Chapter Text
Julian is eight when he hears the first rumour about his parents’ problems with money.
He’s too young too really understand, but he does know he wants to help. He tells his mother so that evening, offering up a collection of his toys. He’s even included the soft velvet bag that contains his collection of glass marbles, too precious to play with. All Julian ever does is take them out to admire the way the colours at the centre catch the light. Each year on his birthday he gets a single marble, and they clink together softly when he hands the bag to his mother.
She cups his face in her warm hands and tucks his hair behind his ears. She kisses his forehead.
“It will be alright,” she says, and places the marbles back into his drawer.
Julian is ten when he realises where the money is going.
Sometimes, his father comes home happy, coins rattling in his pockets, smelling of cheap ale. More often the jingle of change is absent and the scent of ale is stronger. That’s when his father has lost at playing cards. Those times both Julian and his mother tiptoe around the house, afraid any disturbance will set off a spiral of rage, or despair.
Julian isn’t supposed to know, but he overhears. The land and the house are no longer theirs, and now his parents have to pay rent. His mother works hard, and he thinks his father does too, whenever he is sober enough to do so.
His birthday is coming up, and again he tells his mother he wants to help. He already works with her to sew clothing in the evenings, and during the day he tries to pull his weight on the small farm. He tells her he needs no presents, that he needs no birthday cake. She kisses his forehead again, and her eyes are sad. Julian hugs her.
“You are too grown up,” she whispers in his ear.
When he turns eleven, the day passes like any other.
Julian is twelve when men come to the door. He’s sent up the stairs to his room, but he leaves the door ajar to listen in. He can’t make out everything, but there’s yelling and threats. There is a knot in his stomach as he keeps an ear out for the sounds of violence, but they never come. The men leave, but Julian knows they’ll be back.
When his mother comes up the stairs, she doesn’t say anything about his opened door. Instead she seats herself next to him, her slight weight denting the mattress. Her face is sad, and Julian wishes more than anything he could change that. She tucks a lock of his soft brown hair behind his ear.
“Remember how you said you wanted to help?”
Julian nods.
“There’s someone who… is coming to take a look at you. If you do well, we’ll get enough to pay the rent that’s still due. If we’re very lucky, we’ll get enough to buy back the farm.”
“What do I have to do?” Julian asks.
A tear tracks down his mother’s cheek.
Not even a week later there are more men at the door, one of them clearly in the lead. Julian knows this man is the one that has come take a look at him. The man is more finely dressed than anyone he has ever seen, his clothes cut out of rich fabrics, the embroidery elaborate. He wears a thick golden signet ring on his middle finger. Julian himself is dressed in his finest outfit, his hair freshly washed and curling lightly at the ends. The man has two companions. They’re not as finely outfitted, but wear leather armour instead, swords at their sides. He sees the way his parents’ eyes shift over to them nervously.
“Come here boy,” the man beckons him, not unfriendly, and Julian steps forward nervously. His chin is grasped in a strong grip, the man’s golden signet pressing into his jaw. His face is tilted every which way and Julian feels like one of the animals at market, more than a person. He’s instructed to open his mouth, lift his arms up, then down, to crouch, and then to jump as high as he can.
Eventually, the man nods. “Good enough health. Could do with some more weight on him. Beautiful eyes.”
Julian wants to say something biting, uncomfortable at what is happening, but he remembers his mother’s words. If they’re lucky, they’ll get to buy back the farm.
He stands there quietly.
The man offers a number of gold coins. Julian doesn’t know if it’s enough for the farm, but he does know it’s a lot, since his parents look relieved. He wonders how it’s possible a look at his pretty eyes is worth so much, but then the man speaks.
“Before we conclude our business, I have to check for blemishes, of course.”
Julian is unsure what that means exactly, but apparently his father does.
“Of course,” his father says. “The boy’s room is upstairs.”
His mother looks away, and Julian thinks that despite the offer of money, she looks unhappy.
The man follows him up the stairs and one of his armoured guards follows with him. When they enter his room, the door is closed behind them, his parents still downstairs, and Julian doesn’t like it at all.
“Strip,” the man says, the order curt, spoken in a tone that expects to be obeyed.
Julian hesitates, but thinks about the number of gold coins the man had offered. He thinks about his mother, and how he had promised to help.
He strips.
He leaves his underwear on, but stands there otherwise naked. When the man gestures for him to drop those too, Julian tells him no, and the purpose of the armoured guard becomes abundantly clear. At a single word from the man, the guard moves behind him and holds his arms behind his back. Julian struggles, but he’s no match for a soldier.
At another word, the guard pulls his undergarments down, and Julians squeaks with embarrassment. The indignity of it all only gets worse from there, as the man inspects him. His touch is methodical, clinical, and again Julian is reminded of the animals at market.
“You’ll do nicely,” the man concludes eventually.
And just like that, Julian is sold.
He gets to take a small canvas bag with a few sets of clothes, and when no one is looking, he slips his bag of marbles inside. It’s the only memento he takes. There is a certain irony to it. The man, the slaver, leaves behind a velvet bag of gold in his father’s hand.
He travels for long days in the back of a cart, and manages to find out they’re heading for the palace. The slaver doesn’t even remember his name.
“Jaskier,” Julian says when he’s asked. “My name is Jaskier.”
Julian was a boy who loved his parents and put his faith in their love for him.
Julian no longer exists.
---000---
Jaskier groans as Oscar drives into him. His face is pressed against the cold brick of the city wall, and he feels the rough surface scrape the skin of his cheek. He knows he should pull his face back, that he should prevent any visible marks from being made on him, but he’s a little beyond that right now. His hands are braced on the wall next to his shoulders and he arches his back so every drag of the soldier’s dick goes right over his prostate. Oscar has one hand on his nape, fingers brushing the precious metal clasped there. His other is over Jaskier’s hip, thick fingers digging down into the muscle.
Jaskier curses inwardly. How many times has he told the bastard not to mark him, but does he listen? The man seems incapable of it. Sometimes he wonders if Vizimir selects soldiers to his guard solely on the principle of brawn over brain. At least Oscar’s nice to look at. He’s large, with sandy hair and honey brown eyes. Simple though. Certainly not stupid, but not suited for the intricacies in social etiquette or intrigue and backstabbing of the royal court at Tretogor. Sometimes Jaskier thinks it’s only a matter of time before Oscar does something out of the goodness off his simple, honourable heart that gets him face down in a ditch somewhere. But, if that happens it’s not Jaskier’s problem to deal with.
He’s sweet though.
He’s pulled out of his train of thought when Oscar presses his chest to his back, and drives into him harder. The soldier is grunting now, and their movements disturb the silence with the slick sounds of coupling. Oscar’s hand leaves his neck to curl around toward Jaskier’s front, and he gasps as he is taken in hand and stroked roughly. The soldier presses kisses along the back of his neck, and when Oscar licks the shell of his ear, Jaskier turns his head.
Oscar kisses him. Oscar always kisses him before he comes.
He can feel the rhythm stalling, and makes a desperate sound at the back of his throat. Oscar surges forward and manages the angle exactly right, and Jaskier comes with a bitten off moan.
When Oscar pulls out of him there is the warm trickle of spend that slides down the insides of his thighs.
“Fuck,” Jaskier curses. “That better not get on my clothes.”
“Sorry,” Oscar murmurs, the timbre of his voice still laden down with pleasure. The soldier takes up his own linen shirt from where it lays discarded on the ground, and carefully wipes him up with it. He ignores the strange contrast between the tenderness of the gesture and the fuck they’ve just had, outside the city walls and hidden by the cloak of night.
Jaskier pulls his breeches back up and gets his own discarded chemise and doublet from the ground. He shrugs the garments back on, but leaves the ties in front open. He leans back to watch Oscar dress, sweat cooling on his skin and in his hairline. Oscar steps close to him, bracing one forearm on the wall to lean towards him.
Jaskier can see it in the soldier’s eyes. He knows he’s incapable of returning those feelings, but he lets himself be kissed anyway.
When he pulls back, Oscar taps the golden collar around his throat, the sound of the metal pure and almost musical in the stillness of the night. Jaskier raises an eyebrow.
“I could get the money together. I could buy you.”
Abruptly, Jaskier’s smile slides off his face. His skin crawls, and disgust settles cold and heavy into his stomach. Under the disgust there is fear. These feelings Oscar is admitting to are dangerous. He slips out from between Oscar and the wall, and turns his back toward the soldier, closing his doublet and fastening the ties, making sure his collar is covered by fabric. “It’s time to leave, right now,” he says. A hand on his shoulder turns him back around. There’s shocked surprise in Oscar’s eyes.
“Wait, what? What did I do wrong, Jaskier?”
He shakes his head at Oscar. “If you don’t know, I’m not telling you, love.” He knows his voice sounds cold, but there’s nothing for it. He should have really kicked this puppy before it got so attached to him. It’s his own fault for liking puppies. He should have known better. But, better the puppy gets kicked now, than it does something foolish and gets skinned alive.
He turns his back on Oscar and walks away.
“I could tell someone, you know!” the soldier yells behind him, voice cracking through the silence loudly.
It shouldn’t be a surprise, and it really shouldn’t hurt, but it does. Jaskier should know love always gets turned over into abandonment, especially when there’s something to gain or power to be had. He really should have expected it. He whirls around, stalking back to Oscar. The soldier looks triumphant for a moment, until Jaskier halts in front of him and looks up at him without emotion on his face.
“Yes. You could. I know what would happen to me if you did. Maybe you do too. But tell me, Oscar. What do you think would happen to you, love?” There’s a sharp edge in his voice.
Oscar grimaces. “Fuck. Ruthless as ever, Jaskier.”
Again, it really shouldn’t hurt him.
“Ruthless… practical… just truthful really. Besides, if you get hanged for having a palace bedslave without permission, darling, I might even be a little sad.” He sees the words hit home, and sees the warmth of Oscar’s feelings drain away from his eyes, easy as that. Oscar might like fucking him, but he won’t risk his neck for it.
“I won’t tell anyone. What I said was ill considered,” the soldier says stiffly.
“I know, love,” Jaskier reassures him. He accepts it when Oscar leans forward to kiss him on the lips, but pulls away after the merest brush. He leaves him behind, standing in the darkness outside the city wall. The kiss was goodbye. He won’t be seeing Oscar again.
He makes it back all the way to the palace and inside the slave quarters without anyone spotting him.
---000---
Jaskier sighs as he slips into the steaming water next to Lore. The small blonde is leaning back against the tiled edge of the pool and briefly opens one blue eye to look at him. It’s late, so they’re alone. There are guards posted outside the slave quarters, but within there’s relative freedom. Like a gilded cage. The golden collar around Lore’s throat is much thinner than his own, glinting in the light of the oil lamps. He can admit it looks rather lovely. Like an expensive piece of jewellery the wearer can never take off.
“I hope you washed before getting in here,” she says, closing her eye again.
“Sure I did,” Jaskier says noncommittally, before dunking his head under the water briefly and resurfacing.
Lore wrinkles her nose and opens her eyes, sitting up to take a quick look around. “Still fucking Oscar?” she asks in a low tone, raising an eyebrow.
“You know I don’t cheat, Lore,” Jaskier answers.
She snorts and sits up straighter, and his eyes are briefly drawn to the swell of her breasts, the nipples soft and pink. “You might not cheat, but you don’t commit either,” she says.
“To hear you talk, you might think me a regular floozy.”
“I know you’re not,” Lore answers.
“Nope. All I am is a whore. Just a very exclusive one, who doesn’t actually earn any money, now that I think about it. So, maybe not a whore but an expensive piece of equipment.” Lore frowns and Jaskier sighs. He sometimes forgets that when he speaks about himself like this, the others hear words spoken about them, too. “Sorry. I guess I’m in a mood tonight.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do what you do,” she says, drifting over to sit by him, leaning against his side. “It’s dangerous. If the trainers find out you’re no longer a virgin…” She lets her voice trail off. It’s an argument they’ve had many times before.
Jaskier slings an arm around her waist under the water, his fingers curving over the softness of her stomach. “Not too long until I’m twenty-two,” he says. “Then finally Vizimir gets to fuck me and discard me if he so wishes. I doubt anyone will care after that, not if I’m not a gold-collar anymore.”
“I doubt he’ll discard you so easily,” Lore murmurs.
Jaskier tucks a lock of her damp hair behind her ear. “He likes blondes.”
Lore looks up at him. “He likes pretty faces and blue eyes,” she argues back, before touching one finger to his cheekbone just below his eye. Jaskier knows it’s the spot where his skin is still reddened from scraping against the brick.
He sighs. “You don’t need to worry about me sneaking off to see Oscar anymore.”
His friend tilts her head. “What happened?”
Jaskier bites the inside of his lip. “He said he could buy me,” he says eventually.
“Is that bad?”
“He said he could get the money together, which is impossible in the first place, but, he didn’t say he’d free me.”
“Shit,” Lore says.
“Then, when I made to leave, he said he’d tell.”
The water whirls around them as Lore jerks in shock. “What?” she says, turning toward him. Her face pales despite the heat.
It’s Jaskier’s turn to lean back in the water, resting his head against the tiles. He looks at her from under his lashes and shrugs.
“This is serious, Jaskier! He can’t talk, doesn’t he know what will happen?”
“I told him he’d get hanged if he did.”
There is an angry scowl on Lore’s face. “He’d get hanged, but you’d get whipped until you died.”
“He doesn’t know that,” Jaskier says. He really, really hopes that Oscar didn’t in fact know that when he made the threat.
Lore doesn’t say anything, and Jaskier knows she can tell by his face that he isn’t sure.
From the corridor beyond the pool comes the sound of a door opening and closing. Jaskier and Lore look at each other silently, and listen to the footsteps approach. The doors to the baths open and master Aulus enters. The trainer is one of the older and kinder ones, his head bald and his beard entirely white. He still stands straight as a young man though, and Jaskier has had the man bruise his knuckles with a reed more than once.
“Eleonora,” master Aulus calls, and his sharp eyes take in their position in the bath and the water around them.
Jaskier has heard the rumour there’s a reagent in the water that will colour if a slave spends, but no one would be foolish enough to fuck each other in the slave quarters. Not even him. The risk of getting caught is too high. Besides, he’s bathed enough after his forays beyond the city wall to know the rumour is entirely untrue. He wouldn’t put it beyond the trainers to have invented the story themselves. Anything to keep fear in the slaves’ hearts high, their willingness to push at what little freedom they have low.
Lore rises from the water next to him, baring her pale, wet skin.
“Yes, master Aulus?” she answers demurely.
Aulus is not the worst of the trainers, and keeps his eyes trained above Lore’s collarbones. Jaskier leans back and closes his eyes.
“Vizimir wants you. Be ready within half an hour.”
“Yes, master Aulus,” Lore says, bending her head and slipping into a robe to retreat to her rooms to prepare.
Jaskier hears her walk away, but there is no second set of footsteps.
When he opens his eyes master Aulus is looking at him. The trainer walks forward to slowly crouch on the edge of the pool, right next to him, and they look at each other upside down. Master Aulus reaches forward to tilt Jaskier’s chin back further, before letting his fingers brush across the abrasion on his cheekbone.
“I hope you know you’re playing with fire, boy.”
Jaskier’s heart just about freezes in his chest, but he shows no outward sign of disconcertion, meeting the trainer’s eyes with a neutral expression. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answers. Aulus snorts, and Jaskier thinks it’s the first undignified noise he’s ever heard the man make.
“Yes, you do. Just don’t take that girl with you when you burn.”
---000---
Jaskier settles down onto the pallet covered with lush fabrics and pillows in the large communal space of the slave quarters. There are high windows with stained glass in one of the walls, and the coloured light gives the space a luxuriant, exotic feel. He’s wearing the soft silks that denote his station as a palace bedslave, just as much as the gold collar around his throat does. There’s several more pallets strewn around the space, equally sparsely dressed slaves lounging in the soft pillows. There’s a total of five gold-collars above the age of twenty-two in the slave quarters and two who are under. It’s only Jaskier and little Raphael who aren’t yet of age, and being saved for the royal line.
All of the gold-collars have hair to match the metal around their necks, in varying shades of straw. Jaskier is the only one with dark brown curls. The reason he has gold binding his throat regardless of his colouring is a topic of much debate amongst all the slaves, but mainly the younger ones, who wonder if they might still get a chance to replace their own silver metal.
As Jaskier lounges back, little Raph detaches himself from a group of silver collared slaves around his age, and glides over to him. At fifteen, Raphael is the youngest of the gold-collars, and Jaskier often wishes the lad could enjoy a life with more freedom.
Raph kneels prettily beside his pallet, hands folded in a little triangle shape across his thighs. He is everything a palace bedslave is supposed to be, and everything Jaskier is not. Demure, shy, obedient and soft-spoken.
“You know you don’t need to kneel in front of me, Raph,” Jaskier says, reaching out a hand to ruffle the boy’s hair. The locks are soft and sleek, long enough to spill over Raphael’s shoulders to halfway down his back, the colour a pale yellow, like spun gold.
“I know, Jaskier,” the boy smiles up at him. “But I have a request. Would you play for us?”
When Jaskier looks over Raph’s shoulder to the group of teenagers behind him, he sees several hopeful faces. They knew what they were doing when they’d sent Raph to ask him.
“Didn’t someone else play already?” he asks, but can’t help the smile that curves his lips.
Raphael smiles back at him, ducking his head. Clearly the boy knows he’s getting his way, but decides to seal the deal anyway. “None of them are as good as you are,” he says, and Jaskier capitulates.
“Fine,” he laughs. “Get my lute.”
One of the other teenagers, a girl with bouncing ebony curls, caramel skin and lashes long enough to reach her dark brows, pulls something from behind their pallet. Jaskier laughs when he sees what it is. Apparently they’ve had his lute stashed away in preparation for his arrival. He really should say no more often.
When Jaskier stands up off his pallet to accept his lute, a hush falls over the space.
“Thanks Naya,” he tells the girl, and she giggles softly behind her hand. He strums the strings lightly, clear melodious sound spilling from the round bellied instrument as he walks through the room. Now that he’s going to play, it’s not just the young ones who are paying attention. All the adults settle in to listen too, light glinting off their silver collars. Jaskier knows he’s not the only one with a talent for music. There’s several other slaves who play small harps or flutes, but he’s the only one who sings.
“Any requests?” He asks.
“The wolf’s conquest,” a voice calls from the entrance.
Lore walks into the room, her light blue silks swirling around her small frame. Her blonde hair is pulled back in a simple braid. Her eyes look tired, but Jaskier is relieved to see her smiling.
“The wolf’s conquest,” he repeats, and begins to play.
---000---
“You alright, Lore? Jaskier asks quietly after they enter her room. He’d played for a good while, long enough he could rightfully beg off without too much protest.
His friend lets herself drop back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “As much as I can be,” she says. The blue silk slips off her shoulder and reveals a set of fingertip shaped bruises.
Jaskier feels his jaw clench, and not for the first time, he wonders what he’ll do when the summons to attend Vizimir comes on his twenty-second birthday.
She sits up, leaning back onto her elbows. “I have news though.”
Jaskier raises an eyebrow. “Do tell.”
The only news that makes its way into the slave quarters is whatever gossip the slaves themselves bring into it from the lords and ladies they take to bed. That, and the gossip Jaskier manages to catch whenever he succeeds in sneaking out of the palace. Lore is the only one he shares it with.
“The warlord of the north is coming to Tretogor.”
Jaskier slowly raises his eyebrows. “I thought Vizimir was preparing for war? If the warlord is coming here, it’s for negotiations?”
Lore nods. “Apparently the white wolf has made a push south, and conquered half of Kaedwen and Hengfors. I think Vizimir just now realizes he can’t win an outright conflict, and is trying to save himself by offering a treaty instead.”
Jaskier taps his chin thoughtfully. “Conquered…. That makes it sound like it was unprovoked? Last I heard the white wolf only responds to attack. Ruthlessly, but never without grounds.”
Lore shrugs. “You now more about that than I do, Jas. All I know is that he’s coming with a squadron of his warriors, and Vizimir is nervous about it.”
“I bet he is,” Jaskier says slowly. “The white wolf leads his men into battle. Vizimir just sits behind the front lines and sends soldiers to their deaths. I bet he’s not happy about facing the warlord at all…”
“Do you think he’ll be offered one of us?” Lore asks, and Jaskier blanches.
He doesn’t know how he could have forgotten about that awful tradition. Maybe because the last time Redania made an official treaty with another monarch was decades ago. Tradition dictates that when the monarch of Redania truly wants to extend their hand in peace, they’ll offer one of their gold-collared bedslaves.
“I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “I expect Vizimir isn’t jumping at the chance to acknowledge the warlord as another monarch. I wouldn’t be surprised if he refuses to put the white wolf on the same level as himself. At the same time, he might not dare refuse. And he’s never been a brave man.”
Lore shivers in discomfort, and Jaskier pulls her close, tucking her head under his chin. “Vizimir likes you too much,” he whispers in her ear. “He won’t give you up.” Lore nods against his chest, and not for the first time Jaskier rages against a world where his friend is forced to endure Redania’s monarch, just to be safe.