by KJ Charles
I followed him out and round, towards the Tower. He chattered the whole way, as sunny as a schoolboy as he spoke of a dead king and a lord’s hopes dashed. “There were crowds in the streets overnight, standing for the duke, some for the prince, many I think to bid the king farewell. It was, shall we say, unrestful. Much shouting in the distance, and constant rumours that something was happening two streets along, but the king’s guard were out in force.”
“What about Michael’s people?”
“He had none,” Hentzau said with breezy contempt. “I should have had agents fomenting a riot and shouting my name; he considered it too great a risk to rebel openly. The highest stake a man could play for, yet he would not wager. That’s why he’s so angry; he refused the fence and he knows it.”
“If he had declared rebellion against the new king, there would be fighting in the streets now.”
“So he should have struck before the prince became king.”
“While his father was on his deathbed, you mean? Send him to his grave with the sound of his sons’ civil war in his ears?”
“Well, a parent’s lot in life and death is disappointment.” Hentzau gave me a flashing, careless smile, and I recalled that he had driven his own mother to her grave with a broken heart. “But I doubt that was Michael’s concern. He is a cautious man, our duke. He spends too long in darkness.”
“We all do that.”
“You may. I don’t fear the day.” He was crossing the drawbridge as he said that. It was early afternoon, and the sun slanted across the moat, washing the sodden black stone with light, spilling gold over him like the spendings of some Greek deity. He turned to look at me, his dark hair haloed like a saint, smile bright as the sun, and a line from some play or poem came to my thoughts unbidden. Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle; she died young.
He was beautiful, and I was angry, and it had been a great deal too long. Hentzau cocked his head at me. I told him, “Inside.”
WE WENT TO ONE OF THE Tower rooms, sparsely furnished with ancient pieces. Hentzau shut the door but didn’t bolt it. He seated himself in a large carved wooden chair, arranging his somewhat dishevelled and travel-stained clothing with all the air of a lord in silks and velvet, and extended one lithe leg. “So, my Detchard. Are you going to help me with my riding boots?”
There were devils dancing in his eyes, and I was so tired of this absurd country and its thrice-damned duke. I had no desire to play lackey indefinitely to a sulking nobleman in the mountains; I had watched Michael strike my friend a coward’s blow and done nothing about it. The next thing, I thought with disgust, would be that Michael would strike me and I would allow it.
“I am growing soft,” I said aloud.
“I’m not,” Hentzau said, giving himself a stroke to indicate as much. “Are you going to come here, or do you think of nothing but what pleases Michael?”
I came over. I knelt. I took hold of his boot—black leather, its usual gleam dulled by dust—and stroked its smooth surface, then up, up Hentzau’s calf, sliding my hand over his leg, feeling the swell of muscle. Up further, with both hands now, running my thumbs down the insides of his taut, parted thighs. Hentzau was breathing hard, eyelids lowered, lashes dark and delicate.
“I’m not taking off your damned boots,” I told him, words hoarse and harsh in my throat.
“I don’t mind leaving them on.”
I could see as much. His prick pushed against the tight cloth of his breeches, so that it would be a matter of charity, if not medical urgency, to release it. I stroked the bulge instead, running my fingers over its outlines until he moaned. It was good to see the mocking smile wiped off that handsome face for once.
I reached for the buttons at his waist. He inhaled, a tiny gulping gasp that I doubt he intended, shifting to give me access, and I pulled and pushed cloth aside to let his stiff prick spring free.
He was watching me under those drooping lids, with need and satisfaction too, much as if he imagined he had the whip hand of me now. That was his youth showing, the peculiar conviction that a hard prick is a source of power rather than a vulnerability, not to say a weakness.
As weaknesses go, his was delightful, slender and not too long for my purposes, the skin soft as I wrapped my fingers around it and slid them up and down. I leaned forwards, closer, so my lips hovered above and he could feel my breath, wrapping my fist around the root of his prick and pushing back when he attempted to thrust towards me. He gave a frustrated snarl. “Get on, damn you.”
“Patience, boy.”
“I don’t have to be patient.”
“Oh, but you do.”
Because after all, what could he do seated in a chair, impeded by his riding breeches pushed around his hips, with I the larger and stronger? I saw the realisation dawn on him as I stroked and caressed him, slid a hand between his legs to his tight balls, skimmed his prick with my lips, until he gave a laughing, frustrated cry and squirmed under my hands. “Christ damn you, Detchard!”
“Well?”
“I implore you,” he said. “By your kind grace, my worthy companion in arms, by the bond of chivalry and service in which we ride, suck my God-damned prick.”
“Better,” I said, and took him into my mouth.
And oh, the pleasure of that. I watched his fingers flex on the arms of the chair, and then his hands moved to my head. I had no long locks to which he might cling—I kept my hair short, and Nature was depriving me of what there was at a tiresome rate—but his fingertips closed on my scalp, betraying his need in a delightfully satisfactory manner. He was hot and hard and smooth against my lips, hips jerking, and I pushed forwards and took him all the way down.
Hentzau groaned pleasingly, and I went to work, sliding the circle of my lips up and down his shaft, working my hands under him to cup his balls. He shifted, pliant in his pleasure, and I slid one finger a little further, a teasing nudge between taut buttocks, and felt him twitch away, just a fraction.
Interesting. I made a mental note that my cocky young devil might not be so steeped in sin that I could not debauch him further, and let my hand rest, neither advancing nor retreating, while I pulled back to lavish the plump head of his prick with my tongue. Pressing, caressing, licking, and touching, slowing when I tasted the tang that told me he was close to spending. I was hard as a spear myself after those damned months of waiting, cock uncomfortably constricted, the pressure alone bringing me close myself, along with the pleasure of Hentzau’s temporary enslavement.
To hell with it. I fumbled at my own buttons one-handed, got myself out, and fucked my own fist with a tight grip. Next time, I thought, I would turn him over and take that tense arse for my own pleasure, and that thought nearly did it for me, such that I gave up finesse and sucked him like a Paris whore, hard and fast, hollowing my cheeks with the effort. He grabbed at my hair with an urgent obscenity, his breath sped and hitched, and he came, spilling into my throat, with a breathy series of gasps for all the world as if he laughed. He would make more noise than that bent over a bed, I thought, and my imaginings tipped me over the brink so that I spent on the stone floor in spasms, his prick still deep in my throat, his spunk bittersweet in my mouth.
And then he was done, and we were trapped together in that endless moment, those terrible few seconds after climax when muscles relax and one becomes aware of the discomfort, stupidity, or indignity of one’s position. I knelt still, hands and mouth holding him; he sat sprawled and half-naked.
I will admit to a moment’s concern. I was punched in the head once at this point, a cur’s blow by a man who took the pleasure but resented whatever he felt it did to his masculinity. I gave him the thrashing he deserved, including a few well-directed kicks that should have put him off any activity with anyone for some time to come, but still the memory came to mind and made me wary.
I let Hentzau’s softening prick drop from my mouth, waiting. He opened those endlessly dark, long-lashed eyes and looked into mine, and that glorious smile dawned.
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“Great God, Detchard. Why Michael hired you merely to cut throats, I cannot imagine. The man has no imagination.”
“I’ve not even cut a throat for him yet,” I pointed out, sitting back.
“No indeed. Your skills have been quite wasted until now.”
“That was time well spent,” I agreed, and found myself smiling. I am not a sentimental man, as is doubtless clear. I have always liked a lusty, laughing, careless partner who did not wish for mawkishness or impossibilities, a fellow with whom one might drink, fight, or fuck, and by God I had one here. “And now?”
He blew out his cheeks with comical exhaustion. “You’ll have to give me a moment.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I need significantly more than a moment, you bloody spring-pricked boy. I meant the duke. What do you know of his intentions? Is he to remain here sulking like Achilles in his tent?”
“I couldn’t say. I know only that he has fallen at the first hurdle. If he does not get up, this will be a sorry service.”
“Will you remain?” I asked. If the rats intended to leave Michael’s sinking ship, I might have a better chance to achieve my aim here.
“Mph. I was minded to consign him to the devil when he struck me. But I suspect his anger now is because he has realised his mistake. I have a feeling he may still act, and we shall see some fun if so.”
“By fun, you mean the overthrow of the anointed king?” I enquired.
“He’s not anointed, and that is the nub of it. The coronation is set for a month hence, and he is not the true king until that day. At the moment Rudolf the Red does not reign, dear Detchard: he merely rules. He has the title by courtesy and his father’s blessing, but it may not be too late yet for a determined man with more friends than morals to make a play for all. That is what I call fun.”
“I dare say it is,” I remarked, sitting back on my heels. “It is certainly more my idea of fun than kicking my feet in this draughty dungeon.”
“And I dare say you and I might keep each other entertained while we wait, and be damned to the duke’s edicts.” He nudged at my thigh with one booted foot, rubbing the leather against cloth.
“I have nothing better to do, I suppose,” I said. “Why not?”
On such decisions do the fate of men and kingdoms turn. I told you hard pricks are dangerous.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Michael was not seen for three days. He had his meals sent to him in solitude for the first two, then he called for Antoinette. There was a bruise on her face still; she made no effort to cover it with powder and walked with her back straight. She did not speak to me beyond conventional politenesses, and when Michael summoned her to his room, she went.
We did not have much leisure for talk anyway. Michael sent orders for the Ruritanians of the Six to go to Strelsau and gauge public feeling; de Gautet and I made ourselves seen in Zenda and the other large towns, acting as a wet blanket on a couple of rowdy gatherings celebrating Red Rudolf’s accession, though not by force. If we were to upturn the succession for Michael, and in truth I doubted it was possible now, he’d need the appearance of law on his side.
Bersonin did not come out with us, and soon enough we found out why.
Michael had emerged from his sulky seclusion while we rode on his orders, and now summoned us all back. We gathered in the Tower around the table one evening. It was bright summer but very little light ever made its way through those thick stone walls, and we were men of shadows as we gathered: Hentzau, Lauengram, and Krafstein; de Gautet, myself, and Bersonin, who sat at Michael’s right hand and looked intolerably smug.
“Gentlemen,” Michael said. “You all know how we stand. My father thought me to be the better man for Ruritania, just as the people do, yet he was old and cowardly and dared not defy tradition. Rudolf is to be king, though he is a drunken swine, a man with no love for his native soil, a despoiler of women, a gambler, a coward where he cannot be a bully. We all know that. The people know that. Krafstein, speak of your work.”
Krafstein coughed modestly. “Sadly, the new king’s glory in his own position has outweighed any restraint, or judgement. He has celebrated immoderately, and the word of those private indulgences has been spread through Strelsau and beyond. Some intimate tales from his past have found their way to the republican news-sheet”—he directed a small bow to Hentzau, who waved his hand modestly—“and the people murmur at what sort of king this pleasure-loving, self-indulgent sot may be. There is concern in the streets of Strelsau.”
“And in the great houses too,” added Lauengram. “People accept that Rudolf will be king, but in private at least they do not anticipate it with confidence. It is feared what he will do without his father to rule him. He made an attempt at seduction on the Lady Helga von Strofzin, you know, the day after the king’s death, as a celebration of his accession.”
“The art of seduction is to get the other party’s consent against their better judgement,” Hentzau observed. “In this case, Princess Flavia came running to stop him when she heard the screaming.”
“I shall bow to your expertise as to what constitutes seduction,” Lauengram said. “Flavia was enraged, and so was the Graf Strofzin, but the king is the king.”
“Not until he’s crowned,” Michael said, with meaning in his tone. He looked around at us, face by face, taking each one of us in. “My fool brother has made himself an object of fear, anger, and disgust. The country is stirring, low and high. If he caps it all with an act that shows his contempt for not just those he meets, but the whole kingdom, the crown and Church together—the people will rise.”
“What act?” I asked.
Michael smiled. “What would you say of a king too drunk to attend his own coronation?”
“Given the amount Rudolf puts away, he’d have to drown himself in a wine barrel to achieve that end,” Hentzau said.
“No need for that,” Michael said. “Bersonin?”
“A little powder,” said the Belgian softly. He had thin lips, the livid kind, and kept them over his browned teeth when he spoke, so his mouth sometimes seemed merely a bloodless cut in his face. “A bottle of wine, of noble vintage, a gift to the king, with just a little powder mixed in. I can introduce it with the slimmest needle; the cork closes up around the piercing to make the tampering almost undetectable.”
“And what does the powder do?” I asked.
“Simulates the effect of drunkenness—oh, so well. We know Rudolf will carouse the night before his crowning. But the next morning a splash of cold water will do no good. He will reel and stagger; he will shout and be quarrelsome. He may be lecherous. Perhaps he may vomit in the cathedral. Who knows?”
“Bersonin has demonstrated the powder to me, on two servants,” Michael said. “The effect is quite remarkable.”
“And would not be suspected, I suppose,” Lauengram said slowly. “The way the man has behaved recently . . .”
“He turns up drunk in the cathedral, in front of the entire populace,” Hentzau said, sounding awed. “My God. Now I imagine him getting confused by the ceremonial robes and attempting to ravish the cardinal.”
Michael barked with laughter. I said, “What if his men realise he can’t be sobered up and postpone the coronation, claiming illness?”
“On the morning, with the city full of people waiting? There can be no excuse.”
“And we all know his excuses,” Lauengram added. “He has been ‘ill’ too often.”
“If he arrives drunk, it will be a disaster,” Hentzau said. “If he does not, with the people waiting and the flags flapping in the breeze, it will be a riot. Curse it, Bersonin, it’s brilliant.”
I thought he would have been wiser to congratulate Michael; our duke’s expression suggested so. He only said, “There is much to be done. We must keep feeling running high in Strelsau. And I must be positioned to seize the moment. I have been—as you all saw—publicly loyal to my brother. Nobody can accuse me of attempting to sway the Senate or people on the n
ight my father died. We must continue with this course so the Red loyalists believe me beaten.”
“You presented that appearance on the night of the succession admirably,” Hentzau said. “I suppose you have been playing the game to this end all along. I salute your remarkable foresight.”
“I salute Ruritania’s lord-in-waiting,” I said, and I pushed back my chair and led the others in a toast to Duke Michael, and his plan to ruin his brother’s life.
“I SUPPOSE YOU HAD TO say that,” I remarked to Hentzau later.
“He hit me in the face.”
“Still.”
Michael had retired to his apartments after giving us our orders. Lauengram, Hentzau, and Krafstein would be leaving for Strelsau on the morrow, to keep us fully informed of the king’s movements. De Gautet, as a Frenchman, had been charged with finding the most irresistible and rare bottles for Bersonin to doctor. I was to be Michael’s close guard as he toured his lands and displayed his good rule, since he feared that his brother, now unchecked by their father, might have ill intent towards him. Accordingly, the party had broken up. Hentzau had brought a flask of wine up to my room and seated himself in the chair as I threw a few clothes into a travelling bag.
“What do you think of the scheme?” I asked. “Will it succeed?”
“If they can pull off the poison, there’s every chance,” Hentzau said thoughtfully. “There’s the rub, of course. Bersonin has no way to know if the king will drink a single glass or half the bottle. How is he to calculate the dose? If Rudolf takes too much and dies—ugh. Or suppose he splits the bottle with a companion, and the ruse is discovered that way. This is high treason we’re engaged in, you know. Ruritania still uses the axe for that here, though it’s been a few years since it was required.”
“Afraid?”
“Oh, pshaw, merely considering the possibilities. It’s damned daring and I don’t think Michael will have a better chance to unseat Rudolf.”