Brute (23 page)

Aric hadn’t any idea. He stared at the ceiling high above, as if it might provide the answer, and when it didn’t, he looked at Quoen instead. She only shrugged. He was going to start blurting names at random when the door slammed open, startling them all. Warin came running across the polished floor at top speed. “Brute! Lord Maudit wants to see you.”

Aric stood. “Excuse me, sir.”

The schoolmaster glowered, but he couldn’t very well prohibit his student from responding to Lord Maudit’s summons. “Tomorrow I shall expect a full report from you on the causes and consequences of the Yganfrian War.”

“Yes, sir,” said Aric. He was already halfway to the door.

Warin bounced along at his side as they made their way to the West Tower. The sky was bright blue streaked with a few white clouds, and the trees in the palace gardens were covered in white and pink blossoms. A few noblewomen were out in bright-colored dresses, their shoulders covered only by light shawls and their hair done up in impossibly intricate knots. They laughed to one another as Aric passed, but he was used to that and paid very little attention. He was too busy worrying about why Lord Maudit wanted to see him. Had someone finally entered Aric’s chambers in the Brown Tower and discovered the relatively comfortable way in which he’d been keeping Gray? Had someone decided to relieve Aric of his duties, perhaps send him away altogether? Had Lord Maudit somehow sussed out what was going on in Aric’s head?

He was a nervous wreck by the time they reached the West Tower. Warin was clearly willing—in fact, eager—to follow him inside, but a guard shooed the boy away, and Aric was left on his own.

The round man frowned at him but ushered him into the office, where Lord Maudit was deep in conversation with a pair of men in embroidered waistcoats. He looked up when Aric entered, motioned impatiently for him to wait near the door, and continued talking. The men had thick accents that were hard to understand, but they seemed to be discussing something to do with the security of trade routes and bandits. Aric decided it was nothing to do with him and went back to fretting. Sweat was dripping down his back and making him itch, but he tried his best not to fidget. He wished he was back under Master Sighard’s disapproving gaze.

After an eternity or two, Lord Maudit and his guests seemed to reach some sort of agreement. They shook hands and exchanged papers, and the men in waistcoats spared Aric quick, derisive looks before they sailed out of the office. Lord Maudit made a beeline for his desk, where a half-empty glass of amber liquid was sitting somewhat precariously atop an uneven pile of books. He threw back the remaining liquor in one long swallow before gesturing for Aric to approach.

“You’ve been here nearly a year,” Lord Maudit said without preamble.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Nobody else has ever lasted a year. Not even close.”

Aric wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he said nothing.

“Why haven’t you left, Brute?”

“I have nowhere else to go.”

Lord Maudit narrowed his eyes. “Do you know why he’s kept like he is?”

“I… I heard, sir.”

“And what do you think of that?”

Aric couldn’t lie about this. He met the lord’s eyes. “It’s horrible, Your Excellency. He’s been miserable for so long.”

“He betrayed his queen and his kingdom. He betrayed his supposed friend.”

“He was young, sir.”

Lord Maudit shook his head. “When you were younger, did you betray your friends like that?”

“I had no friends, sir.” And then, because he might never have another chance, he added, “Please, Your Excellency. Hasn’t it been enough? Can’t he be let go now? Or at least given a bit more freedom? I could… I could escort him around the palace now and then, or maybe—”

“No.” With a heavy sigh, Lord Maudit looked into the bottom of his empty glass. “Gray Leynham’s sentence was pronounced by the king himself, and it is final. More than a decade later, and the king still mourns his wife.”

They were difficult words to hear, every one of them like the tightening of a chain around Aric’s heart. But they also strengthened his resolve to see his plans through—assuming he wasn’t ejected from the palace forthwith.

Lord Maudit set his glass down on the desk again, this time on a bit of bare wood that hadn’t yet been covered by papers. “Prince Aldfrid has asked me to convey to you his appreciation for your dedication to duty. He understands that your task is a… taxing one. I have ordered that your salary be doubled. Two silver coins each month and two extra for the festival.”

Aric gasped. He had barely any need of coins as it was, so he had a healthy balance on the ledgers. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do with twice as much. Oh, but yes he could. He could give it away, couldn’t he? He could live here at the palace in comfort, spend a few coppers now and then on this or that, and have most of his pay left over. How many beggars could be fed on two silver coins each month? How many blankets could he buy to hand out when it got cold? How many times could he pay a healer to stop a fever, mend a twisted limb?

“You may go now,” Lord Maudit said, and after a brief pause, Aric hurried away.

He didn’t hurry all that far, however. Once he was outside the West Tower, he found a sunny bench that was tucked away near the laundry, where the sweet smell of lavender and soap drifted by his nose and a flock of sparrows argued over some crumbs scattered on the cobbles.

Life had never been so complicated when all he had to do was haul rocks up a hill. He’d never been responsible for anyone’s fate then—barely even his own—and he’d had no decisions to make. Now he felt again as if he had a great weight on his shoulders, but it wasn’t one he could simply remove and drop to the ground. And no matter what he did, he was going to do harm to someone.

He’d never had much use for prayers. He’d always figured that the gods had more important people to listen to. But now he bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Please,” he murmured. “Please guide me. Just this once.”

Not surprisingly, no celestial being appeared in front of him to tell him what to do.

When his butt grew sore from sitting on the stone bench, he stood and made his way to the kitchens. Lunch, at least, would be dependable and uncomplicated. He found Alys right away and helped her carry a huge bag of carrots inside.

She blew a stray wisp of hair out of her face and looked at him from the corner of her eye. “Warin tells me Lord Maudit wanted to see you.”

“Hmm.” He leaned up against a wall—as much out of the way as possible—and crossed his arms.

“Is something wrong?”

“No. He just wanted to pass on the prince’s thanks for staying so long.”

“Oh.” She dumped an armful of carrots into a wooden tub, picked up a knife, and began to peel. “Why have you stayed so long, Brute? Doesn’t it get to you, the screaming in the night?”

“Of course it does. It’s terrible.” He didn’t tell her that it was even worse when the screaming man was in your arms, trembling and crying.

“But you haven’t run away.”

“I guess I’m too stupid to know better.”

She snorted. “Come on by tonight after dinner. We want to discuss the wedding with you.”

He didn’t know what that was about, but he said okay and picked up his lunch pail from one of the broad, scarred tables and carried it back to the Brown Tower.

Gray was standing in the corner of the cell, humming something under his breath. He looked up with a broad smile as soon as Aric entered the room. “I was h-hoping you’d come by.” His stutter had disappeared almost entirely in recent weeks, although it still reappeared when he woke up after one of his nightmares.

Aric felt an immediate twinge of guilt for all the time he’d sat on the bench. “I’m sorry. You must get so bored.”

“I’m used to bored. Nowadays I think of the books you’ve read me. Or I just think of you.” His smile didn’t go away, but it faded a little, became wistful. “Those thoughts will do me well when you’re gone.”

“Gone?” For the second time in a few hours, Aric’s heart thumped with fear. “Who says I’m going anywhere?”

“You’ve been here for ages. You c-can’t… can’t last forever. You shouldn’t. N-now that you can read, you could be a clerk, a scribe. Maybe they’d find work for you in the l-library.”

“Maybe, but I’m not going anywhere.”

Aric had stopped bolting the cell several weeks earlier. There wasn’t much point in it, given the chains that still kept the prisoner affixed to the floor. If anyone came to check on Gray, they were going to find plenty of things to make them angry: Gray’s clean hair and body, his shaved face, his pile of quilts, the thin layer of fat he’d accumulated between skin and bones. And it was easier for Aric to enter with his hand full if he didn’t have to fuss with the lock every time. So now he just walked in through the open door and handed Gray a hunk of still-warm bread. “Here. Eat.”

Gray took a bite and chewed at it thoughtfully. “Wh-why are you staying?”

“
Why
is everyone asking me that today?” Aric cried.

“Who else asked?”

“Lord Maudit.”

“Speak to him d-daily, do you?”

Aric huffed with exasperation. “He summoned me today. He said the prince was grateful that I’ve stuck around, and then His Excellency doubled my pay.”

“So that’s why you’re still here? The pay?”

“I’m here because I love you!” Aric yelled, and then bit his tongue. Gods, that was
not
something he’d intended to say out loud.

Gray had gone very still. “Wh-wh-what?”

“Nothing.”

Gray closed the few feet between them and poked him in the chest with a single long finger. “That was not n-nothing.”

If Aric were the one afflicted with a stutter, it might have saved him many times over. Instead, he suffered from the opposite problem: a tongue that was much faster than his brain. “Pretend I didn’t say it,” he begged.

“I damned well will n-not!”

“It doesn’t…. You don’t…. I know you could never….”

“Never what?” Gray said. He’d moved even closer, so that his chest was almost touching Aric’s. If Aric were a foot and a half shorter, they would be nose to nose. As it was, Gray had his neck tilted back, and even though he had no eyes, he seemed to be seeing Aric, to be looking right through him.

“Please don’t do this,” whispered Aric.

“Don’t what?” Gray reached up and cupped his cheek in one hand. “Don’t t-tell you my heart beats for you? Don’t tell you my s-soul sings for you? Don’t tell you that you’re hope to me, l-life to me, the c-center of my fucking universe?”

Aric tried to get a response out, but his treacherous tongue now refused to work at all.

“I love you, idiot,” Gray said.

“But… I’m—”

“Don’t you d-dare say you’re ugly or stupid or w-worthless. Don’t you dare! Y-you’re a giant because an ordinary man’s body is t-too small for what you are.”

Aric had somehow been backed up against the wall. Now he slid slowly down, the stone scratching his back. He ended up on his ass with Gray crouching in front of him. “But you love Prince—” Aric began.

“I th-thought I did, very long ago. He was pretty, Aric, and w-we had fun. Maybe I r-really did love him. I don’t know anymore. But I know what I feel n-now.”

“I’m your jailer!”

“N-nobody can remove these chains. B-but you’ve freed my heart.”

Aric wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. Maybe he could do both at once. He’d never imagined anyone declaring love for him, least of all in a dank cell inside the royal palace. He’d never imagined anyone waxing poetic over him. But gods, none of this made his life any easier, did it? Was this how the gods answered his prayers for a sign? If so, they truly possessed a wicked sense of humor.

“What if I could?” Aric asked very quietly, deciding that it was time to share his secret. “What if I could remove those chains?”

Gray lurched to his feet and backed away. “No. N-n-no! Wh-wh-wh— Fuck! Whatever you’re th-thinking, no.”

“I can’t leave you here. I just can’t.”

“C-can’t take me either. Y-y-you’ll get yourself killed. And for what? I c-can—
we
can be happy here. H-happy enough.”

So tempting. But Aric sighed. “Those chains…. We lie together, and they’re
there
. Besides, I’m here at the whim of others. The prince could sack me. Someone could come in here and see you… see that you’re not completely miserable. I risked my life to save a prince I didn’t even know. Don’t you think I’d do the same for you?”

Gray allowed himself to collapse to the floor. He massaged his temples as if he had a headache and then rubbed at his eyelids. “Of c-course you would,” he said wearily. “But, Aric, th-they’ll search for us. And I’ll still b-be blind, still with the fucking Sight.”

“I can lead you. I bet I’ll be good at it—I’m easy to find. And… I have an idea about the other thing.”

Gray lifted his eyebrows questioningly.

“We’re going to go to Racinas and give your gift back.”

For a moment, Gray simply sat there with his mouth hanging open. Then he barked out a laugh and scooted across the floor until he was sitting next to Aric, their arms touching. “Y-you’re an idiot and I’m a fool,” he said. “And gods, I love you.”