CHAPTER FIVE

Two Letters

Eilian stood bewildered as the young woman shoved the box with the Fenice Brothers’ coat of arms into his chest. Though she had been rude and stormed off without even showing him how to use his new prosthesis or confirming that it fit, he pitied her. She was dressed in a crepe dress of mourning black with a matching silk hat and lace gloves. Contrary to her bereaved air was her henna hair which, as she walked back to her carriage, he noticed was woven into a tight French braid. As the woman rode off without explanation, he stared down at the little chest with the insignia of a shield crossed by an arm and a leg burnt into its lid.

The little box of hope had appeared without warning after months of waiting, and as he reverently laid it on the table in the foyer, he thought about the future brightly for the first time since he awoke after the crash. He lovingly ran his hand over the lid, imagining how the object within must look. Eilian searched for anything he could use to pry it open when Patrick drifted down the hall toward him.

“Sir, you didn’t have to answer the door. I was in the servants’ hall, but I was on my way to get it,” the butler began apologetically but was cut short.

            “Forget the door, Pat. Fetch the crowbar, my new arm just arrived,” Eilian replied, beaming ear to ear.

            With a hop, Patrick ran off to find the crowbar amid the pile of crates that still littered the drawing room. Very gently, he slipped the teeth of the bar under the lid, and with a yawning crack, it popped off and dropped onto the rug. Eilian’s eyes widened as he stared down at the porcelain and brass doppelganger of his missing arm. He brushed away the scraps of hay that cushioned the limb, his fingertips brushing the cool porcelain. It had every crease and vein his left arm had but perfectly mirrored and painted to match almost exactly. The nail beds had been fitted with thin slices of sand-etched glass that reflected the light like real nails and even had a white stripe at the end. He turned it over in his hand, increasingly amazed with each new detail he discovered. It stopped at the elbow and formed an L with a leather bracer and straps to anchor it to the remainder of his arm.

            “Sir, would you like me to help you put it on?”

            Eilian nodded and sprinted up the stairs ahead of his butler in pure child-like excitement. By the time Patrick Sinclair had made it up to the bedroom with the crate cradled in his arms, the floor was littered with his jacket and waistcoat, and his master was already unbuttoning his shirt with only one hand and was working to wriggle out of it. The butler smiled to himself. It was nice to see his friend independent again. He had relearned how to dress himself and walk without a crutch or cane. Now, he was even learning to write proficiently with his left hand. To most people, it would have seemed a speedy and smooth recovery, but it had not been without its ups and downs. Many nights were spent comforting the young adventurer after a setback sent him into a torrent of tears, but after six months, he had finally built up the strength and confidence to once again master nearly all that he had lost. Despite the progress in his rehabilitation, each night Patrick would coat every inch of Lord Sorrell’s burns in a petroleum jelly and herb mixture before wrapping him tightly in strips of cotton. He never grumbled about this tedious, invasive task as it allowed him to see his master’s true progress without being influenced by his blithe disposition. Eilian had smiled through fevers until they were so high he couldn’t stand anymore and ignored wounds until they bled through his clothing, so Patrick could never trust his reassurances of good health without proof.

Eilian’s shirt finally dropped off, revealing the thick, arboreal terrain of his chest and arm. The dark pink scars climbed up his torso and neck like flattened, blooming vines, fading below the surface as they reached his jaw and sternum. The mildly misshapen stump now resembled a long, leather pouch patched at the bottom with a piece of pink cloth. Even with his scars and amputations, he appeared healthy. His Mediterranean tan had faded since the accident, but the Greco-Roman muscles that arose from helping to carry statues and crates still remained.

The butler ran his eyes from the instructions to the cephalopodic jumble of leather belts tangled within the crate but found they looked nothing like the diagram. Unhooking all the straps, Patrick gingerly slid the holster over the end of the stump, and while Eilian held it in place, he deciphered the smeared sketch that had been folded before the ink dried. A lattice of leather resembling a Grecian sandal traveled up to his armpit and then branched off into a long loop that ran across his chest to his left shoulder and back. Coming off midway down the rear strap was a shorter one that bisected his ribs and reconnected with the belt on his back to aid in supporting the weight of the prosthesis. With the first two hooked, Patrick finally fastened the small band that held the lattice vertical at his shoulder and stepped away.

            “This must be how women feel,” Eilian laughed, “all this pushing and pulling and pinching for vanity.” He smiled as he looked himself over in the mirror. The ceramic arm was his, interlaced with his body by leather tendons. “What do you think of it?”

            “It’s incredibly life-like, sir. Marvelously done.”

            He nodded, biting his lip as an aching cramp travelled down to the porcelain palm. The pain radiated and pulsed as if the invisible hand was irrevocably contorted into a claw. What began as a dull throb escalated to a sharp burning sensation, growing white-hot as it encompassed his entire arm up to the shoulder. Eilian turned from Patrick as if looking out the window but shut his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. The pain washed over him, only ebbing slightly with each exhalation. It was impossible to feel it, but at least once a week he would awake in the middle of the night to a searing pain in a muscle that no longer existed. In the hours before dawn, he would try to coax it into relaxing before Patrick would come to get him dressed for the day ahead. Somehow he had hoped that when he put on the prosthesis, his mind would see the open hand and the pains would stop.

            “Patrick, did anything come by post today?” Eilian stammered, distracting himself as best he could with the knights marching to battle on his walls.

            “Yes, Lord Sorrell, two letters. I’ll get them for you.”

            The moment Patrick was out of earshot, Eilian massaged his upper arm through the straps and released a tremulous groan. The pain was excruciating, but he abruptly threw on his shirt, tugging it over the immovable limb. Out of sight, out of mind, he thought as he began to button the shirt with one hand, working around the cumbersome new arm as the fingers caught on the cuff. Patrick softly padded in behind him. The only sound of his presence was the tearing of envelopes with the letter opener. Eilian drew the letter from the proffered envelope and instantly recognized his mother’s fussy handwriting. He cringed as he realized the date. It was the season, and it stood to reason that his mother, knowing he wasn’t going on an expedition any time soon, would invite him to a party.

To my dearest Eilian,

            I know not if you are up to it yet, but your father and I are throwing a small dinner party on the twenty-seventh. It would bring me the greatest pleasure if you could come to London and stay with us in the days leading up to and after the party. I am fully aware that your doctors have prescribed rest and solitude during your recovery, but as your mother, I know by now you will be in desperate need of cheering up and this party is just the thing to remedy that. I do hope you are feeling up to coming to town.

Love always,

Your mother

            With a sigh, Eilian handed the note to Patrick, who skimmed it before staring up at his master in disbelief. “You lied to your mother?”

            He looked down at his feet with a pang of guilt. “I know I should not have told her that, but I did not want visitors while I was relearning everything. I did not want them to discourage me or slow me down because they thought it best for me. Don’t you see why I did not want to be babied or bullied by them? My father would have me lose all will to live, and my mother would have me spoon fed by you for the rest of my life. I could not bear to be stunted like some bonsai, deformed by their good intentions.”

            “I understand, sir.” Patrick placed the invitation on the dresser and offered up the next letter, which was much thicker and was smeared and creased at the corners. “Would you like me to write a response to Lady Dorset?”

            Eilian nodded, taking the next wad of paper. “Tell her I will be there and to expect me around the twenty-sixth.”

            As the butler settled into the portable writing table in the corner of the room, Eilian laid the pages in his lap. This letter was so unlike his mother’s. It lacked all pretention. There was no lace or ribbon work around the edges, no fancy script in artful arabesques, just a coating of sandy grit from some far away land, smudged by fingers that had touched the same earth and dust the ancients had touched. At first, he had enjoyed receiving letters from his friend Sir Joshua Peregrine as they were a window to the world he had left behind when he lost his arm, but now they had become a reminder that people were moving on with their lives while he could only live vicariously through their words to pretend things were back to normal.

            Eilian had gone on expeditions with Sir Joshua for several years. Both were sons of wealthy noblemen, though Sir Joshua seemed to relish his title much more than the future earl. Eilian’s father had bought the Falcon Shipping Company from the late baronet Sir Samuel Peregrine as a way to provide for his favorite and younger son Dylan, who would not be able to inherit his title and most of his fortune. Sir Joshua had been sent to the Middle and Far East by Harland Sorrell as a liaison for the company, but in allowing Eilian to travel with him so often, his father was able to keep an eye on his eldest son. For some reason, it felt nice to know his father at least cared that much about him.

As of late, Eilian was beginning to find the letters that recounted each shard of pottery and dig-related mishap as a tedious, morose reminder of defeat, but he responded to each with polite and artfully crafted feigned interest. He was about to toss it aside, to deal with when he was in a better mood, until he saw the last sentence.

            “Sir Joshua has invited me to join his expedition into the Negev Desert next fall. He says I can join as a jack-of-all-trades like I usually do or as a historian and linguist, depending on what I feel up to.” His grey eyes once again ran over the words, confirming they were truly there before turning to the paling butler at the desk. “Pat, do you think I can do it? Am I ready for this? I have only just begun to ride my bicycle again.”

            “Sir, it really isn’t my place to give an opinion,” he replied as he glanced up from the stationery but continued to write the response letter to the Countess of Dorset without pause.

            Patrick’s continual, stubborn adherence to the rules of servitude never failed to frustrate him. “As my friend, it is your place to help me come to a decision by giving me your honest opinion.”

            He sighed softly. “In all my years with you, sir, I have never seen you give in to others or illness. I think if you decided you should like to go, you would be just as capable as any other time you have worked with Sir Joshua Peregrine.”

            Eilian Sorrell smiled despite himself. He would have loved to go out on an expedition again, but was he ready? Was he up for the task, or would he not be up to par due to his arm? He thought about the native men, who were hired to do the manual labor, and wondered if they would feel differently about him because of it. Several of them had lost finger tips and parts of toes over the years, so they probably wouldn’t care. I have nearly six months to get back to normal, he thought as he picked up the stack of paper and headed down to his library. Can I do it in time?

            At the base of his stairs, tucked behind pocket doors, was his library. It was his favorite room in the house because it was a place he could proudly display some of the objects he had acquired during his travels. The room was dominated by a massive green marble hearth and ten foot high mahogany bookcases on opposite walls that touched the elaborately coffered ceiling. Over the fireplace hung a gleaming guntō from Japan mounted on a wooden sword rack above a talwar with a carved sheath. Hanging opposite the swords, between two heavily curtained windows, was a delicate, dark blue kimono decorated with golden carps swimming through rolling waves. Unlike most wealthy, young gentlemen, the library was not merely a show of wealth but was a functioning storehouse of knowledge. The books’ bindings were lovingly cracked and their pages were littered with little scraps of paper from years of research. Most were not the gilded-bound classics but books on history, art, linguistics, and every reference a mechano-archaeologist could ever need to lay a hand on in a pinch. The inlaid, rosewood desk was stained with ink and lacked varnish where Eilian frequently rested his arms while he worked.

            As Eilian entered the library and ran his hand over the glass case of artifacts near the fireplace, he studied his porcelain arm in the reflection. Within his favorite chamber, it appeared so artificial and alien, jutting stiffly from his side in constant salute. He didn’t need it or miss it here. Eilian leaned back in the armchair near the hearth and slipped his hand beneath his shirt, loosening each buckle until the brace slid down his arm. The prosthesis dropped daintily beside him. With one more yank, the straps dislodged and formed a puddle beside him. Finally free from his leather confines, he went to his desk, loaded his Hansen Writing Ball, and began to peck out a reply to Sir Joshua Peregrine. His fingers deftly flew over the keys until he spelled out, Yes, I would like to join you and your men in the Negev Desert, and I will work in any capacity where I will prove useful. Eilian glanced up at the vain prosthesis lounging in the armchair and realized that while he had been eagerly awaiting its arrival for several months, it took less than an hour to realize it held no place in his world.