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"Stop arguing, husband," Maria said.
"How can I? I love this hat."
"And the dog loves it even more," Maria said in a particular tone, and Methos realized he had better stop arguing if he wanted to save his skin.
"All right," he said. "I'll buy a new one after I visit Darius."
Maria smiled and kissed his cheek. "And I will seek dinner's muse in the market."
He pinched the brim between his fingers. The tooth marks weren't that bad, really, or the fraying of the fibers. He'd only had this hat five years.
"No tricks," Maria said.
"Of course not." He returned the kiss as the cab stopped before Darius' church.
The street smelled like wood smoke and horseshit. It made him smile--in two thousand years, that never changed. Smoke and shit and sweat; dogs and horses and cooking fires.
He could feel the Presence of half a dozen Immortals as he approached the church. Darius was popular this century. After Robespierre and Napoleon, many men wanted to learn about peace.
Methos knew about peace, of course. He knew it was a pleasant dream, but never a reality.
The door opened as he reached the threshold. "Darius," Methos said, nodding.
"Come in, friend. What shall I call you this century?" Darius waved him inside.
A young Immortal was tending the candles. He looked at Methos curiously. "This year I'm Jean Guillou," Methos said. "Are we friends?"
Darius spread his hands, leading him back to his quarters. "We have known each other over a thousand years without killing each other. I think that counts."
"You've lived on holy ground those thousand years."
"Jean." Darius turned, smiling. "Nothing stops you from stabbing me with your knife and dragging me out onto the street to behead me. You haven't done that; I think that makes us friends. Come, have some tea."
"Interesting definition," Methos said, but followed him into his rooms.
The rooms never changed. Simple wood furniture, tin cups, an ivory chess set. Books upon books--the collection added to and subtracted from by various acolytes and friends. "I must return that book to you," Methos said, setting his hat on the table. "I've had it a shamefully long time."
Darius poured the tea. "It's in good hands. Tell me, why are you here today? I know it's not to pray, unless you've had a shocking change of heart."
"No luck there. I can't worship a man I once heckled in the street." Methos sipped the tea, considering the taste carefully. "Is this made from fungus?"
"Yes! It is."
"It's good," Methos said. He propped his chin on his hand. "Reminds me of London. Can't think how, though."
Darius laughed. "It's all grown here, in the woods. My students pick it for me."
"How many do you have now?"
"Here, now, I have four. Out in the world, I have nearly a hundred."
"You are devoted to your work."
Darius shrugged. "You must have many students yourself."
"Not so many. Living--" Byron, of course, the youngest by far. Alexei, in America. Silas, in the Russian woods. Caspian. The Moor. Thorfinn--surely Thorfinn was dead, crushed and lost under the ice.
And Kronos, his ancient companion. Methos rode over the ground where he lay every century or two to make sure he was still there. In 1642, he had been. Three days ago, he was not. "I have six still living. Brother Darius, I have a question for you."
"I hope that I have an answer for you."
"You know--nearly every Immortal in the city, don't you? Certainly everyone knows you."
"I have many visitors. Many of us use my church as neutral ground."
"I'm looking for a man. Rather, I'm looking to stay away from a man. He's very old and very dangerous. I don't know what name he would use, but you would know him by the scar crossing his eye." Methos drew a line down his face.
Darius shook his head. "I'm sorry, I have not seen anyone like that."
"Tell me if you do. Stay on holy ground if you see him, no matter what it takes. He is a hunter." Methos stood, unable to sit any more. He paced around the room--chess set, books and more books, maps on the walls, globe on a tall brass stand. Things came and went but somehow the room always looked the same. Darius was always the same, and his chambers reflected him.
He came to a stop at the window overlooking the garden. Bees in the corner, apple trees around them, potatoes in the back, beans in the front. Students all around. Life in all its forms.
Methos thought of Kronos, dead-alive through the long centuries, and felt guilt's icy fingers in his heart.
Darius joined him at the window. "Look, old friend. There is someone I want you to meet." He pointed to a richly-dressed figure in the garden--an Immortal, judging from the way he carried himself.
"Duncan MacLeod. A wanderer, like you--and here you both are visiting me!" Darius' eyes twinkled. "It is--serendipity."
"This does not prove the guiding hand of God, you silly man," Methos snapped, cutting off Darius' favorite argument before he could even begin. "And I'm making it a rule not to be friendly this millennium."
"Still, you should meet him. You might not like each other, but you have much to learn from each other." Darius leaned closer, enthusiastic as always--cajoling him, manipulating him in the most efficiently transparent of ways.
It made his throat close and his feet dance with the need to escape. He set the mug on the window sill, moving sharply sideways. "I have an urgent need to be somewhere else. Thank you for the tea, Darius."
"Jean!" Darius seized his arm and laughed. "All right, I won't press."
"You and your converts," Methos muttered; but he stayed.
Darius leaned against the windowsill. He left his hand on Methos' shoulder. "I have faith that one day, we can all live together, in peace. You remember what it was like before there were so many people of all kinds; we could go years without seeing another of us."
"The solution to that is to encourage us to kill each other," Methos pointed out.
Darius shook his head, smiling fondly. "I know you don't share my faith--any of my faiths. But you remember, don't you?"
"Yes." Methos folded his arms and remembered Kronos. "It wasn't paradise. We fought. We killed."
"We were pleased by each other's presence."
"Sometimes we were spurred on by each other. Sometimes we were all the worse because there were none other around us who knew how to stop us." Methos saw the understanding in Darius' eyes. "I haven't always lived as quietly as I do now."
"I am the last man who can hold that against you, my friend."
"Would your protege? MacLeod?" Methos narrowed his eyes. "You haven't told him about me, have you?"
"That you exist, but of course he knew that already. He is so full of curiosity, so full of goodness--I want to fill him with everything I know!" Darius clasped his hands before him, then released them to Methos. "But I respect your wishes."
Methos sighed and looked at the men in the garden again. "MacLeod is the one with the shoulders?"
"Yes."
MacLeod stood holding a small wild flower, upon which crawled a bee. He was transfixed. Meditating, perhaps. Another student nudged him and held up the yoke of a water-carrier; MacLeod snapped out of his reverie and shouldered the burden immediately, regardless of his clothes. Together they trickled water down the rows of beans and onions.
"Is he a headhunter?" Methos asked.
"He believes in justice. He takes the warrior's way of dealing it, not the priest's way."
So he killed, but only for the best of reasons. Methos had heard that song before. It had so many different melodies, but always the same words. "Dead is dead whether the hunter deals it out for sport or for justice."
"He would not deal it out to you. I know him."
Methos stared into Darius' eyes. He brought up the side of himself he had tried so hard to forget: the murderer, the torturer, the one who would string Darius' guts from the steeple before chopping off his head. "Do you know me?" Methos whispered.
"Do you know yourself?" Darius saw, but did not flinch. "By the time I was born, the Horsemen were already a legend--and nothing more."
Darius never stopped, and he never listened. "I must go," Methos said.
"Peace be with you," Darius said. "You are always welcome here."
Methos picked up his hat from the table and hurried out of the church.
Darius and his students, Darius and his faith... he'd known the man since before the Crusades, and he always winkled away at Methos' soul--yet for some reason, Methos always returned to see him. Perhaps there was something to his ideas--not the notion of ending the Game, for as long as one Immortal craved the power wrenched from another, there would be violence--but the simple concept that Immortals craved the company of each other.
He'd had such simple, sweet times with his students, watching them learn, watching them shed their mortal skin. If he could--
Methos suddenly realized he was in trouble. He was being followed.
He felt the presence of an Immortal--a ticklishly familiar presence. His instincts were right. "Brother?" he called out. "I'm glad to see you..."
"Are you?" Oh--he was so very wrong, and in so very much more peril--
He reached for his sword as a mortal garroted him from behind.
Methos held the crystal goblet up to the light, admiring the brilliance of the facets. "Your table has improved since the last time I saw you," he said. "So has your French."
"The language has improved. It's nearly worth speaking now," Xavier replied. He stood against the fireplace, sinister and elegant in black, just as he had been the last time they met. Then they had both worn Berber robes. Now they were men of the nineteenth century in high-waisted coats and slim trousers.
In any garb, Xavier was the same: beautiful and deadly. "What name are you traveling under?" Methos asked.
"Xavier St. Cloud. What else?" He tilted the wine goblet in his fingers.
"You have an unnatural fondness for it."
"Isabella gave it to me." Isabella, Methos' student and Xavier's wife. They had been together for nearly a hundred years before she lost her head.
Methos set the goblet down. His hand shook slightly, still weak from death. He could feel the wounds smoothing from his throat. "Does the Empire hold no more charms for you?"
"The Ottoman Empire is in decline. I find the pickings so much richer here." Xavier waved his hand over the table. "Eat, al-Hodiri. A man should have a taste of pleasure before he dies."
Methos tested the chain around his ankles yet again. The shackles were connected by a short, stout chain. Were he to stand, he would be unable to maintain his balance. He was trapped.
He took up his spoon and tasted the caviar. "Exquisite."
"It comes fresh from Muscovy. The porcelain comes from Japan. The beef is local, but the man who cuts it comes from Bavaria. The pomegranates ripened on Spanish trees. These are wondrous times, al-Hodiri. Resources are available to a man like myself that only a sultan could bring to bear before."
"Pomegranates." His hands stilled.
"The proper goodbye, just as you taught me," Xavier said. "I have not forgotten my debt to you. You were my teacher when I was weak and confused."
Age-old affection mixed with the sword of Damocles; what better summation of the intertwined lives of two Immortals? "Why kill me, when it catches your heart?"
"It doesn't. I only acknowledge the debt." Xavier rang the bell and the soup was served on silver trays.
Turtle soup, rich and green and strange to the tongue. Xavier remembered him very well. "It's been far too long since I saw you last," he said.
"Six hundred years since we fought the infidel together. You were the stronger, then." Xavier raised his spoon, smiling sweetly. "You've lost your touch."
"I was older and more experienced. I still am."
"Experience isn't everything."
Methos leaned back in his chair. "Do you believe in any God, Xavier?"
"I believe in Allah. I believe Mohammed is his prophet." Xavier sipped his wine.
"Yet you drink wine, and I haven't once seen you pray."
"I will never see Allah. Why, then, should I obey his prohibitions?" Xavier smiled.
Arrogant child. Methos felt, for the first time, that he might escape this. "There are other reasons to obey," Methos said.
"You're no believer, al-Hodiri. You never were."
Methos stomach twisted. "You think not? Perhaps I believe in older gods. Perhaps I believe in demons and ghosts and the living spirit of the earth." He still saw hands in the earth where his victims were buried. He still felt the blood diluted through the oceans that sent the mute fish nipping at his skin.
"Perhaps you have told too many stories, poet."
"Perhaps I have." Methos sipped his wine. "Why take my head, Xavier? We were brothers."
"There are no more quiet spaces in the world, teacher, and even the most private man may be found. The Game has come to both of us. I intend to meet it powerful, flush from the strength of the oldest of us all." Xavier leaned forward. "The most ancient of ancients. Methos. You."
"You're mistaken." Methos set down his wine.
"Ten years ago, I was seized with a desire to see the New World. Once on the ship, I discovered I was not the only Immortal with this curiosity. Rather than fighting, we talked, as Immortals sometimes do; and deep under the influence of drink, he told me of his teacher, Methos."
"Who was this Immortal?" Methos asked.
"His name was Kronos, and you rode together for two thousand years. You were ancient when you taught him and you are the oldest now." Xavier's eyes glittered in the candlelight. "And I will have your head."
Methos looked into his wine. "You're wrong."
"I am never wrong." Xavier rang for the beef.
"Of course not. You're very clever," Methos said. He raised an eyebrow silently as the footman served the next course.
"I learned it from you," Xavier laughed.
"You were clever always." Methos twisted his foot inside his boot, hoping for some slack, but he found none. "What became of Kronos? Did you kill him?"
"He insulted a sailor and was tossed into the ocean. Pity--I had hoped to challenge him once we landed. But there's always time."
He was--relieved, and then ashamed at that relief. He was a foolish creature.
"I hope you have been satisfied with your time," Xavier said.
"It's been a good life." Methos tasted the meat and found it excellent.
"A man should always live as if he were condemned to die. Regrets are wasted time. Have you any regrets, teacher?"
Methos paused; he sipped his wine. He felt the ghost of blood under his fingernails. "I have."
"How unfortunate. You may want to find some peace with them in the next half-hour."
And Xavier would serve him pomegranates to finish his life, just as Methos had shared a pomegranate to bind Xavier and release him. The theatrics pained him.
But he remembered Xavier's beautiful eyes closing as he touched the knife to his tongue. He remembered Kronos galloping toward him with the reins in his teeth and his shirt full of fruit. He remembered Rachel laughing with sweet red juice smeared across her mouth. Alexei looking out over the ocean on that Spanish beach, dizzy with pleasure and surprise. Glaba, splitting the fruit open on the tip of her spear. Byron, lounging on a pillow, offering him a seed curled in the hollow of his tongue.
His memories were sweet enough to forgive Xavier his preening. Xavier smiled and said, "I have no regrets, teacher. Only disappointment that I didn't unbind myself sooner." He rang the bell for the last time.
A woman entered the room carrying a large bowl of pomegranates. Xavier looked up and frowned; the woman pulled a pistol from the bowl and shot him dead.
"Maria," Methos sighed.
"His men are so careless they brag in the streets. Are you hurt, my husband?" she asked, setting the bowl down on the table.
"I am not, but I am bound. There must be a key to these shackles on his person." He stood, using the table to brace himself. Maria checked his pockets, finally finding the key on the chain of Xavier's watch. She tugged the chain free from his waistcoat and knelt to unshackle Methos.
He kicked the chains free and gave her his hand. "I love you dearly, Maria."
"And I you, Jean," she said as she stood. "Take his head quickly. We must fly!"
He pressed her hand to his lips. "He was my student, Maria. I loved him--I love him still. There is only one thing of his that I want." He took a pomegranate from the bowl.
"Jean, you romantic fool." Maria smiled.
"That I am." He squeezed her hand and together they fled.
He split open a pomegranate in the coach and counted out six of the sweet seeds. Xavier, Byron, Alexei, Kronos, Caspian, Silas: all his students that remained. All the precious, vicious vipers in his bosom.
"We must leave the country," he said, offering Maria the seeds. "Xavier can find me easily; we need to find a place that discourages him from trying."
"Where shall we go? Africa?" she asked. The seeds gleamed like rubies in her strong, sun-browned hand.
He touched Maria's cheek, feeling the fine lines crinkle under his fingers when she smiled. Bold, strong, fearless Maria. When he'd met her, she was an old maid--at twenty-six. He didn't understand how mortals could overlook one another so easily, when they were each so precious and their lives were so short.
Darius was blind. He thought Immortals were the best society for each other. Methos found everything he sought in the butterfly lives of mortals.
"How do you feel about the Amazon?" he asked.
She laughed, and kissed him, and her lips tasted sweet and red.
THE END.
All comments are welcome.