The Book of the Burning

SUNDERLAND

Teryn Wesley gripped the back board of the bed, making a wounded noise while, ass pushed out, spare hand reaching back, he invited Cody Williams to fuck him. He opened his eyes once or twice and turned his head to the mirror at the dresser, and in it he could see the look on Cody’s face, the knitted brow, the almost frown, that intensity, strong as fire. He reached behind him until he seized Cody’s hair and pulled his face into his back.

“Fuck!” he cried out, feeling the sweat roll down his body. “Fuck me.”

They rubbed their cheeks against each other and Cody reached up to pull down Teryn’s face and kiss him. Teryn’s hands were in his hair and running down his back. They stood up now and Teryn pulled down Cody’s face, and his hand clutched at Cody’s sex. Cody moaned while Teryn stroked him there, and then he went on his hands and knees and took him in his mouth, and Teryn’s hands rested on his head, rubbing, massaging, touching his ears, stroking his shoulders. Teryn’s strong thighs pulled Cody in and gripped him while his lover’s mouth traveled down his shaft, over his balls, and turning him over, entered the cleft of his ass. His tongue darted in Teryn, and as Teryn cried out, Cody took his cock and massaged it, feeling his own harden, feeling a drop of semen trickle out of him. He began to massage himself, and as Teryn cried out, he cried out too, his lips kissing his ass, his tongue licking, delving deeper inside until, in that room, they were in a place very far from anyone else where Teryn’s pleasure was his own, and Teryn passed from feeling Cody into almost being Cody, joining with his lover’s desire while, in sighs and moans, they melted.

 

Teryn wondered why it was like this. He’d been with many men, and certainly his experiences with Anthony, and with the King especially, were full of both love and pleasure. But this was different. Maybe because Cody was the same age? Maybe because Cody had been inexperienced and they had to work their way to this, because each new thing was just that, a new thing.

“What in the world are you thinking?” Cody said, his voice going slightly country.

Teryn said, “I think too much, you know? I sit in my own head, talking to myself, thinking about thinking.”

“It means you’re smart.”

“Does it?” Teryn wondered. “I think it just means I think that I’m smart. Which isn’t the same.”

And then, because he didn’t want to think that way, and what he had just said sounded too clever by half, Teryn added, as he hooked his thigh over Cody’s and pulled him closer, “Actually, I think it means I’m lonely.”

“Well,” Cody started to say, “you don’t have to be—”

But just then there was a knock at the door which was just as well because Cody had been about to say, “Well, you don’t have to be lonely,” to tell the lie many men had told in the past. Cody was a servant attached to the royal castle of Essail, and in a matter of days, Teryn would be heading back to Kingsboro.

“Come—” Teryn began, feeling his voice go froggy. He cleared it.

“Coming.”

He climbed out of bed and Cody said, “Where should I go?”

“Just put the blanket over you. The bed’s so rumpled and you’re so little, no one’ll see you.”

He answered the door in his nightshirt and blinked in surprised to see the Lady Eva.

“Lord Wesley, sorry to disturb you so late at night,” the honey haired girl said. “The Queen requests your presence immediately.”

While Teryn looked surprised, Eva pointed over his shoulder to the rumpled bedpile and said, “And you are to bring my cousin as well.”

The whole time they were on their way, Cody kept murmuring to himself, “How did Eva know?” then he would say, “But Eva knows everything. She always knows.”

“Cody,” Teryn said as they approached the Queen’s door.

Cody looked at him.

Cool, Teryn placed a finger over his closed lips before knocking on the door.

“Lord Wesley, Cody, please come in,” the Queen sounded gracious and lovely and all the things Teryn knew Morgellyn was not.

They met here in the antechamber of what had been King Stephen’s quarters, where a small wooden throne was kept for private gatherings. Even late at night, Morgellyn was well dressed in a bed gown of green and yellow silk from Itzumi, her golden hair pulled back by a comb.

“Lord Wesley,” she said, “I have a favor to ask you and I know full well it is a favor, for you are a highly reverenced member of my lord brother’s court. This is why I am entrusting such a request to you, and should you reject me, I will simply find another more free.”

Teryn genuflected, wishing he’d worn a hat so he could doff it for show.

“Only ask, Your Grace.”

“My royal daughter the Princess Linalla has momentarily left the court of Essail to visit her aunt in Senach, and I would have you escort her back to Sunderland. I want all of my children under one roof.”

Teryn was still thinking while he was on one knee.

Linalla ought to be traveling to Estillion from Senach. The Queen doesn’t trust her children in Sussail. Which means she doesn’t trust Hermudis. It would be better to bring her back to Kingsboro, further from the war front. But… would she trust Isobel?

“Lord Wesley,” Morgellyn began, “is there something on your mind?”

“Your Grace,” Teryn said, standing up, “I was thinking that if you are looking for Linalla’s safety, it would be better to bring her to Kingsboro.”

Unless you no longer trust your brother.

The same thing seemed to be passing through Morgellyn’s mind, for she did not answer straightaway. It was always possible that her plans for her children were less than noble, and what could she do when they were far from her? Perhaps she even wondered what Isobel would do with Linalla? Complete the marriage to Bohemond behind her back? Ah, but a Queen must not seem untrusting, especially not toward her own kin.

“Have you heard from my brother, Anson?”

“No, Lady, none of us has.”

She would have sent her to Ondres. Close to Senach, far from Cedd and Isobel. However she felt about her handsome and stupid brother, he could always be trusted.

“A shame,” Morgellyn said, sitting back.

“Well,” she said at last, “yes, I would have you bear her to Kingsboro. I truly believe that soon, and very soon, it will not be necessary, but it would be good for her to see her uncle and her soon to be sister. Surely you would love to see your home again. And, of course, you will take Cody with you.”

Cody smiled fiercely, looking a bit like a goblin, and Teryn realized, That was her play. She knows Cody has a hold over me. She knows Cody was all I needed to go on any journey she would send.

Well then, he thought as he and Cody were marching back to his apartments, let us see what happens when it is only the two of us and a willful princess, and we are all far from this grey castle!

 

AMBRIDGE

That night the bells rang in Castle Whitestone and her ladies came to wake the distraught Queen.

“Your Grace! Your Grace! He’s found!”

As Edith Baldwin combed out her hair and searched blindly for a veil, Ardith handed her a white one.

Opening her door to the guards, Queen Edith asked, “My husband? The King is safe?”

“Lady no. Your brother.”

“Praise God!” the Queen clasped her hands and pulled from her gown the heavy black prayer beads. Followed by Ardith and Lingelde, she and the guards set down the corridors to the Small Hall which stood between Edith and the King’s chambers.

“Cousin Edith!” Lingelde cried, collapsing on the beated and bruised scarecrow of a man who sat in the chair facing them.

“Cousin, Allyn is found.”

“He’s found!” her sister Ardith cried, falling on her knees before Allyn and embracing him while he stroked her dark hair. They had all heard of how Osric Wulfstan had ambushed the party bound north and abducted the new Earl of North Hale along with his King. Here was Allyn, covered in soot with one black eye and a bruise on his cheek, his clothes ruined and his armor gone

“Brother!” Edith cried, joining her cousins and embracing Allyn as she wept before the watching guards and the lords who were now arriving in the Small Hall.

 

NAVA

 Well, they had not been caught. That was plain. Urzad held onto the note all through the day, and waited for the supper where the King would attend.

Phineas’s palace was to the right of the Temple, and the complex of golden colored palaces that made the Takarand was behind it. From there a small party all in white and gold, except for Ethan, in red and white like a sore thumb, crossed the court. It seemed to Urzad, from his rooms above them, that as he watched them walk past the Temple on the broad path of crushed stones and disappear into the entrance of Phineas’s palace, they did their best to ignore the ancient structure.

 

“Why do I feel like I’ve just walked into the adder’s lair?” Rendan whispered to Ethan as they entered the receiving hall, it’s black marble shining like glass, torches in its green pillars and white stone walls.

Behind King Nestor, who was already being greeted by functionaries, stood his brother Bellami Prince Royal. Ethan smiled and whispered to Rendan, “Because you have.”

Urzad  did not know if he would be summoned to dinner and certainly he did not wish it.  When one of the serving men came up to his rooms, he sighed and dressed. He knew there was no time for a bath. Inside his vest he placed the note, knowing he should give it to his master, certain no good could come of it.

The dining hall was lit well that night. It was almost never used, generally locked. Tonight, though, it was filled with blazing chandeliers, the only place in the palace completely of white stone and white marble. Here were lords and ladies who had come with the king. There were some of the heads of the leading families in the city. The Prophet was not here, and Rendan felt sorry for someone who was not much younger than he, and for those who had sided with him. Their days were numbered, and Rendan wondered if the Black Robes could get rid of the One Prophet of the Zahem, how long Phineas would suffer his father or himself?

Here again were, in black, priests of the Temple, and at the head of the great table, his face bland, was Phineas. The King had already been seated at the other head, and beside him were his son and then Ethan.

What was being said at the table largely went over Urzad’s head. It was not important. Urzad assumed that his master was getting the better of these men, and then suddenly he heard:

“Urzad?”

His name called. It was so quiet, without emotion, but it cut across the whole room, and even though few knew who Urzad was, all eyes were on him now, and the music had stopped, and he found himself rising.

“Urzad,” Phineas spoke again. “Today’s search for our enemy did not succeed?”

“No, Master,” Urzad heard himself saying. All he could think of was that silly old woman. Or was she just flat out disrespectful?

“I have reason to believe you do have something for me,” Phineas said. “Do you not?”

And Urzad found his hand in his breast pocket, and he was saying, “Yes, Master.”

Urzad produced the note and Phineas, from the head of the table said:

“Urzad, please bring me the note.”

And so he did. It seemed like a very long walk, and it was a very silent walk up to the seat of Phineas. He was rarely afraid of anything, but right now he was afraid, and he handed the letter to Phineas who opened it, and read it. For the first time ever, and this was only for a fraction of a second, Phineas’s face looked wild, and then it actually looked, almost but not completely, afraid.

He folded the letter and it disappeared into his robes.

“Thank you, Urzad. Please, sit down, Urzad.”

Urzad turned around, making the long walk back to his seat, and thinking how he had expected his master to be angry, enraged, perhaps at him. But not afraid.

The music began again, and the hall was filled with the low buzz of chatter. Urzad wondered why his apparent escape from punishment still did not relieve him.