#— ⟢ he held an elegant savagery ⦂ ⋰ * ✧ WARDROBE.

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[paradisecost]

HEADCANON: RAPHAEL

Under the cut are a bunch of canon scenes between Raphael and Martel. I’m putting them up here so that people have some idea of the dynamic between them, as it’s likely that anyone who meets Raphael in his village is going to meet him through Martel first - most people coming up the mountain will be stopped by some of Martel’s men and taken to his inn, as he has a number of lookouts in his employ to tell him if foreigners (especially white men) come up that way. Martel generally assigns Raphael as a guide for people going up the mountain - and, though he doesn’t mention this, as someone who will kill them or chase them away if they try to steal quinine from the cinchona woods near Raphael’s village.

TW for abuse, racism, and slavery, as well as Stockholm Syndrome. 

‘Don’t be silly,’ the Spanish man laughed. He was lifting Clem onto the couch near the fire. His face was broad, harsh strokes that would have been ugly if he hadn’t had huge eyes and a sweep of well-cut hair. His clothes were meticulous too, his coat richly cut with a green velvet collar that would have been dandy on me but suited him. 

(...) 

‘You give it to him, I think, Hernandez, I don’t know how much is right. Quispe - go upstairs and fetch Raphael out. Make sure he’s fit for human company.’

(...)

When he had mentioned Raphael, I’d thought Martel was talking about a dog, but Quispe came back with a man. Martel pushed out the chair opposite mine with his ankle but didn’t introduce him and left a vague impression in the air of some kind of clerk or bodyguard, someone whose name wouldn’t matter. The man didn’t seem like either. He held himself very straight, not like a servant, in good but old clothes that must just have been ironed, because I caught the smell of hot cotton when he came in past me. He was Indian, but from a different nation to Quispe and Hernandez and the boys. He didn’t have the Incan nose and his hair was cut short, and he was far taller. He moved so slowly it was ostentatious, the way very strong men do, and I wrote him off after about half a second as probably an arrogant bastard, although after meeting so many beaten-down people on the road, it was a relief to see someone who looked like he might punch anybody trying to make him sweep a yard.

He stopped when he saw me, just before reaching his chair. His expression opened as if he knew me, but then he saw he was wrong and sat down. Martel thumped him to say hello. It didn’t sway him in the least and Martel looked as if he might have hurt his hand. Raphael was still watching me hard, taking measurements. Whoever he had mistaken me for, I must have been a good lookalike.

(...)

‘What was all that?’ I asked him, but it was Martel who answered.

He was pouring me some wine. ‘The Indian nations beyond the mountains are known for their savagery, you see. It’s often hard to make any Indians from this side work with them. They call them all Chuncho. They say it means barbarian, but I think barbarian sounds rather more genteel than what it really is. Heard the term?’

‘Viking (...) I mean, raiders.’

Martel laughed. ‘No, that’s good. I’ll steal that from you, if you don’t mind. It’s rather difficult to explain to foreigners what they are.’

Raphael looked away from us in a way that made it clear he thought it was all hyperbole. It was hard not to agree with him. If he was from one of the tribes in the rainforest, he was thoroughly Hispanicized. His clothes were all Spanish, and he had a rosary around his wrist; no tattoos, no native jewellery, not even an earring.

‘But… you two are colleagues?’ I asked, still not sure why Martel had called him down.

‘Raphael works for me. He’ll take you over the mountains.’

(...)

Martel swivelled in his chair to face Raphael, a theatric precise ninety degrees. ‘Well? How are you for frosty coffee?’

‘Well off,’ he said.

‘It exists?’

‘I’ve got a garden full of it. You’ve had some. It tastes like chocolate.’ The other Indians we had met, including the boys, spoke Spanish mixed with Quechua, but his was glassy. He was quiet too. It was elegant.

‘Oh, that. God, I didn’t realise it was coffee, I thought you just didn’t know the Spanish for whatever it was.’

Raphael gave his wine glass a blank look and didn’t say anything.

‘Don’t look like that. You didn’t know the Spanish word for the cathedral, remember, the other day?’

‘No,’ he said, without looking up from the glass, ‘you didn’t know. It’s the Qorikancha in Spanish too.’

‘It’s Cuzco Cathedral.’

‘And what do you call the much older place it’s built over?’ Over anything more than a sentence, he had a strange voice. It sounded like he was dragging it up through a shale quarry.

‘The foundations,’ Martel said firmly.

‘For God’s sake.’

I looked between them, prickling and sure that Martel had run on with that to keep me waiting for his verdict about my coffee story. Raphael lifted his eyes just enough to catch mine while Martel was still laughing. There was something bleak in them. He hadn’t smiled once. My heart was going fast again. I couldn’t tell if he didn’t believe me or if he only would have preferred to be elsewhere.

(...)

Raphael sat forward. It made the bones and muscles in his shoulders show. I leaned back without meaning to. It was like sitting across from a big animal. There was a right-angled nick in his eyebrow, not old. Someone had smacked him over the head with the butt of a gun. It was a scar I recognised, common in the Navy, common in all the expeditionary arms of the East India Company. I realised he had moved to get a little further away from Martel. He didn’t want to be sent out with us. 

(...)

‘And you’re happy to take us?’ I said.

Raphael was staring into his wine, but his eyes came up when he realised I was talking to him. They were black, real black like I hadn’t seen even in Asia. He set his glass down softly. The cross on the rosary around his wrist chimed against the crystal. ‘Yes.’

‘R...ight,’ I said, not full of confidence. ‘You don’t sound very happy.’

He glanced at Martel. ‘He’ll burn my village down if I don’t keep you safe.’

‘Only way,’ Martel said cheerfully. ‘Firm hand. Negotiation not a Chuncho strong point.’

Raphael gave him a look full of threadbare hate. Resignation showed through the worn-out places. Martel saw it too and clapped the back of his neck, only gently. Raphael turned his head away but not fast. It looked like token resistance to me. Nearly like a joke between them.

‘Are you allowed to do that?’ I said to Martel.

‘It’s my land. It’s all my land, out that way. The villagers all work for me. It’s their only livelihood. I wouldn’t like to burn it down, it’s a charming place. Unless Raphael does something especially Indian to change my mind.’

‘I’ll show you especially Indian one day,’ Raphael murmured, with no force. 

Martel snorted. ‘You get used to him.’ He watched Raphael for a second or two, looking quietly pleased.

(...)

‘I don’t need paying,’ he said, as if the idea were halfway to alarming. ‘Mr Martel looks after me.’

(...)

I needed a few minutes (...) not trying to understand the strange way they were with each other.

(...)

Martel had been holding Raphael’s shoulder, which I’d seen men in charge doing to men not in charge all the way across Peru, and now he leaned on it more. ‘Are you making bombs, my dear?’

Raphael inclined his head away. ‘Leaving them in your wardrobe.’

(...)

‘Didn’t you go to the antiques shop on Monday?’ Martel asked, shooting me a little sideways look to say, watch this. I shifted, not wanting to see it, whatever it was.

‘No, I said I’d go next Monday on the way home,’ Raphael said. He moved his hand back, towards his shoulder, like he was pointing at something behind him. (...) ‘And I asked you last Monday. You said no.’ This time he brought his hand down in front of him, not too close. I was confused until Martel slapped his hand. Forward was the past, behind was the future.

‘Don’t talk about time in Spanish and think in Quechua, dear. It doesn’t match and it gives me a headache.’

Raphael turned his head slowly to look at him properly. ‘Can your superior Spanish brain not recognise ordinary things when they’re backwards? You must be a menace around reversing horses.’

Martel laughed. ‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ he said to me.

(...)

‘Yes, off you go,’ Martel murmured to Raphael, who ghosted away back up the stairs, chaperoned by Quispe again. (...) At the top of the stairs, Quispe opened a door just off the landing, put Raphael inside, and locked it. He came down the stairs still fastening the keys to his belt.’

(...)

‘Fair enough,’ said Martel, who was making something at a side table where there were steaming kettles and cups. ‘But if any of them come back with a broken ankle, dear, I’ll break yours.’

‘Yes,’ said Raphael.

(...)

‘It’s local,’ Martel said. ‘From my cocoa farm, actually.’ He nodded towards Raphael to say he meant the one in New Bethlehem. ‘Marvellous stuff. Grows back very fast if somebody sets it on fire, too,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Doesn’t it?’

He was talking to Raphael, who almost smiled. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never set your cocoa on fire.’

‘Look, take care,’ Martel said to him, more seriously. ‘The weather’s mad. It’s going to be madder up on the passes.’

‘I’ll be careful with the horses.’

‘I did mean with yourself too. Here you are. Sugar cake for the way. Make sure you don’t give it all to other people.’

Raphael lost some of his usual stiffness and took it. Martel rubbed his shoulder. In his fine velvet waistcoat, he looked like the most accomplished sort of ringmaster, with a lion that was just getting used to him.

(...)

He smiled. ‘Coming back from where, my dear?’ he said to Raphael. ‘Just at the moment one of the expeditionaries dies and ends up on your altar. Think about it carefully.’

‘I was in the forest. I lost a day and a night.’

Martel must have known about the catalepsy, because he didn’t question it. (...) ‘So, Raphael, did you kill him or did you only tell someone else to?’

‘Neither. It was just - I was just stuck. It’s happened before. You know it has.’

Martel’s gun was on the table, a pretty revolver with filigree work on the handle. When he picked it up, around the barrel, I thought he only meant to put it away, but he hit Raphael in the face with it. ‘Not good enough. I’m afraid I’ve got to arrest you. We’re going back to Azangaro.’

(...) it wrenched at something in me to see how the blow had spun him. (...) Raphael looked like he was about to collapse and I had a strong feeling they would have been happy to leave him on the floor.

(...)

‘Why aren’t you escaping?’ I asked (Raphael). ‘If he accuses you of murder…’

‘He won’t. He knows I didn’t do it.’

(...)

Raphael pulled himself up onto the island.

‘Martel, you idiot, stop shooting before you set fire to the whole forest! Get over here. (...) I’ll get you out of here if you leave us alone,’ Raphael said tightly.

‘Excellent,’ said Martel. ‘Come along, gentlemen. What have you done with Mr Tremayne?’ he added as he waded across.

‘He’s here. Touch him and I’ll walk you straight back the way you came.’

‘Yes, no need to labour the point. Help me up.’ 

Raphael pulled him up on to the rocks and Martel squeezed his shoulder, pleased to see him despite everything and, I thought, reminding him who he belonged to. 

(...)

He touched Raphael’s shoulder. I thought Raphael would throw him off, but he only glanced at him and it was there in the lines and the small scars around his eyes, that he was glad Martel was all right. 

(...) He was still holding Raphael’s shoulder. He looked shaken and I realised that knowing he had the reins of someone so strong was giving him a kind of strength too.

(...)

He was quiet for a second. ‘Don’t touch the statue.’

‘Oh, why would anyone touch your wretched heathen statue?’ Martel said, but not rudely exactly. He sounded glad to have a familiar argument. I could imagine they had disagreed about the markayuq quite often. ‘My God.’

(...)

‘Raphael, come up here, I don’t want to eat by myself. Mr Tremayne?’

‘I’ll be along in a second. My leg hurts,’ I lied. (...) From there, I watched Martel brush his knuckle over the graze through Raphael’s eyebrow and ask how it was, like he hadn’t been the one to do it. Raphael knocked his hand away, but not hard, and under his ordinary roughness he looked glad. 

(...)

(after Martel gets KILLED, AS HE SHOULD)

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve never done anything more useless than that.’

‘You couldn’t have done anything.’

‘I would have taken that gun off anyone else.’ He looked away and seemed to have to push hard to look back again. ‘I would have shot anyone else a long time ago.’

‘Familiar devils are important though after a while, aren’t they? Better than nothing,’ I said, and then shook my head. I could hear how incoherent I sounded but I couldn’t see a way to sort it out. 

Raphael watched me and I misread him. His neutral expression was a half-frown and it seemed cold. I had time to worry he was angry before he hugged me.