
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/11077161.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Choose_Not_To_Use_Archive_Warnings, Major_Character_Death, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Weiß_Kreuz
  Relationship:
      Brad_Crawford/Fujimiya_"Aya"_Ran, Fujimiya_Aya_(Ran)/Edward_"Chloe"
      Krotznik
  Character:
      Fujimiya_Aya, Fujimiya_Ran, Reiji_Takatori, Schuldig, Birman, Brad
      Crawford, Kudou_Yohji, Manx_(Weiß_Kreuz), Naoe_Nagi, Knight_|_Honjou
      Yuushi, Bishop_|_Shirasagi_Reiichi, Pawn_(Uhyou_Naru), Rook_|_Tanuma
      Masato, Berger_(Weiß_Kreuz), Free_(Weiß_Kreuz), Michel_E._Conrad, Hidaka
      Ken, mihorogi, Hell_(Weiß_Kreuz), Tomoe_Sakura
  Additional Tags:
      Historical_AU, inspired_by_Tigana
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-06-03 Completed: 2017-06-04 Chapters: 25/25 Words: 51410
****** Cloths of Heaven ******
by seraphim_grace
Summary
     “Sometimes,” she said quietly, “the veil between the worlds is so
     thin and we can see into their world and they can see into ours and
     that’s when we see the piskies, beautiful maidens with hair the
     colour of seaweed. They sit in the shadows, in the dark places
     singing as they brush out their hair. It is very rare to see one,
     very few people do, but it is said that if you see them you can tell
     the future.” She leant down and kissed her son’s forehead, “one for
     sorrow, two for mirth, three for a death and four for a birth, five
     for silver and six for gold, seven for a heart that’s lost to the
     cold, eight for heaven and nine for hell, and ten for a secret you
     never can tell.”
     “I want to see a piskie, Mama,” Ran said softly.
     “Not one, little man, but two, never wish to see only one, promise
     me, you’ll wish for two.”
     Ran smiled up at her from his pillow. “I promise, Mama, I wish to see
     two.”
     Ayako beamed at her son never knowing his wish would come true.
Notes
     This was originally written as my 2005 nano, but for some reason was
     never ported over
***** Chapter 1 *****
“So,” the king of Inabayama said, sitting back at his desk and templing his
fingers under his chin, “it is for the best of our kingdom that upon her
fifteenth birthday that Aya Fujimiya is married to Lord Crawford of Eressea.
This will promote trade between the two lands and to honour the wedding Ran
Fujimiya will accompany her for one year, in his role as Captain of the Heaven
Guard. Do you have any questions, Lord Fujimiya.”
Ranmura Fujimiya looked at the document the king had read aloud to him and
worked out the ramifications to his family. The Fujimiya were rich and
powerful, related to the king on the distaff side, and they looked a little
alike. “This is satisfactory, majesty,” he said with a low bow, “we are
Fujimiya, the right hand of the throne, Aya will do as you ask, but,” he
stopped meeting his king’s eye, “might it be possible for the two of them to
meet, before the wedding. She is a head strong girl, but well beloved of her
mother and myself, I would at least like to see the man she is to marry.”
“I will send word to Eressea that you have accepted the offer and that you
would like to meet the boy before the wedding.” He scratched something quickly
on the paper with the quill. “Is there anything else, Fujimiya?”
“No, majesty.” He said with another low bow. He waited until he left the room
before he let out a deep sigh. Leaning against the door he looked again at the
order his king had given him. Eressea was a long way away and he simply did not
wish to send his daughter that far, even if the king had made the concession,
such as it was, of sending Ran with her. Aya was his heir, his daughter, Ran
had been summoned into the Heaven Guard almost before he was born, but Aya
would inherit the Fujimiya estates, and now it seemed that they would go to
someone else, a foreigner. Taking another deep breath he walked down the hall
to break the news to his wife.
 
Ayako Fujimiya had been the most beautiful woman in the kingdom with long berry
red hair and eyes the colour of twilight. As she had grown older the star of
her beauty about the court seemed to wane, as her waist thickened with
children, but to Ranmura she never looked less lovely than she had the first
time he had seen her. Their son, Ran, had inherited her unique colouring but
their daughter Aya favoured her father with large black eyes and hair that was
violet black.
Ayako sat at her laploom, her fingers deft and true, tracing out the design of
the sea-maiden upon the canvas, the ring glinting in her hand. “You look vexed,
husband” she said fondly. It never failed to amaze Ranmura that he had been so
lucky with the woman that the old king had chosen for him, she was beautiful
and wise and he loved her so much. Love was not something one expected in
marriage, but he loved his wife dearly.
“The king has decided a husband for Aya.” He said quietly.
Ayako’s brows furrowed for a moment. “She’s barely thirteen.” She said, “Is it
to be soon?”
“On her fifteenth birthday,” he told his wife, “to a high ranking lord of
Eressea, Lord Crawford.”
Ayako pursed her lips. ”I assumed it would be Lord Takatori’s youngest son,
being as they are of an age. The king has been throwing them together since
childhood, I assumed it would be for a marriage.”
“It would make my heart lighter if he had chosen young Omi, at least I know the
boy. I know nothing of this Crawford other than he has a vast estate on Eressea
and is very wealthy.” He sat in the chair facing his wife, her marble white
hands were resting on the laploom.
“We should be grateful,” Ayako said, “that he is wealthy, it will make a good
match for Inabayama,” her voice was sad however, “but not, maybe, such a good
match for Aya.” From the window of her solar she could see the beach and her
two children running amok. They were pelting up and down the beach with Omi and
a dog that they had found somewhere. They were good children, she thought, Aya
was impetuous and charming, where Ran was shy and reserved. They had been
raised to know that their wants were secondary to the needs of the kingdom. Aya
would understand, she might rant and rave, but she would understand. Eressea
was only a week away by sea.
Ran, however, would be desolate without his twin.
(ii)
Ran watched as his sister ran ahead, turning back to look at him with a
blinding smile. She was running backwards as the dog ran circles about her
heels, her skirt fluttering in the sea breeze as she laughed. “You can’t catch
me, Ran,” she shouted back, “you never can,” and impishly the young princess of
the Fujimiya family stuck her tongue out at her twin. She knew, however, that
Ran never could catch her because he never wanted to. In Inabayama twins were
considered blessed above all others, and although he and his sister weren’t
identical, or even truly looked alike, Ran knew his sister had the love of the
goddess because she was the very best thing in his world.
“Omi,” she called out, the wind was blowing her twin braids around her face and
the sun was setting behind her with her skirt whipping about her legs. “I bet
you can’t catch me.” And then with a laugh she sprinted off across the sand.
“I will catch you,” Omi shouted back and ran after her leaving Ran a few steps
behind. Omi was much younger than them but they always made sure to include him
in their games. He was a cherub of a prince with soft blonde hair and large
blue eyes. His name was actually Mamoru but no one ever called him that, and he
had the questionable virtue of being the third in line for the throne. Ran knew
his duty, he would be a captain of the Heaven Guard, he would protect his
nation first and his family second, but Aya would always be first in his heart.
She was far ahead, he could catch up with them if he sprinted, he was taller
than them both with all his height in his legs. It was then that he saw her,
the strange maiden sitting on the rocks where the beach was shadowed by the
towers. She sat patiently, staring out to sea, with a brush in her hand as she
sang softly under her breath. She turned to him and her mercurial eyes sparkled
with mischief. She was small, but perfectly formed, and wore a long dress of
dark rich green. Ran thought he knew everyone in the court, but he had never
seen her before, and it was unlike the women of Inabayama to dress their hair
in public, even his mother never left her bedchamber before her hair was
braided and covered with a veil. The woman’s dress was open almost completely
to show her bosom, which Ran thought was mildly disturbing because decent women
didn’t dress like that.
She stood up, her legs were tiny but perfectly formed and visible through the
slit green lace of her gown, as she tucked her comb into a band around her
thigh and walked up to him. Ran was transfixed. She was beautiful, but petite,
standing shorter, even than Omi, but it was clear she was a full-grown woman,
but she had the scent of brine about her. Everything about her reminded Ran of
the sea.
She reached out and laid her palm on his face, it was cold and wet to the
touch, and smiled a little wanly, she mouthed something but Ran could not
understand her, then with a feather light kiss on his forehead she turned and
walked away.
“Wait,” he called after her, not exactly sure why. “Who are you?”
Her smile was sweetly sad as she walked down to the water’s edge away from him.
It was only later, when everything had come to a head, he realised what she
was.
(iii)
“Mama,” Ran said, “tell me the story of the Piskies.” He was sat on the edge of
the bed that he shared with his sister, Aya had fallen asleep as soon as her
head hit the pillow, but Ran was sleepless. His mother reached down and swept
back his hair, it was the same cherry red as her own.
She sat beside him, wrapping her arms about her son. Their nurse might have the
day to day raising of the children, but Ayako made sure to see them safe in
their bed, it was Ayako who gave them the warm milk that filled their bellies,
and it was Ayako who lulled them to sleep. “Alright, little man,” she said as
he lay down on the bed, “in the high places among the mountains and the places
where the sea bends the world between ours and the world of the piskies is thin
and easily broken.” She looked at her pale and lovely son, lying on the
pillows; he was still young enough to crowd him unto her lap and affectionate
enough that he never protested that he was a big boy and refused. At six years
old Ran knew his destiny and accepted it, he would be his sister’s knight, her
champion, and rather than resent her for it, it made him love her all the more.
Ayako was proud of her little knight, even on nights when he was sleepless.
“Sometimes,” she said quietly, “the veil between the worlds is so thin and we
can see into their world and they can see into ours and that’s when we see the
piskies, beautiful maidens with hair the colour of seaweed. They sit in the
shadows, in the dark places singing as they brush out their hair. It is very
rare to see one, very few people do, but it is said that if you see them you
can tell the future.” She leant down and kissed her son’s forehead, “one for
sorrow, two for mirth, three for a death and four for a birth, five for silver
and six for gold, seven for a heart that’s lost to the cold, eight for heaven
and nine for hell, and ten for a secret you never can tell.”
“I want to see a piskie, Mama,” Ran said softly.
“Not one, little man, but two, never wish to see only one, promise me, you’ll
wish for two.”
Ran smiled up at her from his pillow. “I promise, Mama, I wish to see two.”
Ayako beamed at her son never knowing his wish would come true.
(iv)
Ran was isolated from the rest of his family as the chiurgeons entered and left
his sister’s bedchamber. His parents were both with her but Ran was alone
outside. Omi had tried to sit with him for a while but Ran’s silence had scared
him, at nine years old Omi simply could not comprehend what was happening. “Is
she going to die?” he had asked.
Ran didn’t have an answer for him. All he could think of was the beautiful
woman on the beach and the strange words she had mouthed to him, words he
didn’t understand. No one else had seen her, and the beach was part of the
private estate of the Fujimiya family, there was no way she could have been
there, and within a week his sister had fallen ill. His mother had repeated the
refrain again and again through their childhoods, “one for sorrow,” and you
must never wish only for one. As a child he had obeyed his mother and wished
for two.
He had only seen one.
Now Aya was sick. He couldn’t help but feel it was his fault. He had been the
one to see the piskie, he hadn’t run to catch up with Omi and Aya, and now Aya
was sick.
His father came out and his expression was tired. “Papa,” Ran said standing up
from the bench. “How is she?”
Ranmura Fujimiya shook his head slowly at his only son. “Come, Ran,” he said,
“we must talk to the king.”
The king of Inabayama scared Ran, he always had. He stood behind his father and
wished he could be anywhere else, he wanted to be with Aya. She was his twin,
his other half, she shouldn’t have to be alone. She was ill and she was going
through it alone. “You do realise,” the king said, “that this leaves us with a
dilemma. Lord Crawford has responded and agreed to the marriage, we have a
contract with Eressea and to break it will have serious repercussions for
Inabyama.”
Ran wanted to rage at the king, his sister was ill, possibly dying and all the
king cared about was the marriage contract that he had agreed with some foreign
lord.
“Perhaps,” his father said, “He might take Ran in Aya’s place.” His voice was
quiet. “Lord Crawford is said to like men as much as women, we could still
honour the contract.”
“But papa.” Ran protested, then stopped remembering his place, “I will do what
is best for Inabayama,” He said stiffly, lowering his eyes to the tiled floor.
“I can always rely on the Fujimiya,” the king said. “The marriage contract
specifically names the Fujimiya heir, and in my opinion Ran was always the
fairer of the two. If Aya is unable to complete the contract then Ran you will
have to take her place. Do you understand what this means?” Ran looked at the
king, “you will abandon your training as a knight of the Heaven Guard and you
will learn the arts of pleasing a man such as Aya would have learned.”
“I will do what is best for Inabayama.” Ran repeated but his mind was
whirligigging. He was going to have to leave Inabayama, to be married to a man
he had only ever heard word of in hushed whispers. Even Aya, who shared
everything with him, had told him nothing of the man other than he was to marry
her.
“I will assign to you a member of the Heaven Guard to keep you safe for your
upcoming nuptials.” The king said, “because of the circumstances surrounding
this contract we will take no more chances, Ran, you are to take the next ship
to Eressea to meet your upcoming husband. Lord Crawford himself suggested this
for your sister and I now regret resisting the offer, you are to stay with him
until you are of age to marry and then you will do your duty to Inabayama.”
Ran nodded, the words seeming alien in his mind. He clung to the words he
recognised, words that were practically his family motto, words the entire
kingdom took for granted “the Fujimiya do their duty by Inabayama.”
***** Chapter 2 *****
Ran watched Inabayama creep away from him from the stern of the boat. The
capital of the kingdom was a pincushion of towers, they called them the endless
towers, built to honour the goddess who had loved Inabayama as her home. Ran
loved them too. He was leaving everything behind.
The previous week had been a terrifying rush of servants and noise, between the
chiurgeons tending on his sister as she slipped slowly away from him, to those
packing his meagre belongings for the journey to Eressea.
Only the previous night had he met his champion, where he was to have been his
sister’s. The man was tall and golden, with a wicked grin and a smile that
encompassed everyone he met. He stood beside Ran, head and shoulders taller
than him, with a belt full of weapons. His partner was at the other end of the
boat, making friends with the captain. He, too, was tall and thin with a shock
of ginger hair and wry green eyes. Unlike his champion, Yohji Kudoh, the man
had travelled from Inabayama with some secret past and would only give his name
as Schuldig. He ruffled Ran’s red hair and called him “Kirsche” which he said
wasn’t an insult.
Despite himself, because the two men were completely unlike anyone he had ever
known before, Ran liked the two of them. Yohji had an easy charm and seemed to
make everyone fall under his spell, he had flirted with both of Ran’s parents
with the same wicked smile as Schuldig rolled his eyes, where he obviously
expected it. Yohji never seemed to carry through with his flirts though.
When asked Schuldig said that he had known Crawford before. But that was all
that he would say.
Inabayama was slowly creeping away from him. Ran was leaving everything he knew
behind, his parents, his home, his sister. He was taking her husband, her duty,
her life. Omi had come with them as a court representative with Manx, his
guardian, but he was still very young and Manx had put him to bed, Yohji had
spent the best part of the journey flirting with her. It just seemed to vex
her. She didn’t react though other than gritting her teeth a little tighter. He
wasn’t even sure that Yohji noticed.
“Cheer up, kiddo.” Yohji said, “it’s a brave new world out there and it’s not
so bad to leave home.”
“Hn,” Ran told him, wanting to acknowledge him but not sure what to say. He had
the impression if he did speak he’d burst out crying. He didn’t want to leave
Inabayama, he didn’t want to leave the towers or the beach or his home. He
didn’t want to leave his parents to marry a man he knew nothing about. He
didn’t want to live his sister’s life for her. He wanted her to live her own
life and to live in her shadow. Aya was the brave one, Aya was first born, she
was the first one to speak, she was the heir, not him.
But Aya was sick, possibly dying and there was nothing that Ran could do.
“Eressea is a happening island, they have festivals and parties and there’s
lots of mischief a lad can get himself into.”
“Hn,” Ran answered, he didn’t know what else to say.
“Lord Crawford’s not that much of a stick in the mud, you know.” Yohji told
him, Ran turned to look at him, it was the first time anyone had told him about
his future husband.
“You know him?” He asked.
“Not to talk to, but by reputation, yeah, he’s a good man, a bit stern, lost
his first wife in childbirth years ago, has a son, much younger than you, mind,
little more than a baby, younger than the prince at any rate. He seems like he
has a stick up his ass but he cares about his people.” Ran frowned. “He is a
good man, underneath it all, he just seems cold.”
“Are you saying these things to make it easier for me?” Ran asked, “Because
regardless, I will do my duty by Inabayama.”
That caused Yohji to frown, “there’s a difference, kid, between doing your duty
because you have to and making yourself suffer for it. Crawford’s not that bad,
there are much worse that the king could have done for you.”
“I know.” Ran said lowering his eyes to stare at the water churned up by the
boat’s wake. “I,” he stopped.
“In your place,” Yohji confided, “I’d be shitting myself, taken away from
everything and everyone I know, sent to an island I’ve never been to with no
idea if I’ll ever come back and married to a man I’ve never met who has every
right to abuse me any way he likes.”
Ran was silent for a few moments. “I will do my duty as Fujimiya, I will do my
duty by Inabayama.” He wanted to cry out, to do something to resist this
destiny but he couldn’t think of anything. If he dived into the sea then Yohji
would dive in afterwards.
“Just remember, kiddo,” Yohji said softly, “duty can’t keep you warm at night
the way a kind lover can.” He touched Ran’s cheek. “Crawford’s a good man,
underneath all the bluster and pride, and he’ll make a home for you in Eressea,
if you’ll let him. It takes two people to make a marriage work, even one for
duty.” Then his grin became wolfish, “and there’s a lot of fun to be had, even
if it is for duty.”
Ran blushed before he turned his attention back to the choppy waters and the
slowly disappearing towers of Inabayama.
(ii)
Crawford looked at himself in the mirror again, then brushed his hair another
way. It was not like him to be so nervous, but it was not everyday one met his
new spouse. He had been surprised when the letter came by pigeon telling him of
Aya Fujimiya’s terrible illness and the breach of the marriage contract that
Inabayama could not avoid. Then less than half a day later the king of
Inabayama offered Aya’s brother, Ran, in her place.
Crawford wasn’t sure if he should be flattered by the offer, or offended. But
the letter told him that the boy would be on his way long before a response
made it’s way to the king. Inabayama was honouring the marriage contract; and
so would he.
Hopefully the boy would not be some spoiled effete creature with little to no
wit. His last wife had been an idiot, but she had borne him a son, a boy with
his mother’s bright blue eyes but his father’s unmistakeable scowl. Crawford
had done his duty once by Eressea, he hoped this time there might be some
pleasure in it. If not the boy, and according to his sources he was only a
child, two years away from being able to legally marry, would find Eressea a
cold and lonely place indeed.
Still he was nervous. He wanted to convey a good impression on the boy. Rumour
had him as a cold and calculating general, one who had abandoned his beautiful
wife in favour of prolonged sieges. HE wondered if he would do this to the boy,
whether, all things considered, the battlefield would be more of a home to him
than the place where his husband, he wondered for a moment if that was the
right word, lived.
“Papa,” Naoe said from the door. The boy was growing up tall and slender,
though his face was still round with puppy fat and his eyes were large and
very, very blue. “You look very handsome.” The boy was quiet, with awkward
displays of real affection but he was sparing with his words. He spent a lot of
time thinking and took real joy in books.
Something his father had done at his age. “Is it for him?” he managed to say
him with real venom.
“A little.” Crawford conceded, looking at his son, “a little for me, a little
so that you’ll be proud of your Papa, and a lot for the court.” Naoe was still
in his sleeping pants and a long white smock, “shouldn’t you get dressed to
meet him too?”
“I don’t want to.” The boy snapped, “he’s not my papa and I don’t want him to
take you away.”
“He can’t do that, Naoe.” Crawford said squatting down for his son to embrace
him. “I’d never let anyone come between us, you know that. You are my world,
not him, but you never know, you might be friends, if you try.” He hugged the
boy tight, feeling how small his son felt in his arms as the boy clung to him.
“Don’t wanna.” Naoe protested. “I’ll go get dressed now, papa.” He said
reaching up and giving Crawford a quick kiss on his cheek, “love you.”
“And I love you too, more and more each day.”
The boy looked back at him from the door, and his look was nervous. “Don’t let
him take you away from me, Papa.” He said, “you’re my papa, not his.”
Crawford smiled at the boy’s jealousy. “Nothing will ever come between us,
Naoe, I promise you that, not even this boy, but perhaps, we might all be able
to live together.” Naoe frowned before he left, his nurse stood in the doorway
with an apologetic shrug of the shoulders, Naoe was jealous and there was
little anyone other than Ran could do about it.
(iii)
Ran adjusted his jacket for the hundredth time and brushed his hair away from
his eyes. Yohji smiled at him indulgently, “it’s normal to be nervous, you
know.” He said. “But you look great.”
Ran let out a sigh and made sure his hair was sat nicely. He wanted to make a
good impression, after all he was going to marry the man, and he didn’t want to
offend him. He was wearing the clothes his mother had specifically packed for
this occasion, with the house colours on his jacket and soft black suede boots
and trousers.
He felt very young and very nervous. Yohji’s easy camaraderie was not making it
any easier on him.
“It’ll be alright,” Yohji assured him.
“So true, Kirsch,” Schuldig said softly, “Crawford is a good man, he won’t do
anything to make you uncomfortable.” The yet was silent but hung heavy in the
air. In the week long journey the two of them had been almost suspiciously
vague about Ran’s future husband, but Ran had gathered, more from what they
didn’t say than what they did, that Crawford was older than him by at least ten
years, which to a boy of thirteen was impossibly old, and that he had been a
soldier. Both Schuldig and Yohji had done their very utmost to make Ran
comfortable with the wedding, and in turn made him feel very adult. They had
even included him on some risqué jokes that in truth he hadn’t got. In their
company Ran felt like a man for the first time in his life. Although he was
painfully shy, Aya had always been the brave one between them, Ran had been
more than content to dwell in her shadow, but she wasn’t there for him to hide
behind any more.
Crawford was said to be a strong man, stern but kind in his way, perhaps, Ran
thought, I can hide in his shadow.
(iv)
Ran was three steps behind Yohji, he was careful of the distance between them,
he decided if he got any closer then he would be seen to be clinging and if he
got any further away he might give in to the urge to bolt.
There was a small and intimate supper laid out for the five of them, Manx sat
alone carefully watching the room for sign of attack against the young prince,
although Omi was so far down the line of succession no one ever tried. Yohji
and Schuldig were careful to sit either side of their young charge, although
Ran suspected it was more to keep him in place than to protect him, and as he
sat down, Ran, for the first time, saw the man his king wanted him to marry.
He was much taller than Ran, maybe the same height as Yohji, but definitely
taller than Schuldig and Manx, and his hair was black but worn short, Ran’s own
had been cut before they left Inabayama and only had lengths in two tails on
either side of his face. He was handsome; Ran admitted to himself, if one liked
that sort of thing. He was older than Ran, but not as old as Ran had imagined
him – a vision of a hunched back old man with little to no grey hair or teeth
vanished to be replaced by strong crisp lines of forehead and jaw, and a pair
of inquisitive amber eyes. “You must be Ran,” he said and his voice was strong
and capable. Ran didn’t know what to say to that but he did raise his eyes to
meet the almost predatory gaze of the man who would be his husband, “I must say
that you are not quite what I expected.”
Ran didn’t know how to react so his pride reacted for him, he was a Fujimiya,
he was descended from gods, he wouldn’t cower like a child in front of this
man, even if he had no idea what Crawford was capable of, and his mind was
suggesting all sorts of things he might be capable of. “I am what I am,” Ran
said softly, his voice wavering between a deep rich baritone and a boyish
soprano, “I cannot be other than that.”
Crawford smiled at that. “I will not have much time to spend with you for the
next few weeks.” He said firmly, “my business at court will keep me occupied,
nevertheless I will do my best to see you, if only for a few minutes, each day,
and assure you that you have full run of my manor. There is a large library
that you may find interesting and stables. Everything I have is yours.” He
lowered his head.”
“Your lordship is too kind.” Ran said but didn’t lower his eyes.
“Call me Crawford,” he said, “I hope that we can get along, Ran, and not just
for the sake of our countries.”
“I would be honoured, your,” he stopped himself, “Crawford.”
***** Chapter 3 *****
(i)
Eressea was a city built for war, and at the edge of the city, overlooking lush
and verdant fields of wheat and livestock was the manor house of Lord Crawford.
It was well appointed and richly decorated but Ran missed the smell of the sea
and the sound of the storms, which had surrounded his bedchamber in Inabayama.
He missed waking up to the bells tolling out the dawn and when he did wake, in
the wide soft bed, he spent a few moments trying to work out where he was and
feeling slightly guilty because he had obviously slept well past dawn without
the bells to wake him. He climbed from the bed, tugging back the curtains with
a yawn to find both Yohji and Schuldig waiting for him.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” Yohji said with a smile, “how are you feeling?”
There was a glut of answers, Ran thought, to that question, terrified, nervous,
slightly nauseous, homesick and a little excited. Ran answered him with a yawn
causing Schuldig to laugh. “Too right,” he said, “actions speak louder than
words, go back to bed if you’re still tired, no one’s going to mind.”
“I will.” Ran said, a little stiffly, “it must be late.”
“Barely seven of the clock.” Schuldig answered, “in fact, Yotan and I are yet
to even go to bed.” He was drinking wine from a metal cup. In Inabayama all the
cups were made of glass. It struck Ran with another wave of homesickness.
“Now look,” Yohji said with a smile as he laid his cards down on the table,
“you’ve confused him, come and have a drink, Ran,” he said offering him his own
wine cup.
“It’s not that,” Ran said, a little hesitantly, ”and thank you, but no.” He ran
his fingers through his hair before he sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m
just a little overwhelmed.” He felt like he could tell these two anything, they
were here for him, not for Crawford. They had come with him from Inabayama,
they would always be with him, and maybe rather than just being his champions
they might be his friends.
He had never had friends other than Aya and Omi before, and he liked the idea
of it.
“Oh and Crawford’s manservant dropped this off for you last night, but you were
already asleep.” Yohji said, lifting a piece of paper as he stood up, carrying
it to the boy. “We,” he flicked his eyes to Schuldig, “didn’t break the seal if
that’s what you’re wondering.”
Ran took the letter, wondering which one of them had been the one to suggest
breaking the seal. He knew that they had obviously fought over it; the entire
room seemed to reek of the idea.
With his thumbnail he broke open the seal and read the letter.
“Ran,
I will be out of the manor for most of the day tomorrow, but nonetheless I am
hoping that you could join me in a late supper at ten of the clock.
I would remind you that you are free to make this manor your home and treat it
as you would your own. Just as we will when you come of age we share everything
in this place. What is mine is yours.
I must say that you were far more than I expected. I received, as part of the
marriage contract, a miniature of your sister so when I heard that you were her
twin I imagined that you would look like her. You do not, and for that I am
glad, because it means that I will never think of you as her replacement, even
in unguarded moments. You are Ran, and I would have you know that.
I am reliably informed that Portia, my prize bitch, has whelped in the last few
days, although her pups are too small right now, perhaps you would like to take
one of them as your own.
Hoping to see you tonight,
Crawford.”
“So,” Schuldig said leaning over him to read the note, “what does it say?”
“He’s inviting me to supper.” Ran said quietly, “and that his dog has puppies
and when they’re old enough I can have one.” Schuldig gave a low whistle of
appreciation.
“Good for you, kiddo.” Yohji said, “at least he’s not starting wars to avoid
you like he did with the last wife, eh?”
Ran couldn’t think of an answer for that so he said nothing.
(ii)
It was long past dark when Ran met Crawford for a late, and in his opinion,
rather intimate supper. He had expected that it would be like it had the night
before where his entire entourage, being five people, would be invited.
It was just him and Crawford.
He ate the stew in silence, staring down at his plate for long moments before
Crawford laughed. “Schuldig said that I was not to think you standoffish, that
you were shy.” He said in his rich deep voice. “All in all, I find it quite
charming.”
Ran blushed bright red up to the roots of his hair, keeping his eyes on the
table. “You’re a very handsome young man, Ran,” Crawford said, “and I think I
like making you blush, does that make me cruel?”
“No, sir.” Ran answered.
“I thought I told you to call me Crawford.” Crawford said reaching up to lift
the bottle of spirits on the table, “would you like some brandy, Ran?”
He poured some into the cup before Ran had a chance to answer. “Thank you,” he
paused, “Crawford,” he was careful to say the name instead of his instinctive
reaction to say Sir or my lord.
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Crawford said as Ran carefully sipped the
brandy. It was different from the liqueurs his father drank but it still burned
like fire on the way down. “Now how are you finding Eressea?”
“It is lovely, but I miss the sea.” Ran said, “I am a little overwhelmed by it
all.” He answered, honestly. He didn’t know what Crawford wanted to hear. “I
simply don’t know what to do with myself. I spent the day exploring the manor.”
“Feel free to wander about the town.” Crawford said, “but make sure you take
someone with you, I imagine that Eressea is not as safe as your family estates.
I am informed that you like to read, is this so?” Ran nodded. “There is a
rather fine bookshop on Potter Street. I shall set you up an account there. As
I said in my note, what is mine is yours.”
“You don’t need to.” Ran protested.
“I know,” Crawford said with a faint smile, “but I want to.”
“You are too kind,” Ran said, “in truth, it makes me a little uncomfortable.”
Crawford’s smile was soft and genuine, “if you were your sister I would say
that you will be lady of this house, that all of this will be yours, but
despite the marriage contract between our families I’m not quite sure how it
works. I am as uncomfortable in this situation as you yourself, you know.”
“My father said you were a lover of men, as much as women.” Ran blurted out and
then realized what he said, and lowered his eyes, “and Yohji said you were
married before.”
“I was,” Crawford said, sitting back, willing to answer the boy’s questions. “I
married a woman as my lord determined and she bore me a son, and died in
childhood, and Naoe is the only thing she ever did to recommend her. She was
wilful and proud and I didn’t care for her, but I was young and although I
might be considered embittered by such an experience I would do what I could to
prevent it being repeated.” He swirled the brandy around in his cup, “I would,
at least, Ran, have us be friends.”
Ran offered him a nervous smile, “I’d like that.” He said quietly. “Thank you.”
Crawford took note of the smile and smiled himself, the boy was young and
naive, but he was indeed lovely.
(iii)
Ran called his puppy Hoshi because of the star on his forehead, his mother had
been a large wolfhound who had appraised the boy before her with a cold and
rather calculating gaze and then pointed him towards the runt of the litter, a
small bundle of fluff with a bright white blazon on his chest. Ran had
respected her choice even when Crawford offered him a larger bitch for his own.
“No,” he said, cradling the puppy against his chest, “I want this one.” The
puppy was barely as large as his hand.
“Are you sure?” Crawford asked, Naoe was at his side scowling at Ran.
“Yes,” Ran said looking at the small grey ball of fur in his hands, “I want
this one. Which one do you want, Naoe?” He said looking at the boy who scowled
more.
“He’s not having one,” Crawford said a little stiffly, “he doesn’t get along
with animals.”
Ran crouched in front of the boy who narrowed his eyes at him, “maybe we could
learn how to look after them together.” He said softly. He had no idea why the
child loathed him the way that he did, he had barely spent any time with the
child, even when he attempted otherwise.
“Can I see?” Omi chirruped from his side, Ran showed him the tiny puppy and Omi
crowded in. “He’s so cute, I wish I could have one, but Masafumi doesn’t like
animals so I can’t.”
“What if we all share?” Ran offered, looking at both boys. Naoe harrumphed an
answer but Omi just beamed at him.
 
Later, as they shared supper alone, something Crawford made sure to do every
night with the young boy, Crawford commended it on him. “It was a good thing
you did today, with Naoe.”
“I just want him to like me.” Ran said.
“He’s just jealous and thinks you’re going to take me away from him.” Crawford
said quietly.
“But I’m not.” Ran protested, “I just want to be friends with him.”
“He’s just as shy as you are.” Crawford said quietly, “but he seems to be
getting on with the young prince.” He seemed amused by the whole affair.
“I don’t think anyone can resist Omi for long.” Ran said with a small laugh to
himself, “he’s like a force of nature, he’s so chipper.”
Crawford’s smile was warm, but calculating, “I had noticed. I’m glad you’re
trying, even if Naoe is being a brat about this.”
“I don’t know how I would feel,” Ran said, breaking a piece of bread with his
hands, “if someone came between me and my parents, I would resent them too.” He
popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “I think it might be easier
for him if I was older, then he might not see me as so much of a challenge for
your affections.”
“You’re very wise for someone so young.” Crawford said, he was obviously
weighing Ran up in his mind.
“I just,” he stopped, “I think a lot, and I wanted Naoe to like me.” He
wondered if there wasn’t a little bit of a whine to his voice, “because if Naoe
liked me, then,” he lowered his eyes to the table and blushed bright red,
“maybe you’d like me too.”
Crawford’s laugh was warm and seemed to touch Ran all over. “I do like you,” he
said, “I like you a lot.” Ran seemed to blush even brighter under his hair, he
had found a way to stare at the table so Crawford could only see him through
his fringe.
As far as these things went, it wasn’t a bad beginning.
(iv)
Over the weeks that followed Crawford found himself, almost despite his own
best intentions, making time to spend with the boy. Every morning he would have
breakfast with Naoe, and every evening a late supper with Ran. He wasn’t sure
which he enjoyed more. Ran was reticent and shy but small warm smiles and
brilliant blushes could be coaxed from him with ease, where Naoe scowled and
practised his complaints on his unlistening father.
Ran was shy, but he was kind and although his attempts to befriend Naoe were
failing it meant a lot to Crawford that he even tried, and he tried because he
wanted to be Naoe’s friend, not because he wanted to bed Naoe’s father. Others
had tried before. As it was Ran wouldn’t have had to.
From the instant he had seen him, sitting between the two members of the Heaven
Guard, shy and nervous with eyes the colour of clouds at twilight and his
bright red hair Crawford had been smitten. When he had seen the miniature of
the girl Aya he had looked at it and conceded that the girl was pretty, and had
been genuinely sorry to hear of her illness. When they suggested taking the
brother in her place Crawford’s mind had created a male image of the girl in
the portrait, Ran was nothing like his sister. Though he was still gangly with
youth, and his voice hovered between manhood and childhood, Ran was already
beautiful, and as a man he would only grow more so.
Crawford wondered if the king of Inabayama had chosen him to take his sister’s
place for that exact reason.
What was more surprising, Crawford thought, as he watched the boy cavort with
the puppy in the small courtyard, was that Ran was, though he himself would
deny it, brilliant. He had a mind as sharp as Crawford’s own, although he was
so modest it was hard to wrangle any opinions from him.
Crawford had found himself sat in his office for the Lord of Eressea picturing
those late night conversations with the boy. He had even dared to imagine the
texture of his skin beneath the ugly sweaters that the boy wore, after the boy
was his.
He suspected that he could summon Ran now and he would go joyously to his bed.
It wasn’t right though, Crawford thought, to take advantage of the boy’s youth
and inexperience. He would woo him, he would seduce him, he would love him, but
he would bed him.
Ran looked up at him in the window and gave him that brilliant and rather
innocent smile, and Crawford felt his trousers tighten in response even as he
waved at the boy. Oh, yes, he thought, the king of Inabayama had chosen well
sending Ran in his sister’s place.
He would seduce the boy, but he would make sure that Ran was grateful, that
there was no force applied, that Ran would only ever know pleasure from his
hand, because although he could be cruel, for Ran he would be kind.
***** Chapter 4 *****
(i)
Ran sat on the couch, that Crawford had bought for him, in the library as he
opened the gift. When he saw the title of the book he jumped up and wrapped his
arms about Crawford and kissed him on the cheek. Then he blushed as bright red
as his hair as he realised what he had done.
Across the library, his champion, Yohji snickered but said nothing. Crawford
wasn’t sure if he was laughing at the impromptu show of gratitude or the boy’s
reaction to it.
Crawford was secretly pleased, part of him wanted to grab Ran and to show him
how to kiss him properly, but the other half didn’t want to offend the boy in
any way. He was very young. “I’ve wanted this book it seems like forever,” Ran
enthused, “Omi and I have been reading the entire series, I’m sorry, I got a
little overexcited.”
Crawford just gave a soft and almost silent laugh, “it’s no problem, I noticed
you didn’t have this one so I sent my secretary to get it for you. Do you like
it?”
“Yes,” Ran said offering him one of his very innocent and sweet smiles, “I like
it very much.”
“I’m glad.” Crawford said and he meant it, he would have paid a thousand king’s
ransoms for one of the boy’s genuine smiles. “But now I have to wonder is Omi
going to kiss me too?”
Yohji snorted out a laugh at the image. “You’d have to get through Manx first,
and believe me, you’d need an entire armed guard to manage that.”
“I don’t think Manx likes you much, Yotan,” Ran said teasing his champion.
Wherever Ran was Yohji was not far behind. Crawford was glad, it meant his
precious innocent Ran stayed innocent, even in the presence of such a notorious
seducer. Yohji seemed to look on the boy as a younger brother who should be
protected from all the evils of the world, and although he shared some jokes
with him Crawford knew that they had been censored for his ears.
He liked the idea that all Ran would learn of love he would learn from him. The
boy’s naiveté was charming and Crawford wouldn’t take it from him for the very
world.
“I get the impression,” Yohji said leaning in like a conspirator, “that Manx
doesn’t like people much.”
Ran’s instant peal of laughter rang around the room and Crawford smiled despite
himself. He wondered what great act had earned him this reward, this perfect,
beautiful, innocent boy; part of him even considered if a thank you note to the
King of Inabayama was necessary because he had received a great gift indeed.
He was slowly, very slowly, coming out of the shell his shyness kept him in. He
was getting bolder, slowly but improving every day. He still backed down from
Naoe’s demands and tantrums but he was answering Crawford. He was even ranging
out on his horse, a placid mare that Crawford had bought for him specially,
even though he denied it because Ran didn’t like receiving expensive gifts.
Crawford would have given him the world if he would have accepted it, he would
have pulled the moon down from the sky for one of those innocent and dazzling
smiles.
He wondered if soon Ran would be making sly, and rather innocent, asides with
Yohji who he called Yotan and he called Schuldig Schu even though Schuldig
protested, a little too much to really hate it in Crawford’s opinion. He had
even, sidling up to Schuldig with a rather wicked expression, which in
Crawford’s eyes was just adorable, called him Schu-Schu just to watch him
splutter on the mouthful of wine he had just swallowed. He even got the idea
that he had timed it for that reason.
Ran offered him a second smile, and then bit his bottom lip with perfect white
teeth. “Thank you for the book,” he said and then began gnawing his lip a
little more, “it has illustrations, would you like to see?” And then Ran was
beside him with the book open and Crawford could smell the herbal scent of his
shampoo and feel the heat of his body against him. He had to force himself to
remember that although he was to marry Ran it wasn’t for eighteen months yet.
He suspected the boy had no idea just how lovely he truly was. “See,” Ran said
pointing to one of the illustrations, it was of a man in heavily spiked black
armour, “this is the Nemesis who is laying siege to the West, and this,” he
turned the page to show a knight in rather scanty armour, “this is the great
knight Alaric who has been forced by wicked sorcerers to serve the Nemesis, and
this,” the next picture was of a tall and willowy maiden, “is Celabrien and
Alaric loves her but can’t go to her until someone defeats the Nemesis in his
terrible advance.”
Crawford began to regret buying the boy the book. The Hordes of the Nemesis and
the armies of Estet were slowly swallowing the outlying kingdoms one by one and
Ran was reading a rather ridiculous set of romances about them. Crawford
himself had met the Hordes of the Nemesis on the field of battle and had been
impressed by their prowess; he had only won that day by a slim margin.
“And Alaric is forced to bring beautiful things to the Nemesis, because it’s
the only thing that appeases his terrible hunger for human souls, and he is
fighting to protect Celabrien from him, because she’s the most beautiful girl
in the world.” Ran was animated as he talked about the book. “I used to
pretend, with Aya, that I was Alaric and she was Celabrien and that I had to
protect her from Masafumi, who was the Nemesis, though we never told him.”
Yohji spluttered out a laugh at the boy’s description. “I like that one,” he
said with a laugh, “personally I’m not sure he’s not worse than the Nemesis.”
“Who is the Nemesis?” Ran asked suddenly, “I only know about him from these
books and I know they change him to make him worse than he is.”
“Nobody knows,” Crawford said softly, “all we know is that he collects
beautiful things and his armies devastate and conquer.” He put his hand on
Ran’s shoulder in a placating manner, “but Eressea is a long way from his
reach, you have nothing to fear from him.”
“You might have to go to war to face him.” Ran said sadly.
“Then I’ll take you with me.” Crawford said firmly. “I’ll never let you fear
for the Nemesis or his hordes.”
(ii)
Ran crept down the corridors of the manor house as silent as an assassin on his
plan. He stopped outside the double door and nodded to the guard there. She
nodded and let him pass. He opened the door as quietly as he could and slipped
inside and towards the huge curtained bed. He tugged back the covers to reveal
the inhabitants.
His initial shock was quickly replaced by a warm smile as he reached out to the
shoulder next to him, “Naoe,” he said softly, “Naoe,” he repeated. The figure
came to wakefulness slowly, “Naoe, wake up.” Naoe looked at him sleepily, as he
reached across him, “Omi,” he said in the soft tone, “Omi,” he repeated as the
blonde boy woke up, “come see,” he held out his hand as he led them to the
window, opening the shutters and then the window. “It’s snowing.”
And it was, the snow was falling in soft white feathers. “It does that,” Naoe
whined, pulling his blanket tighter about his shoulders, “it’s winter.”
Omi understood. “The first snow of winter is precious.” He said staring up at
the indigo sky, “wishes made in it come true.” Although like Naoe he had a
blanket pulled tight about his shoulders he used his free hand to catch one of
the falling snowflakes. “It hardly ever snowed in Inabayama.” He said, “and I
never got to see the first snows.” Then with a winning grin he threw his arms
around Ran and hugged him tight, his blanket falling down.
“This doesn’t make us friends.” Naoe said stiffly, almost embarrassed by his
friend’s overt display of affection.
“I know,” Ran said quietly, “but it’s no fun sharing the snow on your own.”
(iii)
Every day Ran wrote to his sister to be sent on the weekly ship to Inabayama.
He wrote his parents long rambling letters but his secrets he saved for Aya. He
told her of his nightly suppers with Crawford, of his uphill battle to make
friends with Naoe, although he confided in her that she would have had no
trouble there because everyone loved Aya, and how Omi had befriended the boy
almost against Naoe’s better judgement. He told Aya how the two of them pretty
much went everywhere hand in hand with Manx trailing behind them like a
mothering shadow.
He told Aya about Crawford, about how handsome he was, and how kind. He told
her that Crawford had bought him this, or had the cooks make him that. He told
her about the lingering smell of his cologne and the cut of his clothes. Then
he told her about how he felt sheepish admitting that to her because it made
him sound like a girl with a crush.
He told her about Yohji and how being with him almost all the time made him
feel very adult. He told her about how easy it was to make him splutter instead
of laugh.
He told her about how fond he was becoming of Eressea but how desperately he
missed Inabayama and the sea. He thought he might miss the sea most of all.
That he never got an answer didn’t seem to bother him, for after all Aya was
very ill, because if she wasn’t then he wouldn’t be here, in her place. He
imagined her, lying in her bed, as their mother read out the letters to her,
pretending not to listen as Ran told her of his secrets. He had never hidden
anything from Aya and he wouldn’t start now.
He told her how he missed her on his daily ride with Yohji and Schuldig,
because in Inabayama he would have ridden with her.
That he missed being in her shadow he didn’t tell her.
That he wanted her to get well he stressed in every letter, and sometimes, it
felt, every word.
Yet when the mail from the ship came in he waited impatiently for Crawford’s
steward to hand him his own bundle of letters, and he would smile at his
mother’s and beam at his fathers, and then his heart would break, as there was
never a letter from Aya. He repeated the words over and over again, she never
responded because she was sick.
As the steward handed him the bundle of letters he ruffled through them and
then he must have frowned because Crawford came up to him and put his hand on
his shoulder, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t need to, but Ran would have
given him anything for that moment of understanding and comfort.
(iv)
At supper that night Ran was despondent. Yohji had wisely decided to sit
outside the door rather than waiting for him inside the room, and Crawford
could tell that the boy was upset by the way he moved his dinner around his
plate and wouldn’t meet his gaze.
“You miss her, don’t you?” Crawford said, pushing away his own plate. “Your
sister.”
Ran met Crawford’s consoling gaze across the table. “I,” he started but the
words were gone. It was clear that he swallowed a sob.
Crawford let out a sigh and then stood up, going around the table and wrapping
his arms about the boy, “sometimes we’re all so grown up,” he said, “that we
forget it’s fine to be weak sometimes.” Ran looked up at him from the pillow of
the broad chest he leant against, Crawford could see the line of shimmering
tears welling in the boy’s beautiful violet eyes, “Just let it out.”
That was all the permission Ran needed, he started to cry, thick roaring sobs
that seemed to rough for his throat, his fingers twisted in the fabric of
Crawford’s shirt as he clutched to him to let out the rage and pain and
frustration he felt.
Crawford just tightened his arms about him and let him cry.
When he was done Ran looked a little sheepish. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly,
though his voice was still thick with tears.
“Don’t be,” Crawford told him, “I’m glad you trusted me enough to share this
with me.”
“Now, I’m all ugly.” Crawford chuckled at Ran’s response. “my eyes are all
puffy and my cheeks are all sticky and I’m probably really snotty.” Crawford
wiped Ran’s cheek with his palm, even as his other hand remained between the
boy’s shoulder blades. He leant in then, smelling the boy’s lemon and soap
freshness, and pressed a kiss upon the pouting lips.
“You’re never going to be ugly.” Crawford said honestly, “you are the most
beautiful person I have ever seen, I don’t ever want you to think that you’re
ugly.” The boy’s vanilla sweetness was still on his lips, the hint of the herbs
from the stew. “I’m going to kiss you now, Ran, if you don’t want me to, you
only have to say.”
Ran blushed as bright as his hair even as his fingers tangled even tighter in
the fabric of Crawford’s shirt. He lowered his head but let Crawford slowly,
softly, raise his jaw with his fingertips and with his eyes closed he sighed
into the kiss that Crawford gave him.
The boy was unskilled and nervous and Crawford could feel the manic thump of
Ran’s heart against his chest as his long white fingers pulled at his shirt
trying to pull Crawford closer.
The kiss was innocent and rather naïve, Crawford merely pulled his lips over
the boy’s, but it was rewarding none the less when he pulled back and saw Ran’s
eyes closed and his lips still pursed, reaching out for him. Crawford, for a
brief moment, considered all the reasons he shouldn’t kiss the boy again, and
decided they were irrelevant, the boy, whatever else he was, was his, and
because he had never been good at self denial he kissed him again.
***** Chapter 5 *****
(i)
Despite Naoe’s best attempts to the contrary Ran was relentless in making the
boy his friend. In fact Naoe spent several long hours complaining to his father
about Ran whilst Crawford fought to remain straight faced in the face of his
son’s ire. He was overwhelmed in the face of it, everyone who surrounded him
adored Ran and his scowls, which had been great at getting his own way before,
were now useless in the face of Ran’s innocent smiles and Omi’s bone crushing
hugs. Crawford found the whole process adorable because he had despaired of
Naoe ever making friends his own age and it seemed that with Omi’s overwhelming
energy and Ran’s gentleness that Naoe was coming out of his shell more and more
each day.
He wasn’t the only one.
Every day, with every moment of time lavished on him, made Ran glow.
Crawford found himself, instead of sending out his secretary, going himself for
some tiny treat that would make the boy beam at him. He felt like a teenager in
love. If his intelligence revealed that Ran was a demon who feasted on
children’s souls and was only using him to get to Naoe he would have forgiven
him.
He spent at least an hour each day travelling between bookshops and sweet shops
to find some of the candies that Ran liked. He always shared them with the
other two boys, but the sweet shy smile was Crawford’s alone.
Since that night Crawford had stolen three kisses.
He wasn’t sure if he should refer to them being stolen as he always asked if he
could kiss Ran. There was something so infinitely precious and innocent about
the boy the idea of stealing anything, even a kiss, seemed profane. There was
an air of holy innocence about the boy. It was said in Inabayama that the
Fujimiya were descended from gods. Looking at Ran Crawford believed it. He
wondered however if Ran faked what appeared to be a growing attraction for
Crawford for after all they were to be married and the Fujimiya always did
their duty by Inabayama.
Then he decided that the boy was simply too young to have such guile.
And what did it matter, in the long run, he decided, Ran was his.
He would take him to court soon, he would present him at court soon, he would
introduce him to the king and the other lords knowing that Ran would never be
at home there like his wife had been, that despite all the promises and lies of
court that Ran would be happier in this manor with him.
(ii)
The King of Eressea leant over the maps strewn on the table with his lords
about him. “We are fortunate to be so far west,” he said carefully, “as the
Nemesis extends his reach from the north and Estet from the east, each is
growing steadily larger as you can.” There were lead figurines laid out to
represent the armies, although they were far in both cases from Eressea the
forces of the Nemesis were close to Inabayama. He noted it with the sensation
that he would have to tell Ran and that he didn’t want to. The armies of the
Nemesis were relentless and ruthless. “Some arrangement with either one or the
other must be made. What do you suggest?”
“We could open trade with the two of them, if we have commodities both of them
want then they might not attack us.” One of his lords said quietly.
“Alternately, you majesty has a daughter of marriageable age, perhaps she could
be offered to the Nemesis as appeasement. “ Another suggested, “or even to the
Elders of Estet.”
“Or we could gather our armies join with those countries that are yet to fall,”
The third said, “and fight back.”
“Or we could bide our time.” Crawford suggested. “Promote alliances with those
countries not under either thumb in preparation of any of those options without
getting into bed with either of them above the other. It will eventually come
down to both of them fighting each other, and truth be told I’d rather not be
caught in the middle.”
“More interested in that new boy of yours.” One of them leered, “I suppose if I
had someone as pretty as him to warm my bed that I might not be so eager to go
off to war.” He was a large and bulky man with a history of violence, both for
his nation and against his wives. “I mean, it’s not like you can take him with
you. Or maybe we could send him off to the Nemesis and send the princess to
Estet.”
His barking laugh was cut off by Crawford’s hand at his throat. He lifted him
several inches clear off the ground. “Don’t speak of him again, don’t even
think of him, or I’ll kill you.” He growled the words out, it was more of a
threat as Crawford would more than carry through on it.
“Is he really that pretty?” The king asked, “in that case I might just have to
meet him, rule of first night and all.” The rule of first night was an
antiquated law, which gave the lord of any state the right to the first night
of a married woman’s life. On the night she married she could be sent to her
lord’s bed instead of her husband’s, and just as surely a lord’s wife could be
sent to the king. It hadn’t been enforced, except by pigs like Jaime, in
centuries.
Crawford glowered. “The boy is a Fujimiya.” He said trying to calm his temper,
“a marriage you yourself commanded, majesty.” There were ways, he knew, to
command even the king to back down, “to cement the treaty with Eressea.”
“I suggested a marriage with a girl.” The king corrected him.
“Yes, majesty, but the girl was taken ill and the king of Inabayama suggested
her brother in her place. That is the boy at my manor, the one that Sir Jaime
seems so keen to send to the Nemesis.”
“Trade with Inabayama is of a premium concern,” one of the other lords
suggested, “their steel is invaluable for building as well as making arms. I
think it might be politic, majesty, to stock pile weapons, just in case, that
way even if we do not go to war against either of the invaders then we could at
least sell them arms to destroy each other.”
“I will think on what you have said.” The king said, “You are all dismissed,
and Crawford,” he said to the retreating lord, “due to the proximity of the
Nemesis to Inabayama might I suggest moving the wedding forward.”
“The boy’s only fourteen,” Crawford protested.
“That’s of legal age for a girl.” Sir Jaime said with a sour laugh.
“Why?” another of the lords snickered, “is it your intention to hold flowers
for the lad at the ceremony before your hair turns silver and falls out?”
Another took the joke, “perhaps skip down the aisle tossing flower petals?”
“You’ll do anything, won’t you,” the last joked, “to grope the maid’s arses.”
Crawford said nothing; he was silently jubilant that Ran would be his that much
sooner.
(iii)
Ran took the news of his upcoming marriage with particular aplomb. “All right,”
he said with a beaming smile, of course Crawford didn’t mention the proximity
of the Nemesis’ hordes to Inabayama as the reason for the hurried schedule. The
heaven guard might have been some of the greatest warriors in the world but
there was no reason to unduly worry him. He worried enough about Inabayama as
it was.
Yohji was teasing the boy mercilessly, but never actually explaining anything
about the jokes he and Schuldig shared with the boy, so Yohji was not
surprised, with a few weeks to the wedding, Ran came to him with questions.
The boy seemed very young, he wore a loose black jerkin and pants where he was
riding. “Yotan,” he said very solemnly looking at the floor, which was a good
indicator of the boy’s embarrassment. He made a few false starts, “Yotan,” he
said, “Schu,” he looked at the redhead and started biting his lip. “I,” he
stopped, “I,” the words were gone, “I wanna know how.” He finally shouted.
“How what, kiddo?” Schuldig asked, “how Yotan makes it to bed each night,
because that’s a trade secret, or how the gods hold up the sky?”
“No,” Ran protested looking a little put out, “I wanna know how.” He repeated
with more emphasis.
“Are we talking about your wedding?” Yohji asked with a bit of a leer. He often
leered at the boy but Ran took no interest in him at all. “Or what comes
after?”
“After.” Ran mumbled.
“Well,” Schuldig said, “the two of you go off into the mountains for a month,
you should know that, kid, you’ve been packing for it for a week.” He was
enjoying teasing the boy.
“Not that,” Ran protested, “the other thing.”
Yohji just laughed, “it’s nothing to worry about,” he said, “all you have to do
is lie back and think of Inabayama.”
“The king said,” he blushed bright and glowing, “that I would have instruction,
that someone would teach me.”
“Crawford,” Schuldig suggested. Ran ignored him.
“Yes, your tutor showed up with a bag full of instruments.” Yohji snickered,
“and got sent back to Inabayama on the first boat out with threats hanging in
his ears. Your betrothed didn’t care too much for his manner.”
“Or his bag of giant dildos.” Schuldig snickered.
“What’s a dildo?” Ran asked with wide eyes.
“It’s,” Yohji started.
“A type of book, you know those books,” Schuldig recovered. “The ones that have
no redeemable value.”
“The ones the cooks read?” Ran asked.
Yohji jumped on that opportunity, “Yes,” he said, “those ones.” He thanked
whatever god looked over him for the opportunity to avoid the topic. “Look,
kiddo, this is really a question you should be asking Crawford.”
“he kissed me.” Ran confided in a low voice, “I didn’t want to tell you because
you’re my champion and you’re meant to protect me, but I liked it and he
wouldn’t do it again if you killed him, and.” He stopped as he realised that
they were laughing at him. “It’s not funny.”
“Kissing.” Yohji said indulgently. ”That’s what comes after, lots and lots of
kissing, and I wouldn’t have killed him for kissing you, you know, I might have
threatened him a bit, but that’s all.” Ran did a fair impression of Omi as he
threw his arms about Yohji and hugged him tight. Then he frowned up at him,
“you could have just told me about the kissing you know.”
“Ah you see,” Schuldig said, “just as you were worried he’d kill Crawford,
Crawford might kill him.” Ran would never know how true that information
actually was.
(iv)
What surprised Ran about his wedding was that it happened with much less fuss
than he expected. He had both longed for and dreaded the day in equal measures
and when it arrived he was a little disappointed.
In Inabayama there was a great festival when one of the noblesse married, two
girls of the bride’s acquaintance would dress up as piskies to wish the bride
joy and the bride would be led, veiled, through the town by the Heaven Guard
where gifts would be given to her train. Often these were tiny things like
ribbons and knitted caps for any children she would have.
It was a matter of joy for the whole kingdom, children would run ahead of the
bride sprinkling her way with flower petal in the summer and holly leaves in
the winter. She would wear a crown of the season’s colours in flowers and
branches and a veil that dragged on the ground behind her that her mother had
worn before her.
Aya would have had that.
Ran didn’t.
He had a quick and rather light breakfast because his stomach was nauseous with
nerves. Then he was taken directly to the chapel where the bishop waited, they
said a few words and then Crawford slipped a golden pendant into the hole in
his ear that Yohji had pierced two weeks before in preparation. Crawford
whispered something to him as he did it but Ran never did make out the words.
Then he was led to a feast that seemed to pass him by in a haze.
He remembered Omi giving him a gift; a snow-globe that had been ordered
especially for him as a thank you for something Ran couldn’t remember in all
the hustle and fuss that surrounded him.
Then, he was given wine and the evening seemed to pass even quicker and before
he knew it, Crawford was leading him by the hand, with the whole court
following them it seemed, to his bed. “But I don’t know what to do.” Ran
protested.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Crawford said, and then as the court jeered
against the closing door, Crawford kissed him.
 
Crawford found Ran’s kisses maddening but he stopped himself, “you wont’ be
comfortable sleeping in that.” He said referring to the heavy quilted jacket
Ran wore, “let me help you.” His hands, Ran thought, were cold but capable as
they stripped him of his jacket. “Nervous?” he asked.
“A little.” Ran conceded looking at the floor.
“Don’t be.” Crawford said, “we don’t have to do anything you’re uncomfortable,
I don’t want you to know anything other than pleasure in this bed.”
“I’m scared.” Ran admitted as Crawford pulled away the shirt as if unwrapping a
great prize.
“You don’t need to be, we won’t do anything tonight.” Crawford brushed Ran’s
hair back from his face. “You’re very brave, you know.”
Ran tried to smile for him but it was small and weak. Then he laid his face
against Crawford’s chest, “thank you.” He murmured. “For everything.”
If Crawford answered him, Ran didn’t hear it.
***** Chapter 6 *****
(i)
Ran awoke to Crawford’s gentle fingers tracing the curve of his back. It
tickled and at first he tried to wriggle away from the intruding digits but as
he quickly ran out of bed he realised that wasn’t going to be an option so he
chose the more direct option. He rolled over and faced Crawford on an equal
level. “Morning,” he murmured sleepily.
“Morning.” Crawford answered. His amber eyes were predatory and there was a
shadow of stubble on his chin. “How did you sleep?”
A thousand answers galloped through Ran’s head, he had slept curled in the
hollow of Crawford’s shoulder, nestled against his strong chest, which now in
the early daylight he could see had a slight smattering of crisp black hairs.
He reached out, carefully, not sure of how much he was allowed, to touch them.
The men of Inabayama had scarce body hair, if any, he himself only had hair on
his head and a smattering under his arms and on his groin so it caught him
unawares to see so much hair. Crawford’s smile was indulgent. “It’s alright,”
he said, “touch me as much as you like.”
Ran blushed clear to the roots of his hair. “I don’t know how.” He said
quietly.
“I know,” Crawford told him, “I wanted to be the one to teach you.” He reached
out and pushed Ran’s bangs back from his face. “I love your hair,” he said,
“would you grow it, for me?” Ran smiled for him because that he could do, that
wish it was easy to fulfil.
Ran’s smile was so warm and inviting that Crawford had to kiss it. The boy’s
lips were like slices of fruit, soft and warm with a hint of salt from his
sweat, as he pulled away to look at the boy’s heavy lidded eyes he couldn’t
help but lick the taste of him from his lips. Ran was smiling, a little self-
indulgently. “What?” Crawford asked with a smile.
“Yotan said there’d be lots more kissing.” He said, “He was right.”
“What else did Yohji tell you?” Crawford said, twirling one of Ran’s ear tails
in his fingers.
“That the king of Inabayama sent someone to teach me but you sent him and his
books away, that you wanted to teach me.”
Crawford smiled, “That’s true.” He said, “but what books? He didn’t have books
that I saw.”
“Schuldig said he showed up with a bag of dildos, and Yohji said that they were
the books that cooks read, you know those books.” Crawford swallowed a laugh;
it wouldn’t do to laugh at the boy’s naiveté. The tutor had been a slug of a
man with maybe three hairs to his head and a box of porcelain penises with
which he would have taught Ran all the pleasures to give a man. The man had
been profusely sweating and Crawford got the impression that he got a certain
enjoyment out of teaching young girls the arts of the bedroom, something that
would have been exacerbated by Ran’s innocence.
The man had been sent back to Inabayama almost before he had disembarked the
boat.
Although Crawford might have taken a certain pleasure in having a boy who knew
how to please him, there were advantages, he knew, in teaching him himself. Ran
would want for nothing. He would learn at his own pace, without embarrassment
or fear, because to do anything would shatter the innocence that the boy wore
around him like a veil.
Yet, despite his good intentions, Crawford hungered.
There was a porcelain milkiness to the boy’s skin in the predawn light that
maddened him. He felt as soft as feather-tips against his fingers and the boy
took the curiosity with a soft indulgence, like the puppy would his master’s
petting. He laid his hand against the quiver of Ran’s belly as the boy let out
an appealing peal of laughter. “What are you doing?” he asked, his smile was
fond and rather loving, and his lips were reddened from the kisses. Crawford
had been quick to learn that Ran liked kissing, and he was happily indulging.
“I’m learning you.” Crawford told him and then reached over and claimed the
boy’s lips with his own. Ran tasted of fruit and spring and when he opened his
mouth slightly to better taste the boy he was surprised that Ran mirrored the
action. The boy learnt quickly.
He flicked the tip of his tongue against Ran’s lips but caught the boy when he
jerked back. “What?” He asked, a little apprehensive but still licking his own
lips, tasting Crawford there.
“It’s just another way to kiss you.” Crawford told him, “we don’t have to do it
if you don’t like it, but I thought you might like to try.” Ran frowned for a
moment as he considered it, he was obviously unaware of the very suggestion.
“Why don’t we try it, and if you don’t like it we won’t do it again.”
That appeased the boy and he reached forward for Crawford to kiss him again, as
Crawford gently plundered the boy’s mouth with his tongue, chasing Ran’s own,
which was as shy as the boy himself, he started drumming his finger tips of the
slim expanse of the boy’s belly, just above the line of his waistband knowing
that soon he would plunge his fingers underneath the fabric.
Ran was his now, and the only thing that might stop him was the boy’s tears.
He wanted Ran to enjoy it because if he did then he would do it more often.
Ran was raising himself into the kiss, his fingers were still on the back of
Crawford’s neck, light pads of pressure as Crawford pressed the boy with his
shoulders into the down mattress. There had to be some evidence of sex in the
bed or the marriage would be void and Crawford fully intended to enjoy it,
slithering the tips of two fingers into the waistband of Ran’s sleeping pants.
Ran jerked back with his hips even as he pressed his face closer to Crawford’s
taking deep ragged breaths through his nose. Crawford used his free hand to
smooth Ran’s hair, like he was stroking a skittish horse and Ran settled into
the gesture frightened but soothed by the gesture. Taking permission from the
gesture Crawford slipped his hand into Ran’s pants, above the line of wiry
curls but deep enough that Ran knew it was there.
To his credit although he was wary of the touch he didn’t back down from it
this time. “I don’t know,” Ran murmured against his mouth.
“Trust me,” Crawford told him, biting the boy’s fruit soft lips, “you’re doing
fine.” He traced his mouth along the smooth line of Ran’s jaw, mouthing kisses
along the curve of his throat. “Have you never touched yourself?” He asked.
“No,” Ran whimpered, unsure of what to do but enjoying what was happening
regardless.
Crawford had a sudden image of the boy’s hand on his own swollen cock, a cock
that even now was slowly stirring against his thighs, he could see it through
the thin sleeping pants. “Would you like to know how?” He asked then, more than
anything right now, he wanted to see the boy touch himself.
Ran nodded, biting his lips. “Raise your hips.” Crawford said, slipping his
hand from Ran’s pants to tug on the waistline. Ran looked at him wide eyed,
“You can’t learn if you can’t see.” Crawford soothed, Ran lifted his hips and
allowed Crawford to pull down his pants to reveal his stirring erection to his
husband. “Beautiful,” Crawford said softly then kissed Ran softly on the nose
and chin, “just beautiful.”
Ran was blushing as red as his hair, his entire face, chest and throat were
flushed with pink as Crawford trailed his finger tips along the boy’s
breastbone. “It will feel really good,” Crawford soothed, “I promise, this is
what comes after the kissing.” He reached up and kissed the boy again.
Reaching across the boy’s stomach he gently lifted his right hand, smoothing
his thumb over the palm before he brought his hand over to the boy’s erection
and held it in place there. Ran blushed even brighter, and covered his eyes
with his left hand. “It’s all right,” Crawford soothed, “I want to see.”
Pulling Ran’s hand gently away from his eyes he
clutched it in his own, “so beautiful.” His voice was calm and whispery, “so
very beautiful.”
 
Ran was lost to his forcefulness but never without the impression that he
could, at any moment, escape it. He could stop it if he said, but this was what
Crawford wanted, and pleasing Crawford was his duty to Inabayama. He had been
married to him not by choice, although he might not have chosen differently,
but for Inabayama. Part of him wondered, if he didn’t want this also.
Crawford lifted his right hand and brought it slowly, palm down, just light
enough to touch, over his cock. He had never felt anything like this before,
even though his eyes were screwed tight, Crawford holding his hands tight kept
him anchored. The sensation from his cock arced along his nerves and pooled in
his stomach, he couldn’t help his mouth falling open with an exhalation. It
felt so good.
He had never felt anything like this before. He opened his eyes slightly,
biting down on his lower lip to see that Crawford was indulgently smug. Then
Crawford did it again, guiding his hand to touch himself. He couldn’t look at
what Crawford was making him do, as good as it felt it was terribly
embarrassing, but he could stare at Crawford’s rapt attention. As odd as Ran
found it Crawford was enjoying the spectacle.
 
He pushed the tips of Ran’s fingers to the underside of his swollen cock and
listened with undisguised pleasure to the boy’s ragged moan. He had had no idea
that Ran’s naiveté would be so empowering, the boy was seeping, his cock wet
and slick against his fingers, Crawford could feel it against his own hand as
well. He was the one using Ran’s hand to stroke himself, he was the one who was
manipulating Ran’s hips off the bed with the touch he had never had before, he
was the one making Ran squirm.
And he liked it.
Ran came with a broken sigh and his back arching.
Crawford ignored his own aching erection and just stroked the boy’s arm and
kissed his neck. “Beautiful,” he murmured again, “so very beautiful.” But Ran
was already asleep.
***** Chapter 7 *****
(i)
Ran was dreaming. The world had the technicolour and sepia brilliance of a
dream. In the dream he was back in Inabayama, in the beach under his mother’s
window but the sea was distant and the sand was solid, not shifting under his
feet. He could hear the sea but there was no brine smell.
On the beach, skipping were three girls, as they skipped they were chanting a
skipping rhythm, such as those that Aya had used.
“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a death
And four for a birth
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a heart that’s lost to the cold
Eight for heaven
Nine for hell
Ten for a secret you never can tell.”
Over and over again they repeated the rhyme as they turned the rope and the
girl jumped in time.
Unsure what else to do he walked towards them.
All of the girls had long hair, pulled up in twin tails on either side of their
heads. They wore short dresses with white socks and aprons. There were ribbons
in their hair, but as he neared them he could see that there wasn’t three
girls. There was one. She was there three times. And they repeated the rhyme.
Now he was beside them he could see that their dresses were made of soft green
lace and their shoes were shining black leather that slapped on the sand when
the girl jumped in time to avoid the rope.
“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a death
And four for a birth
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a heart that’s lost to the cold
Eight for heaven
Nine for hell
Ten for a secret you never can tell.”
One of the girls turned to look at him and offered him a kind smile. There was
a faint greenish tinge to her skin. Then she stepped out of the spinning rope
and walked over to him.
Her skirt was scandalously short and her hair bobbed as she moved. In the
pocket of her apron she had a mirror. It was a perfect circle and there was a
scarlet rope with tassel on the back. Because it was a dream he could make
these details out.
She laid her hand, which was cold to the touch, on his cheek and leant in
against him and whispered in his ear, “three for a death.”
He awoke in Crawford’s bed with a start.
Sometime since he had fallen asleep Crawford had turned and thrown his arm
across Ran’s chest. It was heavy and hot though Ran felt cold. His breathing
was irregular and his stomach was turning circles. He threw off Crawford’s arm
and ran to the privy where he was violently sick.
Crawford came in behind him, sleep mussed and not really awake, he carried a
cup of water and tried to rub his back but Ran shooed him away. “Just a bad
dream,” he murmured even as he pressed his face against the wall, hoping his
stomach had settled. “Just a bad dream.”
Crawford wiped his face for him, with a small square of silk edged in soft
white lace, like he was a child and held out the water. He didn’t say anything,
he didn’t ask him about the dream, nor did he touch him other than making sure
Ran’s fingers closed about the beaker of water.
(ii)
Ran was despondent for a few days after the wedding. He barely ate, and both
Schuldig and Yohji closed ranks between him and his new husband. Despite
Crawford’s terrible reputation, and the shadowy form of his torturer
occasionally in the halls of the mountain retreat, they were determined to do
their best to protect the boy in their care, even if it was from his husband.
Ran would not talk about it either, which only fuelled their nightmares
regarding what had happened. He went to bed, alone, early, but didn’t sleep.
Sometimes they heard him rise in the middle of the night and he would stand by
the window, but he would tell them he was just sleepless and he wanted to watch
the moon. That he stood with his arms about himself only worried them more.
Crawford never pressed him either.
On the eighth such day Manx came to the mountain retreat, she had left Omi in
someone else’s care and wrapped her arms about Ran and the storm that boiled
within him shattered and he wept. It was only later that Manx told them the
news that she had received in her mail that day, on the morning after he had
been married his sister, Aya, had died, peacefully in her sleep.
Yohji was the one to tell Crawford, his apology for the things he had suggested
of him, he kept quiet.
Ran changed that day, but Crawford was kind and patient and later that came to
mean a very great deal to him indeed.
(iii)
Ran stood at the balcony with a light wool shawl about his shoulders. He hadn’t
even dressed for the day. It had been three weeks since Manx had told him of
Aya’s death and in that time he had lost weight, he had ignored his puppy that
had been given into the care of Naoe and Omi who spoiled it relentlessly.
The moon had a halo that suggested upcoming frost but the boy stood in just
sleeping pants and the shawl that Yohji had slipped around his shoulders. He
ignored Yohji’s attempts to make him eat and sent Schuldig scurrying with a
glare. Unsure what else to do the two soldiers turned to Crawford.
He opened the door with an involuntary shiver at the cold. The fire had been
let die down and with the balcony windows open there was no place to hide from
the cold but the bed which had not been turned down. Just as Ran refused food
he sent the maids away.
“Come away from the window.” Crawford said calmly, “you’ll catch your death.”
He stepped up beside the boy, ignoring his glare, which was, he had to admit,
quite impressive. “Aya wouldn’t want that of you.”
Ran turned and for the first time even acknowledged him. “What do you know of
what she’d want?” He asked, “You never knew her.”
“No,” Crawford conceded, “but I know you,” he said softly, “and I know if you
had been the one to die that you wouldn’t want her to kill herself.”
“Manx told you to say that.” Aya accused.
“Manx cares for me less than she cares for Yohji.” Crawford corrected him; “in
fact if there was even a suggestion that I had hurt you she would not hesitate
to slip something
nasty into my wine.” Ran didn’t look at him but turned his attention back to
the halo around the moon. “Would you like to return to Inabayama to say
goodbye?” He asked.
At that Ran looked at him. “But,” he said, “my duty is here.”
“Your duty is with me.” Crawford corrected, “and so far you have done it
admirably.” It was a salve to the boy’s tattered ego, “but if you need to we
can go to Inabayama. She was your sister, I am not heartless, Ran, no matter
what they say of me. If you need to go to Inabayama I will go with you.”
Ran was silent but Crawford could see him working out what it must have cost
Crawford to say it. “Is it the same moon over Eressea?” Ran asked suddenly
turning back to the moon which was a brilliant white in a dark indigo sky.
“Yes,” Crawford said stepping in close behind him. “There is a legend here, in
Eressea, about the moon. Apparently,” he wrapped his arms about Ran to warm
him, a little surprised that the boy did not push him away as he had before.
“There is a kingdom on the moon, and one day a princess fell to earth with only
a shawl and the clothes she wore. She didn’t speak the same language but the
king of Eressea when he saw her beauty pressured her into marriage. She
refused.” He wasn’t sure when Ran had leant back into him but he was glad. “She
told him that her shawl was one of the cloths of heaven, that it was the halo
around the moon and without it that the universe would be thrown into chaos and
she must return to her kingdom in the moon. He didn’t believe her.”
Ran had settled into his arms and Crawford could feel his heart beat against
his chest, steady and unbroken, but the body in his arms was limp and careless.
“And he forced her into marriage regardless.
“But the moon princess, Tsukihime, hadn’t lied. And as the year waned the frost
didn’t come, the winter was so mild it was almost summer and for one year that
was not a problem. The second year came and went with no winter, and a third.
The plains began to flood; the forests grew out of control, and the crops
failed. The animals grew thin and confused. But still the king would not let
her go.”
Ran was quiet as Crawford told him the story. He said nothing, just slowly
stared at the corona of the moon.
“Armies came and ignored the island because it was poor, without winter the
ground was as if it had been salted. Five years passed, and then ten, until the
people were starved, and like all starving peasants do, they revolted. And in
the centre of it was Tsukihime, pale and lovely, with her shawl of frozen
moonlight about her.” Crawford stroked one of Ran’s ear tails, twining it
through his fingers. It soothed the boy. “As her champions stood over the body
of her husband she told him what she had told him when she refused him
marriage, that she had to return to the heavens, at least for part of the year.
With no choice he allowed her, releasing her from her wifely duties. That year
the winter came, but when spring returned so did Tsukihime.”
“I don’t understand.” Ran said finally, “Why tell me this?”
“Because what the king learned was that sometimes, even if you don’t want to,
you have to let people go and trust that they’ll return. I want you to go to
Inabayama because you need to say goodbye, I will go with you because I nearly
married your sister and I would like to pass on my respects too.”
At that Ran turned to look at his husband, turning in his arms so that he could
lay his cheek upon Crawford’s chest. “Thank you,” he murmured. “for being so
kind.”
“Ran,” he tilted the boy’s face up to look at him, “there is more to being a
husband than making rules.” He said, “and more than what happens in the
bedroom. I am supposed to be strong for you, so when you need to then you can
be strong for me.”
“I don’t know how.” Ran said, it was a broken exhalation. “I don’t know how.”
“Then let me be strong for you.” Crawford said lowering his face for a kiss,
breathing the words against Ran’s mouth. “Let me show you how.” His lips were
almost touching Ran’s mouth.
“I don’t know how.” Ran repeated.
“Just let me,” Crawford said, his lips mouthing the words against Ran’s, “just
give in.”
So Ran did, he opened his mouth for Crawford’s kiss and gave himself willingly.
As he succumbed to the kiss Ran felt his knees weaken but it didn’t matter
because Crawford was there to catch him, and he did, the arms, which had been
so comforting, were now strong and supported his weight, and without breaking
that kiss, without diverting attention from his tongue, Crawford scooped him
up, pushing shut the balcony door with his hip as he carried Ran to the bed.
He pulled away the shawl from Ran’s shoulders like he was unwrapping a prize,
baring the ice white shoulders to his hands and mouth. But he met Ran’s eyes
with his own, “tell me to stop and I will.” Ran didn’t answer him, but his eyes
were dead. His kisses tasted of duty but Crawford didn’t stop. He kissed the
pale nipples on his chest, he dipped his tongue into the boy’s navel and
although Ran cried out he didn’t stop. He undid the points of the boy’s
sleeping pants as his tongue slipped inside. He looked up, Ran’s head was cast
back and his eyes were closed. “This is just another way to love you.” He said
and then took the boy’s swelling flesh in his mouth.
It didn’t take long. Ran was young and inexperienced. He was biting down on the
flesh of his hand as he came in Crawford’s mouth, but he didn’t tell him to
stop. “So beautiful,” Crawford murmured even as he wiped a few stray drops from
his lips, “so very beautiful.” He crawled up Ran’s body, pressing kisses on the
sweet white meat of his muscles, of his pectorals and abdominals before kissing
him on the hollow of his throat. “Let me love you,” Crawford murmured even as
he reached across his body, “just trust me.”
Ran didn’t answer him. He took the small vial of oil from Ran’s bedside table,
it was shaped like a perfume bottle, with a wide neck but narrowed to a point,
and he uncorked it quickly filling the room with the scent of briar roses.
“Just let me love you, beautiful.”
Ran didn’t answer him.
So with gentle touches Crawford started to touch him, running his fingers over
the puckered entrance, and then slowly pressing in. Ran made no objection. He
circled with one finger, pressing the oil into the hot moist flesh, noting as
Ran’s hips lifted but his face turned away.
Crawford took his time. He had promised Ran nothing but pleasure in his bed so
he took his time even though he himself ached with arousal. He stroked the
boy’s prostate on every other thrust of his finger, and kissed away Ran’s
whimper when he added the second.
He spent over an hour preparing the boy, placing occasional kisses to his
mouth, his throat, his chest, his cock. It was only when three of his fingers
slid in and out that he took the oil and coated his own aching erection. He
worried that he might burst if he took it quickly, so he carefully pushed
himself inside.
Ran was hot and tight inside, and maddeningly, brain meltingly good.
He pushed and pushed as Ran bit into his finger, he murmured encouragements
even as he almost pushed himself past his ability to reason, and it was only
when he was fully seated that he took Ran’s thighs in his hands and turned them
over so Ran was above him. He might want to sate his lust and just pound into
the boy until they both came but Ran was not ready for that. He would take it
at Ran’s pace. He pulled Ran’s finger from his mouth, seeing the tooth marks
embedded in the skin of his knuckle, and threaded those fingers through with
his own. “So beautiful.” He repeated as putting both their hands on Ran’s hips
he started to gently raised and lower him unto his aching erection.
When he came he did so with an animal grunt, feeling the push and pull against
as Ran found his own rhythm and rode him, he had cast his head back and the
palms of his hands were sweaty and even though Crawford had come he didn’t
stop, he must have been close, Crawford thought, watching the blush build on
his chest and throat.
When he came, after a few long moments in which Crawford just watched him, with
his head thrown back and his eyes screwed shut he collapsed on Crawford’s chest
in such a way that he slipped out of him, panting and exhausted but would not
let Crawford pull his hands away from his own. “show me how,” he murmured in
Crawford’s ear, “I need you to show me how.”
***** Chapter 8 *****
(i)
After that Ran and Crawford were inseparable, or more accurately, Ran followed
his husband around like a lost lamb. Although he would retire late at night to
his own bed he would rise after an hour or so and walk past his champions with
a robe about his shoulders and go to Crawford’s room. Crawford’s personal
guard, a frightening one-eyed man, just opened the door to the boy. Then he
would shuffle, without saying a word, and stand sentinel at the side of
Crawford’s bed until the blanket was pulled back and then he’d climb in and
snuggle up against Crawford’s broad chest.
He never asked if he could do that, and if Crawford asked if he wanted to go to
bed with him he just refused.
Yet night after night, just after midnight, he would be drawn to Crawford’s
room. Sometimes all he wanted to do was lie there, Crawford supposed it made
him feel safe, and sometimes he made his wants known in a thousand simple ways.
Sometimes it was a light kiss, or sometimes he would toss and turn until
Crawford took the hint and kissed him.
Crawford liked to believe the boy was inherently horny, yet during the sex Ran
was often desperate, clinging to Crawford tightly, and he never looked at him.
Afterwards he was affectionate, often stroking Crawford’s face or running his
fingers through his chest hair. He never took a dominant position and he never
touched Crawford without his hands being guided.
Sometimes Crawford spent hours in foreplay and yet Ran never begged. He would
kiss Ran until his lips were swollen, he would kiss his nipples, his throat,
the insides of his elbows, the knob of his wrists, the bone of his ankles. He
left no part of his body undiscovered in an attempt to make Ran call out. He
never did.
Yet he clung to him like an anchor, and sometimes when Crawford was deep within
his body, when Ran’s back was arched and his thighs spread, sometimes the boy
cried. It wasn’t pain, for Crawford was far too careful for that, but he would
often wipe away tears from his cheeks and then kiss his eyelids.
He wondered if this was the way Ran found to grieve.
This new licentiousness was not limited to the hours between midnight and dawn
however. Ran would accompany him to his offices, he would sit silently at his
side as he did his business, he would be polite and charming to the other lords
of the privy council that called on him, and he would either give into
Crawford’s lustful stares, walking across the room with dead eyes as he undid
his shirt, or even seduce him himself.
Crawford liked to believe that the boy was just inherently horny, as most boys
that age were.
Ran allowed him every liberty with his body, and in very strange ways made
clear his intention, so there was no room for mistake in Crawford’s eyes, and
the boy never told him to stop, oft times he would move his hand to a place
that Ran preferred to be touched.
Yet the only non-physical sign of his enjoyment, and it was clear that he did
enjoy it, was the breathy grunt when he came.
Sometimes Ran would sit at his feet, like a dog or a slave, and lay his cheek
against his thigh.
If he conducted an interview then Ran would leave with Yohji, who would often
wait outside the office, and they would return maybe an hour later. Sometimes
Yohji had thought ahead and bought them food for left to his own devices Ran
wouldn’t eat. If he placed food before him however he did.
Sometimes he just sat on the couch in Crawford’s office with a book in his
hands, that he pretended to read when Crawford worked.
Ran was mourning, Crawford thought as he put in place the last few measures
that would allow him to take the boy home to Inabayama, and he couldn’t
question his behaviour.
(ii)
Crawford had never cared for sea travel. He found it drawn out and boring,
hence when his king had needed a general who would travel between Eressea and
the battlefield Crawford instead had taken the position of Inquisitor General.
The journey between Eressea and Inabayama was just over a week and in that time
Ran stood at the prow, staring out to sea looking for the endless towers of the
capital.
Yohji and Schuldig stood behind him like statues, neither said anything and
sometimes Crawford would look up from the work that he had brought with him, in
the care of his chief torturer who had made a passable manservant, to look at
the boy.
Ran stood ramrod straight, his hair was growing out as Crawford had asked him
to do, but just looked shaggy but whipped about his head and face. Yohji had
convinced him to wear a cloak, probably by pinning it on him himself, and
Schuldig stood downwind of it, like a pillar to the side of the boy.
There was something lost about Ran as he stood there, something desolate.
Crawford found his eyes drawn to it as it slowly added to the boy’s beauty.
In Eressea the boy had been his shadow, on the boat he was more a figurehead.
Crawford half expected him to dive from the prow into the water, but his two
knights would have followed him down. Crawford knew the laws of their duty, of
how far they would go, but he suspected that Ran’s gentle naiveté and warm
heart meant that the two of them would follow him into hell. His own manservant
feared Crawford enough that he would have dived into the water too.
At night Ran slept wedged between Yohji and Schuldig, his hand pulling on his
ear tail. Crawford supposed it was better that way.
(iii)
Ran sprinted into his mother’s arms, falling to his knees before her and
burying his face in her skirts. She lowered her hands to his hair, but remained
firm. She was a lady of the realm and in the face of her son’s husband she
would not waver, even if all she wanted to do was collapse into her son’s arms
and mourn with him.
His father was stern and thin, it was obvious that Ran had inherited his
mother’s beauty. “Thank you.” Ayako said in her quiet voice, “for bringing him
home.”
The statement made Crawford irrationally jealous, “This is no longer his home.”
He said in a clipped manner, “he needs closure, I brought him to Inabayama to
mourn with his family, in one month we will return to Eressea.”
“Nevertheless,” Ranmura said, “we are grateful that you could bring him.” His
voice was soft and rich, like Ran’s. “Lodgings have been arranged for your
entire party here at the Fujimiya estate but I ask you to bear in mind that it
is a house in mourning.”
“Certainly,” Crawford said, “I will leave Ran in your care,” he said, “for
now.”
(iv)
Crawford found the king of Inabayama to be a thoughtless boor. He sat at his
desk as if at a throne and gave the idea he was wearing an imaginary crown.
Crawford had dealt with him, by mail, arranging the marriage contract in his
role as one of the privy council to his own king, but he knew with absolute
certainty that Inabayama would fall to the forces of the Nemesis for the simple
reason that the king was an idiot.
“What brings you to Inabayama, is it in an official capacity? Is that why you
brought your chief torturer?” The king asked. If it had been his own king the
Privy Council would have surrounded him, and it said something about this man’s
arrogance that he disregarded all the advice that he might otherwise have had.
“I am here with my bride,” Crawford said simply, “I am returning him to the
bosom of his family at this time.”
“Bored of him already,” the king laughed, “the Fujimiya are pretty but staid.”
“no,” Crawford said, knowing he would never tire of Ran, “the family is in
mourning, I brought him home to mourn with his family, he asked if I would
accompany him.”
“Perhaps you didn’t want to leave his sweet ass for the six weeks a journey
entails.” The king said with a leer, “as I recall he was a comely lad.”
“He is mine,” Crawford said with a hint of steel, “and my king asked that I
check the state of your defences as the Nemesis’ forces are less than a hundred
miles from your walls and your trade is important to us. He wanted to know if
we would have to send forces to bolster your own.” He was biding his temper. A
fool ruled Inabayama.
“Is that why you hold Mamoru hostage?” the king said leaning back to make
himself seem more impressive. It didn’t faze Crawford in the slightest.
“Mamoru is a guest in my home, he has struck up a friendship with my young son,
he could leave at any time he wants, in fact I asked if he wanted to return
with me. He refused. He is enjoying the Eressean winter.” It was true; Omi
wasn’t a hostage, yet.
“If all your king sought was knowledge of our armed forces then why did he send
his chief interrogator and torturer?” Perhaps, Crawford thought, this man
wasn’t as much of an arrogant idiot as he appeared.
“Because I once served in his armies, I commanded the legion at Herensea.”
Crawford told him, “and I was coming anyway, accompanying my bride.”
“I can assure you, and your king, that there will be little need for his
assistance, as I’m sure you noticed the Heaven’s Guard are undefeated and
peerless in battle. Inabayama will fall either to the Nemesis or to your king,
if he so chooses to attack us. We are well defended on land and sea.”
Crawford resisted the urge to snort in disbelief. The Heaven Guard were good
but the forces of the Nemesis were almost numberless, and even if they managed
to defeat them there was always the army of Estet to fear in their shadow. The
man was a fool, it was something he hadn’t noticed when he had arranged the
marriage contract. The man was arrogant, he knew that Inabayama had been the
home of the gods and he had the misconception that that was obviously enough to
protect it. “I am having supper tonight with some of my more intimate friends,”
the king said loosely, “you’re welcome to come, and bring your bride.”
“He is in his time of mourning.” Crawford said stiffly, “he will not attend.”
“Oh yes,” the king said, “his sister, it got a little messy, towards the end.”
It was more than enough.
Crawford slammed his hand down on the king’s desk. “I am a guest of the
Fujimiya, majesty, not you.” He grated, “and my manservant often takes offence
on my behalf and once he is unleashed I can not rein him in.” It was a badly
veiled threat, the king paled. “And his reputation precedes him I see. I may
not have known Aya Fujimiya but I know her brother well, and such words will
cause him hurt that he does not need. I am fond of the lad and will not see him
hurt over one man’s careless words. Shall I tell Farfarello to keep his knives
sharp? When the knives are sharp one doesn’t feel the cut.”
“You’re a brave man, Crawford,” the king said, “to threaten the king in his own
study.”
Crawford’s smile was slow and sinuous, “just a warning, majesty, just a
warning.”
***** Chapter 9 *****
(i)
Every day Ran awoke before dawn and walked along the beach where he had first
seen the piskie in the hope, unconsciously maybe, that he would see her again.
He didn’t. He didn’t know what it was that he wanted to say to her, just that
he needed to say something. Nevertheless she never appeared to hear it.
Crawford would stand at the window and watch him through the glass, and just
behind, almost out of sight were his champions. If he wondered what the boy did
he never asked.
He couldn’t wait to be out of this backwater of a country. He was only here
because Ran wanted to be, because Ran needed time to mourn.
What Ran didn’t know then, and wouldn’t know till years later was that it was
Inabayama that he was mourning, not his sister.
One of the few things Crawford took with him from Inabayama was a portrait on
vellum in charcoal of Ran lying asleep with his sister’s doll in his arms. He
would have it framed and in later years it would be cherished in ways other,
greater, pieces of art were not.
(ii)
Crawford returned home to Eressea to a commission. He had, in his position as
Inquisitor General, been told to go to the front at Herensie to maintain order.
He didn’t even bother to unpack, just added his armour and “work clothes” to
his luggage and asked Ran, with both of his hands held, if he wanted to go to.
Ran offered him a tired smile. “I was to be a member of the Heaven Guard,” he
said quietly, he had lost his passion with his sister, “I will give what I know
to protect you.” It wasn’t why Crawford wanted him to come but he appreciated
the gesture regardless.
The journey was long and arduous but Ran didn’t complain once. In fact he
didn’t speak much at all.
“Who is it that Eressea is at war with?” Ran asked that night over supper. As
Inquisitor General whenever Crawford stopped a great palanquin was raised for
him to bed down in, and food worthy of a king was prepared. Crawford frowned
into his wine that Ran obviously still didn’t think of Eressea as his home.
“Estet.” Crawford answered. Ran’s champions had left him alone for the night,
they were probably making free of the local town’s inn knowing the two of them.
Farfarello was just outside the tent opening. He was probably smiling at people
as they passed, as he knew that frightened them more than anything else. “They
come from the east, they’re determined to take over the continent.”
“And the Nemesis?” Ran asked.
“We don’t understand his intentions at all. He leaves bureaucracy behind but
abolishes the governments and kills most of the noble families to prevent any
claims to the throne other than that of his viceroy. He destroys all armies
except his own.” Crawford poured himself more of the sweet white wine, and
refilled Ran’s cup.
Ran lifted it and swirled it around but didn’t drink. He had barely eaten.
“I’ve never been to war before.” Ran said quietly.
“It’s not war.” Crawford corrected him, “it’s the front, Eressea holds the fort
on one side of the lake, Estet on the other, it doesn’t seem to upset the
natives at all.” He speared a piece of the meat on his plate and chewed on it
thoughtfully. Since he had met Ran he enjoyed taking his supper with him. The
boy was intelligent, if shy, and sometimes his answers were provoking. Despite
Ran’s best attempts to convince the world of the contrary he was actually very
clever. Crawford wondered if his long pauses were just his shyness or if he was
contemplating what was said.
“Who is the Nemesis?” He asked quietly. “I heard him mentioned a lot in
Inabayama.”
“His army is not far from Inabayama, maybe two weeks.” Crawford explained, “I
think the king might be in talks with them.”
“If his intentions are the betterment of the nation where is the problem?” Ran
asked, “surely if they surrendered peacefully then he wouldn’t be forced to
take the measure he does to prevent uprisings.”
This was why Crawford adored Ran, the boy, deny it as he might, was brilliant.
“It’s not that simple.” Crawford told him, “they take tithes.”
“All countries take taxes.” Ran corrected.
“It’s not money, they take,” Crawford paused, “they call them Janissary.” There
was a prolonged silence as Crawford worked out the best way to explain. “They
take people, Ran, to join the court at Atzara. Children mostly.” Ran frowned.
“it’s a double edged sword, although they take them from their families, they
educate them and give them a better life in the government. However,” he
stopped again, making sure Ran took in what he was saying, “the beautiful ones,
the lovely ones, are installed in the Seraglio.” He reached across the small
table and touched Ran’s soft white cheek. “We don’t know what happens to them
then, perhaps they stay there until they’re old and ugly, perhaps they’re sold
to the brothels. I don’t know.”
“Does it bother you,” Ran asked, cutting through to the heart of the matter,
“That you don’t know? I suppose you would like to know that such a fate would
not befall Naoe.”
“Naoe?” Crawford said softly with a small laugh. “He is too young to make such
assumptions, I suppose it is you that I fear for.” He ran the pad of his thumb
over Ran’s lips.
“Why?” Ran asked, “I’m just funny looking.”
Crawford burst out laughing. “Ran,” he said with all honesty, “already you’re
one of the most lovely people I have ever seen, and as you get older you get
more and more beautiful. Do you still read the books about Celabrien?” Ran
nodded, unsure where this is going. “And Alaric her handsome champion.” Ran
just nodded. “When you described Celabrien to me I always saw her with your
face.”
Ran blushed prettily, even deep in despair as he so obviously was, such a
compliment moved him. He took Crawford’s hand in his own and stood up, moving
away from the table, and pulled him towards the bed. Crawford’s cock leapt in
his pants at the prospect. “You don’t have to do this because I complimented
you, Ran,” he forced himself to say, he had promised that he would never force
Ran to do something he didn’t want to, or wasn’t ready to do, “I don’t just
tell you that you’re beautiful in bed you know, I do think you’re very
beautiful.”
It was clear Ran didn’t want to hear any more because he pressed his finger to
Crawford’s lips and shook his head, “just hold me,” he said softly, “please.”
Willing the blood to leave his erection Crawford pushed Ran’s jerkin away from
his shoulders, baring the creamy flesh, “I’ll do anything you want,” he kissed
the cord of Ran’s neck softly, “anything you want,” he repeated.
As maddening as he found it to be curled up with Ran, with one hand on his lush
buttock, Crawford obeyed his bride, and simply held him.
(iii)
The town of Herensea was heavily fortified and behind strong tall walls.
Eressean flags snapped in the wind as Ran looked up, “welcome,” Crawford said
to the boy who had his hood pulled up to the sun, “to Herensea.” Ran offered
him a wan smile and then looked back to Yohji and Schuldig who rode slightly
behind, as if reassuring himself that they were there.
Ran’s chambers were lush despite the harshness of the citadel. There were
several rather lovely tapestries and heavy velvet drapes to keep out the cold.
There was also a large polished mirror and several large closets for his
clothes. Crawford had made it clear that he was to have anything and everything
he wanted, and that he was to be obeyed as if he was lord here. The condition
was that he did not leave the citadel without an armed escort, which meant more
than his two champions.
Before Aya’s death Ran might have ransacked the room looking for its secrets.
He simply put his things away. In the back of one of the drawers was a book, he
opened it curiously then dropped it in shock.
“What is it, kiddo?” Schuldig asked hearing the noise.
“That?” He said pointing at the book.
“What is it? A treatise on torture?” He flicked through the pages, then tilted
his head to look better at the illustrations. “Woah,” he said and then tilted
his head more, “I think I better,” his head was almost perpendicular now,
“confiscate this,” he turned over the page, “that’s just not humanly possible.”
He turned over the page again, “and you’d need a bath in the morning after that
one, just to loosen the muscles.”
“What?” Yohji said coming in, “what’s that?”
“It’s Ran’s.” Schuldig teased, showing him the cover of the book. It was a
beautifully tooled leather cover.
“I,” Ran began, “I found it, it’s not mine.”
“So what is it?” Yohji asked crossing the room to them.
“A pillow book,” Schuldig said with a smirk, “with illustrations, and it’s for
men.”
“Crawford dropping you hints, kiddo?” Yohji asked with a mock punch on the arm.
Ran just blushed even brighter. “Let me see,” He said taking the book from
Schuldig and opened it to an interesting page, “I think that this one’s illegal
in nine out of the ten city states,” he said tilting his head, “and that’s
just,” he stopped, “well maybe if you did put your leg like that, and your arm
there.”
“Ecchi,” Schuldig said slapping him around the back of the head. “I think I
should tell Crawford.”
“No,” Ran said suddenly, “I,” he blushed again, “I wanna know how,” he said,
“and,” he lowered his eyes to the floor, “I just wanna,” he stammered out
finally.
“You mean,” Schuldig raised his eyebrows in question, “in all this time?”
“No,” Ran said, “I just,” he sighed, “lie back and think of Inabayama.” He
wanted the ground to open up and swallow him, “I just,” both of them looked
softly indulgent, “I just.”
“Ran,” Yohji said softly, “we’re all shy at first, just do what feels good,
hell, I know prostitutes that couldn’t do half the stuff in that book.”
“I know contortionists that couldn’t’ either.” Schuldig admitted, “nor
contortionist prostitutes.” Despite himself Ran laughed at that. “Why don’t you
just tell Crawford that?”
“Or show him the book? I mean you must have spent a pretty penny on it, it
looks expensive.” Yohji told him.
“I found it,” Ran protested, “it was in the drawer,”
“And Schuldig doesn’t pay his contortionist prostitutes,” Yohji laughed.
“But,” Ran protested,
“He’s teasing you, Kirsche.” Schuldig said, “ignore him, it’s been so long that
he has to turn to things like that book.” Ran could hear the snigger in his
voice.
“I thought,” Ran said with his most innocent look, “That you two,” he left it
open as both of them gaped at him.
“With him?” Schuldig spluttered, “he cares more about his hair than most
people.”
“At least I bathe regularly,” Yohji countered.
“I can do page sixty three.” Schuldig told him with a leer.
Yohji skipped to the page, then tilted his head, “really?” He asked.
Ran just laughed.
***** Chapter 10 *****
(i)
Crawford took the book from Ran and carefully opened the front cover, then he
smiled to himself, “She must have left this behind for you,” he said fondly as
Ran blushed to his hairline. “Lady Birman Redgrove,” Crawford explained, “she
was commander here before me, she said that she would leave me a gift, giving
that book to you must have been it.”
“But,” Ran protested, “Yotan said that half of these things were impossible for
contortionist prostitutes.”
Crawford’s laugh was deep and low, and Ran thought to himself, very sexy. It
was one of the few times he had thought of his husband as sexy and he decided
it was the book’s entire fault. “Lady Redgrove has a strange sense of humour,”
he said, “but she wouldn’t give you something she thought you couldn’t do,” he
turned to an illustration, “and we’ve already done that one.” He said showing
Ran the page.
Ran looked at it, “really?” he asked. He took the outstretched book and then
tilted his head, “I didn’t think I was that limber.”
Crawford laughed again; his smile was fond and indulgent. “You really spend too
much time with Yohji and Schuldig,” he said but there was nothing incriminating
or unhappy in his tone. Ran turned the page, “I know we’ve done this one,” he
said showing Crawford the illustration, “well, you’ve done this one.” He
blushed again. “I,” he shuffled his feet,
“could I,” he said.
“You want to do that?” Crawford finished the sentence for him. His smile was
indulgent, “later, I have a meeting soon and although there’s nothing I’d like
better, I simply don’t have time at the moment.” He reached across the desk and
kissed Ran on the mouth, “not that I’ll be able to concentrate now.” He said
closing the book, “You’re a wicked boy, Ran, to give me such ideas before I’m
due to meet the mother’s council of Herensea.” He took Ran’s hand and squeezed
it, “you might want to take the book as well.” Ran blushed a little brighter,
if that was possible. Crawford took the three steps around the desk so that he
was in line with Ran’s ear, leaning down just a little to whisper, “of course
I’ll imagine you touching yourself,” he whispered, “whilst your waiting for me,
imagining what you’re going to do to me.” Ran swallowed and Crawford turned his
face around and kissed him.
Crawford deliberately rocked his hips against the boy’s, feeling the swelling
there and smirked into the kiss.
Ran batted him away. “Crawford,” he protested, pulling away, “it’s still
daytime.”
Crawford just smirked, then pulled away, and went to the door. “Farfarello,” he
said to his manservant, “will you inform the ladies of the Mother’s Council
that I’m going to be indisposed for the rest of the afternoon, the travelling
took more out of me than I thought, and ask them to rearrange their
appointment.”
Farfarello grunted an answer, and Crawford turned back to Ran, “it’s fine,” he
said, “it was only a greeting to let me know the lie of the land here.” He
said, moving in such a way that Ran was pinned against the table, “and believe
me, no one will try and get past Farfarello.” He took Ran’s face in his hands,
“Your hair is getting longer,” he said, moving the strands with his fingertips.
“You asked me to grow it,” Ran said softly, unsure where this was going.
“I know,” Crawford whispered, leaning in closer to the boy, “and it makes you
all the more beautiful.” He lowered his hands to the boy’s hips and lifted him
up unto the desk, standing between his spread legs and rubbing his own erection
against the boy’s.
“Your meeting,” Ran protested as Crawford began to kiss his jaw and rub the
ridge of flesh that was raising against his pants.
“Irrelevant,” Crawford said, untying Ran’s jerkin, and pushing it back,
“cancelled.” He began to leave hot wet kisses along his collarbone, “just let
me, love,” he murmured, “just let me love you.”
“But,” Ran protested, even as his hands bunched in Crawford’s shirt pulling him
closer, “I want to,” he stammered, “I mean, I,” he blushed.
Crawford smiled even as his hand rubbed against Ran’s stirring erection. “Give
me your hand,” he said softly, Ran obeyed, and Crawford brought it up against
his own erection.
“You can touch me all you like, Ran,” he ran his tongue the length of Ran’s
neck and stopped at his lips, “you can kiss me where you like, I don’t mind,”
he sucked Ran’s lower lip into his mouth, “in fact, I’d rather like you to.”
Ran swallowed, a little involuntarily, “then tell me how.”
Crawford raised an eyebrow at that, but then realised Ran was seeking
instruction, it wasn’t that he was deliberately doing this, but that he simply
had no effect how. “I have a better idea,” Crawford said quietly, “why don’t
you do what I do.”
He undid his pants efficiently and then pressed Ran’s hand inside. At first Ran
was nervous and then as Crawford’s own hand closed about Ran’s erection. Ran’s
nervousness charmed Crawford even as he leaned in for a kiss, moving his hips
so he got some friction.
“Not here,” Ran gasped against his mouth, even as he pressed his own hips
harder into Crawford’s hand.
“Yes,” Crawford growled, “here.” He kissed Ran savagely; knowing that the boy
wouldn’t mind, that he could do what he liked and Ran would enjoy it. Ran met
the onslaught of his tongue with his own. Since their marriage the boy had
learned to kiss. Kisses silenced his protests as the hand in his groin rubbed
the fight from him. Crawford could barely think against Ran’s chill white
fingers, clumsy and careless but trying. Crawford felt the tension in Ran’s
shoulder’s vanish and he resisted the urge to just turn Ran unto his front on
the desk and fuck him raw.
But Ran had asked, in fact Ran had offered.
He picked Ran up, sliding his hand from his erection to cup his ass, squeezing
for measure as he carried him to the couch, as much as he wanted to christen
the desk Ran couldn’t do what he wanted him to from that vantage point.
He missed the couch by a few inches and Ran sank to the floor and took him with
him unto the rich wool rug. He shirked off his shirt, careless of where it
landed as long as he didn’t lose contact with Ran’s skin, with Ran’s mouth.
Despite learning so much from Crawford the boy was still charmingly naive.
Crawford pulled back from the kiss with a gasp as Ran slipped his free hand
into Crawford’s hair, pulling it loose even as his palm rubbed, gently against
Crawford’s cock. He was pulling on his hair and his cock with the same easy
pressure, and Crawford thought, or possibly hoped, he’d go mad.
“Turn around,” Crawford gasped. Ran just pouted and bit his lip. He obviously
did not understand. “Just stay there.” He said, shimmying out of his pants.
Then he turned around so his head was over Ran’s cock, tugging down the
trousers as he balanced himself precariously on his knees and elbows.
“You’re too big,” Ran protested, “I can’t reach,” he said, the boy was learning
fast. “I think I need to be on top.”
Crawford could see the advantage to that, he had several inches on Ran in reach
and they rolled so that Ran was the one on his hands and knees. “Just,”
Crawford gasped, Ran’s red curls could drive any man mad, “do what I do,” and
then he swallowed him down.
At first Ran was nervous, he reached out with his tongue in a tentative lick
and Crawford lost all ability to think, he suckled, he pulled, he did
everything in his power to make Ran touch him, but Ran was taking this at his
own pace, his pants half pulled off and gathered about his ankles. His tongue
was maddening, light and flickering over the veins and ridges, prodding at the
head.
Crawford just groaned and tried his best to show Ran how. Ran just wiggled his
thin hips and carried on as before. Then somehow he seemed to get it; his
fingers were at Crawford’s balls, light, almost touches, and little feathery
things. Crawford moaned and swallowed Ran down as far as he could, then Ran
pulled back and looked up at him with a smile. He wiped his mouth with the side
of his hand and then changed his angle. He reached forward and took the head of
Crawford’s cock in his mouth.
Crawford cried out then, because how could he not, and then because in the
position Ran was in he couldn’t reciprocate, he sucked his fingers into his
mouth making sure that they were good and wet. He wouldn’t stop Ran because it
was heavenly and hellish all at the same time. He was balancing himself by
laying his arms against Crawford’s thighs so he couldn’t thrust, but it didn’t
matter because he was learning and it was so good.
He began to run his fingers the length of Ran’s cleft and watched Ran’s back
arch, and then slipped one fingertip inside. He used his other hand, curved
around the boy’s hip, to pull him down and traced his finger with his tongue.
Ran couldn’t help the reaction as he arched, his mouth pulling away from
Crawford’s cock as he gave into a touch he had never known. Crawford found it
unbelievably sexy. His back formed an almost perfect c as he gave himself over
to his mouth, his tongue and that darting finger. “Ah, aah, ahh,” he gasped and
it was the most he’d said in sex since they’d start, “but,” he managed, “oh.”
Ran was normally silent through sex and these new sounds were maddening. He
rolled Ran unto his back and slipped two fingers deep inside him. Normally when
he and Ran had sex he made sure that Ran was on top so that he couldn’t hurt
him but he wanted more.
Ran looked delightfully lost as he wrapped his arms about Crawford’s shoulders
and pulled him down. “Please,” he whimpered, “please.”
It was all the permission Crawford needed; he removed his fingers and replaced
them with his cock, and pushed inside. Ran raised his hips so he could push
deeper, though there must have been a little pain, as he wasn’t properly
stretched. Ran didn’t seem to care.
He rode Ran as hard as he wanted to and listened to the grunts and the
whimpers. Then he pulled out, “on your knees,” he said wondering how he still
managed to speak, he wanted. Ran blinked, his eyes were misty drunk on lust,
but then he rolled over unto his forearms and knees and Crawford pushed inside
again. The angle was different as Crawford wrapped his arm about his stomach
and pulled him up so his back was against his chest and pulled him up and
pushed him down, kissing and biting at his throat and grunting as he rode the
boy sat on him.
He came so hard it was a wonder he didn’t black out.
 
Crawford eventually sent a gift of thanks to the Lady Redgrove for her
thoughtful gift.
(ii)
The years passed with a strange slowness in Herensea. Ran barely noticed their
passing except that he discovered he did not like to spend winter nights alone,
and that they passed much easier if he was in bed with Crawford.
He obeyed Crawford’s rule that he never leave the citadel without ever
questioning why. Everything he wanted was delivered for him if he simply asked.
Under the library of Lady Redgrove, who wrote him charming and witty letters,
he was learning everything he wanted to know about pleasing Crawford, even if
sometimes, when he opened one of the books, he still found his head tilting to
better understand the illustration. Then he would sit in Crawford’s bed and
between them they would either laugh at the illustrations, because sometimes it
was all you could do with them, and sometimes Ran found himself with his face
pressed up against the wall and his legs spread as Crawford attempted something
in the book, which often weren’t as difficult as they looked.
From his window he watched the world pass him by and what surprised him most
was the detail that he simply did not care, Crawford took care of all his
needs, even those he had never known he had. Crawford kept him in books, in
clothes, in sweets and Crawford loved him. Ran decided that was all he ever
needed to know, that that was all he ever wanted.
***** Chapter 11 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
(i)
The battle of Inabayama, if it could be called such, took three days in all.
On the first day, in a show of uncharacteristic warmth the king offered a flag
of parley to the Nemesis inviting him into their home so they could talk terms
because other states had negotiated a viceroyship.
The Nemesis brought with him his oldest two sons, his youngest he left at camp
with the hordes of his army.
At a lush dinner of exquisitely prepared fish the king of Inabayama poisoned
all ten members of the Nemesis’ party.
Then, though they had terrible misgivings about the whole thing, the Heaven
Guard threw the bodies from the walls of the city hung by ropes so they dangled
like obscene flags.
 
On the second day the forces of the Nemesis remained firm about the city, they
didn’t move and it seemed that they might be mourning.
The Heaven Guard had terrible misgivings about this and began to move the
children and infirm from the city via boats. Their captain even sent a note to
the forces of the Nemesis that this was what they were doing, that the boats
were full of refugees and were no harm to the invaders in the hope that they
wouldn’t be attacked.
Any that left on the second day weren’t.
 
On the third day with dawn the forces of the Nemesis, who remained in his tent
the whole time, being the youngest son left behind, smashed Inabayama. They
slaughtered everyone they could find.
The King of Inabayama was executed by use of the handsaw. [1]
Most of his nobles were executed on sky wheels [2]; the ladies were hung. The
children were taken as slaves.
The endless towers of Inabayama were pulled down. The shrine of the goddess was
befouled.
But there was no rape, for the forces of the Nemesis were disciplined.
By the end of the third day the Nemesis declared that Inabayama no longer
existed, that for the treachery of their king that it would forthwith be called
Daryiia, after his father’s widow.
 
Word reached Crawford at Herensea three weeks later. He decided to withhold the
information from his lovely young bride, who at nineteen had grown indeed
beautiful and although he should have known better Crawford was convinced that
Ran only stayed with him out of a sense of duty to Inabayama. He believed,
erroneously perhaps, that without Inabayama that Ran would leave him.
He started reading his mail before him, to keep the secret.
(ii)
Schuldig had arranged an appointment with Crawford, a recent upsurge in crime
meant that although Crawford honoured the appointment he did so in his official
capacity amongst the torturers and their devices as a gentleman was stretched
on the bock. [2]
Schuldig, though his attention was drawn to the man whimpering in the corner,
did his best to keep his focus on Crawford.
“What is it you wanted?” Crawford asked as he signed off on forms, he had two
offices the one in the citadel and this one where he could watch his torturers
work. In the corner Farfarello was testing leather straps in his hands to
decide which one to use.
“I wanted to talk to you about Ran.” Schuldig said.
“Why, is he unwell?” Crawford sounded worried.
“No, I think you should tell him, he’s strong, but he needs to know.” Schuldig
said, sitting on what he hoped was a chair, as it had no spikes or straps he
was assuming it was, but there was room for interpretation in these rooms.
“Inabayama was his home, and the Nemesis killed his parents.” Schuldig took a
deep breath because Crawford was glaring at him. He was wearing a pair of
eyeglasses that he had had made which made his glare even steelier. [4]
“Are you, Schuldig, presuming, how to tell me to treat my own bride?” His voice
was ice cold.
“No,” Schuldig said looking around the room, “it’s just that he needs to mourn
them. Ran is, really,” he stopped, “still a child, he’s only just got into a
position where he can accept the death of his sister, it’s cruel not to tell
him. I’m not saying that it won’t hurt him, but.”
“But what, Schuldig?” Crawford pressed.
“If you’re there you can manage the backlash, just like you did before.”
Schuldig lowered his eyes. “Ran adores you, he would do anything to please you,
it will break his heart if he finds out you didn’t tell him.”
“I have no intention of telling him, in fact, if not for his parents it would
have nothing to do with him. He is a citizen of Eressea now, and for four years
Herensea has been his home.” Crawford snarled out.
“But he was born in Inabayama,” Schuldig said, “Even Yohji is in mourning,” he
said, “I am not from Inabayama but it was home to me and I feel it’s lack,” He
wanted to pace, it was important that Crawford understand this but he was being
stubborn. “They tore down the towers, Crawford, he’s a Fujimiya and their
family motto might as well be that they will serve Inabayama, he is the last of
them, at least let him mourn.”
“It’s murder to see him cry.” Crawford said quietly. Then he took a deep
breath, “Ran married me because he is a Fujimiya and they do their duty by
Inabayama. If Inabayama is no more then why should he do his duty.”
“Because he loves you.” Schuldig said.
“There is nothing of that between us.” Crawford said. “Our marriage was
politically expedient and we have both made the best of it.” But Schuldig knew
he was lying, even if it was to himself.
 
(iii)
Ran opened the parcel of books that Lady Redgrove had sent him. The first of
them was a collection of folk tales of Eressea that she had had written for
him. He flicked through it for the tale of Tsukihime and discovered it was in a
collection of seven tales called “The Cloths of Heaven,” he rang the bell and
asked for some tea as he sat down in front of the fire to read the book of
fairy tales.
For a long time he stared at the illustration of the seven maidens with their
shawls, each was lovely and lush in a way that he didn’t appreciate in women,
but Birman had spared no expense and these were colour plates. Rather than
having all seven maidens together they each had a strip panel of their own,
illustrated in different colours.
Taiyohime, or the princess of the sun, was first, she wore flowing golden
chiffon and her hair streamed behind her in swirls and twists.
Tsukihime wore white, with her hair in twin braids twisted around the arms she
had over her head.
Hoshihime, the star princess, wore shimmering silver in laid with rich dark
black, her hair was in twin knots at the side of her head.
Yamahime, the mountain princess, wore dark rich red, the colour of clay, and
her hands were on her hips and her hair was caught under her shawl but loose
strands of it fell about her lovely face.
Amanoharahime, the sky princess, wore grey, which was wrapped like clouds about
her nakedness.
Barahime, the rose princess, wore pink frills and was leaned forward, her hair,
like that of the sun princess was down and she stretched her shawl between her
hands like a scroll.
Kaihime, the sea princess, wore rich dark green lace and one leg was bared, she
held a sea anemone to her face.
Ran couldn’t help but stare at her, this was the woman he had seen that day on
the beach. He recited the words to himself as he looked at the seven maidens,
trying to remember what came next.
“One for sorrow, two for mirth
Three for a death and four for a birth
Five for silver and six for gold,
And seven for a heart that’s been lost to the cold.”
There were seven on the page; he had seen three in his dream the night that Aya
had died. He shook off the reverie; these weren’t the piskies even if the
illustration of Kaihime was eerily similar and even if they all had the rich
dark green hair and violet eyes the same as his own. He was wrong.
He put the book down and lifted the second.
Over the years there had been fifteen books about the forbidden love of Alaric
and Celabrien and because it was difficult getting them in Herensea in his long
letters to Birman and they exchanged parcels. She had been reading them too, it
seemed, and she would send them to him once they were finished. Often he would
find cute little notes pressed between the pages where she had written down her
opinions on such a scene, and she was of the opinion that if Celabrien were a
real woman she would have left Alaric nearly eight books ago. They always made
Ran smile; although he had never met the Lady Birman Redgrove he considered her
one of his closest friends.
He pulled his legs up on the oversized chair and nestled his tea on the table
and opened the page to read.
 
An hour later the book was thrown across the room and he was crouched snarling
in the corner as Yohji tried to calm him. He was throwing things at his
champion. It was only later, when the dust had settled on the inevitable
firestorm that they realised the book dealt with the fall of Inabayama.
Chapter End Notes
     1. The handsaw, it sounds so less ominous than it is, those of you
     who are even vaguely squeamish turn away now, go back to the chapter,
     I’ll understand.
     Those of you who don’t believe me…
     The handsaw is a long sheet of serrated metal much like one that
     lumberjacks use to be used by two people.
     Still with me?
     The victim is hung by his ankles in a Y position and the saw starts
     at the genitals and works down.
     The gory one at the back who’s still there, this is where I freak you
     out…
     Because the victim is upside down they don’t pass out, they are
     usually aware throughout the whole procedure until they bleed out and
     their heart is either punctured or explodes.
     I don’t like Takatori, and Aya doesn’t get to kill him here so I
     thought I’d make it truly grim. This was the only instrument in the
     Prague torture museum that freaked me out (they have one on the wall)
     and I knew it would come in handy.
     2. The sky wheel is a cartwheel on a long pole which was spun as
     rocks and things were thrown, it’s a get the people involved kind of
     punishment, it’s very similar to the wheel where the victim was spun
     and hit with sticks. St Catherine was killed like this – hence the
     Catherine Wheel.
     3.The bock isn’t as bad as either the sky wheel or the handsaw. It’s
     a large wooden pyramid on a stand, probably about a metre square, and
     the point is about head height, and the victim is suspended over the
     point and gravity does it’s work. To make it slightly grimmer it is
     inserted into an orifice first. So over time the victim slides down
     unto the point, which opens them up more. This is not an execution
     device and was used, historically, on both men and women.
     4. There are records of glasses as far back as the c11,
***** Chapter 12 *****
(i)
Ran bathed silently and carefully, making sure to use the calla oil that
Crawford liked the smell of. He dressed in a loose flowing and slightly
transparent robe that Lady Redgrove had given him. His hair had, in the
intervening years, grown down to his knees and he normally wore it in a tight
braid but tonight he wore it down making sure that his bangs covered his velvet
eyes because otherwise Crawford might notice.
With a deep breath he hung the golden pendant that symbolised his marriage from
his ear. Then he raised his head and faked a smile, he would do his duty by
Inabayama because, after all, he was a Fujimiya and they lived and died by
their duty.
 
Crawford looked up from his reports when Ran came in and offered him a smile.
“You’re here early,” he said.
Ran’s voice had broken into a rich deep baritone, and if Crawford missing the
boyish soprano he never said. “I wanted to,” Ran said moving across, “I wanted
this.” He said and sighed. “I was lonely without you.” He made himself sound
almost lost and forlorn, “I was bored and I’d rather spend my time with you.”
If Crawford questioned it he didn’t say, instead he opened his arms to his
bride and offering a small smile Ran took the invitation and sat on Crawford’s
knee as he once had when he was smaller, he was no longer such a snug fit.
“That colour looks amazing on you,” Crawford said fingering the rich green
chiffon and lace, “it makes your skin pearlescent and your hair shine.” He ran
his fingers through the hair about Ran’s face, “you must be feeling lonely if
you’re wearing this down.”
“I had a bad dream,” Ran said, “and then I read some books that Lady Redgrove
sent me, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I bathed to while away the time
but I couldn’t wait any longer.”
Crawford kissed Ran’s neck underneath the earring before tugging the pendant
between his teeth, he knew what kind of books the Lady Redgrove sent Ran, and
he was torn between arranging some form of painful death for her and shaking
her firmly by the hand.
Ran smelt sweetly of orchids and soap, it was addictive and Crawford couldn’t
help but kiss the skin. The calla oil was another of the Lady Redgrove’s gifts
and it made Ran’s skin as soft as velvet. What never failed to amaze Crawford
was that Ran had struck up an incredibly unlikely friendship with the woman who
was as different from him as could be, she was a known sybarite with a harem of
young boys almost dying to please her, and Ran was a naïf, but she had never,
in any way, attempted to be anything other than his friend.
Ran’s fingertips were chilly against his warm neck; rubbing against a half-
day’s stubble with a strange fascination. He seemed to love the feel of it, but
he was cold despite the spring weather. “I want you,” Ran said, “please.”
So, Crawford thought to himself, there were things he had learnt from Lady
Redgrove.
Crawford nodded, then picked Ran up as easily as he had when they first met and
carried him through the double doors to his bedroom where he laid the boy, no
he was a man now but still as lovely, down. The bedding was white and Ran’s
dark green robe and long red hair looked lovely spread out on it and the pallor
of his skin made his eyes darkly luminous.
“Love me,” Ran murmured, “please, just love me.” So Crawford did.
When he lowered his mouth to Ran’s neck, usually something that made him squirm
Ran pushed him away, “let me,” he said and then with an uncharacteristic show
of force flipped them over so that he was straddling Crawford’s hips, then with
gentle touches that seemed uniquely his own Ran began to undress him.
If Crawford suspected that there was anything other than passion to this
encounter Ran’s mouth convinced him otherwise. Ran was more determined than
Crawford had ever seen him, suckling on his Adams apple and his hands stroking
his sides as he squirmed and wriggled against Crawford’s growing erection in a
way that made Crawford want to flip over and take control back, but Ran
obviously wanted this.
Ran’s hands were warming against his skin, pushing up against his ribcage in a
way that was innocently sexy, then one of the hands was pressing against his
nipples with soft touches as the other undid his shirt. “I want this,” Ran said
running the tip of his tongue around the shell of Crawford’s ear. “Just let
me.” So Crawford did.
His hands were deft and true, and his mouth was madness, “close your eyes,” Ran
told him.
“I like to watch,” Crawford said, “because you’re so beautiful.” For an instant
a frown formed on Ran’s face but then melted away again, so that Crawford was
convinced he had made a mistake.
“Please,” Ran said, “I can’t do this if you’re looking at me.”
It wasn’t like Ran to beg so Crawford closed his eyes. It should have served as
a warning, but it didn’t. Crawford just gave himself over to the man’s hands
and mouth. Ran was, at eighteen, a towering beauty but still as shy and naive
as he had been that first time. He would touch to see if the touch was
receptive and then touch again when he found that it was.
Because his eyes were closed Crawford couldn’t see that Ran was crying. When
the wetness fell on his skin he just assumed it was Ran’s mouth.
Ran was making arcane designs, tracing alchemic symbols over his skin. There
was not an inch of Crawford he left untouched. He said nothing but used his
tongue and his teeth to say what he wanted to say until Crawford didn’t care
any more.
He rubbed oil over his stomach and ran his nails through the thin line of hair
there’ he pressed his face, catlike, into the curls on his chest taking a deep
breath of Crawford’s masculine scent, and when he took Crawford into his mouth
it was with a sound that was almost a sob.
Crawford assumed he had gagged a little and did his very best not to thrust
into the inviting heat. When he came he saw stars.
Yet when Ran guided him into the heat of his body he turned them so Crawford
was over him. He had always preferred it like that, with Crawford pressing him
into the mattress, but his kisses were more demanding than usual, “more,” he
whispered in Crawford’s ear, “more.” So Crawford obliged him. Again and again
and again.
 
When Crawford awoke Ran was gone. He stretched out languorously across the bed
thinking that Ran must have gone to bathe; they had been quite rampant that
night and Crawford smiled to himself in memory. It wasn’t like Ran to be so
needy, but he had enjoyed it and his limbs were heavy with satiation, in fact,
he thought turning over and smelling the heavy sex smell in the sheets, he
might just go back to sleep.
It wasn’t until late that evening when Yohji asked him when Ran would be set
free from their little love nest that Crawford realised that there might be a
problem. The citadel was searched but no sign of him was found.
The next day a boy came forward out of the city and handed Crawford a carefully
folded note and a single pendant earring. The note simply read “don’t try to
find me, I must do my duty for Inabayama, I am no longer your Ran, I am a
Fujimiya and we do our duty.”
Crawford tore the city apart looking for him but again no sign was found, he
checked with the gatekeepers who diligently kept a record of anyone who passed
and none of the records gave the name Ran, but a ferryman across the lake spoke
of a beautiful boy with skin like porcelain though his hair was short, he had
given his name as Aya but his destination, when asked out of a sense of
curiosity, he had simply answered coldly, home.
 
(ii)
“How did you think he was going to react?” Schuldig snarled Crawford, “you lied
to him, you betrayed him, he found out from a cheap novel months after it
happened.” They had found the novel later, open to that page and placed face
down on the table. It had described the fall of Inabayama in terms the author
hadn’t needed to embellish. Crawford had sent out his best huntsmen but was now
waiting for their return.
“Maybe he’s just checking it’s true.” Yohji suggested, “Those books have been
wrong before.”
“The Lady Redgrove did this.” Crawford snarled, wanting terribly to take his
rage out on anyone. “He’s all alone, defenceless what can he do.”
Yohji tilted a golden eyebrow, “he’s not defenceless, he’s a trained member of
the Heaven Guard, he’s been trained for it all his life, just because he
married you doesn’t mean he stopped, there is a sword missing from the
armoury.” He should be with Ran, if Ran had said he would have gone with him to
protect him, his duty was to Ran and not to Crawford. If Ran had not wanted to
return he would have honoured that decision.
“You lied to him,” Schuldig repeated, “you deliberately kept it from him when
you should have told him so he could mourn.”
“What business is it of yours?” Crawford shouted, standing up and leaning on
the table that separated them, “you’re not his champion and you’re not his
husband.”
“No,” Schuldig said, “but I have been his friend for five years, can you say
the same, or were you too busy fucking him to actually care?”
Crawford punched him. “Don’t you dare speak to me about him like that.” He
snarled.
“Crawford,” Farfarello said from the door, “the huntsmen have returned.” He
said, “there’s no sign of him, they don’t know enough, which direction did he
go in, he could have doubled back, he might have bought a horse.”
“Farfarello,” he said quietly, “kill them, then arrange for our return to
Eressea, the Prince Mamoru is still in my household, is he not?”
“Yes, he is.” Farfarello told him. “Then we have the king of Inabayama under
our control. We can use that, leave men here so if Ran returns he is returned
to me.”
“What are you going to do?” Yohij asked, horrified that Crawford could be so
callous.
“I’m going to bring war to the Nemesis.” He answered calmly. “The Nemesis stole
my bride, and I will destroy him for it.”
“Ran left you because you lied to him.” Schuldig repeated, “you kept secrets
that were bang out of order.”
Crawford’s glare was icy. “Your duty is to Prince Mamoru now, will you serve
him?” He asked.
Schuldig said nothing, but he was a member of the Heaven Guard, he would serve
his king.
***** Chapter 13 *****
(i)
Ken looked at the report of the new janissary brought in, scanning each of the
names carefully. Then he called up Kase, the man who had brought this batch in,
“any of them worth noting?”
“Aya can read.” Kase told him, sitting back in the chair.
“Which one’s that?” Ken said looking over the crowd as they were stood on the
docks underneath the window of his office.
“The one with the braid.” Ken looked over them, “the redhead.” Kase continued.
Ken pursed his lips and then licked them thinking, then marked a large S on the
form next to Aya’s name. She would do well in the Seraglio, the girl was
strikingly beautiful with long wine dark red hair and the eyes, he couldn’t see
from here were a light colour. It wasn’t as if most of the girls in the
Seraglio did much anyway, but look pretty when traipsed out for state
functions. Nevertheless every now and then there was a gem in the fold; the
Nemesis noticed all of them, eventually. “Any others?” He asked.
“That’s the only one with any kind of education, even read to some of the
others on the journey, one of the littler ones was kinda nervous, Aya took him
in hand.” Ken looked at him, “well, looked after him, and didn’t literally take
him in hand.”
“What’s the name, Kase?”
“Yuki,” Kase said, checking it on the roster, “he’s the squinting lad with the
greenish tinge to his hair.” Ken looked out over then, at the way that he stood
slightly behind Aya, and then marked the form down with the S as well. He gave
the crowd a quick and rather cursory look over and decided there was no one
else worth the Seraglio.
“Any of them as dumb as that chap in the last batch?” Ken asked. They had
eventually given him up as too stupid to teach, and sent him out to the fields.
“None of them are particularly interesting, but there was some Esset interest
in Aya.”
“I can see why,” Ken said with a bit of a harmless leer.
“We caught Aya right on the border, Esset is just looking for an excuse, you
might want to bear that in mind, I’ve put it on his file.”
Ken nodded and wrote “possible problem” next to the giant S.
(ii)
The four ladies of the Mask ran the Seraglio of the Nemesis, each of whom hid
their identity behind a highly decorated mask and veil. Of course, as there
were only four of them, everyone knew who they were. Hel’s mask was covered in
feathers, Ken, in his role of commander of the Janissary, dealt with them more
than he would have liked. “The Nemesis wants to speak to you.” She growled, her
arms crossed under her breast.
“What about this time?” Ken said. This was not in any way unusual, in fact the
two of them got on quite well but Hel could make a polite request for a
friendly supper sound like he was about to have you executed.
“Your new entrants to the Seraglio.” Hel said, “Yuki is too young, he’s not
legal.”
“He was Aya’s shadow,” Ken said, “Aya was ideally suited for the Seraglio and
according to the captain who brought them in she had pretty much adopted him.”
Hel barked out a laugh, “he,” she corrected smugly, “Aya is a he, and that’s
the other thing.”
“No,” Ken said rearranging the papers on his desk, ”I have her listed as a
she.”
“I’ve seen him naked, Ken,” Hel said with a smirk, “believe me, he’s lovely,
but he’s a he, to put underage boys in the Seraglio because a lady has adopted
them is one thing, in fact I don’t find it reprehensible in the least, it’s
even charming, but a full grown man in the Seraglio is another problem.”
Ken frowned, “with his wife in there,” Ken let out a low whistle through his
teeth, “I’m in trouble, aint I?” he asked. Hel nodded, then smiled under her
mask. “He’ll forgive you, now the fact that Aya might have to be cut…” She was
obviously trying her best not to laugh.
Ken squirmed in his chair. “It was an honest mistake.” He said, “with a name
like Aya and all that hair.”
“We’ve put him in a separate room beside the crèche for the meantime,” Hel said
calming her amusement. “But the Nemesis is too busy dealing with the fallout of
him being taken to worry about what to do with him.”
“What do you mean?” Ken asked, “I just check them in.” He rubbed his chin as he
thought, “Kase mentioned something about taking him from the border but that he
volunteered to save some kid or other.”
Hel rolled her eyes, “the wrong side of the border according to Esset but I
just manage the Seraglio it’s not my place to judge.”
“Tell the Nemesis I’ll be along presently,” Ken said, “once I finish everything
I can to avoid seeing him.
Hel laughed, “I’ll tell him, word for word.”
“Do that,” Ken said, “he’ll appreciate the laugh if Esset are picking fights
with him again.”
(iii)
The Seraglio of the Nemesis was an entire floor of the giant palace that
overlooked the bay and Aya was fortunate that he had been given a room from
which he could see the sea. The Lake at Herensea was no comparison for the sea,
even the rich turquoise sea of Atzara and he had missed it terribly. When the
ladies of the Mask ushered him in, whispering amongst themselves about someone
called Ken’s stupidity, his first act had been to throw open the windows to the
sea and just breathe deeply.
He did miss Herensea, he had been happy there, but he was a Fujimiya and he
would do his duty by Inabayama, after an hour wherein he had walked the length
of his small room thinking about praying to whatever god had given him this
good fortune of being so close to the Nemesis who he had every intention of
killing in revenge for his parents and Inabayama, they brought Yuki in to share
the room with him.
“He won’t settle,” the youngest lady of the mask, Todt, said as way of
explanation, and then the servants, all burly men with golden moustaches and an
aversion to shirts, brought in their clothes.
“Do you think that they’ll throw you out of the seraglio now, I mean now that
they’ve figured out you’re a man?” Yuki asked quietly, he was very much out of
his depth and terrified of everything that was happening. Rather than being shy
Yuki was confrontational in his fear and Aya had defended him rather than
having him hurt. He reminded him, though he couldn’t have said why, of Naoe.
“I don’t know,” Aya said calmly, he was sat the way that they had taught his
sister to sit, perfectly still with his hands in his lap, “I suppose they will,
but they put you here with me, they’ll move you to be with me.”
“But,” Yuki protested, “they might have you put to death because you got in
here under false pretences.”
“No,” Aya said calmly, “I’m in here because they thought I was a girl.” He
said, he was learning to be economical with his words. “It’s their mistake, not
mine, whatever the fall out I won’t be punished for it.”
“I’m scared, “ Yuki said, he had come from Inabayama and had seen the horrors
there. But he was brave for every one but Aya, Aya would protect him, Aya had
protected him, Aya would be there for him. He could be himself with Aya.
“There’s nothing to fear here,” Aya said calmly, “I won’t let anything hurt
you.” Yuki offered him a small smile, but then it settled back into his
customary frown.
“Excuse me,” a blonde boy said popping his head around the door, “I’m looking
for,” he looked at the piece of paper, “Yuki,” he grinned, he was a pretty boy
wearing a white sweater that appeared to be made of fluff and a kilt. He had
white stockings on that tied up his legs and soft black moccasins. Aya had
never seen anyone like him. “I’m Michel, I’m here to make sure you come to
lessons, they don’t think you know where they are and well, I’m going too so I
said I’d take you, and everyone was like, okay, you can take him Michel, but
he’s a bit grumpy, I don’t think you’re grumpy are you?”
“You talk a lot.” Yuki said, rather shocked by the display of verbosity from
the child.
“My brother says that too,” Michel continued, “I just have a lot to say and I
want to make sure I get it all out, my brother says sometimes he wants to gag
me but I don’t think he will, I’ve cleared it with the Ladies of the Mask and
Schon says you can come with me, and I’m sure we’ll be great friends.”
Yuki looked back at Aya as if looking for reassurance or possibly help, Aya
just nodded. “I’ll make sure everything’s unpacked.” He said, sure that in a
fight that Yuki could beat the strange golden haired child.
 
The Seraglio was a warren of tiny rooms set about larger courtyards. Aya
noticed his room was nowhere near any of the ladies, with a small smile. It
wasn’t like he had any interest in them anyway. He wore the loose robes that
they had laid out for him and moved into one of the courtyards to have his tea.
He knelt down before the boiling kettle, making sure the tea was steeping
properly. “What are you doing?” The girl behind him asked.
“I’m making tea.” Aya answered, “Would you like some?”
“I’ve never,” she began and then offered him a smile, and he was caught because
she looked almost exactly like his sister, “yes, thank you.” She said.
He lifted a bowl for her, “sip it slowly,” he warned, “it’s hot, you’ll scald
yourself.”
“I’m Sakura,” she said smiling at him.
“Aya,” he answered calmly, because he had already taken his sister’s place and
it was only right he take her name. He would avenge Inabayama but it would be
his sister who was remembered for it. “My name is Aya.”
“I hope we can be friends,” the girl said sipping her tea as he had warned her.
“I don’t think that will be possible.” Aya said, “I’m not supposed to be in the
Seraglio, they will probably move me soon.”
“Is that because you’re a man?” Sakura asked. Aya nodded, “I don’t think he’ll
mind you know, he’s open about that kind of thing.”
“They think I’ll seduce all the ladies here,” Aya told her.
“But that’s silly,” Sakura said, “it’s obvious you like men.” Aya didn’t laugh,
even if he had wanted to.
 
Though he didn’t know it at the time Aya was watched through this exchange from
the balcony over the courtyard by the Nemesis himself. “He can stay,” he said
calmly, “Free,” the Nemesis’ personal manservant bowed his tall head to look at
his master, “You are now his personal guard, to protect the ladies, of course.”
Free nodded his head in answer but said nothing, “And Neu,” he said to the Lady
of the Mask who accompanied him, “Arrange for me a private supper with the man,
I think he might have something interesting to say if he can charm my wife in
such a quick manner.”
Neu nodded and looked down at the young bride of the Nemesis sit with the young
man, laughing, even though he was stony faced. The man was beautiful, she
thought to herself, and the Nemesis did collect beautiful things.
***** Chapter 14 *****
(i)
Aya looked up at the woman who stood in the doorway with a long black kimono
embroidered with maple leaves and a golden obi slung over her shoulder. “Lord
Chloe wants to have supper with you.” She said, “I am here to dress you.”
“I can dress myself.” Aya said firmly, “are there pants to go with this?” He
asked.
“In the closet.” Hel answered calmly, “If you know how to dress yourself, Free
is still languishing outside your door, by the way.”
“I didn’t ask for him and he can go back.” Aya told her rather sharply.
“It’s to protect the women, I think, from you, or maybe to protect you from
them. Young Miss Sakura seems taken with you.” Hel, like Aya, was not one to
mince words.
“She looks like my sister.” Aya said lowering his eyes from her gaze, it was
cold and hard. “My sister died, it brings me a measure of peace to deal with
her.”
“Sakura says that it is just two friends meeting.” Hel said, “as long as that
is all that it is.” She turned, her black hair was gathered in a knot at the
back of her head. There was something about her that reminded Aya of Crawford,
something he wouldn’t allow himself to think. “I'll send someone to dress your
hair, you will want to be beautiful for him, I imagine, much rests on his slim
shoulders.”
“I’m only meeting him because I have to.” Aya answered.
“It’s not as if you have anything better to do, I shall send some garnets and
amethysts, to bring out your colouring.”
Aya looked at himself in the mirror and with a sigh began to undress in
preparation for a supper, he had always taken care of such matters when he met
Crawford, he brushed his hair until it shone and dressed in his nicest clothes
despite that they had had supper every night. He missed him. He refused to
allow himself to dwell on the past, he would do his duty to Inabayama, and if
he survived it, maybe then he would go back to Crawford, if he ever forgave him
for leaving the way he did. Crawford would not do his duty for him. Crawford
hadn’t even told him.
He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to calm himself, and then stripped
down to his underwear, pulling on the white kimono, then the rich grey pleated
pants. “Well,” Mihorogi said coming in with a grin, “isn’t that just the sight,
the palest ass in the whole Seraglio I might add.” She leered just a little but
Aya knew it was harmless. Mihorogi flirted like that with everyone. “I’ve come
to do your hair.” She looked around, “Michel not let Yuki go yet?” She asked.
“I’ll make sure to tell him where you are.” She looked at him and then looked
at the stool, hinting he sit down. “You know, most of the girls here would kill
for your hair.” She began brushing it out, “actually, Ayan,” she had given him
that name the instant she had seen him, it seemed there was another Aya
somewhere in the maze of the Seraglio, or there had been, and she didn’t want
to get them confused in her head, “I’d kill for your hair.” She measured the
strands out between her fingers, “what do you use to wash it?”
“Water and olive soap.” He answered, a bit shocked by the question.
“I’ll get you some for when you wash it,” she said, “and some almond cream,
some of your ends are splitting.” She said a bit firmly, “it might need a
trim.” Aya put his hands on his hair, “a trim, Ayan, not cutting. It’s rare for
men to have such long hair, was there a particular reason.”
Mihorogi was kind and meant well, he could tell her about Crawford, who had
loved it more than Ran did, he could tell her how he had loved him but had been
betrayed. Eventually he said, “It’s a way for me to remember.” That was true
enough.
She said nothing more as she dressed it, rubbing sweet smelling oil into the
braid, “let me help you with your kimono,” she said lifting the heavy black
silk, and draping it around his shoulders, then deftly folded it to be held in
place with the obi. “Beautiful,” she murmured.
“Don’t use that word.” Aya snapped, then he stopped himself, it wasn’t
Mihorogi’s fault, “I’m sorry, someone used to call me beautiful.”
“As a way to hurt you,” She finished, “but you are.” She corrected. Then she
stroked his face with a cold hand, “Chloe’s a good man,” she said, “he’s funny
and charming, and I think he just wants to know how anyone can put up with
Sakura.”
“She looks like my sister.” Aya told her honestly.
“Be yourself with him,” Mihorogi said with a smile, “that’s all, and eat,
you’re too thin.”
Aya thought he should offer her a smile, but it had died with Inabayama.
(ii)
When Aya had met Crawford for his late suppers he had always been a little
nervous, even if he knew there was no reason for him to be. With Chloe he felt
none of that. The whole thing was completely relaxed. Chloe had sat in a huge
cushion in front of a small table laden high with wine and finger foods.
His conversation had been witty and charming, his eyes sparkling with humour
and mischief. He had been beautiful. Aya had not expected that.
The wine had been free flowing, and he supposed he got a little drunk, but
Chloe had been witty and charming, and when their lips met it seemed
inevitable. When he had lain with Crawford there was control and passion, he
and Chloe had fallen upon each other like it was it had always happened like
this between them.
He was drunk, he assumed that was why he had undressed Chloe with a passion he
had never given to Crawford, he wanted this, and he didn’t know why. Crawford’s
kisses had burned like fire, but Chloe’s were like light against his skin.
There was no oil or they would have consummated their meeting with laughs and
grunts, because with Chloe there was laughter.
Later, as Aya collected his thoughts as he pulled his robes about himself, “I,”
he said, “I belong to the Nemesis.” He said, “I’m in the Seraglio, this
shouldn’t have happened.”
Chloe just laughed, “I really don’t think he’ll mind,” he looked beautiful,
sprawled amongst the cushions, “he can take it out on me,” he was smirking,
“will you go riding with me tomorrow?” He asked, “if you won’t stay the night.”
“I,” Aya began, “I don’t want to get you in trouble.” And it was true, whatever
this feeling that burned in his chest for Chloe he wanted to protect him.
“You won’t,” Chloe assured him, “believe me,” he added with a smirk, “I can
send free to look after the little one, I’d,” he sat up, his skin was golden in
the candlelight, “I’d like it if you stayed.”
Aya let out his breath slowly letting the robe fall about his feet. “I’d like
to.” He said.
 
Over the following weeks the two of them were basically inseparable. They
talked about everything, which Aya found fascinating, what they didn’t have in
common they could agree to disagree on. The palace had a large conservatory
attached to the side and they were walking through the plants when Chloe
mentioned the Sir Alaric books with a laugh.
They were both fans but what amazed Aya was that Chloe had actually met the
famed Lady Celabrien and discovered that she wasn’t that pretty really. They
had laughed at that, and what shocked Aya was that he didn’t have to fake it.
“I want to swim in the sea,” Aya said offering Chloe a half smile.
“But you didn’t bring anything to bathe in.” Chloe said.
“I know.” Aya told him with a smile. Then he smirked. Chloe blinked for a
moment then realised what Aya was telling him, “I think I’ll join you.” He
said.
The water was cold but Aya was impish and Chloe knew that no matter what that
he wanted Aya to be with him forever.
***** Chapter 15 *****
(i)
There was a golden age in the corridors of Atzara even as war was spoken of in
deep corners. The ladies of the Mask were often more flustered than usual and
there was a sense of apathy about the Seraglio but it was clear to everyone
that the Nemesis was in love.
He ordered festivals on an ad hoc basis just to show off his new love in the
fabulous fabrics he ordered from all over his empire. He dressed him in jewels
and lived for his small smiles.
 
The festival of Atzara was the highlight of the year in which the Nemesis threw
a golden ring from the edge of the pier to renew the marriage of Atzara and the
sea.
Aya watched the crowd from the Seraglio watching over Yuki who had caught a
fever. He didn’t understand this patriotism that the people displayed for the
Nemesis, he would kill him, it was that simple. He didn’t think he would
survive it, but he had done what he had done to avenge Inabayama but in his
head the festival outside the palace was the festival of flowers in Inabayama
where the streets were lined with rose petals and the maidens of the city
danced through the streets to the music that played. He remembered the sweet
crushed ice and watching as Aya danced the day away in shoes made of satin and
her silvery laughter.
But Aya was dead and the Nemesis had crushed Inabayama, the endless towers had
been pulled down and the fields sown with salt.
He raised his head letting out the breath he had been holding slowly to calm
himself, and looked at Yuki, sprawled on the bed with a cool cloth over his
eyes. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” Hel said from the doorway, “if you want to
catch the rest of the festival,” her voice was soft, and fond, “I think Chloe
would like that.”
Aya shook his head, Ran would have jumped at the opportunity but Aya couldn’t
be that close to the Nemesis without trying to kill him, and in such crowds it
wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t get close to him.
The part of him that burned for revenge wanted to use Chloe to get to the
Nemesis but Chloe was sweet and good, proud and beautiful and Aya, though he
might want to deny it, probably loved him, he wouldn’t betray Chloe. He would
find another way.
“It’s not too late to join them, you know, and Free can get you through the
worst of the crowds.” Hel served the Nemesis, he reminded himself coldly, and
it served his interests to keep his nobles happy.
“I think Free is enjoying the quiet time.” Aya said, referring to the seven
foot tall man that sat outside his door making castles with his cards and
glaring at any one who came too close, except the ladies of the mask and
Mihorogi, who Aya discovered should have worn a mask for the work she did in
the Seraglio.
Hel laughed, “he cut down a terrible intruder to the Seraglio yesterday,” she
said with a mocking smile, “cut him down in two with The masked lady,” she said
referring to the card with which he had bisected the intruder, “the poor
bluebottle never knew what hit him.” Aya offered her a dry laugh, “very few men
are even allowed in the Seraglio and Free is making sure that that is upheld,
even to unknowing insects.” Then she sat down in the chair and faced him,
“truth be told, I think Free killed that fly for something to do, he just
trails along behind you and Chloe and plays with his cards, has he read your
fortune yet?” Aya shook his head, “then you’re the only one in the entire
Seraglio.” She continued, “go for a ride, go do something, I’ll look after
Yuki, even if you don’t want to enjoy the festival, you are Chloe’s favourite,
you can come and go as you wish, why don’t you go shopping, before Free
rebuilds Atzara in cards.”
He understood a dismissal when he heard one. “Besides, you’re too pale, you
need some sun.” She said tilting her head with a smile, “Mihorogi said that you
dropping your pants is like the moon coming out, and our Chloe is as golden as
the sun, a little sun won’t do you any harm.”
Aya rolled his eyes giving in to the order, “I’ll get Free, but make sure he
drinks plenty of fluids.”
Hel’s expression softened behind the mask, “you want us all to think that
you’re heartless,” she said, “but you’re not, and we know that, and that is why
we love you, Aya.”
Aya’s expression became hard at that, “I’m not worthy of your love,” he said,
“I’d rather you hated me.” He sighed, “I’m not that kind of person, Hel, I
don’t deserve to be loved.”
Hel didn’t have an answer for that, so she said nothing.
 
(ii)
The streets of Atzara were bustling with crowds and Aya, who was tall, was
overshadowed by Free, who wore the simple black livery of the Nemesis, and
although Aya wore a veil over his hair, by order of the Ladies of the Mask, and
everyone cleared out of their way. They were both quiet by nature so the walk
was made in silence, up the hill to the Cathedral of Falling stars and the
small tearoom that faced it. According to Schon it was the best tearoom in the
city.
He sat down at one of the tables with Free facing him, barely fitting under the
table, he was tall and thin with a shock of white hair and three perpendicular
black tattoos on his cheeks. It seemed he was known about the town. “Why do
they call you Free?” Aya asked as they waited for their tea, the window of the
small tearoom overlooked the sea, where it beat upon the rocks below in a
steady rhythm and explosion of froth.
“It is a title,” Free answered, his voice deep and rumbling, then there was a
silence, and Aya realised he would need to press for more answer than that.
“Where does it come from? I mean, it’s very unusual.”
“My ancestor, when he was taken as Janissary it was the only thing he would
give his name as, he became a respected bodyguard but when they asked him who
he was he would answer “Free,” so as each of us has grown we become Free.” The
voice was a steady rumble and Aya suspected it was the most he had heard him
speak. Then he leant forward, he was sat like a goblin, his knees almost beside
his ears as he tried to fit on the chair, “If we are being so honest with each
other, why are you Aya? it is not your name, that much is clear.”
“What makes you say that?” Aya asked, calmly, moving the whisk in his hands in
a way that betrayed his anxiety.
“Because you call out the name in your sleep.” Free answered, “Chloe asked me
for some more information on you but I will not betray your confidence.” Free’s
eyes were an almost acid green and fixed on Aya, “I ask only for my own
curiosity.”
“Your loyalty is to Chloe.” Aya said, trying to avoid the subject at hand,
which was clearly making him uncomfortable.
“No,” Free said, “I am Free.” And that was all the answer he would give.
The lady bringing them tea interrupted any further conversation, “not at the
festival, a pair of pretty boys like you, why all the young girls are down
watching his lordship, he’s a good man, his lordship.” Aya never failed to be
astounded by the level to which the people of Atzara loved the Nemesis, did
they not know the horrors he was capable of? “Of course with his lordship
looking his very best I can see why such handsome young men would want to be
away, why I’ve heard,” she leant in close to whisper it, “that he’s got himself
a young man.” Free did not lose his composure one bit, he remained stony faced
but there was something in his gaze which struck Aya as being amused by that
remark. “But I’m not one to gossip, now I’ll get you some pastries to go with
your tea and leave you two alone, I imagine you’ve got a lot to talk about.”
They shared their tea in silence.
 
The city of Atzara was built around a small and well-protected cove, which
sheltered a small harbour; it was, in Aya’s opinion a bit of an exaggeration to
call it a city. It was a citadel certainly, but could fit into a corner of
Eressea. It was three streets that stretched from the beach to the citadel,
which spiralled up around a hill to a tower from which they could defend the
harbour.
The street vendors took advantage of two of the streets leading up to the
stairs of the citadel where most of the nobles lived, in contrast the palace
was up a hill on the opposite side of the hill, a sprawling mass of walls and
gates with fretwork screens that overlooked the cove.
Aya supposed in another time and place he might have loved Atzara. Instead he
found himself in a place that represented all he had lost with sandstone and
banners, with people dressed for festival and trying to press worthless
souvenirs in his hands in exchange for money, but backing off as Free glared at
them. There were things in Atzara that the past few months had shown him he
could love, but instead he found numbness in his chest that sometimes ached and
sometimes he felt nothing.
He felt a concern for Yuki that was almost, but not quite, what he felt for
Omi, but Michel, had wormed his way into Aya’s affections with a no prisoner’s
attitude, which was something to behold. He had even found himself sitting by
Yuki’s bed, into which Michel had ingratiated himself much the way Omi had once
done to Naoe, reading them the tales of the valour of Sir Alaric just as he had
once before. But Michel was not Naoe, and Yuki was not Omi, and despite himself
Aya couldn’t do any more than be concerned for them.
Chloe was another matter however.
Chloe was a dandy. He spent hours on his clothes. He drank water from crystal
goblets just because he could. Beautiful tapestries surrounded him. He wore an
obscene amount of bracelets on his right arm, all chinking slightly when Chloe
touched him. His clothes were silk and cut differently from everyone else in
the entire palace. He tended a rose garden. He teased both Yuki and Michel with
jokes they were too young to understand and accepted Free’s wry comments with a
golden smile.
Everything about Chloe was golden and summer.
When Aya had seen him the previous night for a light and rather intimate supper
he had been wearing black silk shot through with a white pinstripe and leather
gloves embossed with roses that stopped just short of his wrists. He had been
wearing a smile like a crown as he watched Aya eat the oysters he had ordered
for them, and the thick rich red wine.
Chloe made things complicated.
Chloe would take the brunt of harbouring Aya once he killed the Nemesis, Aya
would die in the attempt he knew that. It was Chloe who had sent Free to
protect him. It was Chloe who had preserved Aya’s position in the Seraglio.
It was Chloe that he didn’t want to leave behind.
Death would make things simple again, he was the last of Inabayama, the last of
the Fujimiya, and he would die avenging it.
“You seem deep in thought.” Free said calmly, he seemed to have two modes of
expression, calm and wry.
“I was just thinking,” Aya said quietly back, one of the things he liked about
Free was that he knew when to be quiet and when to ask questions so he didn’t
press the matter.
When everything was solved, Chloe would be the one to be blamed. Aya was not
happy with that. He was trying to think of an alternative, but one would not
present itself. He would kill the Nemesis, his own death mattered little to
him.
“Free,” he said quietly, “could we buy some paper and pens, I want to write a
letter.”
Before, when he had been Ran, when things were confused he wrote to the Lady
Redgrove, she would understand, even if the letter was burned in the fireplace
of the Seraglio, as it would be, but she would make sense of the avalanche of
emotions, she would understand why he had to do what he had to do, even though
he would die, Yuki would probably be executed, publicly and terribly, in a way
that would have made Farfarello proud. He wanted to send him away, to send him
to Eressea, to Crawford who would protect him, but he couldn’t. Yuki was a
janissary- a slave. He wanted to write to Crawford and tell him he was sorry,
but he couldn’t. He hadn’t wanted to betray Crawford but everything happened so
quickly with Chloe, so inevitably.
“You’re frowning.” Free said from his side as he guided him into the paper
shop. “Is there something you’d like to share?”
“No,” Aya said, “There’s nothing.” And then the numbness descended like a mist
over him.
He bought ink that was scented with lavender oil, paper woven with silk
threads, a leather bound journal that reminded him of the books that Lady
Redgrove had once sent him.
He would ask Mihorogi to send them to Eressea, Lady Redgrove had once stood up
to Crawford, she would explain everything, she would understand.
***** Chapter 16 *****
(i)
Aya’s mouth went dry when he saw Chloe in black silk and he found himself
licking his lips with a swollen tongue. He knew he was not at his best, just
having come in from walking along the beach with Free, he knew his face was
wind burned and that his hair needed combing, because it was a mass of loose
tendrils about his face and neck but there was something about the way that
Chloe looked at him that made it irrelevant.
Chloe was wearing black pinstriped lightly with silver, a silk shirt that
billowed at his waist and cuffs, but tight leather trousers that were formed to
his thighs. Suddenly Aya felt warm and he wasn’t sure why.
Chloe’s light coloured eyes burned like fire as they appraised him. Aya found
his breath catching in his throat.
Free looked between the two of them, “I’ll just go check on Yuki,” he rumbled,
his voice was like stone moving, deep and rich. Aya wanted to thank him but the
words were lacking.
“Bedroom,” Chloe managed, “now.”
Aya nodded and took the outstretched hand and knew that he had had nothing in
his life that could compare to this. He had had passion with Crawford but this
was new and wondrous.
 
In the end they didn’t make it to the bedroom, they found a small disused
sitting room and Chloe, stalking much like a big cat, pressed Aya to the couch
before smothering his face in kisses. “Do you,” he asked, “have any idea just
how fucking hot you are right now?”
And Aya wanted to say, “me, you’re the one in black silk and leather with those
gloves on,” but he was silenced by Chloe’s tongue seeking entrance to his
mouth. Once he might have said “not here,” but Chloe was pressing his chest
against his own and rubbing his thigh between Aya’s. Aya was long past the
point of complaining and just made grabbing motions at Chloe’s silk shirt.
Chloe just helped his thighs about his waist and making sure to fondle the ass
he found under the layers of silk with his leather gloves picked Aya up and
managed to walk him as far as the table before laying him down with reverence.
“Leave the gloves,” Aya managed against Chloe’s cheek. They were soft and
supple black buckskin, embossed with roses at the back of his hands and they
felt like heaven against his skin.
Chloe just laughed, but did not remove the gloves. He peeled Aya from the
kimono like a piece of fruit leaving him in culottes on the table, biting his
lip, “off,” Aya managed, pulling at Chloe’s shirt, and Chloe was more than
happy to oblige him.
Chloe’s skin was golden and lightly dusted with hair. Aya couldn’t resist
running his fingers lightly through it making sure just to run his fingernails
over the hard pink nipples and listening to Chloe hiss. It was a sound that
maddened Aya more than he wanted to let on. Instead he just cast his head back
to Chloe’s mouth and Chloe’s divine kisses. Chloe’s hands were at the waistband
of his culottes, and with the way they were confining his erection, though not
nearly as tight as Chloe’s pants, he was more than happy to see them gone.
Chloe’s mouth was tracing arcane designs as they gave themselves over to
hunger, there would be foreplay later, for now there was just hunger. There
would make love later, for now there was just fucking. And that was the way
that Aya wanted it. There could be experimentation and sweet nothings later,
for now all he wanted was Chloe and Chloe was more than happy to oblige.
He jerked down the culottes to Aya’s knees, and Aya couldn’t help himself he
laughed, wriggling as he tried to pull off his socks. “I don’t want to be naked
in socks,” he laughed and Chloe looked at him for a moment and then laughed as
well.
That was what Aya cherished about Chloe; there was laughter, even in this.
Chloe laughed and then tugged the small white socks off Aya’s feet careless of
where they landed.
There were servants to retrieve them later.
Then Aya was naked and Chloe stared at him, his eyes full of lust and softness.
He appraised the white skin, like a potter inspecting his work, down to the
scarlet v of pubic hair. Then his hand, still clad in the soft black leather
glove cupped Aya’s balls, and Aya just cast his head back to feel.
Chloe’s hands were maddening, normally they were callused from tending his
beloved roses but the leather was soft and yielding where his hands were not.
Aya wanted to live and die in his hands, but Ran remembered.
His head snapped back as he gasped, “I want to,” he said and he knew his eyes
were as dark as pansy hearts, he slid from the table and without further ado
untied Chloe’s pants and freed his cock, he rubbed it against his cheek for a
moment, scenting it like an animal as Chloe cast back his head and just felt,
then opening his mouth he began to lick the head, carefully and gently
listening to Chloe moan, feeling Chloe tighten his hands in Aya’s hair.
Aya didn’t let himself be directed in this, he had learned well from the Lady
Redgrove and he wanted to please Chloe, to show him, to love him. He wanted
Chloe to know who was kneeling at his feet and giving him pleasure. It
surprised Aya that he was capable of this kind of submission, but he suspected
that it wasn’t submission at all, that it was surrender, that it was hunger.
He suckled lightly on the tip in the way that had maddened Crawford, in the way
that Chloe loved, watching through slitted eyes as Chloe cast his head back and
moaned. Aya felt he could survive on only Chloe’s moans, on the gasped half
noises, and the grunts that he gave as he tightened the grip of his thumbs
against the bowl of Chloe’s hips through the leather of his trousers, and he
took a deep breath through his nose, smelling Chloe, sharp and musky and the
leather even as he bobbed his head back and forth along the length, until it
pressed to the back of his throat and he gagged and then back so that his lips
barely touched the spongy head.
“Aya,” Chloe gasped and against the erection in his mouth Aya grinned.
Chloe took his hands from Aya’s hair, where they had almost pulled his braid
free, and cupped under his chin pulling him to his feet for a kiss.
Aya could lose himself in Chloe’s kisses, when Chloe kissed him he didn’t care
about the Nemesis or Inabayama, all that remained was the hot battle of tongues
and the taste of Chloe shared between them as Chloe wrapped his hand about
Aya’s cock, running the soft leather against the veins and ridges he found
there. Aya groaned into his mouth, he knew he would love these gloves, even if
they were ruined by this encounter.
“Want you.” Chloe murmured and Aya was more than happy to oblige him as their
cocks rubbed together with the soft kiss of the leather.
“Oil?” Aya asked, Chloe looked around the room for something that they could
use, never letting up on the wondrous torture of his hands. There was a
discarded butter dish and with a groan of disappointment Chloe took the five
steps away from Aya to fetch it. Aya jumped up unto the tabletop and laid his
feet on the chairs on either side of it, spreading himself open for Chloe’s
view.
Chloe almost dropped the butter dish in his haste and his lust. He gave himself
over to Aya’s kisses like a dying man. Aya fumbled the butter dish from him.
“Watch me,” he said, wondering when he had become so wanton.
Chloe had no choice but to watch him, his eyes were fixed on the way the long
thin white fingers scooped up the butter, which was almost completely melted
and ran it over his puckered opening, then licking his lips, he slid one finger
inside. Chloe tilted his head slightly watching the way Aya’s opening sucked in
his fingers and Aya’s eyes grew darker.
“Ayan,” he murmured, “I can’t wait.”
Aya just held out his hand and pressed into the cock-head against his opening,
forcing it inside though he wasn’t nearly stretched enough, Chloe groaned at
the tightness and the heat even as the butter slicked along him. There was a
little friction, and it must be hurting Aya but he gave no sign of it, just
relaxing into the penetration.
Then he began to rock, his back making squealing noises against the polished
tabletop as he pressed and pulled against Chloe’s erection, his fingers reached
out and twined with Chloe’s, pulling him closer even as his hips pushed him
away, and Chloe swallowed him with kisses even as the pressure in his balls
threatened to undo him and Aya was writhing under him, rubbing the skin against
his balls. The leather of his trousers was against Aya’s thighs where he had
wrapped his legs tight about him.
When Chloe came it was with a force that rocked the table with a terrible
creak, he ran his hand, with fingers still entwined with Aya’s, up and down his
angry red erection and Aya came with a great exhalation like a death rattle,
then he lay panting, his neck and chest flushed. “Love you,” Chloe murmured,
pushing back sweat dark bangs from Aya’s face. “Love you, so much.”
Aya just looked at him with eyes like the dark hearts of pansies and smiled.
***** Chapter 17 *****
Lady Birman Redgrove looked at the pile of letters that she had received with a
disinterested eye and then looked at one a second time. The handwriting looked
like Ran’s. She turned it over but didn’t recognise the seal, which she broke
open with her thumb. She scanned the contents of the letter and then frowned.
She cancelled her appointments for the day and settled down to read it
properly.
“My Dearest Birman,
I hope this letter finds you in better circumstances than the last, which I
sent. I find I write you a hundred letters but send none. I tell myself daily
that I will entrust my journal to you, twice I have even wrapped it, but I will
probably never send it, and like the last letters that I have sent I will burn
it.
I suppose that I am happy here, that will settle your mind, but I find myself
torn, I shall explain in more detail. I have met the author of the Sir Alaric
novels, and now I know what must happen next.
To protect Alaric Celabrien sold herself to the Nemesis, but there she found
someone who loved her not for her steadfast duty to Alaric. In the Nemesis
Seraglio, she has found someone, who unlike Alaric who dominates her soul and
overpowers her with love, someone who is her equal and her match, but she loves
Alaric still, and she does not want to love this new man who serves the Nemesis
because it betrays all that she stands for.
She is a woman torn between the duty to her husband, Alaric, and her duty to
her fallen palace, but also her love for Alaric who protected her to the best
of his ability and her love for this new man.

He would not tell me the ending; I think it would make it too easy for me to
not finish the series. I wonder if I could have your opinion on such an ending,
for myself I think the only optionCelabrienhas is death, for she plans to kill
the Nemesis but then her new love will be blamed for harboring her and she
would not have him involved in any way. Her own death does not worry her, but
she would not have him harmed, she wishes that she could remove them both from
the war, that selfishly that maybe both could love her but she knows it is a
fantasy, Both men are too possessive to ever share her.
The author uses a strange device, I find myself again and again taken back to
his images of piskies, the oneCelabriensaw barely a week before she met Alaric
who promised her a life of sorrow, the three she saw when her father died, the
seven revealed to her before the fall of her palace of Brio, and he will not
reveal to me if any others will be shown to her. I find myself wishing that she
will see two so that there will be a little joy at the end.
I can’t help but feel that she hurtles towards her death because she cannot
choose between the triumvirate she has found herself in, does she choose a love
that overwhelms but betrayed her, because we cannot forget that a lie of
omission is still alie,or a love who serves the man who destroyed everything
she held dear, even her passion for Alaric. Beyond that how does she fulfill
her duty when it will see them both betrayed if not dead? I imagine that
sometimes she wishes she had never been born, for her repeated visions of the
piskies have meant that she has brought nothing but sorrow to the lives she
taints.
Then her new lover smiles at her.
I know you will understand, together we have read those romances as each came
out. Perhaps, like many of the ladies of the court, I learned a little of life
from the stories of Alaric and the fairCelabrien, perhaps that is why I was so
eager to learn more of the story. I dislike waiting for answers.
Your musings I would find most interesting.
Despite being so far from such determined confidantes I am not alone here, in
my care, I have a young boy who too once saw the shadows set over Brio, his
name is Yuki and he is as skittish as the rabbits that dart amongst the
Eressean snow. He is brave and stubborn, though he hides behind me as once
another did.
Please, do not tell him the contents of this letter.
I see Alaric girding himself for battle against the Nemesis if he suspected
Celabrien’s fate, if you must share the plans for this manuscript, for I have
no doubt that he will have questions, he was ever curious, tell him
thatCelabrienthinks of him often, that she still aches for love of him.
But Alaric betrayedCelabrien, he kept her closeted away on the shores of the
inland seas and then when brio was sacked by the Nemesis he did not trust her
to know, he did not trust her to do her duty by him. Perhaps Alaric feared that
she would leave him if he told her, for he was ever unsure of himself in her
affection, time alone in the Seraglio has taught her that.
I wonder if you still miss Lord Redgrove, for I was assured that once you were
close to him even if he was many years your senior. You once told me that you
chose him over other suitors, what must it be like to have such choice I
wonder, I have felt myself pulled through the undertow of fate and even my
heart which should have been my own was dictated by duty, but where I gave my
love I gave it utterly.
When I am dead they will say of me that I loved not wisely but too well, and
maybe likeCelabrien, in too many places. I wonder if one can be betrayed by
one’s own heart as easily as by one’s lover.
You would like him I think, he is golden, like the sun, and he shines with an
inner light. He makes me laugh and he cares for my opinion, he keeps no secrets
between us. He is in love with life and love and me. Where Alaric once
offeredCelabrienthe cloths of heaven, he admits that that is not in his power
to give he offered me his dreams instead.
Perhaps I am young and easily swayed by such words as I was once fixed in place
by a pair of amber eyes that still haunt my dreams, but they mean the world to
me. Yet he is married, he tells me he has no care for his wife, and, in truth,
I have seen that for myself, but still,I must worry. It is my nature I think,
and it is no different from my own situation. If you can find a way to tell him
without letting him now I have been in contact with you please tell him I do
love him.
That, Birman, is my tragedy, I love them both, like Celabrien, but unlike her,
I am only torn by the duty to my husband and this man who has become my lord.
Please don’t’ tell him there is another. You have never lied to me or kept
secrets on his behalf, and I doubt that you would keep such secrets if asked
straight out and perhaps, like I have written to you I should write to him,
that I should let him know that I am well, but I know him, he is possessive and
he will raise an army to see me at his side again. The pain of his betrayal
runs deep, Birman, he lied to me when there was no reason to, I perhaps would
only have mourned in his arms, perhaps I would have incited him to another
course of action but instead I found myself at a loss, Hurting I chose what
might have been the wrong decision, my duty to home overwhelmed me, perhaps it
was a mistake. I know that if I act on it there will be repercussions although
I am yet to see the crux of the matter personally.
You often gave me counsel when I warred with him, even over petty things, and
you revealed to me the truth of your heart when it must have pained you to do
so because you sought to give me the knowledge that being a veritable prisoner
in his home prevented me.
I am scared, Birman,Celabrienhas found herself in a situation well beyond her
ability to understand, and the writer gave no idea of where such strife came
from, and now I see parallels.
I will understand if you cannot respond, like the hundreds of letters I have
sent you before I have found peace in the writing of it, and if you hear, by
way of my golden Taiyo-sama that I have fallen please tell him everything, even
those things that would hurt him, please comfort him as you once comforted me.
I do not know if I can bear to write to you again because it hurts to bare my
soul so explicitly.
Know that I have love for all in your household, as one school friend to
another.
Your Aya.”

Birman knew the writing and the code was simple enough for her to decipher, she
paused for a moment batting the letter against her cheek. Ran obviously put a
lot of trust in her, perhaps more than she deserved. She looked at the portrait
of her husband over the fireplace. She had loved him; it was one of the ways
that meant that she could understand Ran so well, because she knew how it felt.
She went to the door, “I will need paper and a pen for writing correspondence,
and could you please send Miss Manx to me,” she told the servant, “and,” the
servant turned back, “bring me the latest of the Sir Alaric novels.” The boy,
and almost all her servants were boys that she had stolen from other households
for their prettiness rather than their talent, scampered off to fulfil her
request.
She read the letter a second and then a third time, part of her wanted to cry
but Ran deserved better than that.
“You silly boy,” she said leaning up against the window frame, “what have you
gotten yourself into.”
Crawford never knocked when he came in. He just opened the door. “Are you
keeping secrets from me, Birman?” He asked, his voice was icy and there was
little give in it. She had to admire his intelligence network, often he knew
about her daily life before she did. Perhaps he suspected that Ran would try to
contact her.
“Isn’t it a lady’s prerogative to keep secrets?” She asked archly, sweeping her
brown hair from her eyes with a diligent hand. “And a gentleman who is the soul
of discretion to not press her on such matters?”
“One of your,” he paused looking for the word, “catamites told me you received
a letter from him.”
She would have to find out which one and have him disciplined, this was well
beyond the usual snooping that went on in the court of Eressea. “I received a
letter today from an old school friend who had taken in the author of the Sir
Alaric books, she revealed to me what is going to happen in the upcoming
novels, that is all.” Ran had said that he wouldn’t ask her to out and out lie
and yet she was doing that for him. “Would you like to see it?” She offered him
the folded piece of paper knowing that he wouldn’t know the books through which
Ran had told her so much.
Crawford read the note greedily, then he crushed it in his hands. “You wouldn’t
lie to me, would you, Birman?”
“Isn’t there honour amongst thieves, Crawford? We have a history you and I, I
have played my revenge out on you by educating your blushing bride because it
amused me to do so, after all doesn’t every man want a virgin who is a whore.”
Crawford slapped her across the face, splitting her lip, she licked at the
blood angrily. “I have all of Ran’s letters,” she said, “I have kept nothing
from you, I did not then and I do not now. Perhaps he is dead.” Her eyes met
his fiercely, “and making Omi’s claim to Inabayama only serves to anger the
Nemesis. Would war bring him back to you?”
Crawford for a moment looked like a chess champion that had lost his queen, but
then his expression became stony and hard. “Once we were lovers as well as
rivals, Birman,” he said, “and we have played our games amongst nations,
neither of us left those negotiations with our reputations intact.” He paused
for a moment, staring at her, “but yet he saw through that, to you for the
kindness you never showed another once your husband died, and me for the love I
thought I’d never give to anyone but Naoe.” He pushed an errant lock of hair
from his forehead. “He took two jaded seducers and turned us into sentimental
fools.”
He went to the door, “if you do receive word from him,” he said and his voice
was sad, “you will let me know.”
Birman went to call out to him, to reveal everything because after all she had
known Crawford since she was a child. Ran had asked her not to. He went to
close the door behind him, “Crawford,” she called out, “he really did love you,
you know.” Crawford offered her a rather dead smile, “He might have stayed
where you could protect him if you’d ever told him that.”
Crawford’s laugh was rueful. “I did,” he said to her, and then so quietly she
was almost sure she had misheard him. “Once.”
***** Chapter 18 *****
(i)
The gathered noblesse of the court of the Nemesis gathered for the poetry
reading. It was to be Aya’s first encounter with the Nemesis but he was
surprised to find his throne shrouded in a black shawl. He sat next to Chloe
who was amiably playing with the end of his braid in a distracted manner as
Free sat to the other side of him, shuffling his deck of cards.
Sakura sat, with her hair veiled by black silk and her face framed with golden
coins, glaring at Aya for reasons he couldn’t be sure of. Her hands were
clenching and unclenching in her dress, and Aya didn’t know because he had
always been kind to the girl. She sat next to the veiled throne and her eyes
promised murder.
Chloe just smiled at her and continued to play with Aya’s hair.
The poet was a woman Aya thought he might have seen before, but he wasn’t sure.
He recognised the set of her head more than her face or hair. She wore a long
blue gown fastened here and there with silk roses in the Atzaran style. She had
blue silk roses in her hair as well, and a beautiful silver comb fastened with
sapphires.
She stepped into the center of the circular room that they called the Camera,
and bowed at the empty throne. Her name was Rex.
She began to read in a crisp clear voice.
“I may ask for nothing just now
But soon I'll be sick with memories
Thoughts of them, their cries as I left forever
All I'd like is one last chance to say goodbye, but
Stinging tears are wasted time and
My own needs are cast aside
I'm trained to be ruthless, and yet
These tears of mine won't stop flowing
Though I try, the stains of my sins won't leave me
Defiled, though still clean, their screams will linger, always
Trembling, I turn away but
I can never see redemption
Stinging tears are wasted time and
My own needs are cast aside”
Aya lowered his eyes to the onslaught of her words but it obviously angered
Chloe because he tightened his grip around the end of Aya’s braid, but he said
nothing as the noblesse clapped slow appreciation for the poet who had come so
far to read to them.
“My lord,” she said to the empty throne, “I am at your command.”
“Another,” Sakura said, “something beautiful, for Aya.” There was venom in her
voice, jealousy he supposed.
Rex looked around the room and then looked directly at Aya, there was something
in her gaze that suggested that maybe she had seen him before too, but he
didn’t know where or how. “Your eyes,” she said softly, reaching forward with a
cold and claw like hand to pull up his jaw, “they are like the dark hearts of
pansies but your hair is the colour of a rich red wine, what poem could compare
with such beauty. Tell me, Chloe, Is his skin really as milky as it seems?”
“It is like porcelain,” Chloe answered coldly, “can you find something to
compare in the cold halls of the old capital?”
Rex looked for a moment like she might sneer but she said nothing before she
turned away and smiled graciously at her audience.
“Get in the cradle of the moon
You have that swaying feeling
Don't fall; endure it
Show me the small star inside
Might as well give a harmless kiss
There's nothing to lose.
Secretly...
My little star
Protecting you through everything...
Good night
Good night.”
As she turned on the finish her skirts flared revealing a pair of navy silk
stockings but Aya’s attention was fixed on her hand, she pulled the comb and
threw it. Aya saw the movement even as Rex shouted “Michel for Nemesis,” and
lurched in front of Chloe.
The comb had been specially sharpened for it burned as it entered his hand.
Then Free was moving and quickly, something Aya never expected of someone so
tall, and he had Rex in a headlock with her arms behind her back as Chloe could
only look on in horror. “Why?” He asked, “You were honoured here!” He asked,
his voice wavering in shock.
“Because a true Nemesis wouldn’t abandon his empire for a boy,” she spat the
words out, “he wouldn’t condemn us to a needless war with Esset over a boy, no
matter how lovely.”
“I’m sorry, Rex,” Chloe said as Aya reeled from what was being said, “that your
poetry will be no more. Free,” With a sickening crunch Free broke her neck and
then lifted her carefully, as if she was his lover, and carried her from the
room.
It was only then that Chloe saw Aya clutching his hand, “A chirurgeon,” he
hollered, “Now!”
Then as the court milled about trying to do his bidding, he looked at the girl
beside the empty throne, “Are you happy now, Sakura, or will you only be happy
when I am dead and Michel sits on my throne?”
“You are a lousy Nemesis.” Sakura answered, secure that he wouldn’t harm her.
“Nevertheless I am Nemesis.” He answered, then turned to the court, “Remove her
from the Seraglio, place her in the west wing under guard, she is not to leave
there except by my explicit order.”
“But I did nothing.” She protested.
“You did enough.”
Aya was pale but Chloe mistakenly attributed it to shock from the wound.
It left one thing absolute. Aya had taken the blow for him.
(ii)
Aya sat as the chirurgeons tended his wounded hand; he was still despite what
must have been terrible pain. Chloe was busy in his role dealing with the
aftermath of such a betrayal, he wasn’t sure if Sakura had been involved but
there was a lot of supposition that she would have had to be. It was she who
had pressed for Rex to come, and it was she that pressed Chloe that Aya be
invited where even as favourite of the Seraglio he wouldn’t have been.
But the details kept running over and over through Aya’s head, he had saved the
Nemesis, no he had saved Chloe. But Chloe, who he loved, was the Nemesis, who
had destroyed his home.
When Yuki came in to see if he was all right he waved away the chiurgeons and
then opened his arms to the boy, who was wary of such open displays but still
wrapped his arms about Aya’s chest, and wept like a child.
(iii)
Chloe sent for Aya that night, not to share supper as they always did, but to
share his bed. Aya wiped away his tears, and sliding a long piece of glass into
the bandage on his hand honoured the summons.
Free was characteristically silent as he led Aya through the corridors but
before he opened the door to Chloe’s private suite he reached over and kissed
Aya on the forehead, it was a fraternal gesture and Aya thought his heart would
shatter into a thousand pieces receiving it.
Chloe sat on the edge of the bed, with his head cast down so that all Aya could
see of his face was his nose peeking through his golden bangs. “He burns like
the sun,” Aya thought to himself, “but even suns must die.”
His decision made he went to Chloe as he once had for Crawford and sat at his
feet with his cheek resting against his thigh. Chloe reached down and placed
his hand on Aya’s head, “I love you,” he said softly, “even enough to send my
empire to war for you.” He paused then. “I never wanted to be Nemesis, I never
wanted this, Aya, please understand that. I used to respect Rex so much, she
said what no one else would say.” Aya said nothing, “she used to call my father
a braggart and war monger and she was right.” Aya looked up at him, he wore
only a robe for bed. “I wasn’t going to send for you tonight, I thought I
wanted time on my own, but I was wrong, I just,” he stopped and Aya reached up
and put a finger to his lips.
“Let me,” Aya said and then turning so he knelt before Chloe he kissed him.
Chloe’s lips were heavy and reluctant but Aya slipped his bandaged hand around
Chloe’s neck and pulled him closer, “give me this.” He whispered against those
fruit soft lips, “please.” Aya never begged so Chloe relented.
He gave himself over to the kisses and the warm fingers that toyed with his
robe, and the bandaged palm flat on the back of his neck. Aya never pulled his
mouth away from his, even as his fingers flicked across a nipple, squeezing it
gently and pushed him back unto the bed as he came to his feet. Chloe was
despondent but he returned the kisses and pushed Aya’s robe from his shoulders
with clumsy hands.
He gave himself over to Aya in a way that he had never done before, there was
complete submission in the way he lay there, but Aya never pulled his mouth
away from those wondrous kisses.
“Aya,” Chloe said after an eternity of touching and kissing, “please, fuck me.”
Aya pulled back perplexed, “I’ve never,” he said, “I don’t know how.”
“Then let me show you, love,” Chloe said reaching across for the oil and
slathering it on his fingers, “watch me.” Chloe pressed his finger against his
opening and Aya was unprepared for the erotic shock of watching his body seem
to swallow it. When Chloe was ready he slicked his hand with oil and ran it
over Aya’s erection slowly, making Aya gasp at the sensation, and then pressed
against him with his slicked anus and pressed inside.
(iv)
Afterward Aya watched Chloe sleep with a terrible longing he couldn’t quite
understand as he slid the shard of glass from his bandage and held it above
Chloe’s throat. Chloe opened his eyes and looked at him, there was no
recrimination or anger in the gaze. In fact it was dull. “Do it,” he said,
“just do it.”
Aya dropped the glass to the floor beside the bed with a sob, “I can’t,” he
said, “I can’t.”
“The sex wasn’t that good,” Chloe said coldly, “do it, do it for Inabayama, do
it for your family, Ran Fujimiya.”
“You knew?” Aya asked, shocked even as he wept against his will.
“I always knew,” Chloe said, “Free told me, your history wasn’t hard to find.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me?” Aya asked.
“Because you were beautiful.” Chloe told him, “because I love you.”
Aya cried harder, he could barely see, “I can’t, Chloe, I can’t.” He protested,
beating the bed with his fists.
“I know,” Chloe said wrapping his arms about Aya with no fear, just love, “I
know, love, I know.”
***** Chapter 19 *****
(i)

The gathered forces of Eressea gathered at the bottom of the hill facing the
massed forces of both Esset and the Nemesis. Crawford checked his information a
second, and then a third time. Esset had declared war with the Nemesis over the
collection of a certainJanissary from the border, the Nemesis declared it was
legal and within their territory but Esset said it was not. This could have
been avoided if the Nemesis had returned the girl but he had refused to back
down. It was even said that the girl accompanied him everywhere as a slight to
the elders of Esset, and there was even talk of him putting aside his political
wife and marrying her.
Crawford couldn’t understand, why, after so many years of a flimsy peace the
Nemesis, who was said to be unlike his predecessor as chalk was from cheese,
was willing to shatter it, and for a girl. He thought of Ran, lost to him these
two years, and believed he might understand, if only in part.
He wondered, in retrospect, if he had not pressed Omi’s claim to the state of
Daryiia in an attempt to appease the tormenting ghost of Ran.
In the dark hours he could have sworn he heard Ran, and as he sat at his desk,
he could feel the ghost of his warmth of his cheek against his thigh, yet when
he turned he lost him again with the realisation that he was not there, that he
would never be there again. He had been almost convinced that Ran was dead,
that he had killed himself in the hills of Herensea to be with his sister and
parents, but then Birman had received a letter from a girl who called herself
Aya who spoke of Sir Alaric, just as Ran had once done. The letter had been
full of cryptic asides that he had not understood and some he did, “If you can
find a way to tell him without letting him now I have been in contact with you
please tell him I do love him. If you can find a way to tell him without
letting him know I have been in contact with you please tell him I do love
him.”
It was those words that instilled in Crawford the desperate belief that Ran was
alive, that he was trying to communicate secrets in ways only Birman could
understand but the knowledge gave Crawford some comfort, his beautiful boy, his
Ran, his bride, loved him.
It didn’t stop his boy haunting him. Even now he could feel his breath on the
back of his neck and the sweet innocent questions he would ask and then
suggestions that would dazzle a general twice his age. Ran’s voice had deepened
over the years but it was still his, and occasionally he would find wine dark
red hairs in his clothes. He never let anyone else see him weep, he was too
proud for that. Yet still Ran haunted him.
“Move your forces to the left,” the ghostly voice said in his ear. “That way
you’re up against the trees here, it’ll make it harder for them to flank you.”
Crawford looked at the metal figurines laid out on the map and saw that Ran was
right, he always was.
Even two years after Ran had gone he still had two place settings set out for
supper.

(ii)
Aya looked at the massed forces of Eressea, in the name of Inabayama, and
Estet, then sighed. As much as he would like to deny it it was obvious that
they were gathered here because of him, well not because of him personally, but
because of his situation. Crawford was using Omi’s claim to call him back to
him, he had gathered an army to restore Inabayama thinking that Aya would be
duty bound to return to him then. Estet was using the excuse that he had been
captured within their borders, which was an outright fiction, because he hadn’t
been, and he had volunteered for the Janissary, and Chloe had gathered his army
because Estet hadn’t backed down over the cause.
It was spurious, Aya was from Inabayama, or Daryiia as they had renamed it, he
couldn’t have been more Chloe’s property if he tried.
Chloe was gathered with his generals as Free stood beside him. He could see
Ken, whom he had met because of the mix up over the seraglio, he had come to
apologise and he had struck Aya as being genuine but overworked, he was now
leading the infantry, he wore a pair of razor sharp claws on the back of his
hands for melee fighting, beside him was Yuushi who wore a whip sword around
his back and cautioned attack as the best defence. Then there was Reiichi who
counselled patience, Masato who looked as if he listened to every option but
had his own plan that he didn’t share and Naru who was in charge of artillery.
Most armies fell before him.
They had their counterparts in Esset as well, Berger, the Black General who
left no one alive, Geisel, The Horned King, who outmanoeuvred his enemies into
traps to crush them at his leisure, and Layla, the Silk Queen who seduced her
way to murder and despotism, it was said that she had killed over a thousand
maidens to bathe in their blood. They were feared and rightly so. Esset must
have something planned if they had brought them to the front.
He was frightened, not for himself because such was irrelevant, death was the
least he deserved for what he had done and who he had betrayed, but for Chloe
and Crawford. Free said nothing, he never did.

(iii)
“Which one is he?” Chloe asked looking out over the army of Eressea with his
spy glass. “Your husband?”
“Why?” Aya asked, rising from the bed to stand beside Chloe, the night was
chill.
“Because I’m still unsure whether I want to kill or thank him.” Chloe answered
with a smile, “he, whether he intended to or not, sent you to me.” Aya took the
compliment with good grace and a dark laugh. “I might kill him just because you
compare me to him, even when you don’t intend to.”
“I,” Aya began, Chloe silenced him with a kiss.
“I think I’d love you less if you didn’t still love him,” he answered. “Ran
loves him,” he offered with a rather calm smile, “but Aya loves me, that Aya
and Ran are the same body is the crux, there are parts of you that are still
Ran, it was Ran that took Yuki under your wing, and it was Ran that spared my
life that night, but Aya is hard and brittle and beautiful. I can sometimes
imagine how you feel, because I love both Aya and Ran.” Aya lowered his eyes,
“so, please, let me see my rival.”
“He has dark hair,” Aya said turning his back to the armies, “and eyes like
polished circles of amber, he is tall and dignified but he wears eyeglasses to
read. He speaks softly and carefully, choosing each word before he speaks, by
nightfall he has a shadow of stubble across his chin, and pen calluses on his
fingers. He is darker than you, and slightly taller, more broad across the
chest, he was an anchor I was happy to hang my life on.”
Chloe’s smile softened the pain Aya couldn’t help but feel. “Which one, love?”
He asked.
Aya turned and pointed to the tent, “there,” he said, “That is my husband.”
Chloe looked at the man standing there, “and the two men beside him, the
redhead and the blonde, are they your champions?” He asked. Aya nodded. “I’d
like to meet them, if circumstances were different I would like to meet your
husband and your champions because they made you the man I love.”
“You’re such a sap,” Aya said batting him lightly on the arm even though his
heart was warmed by the words. It didn’t frighten him in any way to talk that
way to the Nemesis, who the romance novels called the Devourer of Nations.
“Ah,” Chloe answered with a grin, “and they say romance is dead, now I know
why.” He laughed, it was faintly mocking but Aya knew he was only teasing. “And
to think, I have made you my chosen companion, the one who wipes my mouth after
a feast of nations.”
“Who said it was your mouth I wiped?” Aya answered with a grin, glad Chloe had
changed the subject, he didn’t want to dwell on the past.
“My ecchi,” Chloe answered with a smile, “now, do you want to go to him?” He
asked suddenly.
“Yes,” Aya said, “I owe him that.”
“If you promise to come back, and take Free with you, I’ll let you go, I know I
can’t meet with him, but I think you need to say goodbye.”
“I said goodbye.” Aya protested, “he just didn’t know it.”
Chloe cupped his face with his palm. “If he feels for you an inkling what I do,
and knowing how you feel about him, I’ll trust you,” he kissed him on the lips
gently, “after all, you are my captain of the Heaven Guard.”
“How?” Aya asked, “Why? I mean,” he stopped, “Chloe, you baffle and bemuse me.”
“Because once I nearly married your sister, my father petitioned the king of
Inabayama for her, but obviously Eressea’s bid was higher, I have the portrait
he commissioned of both you and your sister. If your sister hadn’t fallen ill I
would have petitioned for you.” He stroked Aya’s cheek softly, “things have a
funny way of coming full circle.”
“So you always knew?” Aya asked.
“No,” Chloe answered, “I believed you dead when you left Herensea, just like
everyone else, but I suspected.” He kissed him on the forehead, “go to him, and
say goodbye, come tomorrow things will change, and you and I will be nowhere
near the fighting. I’d hate for him to die before you got the chance to say
goodbye properly because I know you, love, it would eat you up inside.”
“Are you so sure you’ll win?” Aya asked.
“No,” Chloe answered, “not at all, but I am royalty and I’ll be whisked away
from the battle at the faintest hint that things are not going to plan, you are
my favourite so I’ll take you with me or throw a tantrum to make Yuki proud.”
His grin was impish, “he is only a general, he will be among the fighting.”
Aya sighed, and then prepared to walk down the hill.
***** Chapter 20 *****
(i)
Crawford looked up from his map when Farfarello entered the palanquin, “there’s
someone here asking to see you.”
Crawford glared at him, but it rolled off his back, Farfarello usually knew
better than to disturb him. “There is no need for you to disturb me unless it
is the Nemesis himself come to barter for Mamoru’s kingdom.”
“He has no interest in Inabayama, and believe me, I’ve asked.” Aya said from
the doorway. He looked different, as if when he had left Herensea he had been a
sculpture half finished, and the two years had broken the artist who had
finished his masterwork in pain and self doubt. His hair had darkened to the
colour of a rich merlot wine; his skin was satin soft and his eyes velvet deep.
He was also more beautiful than Crawford had expected.
Crawford could not have prepared himself for the man that his Ran had grown
into. He wore tight grey leather pants and a heavy white wool duster. His only
concession to the autumn chill was a silk scarf around his neck.
A tall man with distinguished facial tattoos that looked like slashes in his
cheeks stood beside him. He wore a sleeveless jacket and his leather trousers
were only knee length, instead of boots the man wore sandals. He didn’t look
like he felt the cold at all. “It’s good to see you, Crawford.” Aya said,
“Free, Farfarello, will you leave us alone for a while?”
The tall man, Free, nodded and went to stand outside but Farfarello looked
first at Crawford who nodded, and then as he walked past Aya growled at him. It
was a feral sound more suited to an animal than a man.
“One would think,” Aya said sitting down on one of the campaign chairs, “that
he was angry at me.”
“It’s been two years, Ran,” Crawford said, “why have you chosen now to come
back to me?”
“Aya,” he corrected, “Ran died with Inabayama and I became Aya.”
“You took your sister’s place,” Crawford said, “now you’ve taken her name.”
Aya shrugged, it was a roll of the shoulders that Crawford didn’t remember. Ran
had been shy and introverted but Aya was self confident and brave, at least on
the outside. “Chloe said things have a strange habit of coming full circle.” He
lifted the lead figurine of the Nemesis and moved it about in his long white
fingers.
“Are you here to see my plans?” Crawford asked, finding safety in rage.
“No,” Aya said, “there is a terrible irony in that, Esset has used me as an
excuse to start this war, but other than it endangers you it has little
importance to me.”
“You would have been horrified before.” Crawford argued.
“My heart turned to ice when Inabayama fell. I wished for death and I was found
unworthy.” He looked at the tiny figure in his hand, “things like war can’t
impinge on my suffering, Crawford, even when fought in my name.” He sighed, “I
didn’t come here to argue with you.”
“Then why, Ran, why?” The rage burned white hot in him.
“A million reasons,” Aya said rolling his shoulders again, “A thousand million
reasons. You were the anchor I chose to hang my life on and without you I
wandered aimlessly and lost.” He stopped looking for answers in the miniature
he held, “I wanted to come back so many times, a thousand times I wrote to you
and burned the letter. I hated myself for what I did to you, but I lacked the
courage to come home.”
“Then why now?” Crawford’s rage was white hot but his demeanour was icy. Icy
disdain was something they had always had in common. Ran’s temper had been like
the frozen winds of the tundra to the north, though his anger boiled and
bubbled like a volcano within him.
“I don’t blame you for being angry,” Aya said ruefully. “I,” then the words
were gone, they had abandoned and betrayed him.
“You left,” Crawford snarled.
“And I would again,” Aya answered, “but I still missed you every moment of
every day. I ached for you, for your courage and your strength but I had to do
my duty.”
“You were always honest with me, Ran, don’t lie to me now.” Crawford’s hands
were closed into tightly balled fists.
“No,” Aya corrected, “we both lied, to ourselves and each other. I,” he stopped
again terrified of the words, “sometimes,” he said, “I’m still the boy in
Fujimiya colours terrified to meet you.” He snorted out a dry laugh, “and more
than anything right now I want to move around this table and to press my cheek
against your thigh and for you to forgive me.”
“For leaving or joining the Nemesis?” Crawford asked.
“I never joined him,” Aya said, “my sin was greater than that, not knowing who
he was I loved him.” There was a pregnant pause as Aya placed the figure back
on the table, exactly where it had been, then he sighed. “Were I a greater man
I might not have done what I did, then maybe I could choose.” His eyes were
downcast and distant, “my king raised me to be a captain of the Heaven Guard,
then sold me in Aya’s place. All my life I have done my duty by Inabayama and I
have failed. I made you a lousy bride and I was a failed assassin.” He stopped,
“I wanted to see you before the battle,” he said, “I wanted to explain.”
“And what does the Nemesis feel about your sudden desire for atonement?”
“He said that as long as I returned to him that I was free to leave.” Aya
answered.
“With your bodyguard outside I could rape and murder you.”
“I’d let you,” Aya answered brusquely. “I have always loved you, from that
first supper when you were so kind, but you hurt me,” he stopped again, the
fire slipping from his eyes, “badly.”
“You left me,” Crawford corrected.
“You treated me like a possession. You used me and then you lied to me.” Aya
said, “I knew it even then, but I loved you anyway,” he knocked over the
figurine so it didn’t look at him with it’s painted eyes, “I wanted more than
anything to hate you for it,” he sighed, trying to rein in his temper, “I never
could, and I can’t now.”
“What are you saying?” Crawford asked.
“If you could tell me anything, if I was haunting you, demanding one truth, one
answer, what would you tell me? If I was Birman, or the maidens of judgment,
I,” he stopped again, “I need a truth, Crawford.”
“And why should I give you one?” Crawford asked, he obviously didn’t want to
give one. It was easier to hide behind his rage.
“Because,” Aya said failing to control his rage, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,”
he said, “as much as I loved you I thought that you owned me,” his teeth were
gritted tight against the words, “I thought you’d just replace me.”
“How dare you?” Crawford yelled, “I love you.”
“You never told me that,” Aya answered.
“I didn’t think I needed to,” Crawford answered darkly, “I did everything I
could to make you happy, I tried to protect you.”
Aya took a deep breath to try and calm his temper, “I didn’t come here to fight
with you.”
“Then why?” Crawford asked.
“I wanted to say I was sorry,” Aya shouted, “to tell you that,” In a moment
Crawford was around the table and his kiss silenced him. He expected Aya to
fight him but he didn’t, he gave himself over to the hands in his hair and the
lingering taste of the sweet red wine between them. When Crawford pulled back
he rested his forehead against Aya’s, “I’m so sorry,” Aya sobbed against his
mouth, “I’m so very, very sorry.”
“I was dead without you,” Crawford murmured back, “I only live when I’m with
you,” he ran his palm over Ran’s hair, “leave me again and I’ll die.” Aya
kissed him to silence him. Crawford pulled back so that he stood over him
forehead to forehead. “I missed you so much, I missed you so much.”
Aya was characteristically silent.
“Do you want this?” Crawford asked, he had never forced Ran, ever, and he
wouldn’t stop now.
“Yes,” Aya’s voice was broken, “but,”
“The Nemesis?” Crawford asked. “I can’t share you, you know that,”
Aya didn’t answer.
“I won’t let you return to him,” Crawford said, his grip on Aya’s head tight
now, almost enough to hurt, “You’re mine, you’ve always been mine.”
“I’m not a possession, Crawford,” Aya said ruefully. “I’m only me, god help me
it’s not enough, but it’s the best I can do.”
“You are my love,” Crawford corrected, “you are my bride. If you try to leave
me again I’ll have Farfarello take you to Eressea before dawn.”
Aya lowered his eyes, “don’t hurt Free,” he said, “that is my price,” he looked
up at Crawford, “he,” he stopped, “he’s not involved in this,”
“Then why bring him?” Crawford asked, knowing he could give him over to the
tender mercies of Farfarello.
“Because he’s my friend.” Aya answered, “because of you all he’s never lied to
me, he’s never betrayed me, and because he trusts me. He keeps nothing from me,
and he let me go to kill the Nemesis even though I couldn’t do it.”
“How?” Crawford asked, his grip on Aya’s wrist must have been painful. “Why can
you forgive him genocide but you can’t forgive me for trying to keep you safe.”
Aya laughed. It was a dark and joyless sound. “I didn’t forgive either of you,”
he said, “I’m a contemptible horrible human being, Crawford, and I don’t know
why you both love me, I can’t even decide which one of you I love, I lack the
courage for suicide. All my life other people have made my decisions and I’m in
over my head.” Crawford loosened his hold somewhat hearing those words, “you
don’t need to hate me,” Aya said softly, “I hate myself enough for the three of
us.”
That stirred something in Crawford, “then maybe I love you enough for you to
love yourself.”
“And in five years together you never told me that.” It wasn’t accusing, it was
a simple statement of fact. “There was a time that I would have given anything
to hear those words from you but now they hurt.” He kissed Crawford again,
“don’t tell you love me, don’t tell me I’m beautiful, because I’m not, just,”
he stopped, “just don’t let me go.”
“And the Nemesis?” Crawford asked, he watched Aya react like he had been
wounded.
“He will understand.” Aya said, “he is the best of the three of us.”
***** Chapter 21 *****
(i)
Crawford awoke to an empty bed. He had a campaign cot that the king of Eressea
had forced on him, and had gone to sleep with Ran, no he corrected himself,
Aya, clinging to his shirt like a baby monkey. Aya’s hair had smelt of violets
and his breath was sweet. He had simply removed his duster and boots and
climbed into bed with him. Now he was gone.
It wasn’t even nearly dawn and as he sat up he saw Aya beside the brazier,
boiling water for tea. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He
looked genuinely contrite, “I don’t sleep to well any more.”
“You were never a heavy sleeper.” Crawford said patiently.
Aya offered him a wary smile, “would you like some tea? I found some in one of
the chests, I was going to make some for Free and Farfarello, I,” he stopped,
“I’m at odds and ends, even with myself.” He apologised.
Crawford pulled the blanket about his shoulders and moved over beside him, the
floor of the tent was covered in thick wool rugs and Aya was kneeling on them
in front of the brazier. “You don’t need to be.” He said, “You’re home now.”
Aya obviously wanted to say something to that but there were no words. Instead
he started preparing the bowls for tea. “I,” he paused, “in the Seraglio I made
tea to calm myself, most of the girls had to acquire a taste for it,” he was
reminiscing over something amusing, “half the time I was shaking as I boiled
the water, I was so scared of what I was trying to do, and then when I got the
opportunity I couldn’t do it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Crawford said quietly, kissing Aya on the temple, “you’re
home now.” It looked for an instant that Aya would dissolve into tears, and
Crawford knew that if he was Ran he would have, but he closed himself up like a
fan. Instead let out a deep slow breath that sounded like glass breaking.
“I’m tired,” he said quietly, “not go to bed tired but soul weary,” he said, “I
don’t sleep because of the nightmares, Chloe gave me poppy wine but it didn’t
help, I thought,” he looked into the fire as if it held the mysteries of
heaven, “I hoped that seeing you might stop them. I’m selfish and terrible.”
“No,” Crawford corrected, “you’re just human.”
“I’m the blessed son of a fallen kingdom, the golden bride of a wise man, and
the chosen favourite of a nation’s leader.” He said ruefully, the tone was
sarcastic and dark. “I’m a soldier who was not there when my country fell, I am
a bride who abandoned his husband, and a favourite who tried to assassinate his
lord.”
“Why couldn’t you?” Crawford asked.
“I can’t forgive him,” he said quietly pouring the water over the leaves and
staring into the swirling water for long moments. “But he did his duty. I could
kill the Nemesis,” he stopped again, “but I couldn’t kill Chloe.”
“Aya,” Crawford found the word awkward to say and odd to his mouth, he expected
Ran to come back but Aya was certainly not him.
“Don’t say anything,” he said, “I have said it all at one time or another.”
“You don’t love yourself.” Crawford said, wrapping his arms about Aya.
“Not for a long time,” Aya answered, melting into the embrace, “not, I think,
since Aya died.” He tilted his face to look at Crawford, “your need was enough
for me then, I thought I could love you enough for the two of us.”
“But I do love you.” Crawford answered.
“I didn’t know that. I thought you used me because you thought I was beautiful,
to show me off to your friends, Lady Redgrove told me that and she you were
once rivals in seduction, I thought I might be part of that.”
Crawford kissed Aya’s temple again, softly, reverently, “no,” he said, “not
that, never that, not with you.”
“Crawford,” Aya said softly, his voice breaking under the strain, “I’m so
scared.”
“I know you are, love,” Crawford answered, “I know you are.”
(ii)
Free turned the card on the frozen ground before him. In the night a tall man
with shaggy blonde hair had given him a blanket that he had chose to sat on
rather than wrap about his shoulders, but now he trusted to the cards. The
shrouded figure of death sat on a bloody throne. It was a common misconception
that the death card did not necessarily mean death, because it always did, but
it was what the death was that changed. On the eve of such a battle death was
inevitable.
The second card showed a woman falling from a burning tower. He frowned looking
at the picture, the tower suggested pride becoming ones undoing.
The third card of the simple three-card spread showed a man hanging by his
ankle with his arms crossed and his eyes bound. The hanged man. He gathered the
cards up and shuffled them again. “I made you some tea.” Aya said from behind
him. Free took the bowl, “I do not like the turn of these cards,” Free said
quietly, inhaling the hot steam, “let me take you to safety.”
“My place is here,” Aya said sitting beside him on the blanket, “for now, if
the battle becomes too heated I’ll let you take me to safety.”
“Farfarello said you were here.” A blonde man said approaching, “but,”
“we didn’t believe him,” the redhead at his side agreed.
“Yotan,” Aya said standing up and offering them a smile that was a shadow of
Ran’s, “Schu.”
“You look,” Yohji began.
“Different, harsher,” Schuldig finished.
“You look exactly the same,” Aya said, “This is Free,” he said introducing
them, “he,”
“Is his guardian,” Free interrupted, “despite Aya being able to best me in a
fight.”
“Ran,” Schuldig said, “why is he calling you Aya?”
“Because Ran died with Inabayama,” he said quietly lowering his eyes,
“Crawford’s already awake if you want to speak to him.” He went to stand up,
“I’ll go get him for you.”
“No,” Yohji said, “we came to speak to Free, to impress on him that he needed
to protect you no matter what or we’d kill him.”
“Slowly,” Schuldig finished.
“Have they always finished each other’s sentences?” Free asked dryly. “It is
strange, even among lovers.”
Schuldig blushed bright red, his fairer complexion betraying him. “It’s new.”
He stuttered, “I mean the finishing each other’s sentences thing.”
“I missed you both,” Aya said with a wan smile. “I,” he lowered his eyes to the
weave of the blanket; it was a gesture that was more Ran than Aya.
“You could have taken us with you.” Schuldig said softly.
“Sometimes, especially in the first six months in the hills of Herensea I
wished I had.” He reached into his duster and pulled out a piece of paper,
“this,” he clutched it fiercely, “this is my safe passage through the forces of
the Nemesis, take it and go to Chloe, tell him I sent you. Ken will be guarding
the main encampment of generals, he has brown hair and wears silver claws, give
him this letter, he will take you to Chloe.”
“Aya,” Free said shocked.
“Free can take me to safety and I can meet you later, but,” he sighed, “I can
save you both, let me.”
“And what about Crawford, you broke his heart you know.” Schuldig said softly,
“he has been a tyrant without you.”
“So he said,” Aya said, “he wouldn’t go, even if I drugged his tea and threw
him over my shoulder and carried him away.” Yohji nodded, knowing it was true.
“And I want to, I will stay and try to convince him. I promised Chloe I
wouldn’t linger once the fighting started that Free would take me to safety.”
It was an outright lie, “but he will take you to Atzara where the battle is a
distant threat, he’ll take you with him.”
“Who is this Chloe?” Yohji asked.
“My lover,” Aya answered without pause, “the Nemesis.”
Both Yohji and Schuldig paused at that confession and Free leant in to whisper
in Aya’s ear, “if you plan to use this battle as a form of suicide I will save
you,” he told him, “and I
will bring you back to Chloe, stay to save your husband if you must but you
will not take the field.”
Aya smiled at him and took a mouthful of the tea, “I’m doing what I can, Free,
I just hope it’s enough.”
(iii)
Crawford sipped the tea that Aya had made for him and looked across the table
to Farfarello. “Are you sure it’s not poisoned?” The one eyed man asked
quietly.
“Yes,” Crawford answered, “I watched him make it.” It was only then Farfarello
drank from his own bowl.
“He is a weakness.” Farfarello said, “one you couldn’t afford then, and one you
certainly can’t afford now.”
“I know,” Crawford said, “but,”
“he is beautiful,” Farfarello offered, “he is no longer Ran, that much is
obvious, his guard did not say a single word to me all night.”
“He is Free.” Crawford said, “the ancestral guard of the Nemesis, he told me
everything, you know.” He poured more tea into the bowl from the pot that Aya
had made. “About why he left.”
“And you believe him?” Farfarello asked.
“He convinced me, you are right, he is not Ran any more.” Crawford was rueful,
most people overlooked Farfarello as anything other than a torturer that
enjoyed his job, Crawford knew he was more than that; he was the devil that sat
on his shoulder when he needed counsel. Where Crawford dreaded the battle that
would come, at latest, mid morning, Farfarello was excited at the prospect.
“I did not see the advantages of such a wedding in the first place, you have
found yourself fighting Inabayama’s war.” Farfarello said calmly.
“I thought you’d find such a war interesting.”
Farfarello’s laugh was entirely without humour, “I do, but this is not our war,
Crawford, this is his, and he is worthless.”
“Nevertheless,” Crawford argued, “he is my bride.”
“He left you.” Farfarello repeated, “he made you brittle.”
“He went to kill the Nemesis.” Crawford corrected him.
“They do call it the little death.” Farfarello told him wryly.
“He hates himself,” Crawford told his manservant. “Even more than you hate
him.”
“That I find difficult to believe.” Farfarello said calmly, “in the upcoming
battle, do you wish me to,” he paused, “rid you of the problem?”
“No,” Crawford said bluntly, “but don’t let him leave.” He put down the bowl,
“he is mine and he would do well to remember that, now help me with my armour.
I can’t imagine that Esset’s generals are waiting on me.”
“But,” Farfarello said, “They will expect you to wait on them.”
“If you get the opportunity,” Crawford told him, “You can enjoy yourself with
the Silk Queen.”
Farfarello’s grin showed his teeth. “You know me so well, my lord, I’ll do my
best to make it linger.”
“We must make sure that her kindness is repaid.” Crawford said returning his
smile, “after all, Eressea is known for its hospitality.”
(iv)
Chloe looked at the maps that his generals laid before him with a bored eye.
“So,” he said, “the short of it is that Esset outnumbers us by half again, and
with Eressea against us we don’t stand much of a chance.”
Yuushi sat back and prepared himself, “that’s pretty much the gist of it.” He
said.
“Open negotiations with Eressea, we might be able to bring them to our side
against a mutual foe, and it will be profitable enough to place the boy king as
viceroy of his own state.” Reiichi said, “we can always renege later.”
Chloe looked as if he was contemplating it, even momentarily.
“It’s what your father would do.” Masato said, “and I know you are not him, and
unlike your brothers you’re not trained in warfare, but,”
“Rockets,” Naru said, “aimed here,” he pointed at the map, “and here, they
might break up the majority of Geisel’s forces, we might be able to cast a
retreat which will even up the odds.” He said. “I have rockets.”
“You always have rockets,” Masato said, “It’s one of the great givens of life.”
Chloe snickered, “if Eressea is to join our side, Aya will achieve it.” He said
then, “and the forces of Layla and Berger.” He said, “are the cavalry in
position?” Yuushi nodded, “and the infantry?” Ken smiled. “Is there anything
else you need?” Chloe asked softly.
“You on the first boat back to Atzara.” Reiichi said calmly, “we are expendable
but you are not, unless you wish to place Michel on the throne in your place.”
It was a chide from a man who had served as Chloe’s father as much as anyone
really had, he didn’t’ want the throne but he wouldn’t wish it on Michel
either.
“I can’t.” Chloe said, “not yet, and I’m perfectly capable of looking after
myself, Free made sure of that.” He stopped, “and I have the terrible feeling
that Esset is planning something, they’ve been too quiet.”
“Of course they’re planning something,” Ken said, “they always are, it’s like
saying the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.” It was wry and jaded. “But we
will do our best to work around that. Do you think Aya will be able to convince
Lord Crawford?”
“They have a history,” Reiichi said, as spymaster he always knew these things,
usually before anyone else, and he only mentioned them when they were
pertinent, he was a spy and a master of information but he wasn’t a gossip. “If
anyone can, Aya can.”
“You’re putting a lot of faith in him,” Yuushi said, “I mean he’s in the
Seraglio.”
“He has bested Free in fair combat.” Masato offered from the side.
“He is incredibly well read.” Naru said, “and he knows about chemicals.”
“He was to be a captain of the Heaven guard.” Chloe said, “and he has his
reasons to champion Inabayama.”
“It’s just a lot of responsibility to put on a love-slave, is all.” Yuushi
said.
Chloe just laughed.
(v)
Layla knew that the most powerful weapon she had in her arsenal was that she
was attractive, she knew she was not beautiful, but that she had her own charm,
which made men flock to her. They called her the silk queen because she
maintained a web of influence that rivalled that of the elders of Esset. Her
armour was made of red lacquered strips of bamboo that clung to her figure
without weighing as much as that of her counterparts who had had theirs crafted
in cherry red steel. Her hair had been dyed a merciless pink but was gathered
into a topknot away from her face. A long white overskirt hung about her
thighs, emblazoned with flame detailing that matched the etched red on her
sword. Her only concession to her rank, as one of the three most powerful
generals in the world, was a pair of golden bamboo wings on her back, they were
not large, barely standing as tall as her head, and could prevent blows being
landed to the head. Nevertheless every man on the field knew who she was and
like all the other armies that they had faced, they would back down before her.
Berger wore little armour, just a gauntlet that rolled up over one shoulder and
a skirt of bamboo over his silk trousers. They called him the black general for
his treatment of the enemy, but he had dyed his hair into a streaming black
tail. Later he would come to her tent streaked in the blood of the enemy and
she would amuse him. She was only interested in him when he was covered in
blood.
Geisel was the smallest of the three of them, the Horned King. He had been
named for a helmet that had been smashed years before. Now he wore white silk
and silvery grey steel embossed with his family crests. Everything was trimmed
in red.
Esset’s generals always wore white, it showed the blood so beautifully. After
Berger had been sated the first time Geisel would come to her and the three of
them would celebrate until dawn, but only after Berger was quieted in his lust,
he would not share her before then.
Layla couldn’t care less either way.
Now Geisel stood beside a giant crossbow pointing it at a grey palanquin next
to a copse of trees, inside an armoured figure was silhouetted against the
dawn. “The nemesis is over there.” She told him calmly.
“I know,” Geisel answered her with a smile, “but to catch a big fish,” he said
pulling back the bolt, which was more like a spear, “you need to use the right
bait.” He let loose the bolt and watched with a satisfied smirk as it collapsed
the tent and who ever was inside.
***** Chapter 22 *****
(i)
The spear flew past Aya ruffling his hair as it continued on its path into the
tent behind him. Dumbstruck he followed it's trajectory.
It was then that Aya saw how the rising sun silhouetted everything inside the
tent making it a giant target.
Crawford looked surprised as his hands made grabbing motions at the metal spear
that stood proud through his torso. There was no pain or horror on his face,
only surprise.
Everyone around him was shouting. Aya could see their mouths move, he could see
their panic, but as if he was watching a rehearsed play he was apart from it.
With almost clinical detachment he watched Crawford fall to his knees with his
hands still ineffectually trying to grab the spear impaled through his chest.
His lips were bloody as he mouthed several syllables over and over again.
Aya was surprised to see it was his own name, Ran, over and over again.
He watched himself touch Crawford's cheeks with fingertips he couldn't feel. HE
thought he'd feel his heart shatter as he watched his anchor die before him but
he felt nothing which horrified him, it was like it was someone else watching
this, someone who didn't care, it was as if he had walked in on the climax of a
badly acted play.
He felt his mouth moving as he said something but didn't know what it was that
he had said.
He watched the blood dribble from Crawford's mouth in proportion to the way the
color drained from his face. He knew he should have felt broken hearted or
rage, or even something, but all he felt was a lump of ice in his chest as it
overwhelmed him utterly.
Crawford died in front of him and there was nothing he could about it, and
worse still he felt nothing. Farfarello was making a strange keening sound,
like a wild animal, but everyone else was deathly silent.
"Yohji," Aya felt the word escape him but even to his ears, it sounded like
someone else. "Free," he looked at the tall man, "help me into Crawford's
armor, Schuldig," he looked at the other one of his champions, "take word to
the Nemesis of a temporary truce, that Inabayama will stand beside him in his
war against Esset for their treachery." There was no give in his tone, in fact,
it sounded like a previously rehearsed speech. "There will be no mercy, no
quarter. Farfarello, which of them did he promise you?"
"Layla," Free said, "he promised him the Silk Queen."
"Bring her alive to Eressea and all the toys you want will be yours." Aya heard
his voice like steel grating over ice. He looked at Crawford, whose face had
taken on a serene stillness. "This was not his war," he felt like he was made
of porcelain. He felt like he was completely transparent and ethereal. "but now
I'll fight it for him."
Farfarello stopped keening and pulled a knife from his belt and ran the edge
over his forearm leaving a bloody went along the badly scarred skin.
"Tell the men," Aya said, "there is to be no mercy, there will be no quarter.
Leave no man behind you, kill them all. Be relentless. The Chirurgeons are not
to treat the soldiers of Esset, and execute any who disobey."
"Ran," Yohji protested.
"No," he corrected, "Aya, now help me or I'll put you down myself."
Yohji went silent and Schuldig bowed, as he would to a much higher ranking
lord, before he left the pierced tent to carry the news to the Nemesis.
Crawford's armor was a dark earthy red and slightly too large to Aya, but
nonetheless, they helped him into the armor. Free remained impassive although
Yohji was clearly worried. Aya still felt like he was watching someone else.
"Aya," Free said, "are you ready?"
"Almost," he said, then unsheathed the long sword at his waist and lifting his
braid cut it away, he turned placing the rope of hair in Crawford's cold hands.
"Have someone say with him." HE said.
Free had, as Yohji helped Aya dress, removed the long metal spear and dressed
him in a rich black robe. Aya, who was behaving like he was made of solid ice,
but for a few odd gestures which cut Yohji to the quick, had insisted on it.
They had even laid him out on his campaign bed. But in giving Crawford his hair
was the only time he had looked at him.
"Are you ready?" Free asked again.
Aya sheathed the sword, "I can't wait," he grated out.
 
If his forces expected some kind of rousing speech then they were disappointed.
"Your lord is dead," Aya said in his cold voice, "murdered by Esset, follow me
and I'll give you vengeance." His voice was a deep and ominous rumble, "show no
mercy and we'll buy his way into the Heavens. I am Aya Fujimiya, captain of the
Heaven Guard and bride to Lord Crawford. Follow me and if you die today know I
die with you. Today is a good day to die, follow me to vengeance."
The look in his eyes suggested that he would happily murder anyone who stood in
his path. So they unsheathed their weapons and slammed the hilts across their
breastplates in a mark of fealty and followed him into the field.
(ii)
Naru bounced about the racks of rockets like a child in a candy store. "I
bought several types," he enthused, "these," he pointed to the smallest
thinnest ones, which were painted a rather sickly green, "have a glass belly
full of pigs blood, they make a bang and splat, good to start, people think
that they're hurt worse than they are, they cause a great panic." Chloe nodded,
pretending to look interested. "Now these," he patted one of the rockets
fondly, "is full of liquor, personally I like to use the stuff Masato brews
because it burns great. They go boom and spray, it burns hot but quick, now
these," he was grinning, "are full of scrap metal bits, nails, and stuff, they
go boom and spray bits of nastiness in a nice big circle." He was bouncing with
glee, "now these beauties are full of liquid fire, once it starts, it doesn't
stop."
Chloe just nodded, feeling overwhelmed by the joy that Naru was showing.
Yuushi walked over and leaned in to whisper in his ear, "there's a man here,"
he said, "in Heaven's Guard armor. He has Aya's pass, says he wants to speak to
you."
"Let me guess," Chloe drawled, "alone."
"No," Yuushi told hi, "believe it or not," he grinned, "he didn't specify that
at all, he just asked to speak to you on behalf of someone called Ran."
"Accompany me, Yuushi," Chloe said and walked over to the redheaded member of
the Heaven's Guard. "I am the Nemesis," he said, "what is Ran's message?" He
choked on it slightly.
"Crawford," the man, Schuldig, said, "was murdered this morning, Esset launched
a missile into his tent and," he stopped.
"How is," he stopped himself, "Ran coping? I know Crawford meant the very world
to him."
If that surprised Schuldig he gave no outward sign of it. "He has taken control
of the Erressean state around for the duration of the battle, and he has
offered you a temporary truce, then he will be predisposed to talk terms on
behalf of King Mamoru."
"It is too late to go to him." Chloe said, "but not too late to join the
battle, Yuushi, accompany this soldier, protect him as you would me."
"He's going to take the field," Schuldig said, "in Crawford's place."
Chloe swore, "Masato," he yelled, "Reiichi, Aya is going to take the field, if
you can, stop him."
"Free's with him," Schuldig said, "and Yohji, they won't let him come to harm."
His eyes were a calm and drowning green. "It's not safe for you here," he said,
"I think it would kill him to lose you both, and I swore before the king of
Inabayama that I would do everything in my power to protect Ran, the king may
have been an idiot but it makes my vow no less binding."
"I don't understand," Chloe said.
"As much as I would like to take the field in Ran's place, I know him, I know
that he loves you and as shattered as he is right now it is all that is holding
him together. I must trust Yohji and this Free of yours to protect his body,
and I must protect what is left of his soul. Ran was a gentle soul with the
warmest smile and the kindest heart, the man that returned to us last night was
cold but still with Ran's kindness." He took a deep breath, "there is nothing
of that now in the man preparing himself for this battle." He met Chloe's gaze
evenly, "he is in CRawford's armor," he swallowed, "I think he wants to die."
Chloe gave no expression beyond a flicker that he quickly suppressed. "Then we
won't let him," he said, "but don't' call me Nemesis, I'm Chloe."
At that revelation Schuldig pulled back his fist and punched him hard,
"Schuldig," he said, "that was for lying to Ran about who you were."
Chloe turned back to Naru, "when you're ready, unleash Hell."
(iii)
Aya was an avenging angel moving through the armed mass of Esset's forces,
carving his way through ruthlessly. His sword was like a beam of liquid light
slicing seamlessly through his enemies. Heads and limbs flew around him but Aya
seemed untouched by the blood. His skin remained porcelain white and his hair
was like phoenix down flying loose about his head.
To his left Farfarello had coated himself in the carnage with an unholy glee
and Free seemed larger than life, he fought with two serrated hooks and was as
relentless as his master.
The forces of Eressea looked on the three of them with a sense of wonder and
knew that they would win, how could they not when the very forces of Heaven
were leading them.
The shouting and screaming were punctuated by the wheeze of rockets, then the
heavy bang of it landing and the inevitable shower of dirt. Occasionally a rich
male voice shouted, "Shi-ne," and the forces of the Nemesis rallied to it.
Horses squealed as they died.
Men sobbed.
But through it all Aya was passionless and icy, like a porcelain statue come to
life.
 
"Pretty little kitty," Farfarello grinned, grabbing Layla by the ostentatious
golden wings on her armor, "all dressed up but you're mine now, little kitty,
and it's going to be a long time coming." He reached around and licked her
cheek, "You're the whore's gift to me, you killed my lord, pretty kitty, so I
won't kill you, oh no, I'll stroke my kitty, I'll pet my kitty, and use all the
toys I have to make her happy."
Layla saw the terrible hunger in the golden eye and for the first time in her
life knew real fear.
 
"Beautiful boy," Geisel said, spotting Aya approach him, "If you aren't the
loveliest thing I've seen today," he held his sword at a battle angle, "I might
keep you as a trophy, and you'll find out why they call me the Horned King."
Aya didn't answer him, with an elegant step forward he raised his sword.
"you want to fight me beautiful boy." Geisel asked, "if you can," he smirked,
"then kill me, I'll even give you a free strike, go on," he lowered his sword,
"hit me."
Aya said nothing, he stepped forward and without breaking stride slit Geisel's
throat and went to push past him as the blood spread down his chest like a
scarf but Geisel put his hand on his arm to hold him back. Aya just pushed him
away with his eyes returning to gaze forward, Geisel grabbed at his feet so Aya
turned and cut away the offending hand.
"Shi-ne," Aya said finally, crushing his boot heel into Geisel's head, "I have
no further interest in you."
 
Berger was a cannonball mowing down all who crossed his path relentlessly. HE
swung a huge axe through soldiers with the same regularity as a metronome
keeping time.
Yuushi faced him in his golden armor, his dagger tail hanging at his side. "The
Nemesis' white knight," Berger drawled, "this should be fun." His smile was
vicious and mean, "you're no match for me, Hotspur."
"Maybe not on his own," Masato said.
"But what is it you said of us, that we were vermin, that we travel in packs,"
Ken said from behind him, "care to play with the three of us." Clenching his
fists the three blades on the back of his hands shot free.
Each one alone against Berger didn't stand a chance, together Berger was hard
pressed. As he avoided Masato's spear either Yuushi's dagger tail whipped him,
opening up wounds with the razor sharp blades or Ken scraped him with his claws
before they both jumped back out of reach of the axe.
If he barrelled at Yuushi both Masato and Ken harried him, as agile as monkeys.
When he attacked Masato Ken took the opportunity to unsheathe his claws into
the small of Berger's back, and his kidneys. Berger launched forward, pulling
himself off his impalement and straight unto Masato's spear. "none of you are a
match for me," Berger spluttered through the blood in his mouth.
"But I am," Yohji said as he wrapped his wire about Berger#s throat and pulled
it tight. Berger flopped and kicked, "there is no wat such arrogance is a match
for the Heaven Guard." Berger fell dead at his feet. "If you want to say that
you killed him," he said, "I won't gainsay you," and then he was swallowed back
up by the fighting.
***** Chapter 23 *****
A terrible silence had descended over the field as night fell. Aya sat in his
armour at the tent with a pen and paper in his hand as he recorded the names of
the lost for a memorial.
Each man came to him with a name and he diligently wrote it down, not knowing
how the men adored him for such a simple thing. He was their lord, whether he
wanted to be or not, and he remembered them, living and dead.
He had given over his palanquin to help the wounded.
But even as the men adored him they feared him for he was cold and bloodless.
He had fought with them, he had killed with them, and he had eaten with him
with his bone white fingers, thin as sticks, but it was apparent that he had
never been one of them.
Farfarello suspected that if someone suggested it that they would kneel down
and worship their beautiful, bloodless, Fujimiya.
He himself had other amusements; it had proved remarkably easy to break the
enemy general, she who had been Layla. He called her Kitten now, just because
he could. In fact if not for the fact that she now belonged to him he would
have complained that the amusement had not lasted as long as it ought.
The creature, Free, stood beside Aya, saying nothing, but the hands on his
hooks said more than words ever could. He was ruthless but gentle; Farfarello
found the paradox amusing.
A boy picked his way across the field, beside him was the man with the claws.
Farfarello had admired his steadfastness in battle; the way that he had sliced
through the flesh like water, even now his armour was splattered. The boy’s
hair seemed almost green in the twilight and he wore a simple silk smock and
trousers, he looked vastly unsuited to the field.
Aya reacted to the sight of him by lifting his head to appraise the boy,
“Yuki,” he said quietly, “bring word to your master that if he can send me the
names of his dead then I will also honour them.”
Yuki bowed his head, “that’s not why he sent me, he thought your forces might
kill someone else.”
Aya tilted a scarlet eyebrow; there was a smear of blood along his perfect
white cheek. “A truce exists between these two forces.” He said, “even Ken
alone could have crossed the field, as long as he did not attack they would
not. They have their orders.”
“Chloe wants you to come home.” Yuki said as Ken shuffled his feet.
“Tomorrow,” Aya said, “I will meet him to discuss the terms by which I brought
the forces of Eressea and Inabayama to his aid against the Nemesis, tell him
that.” His voice was chilly, “but before you return have something to eat, you
look pale.” He looked at his guardian, “you, too, Ken, I would not have any at
my table go hungry.”
“This isn’t your place,” Ken stammered, “Your place is with Chloe.”
“Is it?” Aya asked, “surely my place was with my husband but I abandoned him,
or surely my place is with my king in Inabayama.” His tone was almost
mechanical, “what I want does not amount to a pile of ashes in this world, I
have only my duty. I will explain that to Chloe on the morrow.” Then he stood
up, “come, I will have food prepared, it is simple fare, fit for soldiers, but
nourishing nonetheless.”
“Aya,” Yuki protested, “you look so unhappy.”
Aya stumbled for a moment, “I’m sorry, Yuki, there is nothing of that left
within me.” When he turned back his expression suggested that he was as
porcelain as his skin, like there was nothing inside him at all.
“Aya,” Yuki protested, “what made you so cold?”
Aya’s laugh was bloodless and cold; there was nothing of humour in it at all.
“Love and duty do not bedfellows make, Yuki, when your time comes, make sure
you choose one over the other. I am a Fujimiya, we do our duty by Inabayama.”
“That’s just an excuse,” Yuki protested, “You just won’t admit that you are a
normal person and you have wants and needs and you can be hurt too.”
Aya’s expression was fond but cold. “My wants and needs died this morning,
Yuki, I have nothing left inside me, surely that is reason enough to embrace my
duty.”
“And your duty to Chloe?” He asked.
At that Aya lowered his eyes. They were still hard like chips of flint. “Chloe
must understand what it is that I do, my duty to him as the Nemesis is second
to my duty to Mamoru as king.” He walked to the cook pot, “come, eat, the food
is good.” Then he went to walk away, “but tell Chloe what I said, that I will
honour his dead with my own.” Free trailed along behind him like a ghost but
Ken noticed the book he had left open and inscribed in the pages was the name
“Crawford of Eressea, beloved husband and father, general and inquisitor,” he
just didn’t know what it meant.
 
They returned to Chloe guided through the forces by Aya’s blonde guardian who
introduced himself as Yohji. Yuki went to the blonde Nemesis and regardless of
his usually aloof pride threw himself about his waist and sobbed.
“He won’t come back,” Ken said, “he said he had nothing left except his duty to
Inabayama, but I don’t get it, he gave up his duty before.”
“No,” Chloe said, “he came to Atzara to kill me.” He corrected them even as he
ineffectually patted Yuki on the back, “in the end he couldn’t, so he failed
his duty even in that. What other news do you have for me?”
“He is recording the names of the dead,” Ken lowered his eyes, “he said that if
we send the names to him he will record them too, that he will give our men the
same honour as his own.”
Chloe nodded, “did you see the book?”
Ken nodded, “I only read a few names, but one stuck out, it didn’t look like it
had been written in ink, more like, well,” he stopped, “blood, and it was
bigger than the rest.”
“What was it?” Chloe pressed.
“It said Crawford of Eressea, beloved husband and father, general and
inquisitor.”
Chloe went silent, then he lowered his head and his hand on Yuki fell still.
After a long and uncomfortable pause he asked, without raising his eyes, “Is
Free with him?” Ken murmured assent.
“Then that is all we can do.” He said, “This is Aya’s grief, we cannot change
or alter it, all we can do is be patient and be there when he needs us.”
“But,” Yuki protested. “Aya loves you.”
Chloe knelt before him on the carpet, pulling the boy into his arms, “There is
a story, that rings like a bell,” he said reciting a ballad, “of a man who
loved not wisely but too well.”
“I don’t understand,” Yuki said.
Chloe sighed, “Aya told me everything, every word in his power to give,” he was
stroking Yuki’s hair as much to calm himself as the boy who was serving as his
page, “how he had come to Atzara to kill me but couldn’t, because by the time
he realised what I was he loved who I was.” He stopped again, searching almost
aimlessly for the words he found lacking, “how as a boy he was sold into a
marriage for Eressean glass, to a man who was kind and loved him, and being
young and overwhelmed by such a love loved him back.” There was a moment’s
pause, “and because such love is young and naive doesn’t make it any less
powerful.”
“The man who died,” Ken stammered, “he was…”
“Crawford of Eressea,” Chloe finished.
“Then, the coldness, the ice,” Ken protested, “The slaughter, he’s grieving?”
“Perhaps,” Schuldig said from the rear of the tent, “but the Fujimiya repress,
not express.” He stopped, “Like his father and uncles before him he will
sacrifice himself for the good of the kingdom rather than admit a single
flicker of pain.” His tone was disdainful, “which is ironic really, as the
Fujimiya feel so much.”
“How dare you speak of the royal favourite so?” Ken said unsheathing his claws
by clenching his fists.
“I am the partner of his champion,” Schuldig said quietly, “I travelled with
him from Eressea when he was a naive and loving boy, I stayed by his side in
Herensea where the people loved him for his kind heart and nursed him through
the death of his sister, and I lamented his loss when he ran to Atzara to kill
the Nemesis, and I was there last night when a shadow of him returned to us. In
many ways I know Ran better than he knows himself.”
Chloe looked forlorn, “he needs time, Ken, and love, and that’s all we can give
him.”
“No,” Schuldig said, “it’s all that he will accept.”
 
Aya waited until Free was asleep to slip from the tent into the woods behind
it. He measured the belt in his hands and picked a sizeable looking tree bough.
It overlooked a small and clogged pond. He threw the metal buckle over the tree
keeping one end in his hand and then rigged a simple twisted noose.
She walked out of the water without a single drop of water to mar her
loveliness, her hair was like moss down her back and her dress like the algae
on the water. She pressed a clammy cold finger to his lips and shook her head,
he looked at the water and she shook her head again, then she reached up and
with corpse chilled lips kissed his forehead before she began to sing, and this
time he was close enough to hear the words.
“One for joy and two for sorrow,
Three for pleasure and four for horror,
Five for crying, six for laughter
Seven for sons and eight for a daughter,
Nine for diamonds and ten for gold
And eleven is a secret that cannot be told.”
It was the rhyme he knew but it was different, reversed.
She reached up on tiptoes and kissed him again, then with her hands on his
waist turned him back towards the tent and then not so delicately shoved him.
“One for joy,” she repeated, “two for sorrow.”
And Aya understood, with a heart that felt like a lump of lead in his chest, he
returned to the tent, and accepted Free’s slap without comment. The belt he
left behind.
***** Chapter 24 *****
Chloe couldn’t believe how still Aya sat across from him. He was like a statue,
his hair roughly cut about his face and his braid gone. The only sign of injury
on him was a split lip. He wore livery from which the insignia had been ripped,
and the dark linen made him look pale. He wore a satin sash about his waist,
that was the same colour of violet grey of his eyes, but a black ribbon about
his arm for mourning. He wore a single golden pendant from his right ear and he
looked that he might at any moment shatter into a thousand brittle pieces.
Chloe wanted to get up, to dismiss the soldiers and notaries, the squires and
the champions and enfold his arms about Aya, to hang himself on that
brittleness in the hope that such a display might bring him a moment’s comfort.
It was clear that Aya, however, felt no pain. He reacted like an automata, a
beautiful clockwork doll, different from the man who had left him.
It was apparent to all that both Crawford’s bride and the Nemesis’ favourite
had been locked away as the terrible ice descended over him. Where the gathered
nervously sat drinking or talking amongst themselves. Aya sat as still and
silent and porcelain.
Behind him, eschewing the seat he had been offered, stood Free. Unlike everyone
else, even Chloe, he wore no livery, just a tight fitting black vest and a pair
of loose trousers that ended a midshin. Rather than boots he wore sandals.
Schuldig had return to Aya’s side and now sat beside Yohji and the two were
talking quietly amongst themselves with quiet but rather telling looks at Aya
as they did so.
Ken sat between Yuushi and Reiichi polishing the claws of his bugnuks as
intently as he could to avoid looking at anyone.
The representative of the Elders of Esset, a small unctuous man who continually
wiped at his nose, he kept looking at Aya’s manservant, and the purple haired
girl sat on the floor beside him, with a look of absolute horror. The one eyed
man, who Schuldig had called Farfarello, seemed to ripen under his feet. His
hair was bleached, but the detail that Chloe noticed above all others was that
he had filed his teeth to points. Chloe was glad that the man was controlled.
“On behalf of King Mamoru of Inabayama and Naoe of Eressea, and the army
gathered by my husband in their name,” Aya’s tone was absolutely passionless as
if he practiced his lines. “In the interests of Inabayama.”
“Daryiia,” Yuushi corrected, “Inabayama fell with the towers.”
There was a metal cup in Aya’s hand that he had been rolling around, he slammed
it down on the table with enough force that it snapped the stem. “Inabayama,”
he corrected, “where the goddess laid to rest her bones after creating the
world, where she bathed the sweat from her skin in the waters off the Fujimiya
estate, where each of the kings, even before the ascension of the Takatori,
raised a tower in her honour. That Inabayama fell was inevitable, and possibly
even necessary,” he paused, there was no expression in his voice, “the
elimination of the nobles, even of my parents, I understand, to avoid raising
an army against you in their name. As a Fujimiya trained in warcraft I
understand completely, but as a man I cannot forgive, but you pulled down the
towers.”
Chloe could not believe how Aya had changed he was utterly emotionless, like a
doll.
“If you thought that by pulling down the towers that you would demoralize the
people then you made a terrible mistake,” he paused, “Eressea gathered the
refugees in Mamoru’s name and like me we were angered by the sacrilege. I am
the Lord Fujimiya, last of my house, and descended from the goddess herself,
born to serve Inabayama, and I will do what I can to restore the towers.”
“What is it you want for Inabayama?” Reiichi asked.
“I do not ask that the Nemesis rescind its control over Inabayama,” Yuushi
snorted, “but I do ask that you install Mamoru as viceroy, to restore its name
and let us rebuild the towers.” He stopped. “The people of Inabayama gathered
with you against a common foe this is all we ask in exchange.”
“As my favourite,” Chloe said calmly, “you could ask anything of me, for nearly
two years you could have begged this of me,” Chloe said, “and yet you did not.
There was a time I would have given to you this kingdom for a smile. Do you ask
me as Ran Fujimiya, champion on Inabayama, or as Aya, favourite of the
Nemesis?” For a moment an emotion flickered across Aya’s face, as quickly as a
butterfly beating its wings, then it was gone. “There is nothing in this
request I would have been disinclined to give you.”
“Perhaps,” Aya said, “but this drove me from my husband and I would not have
had it bring a rift between us.”
“I will restore Inabayama as a viceroyship,” Chloe said calmly, “give Layla
over to us for trial.”
Farfarello laughed, it was a dry humourless sound. “No,” he said patting her
head patiently.
“The Elders of Estet would like her returned so she could be punished for her
failure.” The nasal representative of Estet offered,
“She is not for sale,” Aya told him firmly, “she is being held for the murder
of Lord Crawford, my husband, and her fate is for Naoe to decide. She has been
brought around to this and no one can guard her better than Farfarello.”
“That,” Chloe said, “I do not question, but my people will demand such a
prisoner to bring to trial for war crimes.”
“I’ll make her suffer,” Farfarello grinned, “she’ll even enjoy it.”
“We don’t question that,” Ken offered, “But the people demand a public
execution, options a lifetime of slavery can’t offer.”
“Slavery,” Farfarello barked out a laugh, “my lovely Kitten, are you my slave?”
“No,” she answered calmly, “you protect and love me.” Her voice was animated
and joyous, and she had beatific smile like a saint. She wore the same
liberated livery as Aya, but Farfarello wore Eressea’s crest.
“If you must execute someone,” Aya said looking at the Estet representative,
“he is sat there.”
The representative swallowed and visibly paled.
“We have a woman in prison in Atzara, for attempting to murder her own son,”
Reiichi said, “Tsuji, she was slated for execution, we will try her in Layla’s
name, this will appease all concerned.”
“But,” the representative protested.
“Farfarello,” Aya said quietly, It was a command. Farfarello turned and
embedded the rim of his cup in the man’s chest but then twisted it, killing the
man outright, Aya looked over as the man toppled from his chair, “thank you, he
was annoying me terribly.”
For a moment Chloe was horrified that the Aya that he loved could be so
callous, but reminded himself that the unctuous man was unnecessary and that
Aya’s grief was new and raw and that he would behave in different ways because
of it.
Ken looked over at the man lying dead on the floor, “death by tea cup,” he said
“interesting.” Then he turned to Aya, “so will you be returning to Atzara with
us?”
“No,” Aya answered and everyone at the table, except Layla turned to look at
him. “I am the last of the Fujimiya, I am descended from the goddess and I must
do my duty by Inabayama, even if it destroys me.”
Chloe stood up, “leave us,” he said, they left but both Yohji and Schuldig
looked to Aya first but left at his nod.
Chloe moved around the table to stand beside Aya, “Will you not return to me?”
Alone Aya’s expressions were slightly less guarded but still as hard as stone
and his eyes were like chips of freckled granite. “Mamoru needs me, not as the
Nemesis’ favourite, or as Crawford’s bride, but as a Fujimiya, there’s no one
else.”
“I know,” Chloe said, “just promise me,” he started. Aya’s kiss was commanding
and silenced his desire to speak.
“It’s not meant to be, love,” he said, “we belong to different states that both
require different things of us.” He pressed Chloe’s palm to his cheek. “It’ll
be alright,” he said, “we’ll see each other sometimes.”

 
Outside the tent Free stood at the door with his arms crossed, “will you return
to Inabayama?” He asked Yohji and Schuldig both nodded. “He will need us,” he
continued, “he is not the kind of man to realise that there is a place for him
apart from his duty.”
“Do you not belong to the Nemesis?” Yohji asked.
Free’s smile was sinuous, “I am Free.” He answered.
***** Chapter 25 *****
The wedding of Aya Fujimiya to the Lady Miyu had been the social event of the
year. A myriad of wives had been presented to him and each had been judged and
found unworthy but he persisted in his search for a bride. Beautiful girls,
rich girls, handsome boys, clever boys, all were turned away.

The Lady Miyu had come to the newly rebuilt palace as a concession, the girl
had been born blind and although fair there were those, including her father,
who thought the girl had no more worth than as a servant to the king.
Lord Fujimiya had been a quiet lord that refused the kindnesses that the king
offered him, he sat in his room as the towers were rebuilt and did nto read the
books they gave him, he ignored the paintings with which they decorated his
rooms and turned away the whores that the guard, Ken, procured for them,
sometimes even simply sharing tea with them.
As the days turned into weeks he became more and more reclusive, he barely ate
and sat at his window looking out to sea.
Weeks turned into months and he let his appearance slide despite Free’s best
attempts otherwise.
Months slowly turned into years. And still he cared little.
Then one day, maybe three years later, he just got up, he removed the black
livery he had worn all day and pulled on a white sweater, he complimented the
maid on the set of her head and took pride in his appearance, cutting his hair
and shaving away the beard he had let grow, he left the room and walked along
the battlements of the great and proud palace, with a courtesy on his lips for
everyone he passed. But still his gaze stared past them, out to the choppy
waters of the bay.
His guards walked alongside him, chattering gaily but everyone in Inabayama
knew he didn't listen and that they were forbidden from letting him to the
docks and it became a source of great rumours that the Lord Fujimiya was really
dead and it was really a monster born of the sea that walked among them. Women
still gazed at him longingly for he was handsome and rich and a prince, but he
might as well be a monster for all the attention he paid them.
About the truth there was great supposition but the rumours grew as he sat in
the room looking out to sea and then doubled when he wandered the palace and
then the city.
When he visited the opera house it was said he was claiming a mistress who he
would drown in the roiling waters of the bay. He went to see the performance.
If he stopped to smile at a child it was said the child would die of colic.
They never did.
That he was a prisoner of his duty was the only truth they bandied about.
 

So when the king decided he should marry, to continue the line of Fujimiya he
agreed without comment, but still found fault in all the wives he was presented
with. He had no interest in beauty or wit, in knowledge or art. So when the
Lady Miyu arrived, her hair in two brown braids about a face obscured by a
thick bandage about her eyes, no one expected the Lord Fujimiya to give her
more than the time of day.
They were mistaken. He became her guide, walking alongside her with his arm for
her to rest her hand on so he could take her down the corridors, past the
buildings and in a low voice he told her what he saw. If she knew anything of
his past she gave no sign of it.
She was a quiet girl whose blindness had instilled in her a great shyness,
having spent the best part of her life being reassured of her worthlessness, so
having the attentions of any man, when she had been told that she was not
worthy of even a common sailor’s grabbing, flattered the girl and gave the skin
she showed under the bandage a rosy glow.
The guards that waited on him, guards that were his alone, two knights of the
heaven guard, the boisterous Ken and Free who was kind and tall, doted on her,
and in many ways she was revered amongst them in higher esteem than the queen.
When Naoe came to visit the king, which he did several times a year, he would
have some comment for the Lord Fujimiya but to Miyu he only had kindnesses. The
past that lingered between them, with the enmity that was there, was never
shown to Miyu.
If he loved her he gave no sign of it, but he was kind and to Miyu that meant
more than the passions of Heaven, for happiness in marriage was entirely a
matter of chance, but Lord Fujimiya protected and cared for her.
When she heard the rumours of him and the great love that tore them apart she
thought of her lord, cold and lovely and assumed that they spoke of his father,
or the mysterious Ran who was sometimes mentioned. She didn’t believe it of her
Aya.
Every day he brought her flowers and described their beauty to her in a warm
voice, but it was a voice without passion.
That he was older than her she decided was irrelevant and he did not petition
her father for marriage, as was common, he asked her. With a warm and gentle
smile she accepted.
If she wanted him to love her, she gave no sign of it.
The wedding was a state affair, for the young king insisted that he owed her
husband his kingdom and more, and all the way from Atzara the Nemesis travelled
with his bride. He was a kind man, Miyu thought, and patient to her disability,
who took her arm just as her husband did and described the world to her. When
Free came to take her something silent passed between them and she knew that
there were secrets that she was not privy to but decided that it didn’t matter.
She was led through the streets by Free, the common people of Inabayama
pressing knitted baby clothes into her hands and bottles of perfume and their
kindness after the coldness of her childhood in Brio, astounded her. Even if
she was worshipped as the Lady Fujimiya they were kind to her.
For Miyu may have been naive but she was not a fool.
On her wedding night, as she waited for her husband she brushed out her hair,
having removed the bandage from about her eyes, “you love him, don’t you?” She
said, “if you wish to go to him I will not gainsay you. I will even say that
you spent the night with me.”
“Miyu,” he said quietly, his voice a deep and loving rumble, “I will tell you a
story,” he said sitting in the chair across the room, “of a man who loved not
wisely, but too well, who tore his heart in many directions and in the end had
only duty to rely on.”
Miyu raised her head to him and offered him a smile. “You are mine now,” she
said, “and soon he will return to Atzara, I did not marry you for love, for
such as I has no business with that, but because you were kind and you wished
it.” He remained silent, “go to him, I can let you because I know you will
return to me.”
He kissed her hand, “when all is dust,” he said, “they will not remember your
blindness,” he said, “but that your heart was so great.”
 

Lord Fujimiya and his wife had two children, both with the dark hair of their
mother and large blue eyes, but only their father’s skin to recommend them.
They were well beloved, even if their father seemed cold, and their mother
sometimes distant, and their daughter they called Hitan but their son they
called Kitai and they were well respected amongst the countries of the world
and when it was their time for marriage Kitai married the daughter of the
Nemesis herself, and Hitan was given the lordship of Herensea on the death of
Lady Birman Redgrove who had no children of her own but had always doted on
them.
After twenty years of marriage Lady Miyu Fujimiya turned to her husband and
said, “go to him,” her voice was fond, “you have no duty here now, we have
raised our children, we have rebuilt our kingdom.” He said nothing, “and you
more than repaid your duty to me.”
“Miyu,” he started.
“I would just know what you looked like, what was the face that brought an
empire to war, that drove men mad.”
“I was funny looking,” Aya told her quietly, “and my hair was like the smell of
fresh blood, my eyes were like the of feel dark hearts of pansies and my lips,
I was told, was like the scent of fresh new rosebuds. My skin was as white and
cool as porcelain, I was striking, but I was not beautiful.” He said.
“And what do I look like.”
There was a smile in Aya’s voice as he answered her, “you burn like the sun.”
He said quietly and then kissed her on the cheek. “I do love you.” He said.
“But you will always love them more, I know you love me,” she said and stroked
his face, expecting to find tears but there were none, “but there is only so
much room in the heart for love and I came last, go to him.”
So Aya did.

 
In Eressea there is a great tomb and in it lie three men, to the left is Lord
Crawford who gathered an army for a wronged king, in the centre is Ran
Fujimiya, who loved not wisely but too well, and to the right is Chloe, the
Nemesis who defeated Estet.
It is said that lovers meeting at their gave were blessed and that their love
would be everlasting and some still told the tale of Ran who loved not wisely
but too well and who shattered kingdoms and whose beauty drove men mad before
he killed himself for duty.
It wasn’t true but it made a good story nonetheless.
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