The Red King (9 page)

“I am.” Andrew said these words,
cautiously.

“We’ll see.” The captain strode away, boot
heels loud on the deck.

Malik caught Andrew’s eye. “Oh, Coinin, that
was not news I would have had you deliver.”

“I didn’t want to, either, but it had to be
done, Malik,” Andrew answered, sadly. “Why do you keep on?” he
asked, indicating that none of the men had stopped rowing.

“We won’t stop until the captain tells us. If
he says we man the sweeps until we crash into Tunis, we oblige,”
Jack said. He had tears on his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Andrew told him, told them all.
He swept their faces, each of them. “He was a good man and I wish
it had not happened.”

“You should pray,” one of them said.

“Aye.”

“A prayer.”

Andrew wanted to deny them. How could he pray
for Fleming, when he would no longer pray for himself?

“Please, Andrew. It would help us all. You,
as well,” Malik said. He nodded wisely when Andrew put one hand on
his shoulder.

“Malik, what was his first name?” Andrew
whispered.

The big man chuckled. “Charles, after our
King. He wouldn’t use it after the fool lost his head.”

Andrew took a deep breath and spoke, in
English, forsaking the Latin so that the weight of the words would
be easily understood by everyone.

“We lift up your servant, Charles Fleming, o
Lord. May Angels lead you into paradise; may the Martyrs receive
you at your coming, and lead you to the holy city of Jerusalem. May
a choir of Angels receive you, and may you have eternal rest.”

“Spare us your paradise, your eternal rest,”
Rory growled, returning to the deck. He closed in on Andrew who
warily watched his approach, but did not move.

“Tread carefully, Coinin. This one cut deep,”
Malik told him softly.

Andrew took the warning seriously. “The
prayers offer comfort to the living, Captain,” he said, gentle,
soothing. “I mean no disrespect.”

Rory loomed over him then, but he did not
retreat. He did clutch at Malik’s shoulder, an impulse he could not
control in the face of Rory’s anger.

“Captain, should we continue on, or go about
repairs?” Malik interrupted, not looking up at them. He kept his
pace and his voice steady.

Teeth clenching, Rory took a step back and
looked around him. Andrew noticed that none of the men raised their
heads from their sweeps. Not one wished to face his wrath. After a
moment, he called, “Pull the sweeps! I want her clear for
running!”

The men stopped rowing all at once. They
pulled in the oars with perfect unison and stood to stow them along
the rail. Andrew made leave to get out of the way, but Rory grabbed
his arm. “You, follow me.”

Malik watched them go, his face grave and
concerned. Andrew tried to send him a consoling smile but Rory
pulled him along, ignoring his stumble. Rory’s fingers bit into his
arm when he fell into the man’s side. He was dragged to the
captain’s cabin and flung down into one of the sturdy wooden
chairs.

“Stay here,” Rory snarled, shaking him
brusquely before leaving the room.

Andrew rubbed his arm, frowning at the table
top and wondering why this anger was cast at him. His mind supplied
memory, then, of the few times he had gone with Father Armand into
the village to tend to the dead or dying. He remembered the soft
drone of his voice as he comforted the ones who were left, audible
beneath the raving of sad and bitter men or the wails of mothers
who lost their children. It was this that Andrew clung to as he sat
there, waiting.

Rory returned, throwing the bar across the
hatch loudly. Andrew did not turn; instead he sat calmly and
waited. He heard the slow heavy fall of Rory’s steps and the slosh
of liquid in a jug.

Rory’s eyes were hard with fury and pain. He
met this calmly. He could face this anger.

Rory spoke. “He was alive when I left him. He
was still talking, laughing.”

“Yes.”

“Then how did he die?”

“Bleeding.”

“Why didn’t you get the wound packed?”

“He was already weakened before he was
brought below. Cook did what he could, but the wound could not be
closed. Even if it had been stitched, it would have only delayed
what was to come.” Andrew kept the soothing tone as he spoke,
remembering the way his mentor had helped those grieving ride out
their pain.

“You don’t know that,” Rory snarled.

“His lips were blue and his hands were
growing cold, Captain. The damage was done,” Andrew responded. It
was more difficult than he’d imagined, accepting the blame, but he
restrained more impassioned denials. The anger was usually only
temporary, but was necessary for the grieving to move past the
initial pain.

“It would have been better had he died on the
deck, sword in hand. Not below in the shadows, tended by a useless
catamite.”

The word was not unknown to Andrew. He paled
at the reference.

“I’m a fool. I’ve been blinded…by your lips,
your eyes. I should have seen what you are from the start. You’re a
priest; a curse and a symbol of death and dying.” Rory stood then
and circled him, stopping at his back. “Had I let you burn on that
Saracen schooner, Fleming might still be here.”

Andrew closed his eyes. The words rallied his
own pain, brought back the miserable longing for his home, and
compounded his sadness. “I was not a priest. I
am not
a
priest.”

Leaning over, trapping him between arms and
table, Rory said in his ear, “No, you were the kept pet of a
cloister of aging pederasts.”

The slur against his family he could not
stomach. “Enough!” Andrew cried, pushing back from the table. He
stood and turned to face Rory, his own eyes blazing. “I will bear
your anger if it will bring you comfort, but you will not speak in
this manner of the men who raised me with love and honor! They did
you no injustice, no harm at all! They did no harm to anyone and
you debase only yourself by insulting their memories!”

“They did me no good, either, if they
couldn’t even teach you how to tend a bleeding wound!” Rory stepped
closer but Andrew stood fast.

“There was nothing to be done for him!
Nothing save retreating from that ship before the damage was
done!”

“I do not retreat!”

It was on the tip of Andrew’s tongue to tell
him that was his mistake, but he resisted. He was here to help, not
harm. “It would have saved him. That is all I can say to you.”

Rory raised his fist high, his eyes blazing
with anger and hurt.

Andrew lifted his chin. “Do it, if it will
bring you comfort,” he repeated, meeting the man’s furious gaze
with quiet, if hard won, calm.

He watched the wrath fade from Rory’s eyes
and grief fill the space within. “There is no comfort,” Rory said,
lowering his arm.

“You can take solace in the fact that he
loved you. You were in his last thoughts, your welfare, your
happiness,” Andrew told him. He was weak with gratitude that the
blow had not struck and sagged against the table behind him.

“Thoughts of me…” Rory laughed under his
breath. It was a bitter, unhappy sound. He righted the chair and
took the jug of rum. When he had two healthy swallows in him, he
turned once more to Andrew. “What were they, then? Tell me.”

Andrew recounted Fleming’s last words. “That
you inspire people to follow you, to remain loyal regardless of
their circumstances or the outcome of those loyalties. That you
were his friend, his brother, and his savior.” He waited while Rory
took another mouthful of rum. “And his lover, for a time.”

Rory ran his hand over his face, swiping at
his eyes. “He would have told you that. Damn it.”

“He didn’t say it, at first. I inferred it
from his words and he confirmed.” Andrew was deeply disturbed to
see him weeping. It made him want to commiserate, but he was the
one who needed to be calm. “He said that he couldn’t give you what
you needed. He called you broken, but not destroyed, and said that
you needed a strong hand to keep your pieces together.”

Rory’s shoulders shook but he made no sound.
Andrew longed to stroke his hair, to wipe the tears from his face.
“Did he happen to mention that while I found great pleasure in his
form and face, I could never give him what he wanted? That I am too
damaged to return his feelings?” Rory asked, eyes on the floor.
“There is the true tragedy in his story…that I did not, could not,
give him the same joy.”

His misery compelled Andrew to go to him, to
kneel beside his chair. “He did not regret it, even at his last
breath,” he said. Andrew wanted to touch him but was so unsure,
hesitant to do it wrong and only add to his sorrow. His hands were
raised halfway to Rory’s knees but he lowered them in
indecision.

“Go away.”

“I know that you loved him…love him still.
Perhaps not as he would have wanted, but your loss is just as
grievous,” Andrew whispered, edging closer.

“Leave me,” Rory said, his face hidden behind
his hair. It did not disguise the thickness in his voice.

“No,” Andrew heard himself say, unbidden. “I
would try to…ease your burden, if you will allow it.”

As astonished as he was to hear himself say
those words, Rory must have been doubly so. He turned to Andrew,
unashamed of his own tears. “You don’t know what you are
offering.”

Andrew was flushed, trembling, but he said
with no hesitation, “I do, some.” He reached out to put a gentle
hand on Rory’s knee.

Rory shook his head but did not brush his
hand aside. “It would be too easy to hurt you, Andrew. I’m not
wholly myself, at the present.”

“You will not.”

“You don’t want this now, Andrew.” Their eyes
met and held.

Andrew made his decision, moving in to press
his mouth to Rory’s. It was a mostly chaste kiss, the merest
parting of lips and mingling of breath. “Yes, God yes, I do,” he
whispered, his hand moving up to touch the man’s jaw.

Rory hesitated, eyes on Andrew’s lips as his
tongue darted out to wet them. Then he was crushed, held so tightly
to Rory’s chest that his breath left him. They kissed with equal
passion. Andrew was as hungry as the man could ever wish. He
tangled his fingers into Rory’s hair, loving the texture, the way
it knotted and clung as if it were alive.

Rory rose to kick the chair away and yank
Andrew’s shirt over his head. Kneeling, he drew them back together.
They moaned as one as their bare skin met and Andrew held on as he
was lowered to the floor. He was trapped between the deck and the
man above him, overwhelmed by heat and weight and desperate want.
Their hips were pressed tightly together and every shudder, every
breath would cause them to shift. It was maddening.

He was arching up into Rory, seeking more
pressure, more friction. Rory rose to his knees again, one hand
holding Andrew steady by pressing on his stomach, the other deftly
unstrapping his belt. The oversized britches were stripped from
him, exposing Andrew’s…
my cock
, Andrew thought, at last,
acknowledging the word in his mind. When Rory’s fingers closed
around it, rough palm playing over the head, he gasped. One hard
tug and he froze, breath caught in his throat as he spilled over
Rory’s hand. He lay panting, dazed by the sudden release. He felt
Rory swipe at the cooling mess on his stomach and opened his
eyes.

One of his knees was lifted, pushed up to his
chest. Rory’s other hand disappeared beneath him and he jerked when
fingertips stroked down between his cheeks. They circled that hole,
the place Acklie had breached, that had hurt and burned with the
invasion. Rory did not press in, only rubbed and kneaded until he
felt Andrew ease. When two fingers entered him he gasped, arching
up but fighting the instinct to pull away. Rory groaned as he
pushed further, twisting and prodding so deep Andrew thought he
would draw out his heart.

“Oh! Oh, God, I…” Andrew cried, eyes
clenching shut.

Rory removed his fingers and released his
leg, placing his palm on Andrew’s stomach once more. “Stay easy,
keep your eyes closed.”

There was movement above him; Rory leaned
across to open one of the drawers beneath his bed, slamming it shut
almost immediately. He heard the rustle of fabric, the thud and
jangle of Rory’s belt dropping on the deck. Then his legs were
lifted and parted, and Rory’s bare knees slid up to cradle his
hips.

“Rory?” he called.

“Shhh…stay easy.”

It was hard to do; the feel of something wet
and cool drizzling onto his hole startled him and return of those
fingers caused him to cry out. They pushed in, pulled out and in
again, easier now with oil coating them. When Rory grabbed his knee
to push it farther up, he cracked his eyes to look at the man’s
face.

He almost wished he hadn’t, but now he could
not look away. Rory’s gaze was cast down to where his fingers
breached him, dark and dangerous and so hungry. Rory removed his
hand and leaned forward, his mouth falling open as he pushed and
pushed until Andrew screamed.

The pain was white hot. It stole Andrew’s
breath, broke his composure, and tears ran down his temples into
his hair. It did not end, either, but moved onward, upward, until
he felt Rory’s hips against him. He bit his lip, hard, harder
still, desperately seeking another point of focus. Swallowing his
cries only made them more pitiful, whining and keening until he
felt Rory touch his chin.

The man tugged there until he released his
trembling lip. Then he leaned down, bending Andrew at the waist and
drawing out another startled sob. “Breathe, shhh,” Rory whispered,
his mouth brushing Andrew’s. “I will make it quick.” And he
moved.

Andrew shoved his fist into his mouth to
stifle his wail. Rory pulled it away and kissed him, thrusting into
him slow and steady, despite his promise. Andrew concentrated on
the tremor in Rory’s arms, the flex of his thighs and stomach, and
the kiss that went on and on. It worked, at last; their presence
distracted him. The burn and stretch from Rory’s penetration
lessened to a degree and his body responded by loosening
incrementally.