Bram Stoker's HANNIBAL

Chapter 36: She Knows Not the Words that Her Tongue Repeats

Chapter 36: She Knows Not the Words that Her Tongue Repeats

The household staff scattered as Will stormed into the castle, casting off weapons and armor; cloak, tossed onto a chair, greaves clattering to the floor, chain mail falling in a heap. He unbuckled his belt and let it drop just before the staircase, barely tracking the boys behind him that scurried to pick up his things as fast as he shed them. Daggers and sheaths in the hallway, and then gauntlets, one after the other thudding against stone as he reached the door carved with the Tree of Life.

Will pushed the secret latch and listened for the clank of the mechanism, then threw the door open and pounded up the stairs.

Hannibal sat in a chair by the fire, Marissa busily working on the buckles of his greaves as Reba mixed herbs in a bowl with a mortar and pestle, filling the air with their pungent scent. One of his husband's eyes was blackened and swelling, and his proud bottom lip was split. He had a gash on his cheek just below his injured eye, crusted with blood.

Hannibal was already smiling by the time Will reached the top of the stairs, knowing the sound of his steps like his own shadow.

Marissa got out of his way as Will took two great steps forward and slapped Count Lecter across the face. "How dare you?" he growled, pressing his mouth into a brittle line. He could feel his lower lip trembling already. "How could you?"

Marissa crept over to Reba and took the mortar and pestle from her hands, setting it on the mantle and quickly ushering her out of the suite. This was going to be a lovers' quarrel, and it was clear she had no interest in either of them being collateral damage.

"It's wonderful to see you, too, beloved."

"Don't," he warned, pointing an aggressive finger at Hannibal's armored chest. "Don't mock me. Don't make light of this. You were supposed to wait. Your men were nearly there. You should never have gone into that cave alone."

Hannibal regarded him with wary warmth. There was something in his expression, in the glimmer of his eyes that somehow straddled the line of benevolence and cruelty. Something else had happened in that cave, beyond bloody necessity. "Help me understand, beloved. Are you angry with me because I risked my life or because I enjoyed killing them?"

A thrill of chill desire mingled with otherworldly fear trickled down Will's spine. "...what?"

"You heard me." Hannibal got to his feet. In his armor he was an enormous presence. Will almost wished he would have remained in his own battle array for this meeting. Hannibal reached out with a bloodstained hand and curled his fingers down Will's flushed cheek.

The moment broke, and Hannibal sat down with a groan, unbuckling armor and kicking off his boots. Will stood there, frozen, yet trembling and furious, before breaking the spell and helping him remove the final pieces. Beneath, Hannibal's tunic was bloodstained and soaked with the sweat of his efforts. Will lifted it over his head and tossed it away, examining the bruises that mottled his husband's chest, the blood that splattered up his neck and soaked his hands red.

"Do you remember," Hannibal said conversationally, as if they were merely discussing an upcoming feast or how many horses needed to be shod that day, "when we were waylaid by similar cutthroats on our way to visit my aunt two summers past?"

Will drew his bottom lip further into his mouth and brushed his teeth against it, casting his gaze to the side as Hannibal helped himself to the fortified wine on the nearby table. Of course he remembered. Men on both sides had died that day. Most memorably, two that Will had slain with single dagger blows, his body obeying his muscle memory, dealing death as naturally as he would give a kiss or a friendly word. He'd looked at Hannibal then, gripped with constricting terror. Would Hannibal know how much he'd enjoyed it? How beautiful it was? What would he do if he knew?