A Royal Affair

by John Wiltshire

  “The Absalon has docked. Did you watch her sail into harbor? She was always my father’s favorite. We will deck her out in funeral—” He stopped abruptly.

  Although I knew, I asked to forestall the inevitable argument that was to follow. “What are you talking about?”

  “The flagship. We sail the day after tomorrow. I will have the state apartment, of course, but I thought you might take the—”

  “Aleksey, why do we not ride for Hesse-Davia? Think on it, black horses with pennants, a somber funeral cortège. Would that not be fitting?”

  “Ride? Hardly. Even in winter, imagine the state of the body… no, I mean, we will sail. We are only one week’s sailing time from Zadworna. Why would we ride?”

  Why indeed. I mulled this over for a while as he continued to tell me of the draping of black and the adding of colors to the mast and things like that, which meant nothing to me. I had to confess before his imagination ran away with him entirely. “Aleksey, I cannot go with you. I’m sorry.”

  He was lying on his back by the fire and I sitting cross-legged next to him. He turned from contemplating the flames, his expression confused.

  I stroked his cheek. “I cannot go onboard a ship. You know why. Please do not make me speak of it again.”

  He sat up. “But you were going to leave me by sea. I went to the port with you to look at likely ships.”

  I had to then confess my secret: that I had actually done this to make him angry and jealous and ask me to stay. He seemed fascinated by this and questioned me closely about things I had said or done and what I had actually meant by them, and this was when much about Aleksey’s true thoughts were revealed to me. It was a particularly interesting conversation for both of us, as there was much about my behavior toward him that puzzled him excessively. But our interesting revelations did not distract him for long enough. Too soon, he said with some determination, “Well, you must let all that go now. We understand each other very well now, and I want you with me.”

  “Aleksey, no, I—”

  “I am ordering you as your king.”

  I gave him a look. “You are not, actually, my king in the way you mean, as I am not a citizen of Hesse-Davia.” Before he could react badly to this, I added, pulling him into my arms so once more his back was tightly to my chest, “But you are my king in all other ways. Even though you are a baby.” Even some tickling and wrestling would not distract him.

  “Please, Niko, you have to come with me. I have all these people around me all the time, and when I go to ask my father what to do—” He suddenly stopped. He swallowed a number of times and calmed his voice, trying to pull out of my arms. “I apologize, that was an unfor—”

  “Aleksey?” I kissed his ear, not letting him out of my arms. “Let it go. There is only us here, and I am so grieved by his death that I will join you in tears, if that is what you need.”

  “I do not need to—” But he did. He shuddered. His words caught in his throat, and he began to sob. I buried my face in his hair and held him. Many times in my life I had been so unmanned, but no one had been there to hold or comfort me, and it was the least I could do, loving him so intensely as I did. His grief was like the pus that I had released from the young merchant’s leg. It poured forth at first under its own pressure, as he had been bottling it up since the horror of seeing his father crushed and bloodied on a day when all should have been glorious, and then the rest I eased out, as I had done with that ill-humor, by gentle pressure where it was needed. He hated being king, he missed the army, he missed Johan, he wanted to be a prince again, he wanted his father back, he wished he had not hated his brother so and that they had been friends, but most of all, he’d missed me and wanted me. And in the midst of all this release of pain, he begged me not to desert him now. He was slightly theatrical, and being on a boat for one week without me was now being seen as desertion on my part. What else could I do? I promised that I would never leave his side again in this life. I can be theatrical too, when pressed.

  He calmed after the application of the third bottle of wine. He’d exhausted himself with emotion but seemed now quite calm and able to discuss things that interested us both: who would be the new head of the army, what I thought about Boudica, whether he should make Stephen his new official royal page, and what Faelan would think of the sea voyage. I was not ready to even have the words sea or voyage mentioned yet so used the opportunity to say that it was time to leave. As I had not kidnapped him and taken him away as I had promised I would, he was anxious about our story, what we would say to explain his absence. I tried suggesting that, as king, he tell them to mind their own business, but his look told me that I had not fully understood the balance of power in the court. In the end, I fished out the old horseshoe with bent nails from my pack, which I had acquired earlier. “We will tell them my horse threw a shoe and that we have had to find a blacksmith and have it replaced. See?”

  He took me in his arms, considering me. “I do not think I like to know that you can be so deceptive. Should I trust anything you say ever again?”

  I gave him a light peck on the cheek and swung up onto Xavier. “And I am not even speaking my own language. I can lie much better in Powponi.” I proceeded to talk to him in that language all the way back to the edge of the trees, much to his amusement. It distracted him, as I had intended, from the thought of being found, which we were a few moments later. He was swallowed up once more by state and duty, and I was left to return alone to my shared room. I had nothing to distract me from my misery but thoughts of the sea crossing to come.

  CHAPTER 25

  I KNEW things were going to be bad when I threw up the morning we were due to leave Saxefalia. I was not a man afraid of very much in life, but I had not slept all night thinking about how I must not show fear on this journey and so had worked myself into something of a state by the time morning came. I wished I had been more ill and I could have used this as an excuse not to walk up that gangplank at all. The only thing that got me up there was that Xavier had already been boarded with the court horses, and I wanted to check on him and apologize once again for forcing this crossing upon him. His quarters were pretty awful, but he was next to Boudica, with whom he now had a firm friendship. He was warm and he was fed, so I refused to listen to his complaints and went back up onto the deck. I was sick again over the side, but fortunately no one was paying me any attention, as boarding a dead king and a live one with all due pomp and ceremony was not an easy thing to accomplish.

  The ship did not really bear much resemblance to the one upon which I had spent so many miserable months. But it was a ship—it was made of wood, and it moved oddly beneath my feet. It was enough for my mind to make the connection and thus make me ill again before we had even left land. I resolved to spend the entire journey in my cabin and there keep my misery to myself.

  My absence was noted the first night, when I did not attend the king for dinner. The servant sent to inquire why I was not present reported back to Aleksey that I was indisposed. The next night a different servant came, and I sent back the message that His Majesty need not concern himself with my health. He arrived in person within a few minutes. He was attended by his usual flock of wastrels so was unable to say what I think he wanted to say—and I do not think this was actually loving or reassuring. He was very annoyed that I seemed to have… collapsed.

  He had never seen me like this before, and fear made him angry. I had to forgive him. He had just lost his father and brother and was naturally a little off balance at the thought of losing someone else. Did I look as if I were going to die? Possibly. I had been throwing up continuously since getting on the ship, as I knew I would. I could not sleep for waking nightmares where I could actually feel and smell the sailors’ hands upon me, and I had been entirely unable to eat. Worse than this, although I would not have it known generally, I had been stricken with an uncontrollable weeping which left me shaking and afraid. I had never been afflicted so before, except perhaps for the act
ual time of my imprisonment. After, of course, I had been riding high on the remembrance of their throats opening to my knife and the delicious taste of their blood painting my face with its warm flow. Aleksey, therefore, found me almost dead—as he thought. They nearly had two dead kings upon the ship.

  I was glad I could not find my courage those first two days, for when Aleksey saw me, he immediately ordered me to be taken to his cabin. This command had two interesting effects. Firstly, I was now in his company, which was always much to be desired. Also, it laid the seed in Aleksey’s mind that he was actually king, and that when he wanted something done, it would be done.

  That was the first time he questioned why things were always as they were rather than how he wanted them to be.

  Sick, shivering, feeling as if I would die but not wanting any of this to be known by anyone, I found myself in Aleksey’s cabin on a pallet that had been previously occupied by the servant of the royal bedchamber. He was now dispatched to my bunk, for space was very limited on the ship, and he had nowhere else to go. I do not believe he resented the exchange much, for he now no longer had to sleep confined with the wolf. The cabin had a dayroom, where Aleksey held counsel, and a tiny bunkroom where I now lay alongside the king’s more spacious bed. Thus I had the privacy I craved but could hear him in the adjoining room, talking with the ministers. At night, though, we were alone—just. That first night we could hardly speak, for the dayroom remained packed with people, and we were both afraid of being overheard. In whispers, therefore, as he undressed (I was glad to see that he could still remember how), he murmured, “You should be very ashamed of yourself, Niko, for making me feel so guilty. You were right; you should not have come on this journey.”

  “I told you that.”

  “Yes, that is what I am saying. You did tell me that, and I ignored you, so it is all your fault that I am feeling so guilty and so ill because of it.” He had climbed in behind me, despite the narrowness of my cot, and was stroking my sweaty hair off my forehead. He could be as angry as he liked with me if it led to this. He was silent for a while, then asked, “Do you know that sensation of stabbing yourself over and over again with the tip of a knife?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, well, if you do, after a while you cannot feel it. I do not mean breaking the skin, but that pricking that whitens it until it goes numb.”

  “Is there some point to this? I am not feeling well and do not want to think about blood—or pricks, come to that.”

  “That would be a first, then. No, what I meant was could this not be like that? If you took more sea voyages, you might come to not notice them.”

  “Thank you. Remind me not to send for you when I am in need of a doctor. You will cut off one leg to get me used to losing the other.”

  “I am only trying to help.”

  His words only dismayed me more. I could not help but remember a woman I had met once when newly arrived in England and still establishing myself as a doctor. She had recently lost the twelfth baby she had conceived since marriage. When I arrived, the house was filled with children and babies—her sisters’. Her husband had invited them to stay. “Cheer her up a bit,” he said. My expression betrayed my thoughts, for he’d added, disgruntled, “I am only trying to help.” I do not believe his help aided his poor wife much. Aleksey’s wasn’t doing much for me either. I didn’t want him to feel as I had made that poor man feel, though, and explained calmly, “It is not a physical thing. There is nothing to get used to. It does not lessen with exposure.”

  “I do not know what you mean. Is it not the rolling of the deck and the pitching and the—”

  “Be quiet!”

  He was for a while, then put his arms around my chest and hugged me tight. “If it is not a physical thing, then what is it? I do not understand.”

  “I do not either, except it comes upon me—a flash of memory that is more real than what is happening here. I can smell things, feel things, and I am not here but there, and then I am sick again.”

  “And then the tears come?”

  I gritted my teeth at this. Given the balance of our relationship so far, this was not something I wanted him to know or discuss.

  But then he said something that surprised me greatly. “One of my veterans is like you, only he did not suffer what you did. He was captured by the infidels and saw his comrades very badly treated. The memory of their suffering takes him just as yours does. He says he is back there, hearing their screams and seeing their bodies, and then he cannot bring himself back to where he really is. He cries most pitifully.”

  I was silent for a while, thinking about this. “What does he do?”

  “Oh, he drinks. But I am not advocating that for you. You do not need to drink, for you have me.”

  I actually managed a rueful laugh. I was feeling better. Somehow the smell of the ship was not so bad when lying in his arms. I said tentatively, “Perhaps the mind can heal as the body does, given the right treatment.” He put his hands back to my head and began to gently rub his fingers against my temples, so I added, more to myself than to him, “I wonder if I opened up a head and looked inside, I would see horror imprinted on the brain—images.” His hands stopped for a moment and then resumed. I was feeling very relaxed and sleepy by this time, not having slept for two nights and being so emotionally exhausted. He continued to stroke my head, and I do not actually remember falling asleep.

  I remember waking, though. I woke to find myself held in arms. I screamed and jerked up, flailing and fighting. I stumbled and tipped off the pallet, then scrabbled and made it into the dayroom. I think I must have been a very frightening sight. I certainly terrified the couriers who were variously sleeping or talking, waiting upon their king. Naked, wild-eyed, and screaming, I ran for the outer doors, which I physically crashed through. I almost made it to the deck—the only place I felt safe—when the guards brought me down. In my mind they were the crew of the whaling ship, and I was being brought down now as I had been then—released to attempt to flee, only to be hunted through the ship until my hiding place was discovered and their fun with my body continued. These two were no match for me, and I floored one with a blow to his face. The other I kicked, but it was a soft blow only, for I was naked. I followed up by smashing him into the wall and attempting to crush his throat. I am not an easy man to restrain, even when in my right mind.

  Aleksey had taken time to throw a robe around his naked body, and then he was there, taking command of the other guards who had piled out of their cabin on hearing the commotion, claiming that I was in a delirium and should be taken back to the cabin. He then, thank God, emptied the dayroom. I had never seen people so glad to be told they would not be needed again for the rest of the night. They scurried away faster than the ship’s rats did at Faelan’s shadowy passing. I was not delirious. I had just thought I was back in a small cabin being restrained. I was furious, though, and humiliated and very, very upset.

  I had not wanted to come on this journey, but I had done it for him, and now everyone had seen me like a woman fleeing ravishment. I was completely undone and wanted no comfort. I refused to allow him to hug me as I stood at the cabin window. I would take no comfort from words either. I had hurt him when I fought him, but I think I hurt him more by my rejection. I could not explain. How could I, without telling him how it had been and what it felt like for a man to be held down by other men, with men shouting encouragement and laughing and getting better positions to watch and then to take their turn? How it felt to have your body invaded. I could not tell him that for many months I had groveled like a whore so that rape would become the semblance of love, so that James Harcourt might keep me to himself and not…. I could not tell him that I had lost myself and my sense of being a man, and that in his heart no man recovers from that essential loss.

  I thought I would lose Aleksey that night. I would have given me up had I been him. But Aleksey was not me; he was entirely his own man, as I had begun to discover. He left me to my grief an
d misery in the dayroom and went to bed. When I knew he would be asleep and I would not have to engage with him, I went in too.

  He was waiting for me. He was naked, stretched out on the large bunk on his belly, the smooth planes and lines of his body sleek and pale and beautiful. The lamp was swinging slightly with the motion of the ship, and his beauty passed in and out of shadow with its movement.

  I avoided his eyes, not wanting him to see that I had been crying once more, that I was tense and very afraid. This… temptation… was not what I wanted in the state I was in. He lifted his shoulders, arching his back, his head hanging down, not looking at me. “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” It was exactly the sentiment I had been thinking about him. I crossed over and put a hand on his waist. It almost went lower of its own accord. “I forced you to come on this crossing, and now you will not even let me help you.”

  “No, Aleksey, it’s not like that. I’m—”

  “Please.” He turned to face me. “I want you. I want you to want me. Like… this.”

  And God help me, I did. He could see by the outline in my breeches that my body did, that it had responded to his wanton nakedness without me confirming this in speech. He unlaced me, and my coverings fell to the floor. I could deny nothing then. Even so, I tried to forestall his eagerness. “This is not the place… I’m not… I am….”

  He shifted slightly, one leg bent up, and all was exposed to my sight. He took my hand. “I am a king now, Niko. Everything I say is obeyed; everything I want is given to me. I have so much power that I think I will swell up and burst sometimes. You are the only one who reminds me of what I really am, the only one who will tell me when I am wrong. You are my king, Niko, and I need you. Please do this for me.”