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thatrcooperTitle: My Man Godric
By R. Cooper
For:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
janedavitt who bid on me in the charity auction for Australia's recent floods at Fandom Floods Appeal. She is awesome and kind and I truly hope she likes this.
Summary: Bertie is just the king's foolish, poetry and embroidery loving, sometimes crossdressing brother, useless in times of crisis and completely beneath the notice of someone strong like the country's most famous general, Godric of the South. Or so Bertie thinks.
Warnings: the vaguest references to the past actions of an invading army.
Author's notes: Ok so I seem to be stuck writing the same basic story these days, but I thought I could at least do it from a new POV this time. Thanks todlasta and sinjah for betaing this. It should be longer, right? And yet it's still long. Sorry it took so long Jane!
My Man Godric
Although Bertie had lived this moment over and over in his mind during the past two long months, had dreamed it to keep himself warm at night and reshaped it to stay hopeful during the day, the true moment itself was a blur of sick, twisting worry, dizzying weariness, and the one overriding thought that he must look a mess.
Not just a mess, but a wreck. The crazy disaster that he was known for being, even if he had never in his life been so dirty, or tired, or dressed so terribly. Not once, not even as a child had his hair been so tangled and stiff with dirt, his fingernails broken and stained, his clothing rough. He had not even had the time to attend to the fit of his borrowed clothing, and the sleeves still did not reach past his wrists, leaving his hands numb and red with cold.
Distantly, he was still somewhat upset about that last point though he was aware it was shallow and stupid to fret over the fit of clothing borrowed from kind people and worn for the sake of survival. But there was almost nothing in the world so lovely as fine, soft clothes made from cloth bright as a rainbow. At home he would have cut and sewn his attire himself, embroidered the detail of robes and breeches and skirts to his height, and mad and useless as he was, no one could deny that he had looked beautiful.
But rainbow-hued damask didn’t suit hiding in dark forests and wild mountain ranges anymore than silks suited the icy air that signaled winter’s approach.
He would have had to resort to borrowed clothing in any event, as his finest cloak, alas, was now in two pieces and draped over the shoulders of the widow Flanders’ two small children, his second finest over the widow herself. And noble though the cause, his skin itched and burned with every step. He decided he would see to better clothing for his own servants the moment the opportunity was available. Warm and thick and soft, and fitted well, so no children went cold and no one else was driven crazy by the rough scratch of this horrible brown cloth.
Ahead of him was the largest tent in the camp, the door flap already partially opened and spilling orange light out over Bertie and the people waiting behind him. It was even more selfish and shallow and stupid, but he wasted another moment hoping there was a large feather bed on the other side of that door flap, and water for a hot bath. He wanted those more than he wanted food though his stomach was making a nuisance of itself once again.
He patted his chest soothingly, throwing aside the thin cloak that had been loaned to him by one of the three stern soldiers that rode guard around his far too small band of survivors.
Beyond the doorway lay safety, rescue, and the love of his life. He knew that, but he stopped with his hand out, feeling the warmth radiating out in his clumsy, half-frozen fingers. He shivered. This truly was not how he’d meant things to go.
Godric’s captain, the perpetually unhappy man at arms at Bertie’s side paused too, obviously stopping himself from prodding Bertie forward, perhaps recalling Bertie’s rank just in time.
It was a thing that Bertie had a feeling many forgot, either due to his dress or his careless manners, but Bertie had never much minded the slights, for he was well aware that he had no head for governance, or war craft.
Nonetheless, Bertie opened his mouth, licking regrettably cracked, dry lips. Wiping a hand over his face and feeling stubble at his jaw made him wince, as did the quick finger-comb of his short hair. Even with his reputation, even knowing the world often thought him useless, the king’s illegitimate half-brother, the princeling with a love of needlework and feminine clothing, he could not help but fret over his appearance at this moment.
Then he heard the children behind him suppress a tired complaint, heard an elderly steward shift against the branch that had served as his crutch, and raised his chin. The captain seemed to still, and Bertie narrowed his eyes in a fair approximation of his brother’s manner.
His tone however, was all his own.
“You will see to my people, will you not, Captain?” he wondered sweetly, imploringly, and yet well aware that he would not be denied. He did not wait for the inevitable agreement. There was only one answer any man could give to Aethelbert of Clas Draigoch, and that was yes.
Unless of course that man was Godric of the South.
Bertie put a hand to his stomach to quell its excitement, though heat was rising in his cheeks and he was trembling like the last remaining leaves in the trees around them.
Godric.
He pushed inside the tent with sudden impatience, forgetting about both his fears and his impossible fantasies of collapsing into his beloved’s arm as he realized he would actually get to see Godric if he moved forward. Godric was here. Close and real and alive.
Also probably irritated with him as usual. He would be polite, spare with his words, but distant.
Bertie stumbled at the thought, worn to the bone, but held up a hand to ward off attempts to help him so he could look past the council of knights gathered around a table. He ignored every startled look of recognition and surprised bow until he found his target, his treasure, the straightening figure at the other end of the room.
Sir Godric of the South. The hero of Bohdon. The Master of the Horse and Captain of the King’s Guard. The stable boy turned soldier turned knight, honored and feared for his courage and wisdom and skill in war even in the lands beyond the sea. If rumors were true, the one man the king turned to for honesty aside from his foolish, bastard brother, and the one man the Green Men from the East were said to want dead more than any other.
He was, on his feet, about half a head shorter than most of the other men in the room and mere inches shorter than the Hereditary Count Vonridii, the lone woman present. He had untamed pale hair, rich with silver, which thinned slightly above the temples, and piercing eyes for all that their color was an unremarkable brown.
He wore plain, likely itchy, coarsely-made breeches, and a shirt with sleeves so short his forearms were bare, revealing soldier’s tattoos, the painful work of a tiny needle and ground up bark and hours of patience. Chainmail glinted at his neck.
Though he could see no wounds, Bertie’s heart pounded for one moment to see the tarnished metal links. He had to blink away the vision of blood, of lives lost, swords in flesh, and held back his gasp with unappreciated effort. Then he looked back up.
There were lines at Godric’s eyes, lines Bertie had not seen before, lines not there when Bertie had last leaned toward him to offer a painfully respectful farewell. Seeing them hurt in the way that he was used to around Godric, like feeling helpless, and he wanted nothing so much as to run to Godric and hold him until he felt as strong as Godric looked, until those cracks at his eyes went away and never returned.
Instead, he swallowed and silently burned with the effort to keep still as Godric looked him over; Bertie was a spoiled creature, it was true, but he would not like to force himself on Godric, again, simply because that was what he wanted. Or, at least not when he was a dirty wreck. He recalled himself at the thought, enough to nod a greeting as he could not seem to force out a sound.
“My lord,” Godric spoke in his low, quiet voice, as warm and solid as a hearthstone. “I am happy to find you alive and unharmed.” That was all, but Bertie reveled in it. He had often wondered if his ever-silent Godric had learned to make his words rare in a court that mocked his low birth. His origin was in his accent for all to hear, although no one in this tent seemed to find it worthy of scorn. Not one eyebrow in the room was raised.
With no one then to glare at on Godric’s behalf as there often was in Camlann, Bertie had no choice but to stare back at Godric. He did not mind. Godric might have been short, but he was thick with hard-earned muscle, and his skin spoke of health and sunshine. Health. Bertie thanked the gods.
The last time the invaders had come, Bertie had been younger and sheltered, but he had heard the stories of what they had done to anyone who had defied them.
But for now, Godric lived. Inside Bertie was pure joy, white like the heat of weapons being forged. Godric was alive and in front of him.
Thus, because Bertie was not only a fool but a fool in love, what finally emerged from his mouth was, “You grew the beard again” and a small tut of despair.
He could have bitten his tongue.
In truth, he did not mind the beard, though it was rare to see a nobleman unshaven. It was simply a long-standing, friendly jest between them, or so he’d thought, begun years ago with Godric riding alongside Bertie on the trail to the Keep while Bertie had pestered him with a thousand and one questions.
The others assembled in the room seemed shocked at the perceived rebuke. Godric, praise the Lady, merely scratched at his chin. It was his custom to forgo shaving when traveling, as they both knew. What was necessary to belong amongst courtiers was not so on the road, as he had once told Bertie, and then had reached out, letting his hand pass over Bertie’s skirts without touching them.
Bertie did not wear his skirts to fit in. He wore his skirts because he pleased to. Just as it had pleased him to touch himself at the memory of Godric’s hand so close to him, and what Godric might have done if he had loved him in return, if he would have lifted them to suck his prick, or just to work him with one strong hand.
“If it offends you, my lord--” Godric started and Bertie took another step forward before remembering himself and halting. He wrapped his arms about his body to keep them safely away from Godric. He had not meant to mock Godric, yet once again he had publicly embarrassed the man.
“No, no, it’s fine. I…we’re at war…don’t be… You should know better than to mind me. I am hopelessly--” He did bite his tongue. Would he never learn?
“It will be gone in the morning…” Godric went on anyway, as he always did, so courteous it was cruel, “…my lord.”
Bertie shut his mouth, hard, but the protesting moan slipped out regardless. He hadn’t meant that as an order. He would never speak so to Godric.
“Are you well, Lord Aethelbert?” someone else asked, and Bertie turned, barely sparing a glance for Baron Gywnn, even if he was a cousin. The man wasn’t smirking at least, likely too taken aback by Bertie’s appearance.
It wasn’t fair. Clean, elegantly robed in silks embroidered by his own hand with the red dragon of his mother’s people, Bertie might have had a chance to catch Godric’s eye. He was tall, slender, with poplar-dark hair and skin of golden brown. Red flattered him. Skirts seemed to let him float as they wrapped and slid between his thighs. A tight bodice left his collarbone exposed, there to be kissed, or nibbled, at Godric’s will.
Of course, if he’d been going to ensnare Godric when within Camlann’s walls, in a dress or even fine leggings, he would have done it by now; he’d certainly been bold enough in his attempts. A few twigs in his hair and scratchy breeches weren’t likely to make any difference.
Bertie saw their eyes on him and put on the court smile he hated, though he was a bruised and saddle sore, though his feet hurt and his skin itched and the cold in his bones had not once faded, not once in the two months since he had stayed behind at the Keep to watch Godric ride away.
In that time he had gone without, lived in terror, felt blood on his hands, and not heard a single word of his brother or Godric. But he was Aethelbert of Clas Draigoch, so with chilled, shaking hands, he smoothed back his hair and straightened the golden torque still at his throat.
“No. No I am not well,” he answered honestly for that was more of his mad ways, ladylike and useless with a blade, crazy even for a child of the Red Dragon, effete even for a nobleman, but honest. It was how everyone thought of him and he couldn’t deny it.
“The Keep has been razed, its fields set afire, its people killed or scattered,” he reported flatly, the wound still raw. The Keep was more his home than the capital city had ever been. Godric’s eyes bored into him, intent and fiery, but Bertie had to finish. “Too… Too few remain alive and in my care, and even then I could not bring them all, only the children and the injured, and I promised I would send aid through I knew when I made the vow that I did not even know of Aethir lived.”
There were raiders again in his mind’s eye, and he shuddered. They had been without horses, a small but ravenous force on foot, disrupting the peace of the valley and for what, vengeance for a war years behind them?
Some of the knights were obviously surprised by this news, by the direction of the attack, the needless but symbolic victory in sacking the autumn resting place of the king.
“They came at night.” Bertie focused back on Godric, pausing to see the man moving closer as though this was a dream after all. “I had no time to send you the message I promised.”
He had made that promise half in jest and half distracted at the flat intensity in Godric’s voice. The tempting heat of him had been near and yet Godric had seemed furious, quietly shaking at Bertie’s stupidity in staying behind while the rest of the world had ridden off to possible war.
“It is I who should apologize, my lord,” Godric told him now, the same furrow between his eyes. “When I heard the report of Green Men in the west descending the mountains…” He stopped and Bertie swayed, just a little, at his proximity.
In his dreams of this he had not swayed. But in his dreams, he had also been clean and Godric’s eyes had lit like new year bonfires to see him again. In his dreams, no one had died.
“My lord.” Godric’s name for him. Never Bertie. Never even Lord Aethelbert anymore. “I am sorry I could not come for you myself, that I had to send others in my place. But I could not leave here, and I had to know if you were alive.” There was a small pause between the last two words, then Godric wiped at his face with an unbearably weary heaviness.
Bertie blinked down at his beloved, tired and just a touch confused.
“You had your duty.” Because this was obvious, surely. Without duty, Bertie would have followed Godric from the Keep and never looked back. He understood it well. It was his duty to care for the people in his brother’s absence as it was Godric’s to protect him no matter how vexing he found Bertie’s devotion to him.
He stared longingly into the piercing eyes at the thought, knowing that he was breathing hard and distantly aware that Godric also seemed to struggle to find air though Bertie was too tired to ask him why.
“As lovely as poetic as it would have been to see you ride in to rescue me, Godric my love, I would never have asked it of you.”
Godric’s head went back at his words, color in his face, and Bertie honestly hadn’t meant to embarrass him again. The last time had been enough.
“You should not speak in such a way to--” Godric tried and Bertie tossed his head. His vision swirled as he did, his pulse suddenly racing. Something kicked at his chest. He was so very tired. A week of frightened and harried travel hit him, all at once. He swayed once more, and brave, protective Godric caught him with one hand at his arm.
He fell forward at the touch, bending to press himself against Godric’s chest, inhaling the stink of tents and a soldier’s camp, sweaty living Godric, iron and leather and all manner of unpleasant, beautiful odors.
Perhaps the others in the room remarked on it, or perhaps they were long used to Bertie’s madness, but Bertie did not look on them.
Godric’s chest moved rapidly with his breath, the mail warm but hard beneath his shirt. The patches of his bare skin felt hot. His hand pulled back from Bertie’s arm, but as always, he did not push Bertie away.
It was consideration for his rank, Bertie knew, and felt ashamed of himself once again for the small moment of advantage and weakness, but he shivered gratefully just the same.
“Oh my war-like Godric,” he sighed to the throbbing vein at Godric’s throat, with Godric’s short beard against his mouth. “I am happy to see you unharmed as well.”
Godric drew in a deep breath, then swallowed to speak.
But something wriggled between them, a fierce, annoyed wriggle that ended Godric’s words before they began. He stepped back to stare down at the front of Bertie’s loose, borrowed peasant clothing, and then Godric—the other Godric—poked his furry head out of the neck of Bertie’s shirt, blinking yellow eyes and offering the room a meow that was as pitiful as how Bertie felt.
~~~
A few of the knights had found it amusing, Bertie reflected, feeling a sad sort of amusement as well as he stayed still under a mound of warm blankets that smelled of sweat and horse and, quite possibly, seed.
It was a tantalizing thought, or torturous, if he considered that Godric could have been with others here. The love of his heart had often taken other soldiers to his bed, if stories were to be believed, and Bertie had no reason not to believe them. Godric was a great man, and he was not the only one to see it. He was simply the one who did not mind the world knowing at whose feet he longed to rest.
Godric—the wrong Godric, the feline Godric—was curled up at his side, asleep. The cat was skin and bones but Bertie feared he did not look much better. It had been some time since he’d sat down to a feast. Two months in fact.
Godric the man, and the others present the night before, certainly had not seemed pleased with his appearance, after watching Bertie remove his thin cloak. Godric in particular had seemed much agitated when Bertie had stumbled, yet again, while trying to explain why the cat had been fed but he had not, and then as though Bertie was not a full grown, quite tall man, he had found himself picked up and carried to the smaller enclosure in the tent and deposited here, in Godric’s very bed, from Godric’s very arms.
The bed was not made of feathers, and was low to the ground, but it was very warm and indecently scented of Godric. Despite his protests, Bertie had fallen asleep here to the sound of the unhappy captain relating their journey from the forests around the Keep to here.
Bertie recalled his own voice sleepily entreating Godric to care for his people, and Godric returning to stare down at him after that, and then nothing.
He was dirtying up Godric’s bed, and there was movement in the outer room, but for one more moment, Bertie stayed where he was, holding onto his dreams for a bit longer. In this dream, when Godric had come to him to say goodbye, he had kissed him and twined a wreath of flowers into his hair as tradition demanded.
But then the spirit of his brother, and his father, and his mother, and even the widow Flanders, compelled him to his feet. He had slept too long as it was, as the growing light told him.
In the outer room he stopped in place and rubbed at his eyes. Then he smiled.
Godric was standing at attention near the table, and by the opposite corner of the tent, by three braziers hot even at a distance, was a small bathing tub.
“I love you,” Bertie told him by way of good morning. Godric’s shoulders went back and his glance over was gently reproving though he said not a word. He was wearing armor and a long fur cloak. Bertie’s shoulders felt tired just imagining the weight.
Godric was armed as well, though he did not wear a helmet and carried no shield. So no battle then, but there was worry enough to have him ready for one. Bertie tried to keep his smile, conceal his concern, but feared he failed. Godric seemed to misunderstand in any event.
“Enjoy it. It might be your last chance for some time unless you are willing to risk a stream.”
Bertie shivered as he removed his gold. “I am far too delicate for an icy stream, Godric, everyone knows that.”
“Delicate,” Godric repeated, his chin rising slightly. It fell again when skin-and-bones Godric headed over to curl around his feet. Not hiding his envy, Bertie sighed then set to work untying his boots.
“You are perhaps soft, my lord, but not delicate.” Godric mused, almost to himself, for he did not look at Bertie. “A delicate man would not have made a journey of nine days in seven, with injured and weak people to care for.” Godric stared at the cat that bore his name and so did not see Bertie freeze with his hands on his shirt hem.
“My people? You saw to them.” He had no doubt Godric had cared for them, but Bertie could not add to his burdens. Once dressed, he would go out and see to them himself.
“As requested, my lord.” Godric nodded, going on when Bertie sighed again, with pleasure this time. “Beds found. Mouths fed. Wounds bandaged, as needed.”
“Praise the Lady. Thank you, Godric.”
“I spoke to them,” Godric offered, and Bertie glanced over curiously when this was all Godric seemed about to say. Godric generally didn’t offer much in conversation unless they were alone, and even then it was usually at Bertie’s instigation, not that he was complaining. Godric hesitated once more, for the smallest moment. “I spoke to Torr also.”
“Torr…Oh your unhappy captain.” Bertie realized. “He was not pleased to be sent on that mission, was he? Go find the king’s fool brother if he’s not already dead, meanwhile he was needed here.” He went on when Godric seemed startled and ready to interrupt him. “Oh, don’t lie to me now, Godric, or be polite. I walked through this camp last night. This isn’t close to the entire army. This is barely a full legion. What’s happening? Where’s my brother? Where’s everyone else? You should not have worried about me.”
He swallowed, because that had not been an easy thing to say, though it had sounded quite kingly, in a certain way. Like something from a long cycle of warrior poems.
“I do not want to imagine the winter you would have faced if I had not.” Godric swung his gaze up from the cat. For all his talk of winter, it was so very warm.
“Neither do I, my love,” Bertie exhaled, then flinched at his choice of words. “I… Sorry. I know things must be different in the south. I did not mean to offend you, with my ways.” North or south, Bertie was crazy, it was fact.
“I am not offended,” Godric interrupted, then cleared his throat. “There are several legions with your brother in the capital, preparing to move north.”
“You’re not with him?” Bertie threw his shirt to the floor. He was cold, but it was a relief to his sensitive skin to have it off. He pulled at his belt and the waist of his breeches until they fell too.
When there was no answer, only a sudden, tense kind of silence, he looked up, but Godric was regarding the cat with concentration, as though formulating a battle plan. Someday, Bertie was going to make the journey to the south to find if others there were so prudish. The first time Godric had witnessed the Keep’s harvest festival, he had flushed to his ears and stared, flat-eyed and undoubtedly disapproving, as Bertie had consumed glass after glass of wine and then called to him from the fields.
Admittedly, the mysticism of the night tended to go to Bertie’s head. As did the flagons of wine and sweet cakes. Of course, he had often wondered, tortured himself, if it could have been the difference in their positions holding Godric back and not mere distaste for Bertie, but the workers and field hands of the valley around the Keep had never hesitated to join in the festivities. During the last yield of the harvest, as the new year and winter approached, with the moon high and the sky dark, there was no difference between noble and peasant. At least not to be seen from the shadows of the bonfires. So as respectful as Godric always was of him, never failing to forget his title, this could not be the reason.
Nonetheless, this was precisely why autumn was Bertie’s favorite time of year. Traveling from the capital with a smaller court was an additional reason to love it, but mostly it was dear to him because it meant days of riding with just Godric and a relative handful of others and heading toward festivities which promised him yet another chance to have Godric to himself amongst those bale fires.
He stepped into the tub, then moaned low in his throat. The water was lukewarm but it felt divine.
“I…am sorry there is no soap for you.” Godric’s voice was barely a whisper and stayed rough even when he coughed. “I have advised the king and his ministers, but I could not leave the rest of the country undefended or allow us to be outflanked. Though the north, by sea, is to their greatest advantage, a determined, vengeful enemy might attempt other routes.”
“Like over the Western Mountains.” Bertie ducked to get his hair wet.
“…Thought that unlikely, but possible.” Godric continued as Bertie brought his head back up. “They were over-ambitious in trying. Those mountains are difficult enough for one caravan during the summer. An army could not make it.”
“Enough of one did,” Bertie replied sharply, only to slap a hand to his mouth. He glanced over helplessly. Godric looked at him again, but only to bow his head as though Bertie were welcome to put a sword to his neck.
“The failure was mine.”
“No. No.” Bath or no, Bertie stood up, gesturing until he saw that this time Godric’s gaze stayed on him. It traveled down, then quickly came back to his face. “You tried to tell me.” Bertie’s voice softened without his permission, perhaps at the renewed cold that left him trembling, or the heat in his blood at odds with his prickling skin. But he remembered that moment all too well, the morning light blinding as it had bounced off Godric’s armor, the cheers and cries from the people outside, silence between them as he’d fought not to say anything.
Godric seemed to as well. The distance between them had never been so great, and then Godric plucked a length of fabric from the table and came forward to offer it as a towel. Bertie took it without looking away, compelling Godric to look at him. “You tried to tell me, but I stayed behind and told the soldiers to go.”
“You had your obligation, my lord.”
Staring through the wet strands of his hair, Bertie couldn’t see much, but gasped at the brief second when Godric did not relinquish the towel, and he was surrounded by Godric’s arms. His shiver as they left him was not for show, just as it wasn’t only exhaustion that made him ache.
It had been so long since he had been with anyone, and this was his Godric. He was burning with need at the barest touch.
“Godric please,” he whimpered without shame. “I beg of you. Don’t call me that again.” In the early days of knowing him, Godric had addressed him as everyone else but Aethir did, as Lord Aethelbert. Of course in those days, Bertie had not realized his feelings and so had not announced them to the world and become the bane of Godric’s existence. They had often conversed, in that long ago time, had once even shared a bowl of the daisy tea favored in the south. He had only himself to blame that those times were over.
“It offends you?” Godric lowered his voice even more to ask the simple question, seeming to choose his words carefully. Bertie shut his eyes tight and set about forcefully rubbing away the wet chill. “Am I not addressing you correctly? I can never be sure with you Northerners, but a lord is a lord. It’s not wise to forget that, I learned that at a young age.”
Bertie stilled with one hand in his hair, his throat dry and tight.
Godric was low born, it was true, but it was not a subject ever directly questioned, not with his worth proven, not with the king’s esteem for him. Others might still scorn him for his way of speaking, his frankness of manner, everything that made him who he was, but Bertie never had, not even when he itched to sew new clothes for him and keep his armored polished. He looked over.
His beloved had turned from him and was seated with the cat in his lap. His hand dwarfed the dainty creature, but it seemed content enough.
Godric petting Godric, the cat that had nearly…no, it had not been the cat, but Bertie’s reckless mouth. Elated from so much time spent in the company of the country’s hero, and yet relieved to be at the Keep and no longer on the road, Bertie had been a bit over exuberant, as usual.
It was a trait that the people of the valley had always seemed to regard fondly, unlike the stuffier members of his brother’s court. When he had been offered a kitten by one delightful child instead of the usual welcoming gifts, he could not refuse. Aethir got casks of wine and a stag, Aethelbert got a kitten. He did not mind.
“How was I to say no?” he had explained later at the head table during the banquet for their arrival, after the kitten had poked its head from his bodice to sniff at his plate. It had been a puffed bodice, not tight, and the kitten might have gone unnoticed if it had not gotten hungry.
The courtiers with them had laughed. His brother had merely smiled and asked for his new pet’s name, and then, as an afterthought, wondered why the cat had been hidden in his clothing.
The poor thing had been cold. Bertie should have said that. Instead he’d looked over to see if Godric had laughed too.
Seated not far from dear Aethir, Godric had not been smiling—he rarely did at court functions—but he had seemed to hold the same softness in his gaze as had the king. That same fondness for Bertie. It had been remarkable.
Thus, what Bertie had said had been the loud, and stupid, “Because how else would I keep my little Godric with me at all times?” He had named the kitten, humiliated himself, and embarrassed Godric in one fell swoop. It was almost a natural talent.
The others present had found this hilarious, but then, there was very little about Bertie’s public devotion that they did not find amusing. The king’s half-brother blindly in love with the duke of war himself, a man who, to most of them, was still a stable boy and always would be. Just as Bertie was always the child with the foreign mother, tolerated and sometimes courted because he often had the king’s ear and because their father had made certain that his bloodline could not be denied by giving him his mouthful of a name.
He cleared his throat.
“I am hardly a lord, Godric. My mother was not a lady, and regardless of my father’s generosity, I do not have any real title at all.” Unless he counted bastard. He had been given lands and money, had been treated well and loved by his family, but it was true, he was no lord.
“I am afraid I must disagree, my lord.” Godric scratched, ever so carefully, and the cat purred, obscenely happy. It was truly the strangest cat, throwing itself at strangers instead of running from them. Perhaps it had grown so used to being carried next to Bertie’s heart that it sought out the rhythm with others.
Without warning Godric raised his head and Bertie ended his daydream of lying with his ear to Godric’s chest. “Along with your brother, and one or two esteemed generals often at my table, you are one of the few I have met with a true claim to nobility.”
Plainspoken and true, it hit Bertie like an arrow. Or perhaps that was Godric’s gaze. The towel fell right from his hands but somehow he felt warm. Not warm, hot.
“I… It’s well known that I’m a fool, Godric,” he whispered, not certain why he spoke, why he’d argue if Godric had finally ceased to find him a complete nuisance. Godric shook his head and then gently placed the cat on the floor before standing up.
“You are the brother of a good king and your great father’s son, my lord,” he disagreed quietly. “You are noble to your toes.” He paused, then firmed his lips. His face seemed to grow darker. “There is food there, and clothes,” he waved at the table, glancing over Bertie once before politely averting his eyes, “if you wish to visit with your people before I figure out how to best get you all safely away, and in the meantime--”
“Clothes?” Bertie looked over and saw fine cloth. He wrinkled his brow.
“Your brother’s--”
“Why do you have my brother’s clothing in your tent?” Bertie wondered sharply, shutting up only when Godric’s expression filled with disbelief.
“He left them here.” With hindsight, this was obvious, and Bertie almost ducked his head. He settled for a shrug and then a small smile when Godric went on about how he did not think the clothes Bertie had been wearing suited his soft skin. It was not an insult when Godric said it. “In the meantime,” Godric finally finished, pointedly, “my tent is yours, my lord.”
“You…” Bertie’s breath left him. “Where will you sleep?”
Godric froze for one moment, then inhaled. Bertie ignored his probable discomfort.
“Your bed is lovely, Godric, but I won’t push you out of it.” He wasn’t teasing, not even a little. He would never push Godric out of any bed.
Perhaps knowing that, or used to him, Godric’s lips briefly turned up and he slanted a look to him that was surprisingly warm. “The ground is good enough for me, my lord.” Then he half-turned away.
“I’ve slept on the ground too, Godric beloved, and I don’t care if you were a stable boy, the ground isn’t fit for anyone, much less the man with a nation relying on him. Sleep in your bed.”
“Is that an order?” Godric returned softly, with all manner and respect, then scratched at his chin, which was bare and clean-shaven, a fact that Bertie had so far nicely and properly refrained from mentioning. He gave up that attempt in the face of Godric’s stupid sense of honor due him.
“I didn’t order you to do that!” he insisted, a touch shrilly, only to fall silent when Godric smiled again.
“We all have our reasons to do what we do, my lord,” Godric offered seriously, even with that faint, warm pleasure still in his eyes, and then left the tent while Bertie stood there, stunned and naked, behind him.
~~~
He dressed as quickly as possible, and was not ashamed of how fast he stuffed the offered food into his mouth. For once he did not stop to make certain his hair gleamed or to straighten his clothes, or even to shave to the roughness from his jaw.
He had matters to attend to, and, as it happened, Godric had seen him look his worst and had not objected. Godric, Bertie's mind whispered dizzily, had found him noble. If he could not have an answering declaration of love, then that would do. Besides, if being unshaven was the look of peasants and soldiers, then it ought to do for the dead king’s bastard.
Outside the tent was much hushed activity—as hushed as armored men and horses could get, which was not much. But there was a marked difference in their movements from how they had been at the Keep months earlier with everyone brimming with excitement. Heaviness was with them now, impatience and a hint of worry.
The air around them was crisp and the sunlight pale. It would be warmer nearer the capital, but no one was slowing in their work, and no one was frozen with fear.
They were preparing to decamp, Bertie realized with sudden alarm. And he could not see Godric. But even as he wondered what had happened last night to bring this about, he knew, and allowed himself one short, rare, frown of displeasure. It was part of Godric’s duty to protect him, but he was to serve the country and his brother’s wishes first.
Of course, after an hour of searching and receiving stunned, perplexed stares from soldier after soldier that always seemed to turn to irritatingly knowing grins, he got distracted by his group of survivors. They were doing well, or well enough, considering many of their friends and loved ones were dead, or hiding in the mountains, and they would not see their homes again until spring—and that only if all went well.
He found the widow and her children in the company of Godric’s fierce Captain Torr, which was surprising until Bertie remembered how the widow’s young sister had woven flowers into his hair the morning the soldiers had departed with the king.
She had survived the raid on the Keep with scars of her own, but had stayed with the others in the mountains to watch for any more Green Men. The locals knew the mountains better than any invaders, and they would not be taken unawares again.
More surprising was how the angry captain bowed low to Bertie at first sight of him and then offered another nod when he had finally taken his leave. Considering that the captain’s words to him at finding them all near the ruins of the Keep had been, “Thank the gods you are not hurt,” followed quickly by, “So few of you left?” Bertie had assumed the man had blamed him for the Keep’s destruction. A warrior prince like Aethir might have saved it.
There had been no time to send a messenger ahead to Godric to ask for help, and no one to spare to do it in any case. The decision had been made there, with the captain insisting that his orders were that Bertie could not remain, that he had to get Bertie back to Godric, until Bertie had invoked his position and insisted that the injured and helpless must come back with him or he wasn’t going, Godric or no Godric.
It had perhaps been the most bizarre thing Bertie had ever said, and a surprise even to himself as he had said it. Then the captain’s face had changed, something dawning in his expression before he had gone blank and offered Bertie another slow nod.
The captain’s undoubtedly reluctant mission of rescue had been turned into a grueling journey back. He had barely spoken to Bertie in that time, only watched their progress with obvious impatience. He had not mentioned the widow’s sister, but had not needed to; dried flowers had hung from the man’s saddle.
Many of the men closest to Godric had been to the Keep each harvest, and Torr had not been the only one to ride from its courtyard two months ago with a late-blooming flower in his hair and who now had a posy to remind him of a loved one awaiting his return.
Bertie would not blame them for their anger if being ordered to protect Bertie was taking them farther from the battles needed to end all this and bring them home.
But what had seemed like anger on the road did not seem it in the camp. By the time Bertie had seen to his scattered people and temporarily given up his search for Godric, he had been saluted more than he had ever been in the capital. More than that, he found that soldiers who came by to wish his people well and ask about those left behind had offered him that same slow nod.
It was puzzling. While Bertie had not been hated, he was not the king. He was an embroidering lover of poetic tales who had repeatedly humiliated their commander.
He intended to ask about it from the one person who was not his brother who was guaranteed to be honest with him, but when he returned to the tent just after midday, it was again filled with knights and generals. They all immediately rose, but he waved them down.
“We’re leaving? Where are we going, north?”
“That is under discussion.” The Count rolled her eyes, Bertie assumed for the interruption, but then she looked to Godric. “We were waiting here to assess the threat. Now it has been assessed.”
“They can come from any direction, as they’ve proven. If they reach the capital we are lost anyway,” someone Bertie did not know by name insisted, but stopped for him. “I apologize if the topic upsets you, Lord Aethelbert.”
“Upsets me?” Bertie blinked. “I’ve already seen a place I love destroyed. What would upset me would be doing nothing while it happens again.” He lifted his chin. His tone was less imploring and more demanding, but he did not alter it. “What is being done?”
“Pray do not take offense, cousin, but this is hardly an area of interest to you,” the Baron began, then shut his mouth when Bertie opened his.
“It is of interest to me, cousin, when my people are ravaged, killed, and dragged from their homes before my eyes. It is of interest to me that my brother have a capital to return to, and that those seeking refuge from these horrors be welcome behind Camlann’s walls.” He bit out each word. “Furthermore, as I have recently been reminded, I am my father’s son, and as long as someone of our blood occupies the capital, we shall remain undefeated.”
Or so the legend went, but as with so many of those stories, Bertie wasn’t convinced that his ancestors hadn’t simply made it all up to keep their thrones, or to calm a frightened populace during another crisis.
Even if it was only a story, others believed it, like the villagers around the Keep, who swore that someone of royal blood had to bless their last harvest to ensure success in the years to come.
Bertie’s gaze was drawn back to Godric at the thought, at the memory of explaining that very thing, his voice quavering at the blazing force there to be read in Godric’s expression.
“Lord Aethelbert has his brother’s regard, and has sat in during other councils,” Godric spoke at last, watching Bertie in return. “His opinion will likewise be valued here.”
“For what it’s worth, I agree.” The Count, however, also sighed. “But with the mountains so vast, we cannot take forces away to protect the capital anymore than we could have spared them to protect your family’s holdings in the valley.” Her smile hinted at regret without actually offering any. Bertie could not have cared less about her feelings.
“We’re going west? There are survivors ready to join you there.”
“Some of us.” Another reluctantly broke the silence that fell at his question. “The north, above the old wall, is still where they can land and gather enough of their forces.”
“Land enough at once,” Godric interrupted. “If that is even their wish. We have already seen what they are capable of in these small raids. And even if they are driven back to the sea, if they destroy our farms as they destroyed the fields and vineyards they found in the west, they can return next year when we are weakened.”
“The south lands are fertile. The yields of grains alone…” The tent was filled with sound again, outrage tinged for the first time with real fear at this dreadful realization. Bertie shivered.
He was new to war-making, but somehow, as a possible strategy, this seemed beyond wicked. This was war on unarmed peasants and not the knights, this was killing everyone slowly from the ground up. That was far worse than destroying the Keep simply to mar the legend of the royal house.
If that was the case, then the capital could expect an eventual attack, or if not that, then to be overrun with too many people and not enough food to feed them. The people needed to be warned, and supplies readied.
He shook himself and focused back on the heated debate before him.
“You are going to divide up your remaining forces,” Bertie realized aloud. He looked at Godric. “What of Camlann?”
Most of those in the room went silent, or looked down.
“If they reach that, then we are already lost.” The same man repeated his same stupid thought after clearing his throat. Bertie made a rude noise.
“Don’t speak of doomsday. Castles can be rebuilt. My mother’s people were conquered, and yet they still exist.” He felt cold all over again, but resisted the urge to huddle into his brother’s clothes. Instead he walked over to the roll of blankets and pillows in the far corner of the tent to where little Godric was resting and scooped him up.
“I should go to the capital,” he spoke into spiky fur. “I know you won’t like that, Godric, but it makes sense.”
There was another moment of tense quiet. Perhaps two.
“I mean…someone has to see to things,” Bertie finished, with a trace less certainty. His stomach twisted. When he looked over, Godric had his eyes closed.
“Aye,” Godric agreed softly, then pulled his shoulders back. “I will go with you, and then--”
“No!” Thankfully, the others objected before Bertie had to. He wasn’t sure if he could have. Everybody began speaking at once, a cacophony that made him want to cover his ears—or run to Godric, but he thought that might weaken his argument. There was also a good chance Godric would be angry with him.
He was angry with himself. Whatever the danger, he could have stayed with Godric and instead he was likely going to make a perilous journey with the Keep’s wounded citizens for company, to a city at risk of at best a small attack and at worst a successful invading army. But they were right, in a sense. If Aethir and Godric’s forces lost and the city was overrun, then something of them had to survive. And if that was not the case, then someone still had to see to the business of governing or more would suffer.
Nonetheless he was a fool. It was no wonder his brother was often tired with the weight of this duty. This was not what Bertie wanted. He had only ever intended to make the burden lighter for his brother, for Godric, not to add to his own.
“It is not as though I enjoy leading,” he jested darkly, too quietly. He got a snort for that, a short laugh from someone else. At least they would not believe he was grabbing for power. There was always that.
He focused back on Godric, on the arguments that seemed to have abated or at least subsided. Godric did not look pleased when he looked at Bertie. And he did not speak to him, even if his gaze stayed with him.
“Have the riders arrived with news?”
“Two, Sir Godric. We are waiting on the others.”
Godric clenched his jaw to hear that, then moved, past them all, past Bertie, toward the door.
“We will hear from them before deciding,” he grunted, hardly issuing words at all. He was angry, more furious than he had been in the doorway of Bertie’s tower room, with a scattering of red and white blossoms in one hand.
His voice rose a fraction, but only a fraction, and then he was intent, with stratagems behind his eyes that Bertie could not read. “Only then.”
But the decision was all but made, and Bertie cursed his stupid mouth for once again getting him into trouble. Why could he never be silent when it counted?
“Godric,” he blurted anyway, shivering when Godric paused but did not turn. “I must go where I am needed.”
“And so must I, my lord.” Godric did not offer him a smile this time as he left. “So must I.”
Part Two
By R. Cooper
For:
janedavitt who bid on me in the charity auction for Australia's recent floods at Fandom Floods Appeal. She is awesome and kind and I truly hope she likes this. Summary: Bertie is just the king's foolish, poetry and embroidery loving, sometimes crossdressing brother, useless in times of crisis and completely beneath the notice of someone strong like the country's most famous general, Godric of the South. Or so Bertie thinks.
Warnings: the vaguest references to the past actions of an invading army.
Author's notes: Ok so I seem to be stuck writing the same basic story these days, but I thought I could at least do it from a new POV this time. Thanks to
dlasta and sinjah for betaing this. It should be longer, right? And yet it's still long. Sorry it took so long Jane!Although Bertie had lived this moment over and over in his mind during the past two long months, had dreamed it to keep himself warm at night and reshaped it to stay hopeful during the day, the true moment itself was a blur of sick, twisting worry, dizzying weariness, and the one overriding thought that he must look a mess.
Not just a mess, but a wreck. The crazy disaster that he was known for being, even if he had never in his life been so dirty, or tired, or dressed so terribly. Not once, not even as a child had his hair been so tangled and stiff with dirt, his fingernails broken and stained, his clothing rough. He had not even had the time to attend to the fit of his borrowed clothing, and the sleeves still did not reach past his wrists, leaving his hands numb and red with cold.
Distantly, he was still somewhat upset about that last point though he was aware it was shallow and stupid to fret over the fit of clothing borrowed from kind people and worn for the sake of survival. But there was almost nothing in the world so lovely as fine, soft clothes made from cloth bright as a rainbow. At home he would have cut and sewn his attire himself, embroidered the detail of robes and breeches and skirts to his height, and mad and useless as he was, no one could deny that he had looked beautiful.
But rainbow-hued damask didn’t suit hiding in dark forests and wild mountain ranges anymore than silks suited the icy air that signaled winter’s approach.
He would have had to resort to borrowed clothing in any event, as his finest cloak, alas, was now in two pieces and draped over the shoulders of the widow Flanders’ two small children, his second finest over the widow herself. And noble though the cause, his skin itched and burned with every step. He decided he would see to better clothing for his own servants the moment the opportunity was available. Warm and thick and soft, and fitted well, so no children went cold and no one else was driven crazy by the rough scratch of this horrible brown cloth.
Ahead of him was the largest tent in the camp, the door flap already partially opened and spilling orange light out over Bertie and the people waiting behind him. It was even more selfish and shallow and stupid, but he wasted another moment hoping there was a large feather bed on the other side of that door flap, and water for a hot bath. He wanted those more than he wanted food though his stomach was making a nuisance of itself once again.
He patted his chest soothingly, throwing aside the thin cloak that had been loaned to him by one of the three stern soldiers that rode guard around his far too small band of survivors.
Beyond the doorway lay safety, rescue, and the love of his life. He knew that, but he stopped with his hand out, feeling the warmth radiating out in his clumsy, half-frozen fingers. He shivered. This truly was not how he’d meant things to go.
Godric’s captain, the perpetually unhappy man at arms at Bertie’s side paused too, obviously stopping himself from prodding Bertie forward, perhaps recalling Bertie’s rank just in time.
It was a thing that Bertie had a feeling many forgot, either due to his dress or his careless manners, but Bertie had never much minded the slights, for he was well aware that he had no head for governance, or war craft.
Nonetheless, Bertie opened his mouth, licking regrettably cracked, dry lips. Wiping a hand over his face and feeling stubble at his jaw made him wince, as did the quick finger-comb of his short hair. Even with his reputation, even knowing the world often thought him useless, the king’s illegitimate half-brother, the princeling with a love of needlework and feminine clothing, he could not help but fret over his appearance at this moment.
Then he heard the children behind him suppress a tired complaint, heard an elderly steward shift against the branch that had served as his crutch, and raised his chin. The captain seemed to still, and Bertie narrowed his eyes in a fair approximation of his brother’s manner.
His tone however, was all his own.
“You will see to my people, will you not, Captain?” he wondered sweetly, imploringly, and yet well aware that he would not be denied. He did not wait for the inevitable agreement. There was only one answer any man could give to Aethelbert of Clas Draigoch, and that was yes.
Unless of course that man was Godric of the South.
Bertie put a hand to his stomach to quell its excitement, though heat was rising in his cheeks and he was trembling like the last remaining leaves in the trees around them.
Godric.
He pushed inside the tent with sudden impatience, forgetting about both his fears and his impossible fantasies of collapsing into his beloved’s arm as he realized he would actually get to see Godric if he moved forward. Godric was here. Close and real and alive.
Also probably irritated with him as usual. He would be polite, spare with his words, but distant.
Bertie stumbled at the thought, worn to the bone, but held up a hand to ward off attempts to help him so he could look past the council of knights gathered around a table. He ignored every startled look of recognition and surprised bow until he found his target, his treasure, the straightening figure at the other end of the room.
Sir Godric of the South. The hero of Bohdon. The Master of the Horse and Captain of the King’s Guard. The stable boy turned soldier turned knight, honored and feared for his courage and wisdom and skill in war even in the lands beyond the sea. If rumors were true, the one man the king turned to for honesty aside from his foolish, bastard brother, and the one man the Green Men from the East were said to want dead more than any other.
He was, on his feet, about half a head shorter than most of the other men in the room and mere inches shorter than the Hereditary Count Vonridii, the lone woman present. He had untamed pale hair, rich with silver, which thinned slightly above the temples, and piercing eyes for all that their color was an unremarkable brown.
He wore plain, likely itchy, coarsely-made breeches, and a shirt with sleeves so short his forearms were bare, revealing soldier’s tattoos, the painful work of a tiny needle and ground up bark and hours of patience. Chainmail glinted at his neck.
Though he could see no wounds, Bertie’s heart pounded for one moment to see the tarnished metal links. He had to blink away the vision of blood, of lives lost, swords in flesh, and held back his gasp with unappreciated effort. Then he looked back up.
There were lines at Godric’s eyes, lines Bertie had not seen before, lines not there when Bertie had last leaned toward him to offer a painfully respectful farewell. Seeing them hurt in the way that he was used to around Godric, like feeling helpless, and he wanted nothing so much as to run to Godric and hold him until he felt as strong as Godric looked, until those cracks at his eyes went away and never returned.
Instead, he swallowed and silently burned with the effort to keep still as Godric looked him over; Bertie was a spoiled creature, it was true, but he would not like to force himself on Godric, again, simply because that was what he wanted. Or, at least not when he was a dirty wreck. He recalled himself at the thought, enough to nod a greeting as he could not seem to force out a sound.
“My lord,” Godric spoke in his low, quiet voice, as warm and solid as a hearthstone. “I am happy to find you alive and unharmed.” That was all, but Bertie reveled in it. He had often wondered if his ever-silent Godric had learned to make his words rare in a court that mocked his low birth. His origin was in his accent for all to hear, although no one in this tent seemed to find it worthy of scorn. Not one eyebrow in the room was raised.
With no one then to glare at on Godric’s behalf as there often was in Camlann, Bertie had no choice but to stare back at Godric. He did not mind. Godric might have been short, but he was thick with hard-earned muscle, and his skin spoke of health and sunshine. Health. Bertie thanked the gods.
The last time the invaders had come, Bertie had been younger and sheltered, but he had heard the stories of what they had done to anyone who had defied them.
But for now, Godric lived. Inside Bertie was pure joy, white like the heat of weapons being forged. Godric was alive and in front of him.
Thus, because Bertie was not only a fool but a fool in love, what finally emerged from his mouth was, “You grew the beard again” and a small tut of despair.
He could have bitten his tongue.
In truth, he did not mind the beard, though it was rare to see a nobleman unshaven. It was simply a long-standing, friendly jest between them, or so he’d thought, begun years ago with Godric riding alongside Bertie on the trail to the Keep while Bertie had pestered him with a thousand and one questions.
The others assembled in the room seemed shocked at the perceived rebuke. Godric, praise the Lady, merely scratched at his chin. It was his custom to forgo shaving when traveling, as they both knew. What was necessary to belong amongst courtiers was not so on the road, as he had once told Bertie, and then had reached out, letting his hand pass over Bertie’s skirts without touching them.
Bertie did not wear his skirts to fit in. He wore his skirts because he pleased to. Just as it had pleased him to touch himself at the memory of Godric’s hand so close to him, and what Godric might have done if he had loved him in return, if he would have lifted them to suck his prick, or just to work him with one strong hand.
“If it offends you, my lord--” Godric started and Bertie took another step forward before remembering himself and halting. He wrapped his arms about his body to keep them safely away from Godric. He had not meant to mock Godric, yet once again he had publicly embarrassed the man.
“No, no, it’s fine. I…we’re at war…don’t be… You should know better than to mind me. I am hopelessly--” He did bite his tongue. Would he never learn?
“It will be gone in the morning…” Godric went on anyway, as he always did, so courteous it was cruel, “…my lord.”
Bertie shut his mouth, hard, but the protesting moan slipped out regardless. He hadn’t meant that as an order. He would never speak so to Godric.
“Are you well, Lord Aethelbert?” someone else asked, and Bertie turned, barely sparing a glance for Baron Gywnn, even if he was a cousin. The man wasn’t smirking at least, likely too taken aback by Bertie’s appearance.
It wasn’t fair. Clean, elegantly robed in silks embroidered by his own hand with the red dragon of his mother’s people, Bertie might have had a chance to catch Godric’s eye. He was tall, slender, with poplar-dark hair and skin of golden brown. Red flattered him. Skirts seemed to let him float as they wrapped and slid between his thighs. A tight bodice left his collarbone exposed, there to be kissed, or nibbled, at Godric’s will.
Of course, if he’d been going to ensnare Godric when within Camlann’s walls, in a dress or even fine leggings, he would have done it by now; he’d certainly been bold enough in his attempts. A few twigs in his hair and scratchy breeches weren’t likely to make any difference.
Bertie saw their eyes on him and put on the court smile he hated, though he was a bruised and saddle sore, though his feet hurt and his skin itched and the cold in his bones had not once faded, not once in the two months since he had stayed behind at the Keep to watch Godric ride away.
In that time he had gone without, lived in terror, felt blood on his hands, and not heard a single word of his brother or Godric. But he was Aethelbert of Clas Draigoch, so with chilled, shaking hands, he smoothed back his hair and straightened the golden torque still at his throat.
“No. No I am not well,” he answered honestly for that was more of his mad ways, ladylike and useless with a blade, crazy even for a child of the Red Dragon, effete even for a nobleman, but honest. It was how everyone thought of him and he couldn’t deny it.
“The Keep has been razed, its fields set afire, its people killed or scattered,” he reported flatly, the wound still raw. The Keep was more his home than the capital city had ever been. Godric’s eyes bored into him, intent and fiery, but Bertie had to finish. “Too… Too few remain alive and in my care, and even then I could not bring them all, only the children and the injured, and I promised I would send aid through I knew when I made the vow that I did not even know of Aethir lived.”
There were raiders again in his mind’s eye, and he shuddered. They had been without horses, a small but ravenous force on foot, disrupting the peace of the valley and for what, vengeance for a war years behind them?
Some of the knights were obviously surprised by this news, by the direction of the attack, the needless but symbolic victory in sacking the autumn resting place of the king.
“They came at night.” Bertie focused back on Godric, pausing to see the man moving closer as though this was a dream after all. “I had no time to send you the message I promised.”
He had made that promise half in jest and half distracted at the flat intensity in Godric’s voice. The tempting heat of him had been near and yet Godric had seemed furious, quietly shaking at Bertie’s stupidity in staying behind while the rest of the world had ridden off to possible war.
“It is I who should apologize, my lord,” Godric told him now, the same furrow between his eyes. “When I heard the report of Green Men in the west descending the mountains…” He stopped and Bertie swayed, just a little, at his proximity.
In his dreams of this he had not swayed. But in his dreams, he had also been clean and Godric’s eyes had lit like new year bonfires to see him again. In his dreams, no one had died.
“My lord.” Godric’s name for him. Never Bertie. Never even Lord Aethelbert anymore. “I am sorry I could not come for you myself, that I had to send others in my place. But I could not leave here, and I had to know if you were alive.” There was a small pause between the last two words, then Godric wiped at his face with an unbearably weary heaviness.
Bertie blinked down at his beloved, tired and just a touch confused.
“You had your duty.” Because this was obvious, surely. Without duty, Bertie would have followed Godric from the Keep and never looked back. He understood it well. It was his duty to care for the people in his brother’s absence as it was Godric’s to protect him no matter how vexing he found Bertie’s devotion to him.
He stared longingly into the piercing eyes at the thought, knowing that he was breathing hard and distantly aware that Godric also seemed to struggle to find air though Bertie was too tired to ask him why.
“As lovely as poetic as it would have been to see you ride in to rescue me, Godric my love, I would never have asked it of you.”
Godric’s head went back at his words, color in his face, and Bertie honestly hadn’t meant to embarrass him again. The last time had been enough.
“You should not speak in such a way to--” Godric tried and Bertie tossed his head. His vision swirled as he did, his pulse suddenly racing. Something kicked at his chest. He was so very tired. A week of frightened and harried travel hit him, all at once. He swayed once more, and brave, protective Godric caught him with one hand at his arm.
He fell forward at the touch, bending to press himself against Godric’s chest, inhaling the stink of tents and a soldier’s camp, sweaty living Godric, iron and leather and all manner of unpleasant, beautiful odors.
Perhaps the others in the room remarked on it, or perhaps they were long used to Bertie’s madness, but Bertie did not look on them.
Godric’s chest moved rapidly with his breath, the mail warm but hard beneath his shirt. The patches of his bare skin felt hot. His hand pulled back from Bertie’s arm, but as always, he did not push Bertie away.
It was consideration for his rank, Bertie knew, and felt ashamed of himself once again for the small moment of advantage and weakness, but he shivered gratefully just the same.
“Oh my war-like Godric,” he sighed to the throbbing vein at Godric’s throat, with Godric’s short beard against his mouth. “I am happy to see you unharmed as well.”
Godric drew in a deep breath, then swallowed to speak.
But something wriggled between them, a fierce, annoyed wriggle that ended Godric’s words before they began. He stepped back to stare down at the front of Bertie’s loose, borrowed peasant clothing, and then Godric—the other Godric—poked his furry head out of the neck of Bertie’s shirt, blinking yellow eyes and offering the room a meow that was as pitiful as how Bertie felt.
A few of the knights had found it amusing, Bertie reflected, feeling a sad sort of amusement as well as he stayed still under a mound of warm blankets that smelled of sweat and horse and, quite possibly, seed.
It was a tantalizing thought, or torturous, if he considered that Godric could have been with others here. The love of his heart had often taken other soldiers to his bed, if stories were to be believed, and Bertie had no reason not to believe them. Godric was a great man, and he was not the only one to see it. He was simply the one who did not mind the world knowing at whose feet he longed to rest.
Godric—the wrong Godric, the feline Godric—was curled up at his side, asleep. The cat was skin and bones but Bertie feared he did not look much better. It had been some time since he’d sat down to a feast. Two months in fact.
Godric the man, and the others present the night before, certainly had not seemed pleased with his appearance, after watching Bertie remove his thin cloak. Godric in particular had seemed much agitated when Bertie had stumbled, yet again, while trying to explain why the cat had been fed but he had not, and then as though Bertie was not a full grown, quite tall man, he had found himself picked up and carried to the smaller enclosure in the tent and deposited here, in Godric’s very bed, from Godric’s very arms.
The bed was not made of feathers, and was low to the ground, but it was very warm and indecently scented of Godric. Despite his protests, Bertie had fallen asleep here to the sound of the unhappy captain relating their journey from the forests around the Keep to here.
Bertie recalled his own voice sleepily entreating Godric to care for his people, and Godric returning to stare down at him after that, and then nothing.
He was dirtying up Godric’s bed, and there was movement in the outer room, but for one more moment, Bertie stayed where he was, holding onto his dreams for a bit longer. In this dream, when Godric had come to him to say goodbye, he had kissed him and twined a wreath of flowers into his hair as tradition demanded.
But then the spirit of his brother, and his father, and his mother, and even the widow Flanders, compelled him to his feet. He had slept too long as it was, as the growing light told him.
In the outer room he stopped in place and rubbed at his eyes. Then he smiled.
Godric was standing at attention near the table, and by the opposite corner of the tent, by three braziers hot even at a distance, was a small bathing tub.
“I love you,” Bertie told him by way of good morning. Godric’s shoulders went back and his glance over was gently reproving though he said not a word. He was wearing armor and a long fur cloak. Bertie’s shoulders felt tired just imagining the weight.
Godric was armed as well, though he did not wear a helmet and carried no shield. So no battle then, but there was worry enough to have him ready for one. Bertie tried to keep his smile, conceal his concern, but feared he failed. Godric seemed to misunderstand in any event.
“Enjoy it. It might be your last chance for some time unless you are willing to risk a stream.”
Bertie shivered as he removed his gold. “I am far too delicate for an icy stream, Godric, everyone knows that.”
“Delicate,” Godric repeated, his chin rising slightly. It fell again when skin-and-bones Godric headed over to curl around his feet. Not hiding his envy, Bertie sighed then set to work untying his boots.
“You are perhaps soft, my lord, but not delicate.” Godric mused, almost to himself, for he did not look at Bertie. “A delicate man would not have made a journey of nine days in seven, with injured and weak people to care for.” Godric stared at the cat that bore his name and so did not see Bertie freeze with his hands on his shirt hem.
“My people? You saw to them.” He had no doubt Godric had cared for them, but Bertie could not add to his burdens. Once dressed, he would go out and see to them himself.
“As requested, my lord.” Godric nodded, going on when Bertie sighed again, with pleasure this time. “Beds found. Mouths fed. Wounds bandaged, as needed.”
“Praise the Lady. Thank you, Godric.”
“I spoke to them,” Godric offered, and Bertie glanced over curiously when this was all Godric seemed about to say. Godric generally didn’t offer much in conversation unless they were alone, and even then it was usually at Bertie’s instigation, not that he was complaining. Godric hesitated once more, for the smallest moment. “I spoke to Torr also.”
“Torr…Oh your unhappy captain.” Bertie realized. “He was not pleased to be sent on that mission, was he? Go find the king’s fool brother if he’s not already dead, meanwhile he was needed here.” He went on when Godric seemed startled and ready to interrupt him. “Oh, don’t lie to me now, Godric, or be polite. I walked through this camp last night. This isn’t close to the entire army. This is barely a full legion. What’s happening? Where’s my brother? Where’s everyone else? You should not have worried about me.”
He swallowed, because that had not been an easy thing to say, though it had sounded quite kingly, in a certain way. Like something from a long cycle of warrior poems.
“I do not want to imagine the winter you would have faced if I had not.” Godric swung his gaze up from the cat. For all his talk of winter, it was so very warm.
“Neither do I, my love,” Bertie exhaled, then flinched at his choice of words. “I… Sorry. I know things must be different in the south. I did not mean to offend you, with my ways.” North or south, Bertie was crazy, it was fact.
“I am not offended,” Godric interrupted, then cleared his throat. “There are several legions with your brother in the capital, preparing to move north.”
“You’re not with him?” Bertie threw his shirt to the floor. He was cold, but it was a relief to his sensitive skin to have it off. He pulled at his belt and the waist of his breeches until they fell too.
When there was no answer, only a sudden, tense kind of silence, he looked up, but Godric was regarding the cat with concentration, as though formulating a battle plan. Someday, Bertie was going to make the journey to the south to find if others there were so prudish. The first time Godric had witnessed the Keep’s harvest festival, he had flushed to his ears and stared, flat-eyed and undoubtedly disapproving, as Bertie had consumed glass after glass of wine and then called to him from the fields.
Admittedly, the mysticism of the night tended to go to Bertie’s head. As did the flagons of wine and sweet cakes. Of course, he had often wondered, tortured himself, if it could have been the difference in their positions holding Godric back and not mere distaste for Bertie, but the workers and field hands of the valley around the Keep had never hesitated to join in the festivities. During the last yield of the harvest, as the new year and winter approached, with the moon high and the sky dark, there was no difference between noble and peasant. At least not to be seen from the shadows of the bonfires. So as respectful as Godric always was of him, never failing to forget his title, this could not be the reason.
Nonetheless, this was precisely why autumn was Bertie’s favorite time of year. Traveling from the capital with a smaller court was an additional reason to love it, but mostly it was dear to him because it meant days of riding with just Godric and a relative handful of others and heading toward festivities which promised him yet another chance to have Godric to himself amongst those bale fires.
He stepped into the tub, then moaned low in his throat. The water was lukewarm but it felt divine.
“I…am sorry there is no soap for you.” Godric’s voice was barely a whisper and stayed rough even when he coughed. “I have advised the king and his ministers, but I could not leave the rest of the country undefended or allow us to be outflanked. Though the north, by sea, is to their greatest advantage, a determined, vengeful enemy might attempt other routes.”
“Like over the Western Mountains.” Bertie ducked to get his hair wet.
“…Thought that unlikely, but possible.” Godric continued as Bertie brought his head back up. “They were over-ambitious in trying. Those mountains are difficult enough for one caravan during the summer. An army could not make it.”
“Enough of one did,” Bertie replied sharply, only to slap a hand to his mouth. He glanced over helplessly. Godric looked at him again, but only to bow his head as though Bertie were welcome to put a sword to his neck.
“The failure was mine.”
“No. No.” Bath or no, Bertie stood up, gesturing until he saw that this time Godric’s gaze stayed on him. It traveled down, then quickly came back to his face. “You tried to tell me.” Bertie’s voice softened without his permission, perhaps at the renewed cold that left him trembling, or the heat in his blood at odds with his prickling skin. But he remembered that moment all too well, the morning light blinding as it had bounced off Godric’s armor, the cheers and cries from the people outside, silence between them as he’d fought not to say anything.
Godric seemed to as well. The distance between them had never been so great, and then Godric plucked a length of fabric from the table and came forward to offer it as a towel. Bertie took it without looking away, compelling Godric to look at him. “You tried to tell me, but I stayed behind and told the soldiers to go.”
“You had your obligation, my lord.”
Staring through the wet strands of his hair, Bertie couldn’t see much, but gasped at the brief second when Godric did not relinquish the towel, and he was surrounded by Godric’s arms. His shiver as they left him was not for show, just as it wasn’t only exhaustion that made him ache.
It had been so long since he had been with anyone, and this was his Godric. He was burning with need at the barest touch.
“Godric please,” he whimpered without shame. “I beg of you. Don’t call me that again.” In the early days of knowing him, Godric had addressed him as everyone else but Aethir did, as Lord Aethelbert. Of course in those days, Bertie had not realized his feelings and so had not announced them to the world and become the bane of Godric’s existence. They had often conversed, in that long ago time, had once even shared a bowl of the daisy tea favored in the south. He had only himself to blame that those times were over.
“It offends you?” Godric lowered his voice even more to ask the simple question, seeming to choose his words carefully. Bertie shut his eyes tight and set about forcefully rubbing away the wet chill. “Am I not addressing you correctly? I can never be sure with you Northerners, but a lord is a lord. It’s not wise to forget that, I learned that at a young age.”
Bertie stilled with one hand in his hair, his throat dry and tight.
Godric was low born, it was true, but it was not a subject ever directly questioned, not with his worth proven, not with the king’s esteem for him. Others might still scorn him for his way of speaking, his frankness of manner, everything that made him who he was, but Bertie never had, not even when he itched to sew new clothes for him and keep his armored polished. He looked over.
His beloved had turned from him and was seated with the cat in his lap. His hand dwarfed the dainty creature, but it seemed content enough.
Godric petting Godric, the cat that had nearly…no, it had not been the cat, but Bertie’s reckless mouth. Elated from so much time spent in the company of the country’s hero, and yet relieved to be at the Keep and no longer on the road, Bertie had been a bit over exuberant, as usual.
It was a trait that the people of the valley had always seemed to regard fondly, unlike the stuffier members of his brother’s court. When he had been offered a kitten by one delightful child instead of the usual welcoming gifts, he could not refuse. Aethir got casks of wine and a stag, Aethelbert got a kitten. He did not mind.
“How was I to say no?” he had explained later at the head table during the banquet for their arrival, after the kitten had poked its head from his bodice to sniff at his plate. It had been a puffed bodice, not tight, and the kitten might have gone unnoticed if it had not gotten hungry.
The courtiers with them had laughed. His brother had merely smiled and asked for his new pet’s name, and then, as an afterthought, wondered why the cat had been hidden in his clothing.
The poor thing had been cold. Bertie should have said that. Instead he’d looked over to see if Godric had laughed too.
Seated not far from dear Aethir, Godric had not been smiling—he rarely did at court functions—but he had seemed to hold the same softness in his gaze as had the king. That same fondness for Bertie. It had been remarkable.
Thus, what Bertie had said had been the loud, and stupid, “Because how else would I keep my little Godric with me at all times?” He had named the kitten, humiliated himself, and embarrassed Godric in one fell swoop. It was almost a natural talent.
The others present had found this hilarious, but then, there was very little about Bertie’s public devotion that they did not find amusing. The king’s half-brother blindly in love with the duke of war himself, a man who, to most of them, was still a stable boy and always would be. Just as Bertie was always the child with the foreign mother, tolerated and sometimes courted because he often had the king’s ear and because their father had made certain that his bloodline could not be denied by giving him his mouthful of a name.
He cleared his throat.
“I am hardly a lord, Godric. My mother was not a lady, and regardless of my father’s generosity, I do not have any real title at all.” Unless he counted bastard. He had been given lands and money, had been treated well and loved by his family, but it was true, he was no lord.
“I am afraid I must disagree, my lord.” Godric scratched, ever so carefully, and the cat purred, obscenely happy. It was truly the strangest cat, throwing itself at strangers instead of running from them. Perhaps it had grown so used to being carried next to Bertie’s heart that it sought out the rhythm with others.
Without warning Godric raised his head and Bertie ended his daydream of lying with his ear to Godric’s chest. “Along with your brother, and one or two esteemed generals often at my table, you are one of the few I have met with a true claim to nobility.”
Plainspoken and true, it hit Bertie like an arrow. Or perhaps that was Godric’s gaze. The towel fell right from his hands but somehow he felt warm. Not warm, hot.
“I… It’s well known that I’m a fool, Godric,” he whispered, not certain why he spoke, why he’d argue if Godric had finally ceased to find him a complete nuisance. Godric shook his head and then gently placed the cat on the floor before standing up.
“You are the brother of a good king and your great father’s son, my lord,” he disagreed quietly. “You are noble to your toes.” He paused, then firmed his lips. His face seemed to grow darker. “There is food there, and clothes,” he waved at the table, glancing over Bertie once before politely averting his eyes, “if you wish to visit with your people before I figure out how to best get you all safely away, and in the meantime--”
“Clothes?” Bertie looked over and saw fine cloth. He wrinkled his brow.
“Your brother’s--”
“Why do you have my brother’s clothing in your tent?” Bertie wondered sharply, shutting up only when Godric’s expression filled with disbelief.
“He left them here.” With hindsight, this was obvious, and Bertie almost ducked his head. He settled for a shrug and then a small smile when Godric went on about how he did not think the clothes Bertie had been wearing suited his soft skin. It was not an insult when Godric said it. “In the meantime,” Godric finally finished, pointedly, “my tent is yours, my lord.”
“You…” Bertie’s breath left him. “Where will you sleep?”
Godric froze for one moment, then inhaled. Bertie ignored his probable discomfort.
“Your bed is lovely, Godric, but I won’t push you out of it.” He wasn’t teasing, not even a little. He would never push Godric out of any bed.
Perhaps knowing that, or used to him, Godric’s lips briefly turned up and he slanted a look to him that was surprisingly warm. “The ground is good enough for me, my lord.” Then he half-turned away.
“I’ve slept on the ground too, Godric beloved, and I don’t care if you were a stable boy, the ground isn’t fit for anyone, much less the man with a nation relying on him. Sleep in your bed.”
“Is that an order?” Godric returned softly, with all manner and respect, then scratched at his chin, which was bare and clean-shaven, a fact that Bertie had so far nicely and properly refrained from mentioning. He gave up that attempt in the face of Godric’s stupid sense of honor due him.
“I didn’t order you to do that!” he insisted, a touch shrilly, only to fall silent when Godric smiled again.
“We all have our reasons to do what we do, my lord,” Godric offered seriously, even with that faint, warm pleasure still in his eyes, and then left the tent while Bertie stood there, stunned and naked, behind him.
He dressed as quickly as possible, and was not ashamed of how fast he stuffed the offered food into his mouth. For once he did not stop to make certain his hair gleamed or to straighten his clothes, or even to shave to the roughness from his jaw.
He had matters to attend to, and, as it happened, Godric had seen him look his worst and had not objected. Godric, Bertie's mind whispered dizzily, had found him noble. If he could not have an answering declaration of love, then that would do. Besides, if being unshaven was the look of peasants and soldiers, then it ought to do for the dead king’s bastard.
Outside the tent was much hushed activity—as hushed as armored men and horses could get, which was not much. But there was a marked difference in their movements from how they had been at the Keep months earlier with everyone brimming with excitement. Heaviness was with them now, impatience and a hint of worry.
The air around them was crisp and the sunlight pale. It would be warmer nearer the capital, but no one was slowing in their work, and no one was frozen with fear.
They were preparing to decamp, Bertie realized with sudden alarm. And he could not see Godric. But even as he wondered what had happened last night to bring this about, he knew, and allowed himself one short, rare, frown of displeasure. It was part of Godric’s duty to protect him, but he was to serve the country and his brother’s wishes first.
Of course, after an hour of searching and receiving stunned, perplexed stares from soldier after soldier that always seemed to turn to irritatingly knowing grins, he got distracted by his group of survivors. They were doing well, or well enough, considering many of their friends and loved ones were dead, or hiding in the mountains, and they would not see their homes again until spring—and that only if all went well.
He found the widow and her children in the company of Godric’s fierce Captain Torr, which was surprising until Bertie remembered how the widow’s young sister had woven flowers into his hair the morning the soldiers had departed with the king.
She had survived the raid on the Keep with scars of her own, but had stayed with the others in the mountains to watch for any more Green Men. The locals knew the mountains better than any invaders, and they would not be taken unawares again.
More surprising was how the angry captain bowed low to Bertie at first sight of him and then offered another nod when he had finally taken his leave. Considering that the captain’s words to him at finding them all near the ruins of the Keep had been, “Thank the gods you are not hurt,” followed quickly by, “So few of you left?” Bertie had assumed the man had blamed him for the Keep’s destruction. A warrior prince like Aethir might have saved it.
There had been no time to send a messenger ahead to Godric to ask for help, and no one to spare to do it in any case. The decision had been made there, with the captain insisting that his orders were that Bertie could not remain, that he had to get Bertie back to Godric, until Bertie had invoked his position and insisted that the injured and helpless must come back with him or he wasn’t going, Godric or no Godric.
It had perhaps been the most bizarre thing Bertie had ever said, and a surprise even to himself as he had said it. Then the captain’s face had changed, something dawning in his expression before he had gone blank and offered Bertie another slow nod.
The captain’s undoubtedly reluctant mission of rescue had been turned into a grueling journey back. He had barely spoken to Bertie in that time, only watched their progress with obvious impatience. He had not mentioned the widow’s sister, but had not needed to; dried flowers had hung from the man’s saddle.
Many of the men closest to Godric had been to the Keep each harvest, and Torr had not been the only one to ride from its courtyard two months ago with a late-blooming flower in his hair and who now had a posy to remind him of a loved one awaiting his return.
Bertie would not blame them for their anger if being ordered to protect Bertie was taking them farther from the battles needed to end all this and bring them home.
But what had seemed like anger on the road did not seem it in the camp. By the time Bertie had seen to his scattered people and temporarily given up his search for Godric, he had been saluted more than he had ever been in the capital. More than that, he found that soldiers who came by to wish his people well and ask about those left behind had offered him that same slow nod.
It was puzzling. While Bertie had not been hated, he was not the king. He was an embroidering lover of poetic tales who had repeatedly humiliated their commander.
He intended to ask about it from the one person who was not his brother who was guaranteed to be honest with him, but when he returned to the tent just after midday, it was again filled with knights and generals. They all immediately rose, but he waved them down.
“We’re leaving? Where are we going, north?”
“That is under discussion.” The Count rolled her eyes, Bertie assumed for the interruption, but then she looked to Godric. “We were waiting here to assess the threat. Now it has been assessed.”
“They can come from any direction, as they’ve proven. If they reach the capital we are lost anyway,” someone Bertie did not know by name insisted, but stopped for him. “I apologize if the topic upsets you, Lord Aethelbert.”
“Upsets me?” Bertie blinked. “I’ve already seen a place I love destroyed. What would upset me would be doing nothing while it happens again.” He lifted his chin. His tone was less imploring and more demanding, but he did not alter it. “What is being done?”
“Pray do not take offense, cousin, but this is hardly an area of interest to you,” the Baron began, then shut his mouth when Bertie opened his.
“It is of interest to me, cousin, when my people are ravaged, killed, and dragged from their homes before my eyes. It is of interest to me that my brother have a capital to return to, and that those seeking refuge from these horrors be welcome behind Camlann’s walls.” He bit out each word. “Furthermore, as I have recently been reminded, I am my father’s son, and as long as someone of our blood occupies the capital, we shall remain undefeated.”
Or so the legend went, but as with so many of those stories, Bertie wasn’t convinced that his ancestors hadn’t simply made it all up to keep their thrones, or to calm a frightened populace during another crisis.
Even if it was only a story, others believed it, like the villagers around the Keep, who swore that someone of royal blood had to bless their last harvest to ensure success in the years to come.
Bertie’s gaze was drawn back to Godric at the thought, at the memory of explaining that very thing, his voice quavering at the blazing force there to be read in Godric’s expression.
“Lord Aethelbert has his brother’s regard, and has sat in during other councils,” Godric spoke at last, watching Bertie in return. “His opinion will likewise be valued here.”
“For what it’s worth, I agree.” The Count, however, also sighed. “But with the mountains so vast, we cannot take forces away to protect the capital anymore than we could have spared them to protect your family’s holdings in the valley.” Her smile hinted at regret without actually offering any. Bertie could not have cared less about her feelings.
“We’re going west? There are survivors ready to join you there.”
“Some of us.” Another reluctantly broke the silence that fell at his question. “The north, above the old wall, is still where they can land and gather enough of their forces.”
“Land enough at once,” Godric interrupted. “If that is even their wish. We have already seen what they are capable of in these small raids. And even if they are driven back to the sea, if they destroy our farms as they destroyed the fields and vineyards they found in the west, they can return next year when we are weakened.”
“The south lands are fertile. The yields of grains alone…” The tent was filled with sound again, outrage tinged for the first time with real fear at this dreadful realization. Bertie shivered.
He was new to war-making, but somehow, as a possible strategy, this seemed beyond wicked. This was war on unarmed peasants and not the knights, this was killing everyone slowly from the ground up. That was far worse than destroying the Keep simply to mar the legend of the royal house.
If that was the case, then the capital could expect an eventual attack, or if not that, then to be overrun with too many people and not enough food to feed them. The people needed to be warned, and supplies readied.
He shook himself and focused back on the heated debate before him.
“You are going to divide up your remaining forces,” Bertie realized aloud. He looked at Godric. “What of Camlann?”
Most of those in the room went silent, or looked down.
“If they reach that, then we are already lost.” The same man repeated his same stupid thought after clearing his throat. Bertie made a rude noise.
“Don’t speak of doomsday. Castles can be rebuilt. My mother’s people were conquered, and yet they still exist.” He felt cold all over again, but resisted the urge to huddle into his brother’s clothes. Instead he walked over to the roll of blankets and pillows in the far corner of the tent to where little Godric was resting and scooped him up.
“I should go to the capital,” he spoke into spiky fur. “I know you won’t like that, Godric, but it makes sense.”
There was another moment of tense quiet. Perhaps two.
“I mean…someone has to see to things,” Bertie finished, with a trace less certainty. His stomach twisted. When he looked over, Godric had his eyes closed.
“Aye,” Godric agreed softly, then pulled his shoulders back. “I will go with you, and then--”
“No!” Thankfully, the others objected before Bertie had to. He wasn’t sure if he could have. Everybody began speaking at once, a cacophony that made him want to cover his ears—or run to Godric, but he thought that might weaken his argument. There was also a good chance Godric would be angry with him.
He was angry with himself. Whatever the danger, he could have stayed with Godric and instead he was likely going to make a perilous journey with the Keep’s wounded citizens for company, to a city at risk of at best a small attack and at worst a successful invading army. But they were right, in a sense. If Aethir and Godric’s forces lost and the city was overrun, then something of them had to survive. And if that was not the case, then someone still had to see to the business of governing or more would suffer.
Nonetheless he was a fool. It was no wonder his brother was often tired with the weight of this duty. This was not what Bertie wanted. He had only ever intended to make the burden lighter for his brother, for Godric, not to add to his own.
“It is not as though I enjoy leading,” he jested darkly, too quietly. He got a snort for that, a short laugh from someone else. At least they would not believe he was grabbing for power. There was always that.
He focused back on Godric, on the arguments that seemed to have abated or at least subsided. Godric did not look pleased when he looked at Bertie. And he did not speak to him, even if his gaze stayed with him.
“Have the riders arrived with news?”
“Two, Sir Godric. We are waiting on the others.”
Godric clenched his jaw to hear that, then moved, past them all, past Bertie, toward the door.
“We will hear from them before deciding,” he grunted, hardly issuing words at all. He was angry, more furious than he had been in the doorway of Bertie’s tower room, with a scattering of red and white blossoms in one hand.
His voice rose a fraction, but only a fraction, and then he was intent, with stratagems behind his eyes that Bertie could not read. “Only then.”
But the decision was all but made, and Bertie cursed his stupid mouth for once again getting him into trouble. Why could he never be silent when it counted?
“Godric,” he blurted anyway, shivering when Godric paused but did not turn. “I must go where I am needed.”
“And so must I, my lord.” Godric did not offer him a smile this time as he left. “So must I.”
Part Two
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2011-02-18 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-20 06:23 pm (UTC)I am barely resisting the urge to make it longer, don't torture me so. :P