A Royal Affair
Page 15
I was contemplating this solution one evening as we rode the last hour before coming to camp, when I sensed someone rein in alongside me. I knew who it was, of course. I ignored him. It was the only way I could appear in control of myself. I kicked Xavier lightly, so I was ahead. He pulled alongside once more. “You are not a very caring doctor, Doctor. You have not asked how I am.”
“How are you?”
“Much better. Thank you for asking. How are you?”
“I was not sick.”
“How are you in general, then? I am making polite conversation until you unclench your jaw and talk to me again.”
He would have a long wait.
He watched my expression. “No? Well then. It has been rather cold recently, has it not? It was frosty yesterday and then, goodness, frosty again today. I believe we will have snow soon. Is snow not the very devil when you—”
“Stop it. You are not funny.”
“That must be why you are not smiling.”
“Leave me alone, Your Highness.”
He stayed by my side, though, riding silently, occasionally casting me glances, mostly looking down at his horse and idly twisting little curls into her mane. “I don’t really see why I should apologize, Niko. I was sick, and I did not know what I was saying. But if it is what you want to hear, then I’m sorry.”
I twisted in my saddle so I could make my point more forcibly. “I am not angry about your foolishness over the laudanum. I have had patients offer me far more tempting things than you to have a few drops more. I am angry because you did not consider that as your doctor I would be worried at not seeing you for nearly five days!”
“Four.”
“Five. I have been counting.”
He was silent at this and then sighed theatrically, as was his way. I saw whom Stephen took after; they were cut from the same cloth. “I have been riding in a wagon. There, are you satisfied? I have been entirely unmanned, but I was not going to let anyone see me so. I requisitioned a wagon and have been towed along like an old wounded soldier. Are you happy?”
“Why should it make me happy that you did this but did not think to tell me! I could have—”
“Oh, what? Come and laid your hands on me again? Damn, you, Niko. You are so… stupid!” He kicked his horse and took off up the line toward the camp.
That night he held his first orders group since he had taken himself off to recover. Everyone was very glad to see him. He stilled the general chitchat quickly and listened to the updates. He even asked me politely for mine, as he had not had the benefit of our usual conversations.
I waited for him to return to our tent, rehearsing things I might say, one minute planning an apology and the next angry words to vent my feelings. I heard footsteps, stood, stared at the tent flap, and Colonel Johan pushed in. “What clothes do you have, Doctor, other than your uniform?”
“What?”
“Clothes? For riding? Out of uniform?”
“I—am I going somewhere?”
“Clearly, or I would not be here asking you this.” He had spied a valise and was rummaging in it. He pulled out a shirt, threw it to me, and then found a coat, and that followed the shirt. “Quick. Put them on and come with me.”
“What is happening?” Had I been… dismissed? I could see from his expression that I would get nothing further from him, so I did as he commanded and removed my uniform jacket and shirt and donned the ones I had worn to Hesse-Davia.
“Do you have any weapons, Doctor? You seem poorly armed.”
I wanted to retort that I was a doctor not a solider but held my tongue and went to my medical box. I pulled up the top layer and set it to one side. Beneath was a collection of knives. They were of the finest quality steel. I carried the largest in my boot at all times, but the others I had left off wearing, as a general rule, once I had settled in England. Now I stowed them around my person, and my warm body welcomed their cold steel like old friends. I could see from his expression that he had not expected this. I wondered if Aleksey had told him of the night I had demonstrated my knife-fighting prowess. Probably—he seemed to tell him everything else. I was still fighting my intense jealousy of Johan. I wanted Johan to be Aleksey’s father, but occasionally I reverted to my more base assumption that they were lovers. All I knew was that I felt almost sick with repressed tension every time I saw this scarred man. I desperately wanted to ask him if Aleksey had ordered this dismissal or whether he, the colonel, had taken it upon himself to rid the prince of my presence for good, seeing as I seemed to do nothing but make his precious Aleksey angry.
I had a feeling Johan had answered that question at last—can he be trusted—and that the answer was not favorable.
We marched through the silent, dark lines with only the occasional sound of a snore or a shout accompanying us. It was bitterly cold. Aleksey had been right in his silly chitchat that day; it did feel like snow. We walked out beyond the sentries, the colonel taking the opportunity to speak with them, check their orders and the password, and generally roust them a little. They looked alert but cold. Once we’d left the encampment, it was harder to walk, for we had no light at all. I was immensely pleased to see the colonel stumble once or twice. He had not spent most of his life with people who were at one with their mother the moon and their brothers the stars. I had, and I moved with catlike grace alongside his noisy progress.
Someone else had clearly heard him, for a voice came out of the darkness. “Now you see, Johan, why I chose him, yes?”
The colonel only grunted as we came to shadowy figures: Aleksey holding two horses. Xavier snuffled nervously and came toward me. I was incandescent with rage that they had taken him from his place on the line, saddled him, and brought him here. It was as if they’d used my body for something without permission.
Aleksey saw something of what I was thinking, for he laid a hand on my arm and said simply, “He knew me.”
I almost forgave him at his quick understanding that I had not liked the thought of a stranger handling my horse, bringing him out like this where he would be distressed. I almost forgave him, but not entirely. I was feeling a little distressed myself. Clandestine meetings in the dark to say good-bye—I was thoroughly confused and off balance. Aleksey swung up into his saddle with only the slightest of grimaces and indicated for me to do likewise.
I refused and stood my ground. “Tell me now what this is about. Are you accompanying me partway? Are you going to expound upon my faults as we ride, to give yourself the satisfaction that you did this in a soldierly way?”
He stared at me for a moment. I heard Johan mumble some words, of which I only caught “idiots, same mold, deserve each other.” He gave Aleksey a long look, then moved back toward the camp. We were alone. Aleksey’s horse was twisting, eager to be doing something. He calmed her.
“I have absolutely no idea what you just said, Doctor. Mount up. I’m cold. I have been waiting here for hours.”
I doubted this, as the ground was frosty, and I could see the tracks he’d made, no less fresh than ours. However, I did as he asked, for it was cold, and I wanted this over. I didn’t want a long chastisement or farewell. I was suddenly glad to be rid of them all.
For the first time, I noticed he was not in uniform either. Neither was he wearing his usual leather and silk nor sporting his favorite boots. He was dressed soberly in nondescript breeches and a jacket that looked as if it had seen better days. For one ridiculous moment, I thought that maybe he had been sacked too. Thankfully, I did not attempt to articulate this thought and make myself appear even more slow on the uptake. Fortunately, I realized that we were riding east not west and that there was no sign of Faelan. Aleksey never went anywhere without his shadow.
I reined in. “I’m not going another step until you tell me what this is about.”
He reined in as well and turned his horse so we were side by side, facing each other. “We are going to Saxefalia.”
“What…?” Suddenly it all became clear. “
As spies? You are going to spy on the enemy?”
“We are going to spy on the enemy.”
I was furious. “You are a prince, Aleksey. It is not your job. You have spies to do this kind of work.”
He nodded. “I do, but they have not returned. And I am the ideal person, actually. I speak the language and know the customs. Who better?”
He had me there. I tried to think of a good reason why he could not do this, other than the obvious one: it was too dangerous, and I was terrified of losing him. I was not unaware, of course, that I did not actually have him, but I would take this semifriendship and all the arguing and fighting over losing him entirely. Finally I settled on asking, “So why me? Surely you have more competent officers who could accompany you.”
He grinned, a flash of perfect white teeth in the darkness. “Oh, probably, but I didn’t want them. I wanted someone who was not soldierly.”
“What do you mean by that?” I’d taken this as an insult, of course. What man would not bristle a little at being told he was not soldierly?
Aleksey rolled his eyes, as if pandering to my vanity was too much effort to make. “You do not behave around me as the others do, Niko. You have no stiffness and respect for authority or rank—particularly mine! You will not slip up and call me sir or Your Highness or bow or, God forbid, salute. I have never seen anyone ride like you or fight like you. You are too tall to be a native of Hesse-Davia, and your hair and skin sets you apart from all in these lands. You look like a god from a mythical distant place of sunshine, and I want you. There, is that enough, or should I go on and expound upon your exceptional beauty and how we might use that to our advantage as spies?”
“No, I think that is sufficient for now.” I walked Xavier slowly forward. Aleksey turned his horse and caught up to ride alongside. Once more, he had called me beautiful. He’d called me a god. He said he wanted me. I had some pleasant things to dwell on to keep the cold at bay.
Whilst I had many skills, enduring the cold was not something I could boast about. I had been raised in warm climes where for most of the year we could live with little covering, day or night. In the winter, we had cold and snow, but we also had furs, excellent dwellings, and good food. I had never been able to tolerate the cold as well since leaving the colonies. English cold was particularly difficult to endure, with its associated damp and habit of coming one day and leaving the next. Its unpredictability always caught me out. I had not been looking forward to campaigning in the winter with Aleksey’s army, but in camp I had a tent with a wood stove and a warm uniform. Now I had none of these things. I was dressed, in my view, wholly inadequately for such a cold night. I began to shiver, and not in little shakes, but the deep body jerks that I always felt preceded death. I glanced over at Aleksey, clenching my teeth to stop my jaw rattling. “Are you not cold?”
He turned. Clearly he had been deep in thought. “Cold? Yes, I suppose so. We will put some miles behind us in the dark, and then we will stop. We cannot travel in the daytime, as soon we will be crossing the border and in enemy territory.”
After a few minutes, to distract myself from my increasing discomfort, I asked, “Will they not recognize you in Saxefalia? Is this not very dangerous for you?”
“Oh, I hope it will be dangerous. No fun otherwise. But no, I doubt they will know me. I was ten when I left. I have changed a little since I was ten.”
“I meant the eyes, Aleksey. They have not changed.”
“My eyes? What is wrong with my eyes?”
“Don’t be so dense. They are brilliant green. Do you know how rare a shade that is? I have never encountered anyone with green eyes like yours before, and I have seen more of the world than you.”
“So… you have noticed the color of my eyes, Doctor? I am terribly flattered.”
There it was again, the flirting. I’d missed it, so replied in kind. “And you have noticed that I am very godlike. Shall we continue with our mutual flattery or think seriously for a moment?”
“Oh, continue the flattery. I love being flattered. I know. I’ll walk around with my eyes shut to hide their brilliant beauty, and we can pretend I am blind and you are my doctor, which is true and will add veracity to my affliction.”
I had a feeling he wasn’t taking this spying mission as seriously as he should. I commented dryly that he wouldn’t make a very good spy if he had his eyes closed, and we carried on in silence for some miles more.
By the time the light was beginning to rise ahead of us, I was so chilled that, dismounting, I stumbled, my legs too cold to save me from the fall. I got up and swore silently. We were possibly in enemy territory, according to Aleksey, and I did not want my voice to carry. We were encamped by a stream with a cliff rising behind us, and we made a shelter with some undergrowth and pulled the horses in close. We could not light a fire but ate cold rations. It did nothing to warm me. Aleksey told me we would have this one day and then one more night of riding, and we would be across the border, well into Saxefalia and able to stay at an inn.
After we had been seated in our small position for a while, Aleksey said out of the blue, “I could not tell you that I was riding with the wagons because we have spies in our camp. I could not allow the enemy to discover that I was injured. You might have been followed, and it would have been discovered. Johan insisted that you not be told, and as I was… incapacitated, I could not reach you myself. There, now you know, so perhaps you will stop being cross with me and tell me something interesting to while away the day. Tell me something more about living with the Powponi.”
“I got the impression you were sick of hearing of them.”
“Not in the least, as long as you are comparing me to one of their chiefs or telling me of their interesting sexual practices. That I like to hear about. I do not want to hear that you prefer their company to mine, no.”
“They did not have green eyes.”
He smiled softly and leaned back against the rock face behind us. His thigh was touching mine, something that was distracting me considerably. “Do they have a language?”
I frowned and gave him a look. “No, Aleksey, they have learned to grunt. Two, like this, means you are an arse.”
“Hmm. Teach me something, then. How would they say… ‘I am still hungry’?”
I told him, and he repeated it, glancing at the apple I was eating. I sighed and gave it to him. Munching, he asked, “How would they tell someone they liked them?”
I frowned, trying to remember if I’d ever heard someone say that. It is not something you actually hear every day and sounded odd, now that he had said it. I tried a phrase, and he repeated it. I shrugged. “It means more ‘I am wishing good things for you’ than ‘I like you.’”
He stared into space for a while and then said, as clearly and as well as any of my brothers might have, “I am hungry for you.” He had apparently been able to hear and understand the syntax of the simple phrases and put together his own cobbled statement. I stared at him. He raised his eyebrows and said innocently, “I tried to say that I wished I was not so hungry. Was I correct?”
I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around them, and lowered my chin. “No.”
He mirrored my position. “Are you still cold?”
“Yes.”
“Move closer, then.” I swallowed my pride and did so. “You do not look like someone who feels the cold.”
“Is there a look for someone like that?”
“Well, yes. Someone small and weak?”
“It is fat that keeps you warm, and you may not have noticed, but I do not carry any.”
“Oh, I had noticed. But I am not fat either, and I am not cold. Well, I am not moaning and whining about it anyway.”
“I have not mentioned it once.”
“Not out loud, no, but you have been deafening me and the horses with the whining going on in your head.”
I chuckled at that, for it was true. “I have a theory about it, if you would care to hear it.”
“I shall not speak at all for the rest of the day if that is the reception I get.”
He nudged me, and I relented. “It is something to do with the heart and how much blood people have in their bodies. Heat is carried by the blood, is it not?”
He frowned. “I suppose so.”
“If you pour a little hot water over a large surface it cools more quickly than the same amount put in a small vessel, yes?”
“My head is hurting. I have no idea. If you say so.”
“So, it is the spread of the thing that cools it. I have a lot of skin because I am so tall and possibly very little blood, so I cannot keep warm. There, that is my theory.”
He appeared to be thinking deeply about this, then ventured, “I am almost as tall as you and thin as well, so your theory does not work. But you might have less blood; that I grant you. I suppose we will never know. I hope we never know. In my experience, being able to gauge how much blood a man contains is never good for the man.”
“No. Perhaps one day we will look at men when they are dead and explore their bodies more, and then we will know these things.”
“That is the most disgusting thing I think I have ever heard you say—and I sat in a sweat lodge with you for a day watching you vomit. Who would want to poke about in a dead body?”
“At least they would be silent when you poke them.” He looked at me, and we both laughed at the same time. “I did not mean that in quite the way it sounded.”
“That is fortunate, for it did not sound well.”
We were quite comfortable again with each other now, and I felt the warmer for it. Perhaps some of my shaking had been from repressed tension and anger. It had dissipated now in the warmth radiating from his body and from the pleasure of having almost every part of my body close and touching his. On impulse I took his hand on the pretext of approving his cleanliness. He let me hold it on the same pretext, perhaps, then murmured, “What do you see in my hand? Can you read it and its lines?”