When the Duke Returns(9)

“Running,” Simeon answered. For propriety’s sake he had pulled on a simple tunic; he usually ran bare-chested, dressed only in short trousers.

“Running to what?” his brother Godfrey asked, following their mother into the entry.

It was a reasonable question. Simeon had outrun the occasional lion (but only with the help of a friendly tree). He had failed to outrun a crocodile and almost got eaten as a punishment. There was nothing to outrun in the prim English countryside that surrounded Revels House; one had the feeling that not even wolves dared intrude on the duchy’s herds.

“I just like to run,” he explained. “It’s excellent exercise and I enjoy it.”

His mother and brother spoke at the same moment. “What are those shoes?” Godfrey asked, and “You must stop that practice at once,” his mother commanded.

Simeon sighed. “Shall we retire to the drawing room and discuss it?”

“The drawing room?” his mother asked. “With you—with you unclothed as you—” She didn’t seem to be able to continue, just flapped her hand in the air.

Godfrey was just the age to be enjoying himself enormously. The only way Simeon could explain the fact that he had a thirteen-year-old brother, when he himself was almost thirty, was to picture his mother and father having a prolonged and energetic marital life. Given that his mother had a look of perpetual outrage and a figure that resembled a cone-shaped beehive, he refused to imagine it.

“You’re not clothed,” Godfrey said, laughing madly. “I can see your knees!”

“It’s easier to run like this,” Simeon said. “Would you like to try it? I have several spare trousers of this nature.”

“Don’t you dare try to contaminate him!” his mother blustered.

“Mother,” Simeon said.

“You may address me as Your Grace when we are in public.”

“We aren’t in public.”

“Unless I invite you to my private chambers, we are in public!” she snapped.

Simeon ignored this. “When I return, if you would be so kind as to grant me the honor of an audience for a mere five minutes, I would be most grateful.” He swept a bow, a duke’s bow.

“The honor of an audience?” Godfrey said. “Do you say that to savages when you meet them, Simeon?”

“Do not address the duke with such familiarity,” the duchess snapped at Godfrey.

Simeon winked at his brother and pulled open the front door before Honeydew could reach it. Then he tore down the steps, leaving his family temporarily behind.

Two minutes later he was running down a neglected lane behind his estate. The estate could fairly well be summed up by the word neglected. He pushed that unpleasant thought away and fell into the physical pleasure of feeling his legs pound against the ground, his heart race, the wind tug his hair back from his head.

He had learned about running for pleasure, rather than for escape, from an Abyssinian mountain king named Bahrnagash. To cross into Abyssinia by the mountain pass, one must appease Bahrnagash. Given that the man was famous for putting strangers to death and dividing their possessions among his tribesmen, Simeon had been a bit concerned.

When Simeon was challenged to a race—the reward for winning being his life and the lives of his men—he thought he had a decent chance. Bahrnagash turned out to be a little man with a close-shaven head, wearing a cowl and a pair of short trousers. He had to be fifty years old. He wore no shoes, and showed no inclination to remove his coarse girdle, into which was stuck a heavy knife. Simeon estimated he could run his way to freedom.

They gathered in the great courtyard of the mountain fortress. Simeon’s cavalcade cheered with all the lustiness of men wildly outnumbered, and picturing themselves sliced open from gullet to gizzard. Bahrnagash’s men cheered with the enthusiasm of men seeing horses for the first time, and knowing a good thing when they saw it.

A gun cracked—and Bahrnagash leapt away like a man possessed. He ran up the pass as if he were a mountain goat. Simeon ran after, head down, heart pounding.

Bahrnagash ran straight up, leaping from rock to rock. Simeon followed, his longer legs allowing him to cover ground quickly, though his lungs were burning.

Bahrnagash was in his stride now, and they ran on and on. The air was thin and Simeon’s head started swimming. He thought blearily that he couldn’t possibly win the race, so he might as well die trying.

Three hours later Simeon collapsed. Bahrnagash hesitated, waited, returned. Simeon’s chest hurt so much that he thought there might be blood in his lungs.

After a while, he sat up and asked whether Bahrnagash intended to stab him and leave his body for the jackals, or whether they would return to the fortress first.