The King of Forever (Scarlet and the White Wolf, #4) (6 page)

“The ice becomes rotten this time of year, especially so close to the sea. Any area off the main paths can be treacherous. Did you enjoy using the bow?” Liall was glad to be off the topic of his many absences and glad that they were not snapping at each other anymore. Scarlet’s temper was like quicksilver, but so was his forgiveness. He never stayed cross for long, and for that Liall was grateful. Lately, though, gossip of Ressilka had put a wedge between them, and Liall ached to see it gone.

Scarlet nodded. “The bow is a fine way to hunt. Better than snaring, anyhow, and surer.”

Deer and other game in Scarlet’s homeland were brought down by snares, spears, traps, or staked pits. In Byzantur and even Morturii, the bow was a cowardly weapon of disgrace, the tool of assassins and spies. Any weapon that put a man beyond arm’s reach was shameful to use, and even possessing one with the excuse of hunting was extremely dangerous. A bow was an indictment, and the man who owned one could be accused of many things. Scarlet had never even touched a bow before coming to Rshan.

“I’m glad you’ve taken to the weapon. It’s a pretty thing, is it not?” Liall glanced at the door where Scarlet’s heavy hunting cloak and boots had been piled, the slender bow named
Whisper
resting on top of them. A servant would put them away later, when they judged it prudent to return.

Scarlet followed Liall’s gaze. The supple bow was carved from seasoned black oak, the grip inlaid with bone and silver and mother of pearl fittings in the swirling Ostre Sul pattern of the winter aurora. Though it was perfect for Scarlet, it was half the size of a Rshani bow and a fourth of the drawing power. Liall had known it would be good for hunting rabbits and small game, but with accuracy and swiftness, an arrow was deadly to a target of any size. A rabbit was smaller than a man’s head, after all, and an eye makes a handy target. It pleased him to know that he had added one more defense to Scarlet’s arsenal.

“Very pretty,” Scarlet agreed. “I’m getting better, but some of my arrows still go wide of my mark.”

“The bow is yours, but no man owns the arrow, Scarlet.” Liall was suddenly serious. “Remember that. An arrow can always go astray, even at the last moment. No man ever masters it completely.”

“What about women? I bet Jarek would be a fair shot with my lady there. I still feel strange picking her up, like I should be looking over my shoulder for an Ankarian guard to call me out as a spy.”

“She?” Liall chuckled. “You think your bow a female, then? My t’aishka finally decides to sample the pleasures of a woman, but she’s made of wood.”

That tugged an embarrassed smile from Scarlet, despite Esiuk’s presence. “As if I’d ever. Even if I liked her, I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d make a mess of it, that’s for sure.” He shook his head. “Things are so different here. You have masters but no slaves, magic but no gods, and men can lie with men, and women with women, and no one takes the slightest notice.”

“You’re the only magic this country has seen in a thousand years.” Liall ignored the remark about men. Scarlet was not ashamed to be known as his lover, but the stigmas inflicted on Scarlet in his homeland were hard to erase. Liall hoped that, in time, he would completely forget them. 

He is young. Time will erase those memories, and he will forget that he ever lived in a country that killed men such as him, or put brands of shame on their flesh.

Scarlet scratched his palm idly. “I think my magic is stronger, here. Is that possible? It must be the cold or somesuch. I swear, my hands felt like they wanted to kindle a fire withy when I fell through the deadfall. That wouldn’t have been good.”

Liall went cold at the sudden mental image of Scarlet surrounded by the rotten wood of the deadfall and wreathed in fire.

Esiuk glanced up, his attention pulled from his task by talk of magic. Every curae Liall had ever known was intensely curious about such things. Esiuk was a loyal retainer, but in learned men, the thirst for knowledge was boundless and unpredictable.

“It must have been the fear,” Liall said quickly. “You were frightened.”

“Not that much.”

Liall didn’t want to dwell on the subject, especially not with Esiuk listening. He had trusted Melev once, too. “Well, it’s over now and you’re here, if only a little worse for wear. Nothing broken and now you’re warm and safe. But are you quite finished turning the castle upside-down for the rest of the week?”

Scarlet suddenly looked wary. “Why do you ask that?”

“I may have to be away for a time.”

Scarlet’s expression turned from cautious to blank. “Oh?”

“Yes. It won’t be for very long, I promise.”
Just as long as it takes to win a war. The barons are already gathered, all the pawns in one palace, and no queen; just a new king to risk his crown and his head.

“I see.”

And just that. No questions, no protests. The painful and distant wedge growing between them widened. Liall had known from the beginning that their months in Rshan might turn into years, but that was when Cestimir was the heir, and they never expected to remain here forever. After the coronation, Liall had let himself believe that once Scarlet got a feel for the court and his position, he would be happy here. It was no shock to Liall that a reserved Hilurin youth raised in the rustic Byzantur countryside would flounder in the opulence of a royal court, but simply hoping it would get easier with time was wishful thinking. Scarlet had seemed content for a while, but then the rumors about Ressilka had sprouted like weeds. Now there were Rshani who had reasons other than bigotry to make Scarlet feel unwelcome.

I will keep him with me,
Liall thought fiercely.
No matter what the cost. If all of Rshan, my people, and my birthright must be hung ‘round my neck, so be it, but Scarlet is mine. I will not lose this one happiness.

He looked at Esiuk’s hands as the curae deftly finished sewing the lacerated skin of Scarlet’s calf. “Does it hurt much?”

Scarlet flinched as the needle pushed in and out of his skin. His voice was neutral. “Cuts and bruises. I’ve had worse. It’s nothing.”

Liall’s heart sank.
It’s a great deal to me
, he thought.
You could have been killed. I’d have lost you forever. Why don’t you ask where I’m going? I’d prefer a fight to this.

“This will leave a scar, sire,” Esiuk spoke up. The round dome of his head, shaved smoothly bald like all Rshani physicians, gleamed in the lamplight.

“If it does, you’ll have one to match,” Liall said.

“Don’t listen to him,” Scarlet said.

Liall merely raised a snow-white eyebrow and regarded Scarlet in silence. The quiet remained until Esiuk had bandaged Scarlet’s leg with clean linen.

“Will you be wanting a draught for the pain, ser?” Esiuk inquired.

Scarlet shook his head. “I’ll set a withy to it on my own. Thank you, ser.”

Esiuk gave him an intense stare, and Liall knew that the curae would have desperately liked to see the withy chant in action, but dared not ask. Esiuk packed his tools and left.

When they were truly alone, Liall rose slowly from his chair and stood looking down at the young man to whom he had bound his life and his heart.

“I thought Tesk and Jochi were friends,” Scarlet said. “Why didn’t Tesk speak up for him?”

“Because it was Jochi’s mistake. Tesk was there, Jochi wasn’t. Imagine if you’d insisted on going alone into the grove.”

Scarlet looked a bit too pleased with himself. “So it
was
my fault, just as I said.”

“I’ll allow that your stubbornness is partly to blame, yes,” Liall said. “But one truth has become very clear to me: your nature requires a bodyguard with vastly more skill, one who can tiptoe around your damned Hilurin obstinacy and still be a sword between you and danger.”

“Oh.” Scarlet rolled his eyes. “I pity this man already.”

“Save the pity for me. A village peasant pedlar putting the high king of Rshan in his place. Don’t think I don’t know how much you enjoy it.”

Scarlet had the grace to smirk. “Well... I never think of you as
the king.
Whenever I get the better of you, I always imagine it’s Liall of the Kasiri I’m putting on his arse.”

“For charging you too stiff a toll to cross his mountain, no doubt.” Liall carefully slid into the bed beside Scarlet and drew a hand through his black hair, mindful of his injuries.

“Tch, it was never
your
mountain. I had more claim to the Nerit than ever you did.”

“I had warriors.”

“Brawlers, more like.” Scarlet shifted closer to him. “Now, your Rshani, those are warriors. Never seen men fight so well or so...” He hesitated, searching for a word.

“Single-mindedly,” Liall supplied. He traced a careful finger down the cloth bindings on Scarlet’s arm.

“I suppose that must be the word. Or two words, because your lot never says five words when they can say the same thing in twenty.”

“It’s the long winters. Boredom sets in and must have an outlet of some fashion.”

“Whatever that means. You’re a funny old bunch, no doubt. But I think I got the better deal with you.”

Liall chuckled and pulled Scarlet carefully to lie against his chest. He pressed his nose into Scarlet’s hair to inhale the scent of him. “You do? I’m flattered,” he said, his voice muffled. “That’s as close as you’ve ever gotten to true praise for your king.”

“You ent my king.”

“Aren’t. Are not.” Liall pulled back and tilted Scarlet’s chin up to him. He brushed his lips searchingly over Scarlet’s smooth and hairless cheek, careful of the bruises.

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

He found Scarlet’s mouth and there was no more talking for a while.

***

T
he hour came while Scarlet was still curled warm around him. A hand shook Liall’s shoulder, and he squinted and cursed until he saw it was Nenos.

Liall sighed. “Oh... yes. It’s today, isn’t it?”

Nenos bowed. “Yes, lord,” he whispered, always careful not to disturb Scarlet, who woke anyway. “Your bath is waiting.”

Scarlet rolled over and flapped a hand at Liall. “Go,” he muttered, pulling the blankets over his head.

Liall got up, stretched, and padded naked to the door.

“Robe,” Scarlet called, muffled under the covers.

Nenos offered a heavy robe and Liall wrapped it awkwardly around his waist, holding it up with his hands. If Scarlet could make the effort to learn Rshani customs, Liall could keep some of the Hilurin ones. In Scarlet’s village, there was a place for nudity and with very few exceptions that place was either the bed or the washing tub.

They had both made enough compromises for each other to know which customs were negotiable and which were not. This one was not.

Chos waited kneeling by the sunken bath, stripped to the waist and nearly obscured by a cloud of steam. He bowed his neck when Liall entered. “Good morning, my lord. I hope you slept well?”

A sharp scent infused the chamber as the cedar panels lining the walls bled their aroma. Still groggy, Liall grunted a reply, let the robe fall, and stepped down into the water. He lowered himself to the waist in the great marble basin and splashed his face before feeling for a seat on the submerged bench. Chos took up the soap and a rough cloth and reached for his shoulders.

When his back was scrubbed clean, Liall thanked Chos and dismissed him.

“Are you sure, my lord? Who will shave you?”

He scraped his hair back from his forehead, feeling the stubble on his chin. “Nenos can do that. Go along, boy, I can manage.”

Chos had a round face (
like a full moon
, Scarlet had remarked) and a thin mouth that suddenly pinched in disagreement. “But your bath is not finished, sire.”

“I’ll finish it on my own.” Liall stared at the servant when he did not leave. “Am I unaware of some problem?”

Chos bent his neck again. “Of course not. Please excuse me, my lord.” He got to his feet and made a hasty exit.

Now what was that about?
There were twenty attendants assigned to the wing, efficient shadows who made every aspect of his personal household from meals to laundry seem effortless. Nenos had selected Chos and three other attendants from their old apartments. Of them all, Chos was the least qualified and the most conspicuous about simply
being
there.

It was not that Chos was ill-mannered. Quite the opposite, really. He was too courteous, too eager to draw attention to his presence. If he aspired to become a retainer, he would have to learn that his place was not at the center of the room, but in the background.

Nenos was responsible for Chos’s training, which the young man would need if he wanted the freedom to decide where he would be employed and for how much. Many times Liall had overheard Nenos quietly instructing him in table settings, household manners, linens and silver, how to deftly turn away a caller from the door; skills that could be parlayed into a valuable position with a noble house. He wondered if Nenos had some attachment to Chos, or if they were kinsmen. That would explain much.

“I have other problems than the moods of silly servant boys,” he muttered, and dunked his head under the water.

***

W
hen he was dried, shaven, and laced into a plain virca, he sent for Alexyin.

“I hope I’m doing the right thing,” Liall said.

Alexyin held the door open for him. “So do I, my lord.”

They began the long walk to the great hall. Save for the guards posted at intervals along the corridors, they were alone.

Alexyin glanced pointedly at Liall’s necklace. “Two common coins? An odd token for a ruler to wear,” he remarked.

Liall’s necklace was a length of leather cord holding a pair of copper coins with a square hole stamped in the middle of each. He tucked it away into the collar of his virca. “It’s not a token, but a reminder.”

“What does my king need reminding of?”

That my pride is a blindness,
he thought. But that would take too much explanation and it was not a memory he wanted to share. Scarlet had given him the coins as toll to travel the mountain road where they met. Liall kept them as a symbol of everything that had happened after that meeting and everything he had learned from it, mostly from Scarlet. The humble necklace was now one of his most precious possessions.