Mr. Punch pulled his arm away from Arthur who frantically grabbed for it with bloody fingers.
“Don’t touch him,” Robert growled to Arthur.
“Please, Sirs, you’ve got to hear me.” Arthur pleaded.
“You ain’t tellin’ me nothin’ I don’t already know—in part.” Punch answered. “I knew me master’s mum hated him. He knows that. Everybody knows that. But, I’d be a donkey if I thought for a moment that she ordered her own son to be murdered.”
“Why?” Arthur hissed as his throat gurgled. “She ordered her own husband’s death. She sold her daughter’s virtue? Why not your life, too?”
“That ain’t what you told me ‘bout how it happened, Mate.” Gerard whispered to his dying friend.
“Shur yer gob, Gerry!” Arthur groaned. “I didn’t tell ya the whole story. Do you think I told you everything?”
“You said you did,” Gerard frowned. “Say, you are the lyin’ scoundrel everyone says you are.”
“This is a surprise to you?” Arthur coughed. “Think of all we done together. You think I was an honest man?”
“I thought you were at least honest with me,” Gerry shook his head.
“What for?” Arthur choked. “You were just another tool for me to use.”
“You’d best quiet yourself now,” Marjani said, studying Arthur. “You’ll tell your story to the Devil soon enough by the looks of ya.”
“Pay him no mind, Mr. Punch.” Robert whispered. “He’s trying desperately to save his soul.”
“But, there’s some truth in what he said.” Punch responded softly. “Ain’t the first time we heard that the Duchess asked for our pa to be killed.”
“He’s just speaking enough truth to make his other lies believable.” Robert replied quickly. “Besides, what good is any of it now? It has nothing to do with where we must go with our lives or how we’ll live in the future. It’s finished now. It’s the past.”
“Still matters.” Punch shook his head. “One thing I know is that the past matters. It makes us do the things what we do and think what we think. It’s what made me master what he is and what made me alive, it is. Can’t say the past don’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter as much as what’s to come.” Robert answered affectionately. “Listen to me, dear Punch, it isn’t fitting for you to see this. Certainly not for Julian to see it. Go in the house and look for Meridian to give you a cup of tea. Let Arthur die here alone as it should be.”
“He won’t leave!” Arthur bellowed, drooling on himself as the words poured forth. “He won’t leave ‘til I’m dead and gone ‘cause he believes me, he does. He knows I’m tellin’ the truth. He knows that his ma were the one what made all of this happen! It weren’t me! She used me! And, His Grace knows that he’s got to make it right! It can all end with him—this suffering. All these generations of misery can all end with him!”
From outside the stable, Iolanthe Evangeline grinned as she watched through the dirty, narrow window. She mouthed the words along with Arthur—the very words she had coached him to say. “That’s it Arthur,” Iolanthe chuckled. “Hang on long enough to get it all out.”
At that very moment, Charles froze with fear as Louis Glapion looked around the cathedral to find the source of the sound which had startled him—the sound of a baby crying.
“What you got in your arms, Girl?” Louis asked.
“My child.” Barbara smiled.
“Then, what baby is cryin’ over there by your lover?”
“That?” Barbara grinned—a strange and unsettling grin which sent a shiver through Charles’ spine. “That is the child that belongs to my brother and his companion.”
“You ain’t right, Girl.” Louis narrowed his eyes.
“Am I not?” Barbara laughed wickedly. “Am I not? If I am not, then, haven’t I earned the right to be peculiar? My brother—he’s peculiar, yet, everyone seems to find it charming. Perhaps it’s a family characteristic to be strange, to be insane. Perhaps we inherited it from our mother. Perhaps.”
“What’s she sayin?” Louis asked, stepping back.
Charles stood frozen, unsure if he should pick up the crying baby and frightened that Louis would react angrily upon discovering that Barbara had lied to him. Furthermore, Barbara’s strange behavior puzzled and disturbed him. He had seen hints of this side of her before—a sort of wild and confused side—but only glimmers, only seconds.
“You wish to see my baby?” Barbara asked, her voice growing shrill. She unraveled the blankets that she held in her arms to reveal a knife which glinted in the dim candlelight of the cathedral. “This is my child. I call him “Hate.” He has a sharp tongue and if you’re not careful he will insult you.”
“Listen, Girl, just hand me the baby—the real baby. I told Mare I’d bring him back and I’m not gonna have none of your tricks.”
“My baby is not prone to tricks. You know where you stand with him.” Barbara said, gripping the knife firmly. “As for being real, can you think of anything more real than hate?”
“Lordy,” Louis gulped. “You’re a real loony.”
“But, don’t you find me charming?” Barbara laughed. “His Grace, the Duke of Fallbridge is charming—with all of his little references to being a puppet and his darling confusion about everyday things. Isn’t he sweet when he speaks in his rough, uneducated voice? Isn’t he wise when he says simple things which make us think? We pity him because even as a lunatic, he’s still charming. Even when he claims to be a puppet, he’s still adorable. He’s always been adorable. So rational. So steady—even when he was petrified, which was always. He’s afraid of everything. Yet, so adorable. It’s so easy to forgive his oddities. It’s so easy to pity him. Do you pity me? Did you know I was a Lady? Lady Barbara. I was to marry a Baron! I could have been Lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Did you know that? Perhaps if not to her, then one day to the future Princess of Wales or the Duchess of York. Can you imagine? But, I gave it all away. And, I had a child. Two children, really. One, I lost—several times. One, I’ll keep, and he is the one I shall carry with me always. This child—hate!” She flashed the knife.
“Ain’t nothin’ worth this.” Louis stammered, stepping backward from Barbara.
“Don’t go.” Barbara cooed. “I want you to stay. I want to talk with you. I want you to pity me.”
“I do.” Louis nodded. “I do pity you. But, I pity that man and that baby more.”
“Such a shame.” Barbara sighed. “You can’t go now.”
“Why not?” Louis asked.
“Because, my child wants to know you better.” With that, Barbara raised the knife high in the air and plunged it with all of her strength into Louis’ chest. The man fell to the floor of the cathedral in a tangled brown heap.
Barbara turned and looked at Charles, smiling. “Now, my dear, we can be alone—as we were.”
Did you miss Chapters 1-304? If so, you can read them here.
