by Kirby Crow
“Come.” Liall took his hand and pulled him quickly through the crowded courtyard of the sturdy keep, milling about with snorting, stamping horses, and freeriders swathed in heavy furs.
“Sire, wait,” Margun called.
Liall ignored him. “Theor!”
“My lord?” The Master of Horse hurried to keep up with Liall’s strides.
“Guard my chambers. No one is to enter.”
“Yes, my lord.” Theor followed them into the warmth of the stone keep. Liall drew Scarlet through the great hall and into a chamber he knew. He closed the door on the sight of Theor’s back, his thick legs planted firmly and his axe ready in his hands. Liall did not envy the man who attempted to keep Theor from his duty.
Alone, the door firmly shut, Liall drew Scarlet in for a long, gentle kiss. “Scarlet. My love, my beautiful redbird.”
Scarlet shivered and nuzzled closer. Liall’s heart ached at how delicate and vulnerable Scarlet felt in his arms, yet how right, as if both of them had been born only for these moments. In all his life, he had only felt truly complete with Scarlet, only ever felt whole.
“T’aishka. Twice beloved. I was so scared,” he confessed to the other half of his soul, closing his eyes. “I felt like my life was over. I couldn’t see any future without you.”
Scarlet pressed his fingers to Liall’s lips. “Shush. Don’t be afeared, wolf,” he said, pragmatic as ever. “I’m well enough.” But he hissed when Liall’s hand curved around his shoulder.
“They did hurt you!” Liall felt his rage returning. Anger would not help now, and he seemed less and less able to control when and how his fury would emerge. It’s being home again after so long. I feel truly like a Rshani here, no longer the giant interloper in a foreign land. I’m less guarded about my nature, and that’s dangerous.
“Not on purpose,” Scarlet said, dismissing Liall’s concern. “I was mad as a treed badger when I woke up and realized where I was, that you weren’t with me. I thought.... well, I don’t know what I thought. It’s all a bit muddled. I knew Margun meant me no harm, but he tricked me, and I don’t take well to that.”
“Margun,” Liall growled through his teeth.
“Settle down. All’s turned out well, aye?”
Liall chuckled wearily and kissed his forehead, hugging him close again. “Only you could call this day turning out well.”
He led Scarlet to a couch in the room and drew him down beside him. “All has not turned out well. We’re about to go to war, my barons are conspiring against me, my subjects have tried to assassinate my t’aishka, and I’m short one very expensive tower keep.”
“That’s not all that’s been shortened, I hear.” Scarlet drew his finger across his throat. “Did you...?”
“Oh. Yes. Quite a few.” Liall said, not at all bothered. He took Scarlet’s hand. “It was necessary, my love. A threat to the king cannot go unpunished. People must see the price of treachery.”
“But no one was threatening you, though. Or at least they made sure you were out of the city before they started blowing things up.”
“A threat to my family is a threat to me.”
“I’ll never be your family to them.”
“Then damn them to Deva’s shrieking hell!” Liall snapped. “A dozen heads on the Bleakwatch walls can only improve its looks, and I’ve got plenty of towers left still.”
Scarlet made a humming sound of disapproval.
“I know you dislike killing, but you must trust my judgement on this thing. The Rshani respect strength.”
“What if they see it as tyranny? You can’t kill everyone who disappoints you, or even everyone who hates Hilurin.”
“I can try.”
“Liall.”
“So I lack subtlety. So be it.” He brought Scarlet’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. “Perhaps I was in Byzantur too long; I’m no longer able to pretend patience with incompetence or suffer fools gladly, tools that a monarch sorely needs.” He tucked the errant strands of Scarlet’s dark hair behind his ears. “You’re looking rather scruffy of late, my pedlar. You either need a haircut or a ribbon.”
Scarlet grinned. “Hats are out of fashion, are they?”
“I’ve seen you in Rshani hats. You look like a mouse hiding under a mushroom.”
Scarlet thumped him on the arm, laughing, then tried to tackle Liall to the couch. He went willingly, though he could feel the hard boards under his shoulder blades. Scarlet noted it when he braced his palms on either side of Liall’s neck.
“I can tell it’s a freerider keep now. Even soldiers want better comfort than this.” He slapped the thin padding, sending up a puff of dust.
Liall sneezed. Scarlet took advantage and ticked him under the ribs, causing Liall to mock-roar and catch him up in a bear hug. Liall rolled, taking Scarlet with him, and spent several long minutes simply kissing him, enjoying that soft, delectable mouth under his.
“My wolf,” Scarlet murmured breathlessly. “T’aishka.”
“Yours,” Liall agreed. “And we will never be parted again. I swear it.” He shrugged out of his coat and tossed it to the floor, then helped Scarlet out of his.
Scarlet lay back and stared up at him intensely, those dark, mysterious eyes narrowed in desire and yearning.
“Here.” Liall kicked his boots off and shifted, tugging his breeches down to his knees. He did the same to Scarlet, then pressed their bodies close together, skin to skin, savoring Scarlet’s harsh intake of breath.
“Yes,” he whispered, drawing his lips over Scarlet’s neck, tracing his hands over that pale, perfect form. He thrust his hips against Scarlet’s and tangled his fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck, unable to hold back a moan of pleasure.
“Oh. Oh gods,” Scarlet murmured, his eyes closing. His nails dug into Liall’s shoulder as he shuddered and spent, his back arching, exposing the lovely lines of his neck.
He is altogether lovely, Liall thought, watching him with near reverence. I will not see such beauty taken from the world, or from me.
Their loving was brief but unhurried. Liall urged Scarlet’s hand on him, and he did the same, shifting clothing aside or down, their breaths hot on each other’s skin, soft moans cut off by kisses, until Liall cried out and shuddered, his body jerking in a stuttered movement.
Some part of his mind prayed that Theor would not burst in to investigate the sound, but Theor was no fool, apparently.
Long minutes later, Scarlet’s kiss-reddened lips curled into a grin. “I bet I look a right mess,” he said, eyes still closed.
“You look bewitching.”
“Oi, there’s a word to be careful with.” He sniffed, rubbed his nose, and smiled up at Liall. “But if you don’t get off me, I’m going to sneeze all over you.”
“Go ahead. A sneeze would be the least of it.” He moved his body against Scarlet’s, sighing at the feel of the wet, sticky heat between them.
Scarlet pinched his hip and they clowned a bit, nipping and kissing as they mock-struggled. Finally, Liall kissed him and rolled off, pulling up his breeches. “I don’t imagine there’s a bath house in this keep, so...” He pulled his scarf free from the pile of coats and handed it to Scarlet.
“Liall, that’s disgusting.”
He shrugged. Scarlet frowned but took the scarf. Liall stood to lace his breeches up and glanced at the door. Theor had wisely kept his place. “We have another problem.”
“Oh?” Scarlet looked around the room with the scarf in his hand, as if wondering what to do with it now.
Liall plucked it from his fingers and draped it around his neck. He grinned at Scarlet’s shocked expression. “I’m not washing your scent off me just yet. It’s intoxicating.”
“You’re a strange man, wolf.” But his pleased, blushing look said otherwise. “What’s our other problem?”
Liall sat to slip his feet back into his boots. “It was Shikhoza who cozened you into a surprise meeting with Qixa, yes?”
Scarlet nod
ded, his eyes troubled. “I wanted to tell you,” he said, then went on in a rush. “I was going to, that day, but then Alexyin came into the room and—”
“Hush.” Liall kissed him quickly. “I understand. I knew something was amiss and I should have pushed you harder for answers, but Alexyin’s suspicions made me defensive. And angry. I roared him down and looked the other way.”
Scarlet but his lower lip. “Are you sorry for trusting me?”
“No. Do not think that. I cannot guess how it would have turned out if you’d told me, but I will always trust you, even when you deem it wise not to tell me certain things. You’re alive, and that’s what matters. But now...” he shook his head. “Now I owe a great debt to Shikhoza.”
“Deva save us,” Scarlet said sourly. “I’d rather be indentured to a viper.”
“An excellent comparison,” Liall murmured. “She always did know which horse to back.”
“Pardon?”
“A gambling expression,” Liall answered. “But Hilurin are famous gamblers. I thought you’d know that one.”
“We’re smart gamblers, which means cards, dice, and darts. Horses are unpredictable.”
He grunted. “So are women. That explains half of my life’s problems. I should look to steadier creatures.”
“Here now, my sister would box your ears for that remark. She’s steady as the Nerit. So was my mum. Or Linhona, anyway.”
Liall frowned, the nagging sense that he had missed something, some vital piece of information about Scarlet. “You always spoke of Linhona as your mother.”
“Well, she was.” Scarlet tied the laces at the wrist of his sleeve, using fingers and teeth. “She raised me, but the woman who bore me was her sister. Linhona didn’t return to Lysia until I was two summers old, after her own village was raided and burned. She told us the story many times.”
Liall was intensely curious. Not that Scarlet’s parentage mattered to him, but he was surprised that such an important fact had always been missing from his picture of Scarlet. “What happened to her sister?”
“She died the night I was born. A fever, Scaja said. Old Hipola was my wetnurse.”
“That old hag?” Liall made a face.
Scarlet swatted at him. “Hush, you. She wasn’t old then. A matron, for sure, but not old. Her son was Osa, the hunter. We were about the same age.”
Liall looked away. He had forgotten, just for a moment, what a few decades meant for Hilurin. Hipola had seemed ancient to him, but the truth was that she had probably been half his age, withered and wrinkled. A crone. Old. Dying.
“Did you ever wonder about her? Your mother?”
“Not really. I had Linhona and she was my mother from the time I could remember. What good would it have done to know more? Although,” he smiled as he laced his boot. “Scaja told me once that he had married the prettier sister first. Then he made me swear never to repeat that to Linhona.”
“Your father was very wise.” Liall slid his hand through Scarlet’s black hair. “What was her name?”
“Laith. It means—”
“Merry,” Liall finished. “Or laughter, depending on the form.” He tilted Scarlet’s chin up and stared at him so long and strangely that Scarlet’s gaze grew worried. Black eyes, not gray, Liall thought. It could be just a coincidence. Certainly, no prostitute he had met by chance encounter in a back alley of Volkovoi could have any connection with his Scarlet.
“Liall?”
He caressed Scarlet’s cheek with his thumb. “It’s nothing, love. Don’t vex yourself.”
Scarlet grinned. “Now you’re talking proper.” Then he looked troubled. “Tesk and his men, they were only trying to help me. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know. Have no fear. My words earlier were for the benefit of others, to keep them unsure of Tesk and Margun. Margun is a good soldier but he is not the actor that Tesk is.”
“I don’t follow.”
“If others believe that I treated my vassals badly in reward for a great service—namely saving my t’aishka’s life—they will be uncertain if my men are truly loyal to me or just too frightened to demand their rights. It will create doubt, and where your enemies are in doubt, there is opportunity.”
Scarlet stood and set his clothing to rights, then walked to the sputtering fire in the hearth.
“This needs tending,” he said, as if to turn away any further talk of espionage. He knelt by the fire on one knee, using the poker to stir up the coals and stacking dry wood on top, then prodding the coals again as if he had a grudge against them. “You hope to trap some fool into trying to bribe them,” he said quietly. “Or worse; to put an end to them. More plots and secrets.”
“Yes,” Liall said unhappily. He joined Scarlet by the fire, folding his arms and looking down.
“Well, I pity the man who tries to outsmart Tesk. The man has a brain like one of your machines; too smart by half.”
“Alas, that is true.” Far more intelligent than I am, I fear.
Scarlet scraped an errant ember back into the hearth. “Go on, then. I know you’re wanting to talk with Theor.”
Liall tugged playfully on a lock of Scarlet’s hair. “And how do you know that?”
“Because you’ve been sneaking looks at the door since you pulled your breeches up, you ninny. Off with you.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Scarlet waved the poker at him and Liall retreated, hands held up in mock-surrender. “I’ll be just outside the door. Call if you need me.”
True to his nature, Theor seemed not to have moved from his post a single inch. The man turned and bowed when Liall opened the door. Liall closed it softly and motioned Theor to follow him a few steps away. The great hall of the keep was busier now, with half the rangers who had followed them into the woods now piled into the freerider hold, stoking fires, drying damp clothes, and scrounging an early supper. Liall smelled roasting meat and his stomach rumbled. Only now was he noticing his hunger. He had barely been able to eat while Scarlet was in danger. He realized he was ravenous.
Theor noticed Liall tilting his head back and sniffing the air. He grinned. “Smells good, aye? I hear they’re preparing a proper feast for you, being as you’re the noblest guest they’ve had here in a century. The kitchens are like a roost of clacking hens, fussing about the seasonings. I tried to get a bite o’ bread and a ranger waved a pan at me.”
Liall grinned. “If they served me dried horsemeat, I would not argue. I haven’t been this hungry in ages.” He nodded toward the door of his rooms. “I hoped you would not come in.”
Theor stroked his beard and winked, his grin wide. “You’re a soldier, sire. I spent forty years in the field before I became your man. You were just doing what any soldier would do if he had ten spare minutes and his sweetheart beside him.” He chuckled. “Begging my lord’s pardon for being familiar.”
“Oh, we’re well past that now, I think. I used to bribe my cousins to be the lookout when I skipped lessons to keep company with the huntsman’s daughter.” He put his finger to his lips. “Don’t tell Alexyin. Or Scarlet.”
“Or the huntsman, I imagine.”
Liall laughed. “If you are willing, Master Theor, I do have a job for a man I can trust.”
Theor sketched a short bow, the head of his axe scraping the floor. “I am my king’s to command.”
“It’s not a command, only a request.”
“I accept,” Theor said stoutly.
Liall was pleased. “Don’t you want to know what the job is?”
Theor lifted an eyebrow inscrutably. “Royal lookout?”
Something like that. He laughed again and clapped Theor’s shoulder. “We will discuss it soon. But in brief, I want you to keep eyes on Margun and Tesk.”
That was less to Theor’s liking. His hand tightened on his axe. “Sire, if you suspect—”
“No,” he answered quickly, his voice low. He glanced around. “It’s not like that. Despite what you saw in the woods, Tesk
has my trust, as does Margun. I want you to keep eyes on who observes them, to know who shadows their footsteps, who finds reasons to be near them, which servants argue to bring their meals or saddle their horses. I want to know who is watching the men who guard me and my t’aishka.”
Theor nodded slowly in understanding. However rough his manners, Theor had been born in a royal household and reared in a palace before Jarek saw the promise in his broad shoulders. For his skill with an axe and his ferocity in battle, he had risen through the soldier’s ranks and returned from the Tribeland campaigns a hero, no less famous than Jarek herself. Battles were simpler on a field, but Tesk said that Theor had never forgotten his early lessons in intrigue and that there was more to the man than an impressive brute.
Theor asked no more questions, but his eyes darted around, checking to see if any were within earshot. “Yes, sire.”
“Good.” Liall nodded. “My thanks, Theor.”
Theor bowed again, silent and watchful.
Scarlet was still at the fire when Liall returned, fussily urging the flames to burn perfectly with touches to the coals. Liall rested his hand on the mantel, smiling down at him.
Scarlet’s pretty brows drew together. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
"Here now." Scarlet put a last log on the fire and dusted his hands. "Out with it."
"You take very good care of your king, keeping him warm and such."
"The fire keeps you warm, and you ent my king."
"As you've said," Liall replied equably. "Would you like me to be?"
Scarlet squinted up at him. "Eh?"
"Would you like me to be your king?"
A shower of sparks went up the chimney. "What's this now? Is it a game?"
"No game. I promise."
"Well... if it's a quick answer you want, then no. I'd rather us stay as we are. Unless," he looked at Liall keenly, "there's more to it than you're saying."
Liall bent and slipped his hand under Scarlet's chin. “Clever pedlar. Tell me, what makes a nobleman?”
“In your land or mine?”
Liall thought about it. “Neither. I asked what makes a man noble to you.”
Scarlet frowned. “Not that I’ve thought about it a great lot, but I guess acting noble would go a long way to convince me.”