A Royal Affair (14 page)

“Ack, he is young.”

“What is that supposed to mean? Do the young feel things less strongly?”

“Yes. Of course! Not initially, I grant you. Life’s blows sting the young as if they were the only ones in the world to feel such pain. The sting quickly fades, though, as the natural spirits of youth enable them to recover. Only as we age do we keep pain and grief in our hearts until they kill us.”

“Oh, listen to yourself. You spout so much rubbish it’s a wonder you are not taken for a king’s fool sometimes.”

I shrugged. The young never like to have their fickleness pointed out to them. He was pouting again, thinking. If he’d been dressed, he would have been peering at his boots, no doubt. “You are Mark’s friend—despite what you know him to be? That is… unusual.”

It was his turn to shrug, and he replied cryptically, “We are all soldiers. And Gregory has Pia to set him right. There are places in this world where such things are… normal, you know.”

If he thought he was being wise and impressing me with his knowledge, he was not. I replied simply, “I know. I used to live in such a place.”

He sat up, staring at me. I’d thought that might surprise him. “What do you mean? Where? When?”

I groaned and turned away, smiling privately. “My head aches, Aleksey. That is a story for another occasion. Let me sleep.” He could hardly continue to badger me without betraying a personal interest in my answers, an interest unbefitting a young man engaged to a beautiful princess. I had spoiled my good humor now, though, remembering Anastasia. My head really was aching. I heard him stoking up the embers and laying some more logs. The heat increased. My muscles were totally relaxed, and I let go for a while all the burdens I carried. I slept a hot, sweaty, but dreamless and healing sleep.

I woke to the sensation of a knife blade being dragged across my oiled back. I thought I was still dreaming, so familiar was the sensation, so welcome. I stretched to the pleasure and said in Powponi to my dream brother, “Harder and lower.”

The rhythmic scraping didn’t change, so I turned over and caught the arm, but I was not dreaming, and the act of turning woke me fully. Aleksey had taken one of the scrapers and had drawn it down my naked back. Now he was staring at me as I lay exposed. It was a little late for false modesty. “I believe I am feeling better.”

He nodded, clearly distracted. “You are.”

“Your father recommended the ocean for such occurrences. Or marriage. I prefer the cold-water option. Do you swim?”

Of course he did. He swam as he did everything else, with an exuberance of youthful spirits, recovered and sparking with vitality once more. We plunged naked into the waves, hollering at the awful sensation of the cold until numb to it, then ran shivering back up the beach and dived into the hut. It was not quite so sweet smelling now and seemed airless and too hot. We were done. I felt quite well and particularly hungry. We dressed quickly, mounted our horses, and returned to the castle.

I
DIDN
’
T
know whether my disgrace in the hut would be revisited or ignored—or how I felt about this either way. I expected Aleksey to refer to my arousal in some way, as he gave me surreptitious, thoughtful glances during the rest of the afternoon. I expected him to say
something
, but not, “Do you like music?”

I was busy eating, rather ravenously after the purging and starving of the day, so just nodded and shrugged to this apparent non sequitur. In truth, I was indifferent. He grinned and took this for enthusiastic assent to a plan he had been hatching, and he declared that he would take me out that evening to sample the cultural delights of the city.
Deep joy
, I thought. Actually, I was delighting in the anticipation of another night in Aleksey’s company and could put up with attendant music if I had to.

I spent the afternoon checking on the king and making up a few potions to replenish my stocks. The king was not as well as when we had first returned to the palace, which dismayed me rather, but he was taking council and had been walking earlier, so he was not at death’s door either. Just before six o’clock, Aleksey knocked very pointedly on the door between our rooms. As he was already on my side of the open door, this was clearly done more to amuse than announce, but I let it go. I would have been completely unable to say or do anything else than what I did, which was stare at him.

He had dressed in his usual choice of black leather breeches and long riding boots but had exchanged his usual white shirt for one of a deep emerald green that matched his eyes to perfection, and over this he wore a short military jacket of scarlet with a matching green silk lining. This coat was embellished with gold braid. The effect was brilliant, the colors clashing yet not, dandified yet also deeply masculine. I swallowed, donned my own plain coat, and nodded that I was ready.

We rode through the town and took a road that led out to some of the wealthier houses. I kept checking behind me and eventually asked, “Where is your dog?”

Aleksey didn’t rise to the baiting but answered cheerfully, “He disapproves of our destination and said he had less uplifting activities to pursue.” He snickered for some reason at his choice of words.

Dismounting at a particularly fine establishment, we were welcomed as old friends. Everyone was now speaking the local language, as only the court spoke German and only Aleksey and some of his family English. I understood a few words here and there but was more than happy not to have to talk for once. We were led into a large drawing room full of splendidly dressed older men and young women. Everyone seemed very full of good spirits, literally and metaphorically as I came to discover. We were quickly plied with wine, which I refused after the previous night’s debauchery, and sat in a semicircle facing a splendid piano. This was indeed an impressive sight, for I had only seen one or two of these instruments in private houses before, and then only of the most wealthy of my aristocrat patients. The lady of this house must indeed have had good connections and be very rich.

A young lady I took to be the daughter of the house sat at the keys and proceeded to play and accompany her playing with a very sweet, affecting
voice. I was bored already and began to look around to find Aleksey. He was standing by the fireplace, leaning on the mantle. I smiled privately, knowing he knew how fine he looked standing up. He had deliberately not sat until he had been sufficiently admired. As my eye was doing just that, I heard someone sitting down next to me and turned to discover a pretty young woman spreading her skirts and smiling charmingly at me. I nodded politely and was surprised when she addressed me in English. I said as much, and she replied that she had spent some time in London in a house belonging to her mistress and th
at she had learned my language there. I think her use of my language was a little muddled, because this seemed rather odd to me. I asked her if she was the daughter of the house. She frowned, also confused. I think enlightenment only came to me when, a few minutes later, she put a hand on my thigh, and her fingers began a staccato dance to the beat of the music upon my flesh.

I turned away and concentrated on the singer. Aleksey had brought us to a brothel. A very tasteful, elegant house no doubt, but a brothel all the same. I thought back over the events of the day: our close association, physical and emotional, my reaction to this—his observation of my erection. From all that, he had concluded I lacked female company. He had brought me to a brothel. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Neither seemed appropriate nor worth the effort. Instead, I leaned back slightly, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the feel of the hand upon me. Aleksey had laid his hand upon my thigh when we had ridden back from visiting Gregory. In my mind now, this hand was that hand. I allowed it to be, as I had not allowed my imaginings of Aleksey free rein before. He had brought me here; he must take the consequences. Now in the privacy of my own mind, his hand upon me, his thumb stroking the sensitive inside of my thigh through my breeches, I thought about our day together. For the first time, I allowed my mind to conjure his naked form and
revel
in it.

Why was it that when men looked upon the female form, they lost themselves to desire? When I saw women, spilling pink and plump from their dresses, I saw mammary glands for the feeding of young and thought of milk. Whilst other men admired hips swaying toward them, I measured and calculated width for childbirth. But how would these same men react when they looked upon Aleksey? How could they not groan with need at the shape of his wide, strong shoulders? How could they not shiver with desire when allowing their eyes to travel down his torso to the ridges of his belly? Did the tips of their fingers not tingle with desire to touch and trace the vee of muscle that held all this in place and drew the eye farther—to that which made my mouth water to think of? I hardened then to the thought of Aleksey as I had seen him naked that day. In that place, with that hand upon me, was I not allowed at last to rise?

I glanced cautiously with lowered lids around the room. Little clusters o
f two had formed everywhere. The evening was heating up. We were by no means the only couple engrossed in other than the music. My companion, clearly pleased by my reaction, had sidled closer. Her head was on my shoulder, and the positioning of her hand could not now be said to be an unconscious response to the intensity of the mus
ic: it was inside my breeches. She smiled in what I must assume to be a seductive way. I turned away at the sight of lip paint upon her teeth. As I turned, I saw Aleksey. He was leaving the saloon in the company of two young women.

I am not a man given to anger easily, or if I am, I can mask it behind schooled indifference. But that night, my fury rose hot and hard. I stood up, brushing the woman’s hand off my groin. I refused to be embarrassed about my state, given I was not the guilty party here with inappropriate reactions. I was their puppet, and I had danced to their strings. I was torn now, though. Half of me wanted to leave, and half of me wanted to find Aleksey and ruin his evening as he’d ruined mine. But to do this, I would have to admit the cause of my anguish, and that I could not do. Of course, I had now admitted it to myself well enough; I could hardly keep up that level of pretense. I understood very well why seeing him leave with two women upset me: I was jealous. I was
sick
with jealousy. I wanted to
kill
him. I’d rather he were dead than in there with th—without
me
. It was not a revelation likely to improve my mood.

I brushed off the young woman’s anxious inquiries about my health and sudden indisposition. She said these words, but of course she was only thinking about her payment for the evening and that she had wasted the better part of the night on me for nothing. I did not know the etiquette of these places, never having been in one before, but I assumed that I could not thrust some coins at her in public. I mumbled some apology, which I could see
really
made things better, and decided not to waste my time further. I left. I rode back to the castle alone. I lay for a very long time listening for sounds from the other side of the wall that did not come.

The next morning, despite being heartsick (and also genuinely sick, for my anger and jealousy had rendered me shivery and hot on waking), I strode along the corridors to the king’s apartment a determined man. I demanded entry. As a regular visitor to the king’s rooms, I was admitted. I was met by the unctuous priest, whose name I had forgotten. He told me the king was at prayer and was not to be disturbed.
The devil take that
. I pushed him rudely to one side.

Following the direction of his eyes, I swept aside a rich scarlet hanging and found a door. The door led to a flight of steps that descended into a small round chamber. My first reaction was to recoil in horror. This was before I had even seen the king lying panting for breath upon the damp stone flags. To my sickened senses, stepping down into the room was like plunging into a vat of sour apple mash: it was all green and yellow. As I reeled, though, I realized I was sicker than I’d thought, for in reality, the chapel was merely decorated in rich wall hangings of brilliant, verdant greens. I fell to my knees alongside the king and shouted for assistance but to no avail—either the priest could not hear me or he’d already left to fetch guards.

I shouldered the old man with difficulty, swaying, steadying myself against the wall, face-to-face with green. How inappropriate for a place of prayer! Who would want to pray in a green room? That was when it hit me, the memory slipping and sliding away from me. I staggered up the steps with the king upon my shoulder to be met with confusion and dismay in the bedchamber. After dumping the king unceremoniously upon the bed, I turned to face the guards and courtiers roused by the priest. I also faced Aleksey. What I wanted to say to that young man was immaterial; this was imperative. “It’s the
room
, Your Highness, the papers upon the wall and the hangings. They are
green
, and they have been poisoning your father.” I then turned to save, yet again, my poor patient.

Fortunately for the king’s life, distraction over affairs of state had given him less time to pray since his return from the cleansing. That morning he had risen later than his usual time and had only been in the chapel for a scant half hour. Even that much time in his weakened state had caused him to collapse once more, his throat swollen and his breathing labored. I was able to revive him with some fresh air and calm breathing and, I confess, some wine. It relaxed him quickly, and I thought it would not harm him just this once to be inebriated in the morning. Besides, I had my own selfish reasons for wanting him amenable. I had gone to his rooms to tell him I was leaving that day, and nothing since had persuaded me to change my plan. Now that I was certain of the cause of his condition and had effectively discovered the poisoner, so to speak, I was even
more
determined to leave that very day. If I made haste, I could outrun the snow, for I would be traveling south before turning west. Even if caught, I would rather wait out the winter in the most squalid inn Hesse-Davia could offer than stay longer in rooms adjoining Aleksey’s.