My Man Godric (2 page)

“No, no, it’s fine. I… we’re at war… don’t
be…. You should know better than to mind me. I am hopelessly—” He
did
bite his tongue. Would he never learn?

“It will be gone in the morning,” Godric
went on anyway, as he always did, so courteous it was cruel, “my
lord.”

Bertie shut his mouth hard but the
protesting moan slipped out regardless. He hadn’t meant that as an
order. He would never speak so to Godric.

“Are you well, Lord Aethelbert?” someone
else asked, and Bertie turned, barely sparing a glance for Baron
Gywnn even if he was a cousin. The man wasn’t smirking at least,
likely too taken aback by Bertie’s appearance. Bertie would admit
his appearance was unusual.

It wasn’t fair. Clean and elegantly robed in
silks embroidered by his own hand with the red dragon of his
mother’s people, Bertie might have had a chance to catch Godric’s
eye. He was tall, slender, with poplar-dark hair and skin of golden
brown. Red flattered him. Skirts seemed to let him float as they
wrapped and slid between his thighs. A tight bodice left his
collarbone exposed, there to be kissed or nibbled at Godric’s
will.

Of course, if Bertie had been going to
ensnare Godric when within Camlann’s high walls, in a dress or even
fine leggings, he would have done it by now; he’d certainly been
bold enough in his attempts. A few twigs in his hair and a pair of
scratchy breeches weren’t likely to make any difference.

Bertie saw their eyes on him and put on the
court smile he hated though he was a bruised and saddle sore,
though his feet hurt and his skin itched and the cold in his bones
had not once faded, not once in the two months since he had stayed
behind at the Keep and watched Godric ride away.

In that time he had gone without, lived in
constant anxiety, felt blood on his hands, and not heard a single
word of his brother or Godric. But he was Aethelbert of Clas
Draigoch, so with chilled, shaking hands, he smoothed back his hair
and straightened the thin but heavy golden torque at his throat. He
should not have put it on or carried it with him from the Keep, but
he’d thought he might need the gold if things grew desperate and
had only put it on moments before in moment of foolish vanity.

It was a silly hope indeed that some shiny
jewelry might do what his bold words and outstretched hands had
not, and he sighed at both his dreams and his failures, then sighed
again for the small flame of hope that someday, someday, he might
at least return to the level of friendship he had once enjoyed with
Godric before he had opened his mouth to declare his love for him
for all the Court to hear.

He realized that the others around him were
struggling to conceal their impatience with him while he had let
his mind wander to better times, and then remembered that he had
been asked a question.

“No. No I am not well,” he answered
honestly, for that was more of his famous madness. Bertie might be
ladylike and useless with a blade and strange even for a child of
the Red Dragon, effete even for a courtier, but he was as honest as
only the mad could be. It was how everyone thought of him and he
couldn’t deny it. For that he scowled and turned away from their
eyes, aware that they would not understand how recent events had
touched him.

“The Keep has been razed, its fields set
afire, its people killed or scattered,” he reported flatly, the
wound still raw. The Keep was, had been, more his home than the
capital city had ever been. Godric’s eyes bored into him, intent
and dark, but Bertie had to finish. “Too… too few remain alive and
in my care, and even then I could not bring them all, only the
children and the injured, and I promised I would send aid through I
knew when I made the vow that I did not even know of Aethir
lived.”

There were raiders again in his mind’s eye
and he shuddered. The raiders had been without horses, a small but
ravenous force on foot, disrupting the peace of the valley and for
what, vengeance for a war years behind them?

Bertie had never seen a green man with his
own eyes though stories of their ferocity and ravenous forces had
haunted many children in the dark of night. The Green Men had first
come decades ago, arriving in their strange boats in small groups
at first and then larger when they found the land to their liking.
No one knew why they persisted in making their way down from the
frozen lands in the High North across the Eastern Seas or why they
chose war over trade. Their language remained a mystery and those
about to be captured would often take their own lives on the
battlefield.

He would admit, as many would, that he found
them frightening. Despite the resistance from the tough fishermen
along the coast of Gallia, the Green Men had gone down into the
Gallian rivers toward their farmland until driven back after five
long years of fighting. Then they had turned their attentions full
force to taking the lolling hills and harsh mountains of Breta.

Breta had been formed from the conquer of
many smaller kingdoms, but though differences between West, North,
and South remained, none had hesitated to band together to repel
the Green Men when they had struck the coastal villages and pressed
inward. The earliest defenders had built the wall across the land
bridge in the icy marsh to the northeast and left watch towers at
the harbors for each king, including the great Aethered who had
ruled over them all, and the future boy-king Aethir, to defend.

It had been in last of those wars when
Godric had impressed both father and son and made a name for
himself, earning the personal hatred of the different clans of the
Green Men. It had also been those wars that must have brought the
Green Man back to them after all this time, Bertie knew he was not
the only one to think it, though some of the knights were obviously
surprised by his news and the direction of this new attack. It was
a needless but symbolic victory to sack the autumn resting place of
the Bretan kings.

“They came at night.” Bertie focused back on
Godric, pausing to see the man moving closer to him as though this
was one of Bertie’s dreams after all. “I had no time to send you
the message I promised. I’m sorry.”

He had made that promise to send for Godric
half in jest and half distracted at the intensity in Godric’s
voice. The tempting heat of Godric had been near and yet Godric had
seemed furious, quietly shaking at Bertie’s stupidity in staying
behind while the rest of the world had ridden off to possible war.
Perhaps it was his peasant upbringing, but Godric had little
tolerance for fools. Bertie was nothing if not foolish.

“It is I who should apologize, my lord,”
Godric told him now, the same furrow between his eyes that had made
him seem so fierce then. “When I heard the report of Green Men in
the west descending the mountains….” He stopped and Bertie swayed,
just a little, at his proximity.

In Bertie’s dreams of this reunion he had
not swayed. But in his dreams, he had also been clean and Godric’s
eyes had lit like new year bonfires to see him again. In his
dreams, no one had died.

“My lord.” That was Godric’s name for him,
never Bertie, and never Lord Aethelbert anymore. “I am sorry I
could not come for you myself, that I had to send others in my
place. But I could not leave here, and I had to know if you were
alive.” There was a small pause between the last two words, then
Godric wiped at his face with an unbearably weary heaviness.

Bertie blinked down at his beloved, tired
and just a touch confused.

“You had your duty.” Because this was
obvious, surely. He understood it well. Without duty, Bertie would
have followed Godric from the Keep and never looked back. It was
his duty to care for the people in his brother’s absence as it was
Godric’s to protect Bertie no matter how vexing he found Bertie’s
devotion to him.

Bertie stared longingly into Godric’s
piercing eyes at the thought, knowing that he was breathing hard
and distantly aware that Godric also seemed to be struggling to
find air, though Bertie did not wish to spoil this reunion by
asking him why.

“As lovely and poetic as it would have been
to see you ride in to rescue me, Godric my love, I would never have
asked it of you.”

Godric’s head went back at his words, color
in his face, and Bertie froze. He honestly hadn’t meant to
embarrass Godric again. The last time had been enough.

“You should not speak in such a way to one
such as me,” Godric tried to argue and Bertie tossed his head. His
vision swirled as he did, his pulse racing. Something kicked at his
chest and a week of frightened and harried travel hit him all at
once. He was so very tired. He swayed once more, and brave,
protective Godric caught him with one hand at his arm.

Bertie fell forward at the touch, bending to
press himself against Godric’s chest and inhaling the stink of
tents and a soldier’s camp, sweaty
living
Godric, iron and
leather and all manner of unpleasant, beautiful odors.

Perhaps the others in the room remarked on
it, or perhaps they were long used to Bertie’s madness and said
nothing, but Bertie did not look on them or hear a sound that
didn’t come from the man holding him up.

Godric’s chest moved rapidly with his
breath, the mail warm but hard beneath his shirt. The patches of
his bare skin felt hot. He pulled his hand back from Bertie’s arm,
but as always, he did not push Bertie away.

It was consideration for Bertie’s rank,
Bertie knew, and felt ashamed of himself for the small moment of
advantage and weakness, but he shivered gratefully just the same.
He thought that with enough time spent like this, the warmth might
return to his bones at last and food would once again tempt his
unhappy stomach.

“Oh my war-like Godric,” he sighed to the
throbbing vein at Godric’s throat, with Godric’s short beard
against his mouth. “I am happy to see you unharmed as well.”

Godric drew in a deep breath, then
swallowed.

But before he could speak something wriggled
between them, a fierce, annoyed wriggle that ended Godric’s words
before they began. He stepped back to stare down at the front of
Bertie’s loose, borrowed peasant clothing, and then Godric—the
other Godric—poked his furry head out of the neck of Bertie’s
shirt, blinking yellow eyes and offering the room a meow that was
as pitiful as how Bertie felt.

~~~

A few of
the knights had found it amusing, Bertie reflected, feeling a sad
sort of amusement as well as he stayed still under a mound of warm
blankets that smelled of sweat and horse and, quite possibly,
seed.

It was a tantalizing thought, or torturous,
if he considered that Godric could have been with others here. The
love of his heart had taken other soldiers to his bed, if stories
were to be believed, and Bertie had no reason not to believe them.
Godric was a great man, and Bertie was not the only one to see it.
He was simply the one who did not mind the world knowing at whose
feet he longed to rest.

Godric—the wrong Godric, the
feline
Godric—was curled up at his side, asleep. The cat was skin and
bones but Bertie feared he did not look much better. It had been
some time since he’d sat down to a feast or even considered food
anything but fuel to keep his body going. Two months in fact. He
must look worse than he’d imagined.

Godric the man, as well as the others
present the night before, certainly had not seemed pleased with
Bertie’s appearance. They had watched Bertie remove his thin cloak
and seen his exposed, bony wrists and sagging, loose clothing and
made noises of protest. Godric in particular had seemed much
agitated when Bertie had stumbled, yet again, while trying to
explain why the cat had been fed but he had not. Then as though
Bertie was not a fully grown, quite tall man, Bertie had found
himself picked up and carried to the smaller enclosure in the tent
and deposited here, in Godric’s very bed, from Godric’s very
arms.

The bed was not made of feathers and it was
low to the ground, but it was also very warm and indecently scented
of Godric. Despite Bertie’s insistence that he would not drive
Godric from his own bed, he had fallen asleep to the sound of the
unhappy captain relating their journey from the forests around the
Keep to here to everyone in the other room.

Bertie recalled his own voice sleepily
interrupting all those stark, bare facts of days with little to eat
and freezing, huddled nights without fire, to entreat Godric to
care for his people. He must have been loud, or possibly irritating
enough, that Godric had returned to his bedside to stare down at
him. Only when Godric had finally nodded had Bertie given in and
closed his eyes, knowing that even a nod meant Godric had given his
word.

Godric doubtless would have cared for
Bertie’s people anyway, and if Bertie had not been so weary and
craving Godric’s presence, he would have not demanded such a
promise from him. But he’d had visions of the people from the Keep
spending another night with growling bellies and no blankets and
none of Bertie’s stories to keep their spirits up. Bertie had never
told so many stories as he had to keep the fears of the Widow’s
children at bay, though he was as well-known for his wild tales as
he was for chasing after Godric. His stories were always taken from
his dreams, as was often the way with some of his mother’s people.
Bertie liked to call them stories, though he knew Godric had
another name for them. Godric thought many of them to be visions,
and even when Godric was angry with Bertie he had believed in
listening to them.

Godric, as Bertie remembered from their long
ago days of conversation, took even the dreams of a mad nobleman
into consideration, because Godric considered every possible
outcome in great detail, not just the outcomes he would
like
to consider, as Bertie did.