He was apparently now engaged in trying to get a servant to refresh his wine. When he had succeeded in his aim, he took a long swallow of the blood-red liquid and turned once more to me. “It is fortunate that you do not know the identity of the man, Nikolai, is it not?”
“Why, sir?”
“Because then you would be in some jeopardy. He might fear that you would use this discovery to your advantage.”
I swallowed deeply and turned back to my own wine for a moment, taking the time to drink slowly, thinking. Finally I said abruptly, “I would never do that.”
He had noticed his bleeding hand and was dabbing it with his clean napkin. “Many men would.”
“I am not many men.”
He nodded. “No, you are not, Nikolai. You are not indeed.” He slid his hand onto my thigh. I was as shocked as if he’d turned, there and then in front of everyone, and kissed me. But shock was not my only emotion. There was desire too. It sickened me. His hand began to move slowly up my leg. The warmth was indescribable. I swelled and stretched to reach it but did not need to as he found me. I swallowed deeply, then glanced down. His palm had left a smear of red upon the cloth. I was marked by this sin as surely as if I had initiated it.
I jerked my leg away, felt sweat upon my brow.
He chuckled. “You have yet to learn, Nikolai, how powerful friends can help you.”
“I do not think I would like your kind of help.” My voice was not steady.
I heard a low laugh. “I can assure you that you would. Come, Niko—may I call you Niko? We both know what we want. I can guarantee you complete discretion. I think you would find it very pleasurable. I know I would.” I rose from the table, but his hand shot out and pulled me back to sitting. “You do not leave a prince, Doctor. Questions would be asked. Sit down and enjoy the entertainment. You are a sad disappointment.” With that he waved to the servant and proceeded to get very drunk indeed.
My heart was racing. I felt slightly nauseous. I closed my eyes and pictured the scene. Not my room, for sure, with Aleksey next door. The garden? The stables perhaps? There would be no need for words or tender revelations. It would be a transaction of need. I would bend him over and take. It was revolting and yet made my head spin with desire at the same time. I was the starving man offered meat—rancid meat, but sustenance all the same. What choice was left me? What choice was left any man like me? I wanted what all men want, to love openly and joyously, but this was denied me. I felt a strange sensation in my chin. I swallowed desperately, about to disgrace myself with tears. Was this what my life was going to consist of—unwelcome advances from disgusting men accepted to alleviate extreme and painful loneliness? I wasn’t a saint. I needed something, anything, just to feel alive and wanted, if only for a transient, illusory moment.
The entertainment had begun: dwarfs riding pigs, men dressed as women and women as men. The music and heat and stench of the food and people were intolerable. I debated rising again and leaving, facing the consequences of my actions the following morning. But then I felt a hand on my arm. I looked up into Aleksey’s pale face. He leaned in between us and unexpectedly turned to his uncle and kissed him lightly and playfully on the cheek. John preened, delighted, charmed. Who would not be? Aleksey stroked the back of his uncle’s neck with his thumb.
“I have to steal your dining companion, sir. There has been an accident in the kitchen, and his little fool of a page has been burned.”
I stood up immediately. “Is it bad?”
Aleksey tapped my arm with an affected air. “We do not know. That is why we need you, Doctor. Uncle”—he pouted coquettishly—“may I have him?”
John laughed and took the opportunity to place a hand on Aleksey’s backside. “Take him, nephew; he is a great disappointment to me.”
Aleksey chuckled, bent and kissed him again, then took my arm and virtually dragged me away.
We hit the cold night air; he turned and hit me. I reeled back, a hand to my cheek over the burning slap. “What was that for? Where’s Stephen?”
“Stephen is tucked up in bed where all good babies should be. What the bloody hell, Niko? Are you a complete fool?”
“What? Have you gone mad?”
“Why do you have to be so bloody…?” He waved his hands around, as if trying to pluck the description of what I was from the cold night air. He turned, exasperated either with his lack of fluency or me, and began to pace away. Then he spun back and jabbed a finger into my chest. “Stubborn. Stiff. Proper. Obstinate. Inflexible.” He switched to German and added a few more synonyms.
I was furious. Outraged. I flung him a list of words too.
He cut me off and seized the lapels of my shirt. “You sat there and angered one of the most powerful men in this kingdom for the sake of your propriety. Your modesty.”
“What! What the hell are you talking about? What was I supposed to do? He wanted to…. He tried to….” I could not say what he had tried to do. It said as much about me as about John. He had picked me to proposition. That was no coincidence.
Aleksey obviously understood my hesitancy. He pushed me off with an exasperated sigh. “Oh, Niko, he tries it on with everyone. You should have played along and laughed, enjoyed the evening, and left. He would not even remember in the morning. He never does. Now he will remember you, though. You have insulted him in the worst possible way.”
I saw my error, my terrible mistake. John had not deliberately picked me, but my own inclinations had led me to understand more than he had intended from his advances and be disgusted. Another man would be… confused? Amused? Another man would join in the ridiculousness and forget about it in the morning.
Angry with myself, I took it out on Aleksey. “I prefer insulting him to your whorish way with him. You practically lowered your head to his lap and—” This I could not finish. It would betray me entirely if he were to realize I knew such things. “I’m sorry. You were only trying to help.” I bowed and began to walk away.
He caught me up and walked alongside me. Finally he sighed deeply and commented in a quiet voice, “It is still early. Don’t return to your rooms so bitter, Niko. Come….” He did that tiny pinch of my sleeve thing again.
I couldn’t stay cross with him. It was beyond my power. I followed him.
CHAPTER 12
I HAD never been in an army barracks before. I had imagined they would be places of regimented order and discipline. Not so—or not that night anyway. Aleksey’s arrival was greeted with glee. We interrupted the celebratory party in one of the messes, the sergeants below the salt, according to Aleksey, which meant nothing to me. I had thought relations between officers and soldiers to be very strict and formal. Again, how wrong I was. They called him sir, to be sure, but other than that, they were extremely free and easy with him and he with them. The party was well underway when we arrived.
The men treated me with great interest, firstly for being foreign and talking funny (their words not mine), and secondly because I was a quack (again, their word). Of course, then I was presented with a stream of complaints and ailments and one or two actual boils and burns and breaks to inspect. The drink flowed very freely indeed, and it wasn’t long before I was inspecting things in places one shouldn’t when drunk, but everyone found it extremely funny. We played billiards for a while, and then cards, and then it got really wild. We played strange games of physical prowess, which seemed to have no aim except for damaging someone as badly as you could and not injuring yourself in the process. Easy rules, then. At one point I think we went outside to a courtyard, and I was given a lesson in sword fighting.
My demonstration of knife fighting was the most popular lesson of the evening, though. They had all thought themselves pretty good with knives until they met me. And I was holding back: I didn’t actually scalp anyone. Where was Aleksey in all this? He was right there by my side the whole night, drinking, laughing, bleeding, and not once did I feel lonely, sad, or longing for something I could not have. That night I had
everything. Well, almost. But drunk and happy, the ache went away for a while. I told myself I had it all.
It was a slightly different story the next morning. I woke wondering if someone had poisoned me. I turned over, vomited, and then realized I was in someone else’s bed. I decided I’d think about this later and willed myself to return to a place where nothing hurt. I did, after retching once more.
The next time I woke, it was bright in the room. I was still in the barracks, lying on a straw pallet. At least I was dressed and alone on the bed. There had been a few times in my life when I had woken similarly confused but neither dressed nor alone. I sat up very carefully and saw that Aleksey was sprawled on a pallet next to me. The only thing separating us was a pool of drying sick. We were a very attractive couple after our first night together, I must say. I saw a pair of standing legs and let my eyes travel slowly up them, squinting at the brightness when I reached the face. Colonel Johan. We regarded each other for a moment.
He flicked his eyes across to Aleksey. “Is he still alive?”
I nodded but regretted it immediately. He sighed, stretched out a hand, then pulled me to my feet and held me up. “You are not going to vomit on me. Do you understand?”
I didn’t risk another nod but stood there feebly, wondering what he was going to do with me. He marched me forcibly to the courtyard. I thought he was taking me to the gate, but we veered to one side, and before I knew it, I was being dunked into the horse trough. The freezing water drove the blood from my head. I came up gasping, streaming. He dunked me again. I was outraged beyond words, which was rather redundant, as I couldn’t speak anyway. Finally he dropped me onto the ground, and I lay shivering and retching, praying for death.
I heard his footsteps approach once more and cowered away, only to see him holding Aleksey under his arm. The prince didn’t even look conscious. He became so, after his first dunking. He hoarsely shouted a stream of vile curses that I suspected he had picked up in these very barracks. Colonel Johan completely ignored him and dunked him, time and time again, until he held up a weak hand and whispered that he was now able to stand unaided. I struggled to my feet as well. The colonel inspected us and straightened one or two things, which seemed quite foolish to me, as we were filthy, soaking wet, and swaying alarmingly. Or at least, I was; I hoped Aleksey was too, or my balance was worse than I feared.
“Your horses have been saddled. Can you ride?” Aleksey made a faint sound. Johan appeared to understand that this indicated we could, and he waved us in the direction of the stables.
I was quite proud of the fact that we made it back to the castle without falling off our horses or being sick. In fact, I was beginning to recover and was wondering where I could get some food. I had not actually eaten anything at the official party and did not remember eating anything at the later, unofficial one. As soon as I reached my rooms, therefore, I summoned Stephen and told him to have some food brought up. His eyes were wide as he took his orders. He kept glancing between us. I nodded sagely and said in a whisper, “We have been poisoned.” He jumped back and crossed himself, then ran off, hopefully to find my food.
Aleksey lowered himself onto my bed and rasped, amused, “You should not have said that.”
I lowered myself gingerly down as well. “It’s true.” I felt worse if I lay flat, so I stayed sitting up, propped against the headboard. Aleksey was very, very pale. He was lying on his belly, his face turned to one side so he could breathe. He muttered that Faelan, who had been left in his rooms all night, thank God, would be missing him, that he ought to go. He did not actually stir, however. I noticed a dark bruise on his neck and eased the collar of his shirt away. “Bloody hell.” His whole back was black with yellow splodges.
He nodded sadly. “I wrestled on the cobbles, I think.” He began to laugh quietly. “They had to get up and do a forced march at dawn. Full equipment. Ten miles, I believe.”
“My God! What bastard ordered that?”
He chuckled. “I did. That’s why Johan was so cross.”
“I thought he disapproved of you drinking with the men. Or just drinking.”
“Hardly. He’d have been there himself, but Mark was—” He stopped abruptly and turned over with an exaggerated groan of pain. “Why have you not produced something to make us feel better, Niko? You are a doctor, or have you forgot?”
I closed my eyes and nodded. “We need a sweat lodge.”
He sat up. “We have a sweat lodge.”
I blinked. “Go to the House of Lust?”
He gave me what he thought was a lecherous look. It looked more as if he was going to vomit again, and I told him so. I was intrigued by the idea of returning to my hut, though. Why should we not? He was watching me. I nodded, and he grinned, suddenly flinging himself off the bed and appearing far more vital and well than he had only a few moments before. It must have been nice to be twenty-three.
CHAPTER 13
HAD I forgotten that we would sit in the sweat lodge naked? If put to torture, I might have admitted that I had not, but I told myself it had merely been an oversight in my planning. I had only intended for us to sweat out the alcohol and bruising and stiffness. But there we were, a few hours later, naked on either side of the fire pit, watching the glowing embers and drinking water. I had not had time to prepare any healing foods, but nothing would have persuaded me to eat raw liver anyway that day. Fortunately for my modesty, it was very dark in the lodge, which had no windows, and was consequently smoky, for it was extremely cold outside, and it had taken a while for the heat in the pit to rise enough to drive the smoke up and out of the hole in the roof. It was a pleasant smoke, though, redolent of fires of my youth.
I lay down and turned onto my belly, cradling my aching head on folded arms. Aleksey copied me after a moment, and we faced each other across the soft light. I felt drowsy, content. Although I had nearly died (an exaggeration, but who does not think of death after such a night?), I remembered it as an almost perfect night. I had not enjoyed such brotherly companionship since I left the Powponi. There, brothers of the flesh had constantly surrounded me: warriors, in whose number I was counted. We had fought, played, and loved together. My return to England had been very hard. I had been wholly unprepared for the life I would be required to live there. But last night I had found once more a tiny slice of that old life. I had fought and played and… well, I had not loved.
I pursed my lips, thinking what an unfortunate train of thought I had just begun (being naked), when Aleksey said out of the blue, “We were taking Mark to the village that night.”
“What?”
“The man you saw executed? He and Mark were lovers.”
My mind whirled, trying to catch up. That explained the looks between the friends when we had arrived at the inn and Mark’s abrupt departure: he was too scared to show himself. I asked if this were so.
Aleksey sighed, annoyed. “Mark wasn’t the one that stupid fool was caught with! So not only does Mark know of that terrible death, he knows he was betrayed in love. He grieves and raves bitterly at the same time.”
“Ack, he is young.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Do the young feel things less strongly?”
“Yes. Of course! Not initially, I grant you. Life’s blows sting the young as if they were the only ones in the world to feel such pain. The sting quickly fades, though, as the natural spirits of youth enable them to recover. Only as we age do we keep pain and grief in our hearts until they kill us.”
“Oh, listen to yourself. You spout so much rubbish it’s a wonder you are not taken for a king’s fool sometimes.”
I shrugged. The young never like to have their fickleness pointed out to them. He was pouting again, thinking. If he’d been dressed, he would have been peering at his boots, no doubt. “You are Mark’s friend—despite what you know him to be? That is… unusual.”
It was his turn to shrug, and he replied cryptically, “We are all soldiers. And Gregory has Pia to set him right. There a
re places in this world where such things are… normal, you know.”
If he thought he was being wise and impressing me with his knowledge, he was not. I replied simply, “I know. I used to live in such a place.”
He sat up, staring at me. I’d thought that might surprise him. “What do you mean? Where? When?”
I groaned and turned away, smiling privately. “My head aches, Aleksey. That is a story for another occasion. Let me sleep.” He could hardly continue to badger me without betraying a personal interest in my answers, an interest unbefitting a young man engaged to a beautiful princess. I had spoiled my good humor now, though, remembering Anastasia. My head really was aching. I heard him stoking up the embers and laying some more logs. The heat increased. My muscles were totally relaxed, and I let go for a while all the burdens I carried. I slept a hot, sweaty, but dreamless and healing sleep.
I woke to the sensation of a knife blade being dragged across my oiled back. I thought I was still dreaming, so familiar was the sensation, so welcome. I stretched to the pleasure and said in Powponi to my dream brother, “Harder and lower.”
The rhythmic scraping didn’t change, so I turned over and caught the arm, but I was not dreaming, and the act of turning woke me fully. Aleksey had taken one of the scrapers and had drawn it down my naked back. Now he was staring at me as I lay exposed. It was a little late for false modesty. “I believe I am feeling better.”
He nodded, clearly distracted. “You are.”
“Your father recommended the ocean for such occurrences. Or marriage. I prefer the cold-water option. Do you swim?”
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