Chapter Text
The banquet was turning out to be exactly what I had expected, probably even worse. With von Bergow and his masterful ability to use my uncle’s orders against me, stalling at every whim; and with the news that the man in command of the charge would be a pompous idiot with more calluses from wanking than from wielding a sword, the truth was that my expectations had been unpleasantly exceeded.
The whispering of my name amidst drunken laughter, the contemptuous glances, the inherent need for any gathering of nobles and bourgeois to find a stepping stone—me, in this case—I had anticipated all of it. I had attended enough banquets to know the script.
“You can’t show those pompous idiots a single sign of weakness, lad. They’re like dogs with a bone the moment they spot a crack in your reputation. Unfortunately for me, for you, and for the whole bloody Rattay, your reputation isn't worth shit, it’s only good for competing to be the village idiot, if you ask me. So get ready, boy, because they’re going to chew you up and spit you out to fatten their own pride at the cost of yours. Don’t make it so damn easy next time”
Those were among the few life lessons I’d actually bothered to learn from Hanush. Not that I had much choice; his fat arse repeated them word-for-word whenever an event required a crowd of nobles and burghers in the same room. And just as he’d warned, the whispering and the fleeting glances from those annoying old fucks ran around like wine.
The problem was that the rumors in Rattay usually boiled down to boozing and whoring; they were bearable — in their own way — thanks to the attention from young ladies who were more intrigued than offended by the allegations. Here, on the other hand, the gossip ranged from my inability to command my men to the shame of having nearly been hanged for poaching. Worse still, there wasn't a single intrigued wench to be found— just a circlejerk of rancid cunts.
Henry, on the other hand, completely free from that damn burden of nobility, moved among the guests with the ease of a court jester. I knew I wasn’t being fair; he deserved the praise and attention even if it came from people who weren’t really worth it, but something inside me twisted unpleasantly every time he decided to talk to anyone other than me in this bloody place, where clearly I should be the centre of his attention.
It was a terrible feeling, I had to admit; I could only describe it as ugly, ugly like a dog with mange or a plucked bird. Hideous and shameful.
When he approached Sir Bartosch, the atmosphere between them took on a quality so alien to me—something I had never once experienced with Henry—that the sensation overwhelmed me like pus in an infected wound. I felt it oozing from my skin, reducing me to a creature repulsive to the eye, incapable of halting its own decline. It was suffocating.
But surely it was just my imagination—that damned demon in my head whispering absurdities that couldn't possibly be true.
He looks at him as if he wants to fuck him. Can’t he see he’s my man and not some village whore? hissed a venomous voice as they exchanged smiles.
Why the fuck is he touching him like that? As if he’s appraising the legs of a warhorse—gauging how much it can endure. Another voice snarled as the knight’s fingers squeezed Henry’s bicep, a gesture far too intimate for my taste.
Can’t he control himself? We’re not in bloody Prague where there’s a bugger on every corner. Henry isn't like that, pal. Back off. My mind screamed when the corners of Henry’s eyes crinkled in honest delight at whatever the fuck Bartosch had said.
I couldn’t take it. More than being unable to bear this damned place or its guests, I could no longer bear myself. I needed air. I needed to pray in the chapel to stop that devil from ruining my sleep. More wine—and then, God willing, oblivion.
My brief conversation with Henry before leaving was like sage on a burn after finishing with the promise of him fetching me wine and preparing my armour for tomorrow’s battle, but a stinging sensation lingered beneath my skin as I left the room and the bustle of the banquet faded away downstairs, far from the chapel.
My knees touched the wooden floor despite the cushions laid out for the nobles in one corner, and my gaze rose to the altar, surrounded by murals of saints and angels. The crucifix hung between my hands held in prayer.
“Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam” I could not recall ever having sincerely asked for mercy for my sins, but the sacramental silence of these walls had a quality that made guilt feel present, almost like an entity within reach.
Yet even in the solitude of prayer, the image of Henry returned. It was like a phantom itch I could neither locate nor scratch, just as it had been in that damned bathhouse. It wasn’t until I had finished—spilling my seed over the back of that pretty thing, now reduced to a shivering, babbling creature, wet and boneless upon the bed—that I realized I hadn’t stopped thinking of him for a single, solitary heartbeat.
I had meticulously cared for, played with, prolonged and drawn out her pleasure, almost obsessively so, focusing on every minute detail of the art of fucking, all in an attempt of trying to prove to him—though absent from the room, present in my mind—that if only he would surrender to my fingers, to my cock, my tongue, I could elevate him to a state of divine ecstasy in the process of reducing him to the perfect sheath for my prick.
At some point the crucifix had fallen to the floor; my hands were no longer praying to God but pressing against the devilish point in my stomach, which hadn’t stopped hurting for a single bloody moment, not whilst I was fucking any coherent thought out of the whore in the bathhouse, not whilst I heard my name amidst sneers and elegant ways of disguising insults, nor when Bartosch let his gaze wander over Henry’s back and arse as he walked towards me, nor when his lips uttered my name, Sir, my lord.
And now here I was in the chapel, knees aching, half hard from such scandalous thoughts, ashamed and painfully confused, barely aware of the pitiful moan that had escaped my lips as the pain in my abdomen crept just a little further down, a little deeper. It was a feeling so incendiary, like burning tar that had spread in a matter of days, it was strange and I didn’t know why the hell…
Had it only been days?
Shit, no, it was that damned devil, it had to be.
I just had to pray tonight. God willing, I’d sleep without a single damn dream until morning, and if my prayers had fallen on deaf ears as they usually did, then with some luck only death and regrets would haunt me.
So I prayed.
By the time I got up off the floor, my knees were on the verge of giving way. I leaned against the altar for a moment, hissing in pain from the position I’d held for longer than my noble knees were used to. The pain brought with it no trace of redemption as ecclesiastical doctrine suggested, only shame and the tedious reminder that I’d have to go down several floors on aching knees like some undignified geezer.
When I reached the floor where my room was, I carried on down; the din of the banquet had died down, which told me I’d been in the chapel longer than expected. I stepped out onto the balustrade separating the Crone from the Maiden once more, seeking fresh air, seeking a clear sky to soothe this damned pressure in my chest caused by all the little torments that had built up throughout the day.
“Lord Capon, I figured you would be in your chambers by now.” I had heard his footsteps approaching—elegant and unmistakably sober.
“And I figure you cannot retire to yours until Lord von Bergow has retired to his,” I remarked, leaning against the balustrade. My gaze remained fixed on the door leading to Henry’s humble quarters. A soft laugh—the sort practiced in courts teeming with vipers—reached me. The wood creaked as he leaned beside me.
“It’s all part of the job, I’m afraid. At least my days of fetching wine and preparing armour other than my own are over.” I didn’t know what it was about his words that, despite having the potential to contain a thousand innuendos, sounded direct enough to lack any hidden edge.
“You like Henry” it wasn’t a question.
“Is it that obvious?” I didn’t need to look at him to see the smile in his words.
That ugly, shameful feeling slowly returned, accompanied by the anxiety that came with the idea of it oozing from my words, my voice or my face like the infected thing it was.
“Painfully so.” But it wasn’t obvious, not truly. One would have to be hunting for it—the lingering glances, the brush of skin, the telling smiles. No one at that banquet was looking beyond their own high-and-mighty arses. We both knew it. The question was: why on earth had I been looking for it?
Fear settled in my stomach, these ugly emotions, so unpleasant, threatening to spill over into careless words. I didn’t have the fucking head for these type of conversation right now.
“I see” but he said nothing, he didn’t state the obvious. The question hung in the air as threateningly as the rope of the gallows. “Well, at least someone noticed”
I looked at him curiously at the words he’d just spoken; his black eyes, almost completely swallowing up the moonlight, looked back at me, amused.
“I offered my finest brandy and a night of indulgence in a private place, but unfortunately his lord’s armour and wine took priority. I’m still wondering if he just didn’t get what I was offering”
I bit my lip, desperately trying to suppress the smile those words had brought to my face. Seeing that it was impossible, I simply turned my face back towards the forge, hoping the darkness would hide this shameful satisfaction.
“Forgive my bluntness, Lord Capon, but if you’re trying to hide that smile, you’re making a very poor attempt of it.”
Fuck.
There was no malice in his voice, just a certain delight, the sort that comes from an adult humouring a terribly stupid child.
“What can I say? I’m just… proud”
A warm, measured laugh was his reply.
“And rightly so. A man like Henry isn’t found just anywhere.”
“I know. Sometimes I think my rotten luck of late is simply Lady Fortuna leveling the scales after granting me someone like him in my service.” The honesty surprised me. I wondered if it was wise to voice such a sentiment to a stranger, but with his secret out, he had become a forced confidant.
“Huh, I’m starting to see why he’s so loyal to you” the wood let out a soft creak as Sir Bartosch stepped away from the balustrade. “Speaking of loyalty, I think I’ll go and check on Lord von Bergow. With any luck, he’ll have had his fill of wine and company by now.”
I nodded expecting for him to just walk away, focusing my eyes on Henry’s door, almost indistinguishable in the dim torchlight.
“Henry did say he might take me up on my offer, if we both happened to be free later tonight.”
My head snapped in his direction faster than I’d intended. I didn’t know what expression had slipped past my self control, but his bloody smirk—proud and just as punchable as the chamberlain’s—told me it was something worthy of taunting.
“What?” That feeling that stripped me of my nobility and reduced me to an ugly creature all too aware of its own shortcomings returned with enough force to leave me breathless for a moment “But you said…”
“Don’t worry, Lord Capon, I’m sure he was just being polite” and without further ado he offered a somewhat formal farewell before disappearing into the darkness of the corridor towards the great dining hall.
Oh, that bloody, Praguer, goat-fucking whoreson. That buggering, shit-eating cunt. He could go get properly fucked by shoving his piss-water brandy up his own arse, because he certainly wasn’t going to be shagged by Henry’s prick toni …
“Sir Hans?”
“Holy shit! Where the… Henry! By God and all that’s holy, I swear I’m going to put a fucking cowbell on you one of these days.” For a split second I thought the devil who’d been tormenting me had finally appeared before me. But it was only Henry, good old Henry, now laughing at my wretched misery. “Ha ha, hilarious. I’ll scare the living daylights out of you so bad you’ll shit yourself when you less expect it, you just wait, you blackguard”
“But I don’t do it on purpose! It’s not my fault that your head’s stuck too far up your noble arse to pay any attention to lowly peasants like me” he joked, his laughter dying down as he came out of the shadows with a couple of steps barely audible above the murmur of the night. I had no bloody idea how he did it. “Getting some fresh air before bed, my lord?”
I nodded, feeling my heart racing out of control, not because of the damn fright, but because of all the events of the day that had brought me back again and again to this man by my side, painfully indifferent to my torment. I had to get out of here…
But…
“What are you doing here? Were you looking for someone?” His gaze shifted toward the door of the great hall, then back to me. Something in my chest snapped—swiftly and irrevocably—like the gears of a clock jamming shut.
“Bartosch invited me to have some brandy. I was going to take him up on it.” He began rummaging through his satchel for something—an ointment.
The fuck did he just say?
“I wanted to give you this before the banquet, but Kreyzl… well, he wanted to show me some alchemy. Ended up covered in shit instead. Fuck, the back of my throat still tastes of sulfur,” he spoke nonchalantly, as if he hadn't just admitted he was walking deliberately into the jaws of a wolf that was out to devour him.
Had I overlooked something? Whenever a woman flirted brazenly with him, the oaf brushed it off like he was dodging a blow from a mace by sheer luck.
“The physician’s alchemy table is at the top of the Crone, and the guard posted there is a proper cunt if I’ve ever seen one.”
What if he did recognize the signs, but chose to ignore them? Why on earth would he do that? Was he stupid?
“I was coming from there when I saw you two,” Henry continued. “Seemed like a nice chat you were having, so I didn’t want to interrupt.” He held the ointment out to me. “I was going to wait until tomorrow, but…”
“I need help” the words came out of my mouth as if pushed by my inner turmoil. I could barely make out his expression in the darkness, but I managed to see the surprise in his thick eyebrows going up. The gears in my chest started turning again, fast, clumsily, driven by an external force over which I had no control.
“Help? Help with what…”
“With the ointment, Henry, what else” he let out a soft laugh, somewhat strained, as if it had emerged before he’d grasped whatever joke his lord was trying to pull now.
“Wha’?” I rolled my eyes in exasperation, letting out a heavy sigh of disbelief, just as I’d seen my tutors do so many times when I dared to ask the same question more than once.
“You did a fucking number on me, you blockhead. I can barely even look at the extent of the bruise without feeling like I’m dying when bending! How the hell am I supposed to apply one of your stupid ointments in these conditions?” A gust of wind swept across the courtyard, reaching us on the balcony. The pain still present in my knees and belly gave me back what little common sense I had left.
What the fuck was I doing?
“Is it really that bad?” I snatched the ointment from his hand in a movement that could only be described as brusque and straightened my back in a pathetic attempt to restore my dignity.
“On second thought, I am a little better now, I don’t think I need your help. It would be selfish of me to burden you with more chores on the eve of a battle”
“Is my lord trying to be considerate? God save us, that can only be a bad omen.” He crossed himself, and I could only scoff at his mocking tone as I turned to leave. “We'd best sort that out,” he added, “or we may end up slaughtered like hogs come sunup.”
“Oh, shut it, arsehole. I’ll do it myself.” He laughed as if I were a child throwing a tantrum.
“I’ll help you with my stupid ointment, sir.” The moment the words I thought I wanted to hear left his mouth, the rational half of my brain finally jolted back to life. It screamed at me, suddenly aware of the dangerous situation I’d just invited.
“Sakra,” I muttered, heading toward the Maiden. His heavy footsteps followed close behind.
“Did you say something, sir?”
“Nothing. Just hurry up. It won’t take more than a few minutes.” That demon rooted within me was a bloody menace, and I was falling into every one of its traps. My ability to read the battlefield against that foul entity had been blinded by lust; it was baffling. “Lord von Bergow hasn’t retired yet, so Sir Bartosch is still wandering the halls, sober as a judge. Shouldn't you be with him?”
My tongue felt bitter the moment the words left my mouth.
“Nah,” Henry replied casually. “I reckon he can wait.”
We entered the Maiden, crossing the hall adjoining the banquet room where the low murmur of the remaining guests still rose—only those who wouldn't be fighting tomorrow were left to drink. I hurried up the stairs, trying in a sense to run away from him, but he followed at my heels, stubborn as a mule.
We stopped in front of my door. My soul already wanted to flee this stupid body that had betrayed it so shamelessly. I hadn’t been able to control myself before the altar of God, with the saints watching and Jesus on the cross—did I truly think I could control myself with the object of my obsession touching my bare skin in the privacy of my room?
Hanush was right; I had to learn to think before embarking upon the tragedies of my own making. Not even an animal was this fucking stupid.
“Hans?” I snapped back to the present. “Something wrong?”
I simply pushed the door open, stepping aside to let him in. As his heavy steps crossed the threshold, I followed the advice of the wicked part of me that knew something worth hiding was about to happen. I closed the door and locked it quietly so he wouldn't notice. He wasn’t the only one capable of being a sneaky bastard.
The fire in the hearth was bright, stoked recently by a servant. I stepped toward the light to find the buttons of my pourpoint, tossing my red hood aside.
“Does it hurt too much?” Henry asked. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for me to undress so he could tend the wound. I couldn’t see him; he could only see my back. “I still can’t figure out how…”
“The mud. I told you already. Don’t you trust your lord’s word?” I insisted, undoing the buttons one by one. Damn pourpoint—designed to prolong the torture of this limbo where there was nothing but wild, obscene possibilities. “And you didn't hold back one bit, you bastard.” A laugh escaped me along the words, but a nervous edge seeped through the end of it. I could only pray he didn't notice.
“Something tells me you would have felt even more insulted had I held back.”
I undid the last button, sliding the thick fabric off my arms and tossing it aside. Finally, I turned toward him. His gaze was fixed on me from the bed—expectant, yet entirely indifferent to the twisted thoughts his presence on my sheets sent overflowing through my mind.
“In that, you are absolutely right, my dear friend—an occurrence far too rare to go unnoted,” I said. I pulled the linen shirt over my head in one fluid motion, revealing the small altar that beast had carved into my skin with the tip of his sword.
When the shirt hit the floor, I searched his face. His eyes were intense, almost clinical, locked onto my abdomen. Something akin to euphoria crept beneath my skin like a war cry, inciting every pore, every hair on my naked being to commit unspeakable acts of violence in the name of pleasure.
This had been a very, very terrible idea.
“It does look nasty,” he remarked distantly. My only option was to hasten this torture—to shorten the time, and thus the opportunities, for me to cock things up. I walked to the bed and sat beside him; the ointment lay between us.
“Do you want to lie down, or…?”
“Aye, I suppose that would be wisest.” I tried to brace my arms behind me to lower myself back, but I hadn’t been joking—flexing my abdomen hurt like a bitch. “Better to stay seated,” I grumbled, giving up before the pain could force a grimace.
He merely nodded, a knowing smile crossing his lips. I shifted, hoisting one leg onto the bed while the other remained on the floor, offering him full access to my stomach.
“Sure” he took the ointment and, with practiced hands, he pulled the cork; his rough, overly rustic fingers—unsuited for this sort of activity—emerged smeared with the substance a few seconds later.
“It’s like a little fiendish spawn gnawing away at my stomach.” I decided to look up at the ceiling; a quick prayer sprang to mind, seeking mercy, or forgiveness, or whatever might help in this miserable situation, feeling a sharp twinge of pain as my stomach instinctively tensed at the strange fingers touching the abused skin. “I’ve been fucking feeling it all day long. Back in the bathhouse whilst I was having this wench, I could barely concentrate because of this stupid pain. A tragedy, Henry, a true one indeed” and my bloody mouth started doing what it did best in moments of complete and utter helplessness, talking rubbish.
“Magda?” I shifted my gaze to the hearth. If I looked at him now, I would descend straight into the pits of hell and surrender to the devil haunting me. It would drag me into the Second Circle alongside Achilles—not for Polyxena, as expected by every single soul aware of my sins in Bohemia, but for Patroclus, in some cruel, ironic twist.
“Aye, something like that. Didn’t care to remember, it’s not like I’m going to fuck her again.”
Remember? Hah. I could barely think. My voice came out strangely smooth at first, then husky, strained by the desperate attempt to keep my demons from seeping through. I could blame the rest on the pain.
The sound of his breathing seemed to hitch for a second. I felt another wave of heat shoot straight down to my groin as his fingers continued, indifferent to the torture their gentle strokes were inflicting on my noble balls.
God gives his toughest battles to his best fighters, and I was a hell of a fighter, but this was beyond me. Perhaps if I spoke more of the wench…
“Aye, that’s her name. I’ve run some errands for her,” he answered. For a moment, I longed to feel the breath of his words against my bare skin, but he remained painfully far away—nearly an arm’s length.
“Of course you have.”
“Was it that bad?” Henry asked. I resisted the temptation to search his face for a hidden meaning, but I wouldn't give in. I was stronger than that.
“The pain or…”
“Her”
“Ah… No, she was a delight. You can certainly tell she’s surrounded by nobles and burghers, took some time to fuck the manners out of her”
“Always the gentleman” A smile crept into his words, and I smiled back, conjuring the image of the wench from the bathhouse in my mind while keeping my gaze stubbornly fixed on the fire.
“Naturally”
“Did she…” he cleared his throat, his fingers breaking the contact to search for more ointment. “Did she ask for what you said some women were inclined to ask for?” And once again the touch resumed, this time closer to the centre where the tip of the sword had done the most damage. Every touch was a declaration of war against my composure, the most tender of insults to my lust.
“What thing?” I knew exactly what he meant. I’d replayed that damned conversation at least a thousand times in my head, and if I’d had it in writing, I’m sure I’d have read it another thousand times over as well.
“Ah… Well, what we discussed on the way to Nebakov a couple of days ago.” His voice sounded as neutral as that of someone trying to hide something, and I knew I’d find part of the answer in his face, but I wouldn’t look, like hell I would. I was sure it was just that bloody demon playing tricks on me.
“Ah, yes! That” As long as I didn’t look at him, everything would be fine, wouldn’t it? “Unfortunately she didn't. Come to think of it, I don’t think I wanted to talk either. Kinda odd, because I do like to exchange a few words whilst fucking, it can get unbearably boring otherwise.” This time the breath of his laugh reached my bare chest and some functional part of my reason melted away completely, tearing down inhibitions and walls like the most effective and terrible of siege weapons.
“Why is it that I’m not surprised you’d be a chatterbox even with your prick getting wet?”
Surely looking at him wouldn’t be the end of the world. If my cock stood to attention, I could simply blame the memory of that wench. Right?
“It must have been the pain,” I said at last, conceding an internal debate I’d never had a chance of winning. “The whole time I was with her, I couldn’t stop thinking about that thrust of yours.”
When I finally sought his gaze, it was fixed on the fingers against my skin. But as those words emerged from my treacherous mouth and into the light of the hearth, his wide, attentive eyes snapped up to mine. In that moment, I knew there were no limits to the horrors of this self-inflicted agony that I wouldn’t gladly endure.
First came surprise—his eyes widening into charming circles of blue, barely visible in the gloom. That gave way to a furrowed brow of confusion as he likely replayed my words in that brilliant mind of his. Finally, he came to a conclusion that forced a shy laugh from lips still stained with Moravian wine.
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly parched. His eyes fled from mine, returning to my stomach.
“I’m not going to apologize, if that’s what you’re after,” he muttered. “You had it coming for entertaining such a stupid idea.”
His fingers finally began the painful work of applying the ointment to the most injured area, which was already blooming into a dark, nasty purple. I hissed, shifting my hips in a half-hearted attempt to hide my growing arousal. I pulled my leg further onto the bed, brushing against his thigh in the process. He shifted, too—an attempt to keep at least a finger’s width of distance between our bodies. The rustle of fabric was the only sound in the room.
“I know.” And though I should have, I didn’t regret the indulgence one bit. “But what can I say? It was a beautiful lunge. Had the sword been sharp, I’m sure it would have pierced me right through.”
Just as I had previously dreaded looking at him, I now found I couldn't tear my gaze away. I was strangely hungry for the tumult of emotions I knew those enormous lapdog eyes could conjure—eyes still far too inexperienced in the art of hiding what they felt.
I knew those expressions were the last remnants of the boy from Skalitz—the one who dealt only with uncultured peasants and farm animals, with no need to refine his mask because there was nothing to lose or gain by it. I knew, too, that this wouldn’t last. Sooner or later, he would have to learn to rein in his reactions if he wanted to survive by my side or Radzig’s. If Henry had one thing, it was an almost inhuman capacity for adaptation.
I would soak up as much of his inexperience as I could, hoarding it like a cherished memory once the boy from Skalitz was finally gone.
“You don't sound as alarmed by the idea as you should.”
Henry was aware of his shortcomings, it seemed. He deprived me of my feast by lowering his head, fixing his gaze back on my skin. The hearth aided him, hiding his emotions among the dancing shadows. Damn him.
“On the contrary,” he continued, “you sound…”
His fingers pressed against the wound absentmindedly, forcing a groan of pain from my throat—a guttural sound, drawn out by the rush of unspeakable sensations racing between my legs. He tried to pull his hand away in alarm, but I caught him. My fingers clasped around his wrist, stopping his retreat.
“How do I sound?”
Traces of pain still stained my voice, dragging it down, making it sound dangerously intimate. A second of panic flashed through his eyes when they met mine, but it vanished instantly, leaving me as the only witness to its existence. His brow furrowed, frustration welling in his features like a child who couldn’t for the life of him solve the simplest of riddles, yet remained too stubborn to give up.
“You sound pleased,” he murmured. His voice was hushed, a tone I couldn’t quite decipher.
His hand slipped from my grasp. Before I could read anything more in his gaze, his eyes dropped to the ointment between us. The thunk of the cork sinking into the ceramic jar signaled the end of the moment. The crackle of a wooden log in the flames brought a split second of sobriety—enough to plunge my chest into a thousand layers of shame.
I stepped back, moving away from him despite the pain. My breath caught in my throat under the weight of my own depravity and the lines I was crossing to satisfy it.
“I suppose. But rather than pleased, I would say I am proud,” I corrected, frantically looking for an exit. I stood up, fully aware that the movement made my traitorous state visible to the room, and began fumbling in the firelight to unfasten the points of my hose. “You’ve improved so much, so fast. It is quite impressive.”
I heard the mattress groan as his weight left the bed. His heavy footsteps crossed to the desk; the clatter of pottery against wood told me he’d abandoned the ointment there.
“Thanks for the kind words, my lord, but I don’t think I deserve them. Your footwork is far better than mine; the mud only made the gap more obvious. I felt like a wretched mouse fleeing a cat the whole time, sir.”
His tone was neutral, retreated behind a barrier of rank and hierarchy that I had thought we’d left at the door. He, too, had felt the tension—and now he was fleeing it as if it were the goddamn plague. He hadn't seemed so eager to run from Sir Bartosch.
He wanted to rebuild the walls of our titles just so he could go get fucked by some passing knight? Fine. I could oblige.
“Henry, I was torn from my mother’s arms at the age of seven to begin my training as a page. By fourteen—while you and your yokel friends were still shoveling shit and sodomizing sheep—I was already spending several hours a day on the fencing strip. If your footwork were any better than mine, I might as well fall on my own bloody sword. I simply could not live with such disgrace.”
Did he want a way out? I’d fucking give him one.
“So take the goddamn compliment and go have your fancy brandy. You are dismissed.”
By the time the sound of the door closing —with a rather loud bang that shook the whole room— reached me, I felt the weight of all the conversation hit me abruptly. If Henry had said anything before leaving, I’d completely ignored it, too lost in this miasma of contradictions that was my chest, twisting and struggling between what I desired and the consequences of it.
Did I go too far with the last part? God, I could be such a spiteful wretch sometimes.
The distant notion that Henry was now with Bartosch became increasingly present and pressing as my shame, guilt, disgust at these urges and other infected crap in my bloody head receded into momentary oblivion in the darkness of the room. Something inside me almost wished that the worst possible outcome between them would come to pass, and that the hurt would be enough to eradicate this fucking devil, like cauterising a wound—painful but definitive.
It wouldn’t be long before we left this bloody hell and the devils within it behind. Everything would go back to normal. It had to. No tension. No desire. No obscene dreams or shivering at the innocent brush of skin. Just two true mates hunting, boozing, and chasing wenches with no hidden intentions to poison our brotherhood. It had to be that way.
Please, God. It had to.