The King's Whisper

by T. S. Cleveland

  “Stop pulling my hair, pest,” Dot spat. “I have work to do.”

  Selon sighed and dropped his braid. “I’m bored. I wanted to go on the raid today.”

  “You’re on restriction.”

  She rolled her eyes. They were smudged again in an outline of charcoal. Torsten’s had been smudged, as well. The only bandit Felix had seen without the smudges was Dot, and he assumed it had something to do with not getting his spectacles grimy.

  “Last time was an accident and King knows it,” Selon griped.

  “King knows it, and when he takes your restriction off, you’ll know it better.”

  “Ugh.” Selon pulled on Dot’s hair one last time and glared at Felix before she walked away.

  When she was out of earshot, Felix spoke. “She’s on restriction? For what?”

  Dot scrubbed at the bottom of a pot. “If you break one of King’s rules, you go on restriction.”

  Felix hummed thoughtfully. He hadn’t thought bandits had rules, and he definitely hadn’t thought there were punishments for breaking them. “Is that why you’re the cook? Are you on restriction, too?”

  “No,” Dot chuckled. “I’m just better with a frying pan than a bow and arrow.”

  Torsten was gone most of the day, during which time Felix helped Dot prepare both lunch and dinner. Apparently, cooking for a camp full of bandits was an all-day chore, and one that Dot seemed both annoyed and thrilled to be doing. He made Felix chop up carrots and peel onions, and when he was finished with that, Dot had him rekindle the fire for the cooking pot. By the end of the day, when the sun had fallen and supper was about to be served, Felix was sweating in his heavy layer of fur. He removed his thick pelt and set it on a rock behind him. He pushed the curls from his eyes and started helping Dot ladle soup into bowls for a lineup of hungry bandits. When the last of them had been served—Dot and himself—Torsten and the others returned to camp.

  Felix busied himself with his soup, glancing over at Torsten only to check whether or not he was covered in the blood of innocents. He didn’t seem to be, and neither did his companions, but Felix was still suspicious.

  After their horses had been seen after, Torsten stalked towards the cook fire with a disarming smile on his face, and Felix nearly spilled soup all over himself at the sight of it.

  “Haven’t seen a smile like that since the grain barrels last month,” Dot said, fixing another bowl of soup and passing it to the king.

  Torsten accepted it, still smiling, and when his eyes landed briefly on Felix, instead of fading away, it appeared to grow sharper. His teeth were a bothersome white, but his two front teeth were slightly more prominent than the rest, enough to keep his smile from being inhumanly perfect. Felix looked down into his soup, where it was safer.

  “Everyone,” Torsten announced, walking his soup bowl out to the middle of the dining circle. His bandits answered with knocking spoons and whistles. “We were right about the routes.” Cheers rang out. “We arrived just in time and were able to stop the delivery.” More cheers. “Tomorrow, the Royal Quarter will be short two wagons, and we will be rich with fresh fruit.”

  Felix looked over at Dot in confusion. “Fruit bandits?” he asked uncertainly. Dot ignored him in order to bang his ladle on the pot.

  “Where’s the haul, King?” someone yelled out.

  “It was too much to carry back all in one night,” Torsten replied, his smile holding firm. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Tomorrow, I’ll send a team out to collect the crates. But for now,” he reached into his pocket and withdrew an apple, tossing it to the inquiring bandit, “we brought back enough for dessert. Jossy!”

  Jossy, whose black bandana was slung around his neck and whose swollen nose had gone down considerably over the course of the day, stepped into the light of the fire, dragging a burlap sack behind him. He opened it up and started throwing out shiny green apples, caught happily by cheery-faced bandits. It was the strangest sight Felix had ever seen. Well, not the strangest—he had recently witnessed an elemental battle—but it was definitely weird. He had expected Torsten to return with blood smears and treasure chests, maybe the heads of his victims to use as decorations, but instead he was passing out fruit.

  He started when someone touched his shoulder. When he turned around, Torsten was standing there, holding out an apple in one hand and Felix’s fur pelt in the other. He didn’t speak, but his stern furrow of eyebrows was all the communication necessary. Felix put the pelt back over his shoulders and accepted the apple, careful not to let their fingers touch. They’d touched enough for one day already.

  “Would you like a song?” he asked, trying not to look too forlornly at the last of his soup, which wouldn’t stay hot forever.

  Torsten considered him a moment. “Not now,” he decided. “Eat your dinner.”

  Felix nodded, taking up his soup and sitting beside Dot, next to the serving pot.

  “Today was a success,” Torsten said, his voice raised for everyone to hear, “and tomorrow will be for celebrating.”

  The bandits whooped and hollered, and Torsten found a place to sit between Selon and Harold, smiling even as he made his way through his bowl of soup. For a king, he didn’t appear to be much removed from his subjects. Though he had a dais on which to sit above the rest, Felix had only seen him occupy its chair a single time, and he was beginning to wonder if that was solely for the benefit of intimidating a new prisoner. Queen Bellamy kept herself at a distance from her subjects, or so Felix had come to surmise from his scant time with her, but then, her behavior could hardly be compared to the nature of a bandit king, an idea that still boggled Felix’s mind. How was a bandit king appointed? Was there a yearly summit, wherein the handsomest bandit with the prettiest eyes and best facial hair was voted in as ruler of all bandits? Was it an honor passed down through blood? Torsten, beneath the charcoal and furs, did have a finely shaped brow, almost as if it was meant for a crown to rest upon. So why did the King of Bandits wear no crown? Surely they could have stolen one by now. Or made one out of sticks.

  Felix was lost in thought, done with his dinner and mindlessly crunching on his apple, when the crownless king appeared at his side. “You’ll sleep in my tent tonight, Flautist,” he said, handing his empty bowl back to Dot. “Are you finished yet?”

  Felix nearly choked on his bite of apple. “I’m eating my apple,” he answered blankly, staring up at Torsten’s smirking face. Had his stubble gotten thicker during the last half hour or was it his imagination?

  “Come to my tent when you’re done,” Torsten said, and then, more loudly, “Rest up tonight, my friends! Tomorrow, we’ve important work to do, and a reason to celebrate.” Applause followed him all the way to his tent, and so did Felix’s eyes.

  He clutched the apple, his appetite gone. Torsten wanted him in his tent. To spend the night. He thought he might be sick. It had been a fear since first being dragged into the bandit camp. One did not spend their life singing songs of ravaging bandits and not gain a fear of being savagely ravaged

  He lingered by the cook fire as long as he could, munching mechanically through his apple, swallowing down bites through the thickness growing in his throat. His options were depressingly limited. He could try to run, with a camp full of bandits present to chase him down. He could go to Torsten’s tent and try to kill him, gouge his eyes out or do something else equally horrible that Audrey would approve of, but at which he would most likely fail. Or he could go to Torsten and let the man do what he liked, hope that he would be kind enough to not do him much damage, and then bide his time until he could escape.

  In the stories, sometimes the fearless captive slit their own throat rather than lie with the evil bandit, but to Felix, that was the worst option. The last thing he wanted was to die, and so, when his apple started to turn brown, he tossed it into the fire and stood. There were a few snickers and catcalls as he made his way towards Torsten’s tent, but he refused to acknowledge them.

  He pus
hed thoughts of Merric out of his mind as he collected himself outside the tent. Merric would never have been caught in such a situation. He was too noble, too good to allow such a violation. He would have been the maiden that slit her throat. But Merric was dead, and Felix wasn’t, and he was determined to stay that way. With a bracing breath, he entered the tent.

  Torsten was already prepared for sleep, his boots removed and the pelt around his shoulders strewn across the crate beside the pallet. He was settling on his pile of blanket, and looked up at Felix with tired eyes, eyes he’d not revealed to the bandits outside. His smile was gone, as well, and all that remained of him was exhaustion.

  “Flautist,” he greeted, rubbing a hand across his eyes. “Remove your shoes and pelt.”

  Felix inhaled, panic stinging his lungs, but he made himself slip out of the fur. He stepped out of his shoes and set them out of the way, against the tent wall, beside Torsten’s. His shoes were so dainty compared to the bandit king’s, whose boots were tattered and covered in a coat of dried mud.

  “And your satchel.”

  Felix paused, his hand on the strap of his bag. “D-don’t you want me to play you a song first?” he asked, but Torsten shook his head.

  “Take your satchel off and come here.”

  Trembling with nerves, hot apprehension building in the pit of his stomach, Felix removed his satchel and set it beside his shoes. He approached Torsten slowly. The bed of fur blankets was wide enough for two, but just barely. He hovered for several uncomfortable seconds, but at the questioning rise of Torsten’s eyebrows, he sank to his knees.

  Torsten was lying on his back, his arms folded behind his head. He looked away when Felix joined him, leaving him to flounder awkwardly on his knees, half on the pallet, and half on the cold ground.

  “You sing,” Torsten said, after a stretch of pained silence. At least, it was pained for Felix. Torsten looked numb to all the emotions of the universe, all his joy from the apples driven away.

  “I do,” Felix answered slowly, his fingers winding into the soft furs beneath him.

  Torsten exhaled heavily, staring at the roof of the tent, as if something of interest was hidden there. Felix had never before seen him without the plush black pelt he wore constantly around his shoulders, and now his eyes were forced to snag over the details of the body he hadn’t yet seen: slim waist, broad chest, muscular arms that bulged beneath the stitches of his patchwork shirt.

  “Sing me a song, Flautist,” Torsten ordered.

  Felix cleared his throat, sincerely disturbed by the intimacy of sitting on a bed of furs with a bandit king, preparing to sing him what amounted to a lullaby. Was it a build-up to something more? Did Torsten have a peculiar, special interest in being sung to by kidnapped flautists? Gods, was this some sort of musical foreplay?

  When Felix did not follow his instructions right away, too preoccupied with his flurry of worries to comply, Torsten glanced over at him, his frown deepening. “Is there a problem?”

  “N-no,” Felix stammered, shifting on the pallet and wringing his hands in his lap. “Did you have anything specific in mind? That you’d like for me to sing?”

  Torsten sighed with an edge of long-suffering annoyance, as if they had the same conversation every night before bed. “A song for sleeping.” He said it with an obnoxious lilt, like it was obvious, like his flautist of little more than a day should know exactly the song he wanted.

  Felix felt himself sharpen, felt the anger he’d only ever felt around this particular bandit boil in his chest, surge up his throat, and leap from his tongue. “Pardon me,” he said, “but do you mean a song for sleeping or a song for sleeping with you? I don’t understand.”

  A pause, and then, “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve kept me as your prisoner, haven’t you? And now you’ve brought me to your bed,” Felix continued bitterly, his heart in his throat. “I can only presume I’m here in your tent to get you to sleep by getting you off. Be plain with me, please.”

  Torsten sat up at once, his face twisted in disgust. Now that he wasn’t lying down, Felix felt they were entirely too close to one another. He tried to scoot back on his knees, but Torsten caught him by the elbow. His grip was tight. “Let me be plain with you, then,” he rumbled. “I’m tired. I’d like to hear you sing, and then I’d like to go to sleep. You will share half of my bed, because you’re no use to me frozen solid, but you will keep your hands to yourself.” He released him and sank back into the pallet. “Do you understand me, Flautist?”

  Felix swallowed hard, relief swamping his nerves. Torsten didn’t want to sleep with him, at least not for now. “I understand,” he answered, nodding enthusiastically.

  “Good,” Torsten said. “Now, please, a song, for sleep and sleep alone.”

  With his worries temporarily assuaged, Felix was able to think up a song with which to lull Torsten into sleep. He knew many—too many, perhaps—but in the end, he settled for a classic. In a soft voice, with a tone meant for calming horses and comforting guardian apprentices with injured legs, he began to sing.

  Torsten never let his eyes close for long, but Felix could feel the tension leaving him slowly as he sang. He could see it disappearing, the tight line of his shoulders relaxing and the firm frown of his lips gentling. After the final chorus, when the song was over and the silence was deafening, he rolled to his side, his back to Felix.

  “Blow out the candle and lie down,” he said, his voice soft and sleepy.

  Felix leaned over to blow out the tiny flame that rested on the bedside crate, and then it was dark within the tent. He could see the glow of the fires still burning outside, but it was hardly enough light for him to properly judge where he was going. Torsten grunted unhappily when he climbed back onto the fur blankets and shoved an elbow into a mysterious body part.

  “I’m sorry!” Felix yelped, hesitating to lie down, afraid he might poke the man again and be sentenced to death, or made to sleep outside on the ground again. He didn’t know if he’d survive another night in the cold.

  Torsten scooted over more, and then he lifted up a blanket. Felix stared at the offering in confusion, until Torsten gave the blanket a shake and ordered, “Get warm.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” Felix responded hurriedly, slipping under the blanket and lying down, trying to keep from touching his volatile bed partner. Gods, it was wonderfully hot under the blankets. Torsten was as warm as a Fire. “Are you … not going to chain me up?”

  “I don’t want cold metal in my bed,” Torsten answered wearily. “Don’t make tonight’s patrol tell me you tried to run away in the morning, Flautist. I promise you won’t make it far in these woods.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Felix assured him as he burrowed deeper under the fur blankets. He was warm and comfortable, and terrified of the man resting barely an inch away from him.

  But he wasn’t lying. He had no intention of trying to escape that night. Tomorrow night, however, was a completely different matter.

  5 - Shallow Wounds

  Before the sun had risen, Felix opened his eyes. Torsten was already up. He watched silently as the bandit fastened his pelt around his shoulders and slipped on his boots. There were freshly applied smudges around his eyes, black and thick. Torsten glanced down at him as he pulled his black bandana up to cover his mouth and nose. “I’ll be gone today, but don’t think for a moment you’re not being watched by every bandit in this camp,” he said, and then, without another word, he left.

  Felix woke again, later in the morning, to the smell of crackling meat wafting into the tent. He was comfortable enough that it took him several minutes to muster the will to move, but he found the strength eventually, stepping into his shoes, slipping on his pelt, and heading outside. He followed the tantalizing smell to the cook fire, where Dot was passing out breakfast. It seemed Felix was the last in the camp to rise.

  “Long night?” Selon asked, appearing at his side. She was wearing her black bandana in her hair, pushing the r
usty spirals from her face. “Did King keep you up?”

  “Still on restriction?” Felix responded, cutting her the only way he knew how. Looking around the camp, he saw that Harold had not been chosen for Torsten’s mission either, but Jossy was gone, along with a handful of other bandits whose names he didn’t know.

  Dot hit Selon with his stirring spoon. “You have chores,” he scolded. “King will be mad if he gets back and they’re not done.”

  Selon glared at the cook, and then gave his braid a pull. Dot hit her again with the spoon, so she turned her attention back to Felix. “You let me know if you ever want to swap chores,” she said with a laugh. “I reckon yours are far more enjoyable than mine.”

  Felix watched her saunter off across camp, glaring at her back until a plate was placed in his hands and his attention was thusly diverted. Several bandits stared at him while he attempted to eat inconspicuously, and he could only imagine what they were thinking. Everyone had seen him go into Torsten’s tent the night before, and everyone had watched him stumble back out of it. He would have drawn the same conclusions as Selon, were he a nosy bandit. It was fortunate, at least, that Torsten himself was already gone from the camp, sparing Felix another set of curious eyes that watched his every move.

  Unfortunately, it quickly became evident that, with Torsten gone, Felix was doomed to boredom. Dot allowed him to hang around like he had the day before, let him clean out the used bowls and help prep for supper, but without being summoned to play his flute on a regular basis, he was restless. He wondered why none of the other bandits were requesting his talent, and decided that perhaps Torsten was the only one allowed to ask him to perform. Whatever the reason, he resented it. He was good at a very few things, and though he tried his best to assist Dot, handling knives and peeling potatoes were not among his brag-worthy skills.

  Only when he overheard a few bandits talking about the evening’s festivities did he remember there was to be a celebration of some kind that night to honor the success of yesterday’s raid. Torsten and the others would be returning soon, bearing crates of fresh fruit, and he began to wonder what a celebration among bandits might entail. They had been tame enough so far, but a celebration would doubtlessly bring out their feral side, and he disliked the notion of a camp full of drunken miscreants, especially when he was stuck acting as their entertainment.