by Kim Fielding
The woman’s jibe aside, it occurred to Aric that he should have brought some coins with him. But he rarely carried them—they weren’t needed inside the palace, where his few expenses were recorded in ledgers—and he hadn’t exactly planned this excursion ahead of time. “Please,” he said. “I need to find Itan.”
“Did you look in your ass?” More coughing laughter.
Aric shook his head, grabbed Warin’s arm, and went back into the rain.
There were dozens of closes like that one, each packed with humanity’s wretched dregs, and tiny alleys where people sought what shelter they could under sagging balconies and half-collapsed houses where rotting timbers provided a bit of respite from the rain. None of the miserable people in these places admitted to knowing someone named Itan, although they were quick to make crude jokes at Aric’s expense, or to wheedle him for money. One boy barely older than Warin, with a pockmarked face and a clubfoot, offered his own body in exchange for Aric’s cloak. Wordlessly, Aric removed the cloak and handed it to the boy, then walked away.
“You’re going to be cold!” Warin protested, still running to keep up. “And wet.”
Aric coughed. “I was cold and wet anyway.”
“But your cloak, it’s really expensive. The crown won’t pay for another one for you this year.”
“Then I’ll pay for it myself.”
“You can’t save everyone, Brute,” said Warin, sounding wise far beyond his years.
“I know. But I can help that boy sleep a little more comfortably tonight.”
In the next close, they encountered a mother huddled with two toddlers and a newborn. Aric wasn’t sure the newborn was still alive. He wished he still had his cloak to give away. Instead, he unbuttoned his sweater and handed it to the speechless woman.
“Brute!” Warin squawked. “If you end up dead from the cold, Alys will whip me bloody.”
“I’m not your responsibility.”
Warin bunched his fists on his hips. “Yeah? If not mine, then whose are you?”
“I’m responsible for myself,” Aric replied, even as he asked himself if that was true. Hadn’t he simply allowed circumstances to buffet him from place to place? He hadn’t really made many true decisions in his life, and those that he did—going out in terrible weather and then stripping himself half naked, for example—were often questionable.
He bent almost double to search for Itan under a raised chicken coop, squeezed sideways through a narrow space between two splintery wooden buildings, and yanked at the door to a seemingly abandoned shed. By the time he’d done all that, and explored more alleys and closes besides, he was feeling oddly warm and light-headed, and he had to lean against a stone wall to rest.
“It’s almost dark,” said Warin, worry making his voice higher than usual. “We won’t be able to see anything at all around here once the sun sets.”
“A few more minutes,” Aric said, and coughed painfully.
“I think you’re sick. You don’t look good.”
“I never look good.”
“Brute!”
Aric shook his head. “Just one more street.”
That street turned out to be even more miserable than the last. Even in the rain, and even through his snotty nose, Aric could tell that it reeked of garbage and sewage. He supposed maybe people actually lived in the tilting, nearly windowless structures, but they seemed dark and abandoned. Something that sounded like bones rattled in the wind, and the cobbles gave way to slimy mud, so strewn with offal that Aric was actually thankful for poor visibility. “There’s nobody here,” Warin said, already edging back in the direction from which they’d come.
Aric was inclined to agree. Shivering, with shoulders slumped, he turned away. And then he heard a whimper. At first he thought it might be the wind, but when he peered carefully at a bundle of sticks and rags that was scrunched up against one wall, the bundle moved. Just a little.
Aric hunched down and put out a tentative hand. The bundle jerked slightly and moaned. Not sticks and rags at all, he now saw, but a man. Possibly a young man, although it was hard to tell in the gloom and with the man’s face covered in filth. His eyes stared sightlessly ahead, opaque and white. “Itan?” Aric rasped.
The man groaned and tried to turn his head a bit more, but didn’t seem to have the strength. He was hardly more than a skin-bound skeleton, and when Aric touched his forehead, it was as cold as the rain. “Yes,” said the man in a barely audible whisper.
“Gods. I’m… I’m going to take you someplace safe, all right? Somewhere warm. I’ll find a healer.” As he spoke, he slid his arms under Itan and picked him up as gently as possible. Itan weighed almost nothing at all and should have been easy to carry, but Aric felt weak as a child and staggered a bit as he tried to walk. “It’s all right. It’s all right, Itan.”
Warin had dashed back to Aric’s side. “How can I help?”
“Where can I find a healer?”
“I… I don’t know. There’s one at the palace, but….”
Aric shook his head. He’d never make it that far. But he kept putting one foot in front of the other because there was nothing else he could do. It was a difficult task. His legs were numb, and it felt as if someone had lifted the top of his skull and poured it full of mud.
He was in a neighborhood full of boarded up carts, still far from the palace, when his legs gave out and he fell to his knees. He managed to keep hold of Itan as he fell, but just barely. He remained like that for a long time, his head bowed, trying to regain enough strength to stand.
“Brute! Brute, you have to get up!” It sounded as if Warin might be crying.
Aric looked down at Itan and saw that it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Itan’s eyes were still open, but his breathing had stopped. Aric hadn’t even noticed when the beggar had died.
Hot tears mingled with the cold rain dripping down his face.
“Brute?”
He managed to get to his feet again. He staggered to the side of the street and laid Itan out on the cobbles. He spent a few moments rearranging the thin limbs: legs straight and together, arms crossed over the narrow chest. He used his palm to close the eyelids. And then, because he had nothing else to give, he tugged his fine linen shirt over his head and placed it over Itan’s face like a shroud. “I’m sorry, Itan,” he whispered. “I promise I’ll remember your name.”
Bare-chested, too feverish to care, and with Warin doing his best to keep him moving, Aric somehow made his way back to the palace.
Chapter 14
“Y-YOU were right. You really are v-very stupid.”
Aric peeled one eye open, but that didn’t help much. He still saw nothing but blackness. He could smell, though. The citrusy soap he stole from the bathhouse, coal smoke from the tile stove, damp stone, and a waste bucket that needed emptying. He could feel as well. Soft quilts beneath him and over his legs and stomach, and familiar long fingers kneading at his chest.
“Why w-were you out in a s-storm half naked and sick? Is this some strange v-village ritual?” Gray’s voice was soft and soothing despite the rebuke of the words.
“Itan,” Aric said with a sigh.
The hands stopped their movement. “And?”
“Too late. He died in my arms.”
“Oh, Aric.” Gray stroked Aric’s face. “H-he didn’t die alone.”
Aric supposed he should have drawn some comfort from that, but his heart felt hard and his mouth tasted bitter. “He could have been saved if someone had helped him earlier. And there are so many others, Gray!”
“I kn-know. Now shush a m-minute. I’m almost d-done.” He started pressing at Aric’s chest again, brief little digs with his fingertips. He was muttering something unintelligible as he worked, and little sparks of heat were traveling from each finger across Aric’s body, warming him and clearing his head.
“You’re a witch!” Aric exclaimed, sitting up so abruptly his head spun.
“H-hardly.” Gray pushed him bac
k down onto the blanket. “A h-healer. N-not a very good one, b-but I can manage a fever. If you’ll stay still.”
“I’m… how did I get here?”
“N-no idea. You came lumbering in, wheezing like a b-bellows, and collapsed at my feet.”
“Oh.” Aric didn’t remember that part. Didn’t remember much of anything after abandoning Itan’s body, actually. He hoped Warin had gotten back home safely, and that he hadn’t caught a fever as well.
Gray must have finished his healing, because he began running fingers through Aric’s tangled hair instead. “D-do you want to light a candle?”
Aric considered the question. “No,” he finally answered. The darkness felt safe, for some reason. Certainly the dark didn’t matter to Gray, who lay down beside him and pulled the quilts up to their shoulders. It was only when Gray was snuggled against him that Aric remembered. “I didn’t bring you dinner.”
Gray snorted. “I c-can miss a meal. It’s late and you n-need to rest. I’m not letting you b-back outside tonight.”
That made Aric chuckle, because it wasn’t as if Gray could do anything to stop him. Anyway, he was very tired, and it was nice to be fussed over a little, and Gray was very warm in his arms. He yawned.
“S-sleep, giant. I’ve a tale for you t-tomorrow.”
ALYS frowned at him. “Warin said you were sick. What on earth were you thinking, Brute?”
He took the food pails from her hands. “I’m fine. I just needed some sleep.”
“But your cloak! And the sweater I made you!”
He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Alys. It’s only—”
“I know,” she said gently, while giving him a punch on the arm. “Your heart’s as big as the rest of you. It’s fine. I’ll knit you another.”
“You don’t have to.”
This time she tugged his head down for a quick buss to his cheek. “I want to. Now go! I’ll send Warin to tell the schoolmaster you’re too ill for lessons today. I’ve packed enough here for your lunch as well. I don’t want you getting out of bed until dinner.”
His fever was gone, but her commands sounded pretty appealing anyway.
He and Gray ate a big breakfast while sitting on the quilts, and Aric set the rest of the food on the table for later. He added more coal to the stove while he was there, and then rejoined Gray in the cell. Gray managed to maneuver him around again so that Aric lay on his back with his head in Gray’s lap—a new thing for them, and rather nice. Aric closed his eyes and quietly hummed with pleasure when Gray began working on his tangles.
“Maybe I should have the barber shave my head again.”
“D-don’t. I like the feel of your c-curls.”
That was possibly the most ridiculous thing anyone had ever said to Aric. But then his was turning out to be a ridiculous life, wasn’t it? He remembered his epiphany from the previous afternoon: love. He was in love with Gray Leynham: prisoner, supposed witch, and traitor.
“You said you had a tale for me,” Aric said.
“Hmm. It’s a s-sordid tale. You might not like it.”
“Is it about you?”
Gray made an affirmative grunt.
“Then I want to hear it. You know all my secrets, but I know barely anything about you. Why are you here, Gray? Why these?” He reached over to rattle a chain.
“M-my father was a sailor. You knew that. Mother was a seamstress. Very beautiful.”
“Like you.”
Gray snorted and tugged at a lock of Aric’s hair. “I h-had an older sister, but she died when I was young. And not much later, w-we learned that I had a gift. I healed a sick p-puppy.”
Aric tried to picture Gray as a boy, running free and getting into mischief and mending animals. But all he could see were stone walls and chains.
“M-my parents brought me here to the p-palace. The crown would educate ch-children with healing skills, would train them. My p-parents thought my future would be brighter here.”
“They just left you?”
“No.” Gray worked at an especially stubborn knot. “They lived nearby. I g-got to visit them sometimes. And I was busy here. I l-liked my lessons. It turned out my gift was weak, b-but I was allowed to stay. They thought they’d make a clerk of me. I was h-happy with that.” Apparently satisfied with the condition of Aric’s hair, Gray traced his fingertips over the scars on his face instead.
“Did you become a clerk?” Aric asked, trying to imagine Gray rushing around the West Tower with stacks of paper.
“N-no. I met Friddy.”
“Prince Aldfrid.”
“We were of an age. And h-he was s-so dashing! I f-fell head over heels the first time I saw him. Is he s-still handsome, Aric?”
Aric sighed. “Very.”
“We were hardly m-more than boys. We became lovers. It was v-very exciting, you know. S-secret assignations in d-dark corners, lots of sneaking here and there. I think we liked the intrigue as m-much as the romance. Until we were f-found out, of course.”
“What happened?”
“N-nothing so horrible. We were young, and p-people understood. Nobody even minded that Friddy was fucking a boy. He h-has older brothers to produce heirs. They only minded that it was me. Not me p-personally. Just… I was far beneath his station. C-can’t have the nobility screwing commoners—not openly, anyhow. Th-the gods know they do it in secret often enough.”
Feeling indignant on Gray’s behalf, Aric frowned until Gray smoothed his brow. “But you’re really smart,” Aric said. “And beautiful. And you can heal—even if it’s only a little bit, that’s more than most people. You’re special, Gray.”
Gray smiled. “Thank you. But I’m still no blue blood. I was allowed to stay, but Friddy was t-told he must never see me again. I was c-crushed. I thought I was in love.”
Someday—maybe someday soon—Aric would be separated from Gray, and then he would be crushed. He’d never dared to love anyone before, and he was pretty certain he’d never manage it again. Although he’d resigned himself to being alone long ago, perhaps even on the day his parents died, now it would hurt so badly, like an old wound freshly reopened.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“So am I. B-but not for that. Really, they were right. What future could a prince have with me? I sh-should have seen that. Soon enough I’d have found someone else. H-he wasn’t my one true love, like in a story. But I was a d-damned fool. I decided to m-make myself worthy, to prove my value.”
“What did you do?”
After a long pause, Gray answered. “I went to R-racinas.”
Although the fever was gone, Aric felt suddenly ill. He twisted out of Gray’s lap and stood, then padded into the main chamber. Alys had given him an old pot a couple months earlier, a badly dented one with the end of its handle broken off. But it was good enough for heating water. He poured some water into the pot from the jug, then set the pot on top of the coal stove. Although it wasn’t really intended for cooking, the tiles got hot enough to suffice, and within a few minutes the water was steaming. He transferred it into the teapot—chipped in several places and also a gift from Alys. Then he sprinkled in a few pinches of tea bought at a place not far from Warin’s favorite candy shop. It hadn’t been very expensive, since it was mostly local herbs rather than imported leaves, but he liked the taste and the way it warmed his belly.
As he waited for the tea to steep, he listened to the coal fire roar and the rain splatter outside. Cozy sounds when you were snug indoors.
Aric’s hand was big enough that he could carry both pottery cups at once. He brought them into the cell, where Gray smiled at him as he took his. Aric sat down, and Gray wrapped his hands around the cup, breathing in the aroma of the steam. “R-rose hips, mint, and lemon b-balm? Should have drunk this when y-you were becoming ill. You m-might not have needed me.”
I need you. But Aric said instead, “You healed me just fine.”
They sat in silence, sipping at their tea until Gray’s story resumed.
“What did you ask for?”
“P-power. Give me magic, I said. Not this paltry healing gift. M-magic the crown can use.” He laughed humorlessly. “The gods g-gave me what I asked for. I could feel it in me. Still can. It’s l-like… like holding a hot coal in your hand. B-but it’s in here.” He tapped his head.
Aric tried to imagine that and couldn’t. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes. No. It’s a g-good pain, like when you enter my b-body.”
It was silly for Aric to blush about something like that, but he did. And somehow Gray could tell, because he chuckled and stroked Aric’s face. “Such a sweet g-giant,” he said, which only made Aric’s cheeks burn hotter. But at least he understood what Gray meant, because sometimes Gray entered him. And while Gray wasn’t as big as Aric and always took care to prepare him well, there was always a little bit of burning at first, an odd sort of feeling of being stretched and filled. Not that Aric minded. In fact, sometimes he and Gray got into good-natured arguments as to whose turn it was to bottom—a dispute that neither of them really lost, no matter how it turned out.
“I was pleased with the f-feeling. Less so when I l-learned I c-could hardly speak. Fucking stutter. Couldn’t write anymore either. But I th-thought it was a fair enough price.” Gray stopped and frowned. “Why has my stutter nearly g-gone of late?”
“Maybe you’ve paid enough,” Aric said.
Gray shook his head. “I didn’t realize wh-what I could do for several days. I w-was staying at an inn near Racinas, and I dreamt that another g-guest died from apoplexy. The next day, he d-did. It was… horrible. I was devastated, but too naïve to know it was only the first of many. I h-had more dreams on the journey home. A s-sailor caught in a rope and d-dragged overboard. Another dying from an infected w-wound. I was a wreck by the time I returned to Tellomer. B-but, I thought, at least I c-can have Friddy.”