by Clare London
“I say we slit his throat,” said Zander, quite calmly. Kiel went rigid in his arms. “He may still be a spy. He’ll have heard everything we said. We can’t be too careful at the moment.”
Kiel whimpered but had the sense to keep silent for once. I walked up close to the pair of them and put a hand under Kiel’s chin. He was struggling to appear brave, though his eyes were now wet with fear. “No. That’d annoy the Mistress even more. He’s an important part of the Royal Household staff, you see.”
“Him?” Zander looked scornful. “For Devotions’ sake, I don’t think you can call a Library rat like this part of—”
“He’s a new scribe,” I interrupted. Zander’s expression was confused; Kiel’s was astounded at the sudden promotion. “I may not have told anyone yet, but he’s going to write Mistress Seleste’s Grand History.”
DARIUS CAME to my sleeping quarters in the early hours before dawn. I wasn’t officially allowed any personal privacy, but my bunk was in a screened-off area in the annex outside the armory. I hadn’t been allotted space in the barracks, which since the battle was full to capacity, and besides that, the annex was closer to Mistress Seleste’s chambers. There may have been many practical reasons for my isolation, but none of them was the real one, which was that no one wished to share quarters with me. But if anyone needed me, or I was called by Seleste, a visitor could just walk into the annex, push the screen to one side, and demand my attendance.
Darius didn’t exactly do that, although he nudged the screen aside rather clumsily while trying to attract my attention. He’d been drinking, though he wasn’t heavily drunk. He’d slicked his hair back behind his ears, apart from a single black curl that fell loose on his cheek, and he wore a tunic fastened down the front—most of the fastenings were undone.
“You need company, Maen,” he said. He grasped a bottle of ale in one hand and held out the other as if for me to take. I didn’t make any move toward him, but I stood up from where I’d been sitting on my bunk, barefoot and resting.
“It’s been a long day,” I said slowly. “What I need is to sleep.”
I glimpsed the shadow of other men passing the armory outside, occupied with their own entertainment. The time was due for a change of Guard, and many were on their way to bed. I heard the echo of a soft laugh, and then the gentle thump of a heavy body pushed against the annex wall. I recognized the laugh as Edrius’s, for he laughed a lot around the barracks. The tolerant grunts that answered him sounded as if they came from Zander, another soldier who enjoyed coupling. Zander had been interested in Edrius for a while now, and had often come to watch him when I’d been training the Guard for the Battle. Edrius was of course flattered by the attention from a Gold Warrior, let alone one as prestigious as Zander, and they were both passionate, attractive men.
Darius knew I was listening to the other voices outside, to the other casual courtships. “Let me talk to you. Let me have my say.”
I sighed, which was probably as good as agreement to him. He sounded contrite, and it wasn’t what I’d expected of him.
He moved close to me, and there it was again, the tart, stimulating smell of his skin. My limbs felt suddenly very tired, my eyes heavy.
“I was wrong, Maen.” He spoke softly and quickly, as if I might send him away before he’d said his piece. “I offended you—I disgusted you, I know. Blame it on my lust. And maybe, like you said, the fact I think everything should revolve around me.” He gave a small, strangled laugh. “I’m used to it, I think. But then, so many things have changed since Mistress Flora surrendered and abandoned me.”
The room was bare, with only a table and chair and my bunk, pushed up against the wall. I had a couple of books I’d borrowed from the Library, and my papers and pen, for I liked to write. I had no one to write to, of course, so I’d turned to poetry and stories, though I knew they’d never be read. They were immature and nowhere near the quality of some of the work from the Royal Library, but they were only for my personal distraction.
I was looking at the papers left out on my table when Darius slid a hand around the back of my neck and pushed his body against mine. We both leaned back on the wall. “I have less than an hour left before my morning shift,” he whispered. “I want to spend it with you. Don’t push me away again. Please, Maen.” His lips were hot and damp on my neck. I let him lap softly at the pulse point of my throat. When I couldn’t hold back a shiver, he breathed into my ear, and the warmth ran down my spine. “Let me….”
I did let him. He pushed my hair back from my ears and kissed the skin all the way down to my shoulders, nipping at my earlobe, testing his teeth against my jaw. He was both tender and assertive; I hadn’t been touched in that way for a long while. He shrugged off his tunic and helped me peel mine off over my head. The skin of his bare torso was warm, the hair on his chest brushing roughly across my nipples. I could feel the muscles tightening on his belly. Then he nudged his knee between my legs and dropped his hand to feel me beneath my trousers. He gave a soft sound of pleasure.
“Will you take me here, Maen, against the wall?” His voice was breathless. I could feel his erection pressing eagerly against my thigh. “Hold me tight. Don’t say anything, promise nothing, just do it. Enjoy it.”
I couldn’t answer him. The physical excitement was involuntary, making my throat tighten and my vision blur. I couldn’t hear anything except for the rush of blood in my ears and Darius’s shallow panting. He deserved better than to be forced against the stone wall, so I turned him around, guiding him back to the bed. He held on to my arm and leaned forward, trying to kiss my mouth, but I avoided it. My body ached for touch, for satisfaction—but that intimacy was too much.
Darius sat down on the edge of the bunk and kicked off his boots and trousers. When I fumbled with my own trousers, he pushed my hand away and tugged them down for me. Neither of us wore anything underneath, and my legs tensed on contact with the cooler air of my room. He trailed his hand along the inside of my thigh, cupping his palm under my balls, caressing them. They shifted, responding to him, my cock swelling more thickly and bobbing against my groin. For a moment I stood there and watched the expression in his eyes grow almost feral—then his fingers curled tightly around the base of my cock and he slid his mouth over the head.
I groaned and tightened my hands into his dark hair. He licked at me, sucking gently, drawing out the excitement that coiled in my belly, and I let the need race through my veins. Darius moved back and forth, my cock sliding in and out of his wet mouth, his own hand busy in his lap, pumping his arousal. His naked skin glistened with sweat, and the muscles flexed across his shoulders. He glanced up at me, watching for the change in my expression, to see if I were close to coming—he seemed well used to controlling these things. When I gasped and my thighs tensed under his hands, he slipped his mouth off me and lay back on the bed. His chest heaved and he spread his legs wide apart. His cock was thick and bloodred with its own need, trailing sticky moisture across the thicker hairs at his groin. He was a very good-looking man; he had a very fine body. My head told me these things while my heart just ached.
“Maen. Now.” His voice was hoarse.
I reached for his shoulder and turned him over, though not harshly. He lay facedown on the bunk without complaint and lifted up onto his hands and knees. I knelt up behind him and slid a finger down between his well-muscled buttocks. When I pressed it inside his ass, I found him already oiled. I didn’t know if that was in preparation for me, or whether he’d already been with someone else this night. Whatever the reason, it made it a swift, reasonably comfortable matter to ease my cock into him. He dropped his head forward and grunted, his dark curls falling over his face so I couldn’t see it anymore. He pressed his ass back against me, encouraging me to thrust fiercely. I knew I wouldn’t last very long, though I tried to keep the pace steady. He moaned softly underneath me, one of his hands pumping his erection again, fast and careless of comfort. In the end he came before I did, his body tensing
up as he climaxed, his muscles clenching tightly around me, and his seed spitting a hot, white puddle over his hand and onto my thin sheet.
Crying out, I climaxed after him, the relief a strange, heady mixture of pleasure and pain. I didn’t focus on Darius’s body beneath me, barely heard his gasp as I leaned my weight down onto him. I felt nothing except the brutal, physical throb in my groin and the wash of heat through my flesh. I don’t know where my mind was, but it wasn’t in my own spartan room, watching my body coupling with a handsome, overeager Silver Captain.
After a couple of moments of silence, Darius wriggled with discomfort. I pulled carefully out of him, my skin slick with sweat and sticking slightly where we came apart. We were both panting, but my heartbeat gradually slowed. He rolled out from underneath me and pulled himself up to sitting. He reached for his trousers from the floor, then sat for a while with them on his lap, not dressing at once, a little disoriented. I had an overwhelming desire to apologize, but I couldn’t think what for. He’d been willing, and we hadn’t done anything physically to hurt either of us.
“I’m due back for duty at Mistress Chloe’s,” he said. I nodded and sat down on the far end of the bunk, my muscles aching. “Maen?” His voice sounded odd. “I’ll call on you again.”
I didn’t nod this time, but I wasn’t able to argue either.
“Maybe next time….” he started hesitantly.
I lifted my head, feeling it heavier than usual, and stared at him.
His gaze searched mine, as if looking for some response from me, some idea of welcome. When I didn’t answer him, he looked disappointed, a stark contrast to the heated gaze I’d seen there only a short while before. “Maybe there’ll be more.” He sounded a little puzzled.
The last expression I saw on his face, surprisingly, was hurt. He swung his legs slowly over the side of my bunk and pulled on his trousers. After fastening his boots, he quietly left the room.
Chapter Twenty-One
I’D BEEN standing at the door into the main Library for many minutes, watching the scribes at work, before any of them spotted me. They were on duty very early, and it crossed my mind that maybe they never slept at all but were permanent features at their desks. One of them yawned and stretched awkwardly, unconsciously supporting my theory. I tried not to laugh at my own nonsense.
I could see Kiel, now liberated from the musty upper floors, with a desk to himself at the back of the room. He sat with his head bent over a sheet of thick paper, moving his hand slowly but steadily as he marked out some text. Someone had cleared precious space around his desk and specific shelving for his use, though there were still plenty of books piled up on the floor. All the scribes had been put on alert because of the Grand History, with Kiel doing the majority of the work and the most important parts of the transcription, but it was obvious from the structure of the room that everyone knew he was on a separate—and important—mission. There’d also been more personal changes since I’d appointed him to the project. They’d found him a new and cleaner tunic, for a start, though it still seemed to swamp him. But when he got out of his seat and moved between the shelves of books to reach for a particular one, he seemed to have grown in confidence. His bearing was straighter, his movements more assertive. I watched one of the younger scribes come and ask him something, and he quickly pointed out the necessary research area. One of the soldiers on watch also approached him and, under Kiel’s direction, moved a couple of piles of documents from one place to another beside the desk. Kiel was settling into his new role all too well.
Then Kiel looked across and saw me, and for a second, his hand raised as if to wave. He wriggled out from behind the piles of books and came over. I had a chance to study him as he made his way across the Library floor. His shoulders were broad for a young man, though his hips were narrow. His tunic stopped a few inches below his knees, and his calves and ankles were strong. He negotiated the various piles of books and work supplies with a nimble step. I looked for all of these things in a soldier, of course, at the annual Choosing of the Bronzemen for the Household—or at least, I used to. Kiel would never make a Bronzeman, for he’d always be too slight, but he was an unusual creature indeed, a mixture of youth and unexpected maturity.
He stopped just far enough from me to be respectful to a soldier, yet he didn’t bow his head as he would’ve done to a Lady. He looked a lot cleaner than before. His skin had a slight tan, implying he now spent some time out of doors, and his hair was back to a normal, fairly attractive dark blond, curling at the back of his neck.
“Sir,” he said politely, though there was a sparkle of mischief in his eyes. He saw me looking him up and down, and he grinned. “You’re pleased? I know I look a lot better than before.”
I was pleasantly startled—again—at his ease in speaking to me. His company was very refreshing. “You look the part, and they’re noticing you for it. You’ll be called before you know it,” I teased. There were precedents for Remainder men as well as soldiers to be called to a Lady’s bed. It was less likely because they were of lower profile, but not impossible.
Kiel frowned. “Let’s not be ridiculous, sir. I’m still only a scribe, and not a very handsome one at that.”
I frowned too. It was true he didn’t have the classic, well-proportioned features the Ladies liked in their Guard, for his nose bent slightly at the tip and his mouth was too wide for his thin face, but he was by no means unattractive. There was an extraordinary brightness in his eyes I hadn’t really noticed in the dim, dusty light of the upper floors, and his athletic grace was striking among the slow, shuffling gait of the other scribes. He saw me looking at him afresh, and he grimaced. “No Gold Warrior, am I?”
I smiled. “The city needs more than that, Kiel. You’re doing well according to your skills. Unless….” I paused. He did indeed seem an anachronism among this drab, unworldly community. “Was I wrong to put this responsibility on you? You may have wanted a different job, more lively surroundings.”
He peered at me as if I were speaking an alien language. “Wrong? As far as I remember it, you were saving my life at the time. And I don’t think anyone else has ever worried about my surroundings!” He started to laugh, but it echoed sharply in the quiet room, and he bit it off. Some of the scribes glanced around at us disapprovingly. “Mistress Nerisa keeps a regular watch on us all here. Can we go somewhere else to talk?”
I nodded, and we made our way out into the fresh air of the courtyard. Rather than walk back toward the main Household building, however, he dodged into an alley beside the Library and led me to some upturned wooden crates. He dropped onto one with a comfortable grunt. I sat down on another one a little more carefully, though it held my weight. This was obviously a favorite, private area for him.
He grinned at me. “Maen, I meant it. You saved me from having my throat cut, from being executed as a spy. If you hadn’t been there… well, I know what would’ve happened, the Gold Warrior would have let suspicion guide his sword. His name’s Zander, I believe. I may have seen him around the Household, and he’s not exactly easy to miss, not that I make a habit of attracting the wrath of soldiers like… him. He had such a fierce look on his face, a very handsome face of course, but such a very sharp, bright blade, wasn’t it? It would have sliced through me like a spicy ham, and then no one would have heard from me again, except they’d have found a few apple cores and an empty water bottle among the dry old volumes of the Fifth Generation Histories on the second floor and wondered if they had spirit visitors from the Household of Magic.”
I smiled through the rambling chatter at the apt description of Kiel as a spicy ham. “Zander is fierce but not unfair. He would’ve listened to your story in the end.”
Kiel raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know whether you truly believe that, Maen. But I thank you again for stepping in. And for giving me a job. I’m now a real person, rather than a scared refugee.”
“Were you scared?” I asked gently. He flushed. “What did you do in
Mistress Flora’s Household before the battle?”
He looked down at his lap, twisting his fingers at the cord belt around his tunic. “I was just a clerk, a messenger, things like that. I carried papers between her offices and her secretaries, and sometimes took deliveries to and from the Library. That’s how I found my way around it and hid there when she… when she went missing.”
I waited, because it seemed as if he had more to say, but he was uncharacteristically silent.
“Is this work hard?” I felt uneasy. I started to wish I hadn’t become involved at all. “I never thought to ask whether you had the right training for it.”
And then he laughed—a loud, happy sound. “You put a clerk you’d only just met—a runaway too—in charge of a great work like the History, and you never even checked whether I’d be any good at it?” I started to protest, but he interrupted me. “Maen, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you, I’m just very grateful. I was only a clerk for Mistress Flora, you can’t have known any different about me. After all, we’re not usually offered much more than the basic living quarters and a reason to serve. Education’s not a priority, we’re just fodder for the Households. I know that.”
He didn’t sound resentful, but I found it a startling view. “Is that how it is?”
“Have you ever been to the Remainder areas?”
I was abashed. The Remainders had their own living areas within the city, near to the Central School and other common facilities, but I rarely had cause to go there. When we needed Remainder workers, they came to us. We drew on their numbers and their skills, such as they were, but few things went back in return as far as I could see.
Another Remainder man had asked me a similar question, a long time ago.
Kiel watched me, a little flushed. Maybe he thought he’d offended me or spoken out of his place. His voice seemed slower now, his words more careful. “Maen… I’m a Remainder. All my ancestors have been. That’s all I know. You’re of the Household. I wouldn’t expect you to know much about my life. We’re different, from the minute we’re born.”