by Kim Fielding
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Now, that’s a bald lie. Wait.”
I watched him fetch us each a generous glassful of wine. Though I wanted to touch him, just observing him was a heady experience. I could do so for years, I thought. This must be what it’s like to dream under trance-drops.
We both drained our glasses quickly, and he refilled them. Then he dipped a bowl into the basin and carried it to the bench. He sprinkled in some of the soap powder, swirled to form thick suds, and moistened a small towel. These were actions I was certain he’d performed many times before.
He sat beside me and, cradling my jaw with one hand, gently urged me to turn toward him. He began to wash my face as slowly and delicately as a parent might bathe an infant.
“I was born in the Royal Quarter,” he said softly. “My family is very minor nobility, but we hold a title nonetheless. We lived ten minutes’ walk from the castle. My parents liked to entertain. Vast, glittering parties where I would hide in a corner and listen to the musicians. Once the crown prince attended—before he became a recluse, of course—and he found me in my hiding place. I was… eleven? Twelve, perhaps. I thought he might scold me or tell my parents, but instead he brought me a cake and a small tumbler of wine. He wasn’t really much older than me.”
It was a pretty story, but possibly a fabrication. Well, not completely so. I believed that he was born among blue bloods. That idyllic place he’d mentioned in the countryside was probably his family’s summer palace. In any case, my eyes were closed and my skin tingling as he washed me, and for the moment I didn’t care about the truth.
I kept my eyes shut when Jory finished with my face and moved on to my arms. He continued his tale as he went. “A few years later, I fell in love with an entirely unsuitable boy.”
“A servant?”
“A Lowler. His family owned a tavern some of my friends and I liked to visit when we were feeling daring. He and I used to steal a bit of time together, talking about running away and finding a quiet life together in one of those tiny farming hamlets. I don’t know how I thought we’d survive. The young are foolish.”
Not just the young, I thought as he moved the damp cloth in slow circles over my chest.
Jory interrupted his story long enough to dump the bowl into a drain on the floor, refill it, and add more soap. This time, instead of sitting, he stood behind me and cleaned my back.
“My parents found out,” he said with a sigh. “Ordered me never to see him again. I refused. I was never their favorite anyway. Mother favored my older brother, and one of my sisters was Father’s favorite. They cut me off from the family name and fortune, then cast me out with nothing but the clothes on my back.” He said it lightly, but I heard the echoes of old pain. I could understand that ache even if I’d never been wealthy, even if my mother had died instead of throwing me out. Either way, we had been young and alone.
“Your lover?” I prompted, although I suspected I knew the rest.
“Turned out to be less enamored of me when I was poor.” He lightly tapped my back. “Stand.”
I did, and he continued to speak as his able hands cleansed my buttocks—my knees almost went wobbly at that—and the backs of my thighs. “I had nowhere to go. My friends wanted nothing to do with me. And I had only two things of value: my voice and my looks. I ended up here at Branok’s. I told myself I’d just sing for the customers as they drank in the drawing room, nothing more, but of course I did a great deal more almost at once. Much more pay in it.”
I craned my neck to look at him over my shoulder. “There’s no shame in it. We do what we must to survive.”
“Did you ever sell yourself?”
“Not that way, no. I never had the looks for it.” But I’d sold myself in other ways, hadn’t I?
Jory pushed me back onto the bench. After another refill of the bowl, he came around to crouch in front of me, and that was almost more than I could stand. Even with my eyes squeezed shut again, my cock grew rigid in my lap. Jory kept his touch dispassionate, though, handling me as if getting me clean was his only concern—except for an extra bit of rubbing that nearly drove me insane.
When he stopped, I opened my eyes. He knelt between my splayed knees, as erect as I was, his eyes bright.
“I could use my mouth,” he rasped. “I’m very talented. Or—”
“No.”
“Are you a religious man taking a month of abstinence?” he asked, his tone lightly mocking.
“I don’t know who you are.”
“I just told you. Cast-out nobleman’s son, sometime whore and entertainer.”
“That’s not the whole truth of you.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes,” I whispered. His eyes could burn me, reduce me to nothing but ashes. But I didn’t look away.
He pushed himself to his feet and drank down the contents of his wineglass and mine. Then he filled them again. He set the bowl on my lap. “It’s my turn.”
“I won’t be as skilled at it.”
“You’ll be skilled enough.”
He took my spot on the bench. Some of the water sloshed over the edges when I brought the bowl over, but enough remained for my purposes.
Copying his earlier efforts, I worked up a lather, cupped his cheek, and began to wash his face. Such smooth skin. If he ever grew a beard, there was no sign of it now. And apart from when I moved the towel very near them, he kept his eyes wide open. Watching my face.
“Have you ever tried recontacting your family?” I asked. “Perhaps over time they’ve changed their minds.”
“They haven’t. They must know at least some of what I’ve been doing, and they would not approve.”
“You’re a very good singer,” I pointed out.
“Maybe. But when I grow a little older and lose my looks, will anyone still want to listen?”
I would.
I turned my attention to his wiry arms.
“And none of them will speak to you?” I pressed.
“I haven’t tried. I do have some pride left, you know. The only relative I’ve communicated with in years is a distant cousin.”
I stopped cleaning his hand and looked at him. “Lord Uren?”
“You are very good at your work. But I’m tired of talking about myself, and I don’t know anything at all about you.”
“You do. I was born in a whorehouse in the Low. One not nearly as nice as this.”
“And?”
“And nothing. You’ve spent time in the Low. You know how children there live.”
With a fresh bowl of water, I began on his back. I wanted to suck on his nape. I wanted to scrape my teeth along his shoulder bones and nibble on his spine. I wanted to kneel behind him, tracing my tongue over the swell of his buttocks, down into the crevice between—
I jerked back, splashing myself.
“What happened to your parents, Daveth?”
“Never had a father. And my mother swallowed too many trance-drops.”
“How old were you?”
“I don’t know. Nine or ten.” It was easier to discuss this when I couldn’t see his face, so I remained behind him, watching his muscles shift with his small movements.
“How did you survive?”
“However I could. I’d do small jobs like running errands or sweeping a tavern floor. I found discarded food and slept in alleys. I occasionally stole a coin or a piece of fruit from the unwary. I’d sneak into the posher quarters at night and take the coins people had thrown into fountains for luck.”
“A hard life.”
I considered this a moment. “Yes. But it made me strong. I learned to fight because I had to—and eventually I became very good at it.”
“I saw that today.”
Though he couldn’t see me, I shook my head. That had been nothing. Those men had not been trained as killers and were poor at their job. I could have beaten them when I was still a child.
After a moment, I came around to his
front and, just as he had, knelt. I’m sure I wasn’t as graceful at it, and my knees protested at once, but I ignored them and focused instead on the sweet soft-firmness of his balls and the rigid length of his cock. I felt gratified when my ministrations produced a strangled gasp and when he strained not to flex his hips into my touch.
Then he settled a hand on my shoulder, almost undoing me. “How did you go from that desperate little boy to this capable man?”
Capable. Is that what I was? “I joined the city guard.”
“The guard! That’s highly unusual for a Lowler.” He kept the one hand on my shoulder but worked the fingers of the other through my hair, which struck me as odd because I’d been dying to do the same to him. Somehow it seemed our most intimate contact yet, even though I was tenderly washing the creases between his thighs and torso.
He tugged lightly at my hair as if trying to focus my attention. “Why the guard?”
“It… they pay decently. Better than any other honest work I’d find.”
“Perhaps. But that’s not why you joined them.”
What was I supposed to tell him? That I’d been an idealistic fool? A simpleton who believed that wearing that showy uniform would help me magically shed the wretchedness of my origins? I’d pictured myself a hero of sorts, proving to the world through my valiant feats that I was better than the filth from which I’d crawled.
“Daveth?” Jory insisted.
I chose a better option than answering him—I slid my mouth over the head of his cock.
He made a strangled noise, and his grip on my hair and shoulder became almost painful, but he stopped asking questions. Instead he spread his knees wide and canted his hips, giving himself over to me completely.
It had been a very long time since I’d had another man in my mouth, but I’d once been quite good at this, and my body remembered what to do. I tasted his skin and felt the thickness of him against my tongue and palate, and I toyed with the soft, springy curls at his root.
I forgot the discomfort of my knees on the tile and the insistent ache at my own groin, concentrating on filling my senses with him. His ragged breaths and soft moans formed a chorus as sweet as anything I’d heard him sing, and the sight of him with eyes closed and lip caught in his teeth was more intoxicating than any ale.
He spilled with a barely coherent blasphemy, and I swallowed until he was done, then licked him clean. I stood, and when he reached for me, I stepped back.
“I can—”
“No,” I interrupted firmly. I crossed the room and reached for my clothes, but he moved quickly behind me and grabbed my arm.
“What are you punishing yourself for?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
His sigh tickled the back of my neck. “I’ll pay one of the boys to wash our clothes and repair the knife-rends.”
“And leave me naked in the meantime?”
He let me go and fetched something from the pile on the bench. It turned out to be a pair of soft trousers made of thin cotton fabric. They’d been tailored for someone shorter than me and with a bigger belly, but a drawstring allowed me to cinch the waist tight. I must have looked ridiculous. Jory, of course, was resplendent in his flimsy trousers.
He pulled the plug to drain the basin and then, when I thought he’d depleted his magic, produced a wooden comb.
“Untangle me?” he asked as he handed it to me.
He stood, drinking the last of the wine, while I finally had the chance to touch those sunshine curls. They were as soft as I’d imagined.
Leaving the bottles, glasses, and towels for someone else to deal with, he handed me my knife-belt, purse, and boots, then gathered everything else in his arms. I followed him down the hall. He had a brief conversation with a short dark-eyed boy—I didn’t bother to listen—and gave the youth most of our things. If the boy was surprised, he didn’t show it.
We climbed four long flights of stairs.
After Jory opened a door at the top, we both had to stoop to enter. I expected dirt and dust, scurrying insects, rodent droppings. The comforts of home. But the long, narrow room appeared quite clean if sparely furnished. It contained little but a sleeping pallet and chamber pot. The walls were whitewashed and unadorned, the angled ceiling just beams and wooden planks.
“Rough accommodations,” I said, thinking of his bright apartment.
“I’m sure we’ve both slept in worse. I like this room. There’s a view out the window.” He waved, but darkness had fallen long ago and I didn’t bother to look. Then he grinned. “And you see that little door over there? It leads to the house next door.”
“That could be handy.”
Smiling, he took my knife-belt and hung it on a hook. He tucked my purse into my boots, which he set near the door. “Another good thing about this room is no noisy footsteps overhead.”
“Was this where you lived when you were here?”
“Yes. I think it was intended to humble me. The more experienced boys didn’t like climbing all those stairs. But I quite liked it.” He chuckled softly. “Branok called me her bird since I like to sing and be up high.”
And then, as if the topic flowed naturally, he asked me, “Why aren’t you in the guard any longer?”
“I haven’t been for years.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
I considered dropping to my knees and taking him in my mouth again, but I didn’t have the energy. I rubbed the back of my neck and then the bandage that covered my arm. I wished I’d drunk more wine. “I was posted in the Silver Quarter. It was an easy posting, mostly walking the streets and trying to look fierce. It makes the merchants feel safer. But then one of the merchants said that an expensive knife went missing from his shop after I’d been inside.” I shrugged. “He sold very fine blades. I often went in to look at them when I had a few minutes free.”
Jory kept his distance from me, his face hard to read in the dimly lit room. “And?”
“And my captain found the knife in the wooden chest I kept under my bed.”
He nodded as if he’d known this all along. “Did you steal it?”
“What does it matter? The knife was with my things and I’m a Lowler. Everybody knows how we are.” I could still see the bitter disdain on my fellow guards’ faces. “I was fortunate. They could have hung me for the theft, but my sergeant interceded and I was simply thrown out.” Myghal had been the only one who entertained the notion I might be innocent, but I’m not certain even he believed it. He saved my life, though, for which I was grateful.
“Come to bed, Daveth.”
Meekly I obeyed, sighing as I stretched out on the pallet. Jory lay close and pulled a blanket over us. The bedding smelled of lavender and witchbane. He reached over and doused the lantern, bathing us in darkness.
And then he snuggled close and rearranged me like a doll until my head rested on his shoulder. He smoothed the skin on my back. Not so much an amorous embrace as a comforting one. I let myself pretend, just for a few minutes. I was being greedy, but it was a tiny luxury in a life that held so few.
Jory kissed the top of my head. Silly. “You didn’t steal that knife.”
“They found it with my things.”
“Just because a man has a thing he’s not supposed to, it doesn’t mean he stole it.”
His soft hand and warm body were lulling me to sleep, and I didn’t respond to his statement.
“Who set you up?” he asked. “And why? Just because you’re from the Low?”
I mumbled an answer. “Because I’m a fool.”
“You don’t strike me as foolish at all.”
“Some of the guards in our company would make certain Lowlers pay a tax for walking through other quarters to find work. If the Lowlers didn’t hand over their few pathetic briquets, the guards would beat them. If the Lowlers had no coins, the guards took it in trade.” The guards reserved that final option for the young ones, of course, the ones fair of face. Some of them were hardly more than children.
<
br /> Jory’s next question came out like a sigh. “And?”
“And I wouldn’t. I tried to tell my sergeant, my captain.” Myghal had told me to ignore it—happened all the time, he said. “But my captain refused to hear the entire story.”
I expected more questions. Instead, Jory began to sing. And it was a fucking lullaby. He continued his hand’s soothing movements and kept his voice hardly above a whisper, singing about a peaceful forest where lucky wanderers lost all their troubles.
I’ve never cried. Not when I was a small child and my belly was empty. Not when I found my mother cold and stiff on the floor. But in Jory’s arms, I fell asleep with wet eyes and his music dancing in my head.
Chapter Nine
JORY WOKE me up with more singing—something sprightlier than a lullaby—and a tray with breakfast and hot tea. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. “I could have fetched my own meal. You didn’t have to carry it up to me.”
“Oh, but balancing things up all those stairs brings back such memories!” he said with a grin. He set the tray on the floor near the pallet and then sat next to me. He poured and handed off a cup of tea, which burned my tongue.
“You are an interesting man,” he said as I bit into bread stuffed with spiced meat. Tasty and satisfying.
“I’m not.”
“One of the most interesting people I’ve met. I feel as if I could spend a lifetime peeling back your layers, learning more about you.”
That made me snort. “I don’t have layers.” I have no education and don’t think deep thoughts. I know very little except for the darkest sides of Tangye. I have no hobbies or special interests, no talents except fighting.
“Hmm. After you left the guard—”
“After I was kicked out.”
“—what made you decide to do this?” He waved a hand vaguely.
“Eat breakfast?”
“Find thieves on behalf of noblemen. Or whatever it is you do when you’re not after me.”
“I told you what I do. People hire me to track down lost loved ones—or find out if their spouses are fucking someone else.”