A Suitable Consort (For the King and His Husband)

by R. Cooper

  That was… not whatever Mattin had expected. “Why?”

  Not a hint of any feeling crossed Mil’s face this time, although his attention and interest were heavy. “Helping all of this along, aren’t you, the king’s wooing of one noble creature or another? No matter what you might think of it.”

  Mattin wrapped his arms around his chest, then thought better of it and let them fall to his sides. A moment after that, he was pointing at Mil accusingly. “You’re implying I don’t think well of it.”

  “Are you saying you don’t?” Mil narrowed his eyes. “Because then you’d be lying to me, I think.”

  Mattin had no desire to lie to him but also a very real urge to run from this balcony. “I… recognize the expediency, but I don’t wish you any undue unhappiness, either of you. You’ve had enough of that.”

  Mil raised his eyebrows and was slow to lower them. “If you mean our years away… we didn’t mind the life. Not really. It was cold and wet a lot, for certain, and most nobles didn’t want us there on their lands, as agents from the capital, even if we weren’t there for them. There was often fear and sometimes danger and almost always bad food, or not enough of it. I won’t speak of the lack of hot baths or proper toilets so as not to offend you, but… we liked it, for all that. It offered a great deal of freedom from the rules and troubles of this place.” For the first time Mattin could recall, Mil seemed uncomfortable, or nervous, reaching up for a single moment to tug at his hair, and then he shrugged and the moment was gone. “It was a struggle for us, him more than me, at first. But then it let him be something else. For a while. And me too.” Mil made a thoughtful noise. “Never said that out loud before, but you should hear it. We did run away. That’s true. But it made us more ourselves, more myself, because I got to see what I was like as something else than what I was meant to be.”

  “Do you not like being Captain of the Guard?” Mattin questioned with a small amount of shock. Mil was everything a guard should be, everything the Captain of the Guard was meant to be. Which was a foolish thought from someone who knew well what palace guards had often participated in, but Mattin had never felt safer here than during the past five years.

  Mil flashed a grin. “Oh, I’m good at it. And I’ll do my best to do it right. But… it was always going to be my life before I left—if the infighting didn’t do me in first. It was my destiny, maybe, though you’d have to ask the fae about that. Same as this was his. We ran away and came right back to where we started, but stronger for it. Maybe that was our destiny, too, leaving just to return, to find everything here.”

  “Everything,” Mattin repeated quietly, darting a look upward when holding Mil’s gaze made him feel cagey, as though he needed to move but didn’t know where. “You still gave up that freedom to return here—well, to stay here. Arden is… I suppose he would always have chosen the crown, and you would always choose to protect. Nevertheless, you should not have had this forced upon you.”

  Mil still did not show even a hint of anger at his predicament. He was watching Mattin as though he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. “He doesn’t have to say yes, or make any offers except for more blasted tea. Different from your tea, of course, Sass,” he added quickly. “You actually enjoy your tea and your tiny cups. All this is for show, and I’d rather have an ale if we’re going to sit around sipping drinks and not talking about what everyone can see in the room.”

  He sounded like someone would if they were angry. And yet, his fury, if any, did not seem focused on the issue of his heart.

  “Are you upset?” Mattin pressed anxiously. “You can say so if you like. I won’t tell anyone else.”

  It earned Mattin a smile, which was so confusing Mattin was sure he would fret over it later.

  Mil slowly shook his head. “You’re a sweet thing to worry about me. But it’s not this upsetting me.”

  “Oh?” Mattin peered up at him, wondering just when Mil had stepped closer, making the balcony smaller by cutting off Mattin’s view of anything below his broad shoulders. He blinked, then swallowed. “The idea truly doesn’t bother you, then you must—” Arden had not denied the idea that the pair of them had already had their eye on someone. Perhaps they had not been considering marriage before, but they clearly had now. Mattin opened his mouth, then shut it with a snap.

  He could not ask.

  Mil continued to watch him like Mattin was a curious riddle, or one of those touched by a fae’s curse, unpredictable and potentially dangerous. “We’re not opposed to the idea,” Mil said, slow and cautious, “only the way of it, at The Tyrabalith’s suggestion… and some of the choices. We told you that before.”

  “Yes, but…” Mattin silenced himself before he could argue against what he knew was true. Mil and Arden had told him this that very first morning. At the time, he hadn’t let himself consider it. “It finalized a notion you had already discussed between you?” That was the question Mattin had not been ready to ask that morning. He did not think he was ready to ask it now, yet it had fallen from his careless mouth. “It will not be like your” –he dropped his voice to a whisper— “nights with strangers.”

  Mil arched an eyebrow, then gave Mattin a grin that made Mattin flush with heat. “He mentioned he’d told you of that.” He studied Mattin as if he also knew how Mattin had reacted to that information. Mattin parted his lips to defend himself or deny it or simply to find more air on the suddenly warmer balcony, but then Mil shook his head. “No, this wouldn’t be like that. We figured that long ago, to our dismay, because seduction would be far easier. This is the sort of thing that takes thought and planning done by someone who knows which tunic to wear with a nice cloak, and the names of each tiny biscuit on the tray, and how many of the last dozen rulers had more than one spouse.”

  “Two,” Mattin answered immediately. “But both before they were crowned.” He suspected he was frowning but did nothing to correct it. He ought to be flattered, not cross. They honored him with their trust. But he wished, briefly, for a single moment, that he was not so fussy, so he would not be the one to help them with this. Then he swallowed the lump in his throat and looked away, to the glass door and the curtain that shielded him from Lan’s prettiness. “I did not think you were pleased with my list,” he said finally. “It is all nobles on it, after all. And he is one of them, as much as I am. Arguably more than I am. But you want him to marry one of them, to… love one of them.”

  “What I want first and foremost is to shut up that loudmouth Tyrabalith with something heavy, or separate him from his tongue with something sharp.”

  Mattin looked at Mil after a small jump of surprise.

  Mil’s glare instantly softened. He glanced to the glass door too. “But Arden,” he said the name quietly, reverently, “has lived with weight on his shoulders from the day I’ve known him. If there were someone suited to helping him in ways I cannot, and that someone also made him smile, I’d thank them for it.” He swung his gaze back to Mattin.

  Mattin had not considered that when he’d made the list. He should have. He shifted from foot to foot, then reached up to rub the tip of his cold nose, which at least briefly hid him from Mil’s stare. “He said, if he were to love such a person, you would likely love them, too.”

  “I’m not saying no,” Mil agreed, returning to his roundabout ways, though only for a moment. “But. You didn’t make that list of candidates with me in mind.”

  Mattin flattened his mouth. “Not entirely. But I thought….”

  Mil seemed to know what he had been going to say. “That the sportsmen, the children who learn the skills but don’t have to live by them, would interest me?” Mattin felt scolded, though Mil was smiling faintly. “You know a great many things I don’t, so I sometimes forget you’ve only lived here, and most of that spent in your library or your office. Don’t misunderstand me—you were not completely wrong to think so. Arden can use his sword, and has thighs I’ve dreamed of when we were apart, but do you think he has anything in comm
on with that sort? Even when he lived among them, he was always the traitors’ son. It made him different from the others his age. More inclined to think before he acted, unless he wanted to be fighting always. Maybe I like a thinker, too.”

  Some part of Mattin trembled, a low shaking deep inside his chest that was visible when he pushed out a breath and the steam seemed to shiver in the air between them.

  “There are several scholars on the list.” He told Mil as he had told Arden. “We just haven’t gotten to them yet. You like poetry?” The question shot from him, loud. He cringed. “That is, one of my original choices that I took off the list likes to compose poems.”

  Mil regarded him curiously. “Did you think I wouldn’t enjoy poems?”

  Mattin shut his mouth. He darted a look up. “Arden does not care one whit for poetry but I have heard him recite it for you. I didn’t think you would enjoy his poems.” He grumbled the rest. “I certainly didn’t.”

  Mil snorted, then laughed, a short, happy sound. “You always give your true opinion when it matters, politeness be damned. And Arden’s right. You’re thorough even when you don’t want to be.”

  The remark hit Mattin unexpectedly hard. “I do my best,” he said stiffly.

  All signs of Mil’s mirth disappeared.

  “I know you do, Sass.” Mil was too kind. “It’s why he trusted you enough to tell you what he did. You can’t often admit weakness, growing up like he did. Not in these walls. But I suggested he speak to you because I knew you’d be good to him.”

  “Oh.” The tiny spike of bitterness that had pained Mattin since Mil had implied Mattin had been too obvious melted away. “Oh.” He looked around wildly, then only at Mil. “You are good to him too, Mil Wulfa. He could not do better.”

  Mil tipped his head to one side without taking his eyes off Mattin.

  “What?” Mattin gestured at him, nearly bumping his hand against Mil’s chest. “You have something else to say, I can tell.”

  The corners of Mil’s eyes crinkled as if he was pleased, but when he answered, he was serious. “None of these meetings are going to come to anything. But I am sorry for the trouble, Sass, I truly am.”

  Mattin reared back and furrowed his brow unhappily. “He has loved you as he would no other. I didn’t expect that to change. But if he is serious about this—or if it turns out that, well, there was a fancy but that fancy has gone nowhere—we only need to find someone you like. For a friendly arrangement if nothing else. An alliance.”

  Mil did not move, although his gaze seemed to sharpen.

  “Have to be a strong someone to accept a mere alliance from someone like him, with space for another in our great, big bed.” He did not let Mattin look away. “I think most would want more. I think he’d want someone who wanted more. I know I do. Good sense and knowledge are but a fraction of what we desire. You tell me, Sass, are we asking too much? Is that the problem?”

  Mattin drew in an unsteady breath. “In… in any event, right now we are going through the motions. If you don’t want… if nothing else, it should appease The Tyrabalith.”

  “That one can’t be appeased.” Mil dismissed that with a toss of his head. Mattin could finally close his eyes to catch his breath. Mil carried on quietly. “Arden has plenty of heirs to choose from, when it comes to that. And people are tired of fighting. The only thing to nudge Arden from the throne now would be opinion turned against him, and the easiest way to do that is to make him behave badly—very badly, I’d imagine, considering what people have tolerated from rulers in the recent past. You’d need a scandal equal to locking up an innocent Jola to make most dislike him. He has a temper, aye. Though these days, you need to know him to know how to raise it. One particular noble who does know him enough, it seems, is stirring up trouble, or trying to, which is why I’d prefer you avoid balconies and pay more attention to things outside your ledgers and scrolls. I’d give you a knife if I thought you could use it.”

  Mattin opened his eyes to stare at Mil in bemused shock.

  Mil clucked his tongue. “If it wouldn’t spark another incident, I’d give you the cloak off my back. The lining is thick and will deflect most things.”

  “Why would I need that?” Mattin demanded, heartbeat growing louder in his ears.

  “Keepers are supposed to analyze information, aren’t they?” Mil considered Mattin shrewdly. “The Tyrabalith is looking to provoke the Traitor King, whatever his reasons for it. Arden has a temper, and if that cannot be raised, then he also has a protective streak that he proved when his sister was threatened.”

  “You can’t be saying that I matter enough for any sort of—”

  “Arden is not shy about his favorites.”

  Bluntly put, it made Mattin duck his head. “I am fond of the king as well,” he murmured, shivering internally at the thinnest of curtains between his words and his thoughts. “But surely, no one will think twice about me. I have only ever done my job.”

  “When no one else would do it,” Mil reminded him fiercely. “And you did it well. And with kindness, which we could both use more of, though he’d be the first to say that of me and not for himself.”

  Mattin raised his head enough to briefly meet Mil’s eyes. “No one here treats you with the respect you deserve. With some respect, yes, but not what you deserve. You should have that, and so much kindness. So much.”

  If there had been a curtain protecting Mattin before, it was glass now. Mil slowly raised his eyebrows, then just as slowly lowered them.

  “It’s because of how you are, with your enamels and your velvets, that I forget,” Mil said quietly. He might not have meant to be heard at all, but focused on Mattin before Mattin could ask or shift the subject to something else. “You’re about what is proper, aren’t you, Sass? Perhaps we both forget. I thought it was all there was to you, when I first laid eyes on you. I thought you wouldn’t stick. But you sassed him to his face.” Mattin lifted a hand to object. He had not known he was sassing the king when he had said what he said. Mil swept on. “You stuck. Yet you seem to believe that is no remarkable thing. That you’re… ordinary.”

  Mattin’s back hit the balcony railing, which was cold even through his clothes. He tipped his head up, his view entirely Mil and the arms on either side of him, and shivered uncontrollably.

  Mil frowned distractedly down at him. “We looked over that list and thought, if you had made such an omission, it must be on purpose. But now I’m less sure of that.”

  Mattin did not know where to place his hands, only where he wanted to place them. “I thought of both of you with that list.”

  “Did you?” Mil pressed. “And did you imagine any of them sitting at our table with us for breakfast?” There, Mil paused, possibly at Mattin’s scowl of displeasure at the thought, or possibly just realizing how close they were. He looked between them before catching Mattin’s gaze and holding it. His words were a low, dark rumble. “In our bed?” Mattin narrowed his eyes despite his burning face. Mil’s voice grew even rougher. “Oh, you thought of that, all right.”

  For several beats of his pounding heart, Mattin could not think of anything else. Then he shoved Mil’s chest, and though it should not have budged such a mountain of a man, Mil stepped back.

  Mattin snapped at him, regardless. “Are you teasing me?” he demanded. “I can end this now. He can end this now. You can… you have only to ask him and he would. I researched alternative strategies so you would not have to do this!”

  Mil gently caught the hands Mattin did not even realize he had been waving around. “Pretty gloves,” he observed. “You like them? He’s been worried you didn’t, since he hasn’t seen you in them.”

  “I….” Some of Mattin’s embarrassed anger disappeared as he stared at his hands held carefully in both of Mil’s. The gloves Arden had given him were no doubt buttery soft against Mil’s palms, as the fur was warm against Mattin’s fingers. He shook his head, trying to focus. “What was so wrong with the first two?” he asked at
last, and wished he did not sound so plaintive. “They’re suitable.”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt they are.” Mil nodded as if trying to show Mattin he meant it. “After all, you picked them. And, in other circumstances, they might have done well. He’ll speak to them, as he does, and they’ll stare back at him in wonder as nearly everyone does with him, even while knowing they’ve no chance. There’s a reason so many in the guard chose to follow him here, when he sought only to rescue his family but the act was still treasonous. Even without knowing your rules of proper wooing, he would have people willing. From such a list, he might have done well.”

  What was Mattin to say to that?

  “Yes,” Mattin uttered at last, strangled. “Arden is like that. But what of you?”

  “What of you?” Mil returned. “No one suitable for Sass? Is it that you’re not interested in partners? We’re never even heard a peep from you on the subject until all this—don’t get ruffled.”

  “Ruffled?” Mattin echoed, and all at once, he was angry again. He yanked his hands from Mil’s so he could give Mil another push and even though Mil gave him plenty of room, Mattin scooted around him without dignity. He reached the door then came back to wave a finger in Mil’s face. “People happily in love don’t get to just—”

  He closed his mouth firmly. Then, with one more glare at Mil’s startled expression, he turned and marched from the balcony.

  Startled or not, of course Mil followed him. “Keep near your guards from now on!” Mil called out to Mattin’s back, loud enough to make several of those in the room look over.

  Mattin snapped to a halt to remind Mil that he did not have guards.

  Except he did. He must. They had been trailing after him for days, lingering outside the library at all hours. He had simply assumed there were more guards around for some unknown-to-him reason. Not that they were specifically for him.