Brute (16 page)

“I’m sorry,” said Aric, who genuinely was. Petrus was fun, sex aside. His company would almost certainly prove diverting. But Aric gave his shoulder a last squeeze and walked to the door. “I have to go. Someone’s waiting for me.”

D
ESPITE
the words he’d said to Petrus, Aric didn’t return to the palace. Instead, he walked the darkening streets, his head down and his shoulders hunched, ignoring the inevitable stares and even occasional catcalls. Sweat made his shirt and trousers stick to his body, and it ran in stinging rivulets down his face. Shortly after the sun set, the skies began to rumble, and it felt as if the hairs on Aric’s arms were standing on end. Lightning flashed. The streets became nearly deserted as everyone rushed to get shop goods, children, and themselves inside. They dragged in their hanging laundry, and shutters clacked closed up and down the streets.

Before he felt a single drop, he heard the rain coming; it was like a thousand footsteps running down the cobbles. And then it was upon him all at once, and he was instantly soaked. Between the dark and the downpour, he could barely see where he was going. His feet splashed through the puddles that appeared out of nowhere. If his mind hadn’t been stormier than the weather, he would have worried about his boots.

He walked until his legs were sore and he was shivering with cold, and even when the rain softened to drizzle and then died out altogether, his head remained in turmoil.

Eventually he found himself by the docks. He stood and watched the fishermen ready their boats and sail away, and only when the sky turned from black to purple and the stars began to fade did he turn around and head back to the palace.

“T
H
-
THOUGHT
you might not c-c-c-come back.” The voice was very soft. In the feeble light of the cell, Aric could make out only the outline of Gray’s form, hunched in the corner with his knees drawn against his chest.

“I’m sorry. You must be very hungry. It’s too early to get anything much from the kitchens, but I brought some bread and fruit.” Aric hadn’t eaten anything at all. His stomach was tied in knots and his head ached.

Gray didn’t respond, so Aric spent a few minutes fussing at his table. He had peaches, which he sliced and placed in a bowl. Then he washed the sticky mess off his fingers and set the bread in the bowl as well, before filling the tin cup with fresh water. He was well practiced now at juggling things while unbarring the cell, so he didn’t spill so much as a drop. He set the food and water on the floor next to Gray.

“I-I’m sorry,” Gray said. His head was so bowed that his words were muffled.

“Sorry? For what?”

“Y-y-you were being so k-kind, and… it’s b-b-b-been so long since anyone…. Y-you don’t have to t-t-t-touch m-me anymore.”

Aric shook his head, even though the other man couldn’t see it. He didn’t understand Gray’s distress. Gray had done nothing wrong. He must have been starving for comfort, and he didn’t know what his jailer looked like. It was Aric who’d been aroused inappropriately, so why was Gray apologizing?  Aric crouched down and set his hand on Gray’s shoulder. “It’s all right. Eat a little bit. You’ll feel better. Or I can fetch you a basin of water and you can wash your face.”

But Gray only drew into a tighter ball. “Y-y-you’re a good man, Aric. You n-need to g-g-g-go.”

Aric squinted in confusion. He’d just been gone for hours. “You… you want some more time to yourself? I can walk around the palace for a while.”

“N-no. I mean…
g-go
. Leave T-t-tellomer.” He moved so suddenly that Aric startled and fell backward, sprawling on his ass. Gray was right there on top of him, grabbing Aric’s arms. “Go before I dream your d-d-death. Please!”

Aric had no names for the emotions that flooded him. “I’m not afraid,” he said, jerking himself away from Gray’s grip and scrambling to his feet.

“Y-you should be.”

“Everyone says I’m stupid.”

Gray knelt on the floor for a moment and then reached for his blanket, which he’d lost when he lurched forward. He gathered the blanket around his shoulders and hunched in the corner again. “I-I don’t d-d-deserve your kindness,” he said quietly.

Aric wasn’t certain that kindness was the right word for what he’d done. Yes, he’d made the prisoner’s life slightly more comfortable, but at little cost to himself. And Gray remained chained in a cell. “Is it true then?” Aric asked. “Are you a witch and a traitor?”

To Aric’s surprise, Gray laughed bitterly. “Is th-that what they say? No. I suppose th-th-there’s a grain of truth to it, though. B-b-but I’m nothing so g-g-grand. I’m a f-f-fool and a weakling, that’s all. S-s-selfish and cruel.”

Gray’s words made little sense to Aric. Why would the crown go to such extremes to keep Gray so miserable if he wasn’t a dangerous man who’d done something terrible? Why would the crown bother to keep him at all, in fact? Aric buried his face in his hand. He was just a simple laborer, nothing more, and he was so tired.

As suddenly as the storm had hit the city, sobs rose into Aric’s throat, and he had no chance to swallow them. He was instantly overcome, all his strength gone, and he collapsed to his knees and wept.

He hadn’t cried since he was very young, since some small thing had disappointed him shortly before his father was hung. He hadn’t cried when he witnessed his father’s execution or his mother’s suicide, not when the sheriff dragged him, unwilling, to the home of his sullen great-uncle. He hadn’t cried even once when the village children taunted him or beat him, nor when he was bone-weary from work and his belly was empty, nor when his great-uncle punched and kicked him. He hadn’t cried when he’d grown up and was reduced to nothing more than a beast of burden, toiling under Darius’s harsh words. Nor when he’d returned home to his lumpy, short bed in his tiny, noisome room, all alone, always all alone. He hadn’t cried when he lost his hand and nearly lost his life.

Maybe the tears he shed now were for all of those things. He didn’t know. All he knew was that they tore his throat and his chest, and they mortified him. But he couldn’t stop them, couldn’t stop them at all.

He was so lost in his own grief that it took a long time before he noticed the hand on his shoulder or the other stroking his short hair. And then he felt warm breaths puffing on his face, and his sobs subsided to miserable snuffles. He would have retreated from the cell, but the gentle pressure of the hands seemed to pin him in place.

“M-move a little c-c-closer. The chains w-w-w-won’t reach any farther.”

Without really intending to, and without opening his swollen eyes, Aric shuffled forward on his knees. As soon as he did, he was enfolded in thin, bare arms. He’d held Gray many times, comforting him during nightmares, but never when Gray was awake. And Gray had never been the one to hold him. In fact, nobody had held Aric since his mother died, and that thought sent him into a fresh and humiliating round of bawling. Gray continued to hold him—although his knees must have been hurting from the hard floor—and he petted Aric’s back and hummed a tune that Aric dimly recognized as one of the lullabies he often sang to Gray in the midst of his terrible dreams.

A
RIC
began groaning before he was fully awake. His back hurt, his muscles ached, and his head pounded. His nose was so stuffy he could barely breathe. And there was a heavy weight across a good part of his body, pinning him down.

Then the weight shifted and chuckled softly, and Aric realized where he was.

“S-silly to sleep on the f-f-floor when you’ve that nice big b-b-bed. Quite c-comfortable for me, though.”

Aric cautiously peeled his eyelids open, but his vision was still blurry and he had to blink several times. “Oh.”

Gray laughed again. “Y-your stomach’s growling.”

“I don’t think I ate yesterday,” Aric answered, somewhat absently. He was still trying to gather his wooly thoughts, scattered like a wayward flock of sheep.

The weight moved off him completely, taking with it the quilt that had been draped over them both. Aric shivered a little in the chill morning air, and then was grateful for the coolness. “F-f-fetch us breakfast?” Gray suggested. “I spilled my d-d-d-dinner on the floor.”

Aric moaned and managed to struggle to a seated position. Gray was hunkered down a few feet away with a small smile on his face. Peach slices were smashed into the dirty floor, replacing the cell’s usual odor with that of overripe fruit, and the bowl was overturned. “I’m sorry,” said Aric. He rose unsteadily to his feet, wincing as his limbs and back straightened. The floor was even less comfortable than his old bed at the White Dragon. And Gray had been sleeping on that floor for years, with bones considerably less well-padded than Aric’s.

“I haven’t d-d-done anything useful for… f-for a long t-t-t-time. Nothing except the fucking d-d-d-d-dreams. H-holding you, I felt useful. Strong. Th-thank you.”

There was no sensible way to respond to these statements, so Aric only grunted. He could understand the need to feel helpful or valuable in at least a small way—it wasn’t only the necessity of earning his room and board that had led him to drag boulders up hills. But he was still deeply embarrassed to have broken down as he did. What right did he have to turn to Gray for comfort? Gray was the one with his eyes missing, the one in chains. Even more troubling, Aric didn’t understand why he had fallen apart so terribly. “I’ll get breakfast,” he said gruffly.

He’d slept with his boots on, but was relieved to discover that the boots themselves weren’t ruined. Apparently the shoemaker had waterproofed them somehow. Aric’s clothing, however, was a wrinkled and muddy mess. He stripped, washed his face, shaved, and dressed in fresh clothes.

Alys looked slightly relieved to see him. “Sleepyhead,” she said, shoving his food buckets into his hand. “Master Sighard will be very unhappy with you for being so late to your lessons.”

“I think I’ll have to miss the lessons today. My head hurts.”

She frowned with concern and stood on tiptoes so she could reach his forehead. Like a mother with a young child, she laid the back of her hand against his skin. “You don’t feel as if you have a fever.”

“I don’t. I think… maybe the storm last night.”

“Oh.” She nodded knowingly. “Warin’s still afraid of thunderstorms. Don’t tell him I told you so! But he spent last night shivering in front of a candle and clutching this horribly dirty little wooden horse our father made when Warin was still a baby.”

Aric gave her a weak smile before turning back to the Brown Tower. The hall inside the tower seemed especially empty this morning. A few days of exploration some weeks earlier had showed him that he and Gray were the building’s only residents. There were four floors of rooms, but most of them were empty, and the rest held nothing but rotting furniture or odd bits and broken pieces of various things, as if someone had intended to fix them someday but never got around to it. On the fourth floor, every room was a barred cell, but none of those had a room adjacent to it like Aric’s on the ground floor. He wondered sometimes if his chamber had been purpose-built for Gray’s keeper.

When he entered the room, Gray was pacing the cell as much as his chains permitted. Gray stopped to listen as Aric shuffled the breakfast things. “Smells g-g-g-good,” Gray finally said.

“Bacon today. And those sweet rolls you like.”

Aric brought his own meal into the cell as well, and ate standing up. He noticed that Gray had made some attempts to clean up the cell floor, gathering the pulped fruit and dumping it in his waste bucket. But that left Gray himself sticky and grimy again. “Would you like to wash up?” Aric asked him.

“G-g-gods, yes. Feels so good to be c-c-clean!”

So Aric brought the basin of water—and somehow found himself cleansing the other man’s arms and hands. The sliver of soap he’d stolen the day before was all gone, but the water alone did the trick. Gray seemed to enjoy the attention. He stood very still with his arms out, his mouth turned up into a smile. The full extent of his enjoyment became clear when the bath was finished. Gray was erect again—and so was Aric.

“Y-you’re comfortable touching another m-m-man,” Gray said thoughtfully.

“Yes,” Aric replied, although comfortable wasn’t how he’d describe his feelings just then.

“D-d-do you desire other men?”

Aric swallowed. “Yes.”

“Do you d-d-d-desire
me
?”

This time, Aric took a step backward. “I… I can’t….”

“If you want to, you c-can. It’s been so l-l-l-long, Aric. So long.”

Gray was beautiful. Enough sunlight snuck in at this time of day to illuminate him. He reminded Aric of an illustration in one of the schoolmaster’s books he had reverently leafed through the previous week. Although Aric had cut his hair very badly and Gray was still too thin, he was beautiful: his face lifted up and with an expression the nearest to hope that Aric had seen since his arrival. And Gray seemed as eager for contact as he claimed, his breaths coming in short pants.