“Thank ye for attending the funeral.”
“Any family of yours…”
“Is not a bloody friend,” Alex interrupted him.
“The weight of the world is upon your shoulders?”
“I wish it were so easily explained.”
“Share the burden, then.”
“Ye couldna possibly understand,” Alex said.
“What exactly?”
“The complications of a Highland clan.”
Petro’s laughter filled the chamber. “Are you certain, my friend? I have three hundred and sixty-two cousins in Rome alone. Royal blood and the blood of traitors runs through my veins. My father outlived four wives, sired eighteen children, and calls himself king when he’s at home, though he’s a mere lord. And you claim I wouldn’t understand your life?”
Alex grabbed a cup off the table and drank down the remaining ale in it. “I stand corrected, then. Did ye say eighteen children?” The very idea of siring so many bairns made his balls ache, and not in a good way. “How did he…”
“I believe it involved food and wine, and lots of fucking.”
Alex snorted. “Are all of yer people so vigorous?”
A spark of mischievousness lighted Petro’s dark eyes. “Give me permission to mingle with your maids, and I will get an answer for your question.”
“Nay,” Alex said. “We sail soon, and I’ll not have ye get a poor lass with child.”
“Why would you leave this place?” His friend’s expression sobered. “If I never feel the oppressive heat of the east again, I will be a happy man.”
“Ye wish to go home?”
“I wish to serve you,here.”
“Where?”
“Scotland.”
“My days are numbered here, my friend. But if ye wish to stay, I am sure my cousin would be grateful to gain a capable adviser.”
“You’d recommend me?”
“I’ll write ye a letter of recommendation now. One ye can take wherever ye go. But I must tell ye, a man of yer talents could find work in the king’s court. Ye’d be well compensated, maybe even gain a title in time.”
“I’m the youngest child from a second wife, Alex. Wealth and titles mean little to me. Only my elder brothers received lands and money. There wasn’t enough to go around. My father kindly financed my education, then told me to make my own way in the world. Though I could return to Italy and find a wife and buy an estate of my own with the gold I’ve earned, I would get bored—and surely stray from my marriage bed. The daughters of Italy are too angelic for me.”
“It seems Constantinople has ruined our chances at happiness.” In that part of the world, people existed without pretense. Everyone knew their purpose, their place. There was no shame in a man earning coin for killing or paying to enjoy the bed of a beautiful woman. In Scotland, such actions demanded explanation, penance, and sometimes death.
“No,” Petro disagreed. “You deprive yourself of joy.”
“What do ye mean?” He eyed the Italian. Everyone else had pecked at Alex, why shouldn’t his most devoted friend take a turn?
“If God wished you to go back to Constantinople, then I am sure we’d be on the ship already. Every day you spend here, my friend, you get a little more entrenched in the politics at home.”
“I’ve offered a logical solution.”
“Onyourterms.”
