Then I knew.
The intense stab of jealousy that followed Aleksey’s switch of attention from me to this other poor man was not the irritation of withdrawn friendship.
I was sick with envy because he laid his hand upon another man.
All was clear.
I was filled with searing, bitter, exalting, joyous, but awful knowledge that I loved Aleksey. I loved him as a man should love a woman. I wanted him as a man should want a woman.
But love, in my experience, was something that left you weak and vulnerable and near to death. During the next few weeks, I repressed any outward betrayal of my feelings and kept our friendship to just that: the brotherly, slightly flirtatious friendship that we enjoyed. I quickly came to see that, when amongst his own kind, his officers, Aleksey flirted with everyone. Not in the unpleasant way I’d experienced with Prince John but more as if a ribald secret was about to be shared, a private joke bound you to him. They all adored him. My more intense, painful love, therefore, was hidden in this universal Aleksey worship. I thought my secret was safe.
I discovered that on the two-month march to Saxefalia, I was to share a tent with Aleksey.
So much for keeping my secret safe. My resolution to keep to our mutual, backslapping friendship dissolved with a splash of hot water to his naked body as he washed that first night on the march.
ALEKSEY HAD been right about the army and its love of nudity. In the evenings, after the long marches, naked men wandered everywhere—thoughtlessly, happily. Freed entirely from the presence of women, they were only too glad at the end of every day’s forced march to cast off hot uniforms that chafed and rubbed raw and walk unfettered to wash in streams. Being in the army was extremely physical in ways I had not anticipated. I had lived for some years now in a world where the physical was denied: bodies covered, bodily functions never discussed, euphemisms used where a good honest word would have done better. But here everything was raw and basic and honest. The soldiers were coarse: everything related to cock or arse.
I once rounded a corner between some tents to find a ring of men standing around watching one man suck another’s cock. Apparently a challenge had been given, money was on the table, and all were cheering the outcome. To say I was confused would be an understatement. I was mortified, shocked—not by the act. After all, it was not something I was unfamiliar with. I was bewildered by the fact that not one of these men would have considered himself a man like me: one who preferred men to women in all things. Such an act done between men was punishable by death, as I knew only too well. So how could these soldiers do it openly in a field surrounded by cheering fellows? I was confused and dismayed. I saw many such examples of this… double standard. If you did these things as a joke or for a bet, it was acceptable. If emotion came into the equation, God forbid love, then that meant death. How could this be? A senseless act done to ribald and obscene encouragement was better than one between two men who wanted to express affection?
What did Aleksey make of all this? He had been in the army since he was a boy. He had lived two lives, one of manners and the etiquette of court and one here in the army, where the pecking order for food and privilege depended more on the strength of your arm and the size of your cock than it did on rank. So one night, when we were eating together, I asked him. He was amused by my question and firstly wanted a very detailed description of what I’d seen. I’d been very vague, having no words for these things other than ones I was uncomfortable using in front of him.
He considered my question for a while and then shrugged. “It is our sweat lodge.” He glanced at my expression and explained, “They would bottle up their lust; it would poison them. Better it is got out in the open. Desires would otherwise build up and focus on one man, jealousies arise, unmanly attachments. It is better this way.”
“But that is what I am asking. If they want to do that to another man, why not do it in private where it might mean something. This is ugly and passionless.”
“You cannot have men loving men in an army, Niko. It leads to distraction and for men to behave as women. Surely the heathen men you spoke of did not fashion… attachments.”
I considered this. “Sometimes they did. But even if they did not, they did not behave as your men do. The exchange of bodies was always respected, whether it was a momentary desire or not. Your men seem to deem it little more than… defecation, something to be constantly joked about.”
“Perhaps if they did not laugh, they would cry.” He speared a piece of apple and chewed, watching me carefully.
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps they would like it to mean something more but do not know how to express this desire. It is not something any man can just come out and say, is it? The consequences of misreading signals are too awful. What if you thought another man wanted you, but you couldn’t be sure? What are you supposed to do? There are no brothels here, and I allow no camp followers. So they find release in a joke, a bet, a meaningless act behind which they can hide their truer intent.” He stabbed his knife into the table. “I do not know, Colonel. I do not have any answers for you. I insist my officers not get embroiled in such games, but other than that, I can see no harm in it. I let the camp dogs rut too. Do you have a question about that for me?”
He seemed put out for some reason that I could not fathom. I shook my head, discouraged. I did not like that our relative positions of power had been reversed recently. I had come to the castle the one with the knowledge and experience. I was there, the hero, to save the king’s life, which I had done. Yes, my eventual discovery had not quite been the great moment of enlightenment I had expected it to be, rather an anticlimax, I admit: green wall coverings when I had wanted evil plots and villains uncovered. Nevertheless, I had been in the ascendancy and Aleksey just a spoiled, pretty prince. Now he was my commanding officer. He knew everything; I knew nothing. I did not even know the name for the most common items, and everything in the army had a name, and none of them common. Also, as he had pointed out, I did not speak the language of the ordinary soldiers. I was fortunate in that I had a soldierly bearing. To be honest, I was a great deal taller, stronger, and fitter than all the soldiers and most of the officers, and I could ride better than any of them, including Aleksey. But I had never fought with a sword and did not know how to drill or march or put up a tent or dismantle one or where everything should go and how it should be done. The long and the short of it was, I did not think I should have to be asking Aleksey anything. He should be asking me, consulting me, looking up to me, and I did not like this change in our relationship.
I saw very little of Stephen in those days. At first our lord and master had deemed him too young to accompany the army. But at his constant pleading, Aleksey had relented and said he could come, but that it would not be appropriate for him to continue being my page. Even Aleksey did not bring royal servants when he was on the march. Stephen, therefore, was living with the other boys and training to be a messenger. This was another feature of Aleksey’s army that puzzled me: it appeared to have an unusual number of very young and very old attached to it. I could not fathom this at all, but as I was not about to ask Aleksey another question that would highlight my ignorance, I decided to ask Johan.
Colonel Johan was Aleksey’s executive officer. In this I mean he did not have a specific function or role. He, like Aleksey, oversaw everything and was responsible directly to the general for the conduct of the march. He was consequently a busy man and difficult to pin down. I waited until we were riding one day and rode up beside him. My reputation as an almost otherworldly rider had been extremely useful in gaining a certain respect from my fellow officers. We did not compare cock length for favor, as did our soldiers, but rather judged prowess with sword and horse. They overlooked my inability to hold a sword as they were in awe of my horsemanship. Johan nodded at me curtly. I decided not to waste his time and asked him outright why we had what seemed like hundreds of little boys running around us all the time, taking
messages, fetching, carrying, cleaning. He looked wryly at one of the culprits, at that very moment dashing back from the front ranks to stragglers, bearing them some skins of water. “They’re the orphans.”
“The what?”
“It was the idiot child’s idea. He rounded up the orphan beggars and enlisted them in his army. He pays them and feeds them and dresses them. Not surprisingly, they all worship the saintly ground he walks upon.” He sounded derisive, but I knew him a little better by this time.
I picked a leaf out of Xavier’s mane and commented dryly, “As do you.”
He turned to me at this, annoyed. I held my ground and raised my eyebrows. He suddenly chuckled, dipping his head. He’d been caught out, and he knew it. All he said was, “He’s an idiot, for they are all thieves and ruffians, but I have my messages taken and my boots cleaned, so I’m not complaining.”
“Have you known him long?” This was too good an opportunity to miss to find out some more about the object of my obsession.
He pursed his lips, thinking about this for a moment, then replied calmly, “Twenty-three years. I pulled him from his dead mother’s body.” My horse shied away a little, and I nudged him back. The colonel was staring at the distant mountains toward which we were slowly heading. “I was the captain of her guard. We were traveling to meet the king. She fell from her horse, and Aleksey came that night.”
“I knew she had died giving birth to him.”
He hesitated for a long time, then turned to me. “She did not. She was already dead from the fall.” He looked down, pursed his lips, and added quietly, “I hoped the child was still alive, so I cut her open and pulled him out.”
I stared at him, astounded. “I have heard of such a thing but never seen it done. Even as a doctor. Most infants would be left to die inside their mothers as proof of obedience to God’s will.”
He nodded. “Aleksey was special.” Then he added with a despairing shake of his head, “Even then.”
A sudden and very violent suspicion entered my mind. I let nothing of it show on my face, turning the conversation to the old men I had observed and half listening as he informed me that they were another of Aleksey’s projects: veterans of the army, too old or too injured to fight. I waited until I could see Aleksey in the distance and then let my mind roam free. They were very alike. I had noted the first time I’d met Johan that he was attractive and that he seemed very taken with Aleksey. I had put Johan’s constant observation of the prince down to the kind of attraction I might feel for another man, that I did feel for Aleksey. After the colonel’s story, though, I wondered. Aleksey was special. A son was special. Did Aleksey know? I reasoned that he did not. His sense of entitlement was too ingrained, his sense of himself as a prince of the blood too obvious. It would destroy him to know. Perhaps I was reading too much into the colonel’s story. And why had he told me if it led to such conjecture on my part? It was something he could not possibly want me to know.
I had many opportunities to observe them together after that, for they were almost always in each other’s company. My suspicions certainly changed the way I saw the colonel’s relationship with Aleksey. Now I rather liked the way he constantly monitored, criticized, guided, and counseled his much younger superior. It certainly could be the care a father might give a son. I envied Johan the relationship. I envied the colonel the freedom he had to play this role, a role—amongst others less noble—I desperately wanted to play in Aleksey’s life.
We marched on, endless day after endless day. It seemed interminable, but before I knew it, we had completed one month of marching. Half our time together gone. I was always busy, of course. There appeared to be as many ways for a soldier to injure himself on the march to war as in the war itself. Fingers and toes were crushed under wheels, bones broken from falls and fights, and sickness plagued us from the bad humors of the water or the food. If anyone had asked me before my experiences in Hesse-Davia what I imagined when I heard the word war, I would have replied a pounding of horseflesh, screaming, and painted faces with black hair flying in the wind. I realized now that what I had thought was war had merely been skirmish. The Powponi did not war upon their neighbors; they raided and plundered with little plan and no logistics. Real war, this war, was ponderous, exhausting… boring. We went so slowly that sometimes peasants traveling on the roads went faster than we did. It was humiliating to see an old woman carrying bundles of wood in the morning, only to see her again that night, plodding slowly past our lines.
EVERY NIGHT we were summoned to a meeting at which we had to report anything we thought the general should know about our areas of interest. He made it very clear to all of us that if we had nothing critical to say, then saying nothing at all would be welcome. As I had his undivided attention every night as we lay side by side in our cots, I did not waste his time at these meetings by speaking at all. I took the opportunity to learn more about the ways of the military by listening instead.
Aleksey’s officers were a mixed bunch. Very few of them came from Hesse-Davia itself. Most were refugees from the various wars that had plagued Europe for so many years. They were experienced, hard men who enjoyed soldiering for the life itself rather than the pay (which was very poor) or glory and honor (which were hard to gain). They genuinely seemed to like riding all day, sleeping in tents, and eating field rations. They seemed unbothered by physical discomfort or lack of variety in their lives. If I had not had so many minor injuries to care for, I think I would have died of boredom on that long march. The only bright part of each day was when it ended, when Aleksey finally came into our tent, took off his boots, and motioned Faelan to his own blanket by the stove, a sure signal they were staying. Aleksey would sink gratefully onto his bed and want to talk about the day. We would compare thoughts on our fellow travelers, swap stories, or share concerns.
In some ways, I felt as if we’d passed through our great love affair and were drifting happily in the aftermath, glad to just be two men who knew each other very well and were very comfortable in each other’s company. Or at least this is what I told myself to get through those nights when the longing almost overwhelmed me. Whereas John had been rancid meat, Aleksey was the finest banquet ever presented, laid out beside a man dying from starvation, and I could not reach out and take a single taste.
CHAPTER 15
I WAS sure my conversation with Colonel Johan had gone unnoticed by our commanding officer—I had deliberately engineered it so Aleksey wasn’t present. He surprised me a few nights later, therefore, as he was pulling off his boots, by asking casually what we had been discussing—was it something he could help me with?
I told him it was not.
Although we had only the light from a hanging lantern, I could see his expression darken at my reply. He looked frustrated, but I could not see why this should be so.
After a struggle with his left boot, he commented somewhat testily, “Johan has many interesting stories. He has been in royal service for years—since before I was born.”
“Indeed.”
He turned his head so fast I heard an audible crick. “So he told you—a story, yes?”
I did not want to stray anywhere near the truth in case my expression gave away my new suspicions about Aleksey’s true parentage. I shrugged and pretended to close my eyes. I could still see him watching me, however.
With no justification as far as I could see, he suddenly threw his boot at me. When I sat up and objected to this treatment, he told me it was my own fault, that I was more stupid than my horse, and that he was sleeping elsewhere that night, for he could not tolerate my presence.
He had reached the tent flap when he swung back and hissed that he was going to share Johan’s tent—that Johan had always been as a father to him. He seemed to be waiting for something from me. I had no idea what I was supposed to say.
I handed him back his boot.
His eyes widened. If possible, an even more derisive look twisted his features, and he stormed out.
I could see that he might have. But why he had done so defeated me. He could not want me to think Johan was his father—I do not think he would have referred to Johan in such a way had this scandalous thing been true. Why did he want me to understand more about their relationship? He could not possibly have sensed my jealousy. I was too guarded. But perhaps he had. Perhaps it annoyed him that I was not wholly focused on the march, as he was.
That seemed a very reasonable conclusion.
Aleksey wanted my focus back on the march and had ordered Johan to speak to me about it.
I was still puzzled by the boot throwing, though.
MY CONFUSION over many things on that road to war, including Aleksey’s mood, was deepened by an odd incident the following day. I was still thinking back over that nighttime conversation with Aleksey, going over it, pretending I had said this and he had said that and perhaps other things more pleasant than a boot being flung in my face had occurred, when I rounded the end of a line of tents and saw Jules and Johan deep in conversation, heads lowered. As I have said, Jules was a particular friend of Johan’s. They regularly sat together in the evenings, playing chess, so it was not that unusual to see them together now. I was about to join them, therefore, when I heard Jules say, “No, I suppose you are right. He is not.”
I cannot say why the immediate suspicion that they were talking about me came into my mind, but it did.
It was ungentlemanly, beneath me, but I hung back behind the tent and listened.
Their voices carried very easily, and I heard Jules add, “I thought he was one of those ferocious German mercenaries when he first strode into His Majesty’s bedchamber.”
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