31_days | [1st December][The Prisoner of Zenda] In the Intermission

Title: In the Intermission
Day/Theme: 1st December/"E come vivo?"
Series: The Prisoner of Zenda/Rupert of Hentzau
Character/Pairing: Rudolf Rassendyll/Rupert of Hentzau
Rating: strong R
Notes: Sequel to A Partial Unmasking.

In the time since I left Zenda for England, I have become something of a recluse, shutting myself away from friend and foe alike. I say that I am writing my memoirs, but of course, this is the excuse of all hermits, as my goodly sister-in-law Rose asserts. She and Robert are my only frequent visitors: one, because I am not a man to bar the door against my own brother; two, because I am not at heart an unsociable fellow and while currently I find little joy in company, brother Robert’s presence soothes my aching heart rather than exacerbates it; third and final, Rose, being the excellent woman she is, would visit anyway and force her way into my study to lecture me in front of my protesting servants. I would not for the world compromise either of our dignities for such a small matter.

The incident that I am about to relate to you took place on a spring evening a year or so after my return from Ruritania. I had partaken of a light meal in my study and was planning to retire early, as had become my habit, when my butler came to me and said:

“There is a young gentleman at the gate, sir.”

“Is that so?” I inquired with some astonishment. “Did he give his name?”

“No, sir, he said only that you would know him from a hunting trip you both participated in.”

“A hunting trip?” I frowned, endeavouring to recall the details of any recent hunts. It remained one of my few passions: it kept both my body fit and my eye for a big prize healthy.

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, bade him enter then, man!” I exclaimed jovially, my curiosity piqued. I paid so few visits that it seemed almost inconceivable that I should receive one. I rearranged some papers on my desk, attempting to give it at least some semblance of tidiness.

“Very good, sir,” and with that my butler left and returned, leading a familiar young man after him. For a moment I could hardly credit my senses and I stared at him in disbelief.

“You!” I cried, forgetting myself and I stood up so quickly that my chair was knocked to the ground. My eyes went to where my gun was kept, a good-sized cabinet which was, as ever, locked.

“It is I,” said Rupert of Hentzau, as charmingly insolent as he had been at our last meeting. He smiled goadingly at me and motioned slightly towards my butler, who was carefully replacing the chair in its upright position. I nodded.

“That will be all, Marbeck,” I said and the butler withdrew with a small obeisance and a “Very good, sir”. I turned to Rupert. “So!” I said.

“So,” he agreed with an ironic bow, clicking his heels together.

“You impertinent rascal,” I snarled at him, almost blinded by my fury. “You insult me, you wound me, you trick your way into my house and then you expect me to welcome you with open arms?”

“You have once before,” he mused idly and then, with a flash of white teeth, he added, “and I hardly ‘tricked my way in’. I thought that you might not appreciate my giving your servants the details of when we last met. Was I wrong?”

As always, Rupert’s sheer audacity left me breathless and, thoroughly against my will, I began to feel a little amused.

“No, you weren’t wrong,” I admitted, passing a hand over my forehead. My conscience pricked me as I perceived that Rupert, whatever his intentions, could not go abroad again tonight. Darkness had already closed over the roads and despite Rupert’s skill he would be no match for a gang of bandits. “You will want to spend the night here, I suppose?”

“But of course.” Rupert directed a most unholy smirk at me and I glared in return.

“You will leave tomorrow morning,” I stated firmly, leaving no opportunity for argument. Then, remembering my manners, I said stiffly: “May I offer you something to eat? The hour is late, but I’m sure we can find you some refreshment.”

“The hour isn’t that late,” the boy remarked, throwing himself down onto the armchair that I kept in my study as my sole concession to comfort. I checked my irritation; it was one of the small differences between us that I laid claim to. “Besides, no need; I have already eaten. You are too kind.”

“Indeed,” I replied tartly and with rather more feeling than I had intended to betray. I immediately bit my tongue and added, “What business brings you here?”

“What business?” Rupert demanded of himself and the air. “What business?” He shifted his position, hooking his legs over the arm of the cushioned chair. One foot dangled casually over the edge; the other, he used to gesture with as if it were his hand. “I came to see my good friend Mr Rassendyll, of course. Why else?” He appeared supremely innocent and as any student of Rupert Hentzau will tell you, this is how that gentleman – if he might still be called that! – behaves when he is at his most guilty.

But if he desired to rile me I could not tell: in either case, I refused to be drawn. “I am hardly your friend,” I told him evenly, “even by your standards of friendship. I – in the name of God, man, what is it?” For Rupert had arisen out of his seat with a half-uttered snarl and there flashed over his handsome features a frightening malevolence.

“I am no traitor!” he snapped, his tone viciously angry. Then, just as suddenly, he sat back, calmed and smiling again. But I could not allow this to pass without comment.

“I would beg to differ,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “This, from someone who kept his king a prisoner?”

“Oh, a king.” Rupert dismissed this with a wave of a long-fingered hand. “What is a king but another man? Albeit one who can have me executed. That’s the real reason why people claim to love them, my dear Mr Rassendyll.” He swung his legs back down to the floor and leant forward, placing his chin on his clasped hands. His gaze on me was curiously intent; I moved slightly, feeling uncomfortable under its heat. “Now, if that king had been a man that I could have been loyal to…”

“Loyalty that has to be paid for is no loyalty worth having,” I retorted. Rupert laughed.

“No? It’s a classic, as far as I’ve been taught. Of course, we may be talking at cross-purposes. I don’t buy loyalty with payment financial.”

I recoiled from his obscene suggestion. “You cad!”

Rupert laughed again, leaping up from his seat and dropping to his knees before my chair. He allowed his forearms to rest on my thighs as he tilted his head back to regard me fully. “Do you remember that conversation we had once, in a clearing in the forests of Zenda?”

I opened my mouth to give a firm denial, but my throat was dry and I could not speak. I recalled that conversation with almost perfect clarity; Rupert’s scandalous behaviour, and the outrage resulting from it that I could not give voice to, had preyed on my mind for nights afterward. It had become clear in these last few moments what Rupert’s true motives in visiting my house were and I was frozen in my seat, staring down into Rupert’s upturned face. This is how I account for what happened next: Rupert moved upwards as I bent my head and our lips met. I was hardly conscious of this before he was kissing me deeply, passionately. This must be how he kissed his mistresses, I thought, and tore my mouth away, but his hands were already busily undoing my belt. I had abstained from sexual contact since my sojourn in Ruritania; it had no longer held much of my interest, but now I was already half-aroused and the touch of Rupert’s mouth quickly brought me to full tumescence. I attempted to move away, for I would not treat the young Count of Hentzau as a common whore, but Rupert glanced up at me through his long, dark eyelashes and, with a wicked smile, swallowed me to the root. I cried out involuntarily and after a moment Rupert released me with a final stroke. He smiled enticingly, his lips blooded and glistening, and touched the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth where, as I saw, he had a spot of white.

“I understand that you retire early,” he murmured, and, after a pause, I took his hand and led him upstairs to my bedchamber.

I awoke the following morning with a queer feeling of satisfaction. Still half-asleep, I rolled over to seek the warmth of my bed mate and woke up fully as I realised he had raised himself up on one elbow and was regarding me ironically.

“Good morning,” I said, unsure what courtesies I should make. My experience in this field was sadly lacking; it had hitherto been with – women, and not always ladies.

“Good morning,” Rupert replied, the strange quirk of an eyebrow still in place. “We should breakfast soon, it is nearly nine o’clock.” I cursed aloud; lying abed this late would almost certainly give rise to talk. Rupert laughed. “I thought you were the perfect gentleman, my King.” He sat up properly, throwing an idle arm over the bedstead.

“I hope that I am more of one than you,” I retorted, pushing back the covers and preparing to get out of bed. “Colonel Sapt once called you a faithless blackguard. I pray that I shall never give him cause to say the same of me.”

“Indeed,” said Rupert softly, his eyes bright and his mouth sly. “And what of the Princess? How has your beloved Highness Flavia been recently?”

“Well enough,” I said calmly, but my heart, I am ashamed to say, quailed. “You mean to blackmail me, then?”

Rupert did not bother to conceal his amusement at the suggestion. “Nay, not at this moment. I only wonder – what chivalrous knight betrays his lady with the man who would destroy her?”

His invocation of Flavia’s name had brought fear; his threat brought fury. I turned on Rupert, slapping the palm my hand against the bedpost and trapping him in place. “If aught harm comes to her, I will kill you,” I told him fiercely, fighting to keep a grip on my temper.

“Harm?” Rupert queried, his eyes widening to convey the effect of purely artificial innocence. His enjoyment of the situation was plain, but there was a new and, to my mind, disturbing element to it. “What more harm can I do my lovely Queen? Leave her to a lonely life with a peevish weakling of a husband who fears all day and all night that he is a cuckold? Condemn her to the servitude of an invalid she has long since grown to despise? Break her spirit and torment her heart? No, there is nothing.” He shifted beneath me, stretching languorously. “What could Rupert of Hentzau do that Rudolf Rassendyll has not?”

His words took me aback momentarily, for in the darkest parts of my soul I knew he was right. However, I also knew something else that Rupert did not. “No,” I said slowly, thinking my words over. “There is little that even Rupert of Hentzau could do to Her Majesty now. But she made her choice – and I know it to be the only choice that Flavia of the House of Elphberg could ever make – and so she still has her honour and reputation. She is of more worth than all the world’s riches combined. I thank God that He has allowed me to know her. Ah!” I turned my face away; I disliked this outpouring of emotion and it was always Rupert who forced it from me.

“Oh,” Rupert said contemptuously, and my gaze shot back to his face. “It’s a poor lover who can believe honour keeps a woman warm in the bedchamber! The only thing Her Majesty thanks God for is that her ‘true love’,” and he pronounced the words with scorn, “and her husband have the same name. Ai!” The last cry was of surprise, as I backhanded him with such force that he half-fell from the bed. I make no apology for my action, then or now.

“There is no man more accursed than you in all of Christendom, Rupert of Hentzau,” I told him vehemently. I fancy that my voice may have trembled, but Rupert made no mockery of it. His lips had twisted into the malignant sneer that he so often wore and to my irritation it made no difference to his fine looks. Then it vanished once more and his smile was sweet.

“A good reputation is overrated,” he responded with an appraising gleam in his eye, “and a bad one is far more enticing.”

“Not for a lady,” I said flatly, and thanked God that my voice did not shake again.

“No, not for a woman,” agreed Rupert amiably. His change in tone startled me and I searched his face for some indication of why. I found nothing and so I, being a fool, put it down to Rupert’s mercurial temperament.

I shook my head as if to clear it and tore myself away from him. Standing up and beginning to dress, I said, “What time will you be leaving?”

“In about an hour, after breakfast,” Rupert said lazily, spreading his body out over the bed with smooth, languid movements. He resembled nothing so much as a lithe cat who knew without a doubt that the world and all in it was put there solely for its pleasure.

I finished dressing and brushed a speck from my cuff before striding over to the door. “I will see you in the morning room in half an hour then, if you will excuse me…”

We breakfasted in silence, a remarkable feat for Rupert of Hentzau, whose merry tongue so rarely stops wagging. It was not until we were standing alone at the gate that he spoke again.

“I am most grateful for your hospitality, Mr Rassendyll,” he murmured and I tried to ignore the wicked delight in his eyes.

“I have been honoured by your visit,” I answered stiffly. Rupert threw back his curly head and laughed loudly.

“I have a parting gift,” he said when his laughter had died away. I tensed, readying myself for another of his kisses, but instead he pressed a faded rose into my hand – indeed, the very rose that Fritz had given to me when I was last in Dresden. My blood ran cold and I stared at Rupert, who was swinging himself up onto his horse’s back. He looked down at me, his smile triumphant. “Tell your mistress to have a care, my dear play-actor.”

He kicked his steed to a trot and was away into a gallop before I could even begin to form any questions. I gazed at his retreating back and then down at the old rose, which I touched to my lips as I had so many times before as I watched his figure disappear into the morning sun.

This meeting at my country house was the last that I ever heard or saw of Rupert of Hentzau until that fateful day at the house of Mother Holf in the Konigstrasse, when we fought our final, fatal duel. What was going through his mind that day or any other besides, I cannot tell you, nor can I speak much of my purpose there, save this: we fought over a matter of honour. For so has it always been between Rudolf Rassendyll and Rupert of Hentzau.