Kei's Gift

by Ann Somerville

  Tiko spotted Arman and Colonel Jiv before Kei did and hailed them. “Found him, general, and rescued him again.”

  Arman smiled in welcome, and since it might give him cause for concern, Kei forced himself not to scowl at Tiko’s joke. “Are all the arrangements to your liking?” Arman asked him.

  “Pretty much—I want the hostages given as much space as possible, with as few reminders of military confinement as we can manage. A lot of them suffered badly from seasickness on the crossing from Urshek and if any are already ill, these will need special care.” Kei noted Arman’s guilty feelings over the matter—there wasn’t anything he could do to change that. Arman and his fellows were responsible for a lot of suffering and it was something only Arman could deal with.

  “The lad’s going to be bored waiting for you, general,” Tiko said jovially. “Maybe we can have him here to train up our men.”

  “Ah. Actually—”

  Kei held up his hand. “Arman, while you explain matters to the captain, I’ll find Reji—are we leaving?” Arman nodded. “Then I’ll meet you at the carriage. Which way are the stables?”

  Colonel Jiv indicated the direction, and with a nod to Arman and no guilt whatsoever in dropping him right in the mess, Kei walked away quickly. He heard Tiko’s outraged bellow and hastily dove around a corner—Arman could handle Tiko. He couldn’t really face another lecture this morning.

  He smelled the stables before he saw them. There were animals in the yard, some being exercised, others saddled, one or two being curried. Reji was there, sitting on his haunches, looking thoughtfully at the feet of a beast and talking to a soldier. He smiled at Kei when he spotted him. “You’ve got a furtive look on your face that reminds me of when you were trying to keep a baby krak-krak bird secret from your mother.”

  “Not so very different—I’m hiding from Tiko. How does it look?”

  “Good, good. We’re only taking twelve urs beasts, and also a few jombekers for the milk—if any of the hostages are sickly, they’d welcome that, I think.”

  “Yes, they will—however they travel, they’ll need better food than the army provides. Are you done?”

  “Almost. You?”

  “Finished, but we can wait for you.”

  Reji stood up. “This one looks fine to me—we can take him,” he said to the soldier. The man nodded and led the beast back inside. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”

  “Just the headache, and...well, I’m not fond of the military environment for all kinds of reasons.”

  “No,” Reji said, giving him a searching look. Kei waited for his friend to give him the now expected lecture about him not needing to do this, but Reji just put his hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go then.” Kei nearly sighed in relief. It was bad enough that he was questioning whether he should go without everyone else doing it for him.

  He hid shamelessly behind Reji as they approached the courtyard. “If Tiko’s there, I’m making a run for it.”

  “You know, he struck me as a very nice man,” Reji said calmly.

  “Yes, that’s because you don’t remind him of his son,” Kei snapped. “Tiko doesn’t know if he’s a bodyguard, surrogate father or matchmaker. I don’t need any of them.”

  Reji laughed. “The coast is clear, you can come out. Arman’s looking at us as if he thinks I’m doing something to you.”

  His lover’s face was indeed set in a stern expression, which immediately brightened when he spotted Kei. But that, Kei had to admit, had been a feature of their relationship for so long, he’d ceased to notice it—in fact, they had been so friendly and intimate with each other that the only real change for them, as with Reji, was the sex. He was so grateful Arman wasn’t in the least bit jealous—that, he really couldn’t have handled at all. Not now.

  Colonel Jiv had found other things that needed his attention. Arman was on his own, and claimed Kei’s hand as he approached. “Now that was unfair,” he said dryly. “It was your idea to go to Utuk, so why do I get burdened with defending the decision to your friends?”

  Kei laid his head briefly on Arman’s shoulder in apology. “Because he has to listen to you and not to me?”

  “Hmmm. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d suspect you of manipulation.”

  “No, just fatigue. Thank you for talking to him.”

  “I should do as I threatened and set him as your personal watch.”

  Reji grinned at Kei’s look of horror. “I told you he had ways of dealing with you that I wouldn’t.”

  “Fortunately for him,” Arman said with an amused smile, “he’s only to turn those eyes of his on me and I relent.”

  I do? Kei thought. That was something to remember. “Shall we go?”

  Chapter : Darshek 5

  Arman looked down at Kei’s sleeping face with a mixture of concern and love. Concern because Kei’s headache clearly troubled him more as the day wore on, although he’d repeatedly assured Arman this was quite normal, and because the damage to his gift had been quite severe—even with Arman’s buffering presence, it would take time to recover from the twin blows dealt to it in the last few days.

  Love because...it was Kei.

  He hadn’t thought his feelings for this young man, asleep so trustingly in his lap, could grow stronger, but they had. Discovering Kei returned his love.... He still couldn’t believe his good fortune. It terrified him more than a little because it tempted fate too thoroughly. The gods had snatched Loke away from him. He feared they would notice he had won a prize of equal worth and steal Kei from him too. It had been so very hard to let Kei exercise free choice and allow him to come on the rescue—but Arman had sworn to himself Kei would always be free to do as he wished. He could not stumble at this first test, however great.

  The bruise on Kei’s temple was a rebuke to him. If he’d made it possible for Kei to have seen Bikel on the first attempt, Kei would not have been at the inn that day to be injured. He laid a protective hand on Kei’s forehead, glad he had insisted on a break after a morning and lunch spent in intensive planning, although it had been as much to allow Reji to rest as for Kei. And, Arman had to confess, he just wanted to be alone with Kei for a while. It was good for both of them. Kei needed time to recover physically and psychically, and he’d admitted the most beneficial contact with Arman was when they were both alone and touching, just as they were now. For Arman, the benefit was in learning how to accept being happy. He’d spent so long settling for what dry crumbs were left to him after duty was satisfied, that to experience the pure, raw pleasure being with Kei in this way gave him, was a dizzying and, at times, alarming experience.

  Kei wasn’t the only thing on his mind, of course—not even sitting so peacefully with him. There were still so many things that could go wrong in this rescue. They were as prepared as they could be, but so much depended on handling Kita. This was why he’d suggested only male Rulers should go, although Lady Jilki was more than a match for the Prijian sovereign in intellectual strength and in ruthlessness. Kita simply would not respect a woman the way she would a man, and she might also make the mistake of thinking the male Rulers would be susceptible to her charms. Lord Meki might be considered too old, but Lord Peika was barely thirty, a handsome and charming man (and happily married, though Kita wouldn’t know this). Arman had spent considerable time briefing the two men about his sovereign and how to handle her—and would spend more time doing so.

  The threat of the Gifted and Darshianese armoury was only half the battle—the Darshianese wanted to win not only the war but the peace too, and this would not be easily achieved or maintained. There was a good deal of disquiet among all eight rulers that the Prij would subvert the stable and rational society their predecessors had painstakingly built over two hundred years. This was not an area Arman could advise them on—it was a Darshianese problem and he had neither expertise nor any right to comment.

  He rubbed his eyes—he’d been making notes and rereading them for hours, and he needed a break.
His gaze fell upon the walking stick, lying on the table near the bed, and he reached for it, the already familiar weight and smooth grain of it something he found soothing to hold. He smiled as his finger traced the symbols under the handle—how much comfort he had taken in them, thinking they were all he had left of Kei’s presence in his life, and yet how they paled in comparison to the reality of the man who’d carved them.

  “You’re not planning to go for a walk on the bed, are you?” a sleepy voice asked.

  “No, just admiring some rather fine craftsmanship—and a rather fine craftsman, of course.” Kei flushed—he was endearingly unused to be being complimented on his handsome features, which were yet the least of his charms to Arman. “I believe these have a number of interpretations. What was in your heart when you put them there?”

  Kei looked up at him and took his hand, curling it over the handle of the stick. “I don’t know myself,” he said quietly. “I was so sad because you were going, and I didn’t want you to go but couldn’t ask you to stay. I just...wanted you to have something of me.”

  “And so this...’beloved’ or ‘lover’?”

  “Not ‘lover’—friend. But also...he who loves. Kei loves Arman who brings him joy.”

  Arman shifted and slid down the bed so he could lie next to Kei instead of looking down at him, and kiss him, no longer content to merely touch his face. “Arman also loves Kei who brings him joy. Can I say that by turning it upside down?”

  Kei laughed. “No, that makes it say, ‘I like to have sex with urs beasts’.”

  Arman moved back to look at him suspiciously. “It does not.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Kei admitted, still chuckling. “But you thought it did for a moment.”

  “You’re going to be a handful, I can see that.” Kei gave him a kiss as an apology and made him come closer. “Loti had trouble with this character—he said it was archaic. How do you know it when he’s unfamiliar with it?”

  Kei took the stick from him and his eyes grew soft as he touched the symbol. “My father taught it to me—he came across it in his researches when he studied in Darshek in his youth. If he ever made something for us, especially something special, say for a birthday, he would inscribe or carve this somewhere on it. Every year he made my mother a figurine in plum wood—animals, or plants, she loved them both and he carved like a master—and always set this in the base. See, if you turn it, and add a single upstroke, it becomes unambiguously ‘friend’. Turn it again, and cross this line here, and it's ‘lover’. But as it is...it means ‘friend’, ‘beloved’, ‘lover’ or ‘loving’—you can usually tell by context which it is really.”

  “And this?” Arman pointed to the ‘golden one’ character. “Not just my hair?”

  Kei looked embarrassed. “I carved that before I remembered it had the other meaning. I wasn’t really thinking about your hair then. You’re the one with that obsession.”

  Arman ran his hand down his particular obsession, remembering braiding it the night before and what had passed before that, and smiled. “Your fault for putting so much of it in my path.” He leaned in and kissed Kei’s forehead. “Your words gave me comfort, to know you cared even as a friend.”

  “Always that, Arman,” Kei said in a low voice. He yawned. “It must be late. When do we have to attend this meal?”

  “Not for two or three hours at least. I’ll need Reji and your report, but I think we wrapped that up earlier. Let the man get some rest.”

  “Mmmm. Poor Reji, he’s so old. Oh...he’s only a little older than you, isn’t he?” Kei said innocently. “No offence, my lord,” he said with demurely cast down eyes. The effect was ruined by the smile tugging at his perfect lips.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Arman said sardonically, being nothing of the kind. “Wait until my leg and ribs heal properly. I’ll show you old.”

  “Your leg!” Kei sat up and looked at him with a guilty expression. “I was going to massage it!”

  “Calm down, there’ll be time enough for that.”

  “There’s time now.” He got off the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Arman shook his head and wondered what the man was up to, but just as he was getting off the bed, Kei returned, dressed only in his loincloth, and wagged a finger at him. “Uh uh, stay. I’ve just stoked the fire under the bath, and by the time I’ve rubbed your leg and any other parts of you that take my fancy, it should be properly hot.”

  The bath wasn’t the only thing heating up. Arman would never get used to such casualness over sexual matters. “Er... fine. Shall I undress?”

  “Of course. I’d always prefer to have you naked.”

  Kei clearly enjoyed Arman’s discomfiture. He grinned as he helped Arman take his trousers off and unlaced his shirt. “You do this deliberately,” Arman said with a sigh. “Just when I think you’re this serious, learned healer, you then behave like the silliest brat I’ve ever encountered. Which are you, really?”

  Kei put an arm around him. “Both. I’m just Kei, Arman. Sometimes the healer, and sometimes a silly arse. Sometimes I’ll want sex and sometimes I’ll be tired.”

  “And now you have a headache.”

  “And now I have a headache which is improved, and I want to give you a massage before we get distracted...more,” he said with a grin, looking down at the bulge in his own loincloth and then at the evidence of Arman’s growing arousal. He leaned forward, his eyes heavy lidded in what Arman now recognised as pure desire. All sense fled when his mouth touched Arman’s, his tongue probing and teasing, his hand in the small of Arman’s back, pressing him close.

  Arman tried to pull him down to the bed, wanting nothing more than to kiss and hold this wonderful creature, this fortune, to him, to dig his fingers into the fine, dense hair and to loose the amazing braid. For a moment, Kei melted against him, unresisting, but then he dragged himself back. “Gods, you’re bad for my resolve. I’m going to do your damn leg.”

  “Forget it, it’s fine.”

  “No, I need to be good,” Kei said, standing up, an unconvincing picture of virtue with his kiss-enflamed lips and his erection trapped in his loincloth. “I’m going to think of rotting urs beast entrails until I’m done.”

  “How romantic,” Arman said dryly. An hour kissing Kei would make his leg ache a good deal less than any massage. At least, it would while he was kissing him.

  Kei got the ointment and knelt on the bed. “Roll over...oh, gods, what beautiful legs you have,” he groaned, sounding most aggrieved. Arman decided he deserved a little pain for insisting on playing the healer when Arman was eager to learn more of the arts of love. “And your arse...I wish I could sculpt, I would spend my life trying to portray your body.”

  “Are you just going to drool over me, or are you going to massage my leg? Because if you’re not, I have something I’d really rather do with you.” He looked over his shoulder back at Kei, apparently really pondering the decision. “Well?”

  “Massage,” Kei said firmly, and immediately Arman felt the coolness of the ointment on his leg, and Kei’s strong fingers working on him.

  His leg had been aching, he had to admit, and he’d even begun to be concerned Kei had been premature in letting him walk, despite all his caution. “Is it healing straight? Can you see?”

  There was a few moments’ silence. “Yes,” Kei finally said. “But your leg muscles are strained. You’ve been overdoing it. No wonder you’re in pain.” His fingers continued to dig and ease the tight muscles far more skilfully even than the clever hands of Siv. “We need you fit, Arman. My country needs you, and so do I.”

  Arman turned his head to look at Kei—where there had been a wry grin before, now there was a grave and loving expression. “Same to you.” Kei nodded slowly, continuing to work his magic in silence.

  Kei’s words stirred up many emotions in Arman. Thoughts of those who loved him, thoughts of those who had trusted him and who he had now betrayed as they would see it. Thinking of the people waiting
for a rescue they probably believed now would never come—if they still survived. The idea the Darshianese would arrive in Utuk and find Kita or the senate had ordered the destruction of the hostages in a fit of petulance, haunted him. If they were dead, each death was on his head, as the ten of Vinri already were. If Kita had ordered their deaths, he would dedicate his life to the destruction of the Prijian ruling class so this could never happen again to this race he had once hated so greatly, and now loved and wished to protect with all his heart. They may continue to hate him and he couldn’t blame them—but like Kei, he now wished to serve Darshian.

  He didn’t know when he had become so sure that this, not just the rescue, was his goal. Perhaps it had been when Kei had come back to him, and he realised he truly had a second chance, a new life. He was determined this one would not be filled with bitterness and devotion to ideals he only believed in because there seemed nothing else for him. Perhaps it had been because he had truly died when Loke had, and this was his rebirth. All he knew was that every time Kei touched him, he knew more joy than he ever thought possible, and he wanted to give the country that had given life to his lover, all he could in return.

  He felt Kei finish his massage, and then stretch along behind him, slick fingers trailing lightly up his still damaged side. “I’ve been good,” Kei whispered. “Now reward me.”

  Arman turned and tangled a hand in the hair at the base of Kei’s braid, using that hold to draw him close. “Hmmm, a reward for a massage of that quality...could be expensive.”

  “Very,” Kei whispered, his lips almost touching Arman’s, his breath a warm caress on Arman’s skin. “And very lengthy too. Could take hours and hours.”

  “What about our meeting?”

  “They can watch if they like.” Arman laughed in shock at the idea, and Kei grinned. “Well, perhaps not all of them.”