Orestes tells him. He plucks the dead parakeet from the windowsill and tucks it into the breast pocket of his coat, so that its head lolls out like a grotesque boutonniere. ‘And you ought to, also, if only for Genevieve de Vienne’s sake. Give up your ambitions of escape. Permit her to bid. Perhaps then the Château will show her mercy.’

‘Aren’t you tired?’ Leander asks him, his voice thin with exhaustion and fury and resentment. ‘You must’ve been here for so long now. So much longer than I.’

‘Of course I am tired,’ he replies, smiling. ‘I have had such a busy day, attending to our guests. You ought to rest, Monsieur Sterne, in preparation for tomorrow.’ And with that, all frankness is gone; he has donned his mask with the same sudden efficiency that Leander has always envied, always despised. ‘But first, of course, you must fetch your instrument. The lion is waiting for you to play.’

Leander doesn’t reply. Orestes pats him on the arm—a cruel mimicry of comfort—and he departs.

Genevieve is awakened by music. It is still dark, and the clock on the wall opposite the bed reads four. The music is faint but audible, the gentle plucking of a mandolin. The tune is pretty, a simple melody in a minor key. She slips out of bed, eyes gritty, head heavy, and follows the sound out onto the balcony.

The air is brisk enough to wake her a little more, to clarify her vision. Below her, in the garden, Leander is sitting on the edge of the lion fountain. The moonlight drapes over him like a lover; the breeze holds his loose hair in its hands, tugging it gently back, filling the seams of his jacket and making it billow. He has a mandolin in his hands—it appears, extraordinarily, to be made of glass—and he is playing the song that had awoken her. At his feet there seem to be strewn dozens of flowers in dozens of colours, all shifting in the wind.

Does he know that she can hear him? He is directly beneath her balcony, after all. Genevieve considers calling out to him, but then one of the flowers hops up and down. They are not flowers, after all. They are birds, dozens of them, standing in silence to listen to him play. The birds from the cages in the room on the sixth floor. He must have let them all loose.

Genevieve steps to the edge of the balcony. She hooks her fingers around the top of the railing. Leander glances upwards, for only a moment—just long enough that it is clear he has noticed her. But he does not cease playing, or stumble in the song. He simply repeats the same melody, his head bowed, eyes drifting shut.

What if it was her that day, lying bloodied in the amaranth dress? What if she is dead, and this place is her reward, her punishment? What else could Leander be but divine?

Genevieve does not know what to do. She feels exhausted by all she does not know; she wonders if she is imagining things, if she is asleep. Leander does not look real. There is a curious flatness to the scene, as if it is a painting she is viewing. And the tune he plays is so mournful. It speaks of loss and a longing for that loss, so simply and so slowly. It sounds like an oriole with a bleeding stomach, falling from the sky. Genevieve finds that her throat has tightened in sorrow. She thinks she has heard this song before: it has played over every memory she has ever had of Claire and Versailles and the things she can never grasp again.

She cannot speak. She cannot acknowledge him. If she does so, she will fall apart.

Genevieve turns and stumbles back into bed.

The mattress is soft and giving beneath her, the scent of lavender and the silken sheets somehow already familiar. She closes her eyes. The music fades, and in her dreams, she can no longer hear it. Instead, she is looking out the window of a tower, so high the clouds are beneath her; and although she cannot see the ocean, she can hear the tidal song of the waves.

Duodi

2 FLORéAL

Twelve

Leander paces the grounds until the sun begins to rise, recalling Genevieve. He recalls her in the finest detail possible: the figure in the white shift on the balcony, the mirage of her, the loveliness of it, with one hand wrapped around the railing and her face—her face—somewhere between weeping and awe. He is haunted by her, possessed. It is his mother’s work. There can be no other explanation.

When dawn comes, he is sitting by the bathing pond. The fountain lion is curled up next to him with its massive stone head in his lap, rumbling in pleasure as Leander pats it and stares at the water. Orestes had told Leander he’d drowned himself here, once: Leander wonders if he should do so again. But Mother would simply pull him out, draw the water from his lungs. He is a clock hand spinning in circles, shifting from hour to hour. An illusion of movement, but always the same.

A breeze rustles through the trees. And with it comes a woman’s voice: both old and young, a song and a whisper, echoing in his mind as easily as a thought. The lion’s hackles rise.

Do you think of her this morning, Leander? Lady Reverie asks. The Hero I chose for you?

‘Do you know her secret already, Mother?’

She has eaten the food of the Château. Her memories will come to me, soon enough. Not yet—but soon. When I saw her, I sensed the weight of a past borne too heavily. Now you might share that burden. Does that not bring you joy?