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Cardinal Mazarin was a man who would rather be bled of every drop of blood in his body than to loose a single coin from his purse. Even now that statement was true. The room Mordaunt found himself furnished with would have insulted anyone but the most devout puritan. Luckily for the patron and the tenant, the latter did not require more than a bed.
A bed is what he would receive; this was to be his abode while he awaited the Cardinal’s response. It had creaking wooden floorboards and contained naught but a bed under a small square window, alongside a single table and chair, upon which a basin with a pitcher of water sat. Truly, the Cardinal was so miserly there was not even a candle for him to light this cellar of an apartment, but the pale moonlight that poured in was enough to wash everything in a sickly pallor.
Despite all this, the condition of his surroundings could not even reach the young man’s mind, preoccupied as he was reproducing the conversations he had had these two days. The first was a duty he was tasked to fulfill, and did so with his usual professionalism; the second was chance. The second was God’s own hand, turning his eyes and showing him his path. His blood still sang with the thrill of that chase- the confrontation. His promise to his uncle and the men who waited for him.
Fog still seemed to cling to the young man, as if he drew with him the cloud that had swept around him on that oceanic cliff side. Mordaunt pulled off his gloves, tossing them unseeing onto the table, then set about undressing completely. His vision swam, nigh rapturous. His eyes were unfixed, seeing past the walls around him and into his future, into blood soaked hands. In his haze he made short work of the dozen buttons down the front of his doublet and untied his breeches, entirely unaware of when he had shed his boots. Soon in the full moonlight he stood only in his braies; the shadows cast by his protruding bones made him look almost skeletal, his skin was pulled so taut that it seemed to groan in protest when he moved. A spectre of death even in such a state of undress.
Lord de Winter had been terrified of him. His uncle had looked at him as if he were inhuman- some sort of apparition- an omen. His stomach churned happily at the thought; that’s what he was. An omen. The harbinger. His skin burst into gooseflesh, his hair on end. He was justice.
Mordaunt stood at the edge of the bed, neck craned upward, the moon was so bright it was straining his eyes. Winter had the spirit of a caged animal, already defeated, now possessed by unbridled fear. The mention of his sister in law had only tightened the noose around his traitorous neck. He heard her moniker on the lips of the men who joined him, Milady they had said. The wind outside rattled the window, but it couldn’t shake Mordaunt from his stupor. The day previous, in the hotel where Winter had been staying, Mordaunt had seen her. Behind his uncle was his Mother, more distinct than ever. Her coral lips peeled back in a smile to reveal the pearls of her teeth, the pale blue pinpricks of her eyes swam in the ocean of her face. Hair and flesh and tendons and bone, the frilled lace collar of her dress that he was forbidden to touch. She never spoke to him, even then as she stood at Winter’s shoulder, but he could tell she wanted to. She burned to, just like he burned to speak to her, they were mirror images. She craved the touch of his skin as much as he did her’s. The memory of her warm breast on his cheek almost seemed to sear itself to him, a new connection after the umbilical cord was left behind. He gasped, his lungs aching as his reverie stalled even his breath.
A cloud passed between his window and the moon, breaking the spell he was under. With a shake of his head Mordaunt reminded himself of where he was and he mechanically began to recite a prayer, the words hollow on his tongue. He followed the routine ingrained in him by the minister, he washed his hands and face in the basin on that spartan table before donning the nightshirt from his pack. One step at a time until he was laying in the bed under that window, bathed in moonlight. The chill of the night was leeching in, through his window, his wall, but couldn’t permeate his skin.
His heart felt like it would blaze out of his chest. His blood was singing, molten. Mordaunt felt more alive than he ever had, as if he were living every single one of his three and twenty years at once. It felt as if every muscle in his body was clenched in anticipation, his teeth and nails felt elongated, seeking. His mind was fixed on the look in Winter’s eye, how he reeked of deep, animal fear. His uncle was hideous with how the emotion warped him, his face twisted and his shoulders turned inward, subconsciously trying to close himself off from the future that awaited him. He hadn’t seen his mother on that dock, but he felt her. She was beside him then, and as he leaned and jeered he felt her hands around his waist, her lips in his hair, holding him like he was still but a babe in her arms. There was no danger of falling into the sea with his mother to keep him safe.
Mordaunt’s cheeks began to hurt and he dimly took note that he was now smiling. This was not encouraged, far too early to celebrate, but he allowed it.
Soon Winter would be at his mercy and he would pry the names of his accomplices from behind his teeth like pulling ligaments and cartilage from meat on the bone. Already he knew of two, the men from the ship. One was beyond fair- even beyond beautiful - a viper in lace. The other a gentleman in every regard but his weak heart; he’d thrown himself over the musket of his friend out of misguided pity. It felt like the Lord’s hand at work, another affirmation that his mission was righteous. They did not carry the fear his uncle did, but they would be killed like the dogs they were. The taller one had looked at him with something close to heartbreak while the slighter one had watched him with nothing but the eyes of a killer. The latter had fixed a bead upon his heart; even if God had not intervened by throwing his companion over the musket, his mother ensured the shot would not have struck true, instead the ball would have misfired, the priming firing without effect, there was no possibility he could have been killed that night.
He pressed his hands to his thighs, his palms clammy. While he was well furnished by Cromwell, Mordaunt was dressed in the modest fashion of his brethren and as such the heat radiating from his heart was hot as flame and burned through the linen of his bedclothes. He tore back the blanket from his breast to cool himself but only found himself all the hotter for it. It was his mind and heart in tandem, the plans laid out before him inviting him to indulge, to dream. He pressed his palm to his heart and could feel every pulse, every vein beating with life. His mouth felt dry and he licked his lips to wet them.
His mind turned, the vision in his head shifted to the question of the other two men, still yet unknown to him. There was no doubt he would find them, it was only a question of time. If the two on the boat would not confess it would be no trouble to simply break his uncle’s fingers until an answer was divined. Mordaunt’s thigh twitched at the thought of the brutish violence. The familial bond between he and Winter was less than nothing, there was never any love between the two to begin with. There was no tremor in his heart that would stay his hand from directing violence upon him. The only thing that gave him pause was deciding which implement to use.
With all the men assembled he could take his time repaying them their due. The faces of the unknowns were a blur, unfocused as if seen through the bottom of a glass, but present and to be dealt with. Soon there was posed a new question; what order would he take to discipline them, and how? A simple execution felt too easy, too quick, while the most efficient, these were not men who deserved such simple ends.
Like a pot coming slowly to a boil his mind shuffled more ideas, more visions, some clearer than others like a shadow play. They bubbled up faster than he could keep track of so he turned his focus to the other man on the ship, the gentleman. He looked noble, with one of those proud brows that was honorous to a degree that enraged him. There was something in his face that seemed to flip a switch in him, as if he was marked as something to be savored, a dish pointed out as something to save for a grand finale. His mind churned as a more focused thread was woven into a tapestry before him.
The slighter man on the boat, the beautiful one, stuck in his mind. His hair was long, it whipped in the wind carelessly, curling and uncurling as it flew about him like so many tendrils. He thought about how it would feel in his fist. Long and well taken care of, he could wrap it around his hand to ensure his grip was secure, yanking the man about by his hair.
The hand on his breast gripped his nightshirt with sympathy while the other hand dug its nails into the thin mattress. He could see it clearly, the hatred twisting his beautiful features into something wild and intoxicating. That man was sure to be a wildcat in man’s flesh, but once he had him at his mercy he would declaw him. Stripped of weapons and stripped of his clothes would he still struggle? Perhaps he would fight all the more now that he was laid bare before his judge and executioner. In any case his skin would become a canvas for his sins, Mordaunt would reveal the truth of his depravity with every strike. Those cherry lips bit bloodied and his piercing eyes dull with tears. His hands tingled and twitched, itching for battle. His body was a live wire, he could feel the phantom impacts on his knuckles of that soft, delicate flesh. The blows traveled up his arm to his elbow, his shoulder. His mind would not bless him with the sound of the man’s cries, but he could see the way his mouth would gape like a wound, his white teeth stained with his own blood, the tears clumping his eyelashes. It wouldn’t be enough to beat him with only his fists; he would not be satisfied till each man suffered the slings and arrows his mother had.
Mordaunt felt like his whole body was aflame, he was gasping for breath as he lay completely still. The blood coursed in his body as if he were chasing them from his bed. He swallowed dryly and with great effort fixed his eyes upon the pitcher that glowed under the moonbeams; with a detached notice that the images of violence played over his vision even now, obscuring his vision of reality. His limbs were heavy and leaden, stretching out his arm made him feel he was being crushed by the pressure of the ocean back into his bed. As he shifted his body to roll onto his hip he was struck with a spell of lightheadedness and the arm he had propped himself up on gave way. As if passing under the waves, the moment his cheek hit his pillow he dove back into the sea of his mind.
He would have them all at his fingertips, at the ends of his knuckles and his bootheels. The anonymous skin of those yet unknown was spread before him and he raked it with a spur, dots of red pearls raised in its wake, he couldn’t hear it, but knowing there would be screams in tandem made his own lungs burn. There would be very little sport in the men being chained at his feet, but there was absolutely no honor in the way they slaughtered his mother, and in their final days they deserved none of the rights that men were granted by God. He thought about the way they would learn to shiver at the mere sight of his boots, how he would polish them to a shine so they could look upon their own pathetic faces as he stomped them into a stupor. His hips jumped at that, eager. They would writhe and beg, and he would just laugh in return, as they did when they slaughtered his mother. He sunk his nails into the mattress, his face pressed to his pillow sucking in breaths as if his open mouth were only a piece of straw, his hips stirred of their own volition. Every part of his body was hot and slick with sweat.
The edges of their flesh became undefined, melted and bright with flashes of color, reds and purples and yellows. Eyes and mouths and tongues and teeth- fingers and their nails. He attacked without target, striking around him like a madman. Distantly he could feel the way he moved his hips was sending echoes through his muscles, shooting up his thighs and through his stomach. He whined through clenched teeth and raked his fingers down the mattress. They would be sorry- sorrier than any man had ever been; if they could even be considered men anymore. His legs shook with the intensity of his craving. Bashing his heel into their ribs till the bones were broken inside them, fragments like islands on a map; watching the way their breath would steal from their lungs in violent shudders. A lance of electricity shot up Mordaunts spine as he thought of the fair one from the ship, beaten and starved, now knelt before him as he presented his boot to lick, how pink his tongue would be as it slipped past his beautiful lips and laved across the leather. How his eyes would look up at him, filled to the brim with tears.
Mordaunt groaned into his empty room, a noise not at all muffled by the downy pillow. His limbs moved without his input, tangling the sheets between his arms- stuffed between his legs. Blind beyond that played in his mind, Mordaunt rubbed his face and nose against the mattress like some newborn pup looking for its mother’s teat, having caught his pillow in his throes and dragged it to his chest. Though soon that too was lost between his legs, his braies bunching and rubbing as the pillow was pinned between his thighs and the bed. Each would have their turn before he would enact justice. The first would be his uncle, the coward that he was, he would slit his throat early and let him be an example for the others. Next would come the fair one, as he would likely spoil the fastest. He imagined the way the beautiful man would writhe in his death, his stomach slit like a pig’s and his entrails drawn from his body. The crimson that would paint his hands glistened blindingly, dazzling. Mordaunt brought his fingers to his lips, a mirror to his movements in his fleshly, corporeal body, and he could feel the heat of the blood, taste the copper. His breath was ragged and wet across his hand, showering himself in hot curtains as his lungs heaved. The two strangers would come after, surely they would be dumbed by the terror in their hearts and perhaps even submit to the extent of their injuries, till only one would remain. The gentleman with the silver hair that shone brightly.
There was an air about him that fascinated him, as if a distant voice was screaming that it was he that had set his suffering into motion, he that was the cause of the infection. It beckoned him to drive his knife deep into his flesh to root out that source of suffering as a farrier does to a horse’s hoof, carving and gouging. He wanted to bleed him of everything, deprive him of anything in his life that might still bring him any purpose, be it lovers, friends, family, servants, Mordaunt would find them all and have all destroyed. He would weed out every single remaining tether of that gentleman’s claim on earth until only he remained. In those final moments he would rip him apart.
His mind could no longer contain the thoughts inside, it quivered on the image of the man laid before him like a suckling pig. His body glistening with sweat and the blood of his compatriots. He was warped by pain and sorrow, now more dead than alive. Mordaunt’s mind poured over the things he would say, the questions and insults. His hands were inside the man and his guts were writhing like snakes, slippery and hot. His bed shook, the modest frame bashed against the wall and made the window rattle as if a storm were battering against it. He drew out great slabs of meat and tissue, as if his own nails were the claws of a lion. They smelled so sweet he brought it to his mouth and took a bite so large he had to drink great mouthfuls of blood so as to not choke. He spat out bones and ligaments, tendons snapping against his lips as he chewed. His face was wet with blood. The hunger consumed him and Mordaunt fell upon the gentleman like a vulture. He sank his teeth into his shoulder, cradling him to his chest and digging his fingers deep inside him, probing through his organs and grabbing without distinction or thought. He was pressed so tightly the blood that ran down his victim in great rivers slicked the front of his shirt to his body, fusing them. He pulsed against the man like the tide against the rocky shore. There was no end to the feast, every time he ripped a chunk out it seemed to grow back, asking him for more, begging for his judgement.
He could hear her.
She was in his ear, in his mind, shouting. She screamed with delight and her voice echoed across the walls of his room.
“ Yes! ” she shrieked. “ It is him ! ” and Mordaunt nodded, rapturous. The affirmation was exhilarating. The blood on his lips had not dried, in fact he could taste it stronger than ever and his eyes rolled back in fervor. He could smell it, the heady scent was so overwhelming it felt as if he were holding onto the glowing end of a poker, every nerve in his body alert and alive and overwhelmed. He shook as if he were possessed, the pillow between his thighs absorbing the rutting blows from his hips as he clawed at his mattress. His nose was gushing with blood, leaving arcs of crimson across his tangled blankets as his head rolled on his shoulders, pushing and nudging. Mordaunt pulled at the hair of the gentleman, silver streaks caught in his fist, his other hand was plunged to the wrist inside of him, the man’s heart in the palm of his hand. It pulsed with frantic energy, begging to live where his lips would refuse to budge. He held it tightly, squeezing and feeling the way each pump of blood flowed across his fingers. Mordaunt tried to laugh but he was so out of breath all that escaped him was a wheezing moan. Before he could help it another sprang from his breast, it came from deep within him and shook through his bones. Then another- and another- till Mordaunt was moaning with every exhale. His body trembled like a bowstring pulled taut, shaking and pulsing like that heart in his monstrous grip. His brows were knit, freezing his face in a mask of exalted confusion, his lips catching and dragging on the mattress.
In degrees he tightened his fist till the organ he held yielded to his grasp, splitting to pieces like an overripe tomato bursting in his hand and splattering him in its viscera. And with that Mordaunt too fell apart, that string pulled tight snapped with such severity he was left reeling, blind. He shook and sobbed. His pillow was crushed between his hips and the bed, pliantly taking the abuse as he rode out the ecstasy that flooded his mind till Mordaunt blacked out completely; as if someone had blown him out like a candle.
In the gray morning that greeted him hours later Mordaunt could feel his mother’s fingers in his hair, caressing him like she did when he was little. Her rings sometimes caught his fine hairs and tugged painfully, but he knew better than to fuss, if he did she would stop. His head was aching and her touch felt so nice and cool, like her heart pumped ice through her veins instead of blood. He lay completely still, savoring her touch till the fog of the morning burned away and with it the touch of his mother.