“I doubt it, but go on.”
“Come indoors where it’s warmer. All these squires, farmers, shopkeepers... I suppose they have their own ideas about their importance, just as the knights and landowners do who come to visit us in the Forest Wild?”
Lance smiled reluctantly. They’d entered the friendly dining hall with its long trestle table, where he, Tomas and the Roman visitors had taken their evening meals for the last fortnight. “You’ve no idea. The miller would come to blows with our blacksmith over whose wife had more of a right to sit nearest the head of the board.”
“And whose wife does?”
“Neither of them, of course. We shan’t be eating in here tonight—come with me.” He detached himself from Arthur’s grasp, took back his makeshift crutch and set off across the hall. He pushed open a door Art hadn’t noticed before. “There,” he said. “My mother solved the problem long ago.”
Rushlight torches had been set in cressets all around the walls. Arthur stepped into the flame-lit space, and burst into laughter. Occupying the centre of the room, skilfully crafted from peg-tied sections of brightly polished oak, was a perfectly round table, nobly set out for dining. “Wonderful,” he exclaimed. “I shall have one like this made for my fortress at Cam, only five times the size. If I have nothing else, I’ll have this, even if they have to build the place around it.”
“It does help. You do know they’ll still squabble for the privilege of a place at your right hand?”
That place ought to have been filled.Arthur bit back the words fiercely. If he didn’t push, he didn’t have to know—not yet, not yet. “Perhaps I’ll fashion mine with a hole at the centre,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ll put my throne there, with some kind of wheel and mechanism to turn it. Then I’ll sit in splendour, command myself to be rotated, and shed my kingly beneficence upon each of them in turn.”
Lance was laughing now too. “Please don’t do that. You’ll look like the sack of grain they put up on a pole at the fair, for the lads to shy down with stones and clods of mud.”
“Thank you very much. Maybe not that, then. Your mother was a clever woman, though.”
“She was. She died fighting, I’m told.”
Art turned to him, suddenly as serious as he. “Oh, Lance. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t. It’s better that way, isn’t it—to go down with honour and pride?”
“Far better, I’m sure. But fearful too, and far from easy. I hope it won’t ever be asked of me—or you either, my friend. How long do we have before these guests of yours arrive?”
“None at all. I can hear cart wheels on the cobbles right now.”
“And here come Ector and Guy, all dressed for feasting.” Art pressed a hand into Lance’s back and began to steer him out of sight of the handsomely turned-out pair striding through the main hall. “They can take care of things for a while.”
“Arthur, no. I have to do the honours of the house.”
“Come and do them with me. My blood’s warm, and so is yours. How can we get out of here without being seen?”
“We can’t. But Edern’s too busy to notice us, so... Quick, through the kitchens. There’s a flight of wooden steps from the yard at the back to the bedchambers. It’s more like a ladder, though—you’ll have to help me up.”
Art beamed. “If I have to carry you. Come on!”
***
Down amongst the deerhounds and the furs.
Lance lay crushed and unbreathing. He wanted to hold this instant forever: his heartbeat racking him, his friend’s warm weight pressing him deep into the skins and hides where he’d huddled alone all winter. The dogs, sleepy and fat with kitchen scrounging, had barely moved aside for them. A haze like dawn on the lough covered his vision, and Arthur gave a shuddery laugh and sat up a little way. “Breathe.”
“I don’t want to. I want... so much, and I don’t know how to begin to get it. If you were a girl—”
“Oh, if I were a girl!” Art cut him off with tender scorn, turning to kiss the palm caressing his cheek. “I’d have eaten you alive by now, my Lance, and sucked out your core and planted your pips to make more of you. I can’t think what your village maidens have been playing at, leaving such sweet fruit as you on the tree all this time.”
“Maybe I was... on a high branch. I wish I hadn’t broken my leg coming down!”
“Girl or boy, broken or whole, there’s ways of doing things.” Quick as an otter, sure as a cat in the dark, Art dipped down to press warm lips to the side of Lance’s neck. Each place he touched should glow, Lance thought, should leave a pattern like the dragon’s molten footprints on his skin. Slowly, with a quivering strength too sweet to be borne, Art moved his hips, throwing Lance beyond speech. How could he ask about the ways, the magic by which a broken boy might find the end of desire?
No need. Art took his weight on his arms. Elena’s embroidered coverlet stretched above them, the arcane signs she’d stitched into it gleaming like the signs the stars made on a clear summer night. Within this shelter, this upturned bowl of stars, Arthur put down a guiding hand.
Lance felt tightness—hot, clenched resistance—and tried to recoil. But Arthur gave a gasping moan and rocked forward. On joyous instinct, Lance let his spine arch, the burning cage of his hips push up. Pain from his broken leg met a bolt of pleasure so sharp that he lost himself, hanging on to Arthur’s arms, crying out again and again until Art, laughing softly, put a hand across his mouth.
“Hush, now. Hush. You’ll make the dogs howl.”
