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"Win his love," Emuin says, and Cefwyn lies abed and stares up at the ceiling, up past the rich hangings suitable to a Marhanen Prince to the cold stone above, and wonders.
Is that the right thing to do? A man comes out of the dark, with a book he can't read, claiming to come from Mauryl Gestaurien, from Ynefel no less, and stares at him like that, with eyes that pull him, as though like to like, making him want to - what? Protect him? Love him? Cefwyn can't deny his feelings were engaged, and strongly too, but being the man he is, it makes him suspicious, not overjoyed. The Aswydd sisters are his to play with but only because he doesn't care for them, doesn't do anything but play, and this man - Tristen, his mind supplies - he is not like that, he is…
What is he? A Shaping, Emuin says. And what is that, Cefwyn says, or would, had he the will. Playing he might be, but still he doesn't play with wizardry, or worse. Although Mauryl was not known for his recklessness, but for his chances, the opportunities he took, and used, and his family should be grateful, heaven knows.
Cefwyn turns over again, his eyes gritty, his mind racing. It is no good. He cannot lie here like this in a fug of ignorance, knowing that above him exists such a mystery. He has clean sheets, a freshened room, the cloying musk of his earlier activities with the sisters cleared away as though they had never been (and that the way he likes it) yet he still cannot stop thinking of Tristen.
The boy had been all over rough, the dirt of travel, five days (and nights) on the Road from Ynefel, and then straw and other things he had been kicked into, roughed up by the guard, before their common sense took hold, and they passed the thorny issue upwards, and yet still, still, with all that… there was something. Cefwyn turns over yet again, before pushing the covers from him with an oath, and sitting up.
If he cannot sleep then he should at least be useful, should be up and doing, and while that means other things in the day, and a busy schedule when he wants to follow it, here, in the depths of the night, that means something else again. Cefwyn finds his thoughts are bending towards Tristen once more, even as the chill of the air nips at his flesh, like the lightest of fingers dancing. He feels his prick stir, heavy against his thigh, at the feeling, at his thoughts, and is disturbed by the implication. Is this Shaping casting some kind of spell on him, even now? How can this be normal? Feelings for this boy that he has seen but the once.
Cefwyn throws on a pair of breeches, pushing the long tails of his nightshirt down inside, and throws on a fur robe, soft against his skin, cool for second, until it warms. He will see for himself, and that can be his use, for tonight, and perhaps that will content him, let him sleep. It feels good to be so determined. More than he might have expected.
Outside, Kerdin, the captain he had required earlier to leave his post to attend upon him, stirs from his resting attention, looking alert and readier than Cefwyn feels. The hour, being so late, feels somehow solemn and more still than it might in daylight. He is but a ghost in the Zeide, Cefwyn thinks, a disturbing idea, as he glides up the stairs in his stocking feet. The clumping of Kerdin's boots on the floor after him are reassuringly ordinary.
He leaves the guards behind, outside Tristen's chamber, like a huddle of martial geese, and makes his way inside to where there are but two men, Idrys, his Captain of Guard and Tristen himself.
Idrys looks up, slow but unsurprised, an eyebrow raised in question, slouched in a chair that is tipped to watch the bed. Cefwyn nods, before staring at the man he's come to see, cannot help but come to see, who draws him, it has to be admitted, just like any moth to candle.
"How is he?" Cefwyn asks, quietly, staring over at the lump under the bedclothes.
Idrys grunts, "Amiable. An accommodating mooncalf. Who is sleeping now."
"I want to speak with him."
Idrys' eyes are hooded, dark as a crow; they widen a fraction but he makes no other move. Cefwyn is exasperated, but fond. Understanding. There will be no failing in Idrys' duty. "I want to speak with him alone," he clarifies.
"He could be dangerous, for all the wits he's lacking. Do not ask me to leave."
Cefwyn smiles, but he holds Idrys' stare. "Emuin says not. Not here, not now - the danger he poses is more nebulous than that."
Idrys sniffs, looks away, looks at Tristen, at the bottle on the mantelpiece. Cefwyn waits patiently, happy to let him become eased, reassess the dangers posed, consider the alternatives, and then watches as he gets up, leathers creaking faintly, and moves away to the door.
"It won't matter. I've given him a draught, so he'll make no sense, and won't remember what you ask, even if he answers," Idrys offers, and then cracks a small grim smile of his own.
"Thank you," says Cefwyn, the irony only thinly disguised.
The room settles down after Idrys leaves. The silence becomes deeper, only the slight hiss of the fire disturbing its peace. Following some impulse he doesn't care to examine too closely, Cefwyn perches on the edge of the bed, the feathers under him sinking down, promising a warm embrace that he does not dare give in to. The boy makes no noise either, sleeping on his side, his fist curled up by his cheek like a child. His lashes are dark against his pale skin, and his eyes, those clear grey fathomless pools, are closed.
Suddenly, Cefwyn does not want those eyes to be shut, he wants to gaze into their depths, to gauge the limitless innocence he saw, to have them focused upon him once more. It's a selfish impulse, he is aware, but Cefwyn, prince of the Marhanen, is certainly not above a selfish urge once in a while, and so he leans forward and shakes Tristen's shoulder, sharply, leaving his hand there at the junction of his neck where the skin is warm and sweet above the collar of his nightshirt.
His prick stirs again, then, just from that contact, lying hard against the in-seam of his breeches and Cefwyn marvels at it. He knows this man so well, whilst knowing nothing of him at all. Something inside responds to him, in every way, but he thinks the carnal is only one more connection that they share. Somehow here and now, Cefwyn knows there is friendship, there is brotherhood, and most of all, there is love. "Win his love," said Emuin, but Cefwyn doesn't think he needs to. It seems a gift already given.
Cefwyn is hard put not to gasp, as those eyes, hazy with sleep, open at last, and he is lost. Such trust is there, any trappings of guilt or wariness that Tristen might have acquired in his travails are gone now, leaving only a pure soul staring up at him, until it's almost as though Cefwyn is lost himself, in those eyes, in that moment. He might even weep, or have the impulse to at least, but the desire passes, leaving instead a more emphatic desire in its place.
He tugs on Tristen's arm, and runs his own hand down muscles slack in sleep to the slim long fingers, and then tangles his own with them, feeling the lack of any calluses except those very recent, not even the grooves from the sword that nearly all male nobles sport. It's another confirmation of Tristen's strangeness, that makes Cefwyn's heart beat faster, and his mouth dry.
Slowly, Tristen raises himself from his pillow until he is sitting next to Cefwyn, his nightshirt pooling in his lap, and half open at the front, seeming almost wanton in the firelight. Although, instinctively, Cefwyn knows it's no such thing, it doesn't stop him wanting to touch, and he restrains himself only by sheer effort. He looks instead into Tristen's eyes.
"You are mine, Tristen of Ynefel," he whispers, staring into the half-closed drowsiness that clouds Tristen's vision. "And I am yours. Somehow." Somehow, he knows this to be true.
Grey eyes like pale clouds blink at him, and seem to hold both comprehension and agreement. Cefwyn lifts a hand and gently brushes dark hair away from a high forehead, his fingers trembling. "Even when you have forgotten aught else, I want you to remember that, to remember me."
The fire crackles suddenly, an abrupt flare, and Cefwyn's heart is eased, for all that Tristen still has not responded. Drugged, Cefwyn remembers, the bitter mixture on the mantelpiece. He doesn't know why he continues when Tristen will so obviously not remember, he only knows that he must.
One more thing. He wants, but cannot have, and while Cefwyn is not used to being denied, he would not force himself upon a drugged man, never mind one who is so utterly childlike and alone. And yet… His prick throbs, but Cefwyn forces himself to merely draw him forward, and press his lips to that smooth forehead, warm still from sleep, and fragrant from bath-herbs. He is about to draw back when Tristen makes a noise, a murmur of sound that offers no words in Cefwyn's knowledge, but holds him still in his embrace, as Tristen tips up his face, as though seeking, exploring, like a baby bird for food.
His lips bump Cefwyn's cheek, blindly, mouthing along, a butterfly contact, until at last he finds Cefwyn's mouth, and then he latches on, in a kiss of such sweetness, full of instinct and passion, that Cefwyn is hard pushed not to lay him down and ravish him then and there.
But it would not be right. Cefwyn knows that somehow Tristen must be responding to something in him, and it would not be fair to take advantage of that. He had a need to visit him this night, to set his own mind at ease, to lay this guerdon upon his heart, but it should be no more than that. No more than a promise, for all that a promise can last a lifetime.
So, instead, Cefwyn kisses him back, licking greedily at the corners of his mouth, but only for a precious moment, before he gentles it, drawing away, and lowering Tristan to his pillow once more. Who sighs, just once, before he curls up, asleep again immediately, if he was indeed ever even awake. And Cefwyn stares down at him, wondering at himself. At his own strange impulses, but loving the peace he sees now in Tristen's face. It is enough.
He thinks he can sleep now.