Snow (18 page)

He looked out the window. The gardens were as lovely as ever. He looked at the one shaped like the ocean and thought of the last time he'd seen Gladys, her red tired face and the look on it as she stared at what had been his door.

For the first time in what felt like forever, he hoped.

He asked that night and knew as soon as he did that he'd done something wrong because Judith smiled at him, the careful slow one she used when she didn't like what was being said, and let her gaze skim to Michael. He pressed his hands together and moved them off the table. Only the edge of the dish nearest to him was changed, a thin layer of ice coating over the roses that bloomed across it. It was hard to believe he'd once thought they looked beautiful.

"You miss her?" Michael's voice was as always, warm and kind. David nodded and then let one hand come to rest near Michael, close enough for the edge of his finger to curl up against one of Michael's hands.

Michael grinned at him. "You should go, then. Tomorrow, the day after that, as soon as you'd like." Judith didn't move at all but David watched her eyes flash.

"With an escort, of course," Michael added. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Of course," David said, and curled his finger around one of Michael's. He watched as Michael's skin paled, fading white.

"Leave us," Michael said, his voice gone soft, lost, and he wasn't talking to David. Judith bowed before she left and closed the door very carefully behind her. David pushed Michael down across the table. He breathed out once, twice, and let the happiness over seeing Gladys sink through him, fade away. It was easy.

He held Michael too tight, made everything too cold, and Michael had bruises when they were done, a crescent of them fanned out, finger-shaped, across his skin, and stared at David, wide-eyed with a face tinged a lovely pale blue.

"Come here," he said and David hesitated for only a moment before curling himself around him.

It wasn't until he was being walked through the tan door, carefully stepping past a row of servants with their heads bowed, blocking the street so that no one but him could pass, that he really thought about being back. He couldn't help thinking
maybe
as he walked up the stairs and knew what--who--he wouldn't see. He'd missed that, missed truly feeling, and was glad of it even as it ached inside him.

He saw the door at the end of the hall. Whoever lived there now had hung dried flowers on it.

They dangled from a faded ribbon. There were shoes next to the door. Five pairs; two big, three little, and when Gladys opened her door--he wasn't allowed to knock, the maid who wasn't one had trailed behind him up the stairs and did it for him--she looked thinner than he remembered, more tired.

"Oh," she said, and she didn't seem particularly glad to see him, opened her door with a strange pinched look on her face.

He realized why as soon as he tried to walk inside, the maid not holding him back--he was never touched, not directly, by anyone but Michael--but moving around him silently, turning so Gladys had to move back and David couldn't move forward.

"A moment, Your Highness," she said and David watched her carefully inventory Gladys' room, Gladys casting him a quick sideways glance he couldn't read before she started coughing and turned her head away. When the maid was done inspecting the room--a long stare at the burning flame Gladys had rigged and a thin compressed almost sneer at the bed, the closest thing to an expression David had ever seen on her face--she moved so David could enter the room. Gladys was still coughing, her face a dark almost purple red, and David went to get her a glass of water.

His robes snagged on a loose nail in the floor and the maid moved around him, poured the water and passed it to Gladys with her fingers holding the cup by one edge, face turned away. Gladys took it and David watched the maid's fingers twitch away from Gladys' raw hands still caked with traces of mine dust.

"Surprised to see you," Gladys said when she'd drained the water. Her face was still bright red and David could almost see the blood pumping under her skin. Even her eyelids were flushed, the skin so worn he could see the tracework of blood vessels lining them. The maid who wasn't one shifted a little and David watched her rest one hand on her side, on the hilt of the short curving sword.

"Your Highness," Gladys said and bowed low. It made her cough again and David watched her fight to keep her mouth closed. A thin trickle of brown red bloomed on her lips anyway, dripped down onto the floor.

"Can you wait outside?" he asked and the maid stared at him with her flat eyes before nodding once, slowly. She went out into the hallway but didn't close the door behind her, stood perfectly still watching them.

The rags were still where she'd always kept them and Gladys grinned at him for a moment when he handed one to her. It should have made him feel warm but her smile was coated in blood and her eyes weren't happy at all.

After she'd wiped her mouth she said, "I was going to have some tea," her voice raspy from coughing. Out in the hallway the servant shifted slightly, her sword hilt glinting as it caught the light. Gladys put the cup she was holding down and added, "Would Your Highness care for some?"

David nodded. They drank their tea in silence, Gladys sitting on the floor as she always did and David standing because when he'd tried to sit down Gladys's eyes had gone panicked, darted over to the servant still standing silent watching them.

"Don't come back," she said when he was done, her voice a quiet whisper as she leaned forward, head bowed and hands open for him to place his cup into it.

"I--" he said, startled and hurt and she looked up at him then. Her eyes had been gray once, he saw. Under the tracework of red that bloomed through them, there was a hint of it. Once her eyes had been beautiful.

If she'd heard from Alec she would never tell him.

"King's people coming around--it makes folks nervous and life here is hard enough already," she said, the merest whisper, and took the cup from his hands, rising and motioning for him to head toward the door. She'd done it before, dozens of time, marked the end of a day they'd spent talking by doing the same thing. It was different now. He saw her eyes flicker over the robes he was wearing, saw her standing there in the same dress she'd always worn. She'd patched the sleeves with pale blue cloth. He wanted to take her hands but knew that he couldn't. That she wouldn't let him.

"I'm sorry," he said and she shrugged, eyes meeting his but not looking at him, and shut the door.

After a moment he told the maid he was ready to go back. She looked at him but he realized suddenly that she wasn't, not really. She gazed near and around him with that always flat gaze and he realized that was how he was going to be looked at by everyone except Michael, forever.

David felt alone but he wasn't. He had Michael. And Michael wasn't ever tired from working, would do things like spread rose petals all over a room or arrange for dinners of David's favorite foods. He knew how to do things that David's body wanted, that made him tired and sated, brought him to moments where he couldn't think of anything but pleasure. He always whispered sweet words and never asked for any in return. He even wrote songs and sang them to him. He was bright and lovely, full of joy. It was easy being with Michael.

It was easy because Michael liked it when David forgot everything, liked it when David made him cold, liked it when David left him shivering and blue-tinged and called him back for more.

He liked it when David pulled his hair and bloodied his back. He liked it when David placed a hand on his chest and curved his fingers so the cold would sink, threaten. He liked it when the darkness inside David guided him to care about no one and nothing but himself, his own needs.

He needed it.

Michael needed it because it kept him kind. He knew, instinctively, that having everything led to a dark edge, a place that called you, wanted to consume you, and David could tell Michael didn't ever want to go there. He knew that when they were together Michael saw what was inside him and wanted it, but would never create it in himself.

Michael wanted to be loved. And he was; everyone said so, offered up the words with joy in their voice and light shining in their eyes. Michael was loved because he was a beautiful man, a kind ruler, and had as soft a heart as any King ever could.

Michael was easy to love, but David would never love him.

Michael liked it when David made it snow, would take him up to the palace roof and hold him, plead and then gasp when David tumbled them both down onto sweet smelling blankets as snowfall rained down around them. He would smile afterwards, wide and joyful enough to crack the sky, and hold his hand.

"I love this," he said once. "Don't you?" There were snowflakes caught in his hair, swirling around his face. He looked beautiful.

"I like the sun," David said. "Light."

Michael smiled at him. "But that's everywhere. This is special. You and I--we're like magic together."

David looked up at the night sky. There was nothing to see. No stars, just clouds and streams of gently falling snow.

"Don't you think?" Michael asked, a thread of worry in his voice. David looked at him and saw that his smile had faded.

"Like a story," he said softly, thinking of those his nurse had once told, of brave heroes beloved like Michael was, and Michael smiled again, radiant, and said, "Just like a happily ever after."

David thought that in a story it would be. He was safe and no matter how much he made it snow it didn't ruin the land. He was safe and so was everyone else. He lived with a king in a shining castle, was part of a gleaming gilded world. He was cherished.

In a story it would be everything.

David thought about Alec every day. He missed his black moods, his sharp tongue. His smile.

His touch. The little room they shared, Alec's arms closing drowsily around him and murmuring that he had to get up, that he'd see him later. He missed Alec's scratchy cracked hands on his skin. He missed the gentle way Alec would look at him. He missed how angry he could get. He missed eating potatoes and washing in a tin tub and watching Alec fall asleep after dinner, exhausted and face gone soft in a way it never was when he was awake. He missed the way Alec looked at him, the way he saw who he was and looked past that, straight through to him. He missed Alec and realized that Alec had been wrong.

He knew exactly what love was.

***

The act that had passed through before--dancers, John had said with enough of a smile for Alec to know what that meant--had been cleared out in a hurry, chased out or run off. Either way they'd left behind pots of pinkish and yellowish paint, robes of cheap sheer fabric, and a pile of belongings that had been owned by those who had been there taking their pleasure. Alec had been slow to arrive, waking with a throbbing head from too much drink or not enough sleep or life in general, and when he did all that was left was a pair of shoes, the soles rotted through, and a few crumpled pieces of paper, dispatches of news from faraway places.

The papers had been stamped with an elaborately inked crest, the sign of a minor official wishing to have more power, and it covered most of the print. Roberta came by as he was holding them and said, "Next time get yourself here earlier," in that soft rolling voice of hers and showed him the robes she'd taken, twisting them up small in her hand when John walked by with an ease born of long practice. She'd been with John for a long time. He'd asked her how long once and she'd moved toward him gracefully, as if starting to dance, and then snaked a hand in front of his face, snapping her fingers so that her nails stung lightly against his skin. He knew enough of her by then to know what that meant. He knew what dancing had become to her.

"Enjoy your reading," John told him, his great wide grin eating up his face like always. "Maybe you'll share the news with us later?"

Alec shrugged and let John have his laugh, folded the papers into a tinier and tinier square and watched him walk off to inspect the crowd. John kept the money they made in a lockbox and wore the key around his neck. He complained often and bitterly about how little it was. He also wrote down the amount and kept the figures neatly folded in a pouch he never bothered to guard because he assumed none of them could read. Alec figured that might come in handy someday.

Roberta patted his shoulder. "Best get ready," she said and he said he would, that he just needed to get his things.

The wagon was out back--close enough for them to pile into and flee should a hostile audience or overly interested inspector arise--and he went and sat in it, gathering his gear and sitting cross-legged, leaning against one side.

There was still joy to be had in the world, he thought, sitting there with the sun shining down through the bars to land on his face, and he almost believed it. Then he read the papers.

There was news of lands he'd never heard of, spice routes and wars and great delegations running alongside ornate lines penned to honor births and deaths, royalty and nobility dancing in and out of the world.

Then there was Michael's name in dusty print swimming across the middle of a page, and Alec held the papers tight and read.

David was to be crowned consort, had been chosen to be forever by Michael's side. There was a description of the crown he would be given, a list of attendees. Judith's name was second from the top, a long title resting next to it. At the end was a notice that the city would be decorated and that a day of celebration had been planned along with a call for blessings, right down to the preferred words one should utter.

He tossed the papers on the ground and looked at them lying there. After a moment the wind carried them away and he pictured them drifting, floating back to the desert he'd crossed and sinking into the hot sand. It didn't make him feel better but he was used to that now.

He'd hoped for a while and that had carried him across an endless sea of sand with a caravan full of traders who tolerated him because he asked no questions about the wares they carried, but then he'd passed to the other side and learned the land beyond contained nothing new. There were mines, resting inside mountains at the far edge of the horizon, and wherever he went that's where he was told to go. Even with the dust on his hands fading he wasn't able to escape who he'd always been told he was supposed to be. He thought about moving on, going farther, but knew that no matter where he went every land would be the same. It always was and always would be.