by R. Cooper
He looked down, quickly, to his fawn-brown boots and his wrinkled red linen pants, and the hand not at his throat, which was as soft as his boots and covered in faded ink spots. His tunic shirt was short, although long-sleeved, and his vest was brocaded, with a pattern of pale cream and gold flowers. Not extravagant, but it seemed so in this room, with them.
He swallowed. “You really don’t mind another hand tied to yours, in alliance? Perhaps both of yours, in love, if you are fortunate and blessed? Truly?”
He raised his head at their silence. What he would give to know the paragraphs exchanged in their shared glances.
“It was not originally my plan to seek out someone else.” Arden finally spoke, with as much gravity and care as he might have from the throne, one hand still on his husband’s arm. “But neither was being king,” he added, far less serious. Mattin wondered how the council could pretend they found fault in Arden when they were the ones who had begged him to keep the peace by taking the crown that was, by that point, already in his possession anyway, since he had killed the one last wearing it. Mattin, and most others, assumed it was the fate of his siblings that had compelled Arden to say yes. Maybe the Canamorra possessiveness and pride as well, but concern for others, too. And here Arden proved it in only a few words as he got dressed in armor like a ruler should not have to.
“Stop looking at me with worship in your eyes, Keeper Arlylian,” Arden chided quietly, his gaze shining. “I am not worthy of it.”
Mil scoffed the same time Mattin did, and made a face for Mattin’s benefit when Arden frowned. Mattin rolled his eyes for Mil in return, who snorted. There was no point in discussing the effect Arden had on others, Traitor King or no. Arden never fully understood. He would think it the sword, or the crown, and never the person in-between.
Mattin felt his face grow hot and blamed the cloak, though he only grasped it more tightly and pretended it did not touch the ground behind him.
“You are worthy. Both of you.” He nearly whispered it, thinking of Mil reaching the palace wall to open the gates and let the Outguard in, and of Arden leaving dead king and crown where they lay to go save his sister and her family, and then to search desperately for his husband. “So I will help. I will look for candidates for you. Suitable ones. For an alliance first, but… I will try to find those you might become fond of, one day. Perhaps friends. You deserve at least that.”
“Ah.” Mil sighed. “Ah, Sass.”
Arden exhaled as well. “If you—I think I would like to see the names of those who might win your approval.”
Mattin looked up, blinking. “I thought you’d be more worried about your husband’s.”
Mil turned to him, then smiled a wicked smile.
Mattin jabbed the air with a finger. “What does that mean?”
“It means Mil has already made his thoughts clear to me.” Arden crossed his arms.
“It means run along, soft hands,” Mil said, still smiling, “for there is work to be done. But stop to find your damn cloak! Even that thin thing would be better than nothing.”
“That is Mil-speak for be careful,” Arden interjected firmly. “We have yet to determine if it was salt put in the soup, or poison.”
Mattin clung to his cloak, fingers sliding through the fur. “I’m sorry. That he did it. And that now you must do this. I will do my very best, I promise. I want you to be happy, above all else.”
Arden released another long, slow sigh.
They burned Mattin’s eyes, the two of them standing so near each other. Mattin turned his head and then moved his feet. He took himself from the room, past heavy curtains, to the cool study and cooler anteroom, and heard them, just as the curtain swung back into place.
“You’re a fool.”
“Yes. But we are fools together, my love.”
They burned Mattin’s ears, too.
Mattin went to the room he had on the grounds, well within the palace wall, but only to wash up and put on clean clothing. His new cloak was nowhere to be found, so he went back out into the falling snow, his face hot, both of his hands holding Mil’s cloak at his throat.
He went to the library first, grabbing records himself and getting more than a few assistants fluttering nervously around him, trying to help. They eventually fell back or reluctantly went off on the errands he sent them on, until one of the older ones—older than Mattin, probably—took over and let Mattin return to his office.
He drank the tea they brought him, and ate something dry and sweet that might have been a stale bun from a selection of them they set before him. He left the cloak on, for the fire was low and his assistants did not always remember to stoke it and Mattin never did, and the fur was soft against his face when he turned or sighed and paused to rub his eyes.
His ongoing project was on hold for this and many other things; he had not had time to leave the palace in months, or perhaps had not wished to. But he could do this and see it through, and then return to that and his visits to the inns and taverns in the capital. It would be easier then, with the king and his husband married again, or promised to be. Mattin would have more time, anyway, if the person they chose was good enough to not need as much research as Arden did.
Mattin did not think about fewer mornings spent at a little table before a fire, or no longer getting tea from a serviceable, ordinary pot. He sharpened quills and set out jars of different ink colors in a row and opened up books on the histories of different families—both the ones the families themselves had made and the ones the Keepers of the Great Library had collected. Then, he began to make notes. From that, he began to form lists.
He woke up just after dark, his bladder full, the fire all but dead, with a piece of paper stuck to his face. That there was likely ink on his cheek as well did not bother him as much as the cold and dark, and the precise swirls of his handwriting that decorated the parchment. He did not need light to know what he had written.
Good names, for their purpose. Although, of course, Mattin would do more research in the next few days before presenting a list to Cael. Fast work, but not incorrect. He had other lists on the desk before him, after all. Traits sought for political reasons. Traits likely sought for personal ones. He had done his job well, as he liked to.
He was just tired enough to find thinking difficult, which was a blessing. So he tucked the list into his satchel, and reached for his key to the library’s entrance, which was locked at night, and held the cloak tight as he went to the door, only to stop and reach for one of the buns he had not eaten.
That, he left at an altar in one of the moonlit gardens, in a dish surrounded by carved flowers. Not as a trade, although the fae loved to barter. It was instead a gift for any fae who happened to be near. Mattin thanked them as well, his breath a shivering cloud that made one of the guards wandering the grounds turn to consider him. But Mattin was no threat to anyone, as everyone well knew, and he was left alone as he made his way to his room.
As it was unremarkable to leave any requested research with Cael if Mattin was too busy to meet with the king, or, more often, if the king was too busy to meet with him, Mattin left information on granaries as well some background on the Dettavicci in Cael’s office, right next to Mil’s cloak with a note of explanation pinned to it asking Cael to please return it for him. Mattin then poked around the palace for several days, avoiding the current royal residence as well as the training grounds and barracks for the palace guards and any visiting outguards.
He paid visits to friends, or friends of friends, and listened to rumors, and observed, and wondered about Mil’s eyes-and-ears and if Mattin should have his own, although this was the only such assignment he would ever get, so he was not likely to need them. He wore some of his finer vests and even his lovely, useless cloak once he found it, drank vast quantities of tea and a little wine, let those surprised to see him away from his work pull him into an informal late night dance, and was unexpectedly kissed by someone who fled a moment later, apologizing profusely.
H
e did not know what that meant, and felt too weary to consider it beyond blaming the wine, and so he collapsed into his bed two nights in a row, only to wake to an aching skull and his hair clasps digging into his scalp.
Council meetings did not absolutely require his attendance, but Mattin would draw attention for avoiding them all, so he slipped in after one had begun, his head still aching though he had only the single glass the night before. He had his book out and ready, and his hair softly plaited back and coiled at his nape to avoid wearing anything that might pull or pinch his scalp.
Cael gave him a stern look from across the table, then lifted one eyebrow in question, as if Mattin without decoration in his hair was concerning. But she was focused on the discussion going back and forth and soon enough left Mattin to frown at his pages whenever he heard Per Tyrabalith’s voice.
If The Tyrabalith had wanted to provoke Arden’s temper, then his gambit had failed. Although Mattin thought that a foolish venture, the members of the older families were often foolish, so he could not rule it out. Whatever Per Tyrabalith’s reasons for speaking as he had, a spouse was now to be found—or at least, to be searched for, in the most correct way possible. That was Mattin’s job. To help find one, and to determine how to proceed from there to satisfy the older families with public courting and equally public wedding festivities.
He hid his yawns behind his hand and noted points in the current debate but mentally focused back on what had consumed him for the past several days. He had already crossed off some of the names after investigating the gossip, and sidelined a few others. They might be considered, but not in the first batch. He had spent the nights where wine did not help him sleep trying to determine what Mil Wulfa and Arden Canamorra would find desirable, both physically and otherwise.
He pretended these were new thoughts, and they almost seemed so when aimed outward.
He had selected only those who named themselves men, which he had mentioned, tentatively, to Cael. The matter of heirs was unimportant, since, if Arden wanted to choose from just within his own family, he had nieces and nephews aplenty in addition to his siblings, not that Jola or Ral seemed to want the crown. Whether or not Arden or Mil were interested in more than men, Cael did not say. She had merely sent Mattin from her office with an order for him to rest and a reminder that the need was not urgent.
It was, though. Mattin had a vague idea that if he did this, completed the list and studied royal marriages of the past while Arden and Mil did their wooing, it would be better. How, he could not say, and did not waste time examining. He would be better if this was done, and he could return to granaries and ancient property disputes, and, perhaps, never leave the library again.
The thought carried him out of the council meeting the moment the king stood up and everyone made to do the same. It took him to another gathering of beat-of-fours and other nobles near him in age, who whiled away the dark, frozen nights of winter with parties and games and bedhopping. A mouth on his cock was not unwelcome, but he did not linger, or imagine that anyone cared if he did or not, and he returned to his office instead of his room, and curled up in his chair before his dying fire.
When there was no longer a reason to avoid the discussion—when Mattin truly could not think of any—he rewrote the list to neaten it, and left it, folded, on Cael’s desk. Then he went to his room to soak in the bath and stare idly at his nails and wonder what he would say when Cael summoned him to have the proper discussion that the list deserved.
Her schedule was likely busy, which was why he received no summons in the morning. Uncertain, Mattin went on other errands: visiting friends who had been out with him to ensure they’d arrived home, or at least, in a comfortable bed, then to the kitchen to grab something to eat so his assistants would not have to feed him again. He had even remembered to wear a cloak and an extra shirt to make up for the cloak’s deficiencies, and felt almost like a proper Master Keeper who would have no problems spending several weeks researching the spouses of past rulers and all the many traditions they might choose from for both wooing and wedding.
He was unprepared to walk into his office and find the king there.
Mattin was momentarily dizzy and held onto the door frame to keep from falling. Something that would have been embarrassingly like the first time they had spoken, and a still-healing, newly crowned king had come into the Great Library both in search of information and to thank the assistants and Keepers who had stayed.
During those first few months on the throne, Arden had decided to demonstrate his appreciation for those who had stayed. It had been a simple but rather brilliant tactic to make those in the palace grounds, particularly the workers and staff, fond of him. No one had informed Mattin of that yet, or he might have expected their heroic king to show up in search of information on the original powers of the very first rulers.
He might not have expected it while standing on a wobbly stool while angrily reshelving maps deep in the depths of the library that one of his predecessors had left in their office for, it seemed, several decades, but he might have reacted differently to a pained but beautiful voice telling him that he should stop and get a stronger stool, or perhaps a ladder.
Mattin, covered in dust, exhausted from nights too filled with leftover fears to sleep, irritated beyond measure at the mess he was cleaning up, had snapped, “Who made you king?” Only to hear, to his horror, that same voice answer wryly after a pause, “I did.”
Then Mattin had turned, too fast on his unstable stool, and pitched forward, landing awkwardly and not without pain on his feet. But only just.
Before him, in the wide aisle between the vast rows honeycombed with cubbies for maps and scrolls, had stood the new king, Arden of the Canamorra, his husband, the former outguard Mil Wulfa, several members of the Palace Guard, and Cael of the Rossick herself. The king had been leaning on a cane, his grip white-knuckled on the handle. His husband had been staring at Mattin with his eyebrows raised and had said only, “This wee thing is a Master Keeper? I’ve never seen one so sparkly.” And, before Mattin could stutter an apology for his truly bad manners, Arden had smiled.
Arden had not had so much gray in his hair then. The past five years had taken their toll. Or maybe nearly dying had caused them and they had just taken time to grow in. Arden had still looked every inch a hero, and very much like the ruler in an old story, handsome and scarred and grave—at least until that smile.
If the personal introduction to everyone working in the palace had not endeared people to him, that smile surely would have.
Mattin had felt young and silly, like a boy with a crush, like an assistant who had no place calling himself a Keeper or a child who had cowered in the dark while those two men had saved their family and then ended the fighting.
Until that moment, Mattin had been there solely for the sake of the Great Library. But he had dutifully noted the information the king was seeking, found it and presented it to Cael within hours, and from then on, all requests from Arden or Mil had been directed to him. Mattin had found himself in an office, albeit a small one, and in a position of some importance and—as his family had reminded him in letters afterward, of some personal risk.
Yet he did not think his stomach had ever swooped with alarm and worry quite like it did to discover Arden standing before his fireplace, absolutely dwarfing Mattin’s already tiny office.
Arden was dressed for the weather, in a long cloak that he had flipped over one shoulder to give him more freedom of movement. The collar was thickly furred. His sleeves appeared black but shined with traces of blue in the firelight. He had vambraces on and wore a sword, although he was alone, without even a guard with him.
Too late, Mattin recalled seeing several guards milling about the library entrance, which might have given him some warning.
Mattin slowly shut the door behind him and then stepped carefully to his desk under the king’s watchful eye. The fire was roaring. That had to be Arden’s work.
“You f
ound your cloak.” Arden broke the silence first, though Mattin should have been the one to greet him and ask what he needed.
The trouble was, the answer would almost certainly have to do with the list Mattin had made, and Mattin was not yet prepared for that conversation. He would almost suspect Arden of ambushing him for that reason, but Arden was not cruel.
“We were worried, Mil and I. You returned his cloak, but we hadn’t seen you. Then you showed up to the council meeting looking almost ill and we thought the cold weather had brought on sickness.”
Mattin, who had looked terrible that day and knew it, still huffed. He was not a child needing to be fussed over. To prove it to himself, he inhaled and said, “I assume you are here about the list. Did Mil not like it? Did… did you not?”
He only stumbled a little and was fairly pleased with himself.
Arden’s expression flickered from concern to something more unreadable and kingly. “It is a well-considered list.” He regarded Mattin for another moment before pulling the folded piece of paper from where he had tucked it into his shirt. Mattin’s knees weakened, and he hurried to his chair to sit despite the rudeness of doing so in front of the king. Arden was hardly one to take offense, in any case. He unfolded the paper and considered what it said in weighty silence before tucking it away once more. “We were… curious as to the qualifications, though some I can guess.”
Mattin was stuck in his chair, his satchel and cloak limiting his movement. His throat was tight and dry. “Men,” he croaked, and decided to deal with his mortification over that later. He pushed on, voice smoothing out as he went. “Unattached men—the position would require too much attention and energy to maintain a family elsewhere, likely, though of course we did not rule out those with existing known lovers since your marriage to them would be a formality—probably a formality, at least at first. Some voiced loyalty helped. And they are all from old families, with no or little scandal attached.”
