Beautiful Blood

On the morning following his arrival, Rosacher visited Breque in his home, a white-washed colonial-style mansion with a red tile roof, surrounded by palms and enclosed within high stone walls patrolled by armed guards. Due to its location behind Haver’s Roost, the house and grounds had been shielded from destruction and appeared to exist in a tranquil country at a significant remove from the land on the dragon’s side of the hill. A servant led Rosacher up a curving stair and along a corridor with mahogany panels carved into scenes of Teocinte’s recent history—the fall of Mospiel, Breque’s signature triumph, predominating—and at last into a gloomy, spacious bedroom where he found Breque’s family gathered about a bed the size of a banquet table, canopied in green satin, where lay an unrecognizable shrunken personage whom he identified by process of deduction as Breque. A pale dust-hung shaft of light penetrated from a curtained window, painting a thin stripe up the center of the bed, and medicinal smells, particularly that of camphor, hung in the air. Word of the councilman’s illness had been conveyed to Rosacher, but he had not expected this: Wisps of white hair floated above Breque’s mottled scalp; his face was caved-in, blotched with liver spots, and his bony hands twitched atop the bedclothes like some kind of sea life that had been exposed by low tide and was being killed by the sun. Upon Breque’s instruction, his wife, once a beauty, now reduced to a dry stick of a woman, ushered their two grown sons from the room and in a whispery voice Breque summoned Rosacher to come near. The reek of camphor was stronger close to the bed. Two dark, massive wardrobes hulked along the walls, looking in the shadows like silent, cowled witnesses.

“You haven’t changed a bit, my friend.” Breque’s voice was stronger, as if enlivened by Rosacher’s propinquity; but he drew a deep breath between sentences. “I marvel at your good health.”

“I didn’t realize you were so ill,” said Rosacher.

“All life is an illness, whether of the flesh or of the spirit. I’ve grown accustomed to such frailties. This…” Breque’s right hand made a palsied movement, a mere echo of what would have been a sweeping gesture in his prime. “Death is simply a shabby theatricality at life’s end, one to which we all have been given tickets…with the possible exception of you.”

It had been Rosacher’s intention to seek redress for Breque’s betrayal, but seeing him so debilitated, his resolve was blunted. “Oh, I’m not the man I was,” he said. “I may not look my age, but I feel every year, believe me.”

A chair stood against the wall and Rosacher pulled it around so that he could sit facing Breque. He was at a loss for something to say and he related the details of his meeting with Carlos and, given that Carlos’ assertions were true, those concerning his lack of ambitions in Teocinte, he asked what Breque had hoped to gain by sending him on such an irrelevant mission.

“I wanted you out of the way when I attacked Mospiel. Your presence here might have had a deleterious effect in some way. If you succeeded in killing the king, I assumed the power of the Onyx Throne would be undermined, and that is never a bad thing. One of my many errors. This latest Carlos seems more likely to expand the borders of Temalagua than did his father.”

The councilman’s eyes seemed to have grown brighter as he spoke and he stared at Rosacher with a discomforting steadiness and avidity. Rosacher began to describe how he had spent the past eight years, but Breque interrupted him, saying, “I’ve kept my eye on you. As a matter of fact, I’ve purchased a number of birds from your company during that time…for my children’s pleasure. And of course I’ve heard all about your efforts regarding Frederick. He’s been chivvied down onto the Fever Coast, has he not?”

“According to reports, he has taken to hunting in the jungles across from Corn Island. A mangrove shore will prevent anyone from settling there and the jungle abounds with tapir and wild boar. I think we have heard the last of him.”

“I should have liked to see him once.”

“To see him as I did, that time on the Rio Coco…It is not a pleasant memory.”

“Still…” said Breque, and fell silent.

Rosacher considered how to make a graceful exit—it seemed that he and Breque had little to tell each other, despite their long history together and, though Rosacher understood that his company pleased the councilman, he felt that if he prolonged his visit, things would become awkward. The minutes slipped away and Breque’s ragged breathing became regular. Thinking him asleep, Rosacher made to stand, but Breque’s arm shot out, his hand clutching Rosacher’s wrist.

“Stay!” he said. “Just a little longer.”