In the Darkness (10 page)

Gareth redoubled his efforts, using his mouth to stroke Evin’s cock as his hands kneaded Evin’s ass and he moved his fingers to reach where Evin wanted them.

Evin put a palm on Gareth’s forehead, signaling him to stop, and when he did, Evin took over, thrusting in and out of his mouth, slamming into the back of Gareth’s throat before pulling almost out, again and again, with ever greater urgency.

His breath came in gasps. “Wet…your fingers. Touch me. There!” Evin said.

Gareth gathered up some of the saliva spreading from his lips onto Evin’s cock. Then he reached around again to cup Evin’s ass and press in.

Evin was getting close. The sparks bristled through him between the tight mouth taking his cock and the slick fingers rubbing and touching in his crack. Gareth’s fingers probed the edge of his hole and pressed against it. Gareth nudged him there—just a little, but that was all it took. Evin shoved himself into Gareth’s throat as deeply as he could go, and his cock loosed his seed into Gareth’s mouth.

“Ah!
Aaaaaaah
! Oh yes!” He held himself pressed against Gareth’s face. The muscles in his abdomen jerked. Little stabbing motions rubbed his cock in the liquid heat he gushed as fast as Gareth could swallow it around him. He thought he might collapse over Gareth’s shoulder, but still his body shivered as if it wouldn’t quite stop fucking Gareth’s mouth.

He didn’t fall over, because Gareth still held him with hands on his hips again. When there was nothing more for Evin to give, Gareth helped him pull out and stand.

Gareth looked up, and Evin gazed into his eyes, sharing his moment of happiness because of what they had made each other feel. Evin ran his fingers in gentle strokes down Gareth’s cheeks.

The moment lingered.

Gareth broke eye contact first, sweeping his gaze down Evin’s body. “You did like that,” he whispered.

“I did like it. You were good.” Evin bent down to kiss him again, a tender kiss of gratitude that mingled their tongues briefly. As Evin pulled away, Gareth remained sitting motionless with his eyes closed, wearing a crooked grin. Evin paused, charmed by the guileless look of happiness and hoping to avoid any move or sound that might disturb Gareth’s contented moment. When the luminous eyes fluttered open again, Evin smiled for him. “You were perfect.”

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?”