By Chance Met (8 page)

So how was a youngling with no experience whatsoever in matters of the heart or bodily union supposed to convince so guarded and blasé a Deir to surrender to their mutual need?

Chapter Six

There were times Reijir suspected his honorable, honest to a fault adjutant of underhanded dealings. Granted these instances were extremely few and far between, but they existed nonetheless. This was one of those times, the Ilmaren lord decided, as he tried to avoid noticing every move Naeth made. Or rather every move of the youth’s delectable posterior.

Reijir shook his head and determinedly looked away from Ruomi’s work desk by the study door where Naeth was busy sorting a stack of recently arrived correspondence.

What had possessed him to approve Ruomi’s suggestion that he take Naeth under his wing and allow the youth to help him with his myriad duties? Reijir stifled a sigh of frustration.

Because he had not known how deeply Naeth’s constant presence would affect him.

Save for the weekends, Naeth had spent most of each day at school and out of Reijir’s line of sight. Not so now when he was almost always around, as much at Reijir’s beck and call as Ruomi and eager to comply with Reijir’s every wish.

Reijir muttered an imprecation.
Not every wish
, he firmly told himself. Not if the youth had any sense in that pretty, underage head of his.

Naeth came to him and placed several letters on one side of the desk, murmuring that he would deliver the others to the rest of the household. Reijir nodded his assent, keeping his eyes on the document before him.

The youth turned around and started to walk toward the door. But a few paces away, one of the letters he carried fell to the floor. Naeth bent to retrieve it. Whereupon a few others slipped from his grasp just as he straightened up and tumbled down as well. Softly cursing, Naeth bent once more to pick them up. The divided shirttail of his long shirt parted to accommodate the upward motion of his rump.

Reijir had surreptitiously watched Naeth walk away, and he was now treated to a full view of the youth’s well-shaped backside, the material of his breeches stretched taut across his firm buttocks. He smothered a groan as images of what lay beneath Naeth’s breeches littered his mind.

The Herun irritatedly wondered why Naeth had not donned a proper, arse-covering tunic before reason kicked in to remind him that an exceedingly warm summer day indoors discouraged anything more elaborate than a linen jerkin over a cambric shirt and cool cotton trousers. And after all, he had given his staff leave to dress as comfortably as possible while remaining within the bounds of propriety. He could hardly take Naeth to task just because his choice of breeches left little to Reijir’s unexpectedly active imagination. It was a relief when Naeth finally left the study, taking his inexplicably tempting body with him.

It was utterly confounding, this attraction to his ward, Reijir sourly thought. And so very inappropriate.
Whence this response to the charms of so artless a creature?

Reijir’s many dalliances had by and large been with Deira as practiced in the love arts as he. But even the occasional virgins who came his way had been far from innocent in mind or virtuous in intent however unsullied their bodies.

Naeth was completely outside his sphere of experience. He was innocence and temptation all wrapped up in one intriguing package.

He swore again. He was being beguiled almost effortlessly by the minx! And worse,

Reijir was quite certain Naeth was unaware of it. Veres help him if the youth ever realized just how enticing he could be without even trying.

And it was not just Reijir’s body that had turned wayward against his will. Even his personality seemed to have undergone some changes, and Rohyr had taken pains to tell him so the previous morning.

He should have known better than to bring Naeth with him to the Citadel. He’d never yet taken his ward to the royal keep though Rohyr was aware of the youth’s existence and his current position in the Arthanna household.

Rohyr was surprised when he showed up at the Citadel archery yard with Naeth in tow. But that surprise swiftly turned to interest and eventually mild amusement once he noticed Naeth’s earnest displays of adoration for Reijir and discerned Reijir’s equally earnest determination to ignore said displays.

Reijir still did not know why he’d decided to take Naeth along when he’d only just begun training the youth in the use of bow and arrow. There was no way Naeth could have participated in the informal competition that took place every week’s end among the Essendris.

Even more impressive was that the Essendris were practitioners of
yuda
, the Naeren style of archery that was now little more than legend in most of Aisen save in the westernmost continent of Khitaira and the border nations of its neighbor Lydan. There, the ancient martial art had been faithfully preserved.

But in all the Vihandran supercontinent, only in Ylandre could Naeren-style archers or
yudare
still be found. And even then, it was only members of the royal family and the great fief-lords and select companies of their armies’ mounted archers who carried on the nigh forgotten tradition. Thus it was always a treat to watch the scions of House Essendri when they came down to the Citadel archery yard for a morning of target practice.

Their garb alone was eye-catching, rooted as it was in the distant past and steeped in formality and tradition. Loose, high-waisted, pleated trousers of generally dark and sturdy fabric were worn over plain, short-sleeved, thigh-length tunics, long thin breeches and soft leather boots.

Their bows of hardy evergreen and the employment of them added to the
yudare
’s mystique. Virtually as long as its wielder was tall, the
yuda
bow was raised high then steadily lowered as it was drawn until the arrow came to rest below eye level. And whereas the common Deiran archer drew his bow only as far as his cheekbone, a
yudar
held his drawing hand behind his ear while placing his feet outward at an exact angle for balance and holding his back as straight as possible to prevent the bowstring from striking his face upon release.

Precision was a hallmark of the
yudare
, even when they were mounted and speeding past or toward their targets. So accurate were the best among them that they could demoralize entire armies and throw them into confusion by picking off their leaders in swift succession. In the turbulent times before and right after the Inception—that period

of facilitated racial evolution when the newly arrived Naere deliberately bred with the males of Aisen’s native race, the gelra—the sight of a full company of
yudare
on steedback had been enough to sow apprehension among the military officers of the opposing camp and even reduce some to panic and craven retreat.

In any case, the rarity of
yudare
served to draw avid onlookers whenever and wherever a bout of Naeren archery was in the offing. The weekly gatherings at the Citadel were not an exception. And as Naeth had never yet seen Reijir engage in
yuda
, it was no wonder the youth spent the morning in wide-eyed, tacit hero-worship of his guardian.

He’d stared quite gracelessly when Reijir strode out first of his cousins onto the field in a stark white tunic tucked into dark blue-grey trousers. From then on, his gaze had seldom strayed from the Herun even when the others appeared—Rohyr accompanied by his half-brother Dylen and his leman, Lassen Idana, Keiran typically resplendent in brighter-hued trousers, Rohyr’s orphaned cousin and royal ward, Shino Essendri, Ylandre’s youngest military tribune, Ranael Mesare, and the Calanthe twins, Gilmael and Zykriel, confusing in their astounding likeness were it not for the slight difference in the styling of their hair. Rohyr’s two closest uncles arrived as well—Chief Counsellor Yovan Seydon and dour-faced Imcael Essendri, the Herun of Qimaras.

The sight of so many handsome notables together in one place and splendidly attired to boot should have divided Naeth’s attention. But it did not, and it was his nigh unwavering regard that drew Rohyr’s notice and piqued his curiosity about his cousin’s ward.

“The mystery is solved,” he murmured as he nocked an arrow.

Doing likewise at his right, Reijir glanced at him. “What mystery?”

“The reason for your easy smile this past year.”

Reijir glanced suspiciously at him then shook his head and, facing the target once more, positioned himself, his footing as precisely placed as his form was perfectly balanced. Rohyr smiled and followed suit.

Oohs
and
aahs
resounded in the yard throughout the course of the morning. But to the majority of the audience’s surprise, though Reijir was clearly the most proficient among them, Rohyr and Zykriel somehow kept apace with him, conceding the field to him only at the very end and by an unusually small margin.

“What’s amiss, Rei?” Zykriel asked when Reijir failed to hit his target dead center a third time. “Besides your aim that is.”

“A lack of focus,” Rohyr replied as he released his arrow. He smiled with

satisfaction when his shot put him even with Reijir. “That pretty lad yonder presents a formidable distraction,” he explained with a nod in Naeth’s direction.

Zykriel regarded Naeth with interest. “Is he the youth Keiran’s been telling us about?” When Reijir curtly dipped his chin, Zykriel grinned and said, “Formidable distraction indeed. Especially when he has eyes only for you, cousin. It’s a rare day when our esteemed Ardan isn’t the center of everyone’s attention. It must be terribly flattering.”

“And stimulating,” Rohyr added. “Subtle temptation can be as potent as blatant seduction.”

“How true.” Zykriel mischievously said to Reijir, “It will be interesting to see how long you hold out before the lad persuades you to have your way with him.”

Reijir scowled. “It will get him nowhere, I assure you. I’m of no mind to teach him his bed manners.
Heyas
, we shouldn’t even be talking about that! Naeth is still three summers short of his thirtieth year.”

“So?”

“So it isn’t meet to discuss the matter. He’s under my care. I won’t stand accused of debauching my own ward.”

Zykriel snorted. “No one is suggesting you tup him just yet. But once he reaches the age of consent and comes to you willing, no one will condemn you if you take him to bed.”

“Zyk!” Reijir rolled his eyes. “You’re no help,” he muttered as he fit another arrow to his bow.

“Because we’ve given voice to your ambivalence?” Rohyr said. When Reijir glared at him, he commented, “Your less than perfect showing this morn is testament to the effects of his adoration on you. All the more since he’s so guileless about it. You’ve never known unconditional affection outside of the family, have you?”

Reijir paused in the act of raising his bow. “You know I haven’t,” he softly replied.

“It unnerves you.”

“Yes.” Reijir’s admission was blatantly grudging.

Zykriel chuckled. “Our jaded, worldly-wise Reijir—felled by a child’s attentions.

Who could have imagined it?”

Before Reijir could retort, Rohyr said, “I for one.”

He shifted his gaze to Lassen who instructed young Shino a short distance away, pride and desire and so much more gleaming in the depths of his slate grey eyes. Reijir and Zykriel glanced at each other. All it took to achieve that soft look in their otherwise stern-countenanced cousin was the presence of his golden-haired concubine. Rohyr looked at them and smiled, acknowledging what they thought of his relationship with his leman.

“You think there’s no room for change when we reach a certain point in our lives,”

he said. “That once shaped, we harden like pottery baked in a kiln and can no longer refashion ourselves anew. But we
can
change. We are each a work in progress and will always be to the end of our lives. And when the reason for it is a dear one’s regard or need, the changing isn’t so very hard.”

He looked at Reijir, a challenge in his eyes. “I will wed out of duty in a few months time. Lassen stands by my decision despite the hurt it does him. How can I not respond to such devotion? How can I not have changed in all these years of our togetherness and opened my eyes and heart as I never did before he came to me?”

Reijir nodded. There was no denying what Rohyr claimed.

In the years before he made Lassen his leman, Rohyr had been a distant ruler who’d taken his duty to his people seriously but had not had much interest in their lives beyond what was generally known. Hailing from the minor gentry of the small town of Tal Ereq in the faraway province of Velarus, Lassen identified with the common folk. He had never forgotten his roots nor fully forsaken the ways of his people.

Under his gentle influence, Rohyr had come to understand the day-to-day lives and real needs of those of his subjects who did not belong to the higher strata of society. He’d striven to form a bond with these lesser folk for the sake of the Deir who counted himself one of them.

“Lassen loves you as much as life itself, Roh, we all know that,” Reijir said by way of a half-hearted protest. “And though you don’t say so, you feel as much for him. But Naeth is only infatuated with me.” He glanced at Zykriel when the latter huffed in obvious disbelief. “He’s very young and can still bestow his heart elsewhere.”

Zykriel scoffed, “And you want him to?”

Reijir started to reply only to realize he did not know the answer. At his stunned silence, his cousins snickered and, taking pity on him, said no more on the matter.

distracted state and grinned.

“Thinking about a certain Deir again?” he drawled.

“Don’t start, Kei,” Reijir growled. “I’m in no mood to bandy words with you.”