Evin urged Gareth to lie back, this time using a wadded-up chemise as a pillow. Evin lay facedown on top of him again, cheek to his chest, listening to him breathe and enjoying the touch as Gareth reached around to idly finger Evin’s hole while they drowsed.
* * *
Evin woke to the feel of Gareth’s hands stroking his back and kneading his ass. He growled approval, despite the fact that he was chilly. The night air had cooled and the rock was shedding less heat from yesterday’s sun; and of course Gareth’s body didn’t help. He hoped Gareth was waking him with ideas that would get him warmed up again, but instead came the dreaded whisper: “We have to get you home.”
“No, I want to stay with you tonight.” He curled up tighter, pressing his face into Gareth’s chest.
“Me too, Evin, but we can’t. I have to take you home before light. And I have to do some of my chores. If my parents get suspicious…”
“All right. Let me get my clothes—Ow!” Every hair on Evin’s abdomen was yanked at once from being glued to Gareth’s skin.
Taking care not to put his injured knee down on the rock, Evin stood, then offered a hand to help Gareth up. Both of them brushed dried flakes off their bellies. They dressed in silence. It was time to trudge back toward their mundane lives.
Only later did Evin realize that they had forgotten to look up at the stars.
* * *
As he was led back down the mountain trail, Evin recalled Gareth’s talk of watching him with the others. How long had Gareth been around, unseen and unsuspected?
“Gareth.”
“Hm?”
“How long have you been watching me?”
“I don’t know. I’ve watched all the villagers for years, ever since I was allowed to do chores by myself.” And with perfect, thoughtless innocence, he said, “You had a sister then.”
“Oh!”
Gareth must have heard the dismay in Evin’s voice. He halted and turned back. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have—”
“No, you—Nothing. It’s—” Evin shook his head to clear it. “Nobody talks about her. It’s like she was never here. I didn’t expect you to know.”
“Is that wrong? I didn’t know I was supposed to pretend—”
“No, I don’t want you to pretend. It just hurt my parents so much for so long. I wish…I wish there had been somebody like you there when she needed a hero.”
Gareth searched Evin’s face for a long moment. In a low, sad voice, he said, “I wasn’t a hero then. I wish I coulda been strong. I didn’t understand what was happening, and it was scary.”
Lords! He had seen!
Memory bloomed in Evin’s mind like a poison flower.
He is ten summers old. He and Tyber are crouched by the window in the darkened workshop as night falls, spying on a group of visiting soldiers who mill about in the village square. Their captain speaks with Tyber’s father and other villagers, but as the hour grows late, the men are doing nothing really interesting. Tyber’s breath tickles warm against his temple. Everyone is occupied with the visitors, so they’ll be safe here to do the secret kissing and—
Gareth said, “I didn’t know what was happening, Evin, but the people…shouting…and the light…! I had to see what it was.”
A scream galvanizes Evin. He and Tyber leap apart and scramble for their clothes. A sick lump forms in his gut. He knows it would mean trouble—bad, embarrassing trouble—to get caught. But he finds no one else in the workshop, so who could have seen? Wooden beams above flicker in the light cast from a fire outside. Evin rushes to the window to peer out again, toward a bonfire in the square. Tyber asks what’s happening and what Evin sees is—
“She was in the cage. Why did they trap a little girl? I couldn’t help her, Evin! I didn’t know what to do, and there were so many people.”
Mama is crying, pleading with the captain. One of the soldiers holds her arm, but still she gestures, points to the cage, and inside…inside the cage, Evin’s sister, Teffaine, kneels against the bars. She reaches out and screams. Evin can’t answer Tyber’s question. Frozen, as if his heart and guts were plunged into a winter lake, he cannot think or speak. It can’t be true! The captain holds up a parchment with a seal, points at it, waves it at Mama. She shakes her head, she doesn’t stop shaking her head, and the soldier drags her away—
“Your parents were big…and even they couldn’t…”
Villagers restrain Evin’s father. He struggles, but there are too many. It’s him Teffaine reaches for, and Papa tries to reach back. The people won’t let him go to her. She can’t go to prison! This can’t be happening, they can’t—
“When you ran out with that sword, that’s when I heard your name, when they tried to stop you. You were so brave…but I didn’t help at all. I wasn’t a hero. I hid in a tree. But I wanted you to save her. I did!”
Evin races to his family’s cabin with his clothes still unfastened. He takes his father’s sword, which he can barely lift, and runs out to charge the man with the parchment. People are shouting at him, reaching for him, trying to stop him just like they stopped Papa. The sword is clumsy in his grasp, hard to hold up, and it makes him stagger as he dodges the grasping hands. He slips around one more soldier. Evin runs straight at the captain now, screaming and using both arms to lift the sword high. The captain turns, so slowly it seems, to look at Evin with eyes that show no surprise or concern for his fate. Evin runs as fast, roars as loudly as he can, but still everything happens so slowly. The captain’s sword slipping from its sheath. The other soldiers closing in. The heavy slams of Evin’s heart. Evin’s weapon arcing down now as the captain lifts his, flat to one side.
The man’s sword hammers into Evin’s ribs, and the ground flies up to smash him in the face. Everything stops, and he can’t move or breathe, as if a stone holds him crushed to the ground. Then he can lift his head, and his body is able to make a ragged gasp for air. Another. He blinks through tears and dirt. Sees the captain stepping toward him. Glances around in desperation to find Papa’s sword. It lies just out of reach, gleaming in the firelight. Still heaving for air, Evin drags himself to his knees, lurches with an outstretched hand to get the sword. The man kicks him in the stomach, hard enough to lift him—
“They took her, Evin. I’m sorry, they took her away, and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t even know why. And you were there crying and your mother came to you and I was crying and I hid in the tree all night. But I wasn’t big then, Evin. I was small like the girl! You’re not mad at me, are you?”
Evin tore himself away from the memories. His vision unclouded, and he could see his friend again, hear the useless guilt in his voice. Evin moved into Gareth’s arms and held him tight, to comfort him and take comfort.
When Evin could keep his voice under control, he said, “Her name was Teffaine.”
“Teffaine,” Gareth murmured. His embrace became firm and reassuring. Evin laid his head against Gareth’s chemise and let himself be held.
“We adored her. My mother was never the same…after. She used to be so happy. I know she loves me, but she’s not the same. Her brother had been taken for breaking the law, and Teffaine was taken like a tax, for the queen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“The people in the village—bastards!—they were happy to give her away, of course they were, because she was never theirs to give. Never… And it’s so easy now to pretend none of it ever happened. There’s nobody to talk to, so we don’t say anything.”
“But why? Why did they take her?”
“To use her. Like food. To take her life and give it to someone else. They call them handmaidens, the girls they take. They’re sacrificed to keep the queen alive forever.”
Gareth’s only reply was a tighter embrace.
“I know your secrets. I want you to keep one for me. One I can’t tell anybody else. I hate the queen for what she did to Teffaine. To my family. I hate her!” Evin’s fists were bunched and vibrating against Gareth’s back. �
��I hate her.”
They arrived at the edge of Evin’s village at least half an hour before dawn and said their good-byes in whispers and kisses.
* * *
Gareth headed back, following their trail all the way to the rock ledge, carefully erasing all signs of Evin’s passage. Then he ran through the forest in the gathering light to check as many animal traps as he could manage before time to go home.
* * *
The next week, Evin was at work in the apothecary shop, crushing dried leaves and pouring the resulting powder into a clay jar. He probably had enough to fill that jar and one other. Johan was also working, pulling near-empty jars from the shelves and setting out the ones Evin would be adding to.
Like so much of the apothecary’s work, using a mortar and pestle to grind the ingredients to fine powder occupied Evin’s hands for a time but left his mind to run free. Woolgathering, Madame Tabeau called it. He hadn’t been able to go out every night, and there were times when Gareth didn’t come to him in the woods, but those nights they did meet gave him marvelous new memories to dwell on as he did the mindless tasks. Often he would finish a job without really noticing. He’d return from woolgathering to discover an empty mortar, a full jar, and tightness in his breeches.
Good thing he didn’t have to walk around much while crushing powders.
Several times, he caught Johan watching him. When Madame Tabeau left the shop on an errand, Johan finally interrupted his reverie.
“Tyber is looking for you.”
“He knows he can find me here.” The constriction of his breeches faded away.
“He’s working with his father today. We wonder where you’ve been, Evin.”
Evin continued to crush the leaves. His mind turned from the pleasant thoughts. He needed to stop seeking Gareth at every opportunity. He needed to be ready whenever Tyber wanted him, in order to keep Gareth safe.
Johan wouldn’t leave it alone. “Are you hunting on your own? It’s not safe alone. You should come hunting with us again.”
“Do you miss me, Johan?”
Johan blushed. “It’s not safe.”
“I don’t think you’re worried about me being eaten by a boggart. You’re worried about what Tyber will make you do if I’m not there.”
“Quiet! You know we can’t speak—”
“No, we can’t. So stop talking.”
Johan slammed a jar onto the counter and moved back to the shelves. He was a handsome lad, same age as Evin. Good at the things they did in hiding, but not kind anymore, not like Gareth. It would be too much to say Johan loved anyone, but he wanted Ysabeau more often than Tyber let him have her. Ysabeau hung on for Tyber, because she hoped to be a mayor’s wife one day. And poor little Marc adored Johan the way Evin had once adored Tyber.
It was a great circle of pleasuring and misery, and no one who remained within it would ever be happy. And when it went wrong, some of them—Evin in particular—would die. But Johan could stand up to Tyber better than anyone because he hadn’t broken the law. He could make it better for himself and the others for a while, if he only understood.
Evin softened his voice. “It was fun with you, Johan. When you liked me. But you got ashamed, and I know you hate me for how much you want—”
“Shut up!”
“Maybe I do have to do what Tyber says, but he doesn’t force you to go hunting, does he?”
Johan stared at him with contempt.
“You could be good again. You could protect Marc instead of doing whatever you and Tyber do to him when I’m not around.”
Johan looked away and wouldn’t meet his eyes. He pretended to concentrate on his work.
“You could be good to Marc. He likes you. Ysabeau doesn’t. You’ve used her up, just like you all used me up.”
Chapter Eight
Gareth met Evin again in the darkness of the forest. He was surprised to see that Evin was carrying a blanket and a pack. “What’s that stuff?”
“Well…you remember the cave you took me to? I thought we could make it more comfortable. It would be a safe place to go.”
“Um, I don’t know….” The cave was on Father’s land. It had been a safe place to go when Evin was hurt, but how could they dare go up on the mountain every time? Father came out sometimes at night.
“Why not? You already took me onto your parents’ land once, so what’s the difference?”
Gareth gasped. He had done something wrong again. Somehow he let every secret slip out.
Evin put a hand on Gareth’s arm and said, “I know, I know. You couldn’t tell me, but really, I couldn’t help but guess who they are. You know I won’t tell anybody. You’re safe with me.”
“I know. I just wasn’t supposed to tell nobody. I thought I could keep a secret like I’m supposed to.”
“Well, I already know your biggest secrets,” Evin said with a smirk. He cupped his hand against Gareth’s crotch.
Gareth closed his eyes. Just as his cock stiffened against the firm but gentle pressure of Evin’s palm, so his resistance and worry wilted away. He would keep Evin safe from anyone. Before he got any more distracted, he asked, “Want me to carry you? It’s faster.”
“Yes, if you can manage while I hold on to the blanket and my bath stuff.”
Bath stuff? “What’s that for? There’s no water in the cave.”
“No, we have to go to the river. There’s something I want to try, if you’ll let me, but we have to wash first.”
“I took a bath this morning, like always.”
“I know, but trust me. You’ll see.”
Evin stroked him now through the cloth of his breeches, up and down the length of his cock, warming and teasing his most sensitive flesh. That was what Evin wanted to do at the river. Bathe together and touch.
Oh yes, he trusted Evin.
And he knew of another cave on a hill near the water, farther away from Father’s game trails.
“Okay,” Gareth said. “But I know a better cave, closer to the river where you camped one time.”
“That sounds perfect.”
After Gareth ran to the cave with Evin and the pack of equipment in his arms, they set some things out for later and took others with them to the river. At the water’s edge, Evin removed Gareth’s clothing.
“Sit down on that rock,” Evin said. Gareth complied. “Now give me your foot.”
“Which one?”
“It doesn’t matter, silly. I’m going to do ’em both.”
Evin washed Gareth’s foot and scrubbed under his toenails with a little brush. It was prickly and tickly and embarrassing, and he couldn’t keep from wiggling. But it was fun too. His cock stood as hard as the rock he sat on while Evin messed with his foot.
“Your parents didn’t teach you much about how to clean yourself, did they?”
“They don’t like to look at me.”
“Well, I like to look at you.” Evin lifted Gareth’s foot up higher and licked it from heel to freshly cleaned toe. The heat of Evin’s tongue matched the warmth his words stirred in Gareth’s belly. “Ah, you taste good all over. Your father is Rhyd, the trapper, right?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll have tools to make his traps. Do you think you could borrow a really small file and make your nails like mine?” Without letting go of Gareth’s leg, Evin lifted his own foot out of the water and put it on the rock, close enough to Gareth’s balls to tease him and tickle him with wiggling toes. Gareth only needed one hand to prop himself up, so with the other he ran his fingers lightly over Evin’s feet, touching them all over. Delicate bones; soft skin; hard, tiny nails. Evin was more than perfect everywhere.
“I’ll try.”
Evin finished doing both feet and led Gareth deeper into the river. There he used a bladder of water to show Gareth a very personal and embarrassing part of cleaning up.
After they both did that, Evin brought out some soap and scrubbed Gareth’s entire body without letting Gareth help at all except to lift
his arms. After he soaped each part, he rinsed it and kissed it and stroked it with feverish hands. Every part.
Evin saved Gareth’s backside for last. He massaged the back cheeks for a long time and rubbed soap all around.
Evin said, “You’re ready now. I’m going to put my fingers in. Remember how I liked when you touched me there before?”
“Uh-huh.”
Evin lathered soap into Gareth’s ass and started to stroke slowly around the hole. How strange to simply stand and allow someone to kneel behind, touching there, soothing and gently stretching the ticklish skin. Strange and slippery and good.
No wonder Evin liked it.
Evin slicked his finger over the knot of muscle around Gareth’s opening. And pushed in.
“Oh!”
Evin slipped his fingertip out, then in again a little more. And again. Like Evin was scratching an itch Gareth never knew he had, only the good kind of itch, and the more Evin’s fingers stretched and probed the slick, hidden skin, the more the itch grew.
Then it changed when Evin’s finger was all the way inside and Gareth got the horrible feeling that he was having a nasty accident. He wanted to tell Evin to stop.
“Does that feel good?” Evin asked in a husky voice that urged him to say yes.
“Uh-huh,” Gareth lied.
“Can I put in another finger?”
“Uh-huh…” No no!
There was a more uncomfortable stretch as Evin’s second finger squeezed into him. Gareth held his breath, tried to ignore the squishy feeling and let Evin judge whether—
“Oh, Gareth, you feel so good inside…!”
“Yes,” Gareth lied.
Evin began to wiggle his fingers around. He slowly worked them out, changed his angle, and slid them smoothly in. Deep in. And again, a few more times. Not too fast, not hurting him, but not slow anymore, not at all. Then Evin touched something inside that stabbed Gareth’s whole body with the feeling of making seed. He shuddered and gasped for breath.
In the Darkness Page 8
