A Royal Affair (24 page)

It began innocently enough as I lathered my hands, took my cock, and began to soap it. It was in that place somewhere between hard and entirely soft, just standing proud of my thighs but not ready for action.

Aleksey stood close and, keeping my gaze with his piercing green eyes, murmured coyly, “That is my job,
Master
.”

There was more to wash after that.

He grasped my stiff prick and continued the soaping, but slower now, and with different intent than I. He could not keep my gaze but let his greedy eyes travel down to watch the slick pinkness appearing and disappearing in his tight fist. He gave a little gasp. I thought he would stop and could not have tolerated the cessation of pleasure, for my whole body was bowed and taut and urgent now for relief. But he’d only paused to apply a finger to the very tip of my cock, to enter my foreskin and swirl around there as he must do to his own, and I came upon his finger and his hand, and my release mingled with the soap and water and required us to start again.

He actually began to wash me properly, but I caught at his wrist playfully. “You are a naughty servant. You should be of good, upstanding character….”

He caught the tenor of my words. He stepped back a little, smirking, and let me see that he was indeed upstanding. My knees weakened with an almost instinctive desire to fall to that stiff member. I did not have the chance. As I groaned with appreciation, staring at his cock, it spurted, a young man’s eager seed released on admiration alone, as he laughed at his own foolishness and at the expression upon my face as his thick cream splattered upon my shirt.

O
UR
COATS
covered us enough to emerge from the tent. Our wry, private smiles went unnoticed in the general organized chaos that always accompanied an army. We found our horses and mounted. I remembered thinking how bright the land looked, how pretty this Saxefalia was, and how intense the winter colors were.

If I had not known that I was in love with Aleksey before this moment, I would have known it then. Once more I experienced that strange intensifying of light around him, as if the sun paused in its orbit to shine on him alone. When he turned his head to me and told me gleefully that he wanted to ride and ride and never stop until he was as one with the wind, to me it appeared as if he moved slower than the rest of the world, as if his smile took an age to fade.

We rode in a sense of heightened awareness of all things that set nerves afire and hearts racing. How someone did not realize what was now between us, I do not know. I could not look at him without smiling and finding some excuse to touch him: a binding requiring fixing, perhaps his coat adjusting. He, likewise, did not ride behind me as a servant might, but by my side, and he ensured our horses were crowded on the path, his thighs constantly brushing mine. And his eyes—so much for casting them down meekly that day. They were alive with delight. They were the greenest things under the whole of God’s sky, for the frost whitened his rival that day. I wanted to tell him to be more circumspect but could not. The starving man was happily swallowing every morsel offered him and had no intention of fasting ever again.

A
LEKSEY
ALMOST
gave us away that day. I finally remonstrated with him that he should not be giving me such looks, but he only laughed and continued glancing at me, considering me, thinking about me. I looked around, dismayed. “These things must remain discreet between men, Aleksey, as you are very well aware. Stop it, or they will suspect.”

“They will only think that, as my master, you have maybe given me a… raise.” He laughed at his own wit. “Which you have.”

“That is enough. Keep the skill of your tongue for things more intimate. Remember, I have lain with the most skilled of men: warriors. I would that
you
display the same skill later.”

That shut him up, as I had intended. He sulked for a while, then said disingenuously, “I think you will have to be my master for real in this, Niko. You will have to teach me, for I am entirely unknowing of such things.”

What man could hear such a declaration from a beautiful young man alongside him and stay unmoved? I certainly could not. I was completely undone by the picture it awoke in my mind: us lying together, me teaching him the things I wished him to know and do…. I coughed, swung my horse around, and told him I was going to scout the line for ideas for a diversion. He was still laughing at his own cleverness as I rode away. I determined never to underestimate Aleksey again in our personal affairs.

I found what I was to use as my diversion very easily by dint of smelling it and sliding sick from my horse and vomiting onto the frosty earth. I startled some of the wagoners, I think, but I could not explain to them why the smell of whale oil made me so. There were barrels of it, used for lighting the lamps, and it was exactly what I needed.

I
RECONNECTED
again with Aleksey after some considerable searching. As we’d agreed earlier, he had befriended the small contingent of guards assigned to the command tent and the tents of the senior officers. It had occurred to us that if they became familiar with him, then his presence around the tent, should it be discovered, might be explained away as an aberration, rather than a deliberate ploy. He had taken them some bread and beer and was sitting up on their wagon, sharing this small feast, his horse tied to the rear. It must have driven him wild to be so close to the very maps and plans he wanted to read, but they were securely packed in boxes in the bed of the wagon, and he would have to wait until the night.

I chastised him as a master would a servant for being so lazy and greedy and demanded that he accompany me on my rounds of the lines to check for sickness or injury. He scrambled down, returning the ribald comments of the guards, and slid up onto his horse. Any observant officer might have noted that this doctor’s servant rode a superb warhorse, but I had already determined to explain, if questioned, that we had manage to liberate her from the bandits who had stolen our supplies.

We rode off a little way together to talk privately. I told him of my discovery of the barrels of oil, and he thought my plan to set them alight a good one. He watched my face closely and eventually asked, “What is wrong, Niko? You do not look good.”

I dismissed his concerns, saying merely that the smell was very strong and that anyone would find it so. He nodded sadly and laid a hand on my leg. “I would find those men, Nikolai, and they would suffer more punishment in this life than they will surely find in the next.”

I patted his hand. “Aleksey, they already have. They are all dead. Now we must continue our fiction of doctor and servant until dark. Come, I believe there is a man with anal fissures awaiting my attention.” I repressed my smirk. Poor boy. He was very, very enjoyable to toy with.

I stayed out of the officers’ tent that night at dinnertime. I did not feel that our deception would hold out much longer, and I did not want to be questioned too closely on my journey to Saxefalia. Our plan was relatively simple: I would set a fire with the oil; Aleksey would run to the tent and tell the guards that the whole camp was threatened, employing usefully, for once, his theatrical abilities. When they left, he would slip into the tent, find the information he needed, and join me waiting with the horses.

What could go wrong?

First, I could not get the oil to light. I had thought that creating a spark against the open top of a barrel would cause it all to flare up. I was expecting a huge flame and was blinking, holding back, wincing, but… nothing. It would not light. I only had a few moments before someone would come along. I thought
wick
and cursed myself for being so stupid. I stuffed a strip of my shirt into the barrel, soaked it, and that lit easily. I trailed it over the rim of the barrel and ran for it.

I expected a whoosh and a flare of flame. I did not reckon on the oil being stored near to the tent in which the gunpowder was boxed.

The first I knew of my success was discovering the ground was hard as I hit it face-first.

A huge fist of air had thumped me into the mud, silent until an almighty whump made me cry out and, too late, cover my ears. My whole head ringing, I turned fearfully to see a white-hot flame and sparks rising high into the air. I could see worse too. I had known what was about to happen and had been running for shelter. I had not paid the enemy the same courtesy.

Burning men rolled on the ground.

No one had the sense to grab canvas and wrap them tightly, which would have saved many lives. It wasn’t my job to help them.

I was glad I was half deafened, for there is nothing that hurts the soul more than the sound of a man screaming as he burns.

Almost as bad were those fearfully burned but well enough to run. They ran maddened like dogs with their tails set alight by cruel children, not knowing where they went, only seeking respite from pain, or God’s mercy perhaps, neither of which I thought them likely to receive.

And then things got more interesting.

The white-hot heat was so intense it was setting off adjacent fires, tents catching like kindling, canvas flapping loose, pieces burning in the air like demented hellfire seagulls, carrying their deadly energy on down the line.

Men who were not injured came running from all corners of the camp with useless quantities of water, some even with wine goblets, attempting to douse the fires, which they could not even approach without staggering back at the intensity of the heat.

My position was becoming untenable. I was neither injured nor helping, so I slid quietly away in the confusion.

It was all most satisfactory. I hoped Aleksey was having the same luck.

When I reached the horse line, the next stage in my part of the plan, some of the horses were rearing and whinnying with distress. Even the most stoic twisted and turned in place, casting anxious glances at the urgent activity behind them. I could see the flames mirrored in Xavier’s wide eyes. I relieved the boy guarding the line by impressing upon him the fire would soon reach his position and he must run for his life. I waited until he’d shot off into the dark and then released all the horses. They cantered off away from the noise and flames as I held our two steady. I waited and waited. I grew increasingly anxious and many times started to retie the horses so I could plunge back into the burning camp to find Aleksey. So many things could go wrong. After an agony of expectation, I saw him running, leaping debris in his way, the flames silhouetting him.

He grinned at me and took his horse’s reins. “They are planning to ambush our line, Niko. They have blocked the head of a valley and will allow us to enter, then block the end and be waiting on the ridges. It will be a bloodbath.” He swung up into the saddle, desperate to be on his way and save his army. “Come on!” He disappeared into the darkness.

I grinned at his slim, disappearing figure and put a foot to my stirrup.

“Hello, Doctor.” I whirled around, my hand going to one of my knives, but I felt a thump on my head and then darkness as I sank to the ground.

I
CAME
around, bound and sick and lying upon the cold ground. I heard muffled voices, which were actually only muffled by the ringing still in my ears and the blow I had taken to the head. I tried to stifle a groan, but someone saw I was awake and pulled me to my knees. I peered up, and an icy trickle of fear ran down my spine. This was worse than I had thought: Rohanus, Aleksey’s inebriated officer. I spat toward his boots, and he stepped back. He did not appear at all drunk now.

“I knew you were no doctor, Hartmann. What is your mission?”

I don’t know whether I was more annoyed to have my medical skills questioned or to have been so easily caught. Both, I suspect. “I could ask the same of you, Colonel. What is your mission?”

He hit me. I reeled back, unable to save myself, for my arms were pinned behind my back, and I hit the ground hard. Rough hands pulled me to kneeling again.

“What is your mission?”

Clearly, this was going to get repetitive. I wondered when it would start to get serious. I had grown up with masters of torture. These people had no idea. Well, I have to admit that I
hoped
they did not. I spat out some blood. “I am here as a doctor, that is all.”

He nodded, turned as if to speak to someone, reeled around, and hit me again. I took the blow better, being prepared for it, and spat some more blood. “What is your mission?”

“I’m a—” More hitting and more spitting ensued. Suddenly the tent flap opened and a soldier came in. He said something into the colonel’s ear, and the questioning changed.

“Where is your servant?”

I looked down, praying Aleksey was well on his way back to the army with his information. Clearly Rohanus had not seen my “servant” in the flesh, and no one had thought to describe him. I was fairly sure that
very tall, slim, handsome, and startling green eyes
might rather give the prince away.

I debated the best thing to say and finally settled on, “He was caught in the fire.” I held the left side of my face toward him, so he could see the black powder burns. “I did not realize that the gunpowder was there.”

He hit me again. “Where is your servant?”

“In the fire! I can show you his body if you want.”

My fire had caused a great number of casualties, and one burned, shriveled man’s body would look much like another—pretending to search them would give Aleksey more time. He indicated for me to be pulled to my feet. I dwarfed the two soldiers holding my arms, and I felt I could take them despite the ties to my wrists. But this was not the time. I had to let Aleksey have a chance to get far away before they suspected him. They half dragged, half carried me down through the lines toward the scene of the fire, which was not out by any means. I did not think they would ever be able to stop the spread. I was tempted to suggest they create a firebreak and move the remaining tents and wagons, but it suited my purposes to let it all burn. With so many bodies, it was impossible to tell who anyone had been, and after poking around for a very long, useless amount of time, I told the colonel so. He nodded for me to be taken back to his tent.