My Man Godric (4 page)

Arrival at the Keep began with a welcome by
old friends and an exchange of gifts that was a carryover from a
tribute of centuries ago. When Bertie had been offered a kitten by
one delightful child instead of the usual gifts, he could not
refuse. Aethir got casks of wine and a stag, Aethelbert got a
kitten. He did not mind.

“How was I to say no?” He had explained
later at the head table during the banquet for their arrival, after
the kitten had poked its head from his bodice to sniff at his
plate. Bertie had been wearing a puffed bodice, not tight, and the
kitten might have gone unnoticed if it had not gotten hungry.

The courtiers with them had laughed. His
brother had merely smiled and asked for his new pet’s name, and
then, as an afterthought, wondered why the cat had been hidden in
his clothing.

The poor thing had been cold. Bertie should
have said that. Instead he’d looked over to see if Godric had
laughed too.

Seated not far from dear Aethir, Godric had
not been smiling. He rarely did at court functions, but he had
seemed to hold the same softness in his gaze as had the king, that
same fondness for Bertie. It had been remarkable.

Thus, what Bertie
had
said had been
the loud, and stupid, “Because how else would I keep my Godric with
me at all times?” He had named the kitten, humiliated himself, and
embarrassed Godric in one fell swoop. It was a natural talent.

The others present had found this hilarious,
but then, there was very little about Bertie’s public devotion that
they did not find amusing. The king’s half-brother blindly in love
with the duke of war himself, a man who, to most of them, was still
a stable boy and always would be. Godric would keep them safe and
win their wars and fight their battles, but he had rough hands and
broad shoulders and had taught himself to read and write his name
when over the age of twenty and so would remain a peasant, just as
Bertie was always the child with the foreign mother, tolerated and
sometimes courted because he often had the king’s ear and because
their father had made certain that his bloodline could not be
denied by giving him his mouthful of a name.

He cleared his throat.

“I am hardly a lord, Godric. My mother was
not a lady, and regardless of my father’s generosity, I do not have
any real title at all.” Unless he counted bastard. He had been
given lands and money, had been treated well and loved by his
family, but it was true, he was no lord.

“I am afraid I must disagree, my lord.”
Godric scratched, ever so carefully, and the cat purred, obscenely
happy. It was truly the strangest cat, throwing itself at strangers
instead of running from them. Perhaps it had grown so used to being
carried next to Bertie’s heart that it sought out the rhythm with
others.

Without warning Godric raised his head and
Bertie ended his daydream of lying with his ear to Godric’s chest.
“I have watched you for some time. Along with your brother, and one
or two esteemed generals often at my table, you are one of the few
I have met with a true claim to nobility.”

Plainspoken and true, it hit Bertie like an
arrow, or perhaps that was Godric’s gaze. The towel fell right from
his hands but somehow he felt warm. Not warm, hot.

“I… It’s well known that I’m a fool,
Godric,” Bertie whispered, not certain why he spoke, why he’d argue
if Godric had finally ceased to find him a complete nuisance.
Godric shook his head and then gently placed the cat on the floor
before standing up.

“You are the brother of a good king and your
great father’s son, my lord,” he disagreed quietly. “You are noble
to your toes.” He paused, then firmed his lips. His face seemed to
grow darker. “There is food there, and clothes,” he waved at the
table, glancing over Bertie before politely averting his eyes once
again, “if you wish to visit with your people before I figure out
how to best get you all safely away, and in the meantime….”

“Clothes?” Bertie looked over and saw fine
cloth. He wrinkled his brow.

“The king, your brother’s.”

“Why do you have my brother’s clothing in
your tent?” Bertie demanded sharply, shutting up only when Godric’s
expression filled with disbelief.

“He left them here.” With hindsight, this
was obvious, and Bertie almost ducked his head at his jealousy. He
settled for a shrug and then a small smile when Godric went on
about how he did not think the clothes Bertie had been wearing
suited his soft skin. It was not an insult when Godric said it. “In
the meantime,” Godric finally finished, pointedly, “my tent is
yours, my lord.”

“You….” Bertie’s breath left him. “Where
will you sleep?”

Godric froze for one moment, then
inhaled.

Bertie ignored his discomfort or Southern
prudery or embarrassment, whichever it was. “Your bed is lovely,
Godric, but I won’t push you out of it.” He wasn’t teasing, not
even a little. He would never push Godric out of
any
bed.

Perhaps knowing that, or used to him,
Godric’s lips briefly turned up and he slanted a look at Bertie
that was surprisingly warm. “The ground is good enough for me, my
lord.” Then he half-turned away.

“I’ve slept on the ground too, Godric
beloved, and I don’t care if you were a stable boy, the ground
isn’t fit for anyone, much less the man with a nation relying on
him. Sleep in your bed.”

“Is that an order?” Godric returned quietly,
with all manner and respect, then scratched at his chin, which was
bare and clean-shaven, a fact that Bertie had so far nicely and
properly refrained from mentioning. He gave up that attempt in the
face of Godric’s stupid sense of honor due him.

“I didn’t order you to do that!” Bertie
insisted, a touch shrilly, only to fall silent when Godric smiled
again. His smile was as stunning as it was unexpected.

“We all have our reasons to do what we do,
my lord,” Godric offered seriously, even with that faint, warm
pleasure still in his eyes, and then left the tent while Bertie
stood there, stunned and naked, behind him.

~~~

He
dressed as quickly as possible and was not ashamed of how fast he
stuffed the offered food into his mouth, though he did not eat so
fast that he did not taste the seasonings in the cold chicken or
feel the grains of flour on the crust of the hard bread. For once
he did not stop to make certain his hair gleamed or to straighten
his clothes, or even to shave the roughness from his jaw.

He had matters to attend to, and, as it
happened, Godric had seen him look his worst and had not objected.
Godric, Bertie’s mind whispered dizzily, had found him
noble
. If Bertie could not have a declaration of love to
answer his own, then that would do. Besides, if being unshaven was
the look of peasants and soldiers, then it ought to do for the dead
king’s bastard.

Outside the tent was much hushed activity—as
hushed as armored men and horses could get, which was not much. But
there was a marked difference in their movements from how they had
been at the Keep months earlier with everyone brimming with
excitement. Heaviness was with them now, impatience and a hint of
worry.

The air around them was crisp and the
sunlight pale. It would be warmer nearer the capital, but no one
was slowing in their work, and no one was frozen with fear.

They were preparing to decamp, he realized
with sudden alarm, and he could not see Godric. But even as he
wondered what had happened last night to bring this about, he
knew
, and allowed himself one short, rare, frown of
displeasure. It was part of Godric’s duty to protect Bertie, but
Godric was to serve the country and his brother’s wishes first.

Of course, after an hour of searching for
Godric and receiving stunned, perplexed stares from soldier after
soldier that always seemed to turn to irritating grins, he got
distracted by his group of survivors. They were doing well, or well
enough, considering many of their friends and loved ones were dead
or hiding in the mountains, and they would not see their homes
again until spring, and that only if all went well.

Bertie found the widow and her children in
the company of Godric’s fierce Captain Torr, which was surprising
until Bertie remembered how the widow’s young sister had woven
flowers into Torr’s hair the morning the soldiers had departed with
the king.

She had survived the raid on the Keep with
scars of her own but had stayed with the others in the mountains to
watch for any more raiders. The locals knew the mountains better
than any invaders, and they would not be taken unawares again.

More surprising was how the angry captain
bowed low to Bertie at first sight of him and then offered another
nod when he had finally taken his leave. Considering that the
captain’s words to Bertie at finding them all near the ruins of the
Keep had been, “Thank the gods you are not hurt,” followed quickly
by, “So few of you left?” Bertie had assumed the man had blamed him
for the Keep’s destruction and thought that a warrior prince like
Aethir might have saved it.

There had been no time to send a messenger
ahead to Godric to ask for help, and no one to spare in any case.
The decision had been made there, right there. The captain had
insisted that his orders were that Bertie could not remain and that
he had to get Bertie back to Godric, until Bertie had invoked his
position and insisted that the injured and helpless must come back
with him or he wasn’t going, Godric or no Godric.

It had perhaps been the maddest thing Bertie
had ever said, and a surprise even to himself as he had said it.
The captain’s face had changed, something dawning in his expression
before he gone blank and offered Bertie another slow nod.

The captain’s undoubtedly reluctant mission
of rescue had been turned into a grueling journey back. He and the
other men had barely spoken to Bertie in that time, only watching
the small group’s progress with obvious impatience. Torr had not
mentioned the widow’s sister, but dried flowers had hung from the
man’s saddle. Bertie should have made that connection before.

Many of the men closest to Godric had come
to the Keep with him each harvest, and Torr had not been the only
one to ride from its courtyard two months ago with a late-blooming
flower in his hair and who now had a posy to remind him of a loved
one awaiting his return.

Bertie would not blame them for their anger
if being ordered to protect Bertie was taking them farther from the
battles needed to end all this and bring them home.

But what had seemed like anger on the road
did not seem it in the camp. By the time Bertie had temporarily
given up his search for Godric to see to his scattered people, he
had been saluted more than he had ever been in the capital. Even
stranger, he found that soldiers who came by to wish his people
well and ask about those left behind had offered him that same slow
nod that Torr had given him.

It was puzzling. While Bertie had not been
hated, he was not the king. He was an embroidering lover of poetic
tales who had repeatedly humiliated their commander. He was a joke
if anything.

He intended to ask about it from the one
person who was not his brother who was guaranteed to be honest with
him, but when he returned to Godric’s tent just after midday, it
was again filled with knights and generals. They all immediately
rose.

Bertie waved them down. “We’re leaving?
Where are we going? North?”

“That is under discussion.” The Count rolled
her eyes. Bertie assumed it was for the interruption, but then she
looked to Godric as though he was at fault. “We were waiting here
to assess the threat. It has now been assessed.”

“They can come from any direction, as
they’ve proven. If they reach the capital we are lost anyway,”
someone Bertie did not know by name insisted, but stopped to waste
time worrying about Bertie’s supposed sensibilities. “I apologize
if the topic upsets you, Lord Aethelbert.”

“Upsets me?” Bertie blinked. “I’ve already
seen a place I love destroyed. What would upset me would be doing
nothing while it happens again.” He lifted his chin. His tone was
less imploring and more demanding but he did not alter it. He
thought it rather ridiculous that others were concerned for his
feelings with so much else going on, and if Bertie found it
ridiculous then it must truly be so. “What
is
being
done?”

“Pray do not take offense, cousin, but this
is hardly an area of interest to you,” the Baron began, then shut
his mouth when Bertie opened his.

“It is of interest to me, cousin, when my
people are ravaged, killed, and dragged from their homes before my
eyes. It is of interest to me that my brother have a capital to
return to, and that those seeking refuge from these horrors be
welcome behind Camlann’s walls.” He bit out each word.
“Furthermore, as I have recently been reminded, I am my father’s
son, and as long as someone of our blood occupies the capital, we
shall remain undefeated.”

Or so the legend went, but as with so many
of those stories, Bertie wasn’t convinced that his ancestors hadn’t
simply made it all up to keep their thrones or to calm a frightened
populace during another crisis. He was sure many fallen kingdoms
had once had similar legends.

But even if it
was
only a story,
others believed it, like the villagers around the Keep, who swore
that someone of royal blood had to bless their last harvest to
ensure success in the years to come.

Bertie’s gaze was drawn back to Godric at
the thought, at the memory of explaining that very thing, his voice
quavering at the blazing force there to be read in Godric’s
expression. He had known without it being said that Godric could
have told him every single horrible thing that could and would
result from his one decision and that he was only adding to
Godric’s long list of burdens, but that one decision had also been
the right thing to do. He’d been certain of it.