by Jez Morrow
Devon lifted his gold circlet from his head, pulling it free from a few clinging strands of dark hair. He passed the crown to one of his men, then ruffled his dark locks and shook his head like a dog. He unlaced his sandals and took off all the rings from his fingers and toes.
When he stood up straight and ready, Xan lobbed a wooden sword toward him. Devon caught the blunt weapon by its hilt and gave it a turn. He closed the space between them at a casual stroll.
Without salute or warning, Devon dropped low and swept his leg across the ground, fast as a snake strike, at Xan’s ankles.
Xan skipped over the foot sweep with so leisurely a motion that one could not call it a jump. Immediately, Xan’s fat wooden blade came stabbing down at Devon.
The sword tip struck the dirt as Devon rolled out of the way and sprang up to his feet.
Devon thrust fast and hard as Xan was straightening up. Xan deflected the thrust. Devon’s momentum carried him past Xan. Devon swept his blade defensively behind himself, feeling wood on wood as he deflected Xan’s counterstrike.
Xan retreated to the far edge of the circular pit.
The two faced off again, circling wide. They edged warily back in closer.
Devon stayed light on the balls of his feet. He felt the dirt between his toes and tried to gauge the solidity of the ground beneath him. Xan may be the champion gladiator, but Devon meant to win this match. His eyes never left Xan, taking in everything about the man, his balance, his grip, his posture, the angle of his weapon.
Xan’s voice came out a gravelly murmur, “You mean to feint left and strike my knees to the right.”
Devon instantly straightened up and stepped back out of the game, his hand up, thumb and two fingers extended to signal time-out.
Xan stepped back to allow the pause.
Devon frowned at Xan. “Now how did you know what I meant to do? Are the people of the desert mind readers?”
Devon was in deep, deep trouble if Xan could read his mind.
Xan said, “Men’s eyes can lie.” Then his voice became quiet, intimate, “Yours don’t.”
Oh shit.
They don’t? What else were Devon’s traitorous eyes telling this savage? They damn well better lie!
Devon broke truce and charged inside Xan’s long arms. Big men were never good at close-in fighting. Giants always counted on their superior reach to win the fight. The trick was to get inside their guard alive.
And it didn’t work this time. Devon’s blade turned in his hand. He stabbed empty air as he collided full length with Xan’s hard body. Nostrils, mouth, and head filled with Xan’s male scent, desert heat and sexual blaze. Devon’s face, lips and eyelashes pressed to Xan’s chest. Devon felt his crisp hair, tasted his skin.
Devon reached a leg around Xan’s unyielding body, trying to push his heel into the back of Xan’s knee and take him down, but he only succeeded in pressing his erection against Xan’s thigh.
I am so fucked.
There, locked body to body with the gladiator, Devon felt the wooden blade of Xan’s sword knock almost casually on the back of his neck.
And now I’m dead.
Devon let his muscles relax. His shoulders slumped in defeat.
Crap.
He exhaled against Xan’s powerful chest and swore like a soldier. Xan pushed him off.
Xan and Devon knocked the backs of their right wrists together in a soldierly salute to say Good fight.
Devon then turned to face the audience of his guards and a great number of other men and women of the palace compound who had gathered along the railing at the top of the pit to watch the contest. They were uncomfortably silent. Devon could tell they didn’t know how to react to their Sovereign’s defeat.
Devon raised his arms wide, palms up to his people, with an ironic smile and commanded them, “Mourn me!”
Chuckles ringed the pit with enormously relieved smiles. Everyone was allowed to breathe. They laughed. And the chant began. Not the familiar chant from the arena of Xan! Xan! Xan! The men and women here cheered their Sovereign, “Dev-ON! Dev-ON! Dev-On!”
Devon shot a stern glare aside to Xan. Devon’s eyes—eyes that could not lie—told the gladiator, Note well, these are my people.
Xan observed the scene with a closely guarded expression. His eyes, the pale blue of a dusty desert sky, scanned the guards in the pit and the ring of spectators at the railing. Xan’s eyes told Devon nothing.
Devon laced his sandals back up his calves. He refused an attendant’s offer of his rings. He was too dirty for jewelry. He straightened up and spread his hands in a searching gesture around him.
His men knew what he looked for and all pointed up.
Devon’s crown had found its way up to the second level. An attendant there at the rail held the Sovereign’s gold circlet. At Devon’s nod, the servant let the coronet drop.
Devon snatched the little crown out of the air and settled it on his tousled dusty black locks.
As he started toward the stone steps, he bade his gladiator, “Walk with me.”
Chapter Two
Devon stood only as tall as Xan’s eyes. Good. It would give Xan an excellent view of the crown on Devon’s head as they walked side by side along the covered colonnade. The barbarian’s heat was palpable, his scent enticing as desert spice.
Xan had pulled his faded blue tunic top back on, covering his torso. Springy wheat-gold hair stood up from the layer of dust coating Xan’s muscular arms.
Xan spoke first. “Why does one bow to a Prince and not to you?”
“Princes are chosen by the gods,” Devon answered. “I am a Sovereign. I was chosen by a mortal.”
Princes were born to power. As gods decided one’s birth, it followed that the gods made Princes what they were. Sovereigns, on the other hand, were appointed by the Supreme Reigna. The Reigna was a flesh-and-blood woman.
“Then you are less than a Prince,” Xan concluded.
“No,” Devon said.
A Sovereign’s power was exactly the same as a Prince’s, though Devon supposed gods-chosen must seem better than human-chosen to the barbarian.
“The gods have put some pretty fair imbeciles in power,” Devon went on with a faint curl at the edge of his mouth. “That’s why the Reigna replaces them with Sovereigns.”
“Is it you I thank for setting me free?” Xan asked.
“No,” Devon said. “I did set you free. Do not thank me. I did not do it for you. I did it because it was right.”
Do you hear that? Devon thought loudly. I am not besotted with you, you desert brute. But he dared not show Xan his eyes.
Devon went on, “And anyway, I am the one who condemned you to the arena in the first place.”
“You changed your mind,” said Xan. That sounded like Xan was accusing Devon of waffling.
“Condemning you was the right thing to do at the time,” Devon said. “Freeing you was the right thing at the time. All things in their season.”
And Devon decided he was done fielding questions from his subject. “I set you free, yet you still fight in the arena. Why?”
“I am good at it,” Xan said.
Devon imagined he heard an unspoken unlike you at the end of that statement.
It wasn’t as if Devon had anything to prove to a barbarian, yet he heard himself saying, “Do not mistake me for some effete intellectual.”
“I have not mistaken you for anything,” Xan said.
Anger leapt hot inside. Devon’s cheeks felt red. Devon had left himself vulnerable. Feelings he had for this man were obviously not returned, and that hurt.
“Listen to me, Savage, I was blooded before my voice changed. Though I suppose you started killing in the cradle.”
“Later than that,” Xan said. “Just because I am good at it does not mean I enjoy it. I am not a warrior.”
Devon had to bark a dry laugh. “You jest.”
“My people are hunters. I was born a hunter, not a warrior.”
“Yo
u’re saying you don’t enjoy the arena?”
“You enjoy the games,” Xan turned the words around. “I have seen you there.”
It sent a giddy rush through Devon to know that Xan noticed him. But of course Xan would damn well notice the highest-ranking man he had ever seen, the one who decided his life and death, seated up in the Sovereign’s box under his gilded canopy.
“Enjoy?” Devon echoed. No. That was not the word. Devon was always in attendance at the games because he had to be there. The gladiatorial matches were an ancient justice—brutal, basic. They took a man to edge of his existence, a last chance to redeem himself with strength and courage. And with death. For those who witnessed the contests, the combat stirred the blood. Life was most vivid on the cusp at the moment of dire decision, when a soul was set free and justice was served. It was exciting.
Devon hated it.
“No,” Devon answered. “I do not enjoy the games.” And he forced this conversation back to his purpose for having Xan here. “You understand you are not going home. That is not why you are coming with me into the wild lands.”
“Your man Marcus told me my purpose is to guard you. Is that all you want of me?”
Devon heard the sharp intake of his own breath in his nostrils. So Xan noticed how he looked at him.
“Of course that is all,” Devon said, curt, his cheeks burning. “What else did you suppose?”
Let’s get this out right now.
As much as Devon wanted this man, Devon would not have him. The chasm of rank stretched a wide, deep maw between them—the gladiator and the Sovereign, the desert breed and the Raenthe.
And no doubt there was also a difference in inclination. Xan would be a man for women. Devon would not let out a whisper of his own wanting for this man. Xan may suspect—even know—but Devon would not confirm it.
“I am a stranger to this land,” Xan said. “I suppose nothing. You must tell me what I need to know.”
“What I want you to do is your duty as General Marcus explained it to you,” Devon told him, hotter and sharper than he intended. “You are to be my first guardsman. That means you get me to my destination safely and back again, no matter if it requires your life to fulfill your assignment. That is all.”
* * * * *
The wild lands were a great expanse of desert, steppe, fens and hard plains. The people who lived there were scattered tribes who spoke in different tongues.
The wild lands had been under Devon’s rule for three years now. And he had been unable to control them at all.
He hadn’t seen a dinac of taxes since the Reigna gave him the wild lands three summers ago. There ought to be roads by now and irrigation to the dry country. There ought to be a flow of trade goods between there and here.
Reports said the people of the wild lands were savage. And, true enough, all the ones Devon had ever seen had been so. Including Xan. Especially Xan. Xan had been brought here to Calista City in chains, roaring.
Devon’s frontier governor Kani could do nothing with the wild lands but hold on. Kani’s garrison suffered the highest mortality of any unit in the whole wide Raenthe Empire.
Governor Kani’s missives did not really explain why the hell settlement of the wild lands was going so very wrong.
At last, frustrated to death, Devon had declared, “I cannot rule from a distance!”
To which his best general, Marcus, had foolishly asked, “What more can you do? Go there?”
Marcus had thought he was being sarcastic.
But Devon had answered with a decisive nod, dead serious, “Go there.”
Panicked at that idea, Marcus had asked soberly, “Do you want me to go, ma dahn?”
“No. I shall go. I need to see for myself what my governor is up against.”
Marcus had started to argue. “Devon, you are a good soldier and a great general and people adore you—”
“Are you ‘people’, Marcus?” Devon had interrupted.
“Yes, I am people,” Marcus had said, including himself among the adoring ones. “We can’t afford to lose you.”
“And so you shan’t.”
Still, Marcus had tried to talk him out of this journey. But there was no talking Devon out of anything he set his mind to. Marcus could only try to keep him whole while he did it. So Marcus had given him Xan.
Damn him.
* * * * *
After he dismissed Xan from his presence, Devon climbed more steps to an upper-level colonnade where he found Marcus looking on, amused. Marcus’ black, beady eyes raked up and down Devon’s dusty self.
The open side of the palace curved here. Marcus could have seen the match in the exercise pit from up here.
“Self-assured bastard, isn’t he?” Devon commented to Marcus.
“Exactly what I want in your company when you go into the wild lands,” Marcus said. “Since it cannot be me.”
Marcus was another self-assured bastard. Devon had thought of Marcus as family all his life.
Devon told Marcus truthfully, without saying why, “I’m afraid of him.”
Marcus cackled. Laugh lines fissured his tight sun-baked skin. “I wouldn’t give him your back if I didn’t trust him.”
“Would you trust him with your back, Marcus?”
Marcus grinned. “No.”
“Ha!” Devon barked.
Marcus continued, “I am not his Sovereign and I didn’t set him free. You are sacred. I am not.”
“I don’t think I am sacred to him, Marcus.”
“He respects order and authority.”
“Really?” said Devon dryly. “Odd quality in a wild beast.”
“Not at all. Not at all. Prides of lions and packs of wolves respect authority.”
Devon gave a sideways nod. An interesting comparison. Lions and wolves were also hunters, not warriors.
Well, the hunter may respect authority, but Devon was fairly certain that Xan did not respect him.
Devon had come to the sovereignty young. He had seen twenty-eight summers when the starflowers blazed on the green hillsides and the air was sweet with birdsongs. He had seen twenty-eight winters when ice locked the mountain passes.
He had seen war.
He knew he would never see love.
His bedchamber had seen a lot of sex. Partners he’d had many. He could not call them lovers. Skilled women slaked the burning thirst, but they were not what he wanted. Oh, there were professional young men available, who were practiced at playing the woman’s part. Those boys were not at all what Devon wanted and he never engaged their services.
Devon ruled a province. Men lived and died at his word. He moved armies. But in his dreams he did not play the master in bed.
Master of everything, in the depths of the night Devon just wanted to surrender to a stronger power, a dominating man.
But a leader did not submit. Ever. Penetration was an unspoken out of bounds.
Devon was fated to a smoldering existence, never satisfied. The fires may be lowered, but never quenched.
Dreams of being held in the arms of a strong man, the man’s sex inside Devon’s body, must remain forever in the realm of dreams.
The morning arrived when Devon was to embark with the lord of his fantasies as his first guardsman.
Devon blessed and cursed Marcus for this.
Marcus rode out to the plain outside the city to see his Sovereign off. Devon recognized the wiry crooked figure approaching on horseback. An unfamiliar metallic sunlight flash glinted from Marcus’ brow.
Devon’s eyes widened to see Marcus wearing a crown.
The regent was not permitted the crown while Devon was in state. Yes, Devon was leaving, but he was not gone quite yet. Devon nodded up at Marcus’ brow and asked, “How does it feel?”
“Hot,” said Marcus. Sun on metal on Marcus’ balding pate became quickly painful.
“Grow more hair,” Devon said.
“Marry a goat,” Marcus said.
Wryly smiling, Devon wagged
a warning forefinger at Marcus. Devon mounted his black stallion and whisked away to join his entourage.
In addition to the formidable Xandaras and Devon’s personal bodyguards, his company included a full regiment of foot soldiers and a horse unit, coming along to relieve Governor Kani’s garrison in the wild lands.
Marcus need not fear for the Sovereign’s safety on this journey.
Devon’s entourage set out on the royal road, passing between two columns of the home guard, their swords lifted in salute.
Once away from the capital, it didn’t take long for the comments to start.
“Never like it when they dress up wild animals in clothes and teach them to walk on their hind legs,” a soldier said within Xan’s earshot, meant to be heard.
When that got no reaction, another soldier replied louder, “Do you think he can balance a ball on his nose?”
Devon did not rebuke his men. It would not wear to take the barbarian’s side against his own soldiers. He could only tell Xan, “Pay them no heed.”
“I don’t,” Xan said.
“You’re sure?” Devon asked.
“I do not answer to barking dogs or braying jackasses either,” Xan said.
“Ah.”
Xan rode with an easy seat, hips rolling with the horse’s motion, as sure as a cavalry commander. He was a giant man and the horse was not happy.
Devon and Xan rode side by side behind Devon’s royal litter. The luxurious box was curtained with rich scarlet trappings trimmed in gold. Twelve richly dressed honor guards carried the royal box.
Like the silver eagle standard of Shiliya and the gold Imperial Raenthe crest borne at the front of the procession, the ornate litter was a mark of the Sovereign’s rank. It announced Devon’s importance.
Devon never rode in the damn thing.
This journey was a secret—as far as a regiment marching with a Sovereign at its head could be called a secret.
As far as Devon’s subjects knew, the Sovereign and his armed men were headed to the summer palace at Laklare. And that was actually true. But Devon was only going to the summer palace because Laklare lay on the road to the wild lands.
It would not be wise to announce his real destination was that part of his domain which might welcome him with spears.