The Prince of Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

mumbled, and twisted over. "Oh, my head aches."
    She turned onto her elbow. He pushed her back and held her down, cursing
softly. His mother had died of a fever like this—sudden and devastating. Years
ago; decades, it seemed, and all he could recall was her body lying in state in
a cold marble hall in Florence, white and still as the stone. What had the
damned doctors done for her? The wrong thing, obviously, but S.T. couldn't even
remember that. They hadn't asked him into the sickroom, and he hadn't been
breathless to go: seventeen and rebellious and stupid, not believing in death,
never thinking that his impetuous, laughing, exasperating
maman
would
not be asking him to carry another
billet doux
to her latest lover
again.
    The girl fought his hands. "Let go of me." She wrenched free. "Don't you
understand? It's a mortal fever!"
    "Mortal?" He grabbed her wrists and held them. "Are you sure?"
    She tried to pull away, and then lay panting, nodding weakly.
    "How?"
    "I ... know."
    His voice rose. "How do you know, damnit?"
    She wet her lips. "Headache. Fever. Can't . . . eat. In Lyon—" Her fingers
trembled. "A fortnight ago. I hadn't enough to pay. 'Twas a very . . . bad inn.
I nursed the little girl—"
    He stared at her. "Oh God," he whispered.
    "Don't you see? I couldn't just watch them send her off on a hurdle!" She
shivered, a tremor that went from her hands through her whole body. "I had no
money. I couldn't pay them for the bed."
    "And she had a pestilent fever?" he cried. "
Imbecile
. "
    "Yes.
Imbecile.
I'm sorry. I dosed myself; I thought enough time had
passed to be safe. I have to leave. I shouldn't have come. But I didn't realize;
until now—I was sure 'twas only . . . some bad food. Please go away . . .
quickly . . . and I'll leave."
    There was no doctor in the village. A midwife, at best— and how could he send
word? He thought frantically. It was nearly dark—the walk down the canyon took
him two hours in the middle of the day . . . and no certainty he'd find anyone
who'd come, with fever to risk and no money to pay, a fact the villagers were
well aware of. He obtained his brushes and canvas and wine with barter and
promises, and lived off his garden and the land otherwise.
    "Go away," she mumbled. "Don't touch me. Go away, go away."
    He strode to the narrow window, pushed open the leaded glass, and peered out
into the twilight. He put his fingers in his mouth and blew a piercing whistle.
    Nemo might hear it. He might track Marc by the scent clinging to an empty
bottle of wine. Marc might allow a savage wolf with a message tied to its neck
within a hundred yards without shooting it dead.
    S.T. leaned his cheek against the stone. From the edge of his vision, he
caught the dark shadow that slipped over a break in the ruined castle wall.
    His heart rose and tightened, caught between fears. Why had he never told
Marc about Nemo? He'd not spoken, not even when the rumors of a lone wolf in the
vicinity had been ruffling the waters of village gossip. Instinct held his
tongue. S.T. was accustomed to murmur and subterfuge; he'd lived by it for
years. He knew rumor. He'd used it, let it grow and turn from hearsay into
legend by the casual drop of a word or a knowing smile. Let them worry about a
wolf, he'd reckoned. Let them leave him alone in his castle to paint, the only
one brave enough to walk up the canyon and sleep sound at Col du Noir.
    He looked back at the bed. She was sitting up, leaning on her elbow, facing
away from him. In a moment she'd lave her feet on the floor, and a moment after
that she'd be laid out on it—a sequence he could predict with perfect clarity.
    Nemo came padding into the room. He slunk along the wall, skirting the bed as
far as possible. After a perfunctory sniff of S.T.'s knees, he stood leaning
against his legs, looking dubiously toward their guest.
    There was a sketch pad and charcoal on the table by the bed. S.T. left Nemo
cowering by the window and