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John was always treated differently from his sisters. Since he’d known, and since he’d thoughtlessly told his parents with the giddy air of a child with a secret that he was a boy.
Mother had wept. Father had gone white as a sheet, told their child he was mistaken, and what had he done to his lovely long hair, all but pleading with a child to reconsider, but oddly in this John had felt uncharacteristically adamant. He didn’t recall how old he was exactly when he’d had his revelation, but he remembered very little before this, when he’d had a different name. He’d taken Father’s name for himself, Father’s and grandfather’s and great grandfather’s and all number of Lord MacTavishes in rows upon rows of Johns in the hall of portraits and tapestries that spelled their legacy, hoping that this would soften their hearts towards him, but nothing. He was now young master John instead of the young miss, his wardrobe remade, Father’s barber coming himself to tidy the mess John had made with a pair of sewing shears, the healers bringing him potions when the time came that encouraged his growth and his beard, but wordlessly everything had changed.
He had thought that the idea of a mother was a cold and distant dream reserved for storybooks and the peasantry, but when Caroline returned from her studies she was held and kissed and doted over while John hovered over the threshold feeling a stranger. Even Gillian, who Mother would argue with until both their voices shook the walls, was bundled up into Father’s arms and her tears dried, was loved tenderly.
It was only John who was alone.
His sulking made him prime target for the arms master; Captain Price tired of him trudging the bailey, distracting the squires who were training (a whole load of them brought on in recent years, and a new barracks built to house them all) with his melancholy expressions and fine clothes. After all, the lord’s son was hardly out of place if he was in a training tunic himself.
Unfortunately for Captain Price he’d accepted an unruly pupil. That first week alone John had spent nearly every night in some labor as punishment for his conduct, though he’d thought his status as the young master would excuse him. It hadn’t, and the young master developed blisters from scrubbing floors, mucking stables, weeding the gardens—the young master was another member of the staff, no recourse for speaking familiarly to him, for scolding him for carelessness, for teasing him. The only difference was that no matter what mess he found himself in (and subsequently what punishment he labored over) he was snatched up by all manner of irritable maids and governesses, the same who managed his sisters, and scrubbed entirely spotless before he was allowed to collapse into his bed.
The other squires noticed this when he would return at dawn for training and teased him appropriately—Young Master John son of the lord was no more as far as the lower staff of the castle were concerned. He was Soap.
“It’s a waste.” Soap remarked, watching the builders haul stone and timber, and the artisans cart in costly panes of glass to be fitted over every wall of the new structure. The castle had been under construction for as long as Soap held memory, always some expansion or reinforcement to the walls, the ballistas Father had sent for a revered craftsman to come to build. Their coffers had suffered greatly the past decade. “The east wing would suit just fine.”
On the instances that he was taken along with the family on envoys, when Young Master John was required to make an appearance, he had seen orangeries, wasteful and gaudy works by nobles who couldn’t stand to be parted from luxuriant fruit found in warmer climes. This one was to be different, the low building floored by beds of earth to grow higher yield crops, winter squashes and autumn grain, even through the snows so long as the sun’s light could reach the glass.
“The old abbey? Everyone knows it’s cursed.” Gaz teased.
“It’s dug in deeper than the rest of the castle, would be easier to keep warm in the winter. The bones are strong, but it would be habitable with some work.” Many had waited these years of builders and stonemasons coming through for the east wing to receive its due repairs and purpose, or at least torn down to make way for other projects, but nothing. An empty shell, left to rot and forbidden to go.
“Aye, we all know, we’ve seen you sneaking in your texts on your engineering into practice.” Gaz nudged him with an elbow. “Why not apply your skills here, young lord?”
Captain Price had been particularly short with the pair of them this day, full man at arms and an oddity though they were they were still treated as a pair of boys caught snickering during lessons. Thus, they’d been asked to work off their energy digging the new privy trench.
“I don’t need to watch to know Kieran’s not guarding his left.” Soap quipped. “Or that Seymour fancies that blonde lass in the gardens,”
“Or that the lass in the gardens won’t give him the time of day—” Gaz laughed, and Soap was quick to follow, the pair of them knee deep in shit but happier by far than their cohort drilling in the courtyard.
A rough throat cleared, and Soap turned his head to see the bishop himself, ostensibly walking the grounds with a handkerchief pressed over his face, but for the irritated twist to his brow.
“Your excellency,” Gaz said quickly, giving a bow, his hand coming to Soap’s shoulder to bend him as well.
“The young master is needed in the abbey.” The bishop said imperiously. “Presently.”
John’s mouth was a beast of its own. “The south or the east abbey, excellency?”
Gaz kicked him.
“The current abbey.” The bishop said severely. “No sense in visiting a ruin, master John.”
Soap nodded. “Right.” He dug his shovel into the muck, but the bishop remained. “Now?”
“Immediately.” The bishop clarified icily.
Soap glanced to Gaz, who took his shovel from him, and gave an expression of apology for leaving Gaz to the work.
John stepped up out of the trench, the scent of waste clinging to him, and the bishop keeping a healthy distance as they walked in silence to the abbey.
“Where have you been?” Mother was present in the abbey, sneering at him with disdain, taking in his common work clothes and the stains on his tunic and boots.
“Working, my lady.” Soap said. “On Captain Price’s orders.”
“Captain Price,” Mother’s lips pursed, prepared to say more, but Father put a hand on her back.
“The Captain was not to know of the occasion.” Father calmed her. “No doubt John has done something to stir his ire.”
Which was correct but still made Soap bristle internally. “How may I serve you, my lord, my lady?” Everyone was assembled. Mother, Father, a stiff looking Caroline and a disinterested Gilly, and the bishop.
“We’ve arranged for your betrothal.” Mother said without consequence. “To Philip Graves. You’re to be wed the morning before your twentieth nameday. We’ve been assured his home is comfortable—”
“Philip Graves,” Soap sputtered. “Is a churl, without lands or title, whose first wife petitioned the crown for divorce on the grounds of cruelty and abandonment—”
“Watch your tongue.” Mother snapped. “Expected, for how we’ve let you associate with the lowborn. Philip Graves has already agreed to the match, with Lord Shepherd’s generous endorsement—there’s to be a week of feasting and tourney.”
“I haven’t agreed to the match.” Soap stepped closer, Mother recoiling from him as though struck.
“This is expected. You were to be married someday—”
“Not thrown away to Shepherd’s lapdog. This doesn’t benefit the family. We gain nothing—you’ve just been waiting for somewhere to send me that you needn’t look on me.”
Mother’s face darkened.
“We love you, John.” Father said. “We only want what’s best for you.”
“You liked me better as a daughter.”
“That’s not true—”
“Look at me.” Soap demanded. Mother’s face was buried in a handkerchief, and Father’s gaze was focused on Soap’s shoulder. “That’s what I thought.” He turned to leave.
“You don’t turn your back on your parents, lad.” The bishop tried to scold.
“I haven’t any parents.”
Faint as a whisper, as the doors echoed their clamor behind John, the seventh son of MacTavish since they had somehow come to claim and farm a once-barren land, John the sixth spoke softly.
“We should tell him.” He said privately, only to his wife, for not the first time.
“If he knows, he’ll only be in danger.” She said, tears falling silently as she grasped at her rosary and began counting the beads as prayers as if to ward off the howling of the wind that had picked up.
“He’s already in danger.” The bishop said solemnly.
Soap was pulled from his training. A long time coming, he knew, aware all this time he was a child being indulged rather than actually being trained for knighthood or combat. But all the same when he rose at dawn for training, dressed and gathered his kit and was halfway to the courtyard with a honeyed roll hastily stuffed into his mouth, he was not expecting Price to reluctantly turn him away, nor for his mother’s ladies in waiting to bustle him away.
They seemed determined to fit into the month before the wedding all the education that had been neglected to him. The rare rigorous lessons he would have prior to events so as to not embarrass himself had nothing on these; he was by no means a weak or small man, had been managing and riding warhorses since he was 12, had cleaned and hauled and now wore full plate, was a damn fair hand with a hand and a half sword. The dancing lessons were fucking brutal.
He had blisters where he hadn’t known they could be before, a whipcord thin elderly woman snapping her cane against his leg with each misstep, never mind that he only knew how to lead before this but was summarily told that his husband to be would not be offering nor would Soap be asking.
He had fittings. And more fittings. And more fittings. Outfits for the feast. Outfits for the tourney. Outfits for the honeymoon. And Christ, the outfit for the wedding. It seemed Philip Graves took no issue with having a groom rather than a bride, but as Soap tried to give his twentieth or so suggestion on the outfit he was informed that Master Graves was furnishing his trousseau by way of Lord Shepherd’s endorsement, and was the one to consult for any alterations. And Master Graves had requested pluderhose and cross garters.
Soap had eyed the fire during that stretch of fitting and wondered if he could pass it off as an untimely sneeze if he tossed the whole ensemble into the flames.
“John MacTavish, as I live and breathe.” An overly forward foreigner with too wide a smile crowed stepping from the carriage (one of many arriving for the week), bypassing Lord and Lady MacTavish to put hands on his intended, clasping hands over his arms, looking him up and down like a horse.
Unfortunately. “Mister Graves.” John answered politely, taking Graves’ hands with his own and drawing them together respectfully in between them. “Please meet my father and mother Lord and Lady MacTavish.”
Soap knew some had claimed to be charmed by Mister Graves’ manner, his Teax-ass customs, but Mother was clearly not among them, station dictating she and Father be addressed more formally than the in-laws.
“You must be tired, Mister Graves.” Father, ever the diplomat, spoke up. “Our servants can show you to your rooms, that you may rest.”
“Truth be told, pop, I’m feeling fresh as a spring rain. How’s about Johnny here show me the grounds, get to know each other a bit?”
“Highly unusual.” Mother remarked.
“I think you’ll find I’m an unusual man.” Graves cut in. “Surely you can see the wisdom in it?”
“I don’t; and you will not address me as ‘Shirley’.”
“No disrespect intended, ma.” Mother’s lip twitched, informing everyone present that it was felt regardless. “But I thought we might benefit from some discussion on the logistics and things. Given Johnny’s situation and all.”
Soap’s fists curled at his sides. Certainly he could be excused for one glancing blow to the jaw. And if Graves coincidentally called off the wedding at the same time Soap couldn’t be blamed for his fickleness.
Mother glared at Graves, Father’s hand coming up to the small of her back cautioning her against rash action. She waved her hand, and a pair of her ladies in waiting came forward, ostensibly to chaperone. However… “Sir Garrick.” She barked, and Gaz, who was occupied with hauling trunks for the many guests nearly dropped his load. “You’ll accompany my son. Do not stray from his side.”
“Yes, my lady.” Gaz said quickly, fumbling a bit until a porter came to relieve him of his burden.
Which left Soap under the carriage, best place for him. Graves offered his arm. Soap pretended not to notice, marching ahead towards the gardens.
The roses and lilies and primroses and heather that had once been the envy of the neighboring houses had been hacked away, dug out, transplanted to worthy recipients over the years. If Graves had been expecting a fine estate garden he was to be sorely disappointed. The kitchen gardens had been expanded near to excess, turnips taking most recent turn of the grounds with sheep for milking interspersing the wide space, leaving the crops but happily glutting themselves on the competing weeds.
“Quite the sight.” Graves remarked. “These uh… the only gardens?”
“This is the kitchen garden.” Soap explained. The largest one, the walls around the area helping to divvy it up. “The herb and flower garden is beyond.” Once a passion project of some Lady MacTavish generations prior, the walled in smaller garden tucked against the old wing where the healers and brewers worked and bordered on the other side by the walls to the east wing was the more aesthetically pleasing, with white myrtle and Saint John’s wort and lavender all growing, all manner of healing herbs for the physicians to cultivate.
Graves deflated on seeing this as well. “Suppose roses have gone out of fashion up here?” He joked.
“There are roses.” Soap pointed out the soft pink blooms wreathed in thorns, petals beginning to retreat for the season. “Rosehips, rather.”
“Right.” Graves said. “Sure is… practical.”
Soap shrugged. “We don’t care for pageantry, I suppose.”
“Now I don’t believe that.” Graves said, voice almost a purr. “Way I’ve been getting the run around with this proposal, just for your parents to come back and set a wedding date themselves? All things considered I’d think y’all were playing hard to get.”
“I wasn’t part of the negotiations.” Soap said, stepping farther away. Where had Gaz and the others gotten to? He could have sworn they were right behind them.
“Wish you had been.” Graves sounded wistful. “But this works just as well. See, marriage is all well and good, but I need to know that I’m going to be able to get heirs out of the deal. I know all about your situation, but once you’re off your potions what assurance do I have that everything works right?” Graves reached out even as Soap recoiled to stroke his cheek.
Soap grabbed the hand in question by the wrist, harsh grip making the bones rub together. “Wasn’t planning on stopping my potions.” Soap spat.
Graves’ answering laugh was cold. “Sweetheart, I don’t mind having a man for a bride, takin’ pity on your folks and all that, but I ain’t gonna entertain your eccentricities until we’ve got an heir an’ two spares, and I’m certainly not risking ‘em turning out like you from that vile drink.”
He shouldn’t have been standing so close. Wasn’t proper. That’s all Soap had to say in his defense. Mister Graves was too close, and how was Soap meant to have anticipated the appearance of a bee, swatting at which he had unintentionally caught his fist in Graves’ gut.
Put some distance between them, Graves stumbling backwards and bending in double to recover, only to be swallowed up from the shadow of the old abbey—
It was a man, dressed in finery black as midnight, a horned skull mask covering his face. It made Soap’s heart leap in his chest, until he settled with the recalling that the banquet this evening was to be a masquerade.
The stranger held an arm across Graves’ throat, keeping him still.
“You should know better than to touch things that aren’t yours.” A dark voice, molten and silvery felt as if it coiled in Soap’s chest rather than his ears, and he wet his lips.
“Wasn’t doing anything I didn’t have a right to, hoss.” Graves sneered. “He’s my intended; we’re to be wed at the end of the week.”
“Then you’ve no right until the end of the week. Where I’m from you would have been cut for this. Neck,” a dark gloved finger, pointed ivory tips on each end stroked down Graves’ front. “To navel.” The stranger looked at Soap, pinned him in place in a dark gaze. “Are you alright?”
Soap straightened his spine. “‘M fine. More than capable of handling myself.”
The stranger laughed low, releasing Graves, who dusted himself off indignantly. “The party ain’t for hours yet, you know. You look like some kinda freak walking around like that.”
“I arrived early.” The stranger shrugged. “Our hosts are expecting me. Until then, Johnny.”
Without another word the stranger was gone, rounding the low shrubs in the shadow of the east wing and though Soap made to follow him, there was no one there.
“Fucking lunatic.” Graves grumbled.
“Master John, Mister Graves.” one of the ladies in waiting found the pair of them. “You mustn’t walk ahead, sirs. We had lost sight of you both.”
Graves sneered. “Don’t matter; I’ve seen all I needed to.”
Soap had his assignment; get through the banquet tonight, and he could at least enjoy the tourney before he was to spend the rest of his days wed to an utter bastard.
His mask was pointless; he and Graves were a matched pair, in dress as well as accessories, complementing one another. He might as well be branded; the unwanted son of MacTavish, finally gotten rid of, now left to twirl across the dance floor entertaining honored guests. His mother’s dowager aunt who kept calling him by his cousin’s name, the seneschal to the king’s favored mistress, some famed artist and inventor currently between patrons—Soap had a practiced expression on his face and all manner of rehearsed responses to well wishes and queries—
The next turn of the dance had him changing partners again, all the light and clamor sucked from the room as he found himself in an embrace with a specter of death.
He’d seen all manner of absurd and macabre masks this evening but none were so arresting as the horned bone worn by the very same stranger Soap and Graves had encountered in the gardens.
Only a mask. Made of wood or heavy paper or perhaps even animal bone meant to resemble a human.
“We meet again, Johnny.” The stranger said.
Soap scowled; Graves had been generous and loose with his endearments and nicknames, telling anyone who would listen about his Johnny.
“No one calls me that.” Soap was quick to inform the stranger. “I don’t let them.”
A hum of consideration. “Not even your betrothed?”
Soap had been fighting off a number of scoffs and eye rolls all night but with this gentleman garbed all in black, he didn’t bother. “Especially not Graves.”
The stranger’s steps were precise, practiced, accommodating even for Soap’s missteps for having had to relearn all the dancing he knew in the past month.
“Not a love match I take it?” The stranger asked, taking them in a careful turn that sidestepped the pair they were meant to swap partners with.
“Is there such a thing anymore?” Soap asked.
“For those with patience.” The stranger’s eyes raked over Soap’s face, making him shiver. “If you oppose the marriage, why not refuse?”
Soap fought the urge to laugh. “Oh aye, that would go well. I’m to obey my lord father in all things. If my parents tell me I’m marrying a knob, I’ll practice signing my name as John Knob.”
“Parents aren’t infallible.” The stranger said sagely. “After all, only look at the way yours have treated you.”
The sound and sights of the ballroom all came crashing back, a cacophonous sound and blinding glare.
“How dare you.” Soap said quietly. “How dare you presume to know me.”
“I know you better than you think.” The stranger said. “I know you well enough to know I’m right, what I’ve thought since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Soap felt frozen in place as the stranger leaned in, his teeth visible beneath his mask seeming just as sharp as the skull’s fangs by some trick of the light. He turned his head, cool fragrant breath spreading across Soap’s lips, which parted in anticipation of the brush of a kiss—
“You’re perfect, Johnny. Just as you are. And I’ll tear anyone who says otherwise to pieces until you believe it.”
Soap’s heart was hammering in his chest, and he found himself alone on the busy dance floor, the stranger nowhere to be seen. Some lord or another, surely no more than twelve years of age, was looking at him expectantly—his presumptive partner for the next turn of the dance.
Soap left the dance floor, interrupting the carefully choreographed steps with his intrusion, whispers and odd looks following him out as he made for the halls of the castle that were off limits to guests.
He couldn’t breathe, hands pulling at his clothes like a madman to try to get some air on his burning skin.
Panting, he stopped before the imposing doors his feet had unwittingly taken him to, heavy curtains that covered them to keep away the chill and mark the area as condemned to all who walked Castle MacTavish’s halls conspicuously pulled.
Behind them lay the east wing, a loose collection of storerooms and quarters that had been glorious in the castle’s youth, and the crowning jewel the old abbey.
The east wing was in disrepair, neglect, some weakness in the stones and scaffolding and miasma of the air, all manner of afflictions to render it unfit for habitation. Secondary to this myriad of earthly hazards were the stories. Ghosts walked the halls, unholy spirits. The very same that had tormented a number of previous Lords and Ladies MacTavish and their children, afflicted the whole line with madness for a time. So it had been closed up, a new, unsullied abbey built, and the old left to rot.
Soap had never been inside. Gilly had told him of it once, how she’d found a way in but discovered only a host of spiders and mouldering furniture and nary a ghoul or demon. Soap had never felt his curiosity fuel him further.
For a moment, overwhelmed by the words of a stranger cutting too deeply and the anxiety of pending nuptials, Soap’s hand fell upon the great iron ring to open the door. It would be heavy, and probably stuck to all hell if the door wasn’t barred. But he let it go, laughing at his flight of fancy. There was nothing behind the door. Soap fixed his doublet and made to return to the banquet before his mother came looking for him.
Soap didn’t sleep a wink that night. Even after all the drinking and feasting and music and dancing that ought to have tired him out, he only lay abed, struck with a nameless fear that had him rolling back and forth, the phantom sensation of spidery fingers on his skin or a voice in his ear (or the whisper of lips against his own) jerking him back to wakefulness.
He tried praying but found no peace. He even tried—God help him—manual stimulation, for the laxness it might encourage, but he found no relief. His head felt heavy, limbs uncooperative as he was hastily dressed come morning, to be presented for the tourney—
“I can’t wear this.” He at last recovered his mind enough to realize, and to protest. “How am I to wear armor over this, or to move properly for the melee,” he demonstrated where the sleeves threatened to pull from merely raising his arms. The servants exchanged wary gazes, but the eldest among them spoke up.
“You’re not to be competing, Master John. Mister Graves has forbidden it.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what Graves wants.” Soap said, lack of sleep making his tongue coarse for how some of the servants gasped. “If he takes issue with it he’ll have to best me.”
“You will do as Graves says.” A sonorous voice said; Mother joining the proceedings. She was dressed already, looking every inch the hosting lady of the tourney.
“He’s a prick, Mother.” Soap informed her.
“He has agreed to wed you. And you will be comfortable, far from here.” She sighed, picking at some fault she found in his clothing. “The last thing we need is a delay.”
“Aye.” Soap agreed, voice soft. “The sooner you’re rid of me the better.”
Mother’s expression crumbled. “John,”
“I’ll do as he says.” Soap agreed. “And after the wedding you’ll never have to set eyes on me again.”
He was not expecting her to react to that, the way she pulled him into an embrace. Ill suited to the pair of them, the first affection he’d been shown by her in his entire memory.
“Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to keep you safe.” She confided while Soap was left unsure where to put his hands. “I pray when you’ve children of your own, who you’ll love more than you love yourself, that you’ll understand.”
“I won’t.” Soap told her. “I’ll never understand how you can call this love.”
Mother clung tighter to him for a moment, then pulled away, once again the most honorable Lady MacTavish.
“Your betrothed is waiting.” She said solemnly.
The sun beat down on the opening ceremonies, nearly a full week of sport promised. And Soap was up in the box with his parents, sisters, and of course Lord Shepherd who was endorsing this whole affair.
“Graves first caught my attention as a simple man at arms,” Shepherd was droning on, seated next to Soap. “He was a natural born leader. Of course I gave him his own command, and he surpassed expectations. If I had a dozen like him we’d be finished with all this nonsense with Spain and France.”
Soap hummed appropriately, entirely uninterested; he’d heard this all already from the horse’s ass—mouth.
“The estate I granted him was generous, but a man needs to make his own fortune, so I stripped it of the lands. If he’s smart in manners of business he’ll go about purchasing them back.”
Soap gave a noise of agreement, eyes raking over the competitors—a few of his cohort had been permitted to join, it would be odd if MacTavish offered none of their own knights, Gaz among them. A number of banners Soap recognized, for patronage if not for skill; it wouldn’t do for Graves to be bested too quickly in his own tourney. God help him but he wanted to leave that stuffy box, don his own armor, and spar with his sworn brothers for the last time. And if he put his intended in the mud, all the better.
The banners bore the stag, the lion, the boar, the raven—
“Who is that?” Soap said abruptly, getting quickly to his feet.
Lord Shepherd had a sour expression for being interrupted. “Who?”
“There! With the—” Soap’s eyes raked the field again, the boar, raven, the thorns, four blades—gone in the wash of color as the knights assembled, the horned skull swallowed up as if a mere figment of his imagination. Soap fell silent.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother, Lord Shepherd.” Caroline on Shepherd’s other side came to his rescue. “He has a great love for honorable combat, and has been waiting the whole of the wedding preparations to see Mister Graves’ prowess for himself.”
Even if one were the sort to be particularly enamored of combat and chivalry in all its forms, it was shaping up to be a dull affair. Soap had naturally taken note of the order of events, certain that if he was careful about it he could place himself in one of the events—one and only one. Selecting which one was proving to be difficult, particularly with the talent pool.
They weren’t a bad lot, all things considered. Unfortunately Soap was indeed a follower of the names to beat, who of which clan was most capable, but the assembled knights were just that. Capable. Perfectly mediocre in all regards, no true competition to be had. If Soap was entered he would have sincerely made the effort to win total victory.
The first was the melee. Truthfully the easiest to infiltrate, a great mess of full helms without banners on the field, it would be child’s play for someone to compete without formal entry. But with Lord Shepherd beside him and his armor shut away, Soap resolved himself to watching only.
With near twenty fully armored combatants, the clash of steel was louder than any cheers or shouts of groundling children trying to keep track of their respective champions.
Graves was self assured, a swaggering peacock letting the other competitors wear one another out before he’d come in to break a hard won draw and be seen as besting two foes at once. The crowd booed their disapproval when a newcomer came from the side—there was Gaz, Soap would have thought he was busy napping—to target the weak points in Graves’ guard. A few hammering blows of a long sword on Graves’s polished shield to try to break his stance, pushing him backwards—
One moment he wasn’t there, the next Soap saw a hulking form in all black armor taking hold of Graves from behind, just as he had in the garden. The grinning fanged skull stared at Soap as a knife cut through steel like butter, starting with Graves’ throat. From neck to navel. Soap felt hot breath against his ear, shivered—
Whatever apparition had taken hold of Soap, it was gone the next instant. And for how Graves stumbled, hand going to his untouched chest and belly where Soap had just watched the stranger in black slice him open, Soap wondered if he was the only one who’d seen it. But everyone else seemed unaffected, Gaz taking advantage of Graves’ distraction to land a punch to the side of his head. Graves went down like a bag of rocks, squires quickly dragging him off the field as the melee continued.
Gaz ended up winning the melee, the last man standing at the end of the brawl, and was rewarded a handsome young stallion and ten kegs of fine wine.
Graves complained about it as luncheon was served in the box, and all manner of jugglers and acrobats and troubadours attempted to purge the embarrassment from the audience’s minds.
“It’s not proper combat, mind.” Graves felt the need to point out, gravy from his hand pie falling to his boots for the dogs to hungrily lick up when he waved for his cup to be refilled. “No more than tavern brawling, sort which the common folk get up to. Peasants, cutthroats and the like.”
“Had you ever engaged in a tavern brawl, Sir Graves? Before you became a knight, that is.” Gilly asked, eyes all round with innocence.
Soap had to stifle a laugh in his own cup, and Mother cleared her throat pointedly.
“I’m no knight, Miss Gillian.” Graves’s gaze flickered to Shepherd for a moment, who seemed deliberately uninterested in the exchange. “Just a man making his way in the world, working his hardest and accepting what the Lord sees fit to give him.”
“And He works in mysterious ways, for He knows better than we can hope to His plan.” Gilly fluttered her lashes.
“Amen.” Caro said quietly.
Graves’s genial smile tightened. “Amen.” He repeated stiffly.
“The lots for the hand to hand will have been drawn.” Lord Shepherd dusted his hands of his own luncheon. “Are you competing, Graves?”
Graves’s expression tightened. “Of course, my lord. I wouldn’t waste the opportunity.”
“Are you well then? You seemed… unprepared, during the melee.”
The color drained from Graves’ face. “I’m perfectly well enough to face a man one on one. I tell ya, if Garrick’s friend hadn’t been holding me back like that—”
“Who do you mean?” Mother asked, dabbing her lips with a handkerchief. “If one of our men has behaved unsporting,”
“The big bastard—begging your pardon, ladies—in all black. Came at me with a knife.” His hand fell to his neck.
“I don’t know if any of the competitors were wearing black.” Caro said. “Perhaps in the shade it appeared dark?”
“You can’t have missed him—whoever he was, grabbed me from behind so Garrick could get one in on me…”
None of the MacTavishes spoke, but after a moment Lord Shepherd did. “No one grabbed you, Graves. We were watching the whole time. Don’t make excuses for yourself.”
“Perhaps Mister Graves ought to see the healers?” Father suggested. “He did take a blow to the head, many men have been known to have their senses addled.”
“Perhaps it’s for the best.” Lord Shepherd said.
“I ain’t addled!” Graves said, too loudly, but quickly collected himself. “Johnny,” he purred sweetly. “You saw him, didn’t you? Swear I could tell, it was that freak from the gardens. Made my skin crawl just the same.”
Soap felt all eyes on him. His family’s, Shepherd’s, Graves’. And a burning dark gaze that made his hair stand on end. You’re perfect, Johnny. Like tongues caressing him, the weight of that gaze even if he knew not where it came from. “I didn’t see anyone.”
Graves’s expression hardened, and he excused himself to prepare for the combat.
Soap felt hands on his body, warm fingers tracing the path the figure’s knife had made through Graves’ flesh. Then as soon as it had appeared it was gone.
Soap’s skin was burning hot, as if fire was licking at his body. The only reprieve was the cold fingers spreading teasingly over him at intervals. Stroking over his chest, thumbing his nipples, caressing his belly. It was as if he was drowning in it, consumed by the heat with only this lifeline of ice to hold onto—
It’s too much, Soap tried to pant, to refuse, but a writhing mass of a chilled tongue pushed its way into his throat, all-consuming. It was overwhelming, intoxicating—
You can take it. Husband, a voice purred in his ears, and Soap closed his eyes, basking in it. My perfect Johnny.
Cool fingers stroked over his abdomen, a fond laugh accompanying how he shivered. The phantom touch of hands over his skin was heavenly, and he tried to gasp around the tongue in his mouth as two fingers gently coaxed his thighs open and took hold of his prick, stroking the engorged length of it between thumb and forefinger.
Soap gave a moan, floating on sensation.
Beautiful. His husband crooned. Love your cock.
Th crudeness of the statement made Soap flush, and the tongue withdrew from his throat to lick over his cheeks, his neck where the flush was surely spreading, cooling him in the process.
Do you want to fuck me, Johnny? A second hand pushed between his legs, fingers curling wickedly into him while continuing to stroke him.
I want you to fuck me.
Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,
“John!” Gilly prodded him to wakefulness with a hiss, her gable crooked from where she’d been leaning heavily on her cheek. “Your husband-to-be’s match is nearly completed.”
Soap’s breath caught in his throat, recalling the vivid dream, shivering despite the heat of the day, skin tight—aye, his face burned by the sun.
A cheer went up as Mister Graves was declared the winner of the bout, Sir Kieran the unfortunate opponent eliminated. Always dropping his guard.
Soap watched as Graves held his blade aloft in victory, pacing the field to bask in the acclaim—a turn, and Soap could swear he saw a figure standing in Graves’ shadow like an unholy apparition, but in the next breath was gone.
Predictably, many of the middling quality competitors Graves had stocked the tourney with were eliminated in the first round. Soap wondered if he realized that would only make his defeat in subsequent matches all the more humiliating.
“A trick, for the young master?”
Soap froze, turning eyes wide to the speaker.
It was one of the performers, a masked jester, unusually tall and broad for any sort of tumbler. Rather than riotous colors, he wore black and white, as well as myriad shades of grey, in a splotching pattern, covering him head to toe. On closer inspection Soap realized it was hundreds of fish bones sewn into the shapeless dark cloth, their density creating a confusing shifting color but strangely making no sound with movement. Upon his face, his mask rather than that of exaggerated comedy was a garishly painted recreation of a monster, or devil. The voice, the dark eyes peering at him, those were the bits that struck Soap. He wondered if this was the very same gentleman from the gardens, who had threatened Graves. The same one Soap and Graves, in some shared imagining, had seen gut the latter like a fish.
“Aye, go on then.” Caroline butt in, leaning over the edge of the box in interest.
The jester gave a courtly bow, holding up his gloved palm, then, turning it around quickly, was holding a plump fig between his fingers.
“It’s an old tradition, you see,” the jester said, producing a long knife seemingly from thin air as well in his other hand. Gilly gave a surprised laugh, but Soap’s eyes were fixed on the blade, dark steel nearly black, half expecting blood to drip from it as it cut the fig cleanly in half, but it was the purple-red of rich juice instead.
“Before a wedding, the fruit is split, and one of the intended eats half.” The jester held the knife forward, half the juicy fig speared on it. “And on the day of the wedding, their spouse eats the other.”
Soap’s hands didn’t work. His sisters’ laughter and that of children and peasantry around them amused by all manner of jongleur frivolities and absurdities pressing on him like a leaden weight.
He thought the jester’s eyes darkened as he leaned forward, letting the ripe fruit be fed into his mouth.
It was sweet, though full bodied, like the prelude to fine wine. It made him salivate, and the tip of the knife brushed the corner of his lips only to shear away an errant droplet threatening to escape.
“What does it mean?” Caro asked. “When the spouse eats the other half?”
The jester’s eyes remained on Soap’s as he flicked the blade to dislodge the juice and stored it on his belt. “A sweet second bite foretells a long and fertile marriage.”
Soap swallowed the fig, compelled by the jester’s gaze.
“That’s all well and good,” drawled a voice, revealing Graves had arrived to see the jester’s trick. “But now I’m meant to keep a piece’a cut fruit all week and expect it not to be crawling with worms.”
“What fruit?” The jester asked, holding up his—empty—hands. “Wait for the wedding, and you’ll have your reward for your patience.”
The jester walked off, and Graves shook his head. “Don’t like the tricks them fools pull.”
“I think they’re fun.” Caroline said, smoothing her skirts primly. “I could never marry someone without a sense of humor.”
Soap scarcely paid them attention, watching the jester disappear into the crowd.
Graves was celebrating, so by extent Soap was celebrating, at the head table at his betrothed’s side. Never mind that his companions, his brothers in arms, were feasting at a lower table, joking and laughing and congratulating each other for their victories or commiserating over their losses.
Graves was boasting about his prowess on the field, retelling his heroic bout against Kieran as if it had been a perilous battle against a villain and fiend rather than an entry level match in an orchestrated tourney.
Soap was his captive audience, humming and nodding at the appropriate moments while wondering if anyone would notice if he only stuck his knife through Graves’ tongue to silence him.
Or carved it out, alongside his heart and liver, feasted on them braised in cloves and their own pudding and falling apart in his mouth with each bite his husband put past his lips. He’d take his wine only from his husband’s mouth, reveling in the adoration and hungry kisses, the pair of them confined to quarters for months following their wedding until their insatiable appetites cooled some.
He’d lick his husband’s fingers clean of each morsel, save for one reverent hand that would cradle his belly in silent anticipation of quickening.
I’ll give you a hundred children, his husband would promise him, fingernails running through Soap’s hair. Our own army.
“Johnny? You got a little—erm—”
Graves interrupted his daydreaming, voice wavering some, and Soap quickly dabbed his lips to recover.
“Will you be competing in the archery contest?” Soap asked, mostly to send Graves off again on his monologue.
Soap glanced down at his fingers, the ones he’d touched to his lips, finding blood staining them. He wiped them on the tablecloth, returning to his plate.
Perhaps he was taking ill. His mind playing tricks on him, fever and his discontent warring with his eyes. For even though he’d seen the pig carved for them, had a piece from the flank put on his plate by servants, he now had a cooked heart before him, half eaten. The meat tasted strongly of iron, and its juices ran red. Soap snuck a look at Gilly on his other side, unbothered with her own cut of pork. Soap continued eating, aware of Graves’ eyes on him.
Thick, luxuriant furs against his naked back, the entrancing flakes of snow filtering in through the ruined roof, melted to near nothing by the time they made it down to Soap’s skin. Soap gazed up above them in wonder. It was beautiful, and the body he embraced looked with him, at the smattering of stars visible between the streaks of clouds.
I wish you could have seen it as it was. A voice like the stoking of flames, like the crash of waves in a storm, remarked.
“We’ll restore it.” Soap assured his husband. Brick by brick, they would undo the sins of his family and the cruelties of time. After all, what was a century to one who lived forever? “And they know better now. They know to worship you.”
Us, love. A kiss was pressed to Soap’s knuckles.
“I never wanted their worship.” Soap confessed. “Only their love. Their… acknowledgment.”
An amused chuckle. They can hardly ignore you now.
Soap turned his head, the panels of stained glass long since broken that brought light into the ruined abbey shadowed. Arms spread, each of them with nails driven through their hands into the stonework like the mouldering effigy above the altar, familiar faces hung limp in place of each window, gagged, eyes dull but still alive. Lord Shepherd, Mother, Father, Caroline, Gillian, Mistress Catherine, Price, Gaz—
Soap came to, shaking and sweating, sure he must have been yelling, hands aching for the force he’d been grasping the iron rings of the doors to the east wing.
He rested his forehead against the doors. Just a dream. Only a nightmare. Sleepwalking, wearing only his sleep trousers and a loose shirt. He shivered, remaining in place with his eyes shut tight while he heard footsteps making for him, bringing with them weak candle light.
“John,” Father said softly. “What are you doing here, lad?”
“Woke up here.” Soap answered in kind, turning around to face Father and blinking against the light—he wiped at his face, finding tears there. “Had a bad dream ‘s all.”
“I heard you from the library. Weeping, wailing. Are you sure you’re alright, son?”
Irritation flared. “I just said I was.” Soap snapped, then seeing Father’s taken aback expression—recalling the slack one of his nightmare—deflated. “I’m tired, is all. Was tossing and turning for hours before I fell asleep, then…” He didn’t know the hour, how long he’d truly slept, how far off dawn was. “Wedding jitters, I suppose.”
Father continued looking at him, a far away look in his eye. “Aye. Your fate changes at week’s end.” He acquiesced.
It wasn’t fate. No working of a divine plan. It was human actions, his parents sending him off without a dowry to a prick well below their station, drawing it out in a circus of indulgence and ego. Soap bit his tongue.
“Let’s get you to your bed, little love.” Father said, offering Soap his hand. As if he was a child again, unburdened by his parents’ loathing.
Soap was tired—so fucking tired—he took it. Pretended he could be loved, just once, before there was a hundred leagues or so separating him from his home.
—————
Soap took breakfast privately, staring at his plate but unwilling to taste of the meat, jam, cheese, fruit, even the three quail’s eggs sitting primly cooked in their shells for fear of tasting blood again. If he did, he knew he’d be heaving it back up again.
Mercifully he’d been able to get to sleep again, able to slip into dreamless oblivion, the morning’s light rendering bad dreams a thing of the past. All the same… it’d been so real. Like the musings he had been finding himself in, watching Graves slain and hearing that voice when he let his attention wander. And he’d been a willing participant like every other time, enthralled with the scenery right up until—
Soap was going in circles.
He broke his fast on bread and tea only the bare minimum of what would fill his stomach, the latter some herbal decoction from the healers’ garden. Likely at Father’s bidding, some remedy for a troubled mind. They couldn’t, after all, have him coming undone before the ceremony.
It was… sweeter than he’d anticipated. Not the bitterness of herbs, but refreshing. Mint, lemon, intoxicating purple figs—sorrow. He felt sorrow drinking it. Shame. Hope. As if the herbs themselves were attempting to apologize for his distress.
Soap shook himself. The tea didn’t convey any of that. It was just tea. He was overtired. Probably ill from whatever undercooked pork he’d eaten last night and had decided in frivolity was his betrothed’s heart.
John MacTavish, a poor once-shepherd and soap maker, looked at the desolate land they had come to in dismay. His small village, torn apart by raiders from both land and sea, was relying on him to lead them to safety. He’d hoped they’d found a place to begin anew again, on the ruins of some older farm hold, the bones of a fortress long abandoned visible on the hill, but the soil was proving unsuitable. They had sick among them, they were picking the land clean of anything they could hunt or forage but they were simple folk. They hadn’t the tools or the means to go farther. And he’d led them this direction, bid them stop and rest on this spot, for they’d gone far enough.
His Marianne smoothed his brow with her fingers, once soft from working tallow now turned calloused from the hard work. The last of their flock had been butchered to feed the four houses John was now responsible for; there would be no more tallow to soften her hands, nor any cheese or mutton to fill their bellies, and no wool to clothe them. He eyed her belly, large and round, and wondered if he truly needed a cloak for winter when they were to have a young one to keep warm. He brought her hand to his lips, as if he could undo the hardship wrought upon them by his poor decision.
“You’ll be blaming yourself no longer.” His beloved wife told him, as if sensing where his thoughts had traveled. “If bere won’t grow, we’ll plant oats. If oats won’t grow, we’ll plant flax. If we’ve no sheep, we’ll raise goats. The Lord helps he who helps himself.”
“And when the flax doesn’t grow, and we’ve no goats?” John was being contrary, and Marianne tweaked his nose.
“Then we’ll away into the moors, and dance our lives away for the Fair Folk.” She told him. “This land is as good as any land. We’re safe here, which is more than we can say of elsewhere. Have faith.” She took his hand, squeezed it in reassurance.
When she left him in the meager one room hut they’d erected, all the wool shorn from their slain final ewes in a basket on her hip to be spun into thread by she and Clara Fischer and little Elspeth, John put his head in his hands, and for not the first time in recent days, began to pray.
Archery contests were unfortunately not much of a spectator sport. That is, the more impressive the shot, the more difficult for any sort of audience to see. One could see the competitors, or the target, but not both. They were seated by the latter at least, with naught but the heavy thunking of arrows into great solid targets to observe. Just as well; Soap didn’t have an ounce of patience for whatever show Graves was sure to be putting on, though he would have liked to have gotten to see the bows themselves.
Each round of this competition allowed the contenders, four at a time, to fire their volley of five arrows. Any man who could not make his target was eliminated, and the firing point moved farther back.
After the first few rounds, and many of Graves’ selected competitors were eliminated, Soap had to wonder how many had trained with a longbow before. Soap’s own arms ached, itching with his desire to feel the burn of ten stone draw weight through his shoulders, breath held as he judged distance and widened his stance and—
A cacophony of thuds as the next round commenced, both the green and gold shafted arrows managing to make the cut between their attempts, the red falling short but for the one attempt that went too far, and the black arrow that found its target on first attempt.
Soap wondered at the contestants as the colors were thinned; were colors assigned by contestant at the beginning of the competition, or at each round? There was generous variability, and more contenders in the first round than colors besides, but the black arrows were consistent. One shot, center of the target. Like clockwork, truthfully how Soap had been tracking the progression without needing to look eastward into the sun at the competitors. The pages tasked with retrieving the arrows and running them up to the ever distant firing line did their diligence giving news to those within the box, but the news was always Master Graves moves on, milord!
The rounds began to move faster, fewer arrows fired, until only three targets were in use. The goldenrod struck within four shots, the ash blue within three, the black always on the first. Soap craned his neck, covered his eyes against the sun, but could see nothing of the competitors.
“There’s no finer weapon than the English longbow.” Lord Shepherd claimed. “For the common man, that is. Won us the war. Graves was a fair shot back then. I’m sponsoring an act to bring before Parliament, you know. To keep the spirit and art of English archery alive, rather than on debauched games of dice, or cricket. All men over the age of seven will be required to own a bow—”
Soap would compete if he could. He was more than a fair shot by far. But there was no need for cowl nor helm to disguise his face in this contest long enough to compete, and he already had his heart set on joining the horse racing tomorrow.
A commotion started up between volleys, a contender all but stomping his way down the field, one of the pages gathering the arrows held by the arm and dragged along.
Behind him, Captain Price and the castle steward serving as officiant and announcer were in hot pursuit.
“I submit, if it pleases your lordships, a dirty little sneak cheat!” Graves hauled the boy forward.
“Graves, what’s the meaning of this?” Shepherd stood, glaring at him while the boy quivered.
“This whelp—a trainee of Captain Price, in fact!—has been sabotaging my scores.”
“Cheating is an egregious claim.” Father said. “Have you any proof?”
Graves glared at the child in question. “I ought to have plenty.” He thrust his bow into the page’s hands, storming to the targets, thumb smoothing over the canvas marked surface. “There! Plain as day! Count them, I had three of five arrows on last round, one was dead center.”
“I retrieved them sir,” the child sobbed, all but quaking. “None in the center, only the two outside the blue ring… Master MacIntyre said we’re not to count those, for any competitor.”
“You’re lying!” Graves spat.
“We were all here, surely someone could testify to the score—” Lord Shepherd began to say.
“Were you firing the blue or the gold?” Caroline spoke up, yet still calm.
Graves glared at the child once more. “I was gold. The esteemed Captain Price was firing blue.”
“Then you ought to know the child speaks true.” Caroline held up her sketching book, where she was idly doodling some elaborate pattern on one page, but on the back of the one before were neat rows of letters and numbers, a meticulously kept scoring of the entire competition from one with nowhere to look but the targets.
“You expect me to believe—”
Graves choked, body bucking with the force as the heavy black shaft of an arrow tore through his throat and stuck halfway out as blood poured from him torrentially. Beside him, one after the other, each of the four targets had a black arrow embed in the very center, all five of their third remaining competitor’s arrows fired.
“Are you well, Graves?” Shepherd asked cautiously, and all at once the arrow, the blood, the four other arrows in the targets were all gone.
Graves whipped his head around wild eyed, fury settling on the page who had delivered the news of his loss. Graves snatched his bow back, brandishing it like a club, and a hand was closing around his wrist to stop him.
A real hand this time. Soap’s hand. His heart was pounding in his ears, so presumably he’d jumped over the wall of the box and sprinted to his betrothed’s side, but he remembered only the momentary fear in Graves’s eyes before seeing who it was.
“The little bastard embarrassed me.” Graves spat. “If no one will teach him some respect, I will!”
“You’re embarrassing yourself.” Soap snarled, trying to wrench the bow from his grip. “If you strike that child, it will be the last thing you do.” Soap told him, low and dangerous, unheard by any others. “I’ll kill you. And if I don’t kill you today, I’ll dog your every step until the end of your days. Even if you don’t take me as your husband, I’ll find my way into your bedchamber at night when you think you’re safe, and I’ll peel the fat from your muscle like the pig you are. You’ll wish an arrow in your throat was all you had to contend with.”
Graves’ eyes widened, his face going pale with terror. “This is you.” He said quietly. “All of it. You’re a witch. A monster.”
Soap pulled the weapon from him easily now. “Apologize to the boy, and congratulate Price on his victory. Then you’ll ask to be excused, say you’ve spent too long in the sun.”
Graves stared at him, slack-jawed, but after a moment began doing as Soap said, all smiles and charm.
Soap thought he saw a figure yet at the end of the archery course, but it was near impossible to see against the sun.
John was out too late again. It was all he could do, collecting what little wood there was and peat for burning as the chill began to creep into the long nights. His torch was dull, seeming ineffective against the fog settling over the moors, and the moon was in its dark cycle. He trembled with fatigue, with hunger, but he couldn’t afford to rest. The village needed him. Marianne needed him—
He could scarcely put one foot in front of the other. He could scarcely see a foot in front of him. All he wanted was to lay down, to rest.
Aren’t you tired, John? Crooned a voice.
“Oh Lord, my God, guide your wayward lamb to the light.” John’s voice was thick with unshed tears. “For though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me.”
Is your god here now? Is it watching your wife starve? Your people rot? The same voice asked.
“Deliver me from evil, and lead me not into temptation—” his voice was failing now, the thick mud beneath his feet attempting to suck him in.
I’m here John. The voice tried to comfort him. And I can deliver you.
“Please, God. Help me!”
For a price.
“Help me… anyone.”
John’s feet met stone on his next staggering step, a rush of warm air sweeping to meet him, his feeble torch all at once strong enough to light his way, an island in the fog.
You can rest here. While we discuss terms.
John gave a sob of relief, falling to his knees on the stone—cushioned by plush pillows, with feathers inside and not straw.
“Wine?” Offered a tall figure clothed head to toe in black.
John couldn’t speak, and a goblet of gold worthy of the king’s table was pressed into his hand. Only stared at the face of a skull looking at him, wondering what sort of devil he meant to be in league with.
In Gilly’s greater fits as a girl, Mother would drag her off by her hair to shout at her. Soap was spared that indignity at the very least, but he still felt the bite of fingernails through his sleeve as she led him from the fanfare of the tourney grounds. The keep was more distant, and she took him to the abbey instead to spare him the indignity of being hauled about the bailey like misbehaving child.
“Pray.” She told him sternly. “Your father’s called for the bishop that you might confess your sins, until then you’ll beg the Lord for guidance and forgiveness.”
“I’ve nothing to confess.” Soap spat. “I’ve done no wrong! Graves is a beast, I ought to have thrashed him there before the crowd and God—”
“Hold your tongue.” Mother snapped at him. “You’ll not speak ill of your husband—”
“He’s not my husband, is he?” Soap smiled at her. Here’s something she hadn’t accounted for; Soap himself couldn’t call off the wedding, but Graves was certainly at liberty to. “I’ve ‘til week’s end to drive him away.”
“There’s no time. You must be married before your birthday, or all of this will have been for naught!”
“Why?”
With a single word, Soap was treated to the rare sight of his mother at a loss for words.
Why then? It wasn’t a matter of inheritance; the thought had crossed Soap’s mind a thousand times, but unless the king himself ruled otherwise, the precedent in a half dozen cases was clear: a son, “born late” such as he, would not inherit over his sisters. Caroline was first in line, not he. He wasn’t even the first MacTavish to bear his condition, his father’s own youngest sister beloved by the clan and keeping house in her husband’s native France. So why? What was it about him specifically that drew such ire?
“The child is afflicted.” The bishop said calmly, with the air of an expert healer stepping into a panicked sick room. Father followed closely behind, drawn in on himself. “Touched, one must assume, by dark influence.”
“Enough!” Mother barked. “A disobedient child is a scourge upon his parents. But an earthly scourge.”
“I’m a man grown.” Soap protested lowly. “You’ve lost your chance if you meant to teach me and discipline me.”
Mother sobered at that. “Very well.” She said. “If you’re a man grown, you’re to be reasoned with. You must realize that if the marriage doesn’t go forward, if Lord Shepherd’s patronage is lost, the clan cannot refund the cost of the tourney and wedding.”
And whose fault is that? “Aye.” Soap agreed.
“Marry Phillip Graves.” Mother said—pled. “Before your birthday. This is nonnegotiable.”
“The marriage won’t last.” Soap reminded her. “His first wife received a divorce he treated her so poorly.”
“Marry him regardless.” Mother said. “If you divorce you will never have to marry again.”
“I’m to be a bride in the church then? Spoilt and not to remarry?”
The family looked to the bishop, who weighed the proposal.
“I shall have to write to Canterbury.” The bishop said. “We are not like to receive answer before the wedding.”
“One need not divorce to end a marriage.” Father pointed out. “Some spouses live in different countries, never to speak, but the union is maintained.”
Soap rolled his eyes. “I’ve no intention of remarrying regardless.”
Mother hummed. “And your own stipulations?”
“I want to compete in the tourney.” Easy. “The races, the hunt, the joust. I’m a knight of the clan in all but name, it’s my right.”
Mother and Father exchanged a look. Graves would oppose it, but…
“Fine.” Mother said. “What else?”
“Tell me why.” Soap demanded. “Why have you never loved me? Why go through with this farce? What have I done to offend you so?”
Father seemed shaken, but Mother wore a face of stony thought.
“Once you are wed, you will know everything.” Mother assured him.
The preparations were going well, the builders laying the stone work for what would be a brilliant abbey, the jewel of the MacTavish home. Their sixth winter in this place was over, and John rested assured that the spirit was keeping its side of the bargain.
“Da! Da!” An excitable voice called, shoes thudding on the fresh stone with a well garbed gentleman on his heels.
“Aye, Jojo!” John caught his son in his arms, lifted him up. “I heard ye—I’d wager half the moor heard your hollering.”
“Da! A messenger from the King!” The boy laughed, and John became aware all at once of his dusty clothes and untidy hair as the gentleman in Jojo’s wake came to a patient stop.
Still at heart a barely literate shepherd, John had little grasp for much of the grand proclamation, until the stirring words at the end. Lord John MacTavish.
The king was granting these lands to them, the sweeping moor up to the foothills, and in the days to come he would walk the borders a dozen times over, see the stones stacked to mark the boundary.
For now, he clumsily signed document after document, told what he would need to put to order, evident that the messenger had little idea why a squatting farmer was being given a title.
The last page was already signed. In his own hand, in his own blood. John glanced up, and the messenger was gone, replaced by the skull faced specter he had encountered in the night years before. John had almost let himself think it was a dream, that it was by God that their fortune had changed overnight.
“You’ve fertile land to call your own. Your people are healthy. Free from attackers. It will be easy to rule them well.” The ghost said. “And it won’t be the second John MacTavish,” Jojo was some distance away, playing unawares with one of the dogs the builders had brought with. “Or the third,”
“The seventh.” John supplied. “I haven’t forgotten.”
“Good.” The Ghost said. “John MacTavish the seventh will be mine. From the age of twenty, he will be my bride.”
“I know.” John said, eyes still watching his son with the dog.
Soap missed the afternoon’s sport (a shame, that,) but had heard that Mister Graves had won his bout and would be going on to the next round tomorrow.
New power in his arsenal, Soap was now required to smooth things over with his betrothed.
“I believe things may have gotten out of hand earlier.” Soap started with, as they were seated for dinner.
“You mean when you threatened my life and ensorcelled me?” Graves huffed.
Shite. Not the foot he’d wanted to start on. “I don’t know what came over me. I suppose I—” Soap glanced away. “I’ve not known a man of your sort before. I thought if you struck that boy, you’d surely kill him dead.”
“What, no one disciplines your whelps around here?” Graves grumbled.
“It was a silly thought.” Soap shook his head. “I’ve seen you fight. You’re not like the others. You’ve strength, and tenacity, and…”
“Brains?” Graves offered.
“Brains for days.” Soap agreed. “You’re the most capable man in the castle, and you’re to be my husband. I hardly know how to conduct myself.”
Graves shot him a lecherous look. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about ‘conduct’ with me.”
Soap’s skin crawled, and he politely took the hand off his thigh and instead linked their fingers on the surface of the table.
Lord John MacTavish III was a learned, reasonable man. A godly man. He hadn’t the time for superstition and pagan wisdom. Regardless of what tales he’d been told about his grandfather, whatever bargains he’d allegedly made with spirits, Clan MacTavish would not be acknowledging barbarism in the many forms Satan was wont to take.
The midwife brought out the squalling bundle from the birthing chambers, quickly closing the doors so that those assembled need not hear the ruckus his wife was making.
“A son, my lord.” The elderly woman reported, dabbing the babe’s face. “Perfectly formed.”
Lord MacTavish lifted the child for his men to see, lining the hallways of the east wing and well into their cups in celebration. “My son! Duncan MacTavish!”
The men cheered, but for a single figure in the space between where torchlight touched, who stood impassive.
Soap was standing before a large mirror, the finest he’d ever seen, able to see his whole body at once. From moment to moment he was in court finery, or his full plate polished to perfection, even fully nude.
A figure pressed to his back, features of its face obscured by the silver of the mirror blackening.
I upset you. The deep voice lulled in his ears, the head behind him bowing to press a kiss to the back of his head. Soap wanted to turn back, but he could only look at the tableau they made in the mirror. Last night. It wasn’t my intention.
“You brutalized them.” Soap said hollowly. “My family.”
The very family who scorned you? Who ignored you?
“They’re my family.” Soap snarled. “I’ll protect them with my life if I have to.”
A few moments of quiet. It wasn’t my intention to upset you. I’m sorry.
Soap felt some of the fight drain out of him. “Suppose you’re man enough to apologize; that counts for something.”
Thank you, for being patient with me. I’m learning with you, how I need to be. You’re different than I expected.
“Different how?”
Just different. Lips pressed behind his ear in a slow kiss, raising gooseflesh in their wake. Better.
Soap closed his eyes, leaning his weight back into the sturdy figure. “Who are you?”
The kisses paused, and Soap heard a laugh. ‘Who’? Not ‘what’?
“I ought to know what to call you before we get into philosophy, don’t you think?” Soap cracked a teasing smile.
Simon.
“Wasn’t expecting so ordinary a name.”
A traveling monk gave it to me. Said he would tame the wild bloodthirsty spirits of this land, make them fit for God. I was to be Simon, he who listens.
“Did you listen?”
For a time. The monk stopped believing none were beyond salvation, and moved on.
“So you were alone again.”
Lips pressed to Soap’s neck, and he shivered. This was long ago. What matters is you’re here now.
“This is all your doing, isn’t it?” Soap asked. “The dreams, the… what happened to Graves.”
He was naked again before the mirror, and Simon’s arms came around him, one around his waist and the other’s hand taking careful hold of his jaw. Wet, languid kisses began over his shoulders, and Soap was powerless to stop them. He didn’t want to stop them.
Yes. Simon said at last, disconcerting for how his mouth was still dragging unimpeded over Soap’s skin.
“So it wasn’t real.”
Dreams are only dreams. As for your pig fiancé… The lips traveling over Soap’s upper back stopped, fixed into a snarl. Do you want it to be real?
Soap recalled the gutting, the arrow through his throat, the heart upon the platter. “It’s not Christian.” He said. “To wish a man dead.”
God loves killing. He does it all the time. Simon’s lips turned to tongue, warm and wet, following the path of Soap’s spine back up before sharp teeth nipped at his throat. Let’s not speak of him now.
Soap agreed, head wanting to roll back to bask in the pleasure but fixed ahead watching Simon behind him. He watched the other hand come upwards, to Soap’s chest, and begin thumbing one nipple in circles.
The only sound for a few moments was Soap’s heavy breathing, panting as Simon kissed and sucked over his neck and drew shocks of arousal from Soap’s nipples, which he’d never coaxed any such sensation from himself.
“Is this a dream?”
Simon laughed, giving a harsher tug to Soap’s nipple that had him mewling. You’re asleep Johnny. But that doesn’t mean this isn’t real.
“I’m—” Soap sucked in a harsh breath as Simon released his jaw, now using both hands to tug and pinch at his chest. “I’ve never—I’m meant to be pure. Until the wedding.”
Simon hushed him. I won’t take anything not freely offered, Johnny. I’ve more patience than you give me credit for.
“Then—” was it truly a sin? Something done by oneself, indeed a lustful act, but an impure one? “Touch me. Please, Simon, I need—”
Soap felt something rubbing between his legs, through his lips sodden with arousal—for a moment he felt a flash of panic, visions conjured unbidden in his mind of dogs coupling hastily, of a stallion free of its sheath—but it was no prick shoving between his legs, merely Simon’s hand.
It felt so different from his own touch, alien and dizzying, and he couldn’t help pushing into it.
Good, Johnny. Take what you need. Dexterous fingers stroked over his prick, played with the length of it as Soap liked doing to himself. Soap obeyed, rocking his hips into Simon’s touch, grinding into his palm with an ache growing within him—
“Inside me,” Soap panted. “Please, Simon. Put—put them inside me.”
The spirit didn’t make him wait. His touch was light, teasing, but still satisfying as long, thick fingers sunk into him.
Soap bucked and moaned, but Simon held him still, curling his fingers and thrusting them in and out while still plucking at his chest. Soap felt, as the bishop had said, like a man possessed, spearing himself on Simon’s fingers while his tireless thumb played with Soap’s prick, body drawing up tight until he was sure he must be drowning in it all, unabashedly moaning his pleasure rather than smothering it into his pillow. He thought a moment he was dead, spirit pulled clean from his body, but went lax in Simon’s embrace and awoke to the sight of himself in the mirror. Disheveled, flushed, nipples swollen and red alongside his throbbing prick. The picture of a man fallen victim to lust, completely at ease in Simon’s arms.
You’re beautiful. Simon told him. I would be the only one to see you in your passion. If anyone else does, I’ll have no choice but to gift their eyes to you, strung on a chain.
“A broach.” Soap countered, realizing they were now lying back comfortably, the mirror now above them that the sight of their bodies entwined was all he could see. “I don’t care for chains.”
Simon hummed, pleased, hands stroking over Soap’s body and lips starting up kissing him all over once more. Sleep now, husband. I’ll see you on the morn.
Soap obeyed.
Therese was out of bed already when Malcolm went to rouse her. She’d been waking earlier and earlier recently; Malcolm wondered if they would need to begin having a maid stay at her bedside overnight as well. She was knelt on the floor, finger tracing on the wall, singing to her swollen belly in French.
“Good morning, my love.” He said sweetly. The healers had advised that he not be coarse with her, that this would pass once the babe was born. “What has you up so early?”
“I was speaking with him.” Therese’s hand found his. “He says I shouldn’t listen to you, that you’ll be dead soon.”
“Who’s telling you these things, my heart?” Malcolm kept his tone light, though he knew the healers would need to be brought back, to see what more they could give her for sleeping draughts without rushing the babe.
“The birds. The spiders, the wind, he’s in all of them.” She drummed her fingers on her belly, and obediently Malcolm lay his hand on the spot, feeling the babe kick. Strong, despite the mother’s frailty. The pregnancy with Anna Theresa hadn’t been like this; the girl was distraught herself, asking where her mamá was hiding away, and Malcolm told her each day that her mother was tired, and mustn’t be disturbed.
“Perhaps we could walk some today.” Malcolm suggested. “The weather is fair.”
Therese stopped the flitting of her eyes all about. “John will come with us.”
Malcolm sighed; his grandfather was unwell, with his father taking on more and more of the duties of the Lord MacTavish. “We can see if he’s available, but Lord John may have—”
“Non, our John.” Therese said insistently. “Our John will come with.” Her hand covered his on her belly.
“John?” Malcolm asked, stroking over her arm as he had found helped when she became more agitated. “I thought you’d settled on Henry—”
“He will be John.” Therese snarled at him, fingernails biting into his arm. “If you don’t allow it I will carve out your traitorous heart—”
“John is a fine name, my heart.” Malcolm loosened her grip carefully. “Let’s not tell anyone yet, yes? Bad luck.”
She hesitated, but nodded.
“Let me help you dress, and we will go for our walk. You, me, and little John.”
Therese nodded, and drawing away from the wall to go to her wardrobe, Malcolm saw at last what she was hiding. He would have the maids check her over for wounds and shear her fingernails once more, for she’d written JOHN on the wall over and over in blood.
John was the name she shrieked on the labor bed, voice hoarse and desperate. Malcolm was only relieved no one sent for his grandfather. This, too, was different from Anna Theresa’s birth, where Therese had labored for several hours until she’d birthed a ruddy, squalling thing that became immediately Malcolm’s greatest love. This second child took it seemed far longer, maids and midwives going in and out but barring him entrance.
With no recourse, Malcolm went to the abbey, hopeful prayer would lighten his heart.
This was where his own father found him, so aged these past few years from managing in Lord MacTavish’s place the misfortunes that had befallen their family.
“To be a bystander as one you love fights a great battle is no easy task.” Duncan said, laying a hand on his son’s shoulder.
“I’m no fit company.” Malcolm warned. “Yet I fear my soul is not suited for prayer, else my words fall on deaf ears.”
“You blaspheme.” Duncan warned, then sighed. “My son, I’ve dire news.”
The bells of the abbey began to ring overhead, each clamor making Malcolm’s chest clench. “Grandfather?” He asked, hopeful that it was only his liege lord for whom the bells tolled and feeling guilt for the thought. Acolytes began emerging wordlessly, lighting the candles in the abbey one by one.
Duncan shook his head, then took his son in an embrace as if he were six rather than six and twenty. Malcolm’s weeping was not heard over the clamor of the bells, which seemed to go on for hours.
“Milords.” A voice, emboldened by necessity.
The midwife held a softly cooing bundle, bouncing it in her arms, and Malcolm pulled from the safety of his father’s arms to see it, the thing that had slain his beloved.
He felt love, looking on the bleary eyed face. But he felt rage as well. And grief to make the stones tremble and shake if he let it known.
“The bishop needs a name, milord.” The midwife explained. “To be baptized immediately, should…”
“Aye.” Malcolm understood.
“John, milord? As the lady wished?”
Malcolm laughed at it all, voice wet. This was not what his Therese had wished. In her lucidity, his kind hearted and gentle wife as he would remember her,
“Henry.” Malcolm said. “For her brother.”
The midwife nodded, and took the babe away.
Behind him, one of the acolytes, a man uncommonly tall, began snuffing out the freshly lit candles one by one.
Soap awoke as he’d gone to bed: alone. He held some disappointment over this, in part believing his recollections from the night before to be a dream, but indeed the bed beside him was turned down and mussed, as if it’d been slept in, and rising he felt a pleasant ache in his core from Simon’s touch that sent a thrill of heat through him. Husband. The word had sounded so lovely coming from Simon’s lips (so to speak), Soap wondered if Simon would take issue with Soap’s impending nuptials.
There wasn’t time to dally; Pericles was waiting for him, and Soap regretted not having gotten out to better prepare for this day.
On reaching the stables—and indeed, no hands rushed forward to stop him, it seemed Mother was good for her word—he found the handsome bay gelding waiting for him, freshly saddled and heartily fed. Leonidas was a heavy destrier, fit for carrying a furnished knight into battle, but Pericles was agile and biddable.
He had some time before the race yet, so he took Peri out, took a few turns about the bailey to warm both their muscles for the morning. Bosom companions as they were, it took not a long time for each step the steed took to feel like an extension of Soap’s own limbs.
He walked rather than rode Peri to the tourney grounds, easily directed to the beginning of the race course and the great mass of riders and steeds waiting for commencement. The hot blooded gelding shifted against the crowd, but Soap was quick to hush and stroke him until he calmed.
He knew he was drawing eyes, the dainty late-born groom lordling until now relegated to the stands, but Peri was shifting in place with the need to run and Soap shared his enthusiasm.
Take care. A voice whispered in his ear, the voice prickling heat along his skin even if Soap felt some annoyance with the words.
“Hardly my first race.” Soap muttered under his breath. Hardly the grandest competition he’d faced either.
A hum of amusement, fingers light as a feather over his cheek. Take care not to humiliate them all fresh out the gate. Simon clarified. No need to crush their spirits before the race has properly begun.
Soap smiled to himself; as his husband wished.
He caught sight of Gaz and some of the other knights, approaching them through the crowd.
“Finally joining us, my lord?” Gaz asked. “Your goodly husband to be won’t miss his cheering section of one?”
Soap rolled his eyes. “Away and bile yer heid. Be grateful I wasnae part of the melee, else you wouldnae have that fine stallion would ye?”
Gaz stroked his new mount’s mane fondly. “He’s fast, aye, but it’ll be a miracle if we make it to the end, as many mares are competing.”
“Oh aye, a proper stud then.” Ill at ease with crowds, however, huffing and pulling when others passed too close. “Where’s Price then? Scoping out the front?”
“The old dog won a small cask of gold for his performance in the archery competition. Said he would rather enjoy his prize, wasn’t keen on repeating the incident with Graves after he’d bested us all.”
Aye; Soap didn’t know if it would be better or worse if he won; would Graves feel Soap’s victories as a shared bounty, or a personal insult? Soap supposed he would find out.
The racers were called to assemble, nearly two dozen of them in all. The greatest danger was the very beginning, the animals all threatening to trip over one another. Soap only needed to break free of the herd to have a lead, but every other competitor would be attempting the same.
A horn sounded, the race begun.
Instinct screamed at one to make for the front of the herd so as to break free, with the risk of being trampled from behind if one was overtaken. Soap preferred waiting for the herd to thin and spread out, letting Peri canter at the rear while the other racers scrambled to be first. There was also the disadvantage (to Graves and the visiting contenders and of course Gaz’s shiny stallion) of lack of familiarity. Soap and Peri had traversed every combination of routes over the moors surrounding the castle, the bay was side stepping deeply dug badger dens and raising his knees about uneven terrain without Soap’s say-so. Once they had proper room to breathe, Pericles would be able to stretch out, run at a full gallop, and overtake them all.
The track was marked by flags, children attempting to follow alongside the horses before they would be out of sight of the tourney grounds. Gilly had said she would be remaining in the castle, watching through her spyglass from the west tower for “that sneak bastard and the shite he’ll be pulling” anyone wandering from the path. Soap patiently followed along the initial curves bringing up the rear, and then as a long stretch was open to them—Go on then Johnny. Impress me.
He bent over Peri’s neck, reducing the bite of the wind into him. Smaller riders tended to fare better in races, less burdensome to the horse. Soap was no small man, but he could compact himself this way, not be the proud gawping bastard sitting upright who could only stare as Peri raced past them all. Soap might have imagined it, but he noted the imperial white horse they passed, with the bewildered rider in eye catching cherry red and canary yellow who turned and glared with recognition. He grinned to himself, even as they reached the end of the long stretch and some of the other racers were able to catch up in the winding path making up the next leg, Gaz among them.
Soap had been racing Gaz as long as he’d been able to ride. He knew the knight’s ways, his favorite bluffs. Soap moved Peri in closer.
As expected, when Gaz was within a length he began weaving left and right, threatening on each pass to come upon Peri, who was accustomed to his antics and held firm against the threat of being pushed off the track. It might have worked with Gaz’s usual mount, but his wary new stallion didn’t know what to make of the maneuver, veering away without so much as ruffling Peri’s flank. Soap laughed, turning back to watch Gaz realize his ploy hadn’t worked, the fussy stallion slowing with disgruntled high steps away from the other racers.
He caught in his periphery a large body with churning black hooves, uncommonly fast for its build, and when Soap turned he noticed the shadowy figure, as if made of mist in the early morning fog, wrapped up in the veil of the moors. Hello husband.
Soap dug his heels into Peri’s sides harder. They were nearly there, and while he could feel the horse tiring beneath him, he wouldn’t lose. Not to his pig fiancé, not to his brothers in arms, and certainly not to his husband.
His thighs were screaming at him, the wind like a howl in his ears that had his eyes streaming as well, but he could see the finish and hear the crowd grow with excitement.
Letting me win, Johnny? I expected better of you than that. Simon crooned in his ears. Soap ground his teeth. He wouldn’t lose, he didn’t dare, they were so close, with the clamor of other hooves behind them heralding the other competitors—
Pericles broke through the line set by the tourney, the crowd screaming and cheering as Soap let the horse slow, making wide circles past the finish line until Peri could stop.
Soap swung himself from the saddle, drenched with sweat and Peri’s sides covered in lather. He hugged the gelding’s neck, kissed his muzzle, and stable hands were coming to take the horse away, promising only the best for the winner, Master Soap!
Graves put on a good face, coming to Soap’s side for luncheon and pressing a kiss to his cheek, too close to his mouth, making a grand show about congratulating his betrothed.
“You won’t disrespect me like that again.” Graves murmured with a smile on his face, applauding as Peri was led through the tourney grounds with a wreath of roses around his neck matching the one around Soap’s.
“How shall I disrespect you then?” Soap asked mildly.
Graves pretended not to have heard him.
“A passable competition.” Gilly reported when she rejoined the family halfway through the meal. “Sir Garrick is sure to be nursing that bruised ego.”
“Not wise,” Lord Shepherd weighed in. “To bring a new horse to competition. An unknown variable. Often too spirited to behave.” He didn’t look at Graves, but the gentleman heard the insult and admonishment as well as Soap. Soap wasn’t sure which of them it was intended for.
“I lost track of the rider, ‘round the bend of that last stretch. Do you know who that was, John, came up right alongside you? The dark horse as it were?”
A soft laughter filled Soap’s ears. “Haven’t the faintest.” He said.
The ghost of a hand ran over the back of his neck, beneath the roses, and gave a gentle squeeze.
Lord Henry was near seventy when at last he was borne a legitimate son that lasted longer than a fortnight.
He had daughters and bastards enough to fill the castle, but he’d be damned if he let a woman or the whelp of a scullery take his domain.
His eighth wife was a waifish thing—indeed he’d nearly passed her over in favor of her sister, but the latter had yet to bleed—and he’d truthfully not had high hopes for her surviving the trials of birth. But her body persevered, even if her mind was victim to the curse that befell the others.
Barefoot, tiny thing without the babe to round out her belly, she’d come to him as summoned with a maid to help her on her weak legs, holding a son.
“Good.” Lord Henry said, waving his hand when she tried to offer him the babe. “Another, and you’ll have done your duty.”
The girl, already looking poorly, paled further. “We need only the one, my lord.” She said, voice taking on that manic quality of a flitting bird, the same one that had kept Henry from seeking her bed since she fell with child and became mad. “Our son, the bridge unbroken, the covenant mended, John he shall be to restore our oath—”
“Take her to bed.” Lord Henry ordered the maid. “Tie her down and fetch the healers if she will not sleep, but let her not near the babe.”
The gentle “come my lady,” led his bride away, and Henry shoved away the cook’s apprentice he’d had sucking his cock.
The bishop gladly took the girl for himself, grown amorous listening to the captain of the guard fucking the steward’s daughter like a bitch in heat on the table at the back of the room.
“John, my lord?” The bishop asked, when he’d spent himself on the cook’s belly.
Henry sneered. John was a perfectly suitable name, John MacTavish had built their keep after all. One thing he loathed however was to be told what to do, particularly from that little stuck up cunt he’d married. He wouldn’t be witnessed making any sort of allowance for her. “James.” He said instead, on a whim.
The penultimate round of the single combat was much shorter; only two bouts were to be fought, and the festivities were out in full force to fill the hours. Craftspeople from the village had come to peddle their wares, games were set up for the children, and all manner of performers were making merry.
Soap had consumed at least three different honey rolls made with honey from different hives, and couldn’t say which he preferred. There was mead, whiskey, beer, wine, though Soap had to limit himself to a single cup of each despite drinking on Gaz’s behalf in anticipation of his brawl with an impressively large wandering knight.
He felt light, free, full of joy—
Hands grabbed him, pulling him from the grounds into one of the tents erected. It was dark all around, eyes hurriedly adjusting to the light.
“Thought you could hide from me, husband?” A familiar voice purred in his ear.
Soap relaxed his taut muscles. “You scared me half to death.” He turned around, feeling the solid form. “Is it really you? Are you really here?”
Simon wore his same outfit from two days prior, the jaunty jester in black and white. “In the flesh.”
Soap could see the white skull, and he reached to push it aside before he knew what he was doing, but Simon shied back.
“Sorry,” Soap put some space between them. “I’ve just been aching to kiss you.”
Simon looked at him in consideration. “I’ve never… I’ve not been kissed before.”
“I can show you.” Soap encouraged, stepping closer and fiddling with the bones worked into Simon’s clothes. “I’m a good teacher.” He’d kissed Gaz once, as boys. “And I’ve got the solution to your problem.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“The mask. Take it off.” Soap put his fingers on the edge of the skull, but didn’t lift it.
“Show my face?”
“Aye.”
Simon was very still, then closed his fingers over Soap’s but didn’t move.
“What’s the matter?” Soap asked, teasingly. “Are you ugly?”
“Quite the opposite.” Simon didn’t give more information, but drew Soap’s fingers away, held them between them. “When we’re wed. I’ll show you when we’re married.”
“You’ve already seen me naked. Seems we’re not doing things in the right order.” Soap pointed out, but didn’t pout.
“I can’t. Not until we’re wed.” Simon sounded mournful about it, but Soap didn’t push.
Simon stared at him a while. “Close your eyes.” He instructed. “And don’t open them.”
“Quite a bit of trust you’re asking for.” Soap remarked, but shut his eyes. “Next thing I know you’re off with my purse.”
“Your coin is safe.” Simon said, and Soap heard some muffled noise, then…
Lips pressed to his own, cautious at first but then pushing more firmly.
Right. Meant to be teaching time.
Soap kept his promise, kept his eyes closed. But his lips parted, nipping at Simon’s lower lip before sucking at it some. His hands were not still either, pulling his husband to be into an embrace while his tongue coaxed the other’s out.
Simon’s mouth tasted like the first breath of spring, and the freshness of winter snow. Soap moaned softly as Simon did his best to replicate the motions, catching on quickly.
Simon broke the kiss, letting Soap gasp for breath, eyes still closed. “Well? How’d I do?”
“Passable first attempt.” Soap laughed. “But practice makes perfect.”
Simon hummed, and kissed him once more. Briefly, sweetly, then Soap heard rustling again. “Open your eyes.” Simon said. “Your intended is looking for you.”
Soap was grabbing his hand nearly before his eyes were open. “When can I see you again?”
Simon looked at him a few moments, expression softening. “I’ll come to you again tonight. Leave your window open.”
Soap was left smiling in the corner of some tent, already dreaming about it.
Graves was stronger than this. Whatever cursed apparitions afflicted him—he still wasn’t certain it wasn’t his intended and his backwoods highland paganisms—were only illusions. He would not be cowed, even as his body still felt the phantom sensation of that morning, being pulled from his horse by the dark figure and bound by wrists to the saddle, dragged for it felt like hours when he couldn’t keep up and kicked by the other competitors close behind him, only to wake from the daze and realize he had let himself fall two places back. He was unharmed, bore no wounds from the illusions, and he was fit to fight again.
He’d managed to procure one of the roses of Johnny’s wreath to bind to his cross guard—assurance to the spectators that he and his intended were one, that he’d let Johnny win the horse race—and even stolen a bold kiss before meeting his foe in the ring. He’d have the horse made into glue before they even departed back for England.
He’d been looking forward to this match, ever since the cheating old bastard sent his underlings to sabotage the targets, meeting Captain Price before the bout began to clasp forearms.
“May the best man win.” Price said.
Graves intended to.
The old man was predictable, taking his measure of Graves with each swing of his sword, parrying attacks but making none of his own. Graves wondered if he’d be faulted for killing the fool, or if the loss would be accepted as the risk of the tourney.
He knew when it happened, felt the same prickling of his skin as the thing took over. Graves watched as his cautious foe’s skin swam with dark creatures, spiders and flies and beetles all made of shadow surrounding him until what remained was the man from the garden, the jester, with the grinning face of bone.
Even knowing the tricks, it was not easy to surpass fear. Graves knew he would be slain some way, would feel the pain and the loss of blood and consciousness but moments later would awake hale and whole. It swung Price’s sword.
Graves would not fail. He gave a great roar, swinging at his foe with renewed vigor, faltering but refusing to stop as he caught blows in his arm, his chest, a thrust through his gut, all cleaving through armor like butter.
His foe was put on the back foot, Graves’s wild attacks disarming him in the flurry, and the shadows fled from his vision as Captain Price stared at him with an expression of confusion.
Graves was hailed the victor of the round, shaking and panting.
James was made Lord MacTavish at the tender age of four. He was often asked if he recalled anything of his father, which he would deny.
He knew nanny, and he knew Mother, and he knew his many sisters and handful of brothers. They all of them doted on him, played with him and entertained him, even if many of them looked at him oddly or with eyes that made him feel unwell. And of course he knew Simon.
When James wondered off alone, when Mother would be busy as Lady MacTavish and when his siblings tired of playing with him and when Nanny simply wasn’t inventive enough, he would play with Simon. Simon taught him how to weave coronets from wildflowers, how to turn a bone into a fishing hook, and Simon taught him magic. James couldn’t do it the same as Simon could, but he did his best to listen to the rhythm of the earth beneath them and the voice of the wind around them. James would collect the seeds of flowers all in his fist and let them go to see how the wind scattered them about. Nanny and his siblings indulge this for a time, but began telling him this was not magic, that there was no such man as Simon in all the castle. Simon explained that this was because he didn’t live in the castle, but rather the abbey, and they were confused. Then he told James of all the magic involved, of how the flowers had grown from tiny seeds themselves, blooming to attract the bees and then creating seeds of their own, all happening so slowly and so commonly that many didn’t regard it as magic to scatter the seeds.
James liked this explanation, even if he was scolded for trying to share it with the others. He supposed Simon was a better storyteller than he was.
Once he asked if Simon was his father. Simon had said no, he was no one’s father, but he had known James’ father, and even his mother for a time. James asked if Mother would remember him, and Simon said no, and it was better not to ask. He had known Mother when she was ill, and now that she was well again he didn’t want her to remember being ill.
James thought that very honorable of him.
He liked that word. Honorable. It was honorable for Simon to look after him and it was honorable for James to love his brothers and sisters even if some of them could only wear the MacTavish crest the wrong way around (this we important but James wasn’t sure why) and it was honorable, Simon told him, that he should marry some day and be a good Lord. Simon told him his first son would be named John. James asked why. After all, so many of his brothers were named John. Simon got quiet about that for a moment.
Simon told him about the family history, how he should respect it, and the castle had been built by the very first John MacTavish, who promised the castle would have many Johns. James agreed.
As he grew, Simon appeared to him less and less. If he tried to tell anyone, he was firmly told there was no such person as Simon, and he ought to shape up if he was to be a lord. The day came when James didn’t see Simon at all again. He wondered if his friend was avoiding him, then he wondered if Simon had ever been real at all.
Bouquets of flowers, seemingly to congratulate Johnny on his win, were filling his room. Nailed to the open shutters even, bulbs of tiny white and violet flowers. Simon examined the blooms with no small amount of amusement. Garlic? John and Shirley were grasping at straws at this point.
But there was his beloved, his promised bride, all stretched out on the sheets. Not even tucked in, as if he’d fallen asleep waiting without plan of going to bed alone. So sweet, so trusting. Johnny truly was perfect for him.
Simon eyed his lips, wondered if he would get away with stealing another kiss before Johnny awoke, but decided not to risk it. It was dangerous, for Johnny to see his face too soon. Couldn’t risk scaring him off before they were wed.
Simon shed most of his clothes, coming to lay beside Johnny and stroke over his intended’s head.
“I’m here, my love.” Simon purred. “You’ve been so patient.” One evening was fair trade for three hundred years, in the scope of human life.
Johnny waking so gently was something Simon wanted to remember for all time. “‘Lo handsome. Didn’t keep you waiting, did I?”
“I’ve only just arrived.” Simon assured him.
Johnny patted the bed in invitation, and Simon pulled him into his arms.
“Your traveling friar, the one who named you…” Soap lay his head on Simon’s chest, their fingers laced together on his betrothed’s belly. “When did he pass through these lands?”
Simon hummed. “Before you were born.”
“Before my father was born?”
“Before Scotland was born.”
Soap weighed that for a time. “And you’ve been here? In the castle?”
“The castle is younger than Scotland.”
“You know what I meant.”
Soap got the impression Simon was teasing him, was smiling.
“I met John MacTavish, the shepherd, when he came to this place fleeing strife. He asked my blessing to build upon it, which I granted.” Simon turned their hands over, giving Soap’s a squeeze.
“Generous.” Soap remarked. “One such as yourself, handing out boons.”
“‘One such as myself’, Johnny?” Simon turned, looking at him properly. “And what sort is that?”
“You say it first; I’ll look a right numpty if I’m wrong.” Soap ought to be afraid, but his heart only sped with excitement, for being alone with a lover.
Simon looked at him with fond eyes. “The land belongs to no one. Not even me. He didn’t need my permission, but… I helped. Encouraged the crops, led enemies away.”
“And what did he barter away?” Soap knew the tales, told by children and women to pass the time. Even Price with enough whiskey in him could be coaxed into sharing fairy stories.
“His blessing, that I may wed a son.” Simon said. “Not his, not even his son’s son. But one day a John MacTavish would be born, perfect in every way, to be my husband.”
Oh.
“And now?” Soap asked. “Are you to whisk me away to Avalon?”
Simon laughed. Soap supposed all things considered he ought to feel some sense of fear when a creature such as Simon laughed, but he felt only ease, if not delight, for his husband’s humor.
“I’m not welcome there.” Simon said. “Too… worldly. I make a better ghost than fairy. I thought… perhaps we’d stay here.”
In Castle MacTavish? No Graves, only endless days in love?
“Aye.” Soap agreed. “That may suit.”
“The hunt is tomorrow.” Soap informed Simon.
“It is.” The spirit agreed. “It’d be easy to claim a better trophy than your pig fiancé.”
“Better than him, or better than his hunt?”
“Either would make a fine addition to our quarters; stuffed and mounted over the fire.”
“You’re terrible.” Soap pressed a kiss to Simon’s lips, hidden from him by the mask. “I’d wondered… what if we didn’t participate in the hunt?”
“You love hunting.” Simon said. “I’d looked forward to seeing you best them all again.”
Soap colored. “I meant, what if, while everyone else is out chasing game… what if we go the other direction… and you hunt me?”
Simon’s gaze came to Soap’s face, sharp and intent, and the human blushed more heavily under his scrutiny. “Johnny,” His voice was a deep rasp, reverberating through his chest and into Soap’s.
“You like that idea?”
“Very much.” Simon looked at him hungrily. “Perhaps another time.”
Soap was sure his face fell. “I—erm. Why?”
Simon leaned in, heat in his gaze. “Because if I hunt you like a beast, I don’t see how I can stop myself from taking you like a beast.”
Soap blinked. “That—that was the point. It’s my first time but I want it a bit rough, as long as it’s you,”
“I can’t.” Simon told him.
“We’re to be married anyways,”
“I can’t Johnny.” Simon looked at him solemnly. “It’s the terms set by the first John. I can’t wed you, I can hardly lay a finger on you, until you’re twenty.”
Soap’s jaw clicked shut. And he supposed those sorts of contracts were binding in the extreme. “What about… what we did before? With the mirror?” His skin prickled recalling Simon’s lips on him and his hands—
“He was specific in some regards.” Simon shifted, bringing their foreheads together. “I can kiss you. I can court you.”
“Is that what you call it? Murdering my fiancé seven ways to Sunday?” Soap teased, then sighed with a resigned smile. “You can’t fuck me.”
“I can’t fuck you.” Simon agreed.
Soap nodded. Except…
“What quantifies as ‘fucking’?” Soap asked.
“Johnny,”
“I’m serious!”
“I’m not putting my prick in you.”
Soap nodded. “Not even in my—”
“No.”
Hmm.
Soap nodded, pulling away from Simon and sitting up. The spirit looked briefly, from what Soap could make of his features, forlorn. Poor thing.
“So what you’re saying,” Soap’s hands traveled over Simon’s clothes, realizing they had little substance at all when he focused on them, like a shawl of dark mist clinging to Simon’s body. “Is if I,” perception was material with the fair folk, so long as Soap believed he would find something there it would be. “Just, like this,”
Simon gave an aborted objection as Soap’s fingers wrapped around him at waist level, pulling into the air for his first time his husband-to-be’s cock.
Soap gave a few slow, experimental strokes. “And you’re powerless to make me go any faster.”
“Johnny,” Simon said in warning, but there he was grasping the headboard.
“You’re not doing anything, no one’s getting fucked. I’m just… exploring. Examining my husband, making sure he’s suitable.”
Simon barked a harsh laugh at that, and Soap took it as permission to continue his exploration. Soap knew of certain acts, from bawdy songs and tales whispered between squires (even if the young master was Other to them, and none had ever dared invite him to join any boyhood trysts). Soap knew enough. He’d simply never attempted.
“And if my husband finds me wanting?” Simon asked.
Soap didn’t answer. He knew some were wary of the taste of a cock and had already decided not to include himself among their number. He didn’t waste time with kitten licks.
He did taste some of it, the moisture beading like pearls at Simon’s tip, on its way into his mouth. He wanted that velvet skin across his tongue, luxuriating in the smell of Simon. He smelled of the moors, of freshly trampled grass and earth. Of the rain after a storm, and the heather that was blooming in a riot of violet in recent days. The weight of it in his mouth was glorious, as was the way Simon’s hips twitched, restrained by some force from thrusting into Soap’s mouth that welcomed him so hungrily.
Simon groaned like a man starved setting upon food, with all the desperation of a drowning man gulping air.
There was a power to it that Soap hadn’t let himself consider before. He’d always in a way imagined the one on their knees as subservient, but here he was master of all goings ons. It was by his action, by his will, that Simon was made or broken. His husband was straining against his nature and his bond, compact older than this castle keeping him tethered as Soap took his time, licked and sucked to his heart’s content. And what he desired now was Simon’s pleasure.
He was limited in what he could do with his tongue, using it only as a bed to cradle and cushion the intoxicating sponginess of the head. Simon certainly seemed appreciative, voice filling the room with his praises and pleas.
“Johnny, I can’t—”
Soap hummed in response, felt how it made Simon shiver.
“I’m going to—Johnny I can’t stop myself,”
Silly husband. That was the idea.
Soap was treated to a great torrent of wetness over his tongue, full of bitter notes that reminded him of early elderberries, and the fresh shoots of spring. He was sure he was moaning as much as Simon was, letting his husband’s spend remain in his mouth like a fine wine a few moments before he swallowed it.
“How’s that?” Soap asked, coughing a bit on noticing how rough his voice had become. Simon kissed him, freed from whatever force had kept his hips still. His tongue lashed across Soap’s, stealing any trace of arousal he could.
“You’re reckless.” Simon told him between loving kisses. “Incorrigible.”
“Are you complaining?”
“Never.” Simon said fiercely. “You’re perfect, Johnny. And you’re mine.”
“Yours.” Soap agreed, pulling Simon against him again to lay beside him. “And you’re mine.”
“Until the end of days.”
Phillip gave a soft exhale, fingers threading soft and sweet through fine hair with only a bit of gentle tugging to keep his dick getting worked over by that pretty mouth. See? Wasn’t so hard. Johnny could be good when he wanted to.
Kid was young. Hell, younger than he ought to be considering, but Lord Shepherd had steered him true: Graves needed an heir—his bitch first wife leaving him in the lurch in that regard, served her right that the church wouldn’t let her remarry until he was dead and gone—and a pretty little number wasn’t going to just come around offering itself up twice, even if he got fuck all for a dowry.
Johnny was a virgin, that had been part of the negotiations, the tight lipped Lord MacTavish managing to answer the simple question without his old lady jumping in for him like she did everything else, even if she was white knuckling it. He was told Johnny was the black sheep of the family; hopefully that meant he wouldn’t be as undermining a wife.
Still, he was plenty willful. Only needed a firm hand, bit of instruction, and Phil had him purring like a kitten. Sloppy about it—singleminded stroking to Phil’s shaft, unadorned bobbing of his head, Phil would get him there, turn him into a proper cocksucker. At least he seemed to like it. Phil had known the moment he set eyes on his betrothed, now there was a mouth for sucking dick. All that to get them where they were now, Phil reclining in a plush bed and Johnny popping his throat’s cherry for him.
Maybe his second marriage wouldn’t be as frustrating as the first. Phil folded his arms behind his head. “Watch the teeth sweetheart.” He murmured, and Johnny corrected. Mmm. Unskilled but not unsatisfying—Phil’s hand struck out again, shoving the brat off. “I said no fucking teeth!”
Johnny let his head hang a moment, and by some trick of the light it looked as if his eyes were glaring up at Phil, pretty blue made brown. There’d been a lot of those recently. Tricks of the light. Odd echoes from a drafty old castle. Brain boiling in his helmet in the heat and trying to trick him into thinking he was dying and bleeding out before an indifferent crowd.
Sorry. A roughened voice said, and then Johnny was licking so nice over him again before starting up some nice slow sucking, no teeth involved. That was more like it. Phil had been generous enough with agreeing to marry Johnny, least he deserved was some good head, his intended coming to him all contrite in the middle of the night and all but begging to make it up to him for showing off in that race, and the sooner they were back to civilization the better.
Johnny took him in his mouth again, all apologetic and sweet for being clumsy with it. Just needed some guidance and one day—hell.
Phil looked down at his lap, and there was Johnny, big brown doe eyes looking up at him, cock all the way in his throat.
“Good boy,” Phil said, nearly laughed, as his husband-to-be gagged a little but kept it where he ought. Phil would make sure he got plenty of practice, start every morning at the breakfast table on his knees earning his keep for the da—fucker bit him.
Phil screamed as Johnny pulled away, white teeth wet with blood as he grinned, swallowing down everything he’d bitten off like a snake. Phil looked at his lap, seeing only a mess of blood where his pecker had been, and shoved a pillow between his legs.
He’s not yours. A voice growled, one Phil had grown acquainted with, and like wax Johnny melted away, leaving behind only a horned skull. Phil tried to scramble to get away, but the fiend crawled forwards towards him, between his legs, over his body once Phil hit the headboard and had nowhere to retreat to. He never was yours, and he never will be.
Phil’s breath was coming in ragged gasps, heart hammering from pain and fear. “Just kill me already!” He shouted at the thing. “No more fucking games you freak!”
The dark figure laughed at him, tilted its head. I won’t kill you. He will. As a wedding present.
Fists hammered at the door. “Master Graves!” His guard called in. “Master Graves, the door!”
“My Lord God protect your humble servant, in Jesus Christ’s name I banish—”
Prayer’s never worked on me before, Phillip. But cute that you keep trying. See you in the morning. I look forward to our hunt.
Like a puff of smoke, the thing was gone, and the doors opened inward under substantial force.
His guard, his shadow in recent days, looked at Phil with concern. “What is it sir? What’s happened?”
Phil was afraid to look, but he lifted the pillow from between his legs. His dick was lying there in the open, soft from fear but still fucking wet. He covered himself back up. “Just a dream.” He said, taking slow breaths. “Get the fuck out, go back to your post.”
The guard hesitated, but began to close the door.
“And my fiancé comes by again, you send him packing!” Phil ordered before the door closed.
“No one has come to your door.” The guard told him. “Perhaps that was a dream as well?”
“Did I say anyone had? Get out!” Phil snapped, then rose once he was alone. The room was fully lit; he’d requested a large number of candles to keep the darkness at bay, but the fire was smoldering down to mere embers. He rose to stoke them, and returned to bed, though it was several hours before he found sleep.
Simon was gone on the morn. Soap had expected this, but still felt an ache from his husband’s absence. The bed was warm with his body, Soap’s lips felt the ghost of a kiss upon them, but he was alone.
Three days more until his birthday, then they would be together. Soap hastened to dress, answering the knocking at his door by pulling it open quickly and all but startling the maid bringing in his tray of breakfast. With a smile on his lips and with haste. Soap shoveled oat porridge down his gullet and pocketed a roll and two boiled eggs for later, giving the maid a kiss to the cheek and thanks in passing as he left for the stables singing. Today would be a good day, a beautiful day even, filled with excitement and folded in the embrace of his husband’s lands.
He was of the first of the hunters assembled, his bow waiting for him unstrung as he guided Peri out by the reins, handsome goodest boy who’d had a fresh rub down and a breakfast of alfalfa as reward for his victory the day before. God willing they wouldn’t be going any faster than a trot today.
When Graves arrived he looked like shit, bruises under his eyes and jerking at every sound, paling even further when he caught sight of Soap.
Jesus. What had Simon done to him.
The rules for the hunt were explained, the boundaries drawn to favor the villages and farmholds, and the horn was blown to signal the beginning.
“Do you mean to compete?” Gilly asked, bringing her horse up alongside Peri. “Heavy trod you are, doubt we’ll spot a thing.”
“What she means is, will you hunt alongside us, John?” Caroline was already mounted.
Soap wanted to refuse, to go off in a direction on his own until he found Simon to rendezvous, but… his sisters truly believed he was to be leaving at the end of the week, perhaps never to return. It was touching he supposed, distant as they had felt at times, that they should think to want to include him.
He offered a grateful smile, clicked his tongue for Peri, and the three struck out onto the moor.
James and Ian lay across a chaise lounge in the library, the former reading laying on his belly while the latter attempted to distract with all manner of amorous touches, both of them bare but for the light the tongues of flame in the grate danced over them.
“This is serious business.” James reminded his companion. “I must learn the clan’s histories.”
“You hardly need to know the lineage of the village head’s prized horse or the crop yields from five lords prior to woo your bride.” Ian, blatant in his intentions, made to snatch the book away. James held onto the aged tome.
“I’ll hardly be doing any wooing, will I?” James muttered, cheeks coloring. “It’s all decided. She’ll arrive, we’ll be wed, and then…”
“D’you even know what to do with a woman?” Ian asked, teasing. “Just don’t go out of habit asking her to stick it in,”
James pushed him away, Ian laughing while James’s mortification burned.
“Is she well?” Ian asked. “Her ladyship didn’t pick you a bride that will fall ill to the curse of the castle?”
James shuddered. He’d seen the east wing, the many bedrooms that had been used as little more than cells for his father’s brides, fingernails gouging at the doors and walls, blood from their fingertips spelling out a litany of desperate prayers and visions and John. Always John. Perhaps James would close the east wing. At the very least stop putting wives there like shameful secrets to rot away.
“Are you well, my lord? Have I driven you mad at last? A fine way to keep you all to myself.”
James silenced Ian with a kiss, returning to his book on the clan histories. Astounding that some fairie story of John the First was really what was credited for the fair fortune of the clan for decades before they became susceptible to the same drought and blights as their neighbors—
James turned the page and his blood ran cold. It was a childish rendition—a child’s rendition, John II describing as a man the spectral form that dogged his father’s waking hours in his life, bound beside a child’s calligraphy and arithmetic practices set aside in favor of drawing a shade, a dark haunting figure vaguely resembling a man in stature, but its face—
“Simon.” James muttered softly to himself, recalling magic lessons from a mask of bone.
“Hm?” Ian asked, now standing, warming himself naked before the fire.
“Nothing.” James said, taking note of the tome and the page.
Johnny’s bed and embrace were a hard won reward, but… Simon needed to stretch out. He’d let himself be cooped up in the keep, in the ruined abbey, for too long out of anticipation and wanting to be close. He felt the earth beneath his feet, heard mice in their burrows, smelled fresh blood on the wind.
His great slavering mouth fell open, gulping up the taste of horse and stranger as he split his form into a number of sleek dire wolves formed from black smoke, weaving past the proud pronged red stag fleeing a pursuer. His vision swam with red as he set eyes on a face waxy from lost sleep, reveling in the fear as his wolves surrounded from all directions.
They circled, snapping at their prey’s heels and growling, and with a bark of signal one broke the ring and lunged for the pig seated atop the indifferent horse, knocking him to the ground. The man screamed, thrashing out as the rest of the pack set upon him, tearing flesh from his arms and his face with their teeth. His blows were ineffectual, and the man wept and soiled himself as he was disemboweled and the meat from his bones fought over by unruly pups—
Graves writhed on the ground, yelling and sobbing as he drew in on himself, his horse startled some distance away by the commotion. His fingernails dug into his arms, and he swung blindly at all who drew near, rambling to himself like a lunatic fearing for his life.
Shame the Romans had made off with all the bears. Simon would have liked to see their punishing blows rolling Graves’s carcass to and fro. They existed yet, in the land’s memories, but there was something elegant about the tide of creatures not at all unlike the grey muzzled descendant of John MacTavish V’s prized hunting bitch that Graves’s boot had found the ribs of the night before for daring to cross his path while he was in a fit of pique.
Simon stroked the muzzle of Graves’s horse as his retinue struggled over what to do, the screaming and thrashing turning into whimpering on the ground. He patted the horse’s flank, telling the sweet creature of the growths of clover to be found over the ridge, even freed it of the pesky bridle as he sent it on its way.
“The castle is cursed.” One of Graves’s lackeys whispered to another, and in an instant Simon was stood in the scant space between the two men.
“D’your pretty laundress tell you that?” The other sneered, looking around that they weren’t being overheard, no doubt feeling the prickle of eyes.
The other colored; he was young, on inspection. “Maybe she did. What of it?”
“It’s ungodly nonsense.” The other replied, watching as their insurer was brought to his feet, shoving away those that attempted to help him. “You’ll burn like coal alongside your strumpet, you entertain it.”
The younger knight sputtered some, indignant. “The curse turns MacTavish wives to madness. And Master Graves only became plighted as he prepares to marry the lordling. It’s devilry, plain as day.”
Something was amiss. The feeling hung heavy in the air with each step they took farther onto the moor, pointed.
Gilly was no skilled tracker, on multiple instances on previous hunts devolving into fits of frustration and getting lost until Father had given in and had the kennel master select a promising whelp to train for a scent hound. So why was she heading the endeavor?
And Caro—sweet Caroline, who had little taste for venison regardless and instead favored the partnership she’d garnered with her prized goshawk—was very nearly tearfully bringing up the rear, making observations aloud about the passage of time.
Soap drew to a halt. “You’re lost.” He said to Gilly accusingly.
Gilly seemed unbothered, only a bit put out. “‘M not lost. Keep up, we’re nearly there.”
“Gilly,” Caro warned, but it was too late.
“You’ve a destination in mind, then.” Soap surmised. “What is it, are you finally following through on your threats to dress me as a goat and sell me at market? Mother and Father have already done the same with my great ass’s costume.”
“We’re going to the border of MacTavish lands.” Caroline cut in. “Della’s been granted leave to visit her family, but we asked her to wait for a time.”
“She’ll have a change of clothes for you, a purse of gold, and a fresh horse.” Gilly continued. “Cousin Brighton has agreed to take you on as a sworn knight under a new name, else he can help you to the harbor, and from there you may go wherever you like.”
Soap blinked. Where did he want?
“I want to return to the castle.” Soap said slowly. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
His sisters looked saddened. “We’re sorry, John, that we couldn’t stop this.” Caro said solemnly. “Mister Graves, he’s a beast. He won’t let you walk away from this betrothal, and he’ll be a cruel husband.”
“Mother and Father must have been out of their minds,” Gilly shook her head. “That man won’t take you. Even if we will never see you again.”
This was all very touching, but Soap couldn’t help but laugh aloud. “I can’t leave. I—” Soap schooled his expression. “Believe me when I say I have no intention of marrying Graves. But I—I’m in love. With a good man—a powerful man. And he has no intention of letting Graves lay a hand on me.” Soap was still uncertain, unsure what he could tell his sisters, unsure what Simon even meant to do. “I trust him. Trust me. By week’s end, Graves will be only a bad memory.”
Caroline and Gillian exchanged a look.
“Have you bedded him yet?”
“Gillian Anne!” Caro sputtered, sounding alarmingly like Mother.
“Well?” Gilly swung her arms about.
“Not, erm.” Soap colored some. “We’ve… been together. But he won’t, not until we’re wed. He’s firm on that.”
Gilly nodded her approval. “A gentleman then. Is it Sir Garrick?” She asked, continuing on the way she’d been leading them.
“No, you don’t—it’s not someone you know.” Soap wondered what his sisters would think, if they knew of Simon’s nature. Probably accuse Soap of being bedeviled and bewitched, same as the bishop had without even knowing the extent of Soap’s… connection, to Simon.
“I trust you, John. God knows you don’t need any more of others making decisions on your behalf, even us, but…” Caro chewed her lip. “Promise us you won’t do anything reckless. Mister Graves and Lord Shepherd are dangerous enemies to have. And Graves grows more volatile by the day. I promised when you were but a babe that I’d take up arms to protect you if need be. And I haven’t, for I didn’t know how to fight Mother and Father’s coldness towards you. Let me make up for this. Let us fight for you.”
“Aye, as she says.” Gilly agreed.
Soap was touched, some part in his chest aching. He’d felt for so long that he was only seeing his sisters behind a pane of glass, but here and now they were real and warm. “Aye.” Soap agreed in earnest. “Go’an Gilly, we ought to catch Della, wish her well. Then, I’ve still a mind to show up Graves in this hunt.”
The right honorable Dowager Lady MacTavish entered the old abbey in the east wing with her head held high.
“Simon.” She summoned, as one would a dog, calling his name briskly and impersonally.
If she wasn’t positioned such to unravel his design, Simon might have said he was fond of her. Perhaps that was why he indulged her, shadows coalescing between the pews. He gave a bow befitting her station as he became material. “How may I serve my lady?” He asked.
“You’ll leave my grandson the fuck alone.” She ordered.
A smile tugged at Simon’s lips. “I haven’t laid a finger on your little John.”
“But you’ve been watching.” Lady MacTavish crossed her arms. Simon had head and shoulders on her, but she refused to be cowed. Yes, he liked this one.
“I’ve waited for him. I wanted to know he was well. Is it a crime, to look on a child making merry?”
“Aye, as you looked on my James.” She scowled at him. Simon had been there as well, when James had told his nannies and his siblings and of course, his mother, of the skull apparition that appeared to him. Lady MacTavish had been young, fortunate enough to be the last of Henry’s brides. Simon regretted in part how he’d grown… impatient. Perhaps he hadn’t needed to torment the poor girl and all her predecessors in dreams and waking hours, demanding of them a John as he was owed. But little else was working.
“If they interfere with succession, I will haunt your descendants as demon and specter.” Simon told her calmly. “Your family will never know peace until I’ve my bride in my arms. John the first was naive; so was I. Neither of us accounted for the duplicity of humans. I’m only balancing the scales.”
“I’m not here to argue.” Lady MacTavish snarled at him. “I’m here to bargain.”
Simon’s belly swooped with excitement. “And what would my lady have to offer?”
“You tormented MacTavish brides for a century. A century delayed on your schemes, as your own actions only put the fear of God into girls like me. The husbands were foolish, yet you tortured the wives. You won’t do this again.”
“I shouldn’t have had to.”
“Nor should you have. It’s James who restored your wretched compact. Let James set it right. And keep your eyes off my descendants.”
Simon bore his teeth, part in smile, part in menace. “You’re taking responsibility then? Managing things in house?”
“So long as you’ve the Johns you require, you’ll not torment the line. If my grandson will not name his son after himself, you’ll appear to the head of the clan plainly. Not to his wife as a phantom. You will remind the clan of the family obligations. And the children you’ll leave. You’ll not set eyes on them nor appear to them after the day they are born until they turn twenty.”
“John the first promised me rights to court my bride. I can hardly do this if I never look upon him until our wedding day.”
“Until nineteen then.” She scoffed. “One year to learn him and to court him. In the meanwhile you’ll not torture my family as you tortured me. As desperate as you are to get your husband, you won’t risk fumbling again with your heavy hand.”
The Dowager Lady MacTavish was more cunning than Simon had anticipated. He smiled at her. “Very well. So long as John after John is delivered, I’ll leave it in your hands.” He held his hand forward.
Lady MacTavish shook.
As soon as their palms brushed Simon began to dissipate again. “Now then,” he said as his body faded but face remained. “I think you owe your grandson a very important bedtime story.”
Graves had appropriated the horse of his second in command, who in turn took the horse of the third in command, all the way down the line to Graves’ page (as the ones of the castle were not to be trusted evidently) who was now on foot, scurrying after the entourage to make up the lost ground. The tracks the stag had left were clear (entirely unobscured by any sort of trace of, say, a whole pack of wolves, though no one dared say that bit aloud) and they easily followed the beast that Graves had set his sights on.
To be fair it had been a magnificent stag. The party spent much of their morning tracking it in quiet resentment.
Then a bird relieved itself on Master Graves’ shoulder.
Much as before the guards and hired men at arms playing at knights for the tourney watched Master Graves fall from his horse while he screamed and swatted at what he declared was a flock of ravens and carrion birds, the stag they’d only just gotten within their sights again galloping off.
Master Graves was left sobbing on the ground, his horse departed again, rubbing at his eyes to confirm that they had not been in fact pecked out, nor had his liver been carved out. While the guards who had been serving as his shadows set him to rights, forced some wine down his throat, the remainder of the retinue shifted horses up by one again and someone began lying out supplies for them to take their midday meal.
Gaz looked at Price. Price looked at the remainder of the knights of the castle. The knights at the free lance who had joined the tourney, the very broad and tall Bohemian who had haltingly agreed to accompany them at Gaz’s invitation, but had as of yet refused to remove his hood. The drinks were plenty, the food prepared, but…
“Soap is coming.” Gaz assured them all. “Lady Gillian assured me of it.”
Price gave a wince. “Our honorable Lady Gillian… she’s tenacious in her endeavors,”
“Of which she has many.” Sir Kieren added.
“But a mind as singular as hers… some things may fall through the cracks.”
Gaz frowned, taking a drink. “Soap can hardly miss his own stag party.”
Two leagues away Gilly jerked upright in her saddle. “Oh. Shite.”
“What is it?” Caro asked.
“Nothing.” Gilly said quickly. “Let’s just reach Della, tell her the plan’s off. Then… why don’t we try hunting near the brook, south of the old bailey gate?”
“The hunting there’s terrible.” Soap pointed out. “We’re far afield already, might as well—”
“We’re going to the brook!” Gilly insisted. “I’ll catch Della, the pair of you to the brook! Don’t tarry or so help me John! I’ll bend your plate into boats for the weans to play with!”
Soap blinked, looked at Caro. “We’ll see you at the brook then.”
Gilly spurred her horse, hurrying on ahead.
You think you’re worthy? A great boar snarled in Graves’s face, foul stench of its breath leaving mist in the air between its massive, goring tusks. You’re nothing. Born from nothing. Accomplished nothing. And you’ll die with nothing.
“You don’t scare me.” Graves snarled, back against the dilapidated low stone wall marking some boundary long since undrawn. “You’re an abomination. Jesus Christ is my lord and savior, and his powers outnumber your own tenfold.”
The boar laughed, tusk pressing into Graves’s shoulder. You make a fine piece of decoration, Graves. Some stand in, a husband made of clay for my Johnny. And when I tire of you, maybe I’ll watch all those pieces I’ve broken off… crumble. Would that be preferable to shattering?
The massive aurochs of the same shadow stepped farther away, pulling the ropes bound to Graves’s wrists. He groaned, feeling he was going to be ripped in two, screaming with pain and anguish as each arm was in turn pulled from its socket.
Graves’s entourage watched the show, keeping their distance for now. The page had been dispatched when Graves had shown signs of faltering, managing to keep the horse this time, and the men on their own sorted through their belongings for a fourth pair of trousers for their master.
Some were whispering to themselves, spreading treasonous thoughts of demanding their pay and going on their way once they returned to the keep. Others wondered if Lord Shepherd was aware of how his pet commander had descended well and truly into madness, if he would take their word if they told him. And of course, retellings of the curse that held Castle MacTavish in its grip a century ago were murmured.
The men checked their weapons, their horses, rested, while their employer had another fit of screaming and begging. It’d be a miracle if they ever reached their prey the way Graves was carrying on. The men waited for the screaming to stop.
His seventh John had grown into a good, strong lad. On his nineteenth birthday Simon was there, taking in every sight and sound, taking note what gifts and greetings delighted his husband-to-be.
Johnny was beautiful. Simon supposed this was how certain bridegrooms felt, setting eyes on their intended for the first time at the altar. John MacTavish VII took his breath away though he needed not to breathe. Captain Price didn’t give him the day off from training, and Simon was treated to the feast for the eyes as his intended trounced the others, every inch the strong and cunning fighter despite his background.
The fruits and flowers he received as gifts he shared with the givers, friendly and kind to the staff of the castle, and hugged a number of the servants’ children running about who joined together to sing him a discordant song. Johnny knew his household well, was capable and vibrant and—
His Johnny dimmed, summoned to join the Lord and Lady for luncheon. It was his birthday they were celebrating, yet Johnny was not merry. The Lord and Lady were cautious of him, hesitant. Afraid.
Simon stood at his intended’s shoulder—not touching, not even the suspicion of truly encroaching on this family meal—and felt a flicker of eyes pass over where he stood, Lord MacTavish pale with the suspicion of Simon near.
They spoke of very little, Johnny’s parents truthfully uninterested in his sword craft and education. Simon grit his teeth, but remained unseen and unheard.
They asked if he had a lover. A paramour.
Johnny blushed, stuttered, and denied of course—Simon hadn’t considered this, that his betrothed could possibly seek another’s affections—and Lady MacTavish reiterated the importance of remaining pure, that they may find him an advantageous match.
Simon shattered the bottle of wine on the table, a deep red like blood pouring over the clean tablecloth.
Servants swarmed in like carrion birds, taking away plates and flatware to attempt to undo the damage, but Johnny left and did not return.
“All may yet be well.” Lord MacTavish said softly. “He’s a man grown. If he knew—”
“He will not know.” Lady MacTavish said fiercely, fragments of glass embedded in her hand that had been near the bottle, blood mixing with the wine. “He’s our son. We won’t let any creature take him.”
Lord MacTavish swallowed thickly. “What if his soul is marked? What if he already belongs to another?”
“He was baptized for God. Under another name, aye, but he was confirmed as John. He prays, he takes communion. If God cannot protect him—”
Lord MacTavish took his wife into his arms. “If God cannot protect him, we must.”
Soap could hear the rabble rousing it felt like from half a league away, Gilly’s precious brook filled up with layabout wastrels drinking the day away who cheered when Soap and Caroline came within sight.
“I thought this was a hunt.” Soap gave one lazing knight’s leg a kick. “Instead I find the best and brightest of the clan letting Graves and his lot win.”
Gaz found him then, pulling him into an embrace. “Surely you don’t mean to let us send you off without a bit of a do’. We’re sworn brothers, all of us, excepting Lady Caroline,” Gaz gave a tidy bow. “And Sir König.”
A large knight—Gaz’s opponent the day before, in fact—nodded respectfully in greeting.
Soap pressed his lips into a thin line. “Those are egg tarts?” He asked, nodding to the nearest platter.
“All your favorites.” Gaz promised. “With cider, wine, and beer.”
Soap frowned, looking at the knights of the castle, at his dearest friends and his mentor who had been a father to him nearly his whole life. His family in all but blood.
He wished he could tell them he didn’t mean to go far when he wed. But the fewer people who knew, the better.
“And between the whole lot of you, no one thought we might need music.” Soap shook his head, but near immediately Samson began clapping out the rhythm of a well known drinking song, and a tankard was shoved into Soap’s hands as the whole of the party began singing. To his pleasant surprise, even Caro joined in, and Soap had no choice but to sing along as well.
Graves was running, heart pounding in his chest and each breath dragged in to fill his lungs. His hooves pounded the dirt beneath him rhythmically, fleeing the rumble of horses and the flight of arrows that threatened to impale him. Men were yelling, calling for his blood.
He’d felt them circling like wolves all the day, had fled them when they’d grown close, but they were tireless in their pursuit. He shouldn’t have strayed from the herd, his ardors too potent for the matriarchs to allow, and he’d been pushed out for the danger a mindless rutting beast would become. Now he was only endangering himself.
He stumbled as an arrow buried into his thigh, the muscle torn and weakened, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t die here, if he could only get away then perhaps—
He hadn’t realized where he was going, too distracted by the clamor at his back that he flew on three nimble legs and one faulty down an incline, the smell of the fresh cool stream in his nose. He slid in the dirt, stumbling, his injured leg unable to do its part to lift him from the ground. He tried to extend it, but it gave beneath him. This was a good place to die. But he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die in pain and alone.
“Easy now,” a gentle voice said, but Graves knew that voice, and kicked out with all the fury left in him until strong hands grabbed his legs, wrenching them this way and that to keep him still.
“Stay back Soap, he’s in his death throes, you’ll get kicked.” Someone warned.
“It’s alright.” Graves’s fiancé said soothingly. “He’s suffering. Least we can do is give him some mercy.”
Graves caught the glint of steel as a knife was brought towards him, and he kicked with greater desperation and screamed as best he was able to.
The steel was cold when it found his throat, the blood that poured out molten hot, and for a moment Graves had hands again, to desperately claw at the wound as if he could hope to stop it, catch the vital essence of him before it poured out.
“Sir?” Graves’s shadow prompted, with the tone that this was not the first time he’d spoken. “Should we retrieve the animal?”
Graves choked a moment, half expected to find his throat full of his lifeblood, but came all at once to himself. He was whole. He was unhurt. He was seated on a horse that wasn’t his own, his bow clenched in one hand so tightly his knuckles ached. Looking down the slight hill, it seemed the deer they’d been tracking had been chased directly into some sort of ambush camp set up by the keep’s knights—Graves didn’t recall spying the deer once more or ordering a chase, or even who had landed the hit to the rear leg—led by his conjurer betrothed wielding a devilish knife, patting the animal’s head. Johnny looked up the hill at them, waving a blood wetted glove in greeting. Graves’s blood ran cold, and he turned away half out of fear that he’d see his own body in Johnny’s lap. “Let him have it. We’re done.”
“Feels unsporting. It’s not as if I actually hunted it.” Soap said. “Only put Graves’s quarry out of its misery.”
“He won’t come for it, he’s as good as surrendered it to you. It’s your kill.” Said Gilly, who on arriving had immediately taken it upon herself to sample all the drinks.
“There’s no prize for the hunt.” Gaz pointed out. “You’ve robbed him of nothing but glory.”
“Which might be the greater blow.” Caro remarked, a fair ways into her cups. A laugh went up at Graves’s expense.
“No more maudlin talk. A dance!” Price called for, the musicians of questionable talent drawn by their merrymaking starting up a jaunty tune.
Soap was dragged to his feet, dancing with each of his sisters in turn, and each of his brothers in arms, and—
“You have an elegance about you, when you kill. Like a wolf’s choreographed dance before it bites at last.”
“Thought you wanted to see me hunt.” Soap said. “Doesn’t count if you’re driving them helpless into my arms.”
Simon hummed. “We’ll have a hunt then, when we’re wed.”
“And a tourney?” Soap asked, teasingly. Truth be told he was near exhausted of revelry. Or rather the entertaining prigs part of it all.
“A fortnight on the moors. Just you and I.”
“And you’ll be at my side?”
“Or at your back.” Simon’s tone grew dark. “Above you. Beneath you. On my knees before you.”
“Tempting.” Soap flashed his own teeth.
“It is.” Simon’s dark eyes looked at Soap with longing, and Soap felt it a moment, the bone deep ache his husband had felt, gone in a moment yet Simon had carried it for centuries. “Enjoy your party, Johnny. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Soap wanted to protest, the chill of the night flooding the space where his husband had been for him to lean into.
The host of them returned to the hall before dark, cheerful and glad, and the stag was rushed away to the kitchens to be prepared. Lord Shepherd seemed to be in a foul mood, and Graves it was said had taken to bed early, his retinue milling about in poor spirits. Soap hadn’t realized the loss of the stag had been so dear to them.
Mother and Father were feeling over generous, it seemed, allowing Soap to linger standing at the table where the knights of the clan dined, joking and laughing and—
“Is it true, Lordling John,” there was Sir König, who had the unexpectedly melodic voice. The man was ill at ease with strangers, but Gaz had been dead on to invite him along to their little party. “That there are ghosts in the castle? The others,” he gestured to the table set aside for the other competitors of the tourney, meaning almost entirely Graves’s lackeys. “They believe there’s a curse at work.”
“Which one?” Asked Kieran. “Have they heard women singing in the night? Or found fish and bread at their windows?”
“Or have their wives been driven mad unless they name their sons John?” Samson cut in, and a hush went over the table. All at once Soap found no one would meet his eye.
“What curse is that?” Soap asked. “I’ve not heard that one.”
Price usually discouraged such talk. A surprise then that the captain was the one to speak. “They say the first Lord MacTavish made a deal with a demon, and one of the conditions was that his son and grandson and all sons after would be named John. When the sons weren’t, the ladies began to go mad while they were with child, their minds lost, until the child came. They insisted their sons would be John, but the lords refused. Until one lord—” Price seemed to realize himself, looking at the enraptured knights, and at Soap. “It’s treasonous to say in the lord’s hall.”
“Tell us.” Soap bid him, eyes glancing nervously up to the head table where his family was none the wiser. “Please.”
Price pressed his lips tightly together, but continued. “One lord had many daughters, but no true born sons. A number of bastards, the mothers in each case bearing a John, or being driven mad. At last the lord’s ninth or tenth wife bore him a son, and he refused to have his heir named the same as his bastards. They say he died that very night, killed by the same demon that had tormented the wives.”
“That’s a load of shite.” Gaz scoffed. “Obviously the mistresses meant to name their sons after the clan founder that they’d be granted privileges. Who would believe it?”
“My mother did.” Price said gravely, and the table sobered some. “Half the clan today is descended from that lord. And any elders will tell you the clan and the lands were blighted until a John sat on the seat of MacTavish.”
“So what’s that to do with anything?” Kieran asked. “The eldest son of MacTavish named hisself John, aye? The demon ought to be appeased.”
All eyes were on Soap now.
“Maybe you lot should be calling me Most Honorable John of Clan MacTavish, else you’ll fall under the curse.” He tried for lightness.
A round of laughs, one of drinks, and the matter seemed forgotten.
Soap looked at Price, and the captain’s gaze met his own, and gave a subtle shake of his head. Not here.
Soap cornered Price after dinner, trailing him back to his room in the barracks.
“There’s more to that story.” Soap said, once he was certain they were alone.
Price looked at him long and hard before seeming to decide something, waving for Soap to follow him in, then to sit in the only chair. “That’s how stories are.” He said, adding another log to the fire and stoking the coals to burn properly. “No man can ever hope to tell the whole truth. No man can ever hope to know the whole truth.” Price procured a pair of tin cups from somewhere, pouring a measure of wine from a dusty bottle into each.
“But what’s the truth as you know it?” Soap asked. “The demon… it’s Simon, isn’t it?”
Price sighed, sitting at the edge of his bed. “Shouldn’t be surprised he’s given you a name. Don’t go spreading it about; names are powerful things.”
“You know him then?” Soap leaned forward.
Price rolled his shoulder. “Not well. My mother kept the old ways. Superstitious some might call her. Never stepped into fairy rings, left a thimble of milk out overnight. So I’ve known for a while there was something in the castle. Did my best to be respectful. I think he’s extended me the same courtesy.”
Soap remembered the vision Simon had shown him of Price crucified across the old abbey windows. He took a hearty swallow and said nothing.
“Do you know what he wants from you?” Price asked. “Or is he simply the… patron for every John MacTavish?”
Soap didn’t know if he should say. It would mean confessing to some things; his role in tormenting Graves not the least of them. He doubted Price would begrudge him certain liberties he may or may not have taken before marriage. And then there was the marriage itself, the linchpin in this whole thing. “He’s told me he made the bargain with the first Lord MacTavish in exchange for his blessing. That Simon had his permission to marry a son of the clan when the right one came along.”
“And he’s decided you’re the right one.” It wasn’t a question.
Soap sighed after a few moments. “Aye.”
“Makes sense then, that he’s appearing to Graves. Wants you for himself.”
“Think he’ll drive Graves mad enough to call off the wedding, or just kill him outright?” Soap tried to joke, but had spent much of today considering the question himself.
Price pressed his mouth into a thin line. “There’s the other part of the story as well. As long as there’s a living John MacTavish, your Simon can’t lay a hand on any other member of the clan. By blood or marriage.”
“What’s that to do with anything?”
“If Graves doesn’t call off the wedding, from the moment you’re married Simon won’t be able to touch him.”
True to his word Simon didn’t share Soap’s bed that night. He tossed and turned, restless.
The keep was quiet so late. The witching hour, men called it, when all was at rest but for things unknown and unseen. This was when mortal men were unmade, fragile flesh melting as wax from a candle, returned to the earth as droppings after being picked apart by crows and carrion insects.
This particular hall of the guest wing was silent. Guards that had been posted previously had left that very evening, resigning their commission for the unreasonable conditions. Nary a creature stirred as the door opened on well oiled hinges, welcoming in the shadow-wreathed intrusion, at home in this castle.
Soft as silk, feet crept across the floor, long fingers parting the bed curtains with all the subtlety of a butterfly’s wings.
There he was. The swine, laying upon the plush bed, nightshirt sticking to his skin with sweat. He was abnormally still, like a stone figure rather than a man, the empty vials from the healers beside his bed telling the story of a man troubled from sleep by natural means.
Let the long night envelop him then, and may his God be merciful when weighing his sins. A dark gloved hand traced the apple of his throat, weighed the risk to the healers and their livelihoods for supplying the potion if the worm of a man expired apparently choking on his bile. Would it be ruled accidental? Or would an assassin be hunted down?
The door opened and closed again, without the care shown by the previous invader, shut and locked before a new log was thrown on the dying fire, which gave a loud crack as it caught and the light began to grow.
“Gilly,” Caroline hissed through gritted teeth, glancing at Graves anxiously.
The other assassin took off her dark hood. “What? The way they tell it he’s been screaming bloody murder all week. ‘S’not like they’ll come running now.”
“Besides,” Gilly remarked, lifting his limp arm and letting it fall heavy back down. “Don’t know if we’ll get a peep out of him.”
“One isn’t meant to mix these,” Caroline said, lifting the empty vials from the healers, and then the wine flagon.
“Proper asleep then.” Gilly said, pulling out her knife. “Do you think it’s too much to hope that John’s powerful suitor will have poisoned him already?”
Caroline sniffed, producing her own weapon. “Not a very charitable thought.”
“He’s not a charitable man.” Gilly deflected. “He’d have been a cruel husband to our John. It’s love and mercy that guides us.”
Caroline looked at the still body of their brother’s intended, the subtle rise and fall of his chest indicating he yet lived. Where did one begin? Was it Christian, to slaughter him like an animal? Cut the throat that he not suffer. And yet, she wanted him to suf—
Caro gasped loudly—too loudly, hastening to cover her mouth—as Gilly drove her knife into Graves’ chest, leaving it sticking straight up as crimson bloomed from the spot.
“What, first murder?” Gilly asked in jest.
Caroline’s voice shook. “It’s not murder if it’s not human.” This is what she’d told herself all night. Graves was a beast, a monster. She pushed her own blade against his side, the nightshirt and flesh dimpling before giving way as she pressed deeper, tearing into him.
The sisters shared a look as their resolve strengthened, and each pulled their knives back out and stabbed and stabbed into the unmoving body of their brother’s would-be tormentor—
Caroline nearly dropped her knife, freezing in terror. “Stop.” She whispered.
Gilly obeyed, following where her eyes fell—ah.
Graves’s eyes were open, seeming to stare at them.
This was not uncommon. The body, nearly slain, searching though the mind was departed. Carefully, Gilly used her thumb and third finger to close his eyelids.
They opened again, flickering between their faces in horror.
Graves was awake. But it seemed the sleeping draughts and wine had rendered him unable to move.
“Shit.” Gilly muttered to herself.
“Understand why we do this.” Caroline spoke louder, to Graves now, though there was a tremble in her voice. “You are cruel. You are unworthy of our brother. He won’t be bound to you. God help your soul now.”
Sweet Caroline was weeping now, stabbing and stabbing into Graves’s chest and belly, all the while his eyes on her face and lips slightly parted, blood from the lungs coughed up between them.
When Graves was gone, eyes blank and flesh waxy, Gilly had to stop her, hold her trembling body a moment.
“It’s done.” Gilly told her. “It’s over. We’ve spared John. Now he has his chance of happiness.”
Caroline nodded tearful agreement.
They donned their dark cloaks again, leaving the body of their victim on the sheets for whoever now tended to Mister Graves to find in the morn.
Simon coalesced from the shadows brought about from the flickering flames, looking on their tableau with consideration. Brutal and inelegant, but a fine first effort. He made the motions with his hands of threading a needle, and as he drew a stitch taut Graves gasped in a pained lungful of air as each wound was bound back together again.
“I’m almost sad our game was interrupted, Phillip.” Simon said. “But there’s such promise in those two. I’ll be glad to have them as sisters by law.”
Graves was breathlessly sobbing, still unable to move.
Simon clicked his tongue. “What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re frightened? The great Commander Graves, reduced to tears by, what was it, a couple of stuck-up Highland cunts?” Simon dipped his fingers in the puddle formed in the gentle valley of Graves’s sternum, drawing up a small measure of blood that he licked from his fingers like sweet jelly. “I see you’re in no state to play with tonight. I’ll see you in the morning then.”
As he was left alone on sheets soaked in his own blood, Graves gave a keening cry to the empty wing that had only a handful of days prior hosted his loyal men and servants, now abandoned.
The tourney grounds thundered with applause. The joust was wisely chosen for the day of the concluding ceremonies, when the single combat trial was only one match. Once Graves had bested all his betrothed’s inbred backwater pagan armsmen, he’d trounce their little golden boy Kyle Garrick as well, and any indiscretions of the competitions prior would be forgotten in honor of the man who’d won twice in a single day.
He’d seen the quack clan healers the night before, at his shadows’ insistence, and been provided a sleeping draught. It’d given him what he needed to be able to sleep, now unable to move during his horrific dreams.
His horse had been returned to the stables, no doubt caught by one of his loyal men after the beast had run off the day before—he needed an animal he could trust for the joust, but afterwards it would be sent to the glue makers and the tanners and whoever else could make use of it.
He only needed to get through this day and the one that followed, and he would be free of this godless place. Shining smile on as if to force himself into good cheer, he pushed his horse into a canter past the stand, drawing up alongside the Lord’s box with his lance held aloft in anticipation of—
Johnny wasn’t there. His little bitch fiancé wasn’t there, waiting for him to grant him favor, and his stuck up sisters were neither so inclined, staring blankly at him as if they’d seen a ghost, and he was neither so inclined to recall his dreams of them. Fucker would pay for this, the repeated disrespect. Graves recovered quickly from his slip up, giving a bow to the lords and ladies, but Lord Shepherd’s eyes bit into him critically.
The other contenders made their passes with their banners, at least gathering at the edges of the field to await their bouts—there. Beside Sir Garrick, on a heavy stallion rather than his little gelding, Johnny was waiting in full plate with his helmet in his hand, playing at being unbothered, laughing and conversing. Graves knew better, saw through the little conjurer slut’s tricks now. He wanted to compete? Fine. Graves thought of their wedding night, how the bruises he would inflict on Johnny today would be settling into his skin by the time he bedded him, livid purples and reds across the bronzed flesh. He’d learn his place, one way or another.
Soap had truthfully forgotten about Graves’ entry into the joust. Part of him was hoping the ’gentleman’ would be so overwrought from his shameful display at the hunt that he wouldn’t show his face until tomorrow.
He and Gaz had been distracted, meeting a pair of latecomers to the tourney, missing entry for the single combat and having little skill in archery, as well as,
“My love has no taste for hunting, you see.” Sir Alejandro Vargas confided. “His heart is too great, he cannot bear to see the animals suffer.”
Sir Rudolfo Parra gave his husband a good natured shove to the shoulder. “I cannot bear to see you crawling about making a fool, your horse forgotten, with the notion that you can track your prey by scent alone. I’d rather trade you for a dog in that case.”
“Wish you’d joined us, then.” Soap said. “Our knights got up to merry making just beyond the walls rather than any proper sport.”
“All the better we didn’t join you then, else mi amor would be still in his cups.” Rudy said.
Alejandro pressed a hand over his heart. “Ay, mi corazón, how you wound me.”
Rudy smiled. “Not yet I don’t. Do not dare to think I will treat you gently in our bout.”
“Hardly a threat; I’m so fond after all of when you treat me roughly.” Alejandro grinned wolfishly.
They all of them laughed, and Soap thought a few moments on the intimacy between the two men.
He couldn’t imagine himself trading either barbs or affection with Graves. The thought turnt his stomach, in truth, the same way the suggestion of physical closeness between them brought to mind the leers and scowls that made his skin crawl in different ways. And though he might have favored the opportunity to bandy insults with a man so deserving, Soap had the good sense to know their marriage was not to be of equals, that every perceived slight would be repaid against him. He had no sympathetic cousins in England to shelter with and no sisters to spirit him away. This bridge was burned, and treacherous beforehand regardless. But with many years of work it might one day be remade passable.
Simon was something else altogether.
The fondness, the arousal, the respect Soap felt, those were human emotions applied perhaps ill fitting to something Other that Soap thought he saw mirrored back at him. Simon was promise, and uncertainty. His love was easy, one Soap ached for like the drunkard ached for the bottle and just as intoxicating. Everything Simon promised was too good to be true.
Soap saw behind his eyes his sisters and Gaz crucified in the old abbey.
Simon was dangerous. Soap knew this for certain. But the sort of danger he felt like blood in his mouth riding too fast, or in a vigorous sparring match. The kind that made his heart race with fear and excitement. Simon’s hands on him, Simon’s enchanting eyes, Simon cutting Graves to pieces again and again and again—
The horn sounded to signal the start of the first match, Leonidas shifting uncertainly under Soap and he realized he’d been digging his heels in.
It had been too long since Soap had jousted last. With the majority of the visiting competitors departed yesterevening, Soap saw the tourney master scrambling to create enough matches to fill the time the joust was meant to occupy, and indeed the competitors who would be eliminated in the first round were instead sorted into a sort of “losers bracket” to rank them as well as those who moved on. In troth it was all good sport, Graves’s lackeys departed and thus the majority of competitors now knights of MacTavish, as well as knights errant like Sir König or latecomers like Sirs Vargas and Parra. After a loss there was no oaths of revenge or fear of retribution, merely the men helping their opponents up and the loser congratulating the victor. Soap much preferred this sort of tourney, the camaraderie infectious and sore moods lifted by song and ale between bouts.
Graves looked fucking miserable. When he would deign to lift his helm, wiping at his brow with ill manner as he had no squire any longer and he wouldn’t allow the castle staff to come near him, he wore a permanent scowl, and he looked as if he’d had nary a moment of rest. His skin was pallid and sickly, and his temper frayed to near breaking. Like a hornet’s nest within the competition, ignored peaceably so long as everyone took care not to kick it.
As the morning stretched on and the list of competitors in the running for prize shrank, Soap knew their match was overdue. He’d been waiting for it in a way, craving the opportunity with Graves not to test his mettle as a fellow warrior, but to inflict pain upon him. Pain and humiliation.
He deserves it. A voice purred in his ear. Run him through; he’d do the same to you.
Soap had no doubt; but he couldn’t be certain it was his own desire or Simon’s calling for blood.
He shook the thought from himself, having a cup of cider to try to chase away the pain he felt, his handful of passes with König failing to unseat him but succeeding in leaving Soap with sore ribs and shooting numbness through his shield arm. Against the larger knight, weathering his attacks and garnering a score for the accuracy of his own strikes was Soap’s only recourse, which had paid off in the end, though he couldn’t feel the hearty shake to his arm König had given him.
“Graves won his last bout as well.” Gaz told him, falling into step with Soap.
“I’ll bet he enjoyed that.” Soap remarked, wondering if he had enough time before his next match to doff his plate, which he would now be calling potmail for how it was cooking him alive within under the sun.
“Not as much as he’ll be enjoying his next round.”
“Who’s it against?” Soap asked idly. He wondered if there were other refreshments on offer, his appetite stoked. Shame König was out, it would have been a delight to see the big sweet lad put Graves in the dirt.
“It’s—it’s you mate.”
Oh.
“A moment of your time, Lady Gillian.”
Gilly really had had quite enough of this being approached nonsense. It seemed with their younger brother being married off to some crass soldier without title or lands, all and sundry thought they had leave to try their hand at wooing the other children of Lord and Lady MacTavish. Poor Caroline was too kind, willing to politely entertain the likes of Graves’s lecherous men in conversation until rescued, but Gilly had made it plain that she was uninterested.
So that someone new yet was vying for her attention when she was trying to watch the joust was—
“It’d be a grave mistake to miss this gift, my lady.”
The tone, the choice of words… Gilly turned her head, looking down at the petitioner standing beside the box.
It was the jester from a handful of days before, all in black with the thousands of fish bones sewn in, with the macabre skull mask. Between gloved hands he held out a small wicker doll, fashioned with a white scrap for a dress or night shirt, holes poked into it and stained with crimson.
Gilly glanced at Caro, who was sat with mother, conversing on some matter. Sure she would be missed if she left for any longer than a few minutes without a word, Gilly stepped down from the box and followed the jester away from the crowd.
“We have a shared interest.” The man behind the mask said once they were alone. “We both would see Phillip Graves dead.”
“If you know that much, you should know we tried. It didn’t stick.” Gilly raised the wicker doll, with its myriad of wounds to the little body. It had been all Gilly could do when Mister Graves had ridden out to keep Caro from going into fits of hysterics.
The stranger hummed. “Many things are at work. You’ve filled Graves with holes. And I’ve mended them.”
“Odd that you say you want him dead then.” Gilly crossed her arms. “Ordinary men are not so easily mended as dolls.”
“Unless the mender isn’t ordinary.” The stranger tilted his head, the dark eyes seeming to assess her. His dark gloved hand came up, taking hold of the mask he wore and pulling it away to reveal—Christ. Gilly’s blood ran cold.
She knew this; she’d been raised by a long line of governesses and nannies after the others had been scared off by her antics, and someone along the line had given her the know-how for creatures such as these even if she couldn’t match the face to the tales just now.
“Who are you to give this mending?” She asked. He already had her name; she was at a disadvantage if he meant to spar.
“A soon-to-be kinsman of yours.”
A powerful man. Not a man at all, brother dearest. “Our John means to wed a fool then?” Gilly asked for nothing else to say.
“Only a fool for how I didn’t make my claim plainer.” John’s suitor said, distaste in his voice, large teeth revealed within his jaw. “The wedding will go forward. And if Johnny wills it, I’m to take Graves’s place.”
“Does John know…”
“He knows of my nature.” The beast returned the mask to his face. “And he will have his chance to choose if I’m a fitting bridegroom. Until then, I ask you don’t interfere again.”
The jester in mottled black and white seemed to blend with the crowd, receding into the shadows all at once.
Soap was sure some peddler or troubadour was telling this match as something grander than it was. The pair of bridegrooms, perhaps forced by competition to face one another or perhaps taking the measure of one another as warriors.
Helms to the side, the pair met each other as opponents before taking the field. Many had clasped arms in this way, exchanged some words. Graves pulled Soap into an embrace, their armor clattering discordantly together.
“Once we get you back to England and you pop out a couple’a heirs, the witch finders’ll be plenty interested in you. Let’s see your little ghost protect you from the flames.” It was said with a smile, words unheard by the cheering crowds. “‘Course, don’t need to wait to report those sisters ‘a yours, showing up to knife me in my sleep. Maybe I’ll let you keep some of their ashes as a wedding present.”
Soap drew back, the embrace bordering on indecent. His blood boiled in his veins, teeth clenched tightly together in a snarl masquerading as a smile. “You’re the one playing with fire.” Soap promised him solemnly.
Lord Shepherd was glaring at them, Soap noticed, rather than clapping along. Graves seemed to notice at the same time, paling further despite the shallowness of his skin already. With his bloodshot eyes, cracked lips, and the deep bruises beneath his eyes, Soap knew he’d have a decent claim if he started telling everyone Graves was ill and mad with fever.
The opponents withdrew, mounting their respective steeds.
Leonidas was a good, fearless lad, great hooves churning the earth as he raced forward, a length of rope separating them from Graves rushing at them—a great clash, the lance in Soap’s hand splintering and shattering after colliding with Graves’s helmet, ten points awarded. For the pain Soap felt like ice up his shield arm but Graves’s lance still intact, three.
Soap huffed, grinned under his helmet, accepting the fresh lance at the far end of the field. A fair lead. The steward called for another pass, the second of three.
Graves had left his visor up this time. Dangerous, and how one lost an eye to the sport, but it allowed Soap to see his face, uninhibited by pretense.
Graves was angry. Determined. And he looked so, so tired.
Their lances each struck, six points to Graves for breaking his lance on Soap’s breastplate, Soap eight for a shattering blow to Graves’s shield.
As points were tallied and called out, the interest in the match waned. Soap had won, unless he missed this pass entirely, or if he became unseated.
An unusually tall and broad hand with a skull for a face handed Soap a lance, gleaming steel at the tip; a proper cavalry weapon where the others had been mere wood, the tools of sport. The hook to the tip, Soap could see this punching through armor with enough force, gouging the body within.
Soap turned, watched Graves at the far end remove his helm and douse himself in water, feverish and determined to win despite the impossibility of this match turning in his favor.
Both men mounted again, and Soap had several thoughts at once that seemed to stretch the handful of seconds galloping across the field into a crawl.
This was everything to Graves. His tourney before his wedding, all of it paid for by a stern and disapproving patron who would never grant him the acknowledgment he wished for. He was exhausted trying to live up to expectations, inconveniently adept for one born low but never enough for those who regarded themselves higher. Phillip Graves was a man easy to loathe. Part of Soap pitied him, the lance in his hand heavy with the weighted killing point.
Perhaps that’s why he did what he did.
Leo was a good lad, keeping their path steady even as Soap pulled his ankles from the stirrups.
He felt peace, falling backwards without fear for the ground, opening his eyes and seeing in a split second Graves’s lance passing over him, where his body had been.
The impact of hitting the ground was no joyous thing, knocking the wind from him and surely bruising his backside, the crowd silent for a breath before roaring at the unexpected change in fortune.
Leonidas stopped at the end of the field, caught and settled by the hands waiting, Graves’s horse at the other end stamping and turning about as Graves craned his neck with disbelief.
Soap affected good humor, congratulating Graves on his victory, ducking away quickly to find somewhere to remove his armor like it meant to strangle him.
Graves was a right bastard. He was selfish and egotistical and if Soap had his way he’d be getting punched and kicked left and right by every man, woman, child, and horse in the clan. No one was debating that. But Soap almost understood. Felt like he’d been throwing a bone to a younger, quieter version of himself who’d prayed and bargained with God that his hair would grow back just so Mam and Da wouldn’t look at him like that anymore, all the meanwhile making himself sick with the thought of putting his dresses back on. It was no way to live, craving approval from someone who wouldn’t give it; that said he’d sussed this out as a child and Graves was a grown adult man who was also a dick and seemed to have no inclination to change this. So Soap really didn’t mind that it left Graves flustered and embarrassed that many people were whispering about how Soap had very clearly thrown the match.
He’d neglected in his last minute decision to consider all the ramifications of losing a formal jousting match until Graves presented himself for the final round atop Leonidas. Soap had nearly taken to the field himself to try to reclaim his prized companion, but Alejandro had unseated Graves on their very first pass and had Leo returned to the stables under the guise of a wedding gift and with the request of a round of drinks and dice shared between them that night. Soap gladly agreed.
He felt a warm embrace in his periphery as he bathed and dressed and returned to the box. It was growing familiar, the shroud it felt he wore, turning to a blanket of deeper shadows as the sun beat down overhead and canvases on poles were erected to shade the box hosting the family and Lord Shepherd. It felt like he was being held from behind, and Soap let himself lean back, even feeling the hints of concern and curiosity in his husband’s presence.
He noticed an odd look being sent his way—Gilly was eyeing him with a strange expression, meeting his eyes with a question, then glancing her eyes pointedly back to—to the space just behind him. Shite.
She rolled her eyes as he straightened and leaned forward, out of Simon’s hold… as if he were simply caught in the arms of a lover, rather than luxuriating in the unearthly embrace of a creature older than the nations of men.
Soap had questions. But nothing that could not wait until they were alone. Meanwhile, he leaned back into Simon, enjoyed his ghostly touch, even the feeling of what he thought must be a chin on his shoulder. Amusement colored the edges of his awareness, and fondness.
Graves felt like a cornered rabbit. He was jumping at shadows, alert and aware for any sign of danger, any hint of the dark magics that threatened him, but at the same time he must not let on what he saw, his torments mere illusions to bystanders who already thought him mad. Thus the rabbit, heart hammering in his chest while he must not react. He mustn’t let himself become gripped by fear. And logically he also knew that each spell placed upon him carried danger; if Sir Garrick injured him in their match while Graves’s eyes were clouded with shadow and despair, would Graves even know? Perhaps he was as a man dreaming of his own death, unaware as a cutthroat skulked in the night, never to wake and surely never to know he was dead until he was brought for judgement before the Almighty.
“It would be poor form,” a stern voice remarked, approaching Graves’s tent unnoticed without guards or squires, Graves’s mind half on his uncertain circumstances and half on trying to put on his own armor for his impending match. “For you to lose every event of my tourney.”
Graves bit his tongue; it didn’t matter how tired he was, how raw his nerves were, he couldn’t raise his temper before Lord Shepherd. “Would have been a helluva lot easier if MacTavish wasn’t fixing the competition.”
“Don’t make excuses.” Lord Shepherd was sharp. “It’s enough you’ve cost me a small fortune to outfit your retinue that you’ve run off, but what’s this I hear about cold feet?”
Graves clicked his tongue. “It’s not like it matters. His mother will drag him kicking and screaming down the aisle, she’s so eager to be rid of him.”
“I’m not talking about him.” Shepherd glared. “Need I remind you that marrying well is going to be the only way you ever become more than a cutthroat mercenary? You’ve already fucked it up once.”
“And this way you get control of the only fertile land in Bumfuck, Highlands. You don’t have to worry about me.” Graves turned away, partly to end the conversation but also so Shepherd wasn’t looking on him as he gripped the strap of his gauntlet between his teeth to get it tight enough. “I’ll marry the bitch, I’ll knock him up, with a son, before his witch sisters even marry, and then we’ll have the next heir to MacTavish on standby, and all that goes with it.” Haunted castle in a haunted country—Shepherd could keep the MacTavish lands, hell, he could keep all of Scotland. But raising in his own son the next Lord MacTavish, Graves would have everything that’d been denied to him. Money. Influence. Status. He’d weathered one abysmal spouse, what was one more?
Never mind that he hadn’t slept in days, that there were tiny bones in every bite of his bread, that water turned to blood the moment it touched his lips, that every time he passed his reflection he only saw his own mouldering corpse—
“I won’t fail you.” Graves said solemnly.
The failing health of Lord John was one reason Shirley and her John had been hesitant to make announcement of their news; the other was the pair of small boxes that lay buried at different points within the gardens, away from the consecrated ground of the old abbey or the new, and the fear of a third. But now, less than a fortnight after the Lord’s funeral the castle was in mourning and Shirley had little hope of keeping her condition private any longer.
This was how she found herself walking a snowy path between the abbey and the castle following Mass, arm in arm with her mother in law by the woman’s request.
“My son was nearly a Peter.” Lady Eleanor confided. “Twas the name we’d chosen, my John and I.”
“A strong name.” Shirley replied for little else to say. Did Lady Eleanor wish them to name their child Peter then? Shirley held little fondness for the other woman, who’d held no warmth for her, had opposed her marriage to John though never voiced it publicly.
“Two days passed, between the birthing bed and the baptism; an uncommonly long time. Perhaps the bishop had taken ill; I can’t recall.” Lady Eleanor put her hand, intrusively, over her daughter-by-law’s belly, where there was but the suggestion of a swell. “I labored with my Peter for hours, and when he was born I was meant to have some peace. But my husband came to my side, and we were visited by vile apparition, with a face of bone.” She patted Shirley’s hand, then took hold of her wrist. “It told us of wicked bargain made long ago, that our Peter was to be a John like his father, else our whole house would fall to ruin. And when our prayers did not cast it out, we agreed. Our son, your husband, was the sixth John MacTavish. It’s the seventh the beast seeks for his unholy bride.”
“Mother, you speak madness.” Shirley told Lady Eleanor. “Blasphemy.”
“Believe what you like, fool girl.” Lady Eleanor’s grip on Shirley’s wrist tightened. “But God has turned his gaze from this place. I have done what I must. I’ve found cut wives from the moors, the sort who ease the burdens of common girls. They will attend to you if you wish it.”
“Never.” Shirley pulled away from her mother by law, hands cradled protectively over her belly. “I’ll have them strung up. I am the Lady of this castle now, my husband will hear my words over your own.”
Lady Eleanor gave a sad smile, revealing her teeth that showed an unfortunate penchant for sweets. “Then go to the fishwives, fool girl. Ask them for their herbs, the positions they fuck in, only ensure you never bear a cursed son as I have. And pray the beast never comes after the child in a MacTavish belly. I feared for my children, but by blessing I never bore another son. This is what you must pray for; daughters to fill the castle, else we all of us be damned.”
Shirley managed to slip her arm free of Lady Eleanor’s. “The castle is not far, Mother. Follow the procession, you’ll find the way yourself.” Shirley took her skirts in hand, lifting them to keep muddy slush atop the white snow from the hems, boots churning through as she all but fled the line of those within the castle returning from Mass.
Lord John—her John, not his father—was quick to find her, laying his heavy cloak over her shoulders while keeping pace with her rushed footsteps.
“Peace, Shirl. Please, don’t exert yourself.” Her John, that bookish boy again rather than the tired new lord of MacTavish, soothed as he followed her. “What has my mother said to you? She is cruel in her grief, not herself,”
Shirley spun around, cheeks red with the chill and the hot rage of defiance. “She implied, I believe, I wasn’t suited to motherhood. To bearing your heirs.” This was the only meaning Shirley could draw from the metaphor, the thinly veiled insult, that any children she bore would be fruit for the devil.
“You know she didn’t mean it,” John began to say.
“She said it regardless.” Shirley saw how her husband winced under her scrutiny. His heart was too soft at times, she thought, to be a lord in this hostile land. It was a wonder anything grew at all, her trained eye as daughter of a wealthy farmer noting the poor soil of the highlands, so different from the tender fields of her Lothian. MacTavish was the only clan able to eck a crop, and the lord must be strong against those who would threaten their position atop it. “What if I lose this child? As I did our others?”
“Then it is God’s will.” Her John kissed her brow. “And no fault of your own.”
Shirley let herself lean on him. “And what if I can only give you daughters?”
“Then I shall cherish each and every one of them, and only hope they take after their mother.”
Shirley nodded, feeling her eyes grow damp. “And what if something should threaten our child? A force of the devil?”
“Then I’ll spend my every hour learning to protect them.”
Shirley held tight to John. Perhaps she had need to steel something within herself; she would give her husband children, no matter how many attempts it took. But she could not allow herself to grow attached to a doomed child again. The babe in her belly was not her concern until the birth, whether it be a Peter or a Caroline.
“Be careful.” Soap couldn’t help but warn, giving a performative punch to Gaz’s pauldron. “Wouldn’t want you to mess up that pretty face of yours.”
Gaz laughed. “Easy, milord. Don’t want your fiancé hearing that.”
Soap returned the grin, but… truthfully he was worried about what Graves might pull. The man was a cornered animal, made dangerous by desperation.
Any requests? A silvery voice curled like a contented cat around Soap’s mind. How do you want your pig fiancé prepared my love?
“You’ll beat Graves in any fair fight.” Soap told Gaz. “No one will interfere.”
“Don’t speak too soon.” Gaz said in jest. “Graves’s lackeys may have run for the hills, but half the tourney grounds is prepared to take to the fields and tear him to pieces.”
“You’re like a brother to me, Gaz.” Soap said. “Be safe, yeah?”
“You too, Tav.” Gaz clasped their forearms together. “I’ll only be facing him for the afternoon; you’ll have him as your opponent the rest of your days.”
Or the rest of his.
Graves had considered it from every angle. From animals taking to the field to the meager trees uprooting themselves to swarm him to Garrick splitting into a dozen combatants to fight him at once. The slut’s spectral butcher wouldn’t lay a hand on him. Graves was prepared.
No shadows swam across his vision as the match began, no dirty tricks like Garrick had been assisted by in the melee. His heart hammered in his chest as he and Garrick made cautious passes of their blades, each countering the other and neither putting much strength behind their blows. Perhaps the ghost would instill Garrick with the uncanny strength to cleave him in two. Maybe he’d just start choking and drowning in his own blood. That’d at least be interesting; Graves was getting bored of the usual torments. Only so many ways to be mutilated by way of sharp implement.
He had to stay alert, even if his defensive stance made for uninteresting spectation. This whole clan was after him, the men and the women and the children and even the fucking horses; like hell he was going to underestimate them.
Garrick finally made his move, unencumbered or enhanced by any devils, merely the downward blow of a skilled swordsman. Graves was talented enough in that regard; he trained as every boy did, with sticks against brothers and cousins and neighbors, and learnt how to make it hurt lest older boys take their sticks and break them over knees to goad them to angry childish tears. Then when the war had broken out anew he’d answered the call, and he’d finally been permitted (in his own mind, at least, his father would have beaten him black and blue if he’d been caught) to take the family sword when he departed. He’d received some education in the blade by a veteran yeoman who’d fought in the last push of the war, and earned his pitiful fortune as a soldier with a talent for leading men. He had no sword masters drilling him, no knightly brotherhood to support him, no training on the philosophies of a chivalric order.
From his perspective, polished knights like Kyle Garrick and Jonathan Price lacked creativity.
A showy overhead slash was often the precursor to some tighter, more finessed strike, merely a tool in positioning. For this reason it was easily avoided, assuming one supplied ample distraction and was willing to take risk.
From a lower angle Graves had the disadvantage it would appear, dropping to one knee and having to contend with the force of Garrick’s entire upper body against his own sword held parallel to the earth. His arms shook as he was pushed lower, right until the very moment Garrick’s balance was threatened.
Honorable knights in their chain or plate were all too ready to forget anything outside their neat and tidy drills and forms.
It was dishonorable but effective then that Graves let drop the hand supporting the distal end of his sword against the weight of Garrick’s, upsetting their balancing act. Garrick veered to the right, and when he turned his face back to center it was to receive the fistful of well-trod dirt Graves hurled at him, blinding him through his visor and no small amount of luck.
How like an honorable goodly knight to not wear a proper codpiece, Graves’s gauntleted fist dealing a single blow that all but assured his victory as Garrick was made clumsy and staggered back a half step.
The crowd did not cheer as Graves was declared the victor. It was fine. He wasn’t here for the approval of a bunch of northern yokels. Even Shepherd’s disapproving glare was of little consequence; Graves had won, and his prize was to be the tenancy of a stretch of cattleland bordering his estate, where he would now live as well as a baron. Moreover, he knew his betrothed’s weakness: only the night before he’d taken note of the moon, just beginning its waning cycle. Witches and those with wombs alike were governed by the moon and tides, and today there was no foul specter set upon him. Coincidence? He thought not.
Graves gave a wide smile to his husband to be.
Despite his indignation over being scrubbed clean as a child, Soap had grown to appreciate the luxury of a hot bath at the end of a long day. He wasn’t able to tarry long with Rudy and Alejandro, with whom he’d become fast friends, but at least he was able to avoid seeing Graves for the rest of the evening. After all, it was bad luck.
A great copper tub of steaming water and milk to smooth his skin had been prepared, scented with rosehips. The barber had come and trimmed his hair neatly and shaved his face, and his clothes for the morrow were pressed and ready.
He leaned back against the warm body holding him, shadows spreading over his skin like a mist.
“Tell me how you’ll do it.” Soap begged, for not the first time.
“Johnny,” Simon warned, lips skating over his neck.
Soap tilted his head away to give easier access. He threaded their fingers together, trying to guide Simon to feel over his body, to reach between his legs, but his husband’s hands evaporated every time Soap tried to skirt indecency. As if he’d had to strong arm the creature into joining him in the bath.
“Give me a hint. Doesn’t have to be a big hint.”
“Ruins the surprise.” Simon chided.
Soap tilted his head all the way back onto Simon’s shoulder to look at his husband’s masked face. “What’s your plan for the wedding then? You’ve got to tell me that at least. Will you be rushing in all impassioned to object?” Oh the bishop would shit himself. “Perhaps you’ll steal me away before I ever make it to the abbey?”
Simon hummed, kissed Soap sweetly. “You’ll know when it’s time.”
Soap slept fitfully in truth; Simon insisted on leaving before midnight, and he missed his husband beside him. He was—God help him—giddy for the morning, eager for the wedding.
He felt as if he’d only just fallen asleep when his curtains, both bed and window, were opened by a troupe of Mother’s handmaidens and let in both chill and dawn light. His bedchambers already were not his own, each of them it seemed having their own tasks, rearranging furniture and bringing in cosmetics and flowers and food and tea and washing water of course a pair of them led by Mistress Catherine all but hauling him from his bed and scrubbing the sleep from his face.
“Senga,” Soap all but pled, voice heavy with his lack of sleep. “I can wash and dress myself, I’m a man grown.”
Mistress Catherine tapped his chin in admonishment. “You can dress yourself well enough for rolling about with the knights, Master John, but I would wager you’ve never gotten ready for your wedding before.”
Call this a practice round. “I don’t need this fussing over; the ceremony’s not for hours, let me spend my last morning as a bachelor sleeping in, and I swear you’ll find me appropriate in the abbey when the time comes.”
“Assuming you and I have the same standard of appropriate, Master John.” Senga gave him a steely look. “And I’ll not be sending a child I myself nursed to his husband in anything but pristine shape.”
Too early for the I breastfed you argument, by far. Soap wiggled from little Abigail’s grasp at least, sitting at his table where breakfast had been lain ou—“What the fuck is this?”
A handful of gasps, and Mistress Catherine was snapping for him to mind his tongue.
“Hot foods to encourage the blood, wake the womb.” She explained. “Thrush cooked with wild nuts and anise, neeps mash thickened with eggs and rabbit’s blood, and pig testicle stewed in peach juices.”
“I ate already.” Soap lied.
“You’ll finish it all.” Chimed a voice from the doorway, and the handmaidens fell into curtsies as Mother strode in. “I ate the very same the day of my wedding.”
And yet it was five years until Caro came along. Soap didn’t say. “I think the testicles smell off.”
“They’re fresh only this morning.” Mother replied archly, and without breaking eye contact plucked one of the elegantly arranged wedges from the fragrant syrup it rested in inside the dish and popped it into her mouth.
“They’re fine. Eat.” Mother reiterated after she had swallowed, sucking her sticky fingers clean somehow with an air of dignity. “You’ll need your strength; the preparations need to be seen to.”
And I’m one of the preparations.
Soap wasn’t one to back down from a challenge, and speared his own slice of hog ball on his fork, popping it into his mouth. He half expected it to turn to tender fruit in his mouth, some transmutation of Simon’s, but instead was granted a texture not unlike liver. He managed to repress a wince, Mother’s eye on him as he chewed and swallowed. “‘M full.”
A crack appeared in Mother’s careful mask, the taut look of disapproval that Soap was so familiar with turning for only a moment something fond, and then sad, before being shuttered once more.
“Finish your neeps at the least.” She said, turning away. She left.
“I’m full, Mother.” Shirley claimed, her stepmother scoffing in disbelief. “I dare not eat more, the fits my stomach is throwing.”
“It won’t be the last time you taste this dish, ungrateful girl. Your cycles are irregular; you’ll need your humors managed by the healers as we have done if you’re to be blessed with a son.” Stepmother’s hand at this stroked across her own gravid belly.
“Are daughters not a blessing?” Shirley hadn’t meant to say it but it slipped out regardless.
Stepmother looked her up and down. “No.”
Powder. Perfumes. Pluderhose. Seemingly endless eons of his mother’s maids combing his hair this way and that, muttering to themselves how difficult it was to try to make it seem respectable, though thankfully Mistress Catherine was the voice of reason that warned them against interfering with the meticulous work the barber had done the night before and shaving it off, and had sent someone to fetch a hat.
Soap felt like a dressed game bird, bound up in the ugly fucking outfit Graves had insisted on and fussed over and finally the garish fucking peacock feather in the hat that kept flopping in front of his face. Luncheon was a pitiful collection of cold meats and cheeses that he was allowed to snack on whilst maids hurried to and fro packing up his clothes and personal possessions, and Soap didn’t interfere too much as he would be having it all unpacked again once he and Simon were wed.
The door opened again some time in the afternoon, and the bishop stood in the doorway proud as any lord, gaze cast about the room until the maids all excused themselves. When the two of them were all that remained, the bishop shut the door.
“I’m here to take your confession.” The bishop told him haughtily, as if expecting protest, or perhaps applause.
“Perhaps I’ve nothing to confess to.” Soap drawled, blowing from the corner of his mouth to push away the feather in his hat.
The bishop’s face twisted with distaste. “You reek of sin. If you will not confess, I cannot ordain a marriage lest your sin fester and despoil the union.”
Christ, twist his fucking arm. “Bless me excellency, for I have sinned. It has been two months since my last confession.”
“A long time, my child.”
Aye it has been now put a sock in it. “I have known pride, excellency. Have thought myself above others, and been uncharitable in my pursuit of glory.”
“Shameful. Reflects poorly on yourself and your family, and is an affront to the Lord and your husband.”
Soap managed not to smile. “I’ve been gluttonous, imbibing of wine to excess, and slothful to let others wait upon me.”
“What else?”
“I’ve known wrath, to hold anger in my heart,” and fantasized about murdering his betrothed over and over and over—“And envy, to covet what others have. Greed, to want more.”
“You will have your restitutions, your penance. Out of consideration for your intended the Lord will not ask it of you this day; a dozen or so lashes with strop, a week of fasting on only bread and water. A charitable donation to the church to continue its holy works with the poor may also be accepted—”
“I’m not finished, Excellency.” Soap reminded him. “I accuse myself of lust most of all.”
The bishop’s lips twitched, but he nodded. “Speak my child. Tell me what profane thoughts weigh upon your soul.”
All of them? “I have oft imagined myself and my husband. We touch each other, and we embrace. Then I have to plead with him, but he puts himself ins—”
“Sin.” The bishop said sharply, flush to his face, before he cleared his throat. “Sinful, to imagine such before the oaths are made. The marriage bed is a duty, not a pleasure. To procreate and produce sons in the godly manner is when one is closest to the Devil. Heed you not let yourself be given over to lusts.”
“And outside the marriage bed, excellency?” Soap couldn’t help himself. “On the sofas, over a desk, in the dirt like beasts,”
“That’s enough.”
“How can I be closer to the Devil, excellency, than when I’ve finally convinced him to fuck m—”
“John MacTavish!” The bishop snapped. “You are either possessed by devilry else a spoilt, rotten child that ought be cast from this place! From the moment you were born, the moment you were late-born!”
“Excellency.” A calm voice said, stilling the room.
The bishop was breathing heavily, face red, and Soap could feel his own heart pounding in his chest.
“A moment with my son, if you please.” Father said softly, evenly, and the bishop evidently was grateful enough for the excuse to storm from the room.
“If you’re here to scold me,” Soap said after a brief silence.
“I’m not.” Father assured. “I’m to walk you down the aisle, to give you away. Perhaps we could talk a little first.”
John was a man walking on air, like to be lifted away. His wife, his blessed, beautiful wife with her iron will, had done it. They’d lost two babes before, grieved and anguished, but today there was only joy, for Shirley and the babe both lived. A daughter, he’d been told, with a crop of hair already. It was all the noble Lord MacTavish could do not to run for the doors his wife waited behind.
The midwives were departing, and the eldest stopped him gently.
“The lady is exhausted from her labors, my lord.” The woman spoke softly, respectfully. “We have worked quietly, to let her rest, and just now left the babe in the cradle, warm and fed. The bishop has been sent for to baptize the wee girl, but she ought know her father’s touch.”
John nodded, eager, and gave his breathless agreement. Quiet, that he not wake his wife, he opened the door to the room bathed in gentle evening light.
A dark clothed figure stood over the cradle, gently bouncing the babe in its arms. A footman? A servant assisting the midwives? John didn’t recognize the silhouette, walking near silently across the floor, and the figure turned.
He felt a moment as if he was gazing into a painting of the great masters, the way the light seemed swallowed up. The amber of the setting sun was cast so sweetly on the rosy face of the babe, eyes unfocused and pale, all swaddled in fresh white cloth, and all light henceforth was swallowed up by the walking pit, the consuming darkness that held her, a large gloved finger touching her small inelegant fist leading up to the body and at last terminating with a garish face of bone.
The stories were true.
“A new generation is born.” The spirit said, voice low. “The one I’ve waited on.”
John was no warrior. By all accounts, he was a coward. A soft handed intellectual who’d have been a priest if he were anything but a first son to a great clan. Despite this his voice didn’t shake. “Put the baby down; she is innocent.”
The spirit regarded him oddly, but obligingly carefully lowered the babe into the cradle once more. Her arms were freed from the swaddling and reached around aimlessly.
“I’m not here for her.” The spirit said. “Only to remind you of our covenant.”
“I’ve made no bargain with you.” John pointed out dumbly. Not him, an ancestor.
“And yet if I cut you, my knife would know your blood. That same blood was used years ago to sign your name. Your name, your father’s name, your father’s father’s name, and someday your son’s name.” The spirit seemed to float closer to him, no steps taken by its large form. “This is a courtesy call. My blessings to your crops, my protections to your lands, extend only on the condition that your son, John MacTavish, is given to me as my bride.”
The dark figure was broken up, dissolved as mist, as something passed through from behind and struck the looking glass off to John’s side, shattering it.
A candle holder, the heavy one that sat at their bedside, lay amongst the glass as little Caroline began to cry.
John’s first thought was his wife, looking pale and shaking with her hair loose about her shoulders, emerging from between the bed curtains. Her eyes found his, and John rushed forward to hold her in his arms.
“I need—”
“Peace, love.” John assured her. “The baby is well, only frightened by the sound, and the bishop is on his way.”
“I need the midwife. The old laundress.” Shirley was clutching at him, weeping into his shoulder. “I need to know how to prevent a son.”
“We’d thought if we could have only daughters who would take their husbands’ names, the line would end. There would be no seventh John MacTavish, and the land would become barren but unblemished by the Devil.” Father sounded far away as he spoke. “Your mother and I have not shared a bed in many years, for fear some weakness of the flesh would imperil the family once more. And when you came before us, to tell us your name,” Father laughed bleakly, patting Soap’s hand on his arm. “I’ve studied the arcane since that day, seeking some loophole, some protection from the creature. Our last line of defense was to marry you to another before your twentieth birthday. John Graves is part of no such bargain after all.”
“You never wanted a son.” Soap kept his eyes on the stone paved path, trudging forward step by step.
“We wanted a dozen children, any the Lord would grant us. But we could not send a child to his death once we knew the truth.”
“You made me feel unwanted.” Soap said. “I was a burden. Unloved.”
Father was silent. “Never unloved. Never for a moment. We only feared for you so greatly… I would take it back if I could. Years wasted, for fear. I would raise a son with a kind heart and a courageous countenance, and I would still have my heart break as I sent him far away.”
Soap nodded. “I won’t forgive you. I can’t.”
“I won’t ask you to. But if you bear your parents any love, try to be happy. Learn to love your husband, and do not mourn what was not meant to be.”
“Aye.” Soap agreed as they approached the doors to the abbey. “I can do that.”
Soap felt like he was holding his breath as he was escorted down the aisle, the abbey packed to the brim with minor nobility and knights come for the tourney. At the head of it all, Phillip Graves stood beside the solemn bishop.
He stood through it all, took Mass as usual, skin buzzing with excitement. The bishop began a long winded speech to start off the wedding proper, and Soap’s eyes darted about. You’ll know when it’s time. Any second now his true husband would arrive, the monster in Father’s story, come to claim Soap for his own. He needed to be patient, however much it chafed, listening to the vows and finally having to turn to look at Graves, who in turn glared at him with cold indifference. Soap imagined slitting his throat, having Simon embrace him from behind, and the pair of them completing the impassioned ceremony. Candles were lit, words were said, oaths hollowly exchanged,
“If any soul should have some reason why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Soap turned back despite himself. He saw from the corner of his eye Gilly begin to raise her hand only to have it captured calmly by Mother, but his gaze was on the doors. This was when Simon appeared, when the drama unfolded in the light of day, you’ll know when it’s time.
The moment passed, and more words were said, and Soap was turned back by a rude hand on his arm and Graves was shoving their lips together.
Soap blinked, and the whole of the abbey clapped. They were wed.
Soap didn’t have any appetite. Didn’t have much of anything, really. A certain numbness he supposed. Ate as was demanded of him, not tasting a thing and not remembering a single one of the gifts respected nobles and knights presented to the wedded couple. His only thoughts were a maelstrom, swirling as he recalled Simon’s words and promises with perfect clarity, and the dreams they’d made together and then Graves would make some noise or comment and he would be back to wondering when his husband—his real husband—would arrive.
He had to have faith. Simon would come for him, he knew it. He only needed wait a little longer for the sign, the signal. He’d know it when he saw it.
“There’s no chance of a proper bedding ceremony,” Gilly remarked a short ways down the table. “It’s not as if Lord Shepherd will be carrying John by himself, and Graves has no other supporters and nary a friend I think in all Britain.”
“Gillian Anne,” Mother said in warning. “Don’t speak with food in your mouth.”
Where was Simon? Had something happened? Between Mother and Father, Graves, the bishop, anyone might have cause to try to stop him. What if Simon was in danger, caught in some witch’s snare?
The evening wore on, with food and drink and revelry, Soap a single point of stillness amongst it all, waiting.
Graves was decently into his cups when he took Soap by the arm, leaning in to whisper in his ear that they ought to get moving.
“Where?” Soap asked, feeling as if he were waking from a dream.
“To bed, husband. Still have to consummate before the marriage is official, don’t we?” Graves gave him a sneer, offering a hand.
You’ll know when it’s time. Soap stood on uncertain legs, and let his hand be held in a tight grasp, realizing as they approached his bedchamber that they were being followed. Mother, Father, Lord Shepherd, and the bishop.
“Well?” Lord Shepherd said.
“I can attest that the married couple were seen to chambers. The door shall be barred until morning.” The bishop said.
“What about the rest?” Graves asked, as the entourage made to leave, stepping away from Soap to take a fistful of the bishop’s cassock. “To check that he’s pure, and all that?”
The bishop sniffed indignantly, straightening his clothing. “In times past, some brides of the clan were examined, if there was question, and consummation may have been witnessed by some in good standing. That won’t be necessary in this case.”
“And why the hell not? Begging your pardon excellency. Way he carries on, who’s to say he’s not whoring out to all the knights and their horses?” Graves gestured to Soap.
“Because that was done out of necessity.” Lord Shepherd said. “For treaties, and for relations of royalty. This union isn’t important enough to warrant further interference.”
That woke Soap from his stupor enough to crack a smile, pull a hiccuping laugh from him. Here he was, pure as the undriven—pure as the lightly driven snow despite his best efforts, and his boar of a fiancé—husband—Soap began cackling. Graves’s face turned red, and everyone else departed.
Graves glared at Soap, then pointed to Soap’s bed, curtains tied back and sheets freshly turned down. “Go. Get yourself ready. I need a drink.”
Indeed, a fine bottle of wine was waiting on a sideboard, and Graves showed no restraint pulling the cork out with his teeth and pouring a cup full near to the brim to gulp down like it were common swill.
“I’m not consummating this marriage.” Soap told him plainly.
“That’s how this goes, doll. Give me a couple of sons and we’ll call us square. What you’ve been putting me through, I’m not exactly thrilled about it either, but your ghost ain’t here tonight now is he?”
Soap opened his mouth, coming up short. Where was Simon?
“It’s goddamn midnight, let’s just get it over with.” Graves was undressing how, tossing his doublet haphazardly to the side and kicking off his fine shoes. “Marriage contracts are signed, so lay back and think of England.”
“Just wait a fucking minute.” Soap looked back at the bed. Only the night before Simon had held him in it, kissed him, made all sorts of promises. Now he wasn’t here.
“I said—” Graves put his hand on Soap’s arm to turn him around, and in that instant Soap was filled with a white hot fury.
This pig of a man had dictated every move for the past month. The clothes Soap was wearing were for his pleasure, the tourney and wedding tools to feed his vanity, and Soap was sick of him, sick of hearing his voice, of feeling his lecherous fucking hands.
You’ll know when it’s time.
Soap closed his fist, and in the same instant the bells of the abbey, the long abandoned one that hadn’t given a peal in generations, rang out.
Swirling shadow coalesced into the shape of a dagger, cool to the touch and jagged. He barely thought as he slashed at his scum first husband. From neck to navel.
Graves stared at him, horror struck, hands touching the blood as if to confirm it was real. This time was real.
Soap jammed the dagger next through his throat. Not the same as an arrow, but that’s where his hands guided him. Next he imagined cutting a bridle, wrenching Graves from his horse to have him trampled. Wild slashing, stabbing, like the teeth and claws of a pack of wolves, the shallow gouging of birds, the goring of a boar’s tusks as Graves’s arms were drawn by massive bulls, his own hand slicing a throat in mercy, and at last, his sisters’ hands guiding him as Soap stabbed again and again and again into Graves’s chest, the man well and truly dead at last, as the bells of the old abbey chimed twelve.
Midnight.
Today was John MacTavish, seventh of his name’s twentieth birthday.
“Beautiful.” Crooned a voice at his back. “Well done Johnny.”
“‘M not done yet.” Soap protested, bringing the dagger up to Graves’s belly, just below the last rib.
“Johnny,”
“I’ve done this before, it’ll only take a second.” A bit different on a deer but the gist was the same. A bit hard to see, all the blood and the multitude of wounds, and really he’d be lucky if everything was intact. He carved open a space wide enough, shoving his hand up beneath the ribs and keeping shallow as he reached up, pushing past hot tissue and flesh, pulling muscle from bone as he went, feeling for that firm shape amongst all the hollowness of the lungs.
“There’s no need, love.”
“Let me do this for you.” Soap felt he was near pleading. Where was it?
“You already have.” Simon told him, and in the same moment Soap’s fingers closed around something markedly smaller than what he’d been searching for. He withdrew his hand, held in his fist not Graves’s heart as he’d been searching for, but a blood soaked half of a fig.
“It’s an old tradition.” Soap said, turning to Simon at last.
Somehow he looked brighter. The murky darkness of his form seemed ethereal, luminous in a way, like the blanket of the sky made up his cloaked body. The bone mask he wore seemed burnished, like the finest porcelain or ivory. He was beautiful. And below the skull, the darkness receded to show a pallid, scarred chin, thin lips stretched in a grin. “For newlyweds.” Simon purred, exposing sharp teeth lining his mouth, long tongue extending past his jaw.
Soap laid the fig upon it happily, watched as it was swallowed up into the darkness, and then Simon was kissing him. With his mouth, no blindfolds or shrouds to separate them. Soap moaned against his lips, chasing the iron taste of blood and the sweetness of the fig, enamored with the flavor of his husband as Simon’s tongue pushed back against him, seeming to fill his whole mouth to suffocating. It was glorious.
Johnny, echoed in his head, Simon’s tongue all tied up as it was. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny!
A firm hand in his hair and another clutching his jaw pulled them apart, but Soap still had his bloody hands damn near clawing into Simon’s back in case the spirit had any notion of getting away from him.
“What?” Soap asked, sounding petulant even to his own ears as he tried to lean in to taste Simon’s lips again—his cruel husband held him fast.
“I don’t want to get carried away, love.” Simon soothed, a thumb—bare, pale, cool—rubbing over Soap’s swollen lower lip.
Soap nipped the digit, watching how the shadows, sometimes clothing, sometimes a mere shroud of mist, wavered like a candle’s flame as Simon sucked in a sharp breath. “No such thing, husband.” Soap reminded him. “It’s my birthday. I’m yours, to do with as you please.” Soap felt gratified feeling the full bodied shudder Simon gave.
“Dangerous words, pup.” Simon’s eyes were hooded, dark with arousal, but his hands were firm when Soap tried to surge forward for a kiss again. “Not until our wedding.”
Soap threw his head back, groaning in anguish. “I’ve already stood through one wedding today! I’ve been waiting to be with you.”
“You don’t know the meaning of waiting.” Simon told him dangerously. “Your line have too many times tried to worm out of our bargain; I intend to take you directly to the altar and wed you properly, then claim you as my own for all time that none may know where one of us ends and the other begins.”
Aye that suited.
Soap just thought they could afford a bit more kissing in the meantime is all.
Simon lifted him off the floor easily, and Soap half feared the bridal carry that thankfully Graves had forewent but instead Simon lifted him as they were, spreading Soap’s legs wide that he could wrap himself around his nearly-husband, clinging to him as Simon stepped over Graves’s body and opened the barred door with little more than a wave of his hand.
Some force it seemed was on Soap’s side, the shadows dissipating as he laid each kiss over cheek and throat to reveal more skin, nearly blue in its pallor.
“Not my face.” Simon requested, an element of hesitation there that Soap wouldn’t expect.
“Why not?” He asked, acquiescing and redirecting his attentions to the already revealed jaw. “I would know every part of you.”
“Some things are meant to be shared only by those wedded.”
Soap didn’t pout; it was easy to forget sometimes that Simon lived by stricter rules than he, that his words were much more binding.
He anticipated they’d be leaving the family wing for the great hall, where revelers were still loudly making merry, to pass through the grounds for the abbey, but Simon took them to the abandoned east wing. The long forsaken candles that lined the walls in alcoves flared to life with their approach, the old weathered door that some rumor said was bricked up from within parting amicably for them.
“I’ve never been here before.” Soap confided, unnecessary. Dust and cobwebs clung to the walls, rugs and tapestries filled with moth eaten holes seeming to repair themselves as they passed. Soap heard singing, like the silver dulcet tones of a choir, as they approached the doors to the abbey that John I had built. The dark wooden door was in fine shape, as if no time had passed, and opened to let them in.
It was a grand place, in its day. The windows were broken in many places, the mouldering pews askew; it was just like Soap’s dream (sans his loved ones crucified).
“Welcome, John.” A warm voice greeted, and Simon set him on his feet.
A black bearded man, the MacTavish circlet that Father wore for formal occasions and had been donning all week across his brow. At his elbow stood a disinterested woman outfitted with jewels, and at his side was a knight with a crop of thinning blonde hair.
“You’re out of place, Jamie.” Simon said, half in admonishment, though Soap could hear emotion in his voice.
“I could hardly let anyone else greet you first, Simon.” Jamie—Lord James MacTavish, who’d brought about a second age of plenty for the clan a hundred years prior—said, surprising Soap by taking his husband into an embrace of old friends.
Simon held on, grip tightening a moment before letting go, and James patted him on the shoulder. “Go’an. You’ve waited long enough.”
Soap recognized the next faces; Grandmother, whom he had bleary memories of, fixing him in an odd look, and Grandfather who bore some resemblance to his portrait. Next must be his great grandfather, John V, who seemed far more interested in being reunited this day only with his pack of hunting hounds than the proceedings.
On they went, his hand in Simon’s as they walked the pews, passing by each generation of Lord MacTavish. Soap could name them all. John, John, John, James hurrying to retake his place, and the stern woman who stood at the end of their row gave Soap a nod and Simon a half-approving look. The whole next row was filled up with young courtly ladies talking and laughing to themselves it seemed at the expense of Lord Henry, seated on the end far from the others and looking sullen with his Great Pox melted features. Next was Malcolm, who smiled warmly at the pair and returned to speaking quietly in French with Lady Therese whom he was kissing the hands of in adoration. Lord Duncan was beside his father, who even in death was falling asleep at the proceedings. In the front row sat John II, who’d built most of the castle, his wife and his famed mistress embracing each other like long parted companions, and his mother watching Soap mournfully.
There were no portraits of John the Shepherd; the clan had been young, barely turning a profit from the lands they’d squatted on. Yet he carried a humble dignity about him, the shiny circlet upon his head gifted by the King of his time seeming an uncomfortable weight. He stood at the front of the abbey, like a priest ready to command his flock.
“It’s done then.” Simon said solemnly before the altar.
“Took you long enough, old friend.” John the Shepherd gave a brief smile.
“To no fault of my own.” Simon bared his teeth, showing all assembled the sharpness of them. Duncan shook his father awake, who cursed at the sight. Malcolm’s wife, and the brides of Henry, all gave noises of disapproval, the matronly lady beside James’s pew hurling a barb that Soap didn’t quite catch.
“Perhaps it is all as the Lord intended.” John said. “James was the seventh; would you rather have him for your bride?”
“No.” Simon said easily, looking to the side at Soap. “Johnny is… none could suit me better.”
“Well worth the wait then.” John smiled. “Come then, lads. Take your vows.”
“It’s my hand that started this,” John I said, and all at once the sound of the old abbey was smothered, leaving only the two of them. Soap couldn’t turn his head to look around, couldn’t even see from the corner of his eye if Simon was still beside him. “But yours that must end it. Is this truly what you want, lad? To be bound to a creature eternal, capable of infinite cruelty? Your life will not always be easy or godly, and you will be barred from the Kingdom of Heaven so long as your husband makes claim to your soul. If you’ve any doubts, the family will see to the cost. I’ve already erred letting you take this whole debt on yourself.”
“No pressure then.” Soap breathed. “Yes. I love him. I want to be with him, whatever form he takes. I was made for him. And I think, in a way, he was made for me.”
John nodded. “As you wish.”
The sound and light rushed back in, and Simon sucked his teeth in annoyance. “Who’s been teaching you these tricks, John?”
“I’ve been dead a long time, Simon. I’ve picked up a new skill or two. I only wanted a moment with my grandson.” John had a twinkle in his eye that nearly drew a laugh from Soap. “Let us begin.”
The tongue stumbling from Soap’s lips wasn’t one he knew, older than any mortal in this room by far. He couldn’t make sense of the words, but he could feel them, feel devotion and gratitude and possessiveness for his husband, just as he could feel the cold dagger across his wrist, John’s firm hand massaging until he was satisfied with the amount in the quaich, and Simon received the same treatment. Soap was half surprised at the color, the inhuman molten gold, like resin or richest honey mixing with his own crimson.
“My Marianne and I had the old rites at our wedding.” John confided quietly as he offered the cup for Soap to take. “Though we had wine.”
Soap felt the weight of the clan casting eyes upon him, generations that had been ignorant or fearful or outright didn’t believe this day would ever come to pass, as he drank. He heard Simon inhale sharply, and Soap was struck all at once how long eternity was. The ice wrenching and retreating over aeons, the earth churning under the assault and shaping mountains and valleys, countless insignificant life forms each with memory and potential to shape new worlds unto themselves crawling over the surface, remarkable in their naivety and instilled with wisdom of their lineages, the spider who spins without being taught and the cub suspicious of the promise of blood on the wind. Every leaf, stone, ant (Christ there were so many ants) to cross this land, the shape of it unmappable yet intrinsically understood, left legacy in the form of memory.
That was the taste on Soap’s lips, the quicksilver flavor of his husband’s blood in his mouth leaving him breathless. It was all he could do to shove the vessel back at John, who took it with some look of concern to his descendant.
Simon had no such reaction to his own draught from the quaich, savoring every drop like the finest ambrosia, long tongue wiping clean the lip before he returned it to the altar.
“For those of us without an ear for languages,” John said with a hint of mirth in his voice. “Do you, John MacTavish, seventh of your name, take the entity known as Simon in the bonds of marriage of your own free will and under no duress?”
“I do.” Soap said, looking at his Simon with new eyes, adoration in his chest for what he saw. The sip of his husband’s blood was heady, leaving his vision confused and spinning trying to take everything in, but Simon was a perfectly clear fixed point in the midst of it all. “I take Simon as my husband, for as long as we’re granted.”
Simon looked to John, who gave a nod. “Before these witnesses, I declare you we—”
John hadn’t finished before the pair were on each other, kissing and holding each other tight with greedily grasping hands, picking up right where they’d left off. They were married at last, finally joined together, and John hurriedly stepped back as Soap swept an arm over the altar to clear it, pulling his husband atop him.
Soap didn’t care to see where his ancestors went; perhaps they vanished, returned to the great hereafter to await the Second Coming after this brief vacation from purgation, or maybe they left the old wing to wander the castle and grounds and frighten the assembled living. All that mattered is that they were alone in the old abbey by the time they’d finished undressing, hungry mouths and greedy hands contributing some to slowing down the process. All but for—Soap drank in the sight of his husband’s body, physique strong and appealing to him, with broad shoulders and generous calves, but determinedly reached for his mask.
Simon drew back from him, and lay a hand on Soap’s chest when he made to follow.
“Not yet.” Simon said. “I don’t want you to be disappointed.”
Soap huffed. “You couldn’t disappoint me. You could be the ugliest man in the world and I wouldn’t want you any less.”
“But I’m not a man.” Simon said quietly. The wisps of shadow, the fog that had previously shrouded him, threatened to creep in over his jaw and neck, but were banished away like smoke. “Let me have you. While you can still imagine me as handsome to you.”
Soap wanted to protest. Instead he nodded, lying back on the altar so that Simon would climb atop him, positioning himself between Soap’s legs.
“I’ve thought about how I wanted to have you. For centuries I’ve dreamed about it.” Simon said breathlessly, the both of them watching how his prick, engorged with blood, slid enticingly between Soap’s thighs, then more pleasurably between his lips, slicked by their mutual desire. “Positions, angles, with my hands or my mouth, in this form or others,”
“And now?” Soap asked, the both of them giving a moan as the head nearly caught at his entrance as a result of the shallow, slow rolling, but ultimately slid away to press over his pearl. “Got ideas?”
“Can’t remember any of them.” Simon’s eyes found his. “Am I a brute if all I want is to watch your face when I fuck you full of my seed?”
“Yes,” Soap confirmed, hooking a leg around Simon’s waist to try to bring him closer as they had another near-miss. “Christ, love, do it. Want you so much, can’t stand it anymore.”
Good husband his Simon was, Soap wasn’t left waiting long. They both of them watched as Simon angled his hips carefully, taking himself in hand, and pressed into Soap deep and slow.
Soap dropped his jaw, eyes riveted as Simon drew back in small increments and sheathed himself once more, pairing the sights and sensations. It was an exquisite fullness, and on one firmer thrust he bit back a sound at the deeper pleasure within him and how Simon seemed to rub up against his pearl as if from the inside.
“Alright?” Simon asked cautiously—how precious, a creature as old as he sounding as unsure as Soap felt—withdrawing a bit.
Soap was quick to correct this misconception. “Bloody fucking brilliant.” He said breathlessly, grabbing Simon by the back of the neck. “Keep going.”
Obediently, Simon began working his hips again, gaining speed as they went and Soap met the thrusts with his own, chasing the superficial pleasure they were discovering with one another.
Simon was glorious within him, firm and deep and unrelenting, though Soap could tell he was restraining himself. He looked at his husband, finding Simon’s eyes squeezed shut, lips being bitten. That wouldn’t do.
The altar was scarcely wide enough to hold them as it was, but Soap was confident his husband wouldn’t let them fall to the floor. With this in mind he tapped Simon twice with his thigh to make his intentions known, and then he was rolling them until Simon was flat on his back, Soap atop his hips. Simon looked at him with something akin to wonder, and Soap resolved to remind his husband that he was the best horseman in the clan.
Simon was nothing compared to Leo on one of his bad days, though Soap would argue he had motivation not to buck Soap off. Grinding down onto his prick, tightening his walls intermittently, Soap was able to find additional pleasurable angles within himself, using his husband for his pleasure though Simon showed no dissatisfaction with the arrangement. He could be more expressive however.
Soap clawed at his shoulders, encouraging them up until Simon was sitting up, Soap helpfully kissing him to reward him for his good behavior. Bouncing nice and content, exchanging kisses that were more tongue than lips as the combination of them made wet noises with each frantic movement of their hips.
“You feel so good.” Soap murmured against Simon’s lips. “Christ, you’re so deep inside me.”
“You’re perfect.” Simon panted, hips giving an aborted thrust forward. “Johnny, I love you.”
“I love you. Want to be with you forever.” Soap kissed him hard once more, shifting forward until he had slowed them down, resting in the cradle of Simon’s hips. He looked at his husband, what he could see of him, and felt yearning and a profound sadness for him. What had been done to him? What fools had squandered the opportunity to know Simon, had been blessed with the unrestrained sight of him and returned it with rejection? They were long gone now; Soap’s vengeance would lie in seeing Simon’s wounds mended.
“Want you. Want to see you.” Soap’s fingers curled over Simon’s jaw, where the shadows turned to the solid mask of bone, Simon’s hand closing over his own. “All of you.”
For a moment Soap thought Simon would refuse, would retreat back into that shell of the conniving immortal, but his husband couldn’t hide from him. They were one. As one they removed the mask.
Simon’s skin was silvery blue, his eyes oppressively dark, guarded. He had no nose to speak of, only the same hollow as of a skull, and many scars, the largest of which cut across his mouth, revealing snarling teeth to pierce a man’s flesh. His hair, kept short, was the palest flax and carried all the fragrant smells of the harvest.
“God help me,” Soap breathed, looking into his husband’s unearthly eyes at last without anything between them.
“You need not look.” Simon said.
“I’ll look as much as I please.” Soap said, grasping for Simon’s jaw when his husband tried to turn his face away. “For my husband is the handsomest man that ever I set eyes on.”
Simon parted his thin lips as if to protest, and Soap kissed him to silence him.
Face to face like this, holding Simon’s face in his hands, Soap could look on him as much as he liked between searing kisses. Moreover, this was a sufficient position to properly ride him.
Simon’s body seemed to change and shift beneath him—inside him even, swelling and writhing deliciously—as he growled between clenched teeth or shoved his intoxicatingly long tongue into Soap’s mouth, claws gouging the stone altar beneath them—Soap took it upon himself to put a stop to that, pulling Simon’s hands and their long distorted digits to his body, moaning aloud at the first feel of pinprick pressure into his hips, bouncing himself on Simon’s cock like a man possessed.
“Johnny,” Simon groaned, throwing his head back. “Johnny, please, I can’t,”
“Inside me.” Soap reminded him. “Breed me up proper love, want a whole litter of weans.”
It was permission—enthusiastic blessing even—and Soap could see the effect it had on Simon, back arching from the altar beneath them at such magnitude any mortal man would be broken in two before he changed course, enveloping Soap in his arms and body, at last delivering the powerful thrusts upwards that had Soap gasping for breath, blood blooming down his sides as claws raked across his ribs and back as the overwhelming sweep of pleasure had him crying out, body shaking with the intensity of it all and drawing up tight like a bowstring around the enormity of his husband’s physical form—
Simon was greedily lapping hot tears off of Soap’s cheeks, his limbs shaking trying to clutch onto Simon as the bruising battering his insides were taking pulled continuously throbbing euphoria from him as blood from sluggish veins. He could feel it, the heat and the swell like a flame, and at last his husband clutching him with desperation as torrents of hot spend filling him relentlessly left the taste of a lightning storm in Soap’s mouth.
This was more than a deflowering; Soap could feel it, with the scant drops of his husband’s blood yet inside him. This was a contract sealed, an oath signed in blood and now their mutual exchange of pleasure and vulnerability.
“See?” Soap murmured against Simon’s lips, eyes roving over his bonny face. “Worried for nothing, love. You’re beautiful.”
“You’re cock drunk.” Simon accused.
“And in the morning I’ll be sober and you’ll still be perfect.” Soap gave him a pointed look. “If my husband lets me rest tonight, that is.”
“Not a chance.”
It had appeared as though it might storm, the day of the wedding. Tumultuous dark clouds had swept in from the sea, set old joints to aching, but Shirley had faith they would be spared.
She’d spent all the evening before in prayer. Moreover, she’d brought her husband to her bed.
It had never been their intention on wedding to be parted; what need had a love match for separate chambers? But after she’d fallen with child for the last time, they’d slept apart, each of them cold, for fear of bearing a son. They hardly needed fear such a thing now, she thought, though the change of life was not yet upon her. Their son would be wed on the morrow, and there was no point in her John spending all his evening among his books when they were flesh and blood.
They did not have each other carnally; Shirley had washed herself beforehand, had been prepared for it, but her John’s wishes aligned with her own; they’d held each other, lovers after so many years relearning intimacy in the form of sleeping side by side. There was heat, yes, desperate kisses and yearning, but she’d silently wept being able to know her husband’s embrace again, sleeping in his arms more peacefully than either had known in decades.
When the sun rose the storm on the horizon had not abated, but had crept northward, avoiding the castle for now but drawing in a cool fog that dampened the air and weakened the sunlight. This was not unusual weather, nothing that would spoil the day, even as Shirley feared the dark clouds changing course.
They did this around the time of the ceremony. Others took note of the change in the weather, remarking how the rain pelting the windows would make the roads difficult come morning, but thankfully young John hadn’t seemed to notice. He seemed in a state of shock, truly, but Shirley was much relieved he could be roused from it with conversation and was not locked in some devilish trance. Only afeared of the marriage bed, as so many were.
Lightning and the distant thunder began after the couple had been seen to bed, the space between the two thinning. Shirley wanted desperately to excuse herself from the ongoing festivities, the minor nobility and knights drinking the night away, Gillian somehow in her parents’ absence ending up drinking alongside them though her proper Caroline had gone to bed.
The wind and rain battered the castle, but it was too late. John was wed, even if it was to that lowborn churl, and the devil could not touch a godly union. They’d done it, they’d saved him—
Barely discernible amongst the riotous storm outside, the clang of bells was a shock. This was not the pleasant sound of the abbey, but the torment of the hells resounding from the cursed east wing.
Shirley was on her feet, skirts in her hands, sprinting as she had not done since she was a girl. Her fine silken slippers were lost somewhere, her hair falling loose from its plaits until she looked a madwoman, but she cared not who saw her nor who was on her heels.
The doors to John’s rooms were barred when they’d left. No mortal strength could prise them open. The ancient sturdy doors hung open, limp and dejected for having failed their purpose.
“What is the meaning of this!?” Lord Shepherd shouted, the volume of his voice making Shirley jump. She saw now the crowd she’d attracted, of Lord Shepherd, her husband, Gillian, the bishop, Captain Price, Senga, a number of the minor lords who owed their allegiance to the clan.
“The union is unclean,” the bishop was saying—petty, spiteful little man, Shirley wished he would shut up—as she pushed the broken door out of the way.
Shirley screamed.
“Murder.” Someone said, hissed the word, and muttering went up through the group, looking at Master Graves on the floor, brutalized and bloody. Speculation over who could have done this, how this had happened,
“Where’s Master John?” Senga asked, at Shirley’s elbow, and she realized holding her tightly as if to keep Shirley from running off again.
“If your son has done this,” Lord Shepherd said quietly, dangerously. “You will surrender him to judgment or I will raise an army the likes of which your backwater little land has never s—”
Lord Shepherd’s words were cut short, for his tongue did not stay in place. It fell from his mouth to the floor, followed by his jaw, the whole of his face seeming to melt off as wax, his body collapsing piece by piece, and then all at once the smell hit Shirley as maggots were revealed to be redolent in his flesh, body rotted from the inside out. Merely a heap of spoilt meat in fine clothes, Shirley thought, several around her rushing away to vomit.
Her John’s hand on her arm brought her back to the moment at hand.
“I know where he is.” John said quietly. The thunder cracked again outside, seeming to shake the very stones. Like it was laughing at them.
The rooms they awoke in Soap had to assume had belonged to Lords MacTavish of days gone by, now restored to their former glory. A fire crackled in the grate, the window curtains open to let in light and the bed curtains drawn to keep the warmth in. His husband was plying his body with soft kisses, currently mouthing at Soap’s hipbone while long claw tipped fingers brought bright grapes and berries to his lips.
Soap hummed, accepting the sweet fruit and letting the flavor bloom over his tongue before his patience departed him and he was forced to take Simon by the hair and pull his husband in for a languid kiss.
“Good morning, husband.” Soap sighed against his cheek.
“Happy birthday, Johnny.” Simon replied. “How are you feeling?”
“Happy.” Soap pulled himself into Simon’s lap, the cool morning air chilling his bare skin.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” Simon said, but indulged him with another kiss.
Soap pouted, squirming in Simon’s lap. He did feel sore, aye, though hardly the worst he could bear, if he could convince his beast of a husband to stop holding back. Sticky, though he felt he’d spent half the night with Simon’s tongue on him or within him under the pretense of keeping clean. Ready for another round, if he thought Simon could be swayed.
“Hungry.” He answered. Famished in fact. He’d scarcely eaten the day before, and now spent the night working up a healthy appetite. If the sun was any indication, they’d slept well into the morning. “D’you think anyone would bring us a proper breakfast at this hour?” He asked, half joking.
Simon embraced him. “You need never set eyes on another soul again if you wish it.”
“None of that.” Soap sighed, kissing Simon’s cheek. “I’m not a creature of the darkness. Nor do I intend to be.”
“Then I’ll have to grow accustomed to sunlight again.” Simon said.