Heart of Winter by Lauren Gilley

5

The rest of the meal passed uneventfully. Revna, Birger, Magnus, and the princes kept up a lively conversation about the mundane goings on of Aeres, even managing to draw Tessa into the discussion, inspiring a quiet laugh or two from her.

King Erik sat back in his chair and brooded.

Oliver hated him.

But of the two of us, I’m the one with the greater understanding of how these sorts of things work. The words burned through his mind, a continuous loop. They’d been an insult, a sharp slap meant to put him back in his place. I’m the warrior king, and you’re just the frightened little boy in the back of the tent. Oliver found his hands clenching to fists over and over, and had to force them open again each time; fought not to grind his teeth.

When servants came to clear away the plates, a round-faced, motherly woman in an apron with many pockets came for Tessa. Tessa’s usual maid, Hannah, had stayed behind with Amelia, too frightened by the prospect of “Northern barbarians” to risk the journey. Revna introduced the two, and Tessa was swept off to her room in Hilda’s very capable-looking hands.

Tessa glanced back over her shoulder before she went, checking on Oliver. He forced a smile for her and waved her on, intent on returning to his own chambers and stewing angrily until the exhaustion of the day’s travel finally dragged him down to sleep.

A hand landed on his shoulder, though, and he turned to find Magnus offering him a cup. “Here, then. I’m off the clock, and some of us are having a nightcap.”

“Oh, no, that’s very kind–”

The cup was thrust into his hands; some of the amber liquid inside slopped over the edge and onto his hand, the scent of it nose-searing in a way the dinner wine hadn’t been.

“I really ought–”

“Come on, then!” Magnus threw a heavy arm around his shoulders, and he found himself steered out of the room, down the hallway, and into a smaller, cozier room with timbered ceilings, a roaring fire, and swirling wreaths of pipe smoke. Benches lined the wall, and chairs were scattered in a loose semi-circle around the hearth, padded leather seats and furs and lap blankets thrown over the backs, but all of the furniture clean and simple, and well-worn, nothing like the ornate, carved pieces he’d seen so far. An entire wall was dedicated to racks of weaponry: axes, swords, pikes, halberds.

This was a lounge area for the off-duty guards, Oliver realized, as he was pressed down into a chair close to the fire and Magnus dropped down beside him.

“Brother!” Magnus crowed, as a guard dragged off his helmet and joined them, his black beard, and hair, and the shape of his face highlighting a stark family resemblance.

“Lars,” Magnus said, “this is our visiting Southern lordling, Oliver. Oliver, this is my good-for-nothing brother, Lars.”

“Sod off,” Lars said, peaceably, and fixed Oliver with a bold scrutiny. “And what are you doing dragging lordlings in with the help?”

“Aye, well, he’s not a lordling per se….” The hand he slapped down between Oliver’s shoulder blades felt supportive, even if it nearly caused him to choke on the mouthful of frightfully strong spirits he’d just sipped.

He coughed, wiped his mouth, and offered, “I’m a bastard.” Because the whole day was so absurd, why stand on pretension at this point?

“Oh. Well.” Lars visibly relaxed, slumping back in his chair. “In that case.” He nodded. “Pleased to meet you.” Then he cocked his head. “You’re not the one that came with her ladyship?”

“Just so,” Magnus said. “They’re cousins. Can’t you tell by the hair?” He chuckled, and tousled Oliver’s auburn curls as if he were a child.

Oliver sighed and took another swallow.

Lars made a face. “I hate to say it, lad, but you’ll be taking her back home empty-handed. Erik isn’t one for marrying.”

“Why not?” Oliver asked, wildly curious at this point. He glanced down at his drink. How strong was this stuff?

Magnus and Lars shared an unreadable look.

“Oh, I suppose he has his reasons,” Magnus said, easily, sipping from his own cup. “But see this, brother,” he said to Lars, leaning forward in his chair. “Leif’s going to marry the lovely young lady.”

“He is?”

“Maybe,” Oliver stressed. “If he and Tessa both agree. I don’t believe in forcing two young people to do anything until they’ve gotten to know one another and developed an affection.”

He felt bold, rather than drunk, but thought he was probably well on the way toward the latter, given the looseness of his tongue. He took another sip anyway.

Magnus laughed. “Oh, marriage or not, we should keep you, Master Oliver.”

A few more guards joined them, and after introductions, they settled into a serious discussion about sleigh racing, or deer hunting, or something manly of the sort. Oliver sipped his drink, warm and growing warmer, the tension slowly unspooling from his body, content to merely sit and let the flow of hearty, good-natured conversation flow over him. There hadn’t been much of that in Drakewell since the war started. And even when there had, he’d rarely been a part of it.

His temper softened by drink, he let his thoughts drift back to the discussion at supper. In truth, he’d expected negotiations to go very differently. For all that he’d hated the way Erik referred to Tessa – the girl – he’d expected for her to be looked at up-and-down like a horse at market, perhaps fondled a bit, and for a contract to be slapped down on the table for him to sign as his aunt’s proxy. Perhaps questions about the width of Tessa’s hips, or the state of her teeth, or, gods forbid, an assertion that a medicine man or wise woman would need an examination to verify her maidenhead.

Oliver remembered, with startling clarity, that moment in the tent, that impression of the forbidding Northern king with the cold eyes. He’d spent all of their journey feeling like the worst sort of heel, off to give his sweet cousin to the attentions of a snarling, warmongering beast too old and too cruel for her. Erik’s out-of-hand rejection of the intended suit had felt like an insult, and in so many ways it was one…but there was a thread of kindness there, too. Whatever Erik’s personal reasons for refusing her, the offer of Leif was an offer of a much smarter match.

Save the little problem of not having the whole of the Great Northern Phalanx at their disposal when the need arose.

Oliver sighed and raised his cup to his lips – only to find it empty.

“Can’t have you going dry, now.” Magnus plucked his cup away, and returned it a moment later, now brimming.

“What is this stuff?” Oliver asked, wincing at the blurred sound of his own voice.

Magnus grinned – for a moment there were two of him. “The good stuff.”

Yes, it did seem good. Oliver nodded – the room softening at the edges as he did so – and took a sip. It didn’t burn so much, now, and he could appreciate its sweet aftertaste.

“Look here.” Magnus lowered his voice, and twisted in his chair, leaning forward so their faces were closer together, his shoulder blocking the view of the others laughing uproariously around them. His expression had gone quite serious, which, only having known him a short while, still struck Oliver as unusual for him. “I brought you in here because I wanted to have a word.”

“Shit,” Oliver said, and earned a chuckle and a quick, amused smile.

“Nothing to worry about. But.” He lowered his voice another fraction. “I may only be a guard, sure, but I grew up with Erik, me, and Lars, and Bjorn, and – and him.” Had Oliver been more sober, he would have inquired about that pause, the quick drawing-together of Magnus’s brows. But Magnus pressed on. “He wasn’t always so dour, you know? He was a lot like Rune, when he was a young one, actually. But he takes kingship seriously. Very seriously. And things are different up here, in the North. He has more to consider than whether or not to march against the Sels. It’s rough up here, and Erik, and Aeres, are caught between Aquitainia and the Wastes. Lots of fingers in lots of pies, you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a bit gruff, I grant you, but he means no disrespect to your cousin, nor to you.”

Oliver snorted.

“No, no, he doesn’t.” He grinned. “I think he was quite impressed with your spunk.”

“My spunk?”

“Aye. Drink your mistress.”

Oliver blinked at him a moment before he realized that “mistress” was the drink in his hands, then he took another generous sip.

Magnus chuckled again. “Give our old grumpy king a chance, and I can promise he’ll give you a fair one in return.”

“That sounds a bit trite,” Oliver mumbled.

Magnus leaned back, laughing out loud. “You only look meek, don’t you? There’s some dragon fire in the belly under the good manners, eh?”

Oliver drank, rather than dignify that with a response.

~*~

He wasn’t certain, but felt like he must have finished that cup and had another. By the time Magnus tugged him up from his chair, he was wobbly as a new colt, his vision swimming in and out of focus. The guards around him cheered, and Magnus towed him out of the room and down the hall, back up the grand stairs, supporting a shameful amount of Oliver’s weight, though he figured, in his addled, overly honest state, that he was so slight it probably wasn’t much of a burden.

It was cooler up on the gallery, and the walking had helped clear his head a little. He didn’t feel in danger of falling down, nor being sick; the world was pleasantly warm and fuzzy in the way that meant he’d had far too much, but wasn’t going to regret it until later.

He broke loose from Magnus’s grip and, when he squinted, managed to see only one of the guardsman. “Thank you, but I can manage from here.” He only slurred a little.

“Yeah, you look it.”

“No. I am.” Oliver aimed an admonishing finger at him that earned a laugh. No one here was going to take him seriously, were they?

Perhaps getting stumbling drunk on his first night had something to do with that.

He lifted his head to his most imperious angle and sniffed. “I’m quite sure I can – can find my way.”

After much too much laughter, and several more attempts at convincing him, Magnus finally shuffled off, and Oliver headed for the second staircase that would take him back to his room, deciding it wasn’t so shameful that he had to grab at the wall every now and then.

He reached the staircase, and placed his foot on the lowest step – but paused when he heard the low rumble of deep voices. He glanced off to his right, where the hallway branched away from the stairs. A dozen or so paces down, a door stood open, the warm glow of candlelight spilling out into the corridor.

“…a single set of tracks. No one saw a thing.” That was Erik. His deep voice sounded rougher than it had at dinner, unsteady and stressed.

“Someone must have, given the number of guards we…” Birger, his voice lowering so the rest of his words were indistinguishable.

Oliver tapped his fingers silently on the handrail, debating.

Had he been sober and clear-headed, there wouldn’t have been a debate at all. He wasn’t one to pry into people’s business, and here he was far from home, in what – with a few exceptions – was essentially hostile territory. He needed to march straight upstairs, drink off an entire pitcher of cold water, and go to bed.

Drink had always made stupidly brave, though.

Slowly, painfully slowly, trying to make sure he placed his feet just right, with the over-concentration of the intoxicated, he crept down the hall on tiptoe until he stood just outside the open doorway. It opened inward, and was only halfway ajar; if he leaned just a little, he found he could peer through the gap at the hinges and see the interior of the room without risk of being seen in return.

Birger sat a carved desk, each of its legs nearly as big around as one of Oliver’s own, parchments and ledgers spread out before him. His gaze was trained on the figure that paced back and forth in front of the fireplace, hands tucked behind his back, silver-shot black hair hanging down on either side of his face like curtains. Erik.

Oliver felt a fluttering in his belly that he blamed on too much drink.

“We’ll find–”

“We should have already found him,” Erik said, halting, turning to face his advisor. He’d lost a layer of clothes, down now to a white shirt with loose laces at the throat that revealed more than a hint of broad, strong, furred chest. His eyes glowed pale against the backdrop of the amber fire, and the dark stone wall behind him. “How – how can a man slip within these walls undetected, and then back out again?”

Birger let out a deep breath. “We’ve tripled the guard since, but there are ways. Grates, service tunnels.”

“He had help,” Erik said, grimly. “He must have.”

“Who of your guard do you doubt?”

“Of my personal, household guard? None.” A muscle leaped in his jaw, and his gaze lowered, nostrils flaring with anger. “At least, I never have before.”

“Bjorn’s handling the questioning with the wall guard. Very thorough, but you could sit in if you like.”

“No, I trust him.” Erik took a huge breath that lifted his shoulders, and seemed to shrink in on himself with the exhale. He leaned back and rested against the mantelpiece, arms folded. “We’ve still not found what was taken.”

“We may not,” Birger cautioned. “Not until we need it.”

This was definitely not a conversation Oliver should have been privy to.

“We’ll get it sorted, lad, don’t worry,” Birger assured.

The idea of anyone calling tall, terrifying King Erik of Aeretoll “lad” was absurd, but Oliver watched Erik relax a little more after hearing it. His face softened, its lines still hard, and precise – beautiful – but not edged with tension, now.

“That leaves our other problem,” he said, sourly, face screwing up in a displeased expression that was shockingly boyish.

Birger chuckled. “Not a problem – unless the boys decide they want to arm-wrestle for the honor of the fair maid’s hand.”

Erik rolled his eyes, and Oliver found himself smiling. “I’m embarrassed by my own kin, Birger. Like neither of them have ever seen a pretty girl before.”

“None of the Aeres girls are that pretty. Hells,” he said, chuckling, “none of them are as pretty as the lad.”

Erik’s face did something strange: his lips tightened, and his gaze narrowed, and – maybe it was a trick of the flickering candle flames, but it looked like the color heightened along his sharp cheekbones.

Birger chuckled again. “Don’t worry so much. It’s up to the lady. She can have whichever she chooses, I assume?”

“Leif is more ready to be a duke,” Erik said, then nodded. “But, yeah, she can choose. No one should have to be forced into a marriage they hate.”

A simple, though rare sentiment, one that Oliver himself had expressed just a few hours ago at supper. Hearing it from Erik warmed him all over in a flash, like he’d just had a few more sips of mistress.

Erik’s gaze shifted toward the doorway, and Oliver held his breath, afraid he’d been caught. But Erik only stared into the middle distance, toward the tapestry on the corridor wall, shaking his head absently. His eyes were jewel-bright, the color of them in the low light sending a tight spasm through Oliver’s chest. “Some days, I think…” he murmured, and trailed off.

“No, lad,” Birger said, his tone kind. “You’re a good king. And, more important, a good man. Never doubt that.”

Oliver slipped away, after that, face warm for reasons he couldn’t entirely blame on being tipsy. He worked his slow, silent way upstairs, found his room, slipped inside, and undressed without ceremony.

The bed had been turned down, ready for him, the sheets soft and sweet-smelling when he slid between them.

Sleep rolled in quick, a sudden fog, and he dreamed of blue eyes, and strong hands.