Arthur stared at the man across the fire and wondered what would happen if the uninked son of a healer and a blacksmith pulled a warlord’s heir into a dark corner and told him he wanted to fuck.
He’d get his jaw cracked, if he was lucky. Dragged back into the firelight and shamed, if less fortunate.
Arthur rubbed his jaw. There would be no confessing, in the dark or the light. Besides, Bedwyr was his older brother’s closest friend and shieldmate. If Cai found out…
He spotted his brother not far away, arms crossed smugly, sleeves rolled up as always to show off his ink. Others sometimes remarked how much Cai resembled their father, but beyond his hair and height Arthur didn’t see it. Where their father was humble, Cai boasted. Where Matthias chose his words with care and consideration, Cai acted on his first instinct. Fine for the battlefield, Arthur supposed, but he’d felt the brunt of it enough times to know the instinct usually only served Cai and his pride.
No. Arthur had contented himself with watching for years—every one of his eighteen, it seemed sometimes. That would have to be enough, and just now, at the coldest, snowiest part of the year in Cymru, he had little else to do.
The village was gathered in the meeting hall for the evening story fire. While Tiro, their resident storyteller, got ready to continue the tale he’d begun a few nights before, people milled about, laughing and jesting and generally trying to hold off the gloom of midwinter. Light from the central pit flickered over their faces, turning smiles into grimaces and back again. Children ran about, shrieking, chased by a couple of shaggy hounds.
Arthur shifted on his bench and studied Bedwyr over the rim of his mug. He sat next to his father, as usual. Lord Uthyr’s raised chair boasted a high back covered in furs. He lounged in it, a horn of drink in one hand. Bedwyr shared Uthyr’s black hair, his bull-like frame, and, by all accounts, his single-minded fierceness in battle—Cai had told Arthur stories that had raised the small hairs on his arms. If he were honest, half the reason he wanted to fight among the other warriors was to see Bedwyr in his element. Just imagining it had, on countless nights, sent him off to sleep tangled in sticky blankets.
It was widely expected that Bedwyr would succeed Uthyr when the lord could no longer lead men. Such a scenario seemed unlikely anytime soon, and no one said such a thing aloud, let alone where Uthyr might hear them. Any compliment paid to Bedwyr was immediately credited to Uthyr’s stock and training of him.
As ferocious as he might be in a skirmish, Bedwyr always sat just so in the evenings: quietly as his neighbors bustled about. When Arthur was a boy at his lessons, Master Philip had told him that their world and others in the night sky circled the sun, as if each were a stone in a great sling. The old man was wise, but Arthur doubted that particular bit of lore—a product, maybe, of Philip’s longtime partnership with Tiro, master of tall tales. The sun clearly arced over the earth, east to west, as did the moon and stars.
In that way Bedwyr was like the earth: solid and reliable, unperturbed by everything and everyone around him. Just now his dark eyes were trained on the fire. He had thick lashes, thicker even than his sister Gwen’s. His boots were planted wide before him, forearms resting on knees, big hands loose and relaxed. His shirt hid his ink, which Arthur only saw on occasions when the training men cooled off with a swim in a pond, or when Bedwyr sat for new ink following a skirmish. He bore dragons, the sign of his father’s house, one on each arm. The rest of his tattoos were confined to his chest and belly, almost invisible under the thick hair there. Arthur’s fingers itched with wanting to trace their shapes.
He curled his hands into fists, lest Bedwyr sense them. But Bedwyr only watched the fire calmly, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts.
Then another face was there—Eira, Uthyr’s latest companion. After a few whispered words, she drew back, smiling as Bedwyr rose to join her. They disappeared through the rug hanging at the rear of the hall.
Arthur looked away, the futility of his want threatening to crush him. He would never have Bedwyr, let alone get to touch him outside of pounding on each other with sword and shield. And if this fucking winter didn’t end, he’d never fight either.
