Nor Iron Bars A Cage (16 page)

I didn’t realize that I was shaking again, until Tobin said, “Turn around. I won’t come up behind you.”

I turned, even though I said, “You of all people could.” I wanted that to be true. That there could be someone in the world who wouldn’t make my skin crawl if they touched me from behind.

He shook his head, and waited for me to face him, before slowly moving close so he stood a whisker’s breadth away from me all along my front. It was unimagined comfort, my own warm, strong, living, breathing wall. He kept his hands at his sides, and said, “Even if you hate to be held, you can still hold onto me.”

And I did. I wrapped my arms around him and leaned on him and gripped him tight.

I don’t know how long we stood like that. But eventually I raised my head from his shoulder where I’d found rest, and kissed him. His cheek first, with a shyness that felt different from fear. And then his mouth. He opened his lips, inviting my tongue. I tried, unsure, and he simply hummed and licked back at my own, sharing warmth, sharing breath. My mouth wasn’t dry anymore and the kiss did other things for my whole body. I broke away from him, needing a little space. “Thank you.”

“I missed you so much, all those years.” He said it simply. “I didn’t realize how much you meant to me, until you weren’t there anymore. I always thought there would be time. You were busy with your studies, and soldiering was what I’d worked for since I was small. I always thought,
‘After I get home, I’ll have time to be with Lyon’.
Even when I came home when you were sixteen and found you becoming infatuated with Meldov, I knew he’d have no interest. Gods help me, I thought it would keep you safely distracted for a while. Then I was suddenly standing there at the burned mansion, looking at the smoking ruin of that hope. I’ve lived fifteen years imagining you long dead and gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No. I understand. Really. You needed time and space and healing. I just wish…” He broke off short.

“What?”

He shook his head. “It was probably for the best. I rode out there to the mansion in a panic, suddenly realizing what was important, determined to throw all my affection and need at your feet if you lived. If I’d found you then, I’d never have had the patience to give you time to heal. Not at twenty. I’ve been hard schooled in patience since then.” He looked straight at me. “That thing inside Meldov raped you, didn’t it?”

My silence was answer enough.
He didn’t hurt me—
I wanted to say that, to reassure Tobin. But nothing was more of a lie than that particular truth.

He took two long shaking breaths and whirled aside. His fist landed on the stone of the wall twice, before I realized he was sobbing. I managed to grab his arm before the third blow. “Holy Bian, stop you fool. You can’t beat bricks with flesh. You’re a soldier, you should know that.” There was a smear of blood on the stone. I’m ashamed now to say I checked that it hadn’t marred the protections I’d scrawled there, before I inspected his hand.

“Idiot.” I turned his arm over to see where the skin was split on his knuckle. I felt strangely older and tender. “We only have three good hands between us. We can’t afford to break one.”

He wiped his face on his shoulder, without taking back his hand from mine. His laugh was shaky. “Good thought.”

“Or who would unlace me from this shirt?”

That stopped his breath. “What?”

I hadn’t meant more than that simple fact, but his arrested attention made me hear my own words. “I can’t, um, do that,” I said. “Not yet. I think. But holding you was very… very warm.”

“I’ll keep you as warm as you’ll let me,” he said softly. When I didn’t move or speak, he added, “Let me clean my hand first. That’s my best court shirt you’re wearing and I’d hate to get blood on it. Then I’ll unlace it for you, and if that’s all, I won’t mind one bit.”

He went to the ewer on its stand, dampened a cloth and wiped at his fingers. Then he came back to where I stood. He reached calmly for my coat, sliding it off my shoulders and taking it to hang in the wardrobe. When he put steady hands on my shirt-laces I raised my chin to help. He undid the knots. His fingers brushed my skin lightly, warm and slightly rough against my neck.

“Arms up.”

I could have done that part myself, but instead I raised my hands and let him tug the shirt up and over my head. I’d thought he might look closer or touch me then, but he immediately moved across the room, shaking out the fabric, his eyes on the shirt. I felt let down.

I stood there, naked to the waist, my nipples pebbled in the cool evening air. I’d never been so aware of my own skin. He folded the shirt slowly.

I said, “It probably needs washing. I sweated a lot. Sorry. I should probably wash myself again too.”

Turning to look at me, he raised the folded shirt slowly to his face, closed his eyes, and pressed his nose to it. “It smells like you,” he murmured, eyes still shut. “Oh, yes.”

I shuddered but it was a good shudder this time, dragged out of me by the sound of Tobin’s voice and the sight of his lashes dark against his cheeks. He set the shirt into the drawer and opened his eyes. His gaze was steady and undemanding, but I still found it hard to breathe. He came back toward me, step by step. I knew that at any moment I could tell him to stop and he would. When he stood in front of me, he let his gaze move from my eyes to my mouth and lower, and lower. “You’ve more muscle than I’d have expected for a man who spends his days indoors.”

“I have a big garden.” After a moment I added, “I’ve worked to feel strong.”

“I like it.”

He was taller than me. As Meldov had been, and…

As if he’d read my thought, he lowered himself awkwardly to his knees, refusing to take his hands out from behind his back for balance, despite the hindrance of his leg. I could have reached out to steady him. I didn’t. I didn’t dare move and risk breaking this spell.

Kneeling, he looked up at me. The window was dark, but the lamp on the wall was a bright one and it showed me the line of his jaw, his straight short nose, the shape of his mouth. He said, “You have trousers on, and even if you beg me, they are not coming off you tonight. But I want to show you that touch doesn’t have to hurt. Can I do that?”

I felt weak, for having a hard time saying yes.

I felt safe, that he waited patiently to hear it. “Yes.”

I expected him to unlock his fingers and reach for me, but he didn’t. Slowly, watching my face, he rose higher up off his knees, one foot tucked under him, leaned forward, lips parted. A breath away from my tight-clenched nipple he paused. I could feel the heat of each exhalation on my skin. “Say it again. Tell me yes.”

The same and so different. This time I had all the choice in the world, and only one thing I wanted to say. “Yes.”

He touched me with his tongue, just the slightest flick of tongue-tip against me. The lightest brush of wetness on a place I’d not bared by my own choice to another man, ever. And I shook with the sweet pain of it. I was lifted up with the realization that I was able to stand it
—
no, that I
wanted
it. I’d thought I burned desire out of myself, killed it when I cut the throat of the man I’d thought I could love. But this was desire, oh yes. And need. And still a dark wall of fear. My cock strained against my trousers, but if he’d touched me there, I’d have done my best to kill him.

He made no move to unclasp his hands from behind his back. Slowly he traced my chest with his tongue. His eyes fluttered half-closed as he moved. The touch of his mouth changed, varied, here a lick, there a brush of lips, and then a kiss over my other nipple. He lowered himself back to his knees and rubbed his cheek against my belly above the waistband of those trousers. He was close to where I desperately wanted, and didn’t want him. But he ignored that and just purred like a big cat. His skin was soft on mine, just the faintest roughness from his chin. He must have shaved earlier, before going to see his king. He pressed a kiss above my navel and sat back on his heels. “All right?”

“Yes.”
Three times tell me yes.
The words of an old spell-chant, warning and directions. It didn’t matter. This was Tobin.

“I will never force you,” he said. “I’ll try never to hurt you, but no man can safely promise that. Any hurt I do to you, I will be desperately sorry for and try to repair.”

“I know. I believe that.”

He stood. “Time for sleep then.” He reached to the bright lamp, and extinguished it. The room was cast into dimness, one small light left. He turned away and walked back across to the wardrobe. I watched him strip with his back turned to me. I’d have said he was casual, but I thought he didn’t really have to bend over that often, in removing his trews and stockings. He had a very fine ass.

He got out a nightshirt, laid it on the bed, and then tugged another one on himself. That significantly diminished the quality of the view, but also eased the tightness of my chest. He climbed onto the mattress, still without looking at me, and moved under the covers to the far side, with his back to me. “We can share the bed.” His voice was quiet. “There’s space enough that we don’t have to touch. It’s a big bed. And should you choose to move closer, I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

I was left standing there by the windows, torn between frustration and overwhelming relief. Eventually exhaustion eclipsed them both. I wrestled the button of the trousers open and pulled them down. Leaving my smalls on, I slid into the nightshirt. It was soft and large, and smelled of soap and sunshine.

Tobin didn’t stir as I got into bed. I could tell he was awake, but he held statue-still as I slipped under the sheets and moved around, trying to get comfortable. Comfortable seemed to be lying on my side, looking at the faintly-lit bulk of his shoulders.

I was so tired I’d thought I would fall asleep immediately, but I couldn’t relax. I could tell Tobin wasn’t sleeping either. After nights on the road, I was familiar with the way his breathing eased and deepened in sleep. The thought of not hearing that beside me in the weeks to come was troubling. I was glad to be done with the king’s task, but the safe home-life ahead, that should have been a relief, seemed dry and empty. I finally couldn’t resist asking, “Will you still ride back home with me?”

I saw him tense and it took a moment before he said, “If the king allows me. I hadn’t known we were this close to an invasion, but I will beg it of him, to let me take the time.”

“And perhaps… visit me sometimes, when you can?”

“That I can swear. Now I know where to find you, you’ll see me whenever I can manage it. I do wish you were closer, but Dark has a good turn of speed.”

“I’d be pleased. Any time you could get away.”

“You might eventually be very pleased.” There was a warm note of teasing in his voice, despite the slur of tiredness.

The events of the day spun in giddy circles in my head. Last night we’d camped together under the stars, and life had been simpler. Now the man I’d considered just my friend lay inches away and was… something more. And yet, I didn’t think I would trade this confusion for yesterday’s simplicity.

Tobin’s breathing was deepening at last. I could feel the softening of my personal living wall, but it still felt safe to have him between me and the door. I couldn’t lean on him— it didn’t feel right in bed like this, with just two thicknesses of linen between us. But I reached out and fisted my hand in the back of his nightshirt, like a child clutching their doll, and pressed my clenched fingers against the strength of his shoulders.

I wished that would be enough to keep away the nightmares, but it wasn’t. Through the dark hours, I dozed, and each time, I woke after an hour or two with my heart pounding. I remembered each dream and they were all the same— Tobin knelt before me, entreating me to accept his touch, and each time, after I said yes, he raised his head and his face became Meldov’s, revealing the wraith-light in his eyes.

I managed not to scream though, and only woke him once from his well-earned rest, so it could be counted a success of sorts. And it took no more than a moment each time for me to remember who truly was with me, warm against my hand.

A loud knock at the door roused us both. The room was faintly lit by an early dawn. The lamp on the wall still burned feebly. Tobin rolled out of bed fast, reaching to his waist as if for a knife. When he felt only the nightshirt, and saw the walls around him, his tension eased, but he still stopped at the door without opening it and called, “Who is it?”

“Message from His Majesty.”

I wanted to ask Tobin not to open the door. I had a bad feeling about this. But of course he did.

The page on the doorstep held out a well-filled bag, and a folded paper. “A note of explanation, sir. And he bids you both take breakfast and council with him at fourth bell.”

Tobin took the items slowly. Perhaps he shared my bad feeling. He shut the door on the boy’s cheerful face, and glanced at a clock on the shelf above his hearth. “We have twenty minutes. You’d better get up.”

“Surely it’s you that he wants. Probably to stop you from taking off to see me home.” There was clearly an affection between Tobin and the monarch— Tobin was the only man in the room last night to get a real smile, and he called the king “sir.” If I had Tobin at my disposal, I wouldn’t let him hare off from a difficult situation to see a cripple slowly across country.

Tobin carefully unsealed the flap. He read the first few lines and then cursed.

“What?”

“I was afraid of this. He sends us this letter of marque authorizing us to use the crown’s purse to immediately outfit ourselves however we think best, for a journey to the eastern foothills. Both of us.”

“I can’t!”

“It seems you must. He’s planning to head out with speed. He’s cagey in his writing, but he says that
“once there, we’ll repeat our successful experiment.”
Which I take to mean raising the ghost again. Can they do that? Raise it in a new place, that is?”

“Sure. It’s the focus and the details of the working that call the ghost from the aether. Done right, you can haul the same poor shade all over the countryside nightly.” I got out of bed, but muttered, “I’m still not going.” I yearned for my own stone walls this morning, and for time to think in peace.