Walking on Water

by Matthew J. Metzger

  There was another pain, too.

  He used the cane religiously outside of the rooms, even in front of little Ingrid and that tiny, mewling skyling that seemed to have no name, but the moment the doors were closed, Janez seemed to want no part of it. He would fist his hand into the bed sheets that lay hollow where they’d once been full and refuse to move again for the rest of the night, no matter Held’s persuasions.

  The stump was the injury.

  But the wound, Held feared, ran deeper.

  Held knew little of such things. Merfolk could not lose fins and live: they were rendered unable to swim and cast out by nests that couldn’t afford any weakness attracting predators. An orca pack could destroy a nest in a matter of hours and only steered clear for fear of their meals fighting back too hard. A nest of merfolk unable to escape was nothing short of begging for the packs to come.

  The nearest Held could imagine below was the loss of an arm, but he’d never seen it. The sea attracted teeth for blood, and to have an arm torn free the way Janez’s leg had been would ensure death, either by the bleeding alone, or by being hunted down.

  Here, Janez lived. And would continue to live.

  And yet—

  Held had the strangest of impressions that Janez believed it to be half of a life, and the others around him believed it to be a blessed one.

  They certainly lavished attention that Held hadn’t witnessed the last time they’d been here. But for all that Janez seemed to genuinely enjoy the company during the daylight, it seemed to make the nights darker still. Always, always, he would look at Held with those wide eyes, every shade the ocean had ever been, and turn away.

  There was something there, Held was sure.

  Something perhaps Janez didn’t mean to say—or didn’t know how to—was in that gaze every evening, and Held ached to know it, and to smudge it away. But he couldn’t. The fitful nights of pain could only be interrupted by Doktor or his servant coming with smoking potions to help Janez sleep. It meant Held could do little. He waited, busying himself by brushing that shining hair each morning and evening until it flowed like water. Each time, he would finish with a kiss against the crown of warmth about Janez’s temple, the invisible sign of the king of Held’s new world. And he waited. When the potions ceased, and the nights could be tolerated without tears or clenched teeth, Held vowed he would fix it. He would heal the other wounds, whatever they were and wherever Janez carried them, head or heart.

  He had lived. Held would ensure he did not regret the choice.

  The first bloomings were beginning to poke through the ground, the first night that Doktor didn’t come. Held lay awake much of it, awaiting that knock upon Janez’s door and the light ghosting through the chamber like an anglerfish on the prowl, but it never came, and morning saw Janez exhausted, yet unchanged.

  And so the following night, Held came to help him undress, and to brush his hair—and then set the brush aside when the curls had been defeated as best they could be and kissed that invisible crown.

  He rested his lips there and stayed.

  After a moment, Janez’s hand came up to clasp at his elbow, and he said Held’s name questioningly. Held sighed and kissed the high forehead, and a sharp cheekbone, and then the mouth that dared to question him.

  Janez would not question.

  For Held knew the thought that had been burning, in the way Janez stiffened and his grip tightened to the point of pain and desperation.

  He had believed—

  Oh, but a prince could be a fool, too.

  “How could you believe,” Held whispered against his mouth, kissing and silencing him again when the habitual protest of incomprehension arose, “that this would change me? Change us? You are—”

  He was more beautiful than ever. For he’d brushed the fins of death and come away. Scarred and scathed, but he’d come away regardless. Come back.

  And in his madness, when he had burned so in Doktor’s rooms, he’d called for Held and quieted for his song.

  “You are mine,” Held murmured and struggled for the words. Janez must understand this. “Du—du bist…mein.”

  Janez’s face—changed.

  That devastating blue deepened, an ocean shelf collapsing to the unfathomable depths of the open water. The lines about his eyes eased, and new ones about his mouth formed. The expression seemed to break in the middle and relax at the edges, and Held kissed it away fiercely, as though he could catch the sorrow upon his tongue and keep it from ever escaping again.

  Janez simply caught at the back of his neck, his lips yielding to Held’s, but Held had no intentions of some goodnight kiss and peeled back the bed sheets to slide into their warmth. His fingers caught blind and familiar against the ties and ribbons of Janez’s nightclothes, and soon he found the smoothness of still-pink scars, healing and raw, and the strong thump of a heart that had not yielded, never yielded, to what the cruelty of the world had wanted.

  Held dropped his mouth to kiss the heartbeat. It beat for the both of them.

  “Nein,” he breathed when Janez’s hands stroked down his spine. Held caught them both, narrow wrists encircled entirely by his fingers, and thrust them deep under the pillows. Finally, a little laugh escaped Janez’s lips, and quite suddenly, he submitted. Held’s heart clenched tight at that.

  The body unclothed, and its owner peaceable, Held could take his time. And he did. Each new scar—face and neck, and the great score over the shoulder that had bloodied the king’s arms—was mapped with lips and teeth, kissed and tugged until the skin about it flushed. And Janez sighed with a gentle, breathy sound of pleasure, all traces of pain gone from his countenance, as though Held had pulled it all away. He tugged the pain from tired muscle and bone, leaving soft marks upon rib and hip. He kissed pleasure into belly and lower still, and pushed his hands, spread wide, underneath to hold Janez entirely within his command and steer him through the quiet ecstasy better than any skyman had ever driven any cloud.

  “Held—”

  His name was the last breath Janez took before the pleasure washed over him, and Held kissed all evidence of it away before rising up that heaving, flushed body to bite at his lower lip until it bruised and swelled between his teeth.

  “I love you,” he told it, and Janez made a faint noise. “Ich—ich—”

  “Ich liebe dich.”

  Janez said it soft and clear, and staring with those suddenly dark eyes right into Held’s face. It was the same expression as those hot nights in Doktor’s rooms—but for the fact that Janez looked right at him and saw him. Truly saw him, saw perhaps more than Held had ever been able to reveal. And his fingers traced the side of Held’s face, and—

  Oh, but Janez had given him the words. So many, many times.

  “Ich liebe dich,” Held echoed, and the smile that washed across Janez’s face was little short of breathtaking.

  “Du liebst mich?”

  It seemed to be an involuntary question, for Janez at once made a face and murmured something else, but Held knew the words either side, and the middle sounded so very much the same—

  “Ja.”

  That look.

  And a shiver in Janez’s fingers.

  Oh, but he had questioned it. He hadn’t known, or not believed.

  “I love you,” Held repeated and kissed that fine mouth. Janez’s hand caught at the back of his head, capturing him. Drank his air. His soul. The other tugged at the strings of his shirt, and Held shrugged out of it blindly and clumsily.

  The first had been quiet and serene. The second was quite different. Frenzied—like the end of their dance in the darkened room; like the night Janez had told him of the marriage. But—less saddened. There was something brighter, something fiercer, in the way Janez touched him. In the way their hearts beat as one. In the way that battered yet unbroken body arched beneath him as Held took it, and the clutch of Janez’s hands so deep they left bruises.

  And after—

  And after, shaken apart and his s
oul showing through the cracks in his skin, Held slid sideways into the messy nest of a bed. He pulled Janez close until he breathed through the once-more chaotic curls, and Janez’s mouth was resting against his neck, close and intimate and entirely, completely perfect.

  “Ich liebe dich,” Janez whispered there, and Held tightened his grip for a moment.

  For it was true.

  And Held had been quite, quite wrong.

  There was nothing—no cloud, no princess, no king—that could take that from him.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  THE DOCTOR HAD lied for him.

  It had escaped Janez’s notice for some time—none but family would speak of such a delicate matter to the prince, of course—but as Alarik began to make noises about Ingrid’s schooling, about the need for her to learn other tongues and perhaps take a tour of their neighbouring kingdoms to meet other lordlings her own age, Janez realised.

  He’d become somehow exempt from marriage.

  And when he enquired as to the alliance with Sigurd, in only the second council meeting he was able to attend after mastering that damnable cane, the room went tellingly quiet.

  “The Princess Alessandra feels…feels it is no longer in both of your interests,” was all Alarik would say on the matter in public. Later, hovering at Janez’s elbow as he struggled to his feet—no, foot—he added, “A lady wants children, Janez. And now that you cannot give them to her…well…”

  Janez, wisely, said nothing.

  The relief at the doctor’s lie was sharp and palpable, and he breathed easy for the first time in months, quite irrespective of his wounds. The kingdom believed him to be impotent, or castrated, or something along those lines. They believed him incapable of siring children. And perhaps, had Janez been a prouder man, he’d have found the stain upon his manhood insulting— But then, such men were not in the habit of enjoying the kind of sex that Janez did.

  So he remained quietly relieved and said nothing to reveal the falsehood. Although he did smuggle the doctor a supremely large bottle of port from the war room for his stores.

  “For going beyond the requirements of the service,” was all he would say, and Doktor simply eyed him like a cautious lizard and chuckled.

  “In which case, you’re quite welcome, Your Highness.”

  And so Janez was largely left to heal alone—or rather, alone in the dutiful sense of the term. Alarik dogmatically insisted he remain in the royal chambers as much as possible; Sofia, for once entirely in tune with her husband, pressed Ingrid and the baby on him as much as possible, to guilt him into staying. Ingrid was delighted with the situation and, in truth, Janez found her joy infectious. Sitting upon the great rug in the nursery, his hair plaited like a girl’s and Ekaterina scolding them both for their inability—despite the decades between them and the differences of their sexes—to concentrate on her lessons for more than a moment at a time, Janez felt—

  Calmer.

  At peace.

  Loved.

  He felt quite loved, in the bosom of his family by day and, much more literally, the bosom of his lover by night. Held seemed to enjoy the darkness. He kept distant and dutiful by daylight but at night crept into Janez’s rooms without fail and would strip away the clothes and sheets between them as though entirely offended by their presence.

  The wounds would never heal. Janez mourned the great thunder of the sea, and the roar of the world under the deck of his tiny wooden worlds. But with Held’s lips upon his hair, murmuring words from another land, Janez felt as though the cannon perhaps hadn’t snuffed out all there had ever been about his life.

  He felt happy, despite the pain.

  And he felt free, despite the cane.

  Which was why he was surprised, on the first day of spring, when a messenger arrived in a breathless rush, holding out a scrap of paper with a note upon it, and said the King demanded his presence.

  “Demanded? Are you sure?”

  “Demanded, Your Highness. He’s—a panic—there’s ships—approaching—”

  Janez rocked to his foot, nearly falling as he groped for the cane. Ships! What the devil was Alarik summoning him for? Launch their own, for God’s sake!

  But the answer came quickly and clearly—or rather, clearly that Alarik hadn’t lost his mind—when Janez burst onto the royal balcony with his spyglass and, training it upon the horizon, saw a fleet nestled outside their harbour flying not the terrible ice sigils of their enemy, but a great brown bear upon a golden field.

  King Sigurd’s sigil.

  “Why the devil is he here?” Janez asked the messenger, who simply shrugged, still fighting to catch his breath.

  “I don’t know, Your Highness. I just—got sent—by—”

  “All right, all right. Where am I to go?”

  “The council room.”

  Janez took his time, in spite of the messenger’s urgency. It wouldn’t do to appear breathless and shaking with the pain in front of Sigurd. The man was of the old world, Father’s world. He prized soldiers of war. The lack of a leg would not phase him—would even impress him—but fainting away like a virgin on her wedding night would earn Janez contempt.

  And so, when he limped heavily into the war council, he was the picture of a war-bred man: heavily scarred, perfectly dressed, and the cane loud and firm upon the floor.

  But it faltered all the same when Carolina rose from her father’s side.

  “My dear Prince,” she said, that ever-present fan dropping entirely to the table. “I am so pleased to find you well. Please, sit—you must still be in great pain.”

  “It is not so bad,” Janez answered automatically, even as his eyes narrowed and his mind scoured the situation before him. Sigurd and Alarik sat close together, a map spread between them. Sigurd was regarding Janez with a calculating eye, none of the proud and affable father that had attended the ball not two months since. And Carolina—this, too, was not the same woman that had held her fan like a shield between them and turned Janez away so firmly.

  “If you are quite able, walk with me a little, then?” she entreated. “We came in from the great courtyard, and the flowers are in bloom. I should like to pick a few.”

  “Carolina,” Sigurd rumbled.

  “The gardens, Papa!” she scolded, turning on him like Sofia upon her husband in a matrimonial clash. “What must you think of him—of me!—that going to the gardens with all those guards could be considered indecent, I do not know!”

  Sigurd subsided with a grunt and finally nodded. Carolina dismissed him like a queen already, turning back to Janez and abandoning her fan on the council table.

  “I would offer my arm, my lady, but as you can see…”

  “Then the other. One arm is as good as another,” she said, daintily slipping her fingers into his other elbow. Janez hadn’t the balance yet to crook it, and her grip tightened a fraction as he limped. She followed like a warm ghost, from the council room and out through the great hall to the warm, sunlit courtyard.

  Only there, in the company of the little fountains below the steps and a cluster of birds chattering away in the rainbows cast by the water, did Carolina drop the facade, as they stopped to sit on the little wall that overlooked the rose paths.

  “I have told Father that I love you.”

  Her voice dropped. The sunny disposition, the pampered princess, was gone. This was the fan-for-a-shield woman from the ball. And Janez found he far preferred her, for the frankness.

  “Why?”

  “The ambassador said that you are—unable.”

  Janez raised an eyebrow. “To what, exactly? I can walk, after a fashion. I have my wits about me. I—”

  She cast a glance about and leaned in a little. “To lie with a woman.”

  “Ah.”

  “To—sire children.”

  Janez said nothing.

  “Alessandra said she couldn’t possibly marry a man who couldn’t make her a mother—which is ridiculous, she means a man who cannot make love to her—�
�

  So that tart sharpness ran in the family, did it? Janez smirked.

  “—and Father quite agreed. He has his lineage to think of, after all. But I thought…well…we get along, do we not?”

  So that was the game.

  “I think we do, or certainly can.”

  “I did find you pleasant company. I just—I cannot, Janez. I cannot lie with someone. The very idea…” She shivered, despite the warmth, and Janez eyed her.

  “So you wish—what? Your father would not allow you to marry a eunuch.”

  “My father will do what his daughters entreat him to do. If I proclaim love, he would let me marry for it. You are still a prince. You would still wed our kingdom to yours, if only for our lifetimes. And I do have sisters. I am not his only hope for grandchildren—not even his best.”

  Janez hummed.

  “This could be our solution, Janez.”

  Her hand gripped his, separated by their respective gloves. It was true. This alliance was needed, desperately, for the defence of Alarik’s realm. And she was indeed a clever and interesting woman. Her love of the sea, her affection for her books—she could be both a dutiful wife to the wider world, and genuinely good company within their own, private one.

  And Janez would be her protection, he realised. By binding herself to a man the world thought impotent—that she thought impotent—Carolina would be released from the duties of sex and pregnancy, both of which seemed to appal her. And he, in turn, would be free to have Held with no jealousy or reproach from a jilted bride. She would likely even welcome the distraction.

  But it would be a lie.

  He lowered his voice.

  “You wish to marry me, because if you do, you need never be subjected to that which disgusts you.”

  Her answer was perfectly simple.

  “Yes.”

  “It—frees you, in a way.”

  “Yes.”

  He said nothing. Her grip tightened in his.

  “I would be a wife,” she said, “and childless by virtue—by your devotion to your country. I would be wed to a war hero, and nobody would be blamed but the enemy for our lack of issue.”